Posted on 08/16/2019 3:03:46 PM PDT by DoodleDawg
Almost as soon as the wheels of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 spun free from the runway March 10, the instruments in front of Capt. Yared Getachew went haywire.
The digital displays for altitude, airspeed and other basic information showed dramatically different readings from those in front of his co-pilot. The controls in Capt. Getachew’s hands started shaking to warn him the plane was climbing too steeply and was in imminent danger of falling from the sky.
Soon, a cascade of warning tones and colored lights and mechanical voices filled the cockpit. The pilots spoke in clipped bursts.
“Command!” Capt. Getachew called out twice, trying to activate the autopilot. Twice he got a warning horn. Another powerful automated flight-control system called MCAS abruptly pushed down the jet’s nose. A computerized voice blared: “Don’t sink! Don’t sink!”
The pilots wrestled with the controls, desperate to raise the nose of their Boeing 737 MAX. Three times Capt. Getachew instructed co-pilot Ahmed Nur Mohammed, “Pull up!”
At the same time, a loud clacking warned the preoccupied pilots that the plane was flying too fast.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
If it’s Boeing, you are going into the ground.
The loss of the public’s trust is huge here. I will never knowingly fly this plane. No one else should either. Boeing should be forced to EAT this turkey, and take back and destroy every single one of them. I hope that there will be many indictments and much gnashing of teeth among those whose careers are deservedly ended by this outrage.
The only unbiased sentence in the entire article:
Still, the pilots in those simulator sessions responded as expected, people familiar with the results said, executing Boeing’s emergency procedure properly and in time.
There was no excuse for coding control instructions for which the flight crew could not over-ride using their hands on control authority.
That said, I look forward to the MAX's return to the fleets; and, I would fly as a pax in one tomorrow.
It faces more than 100 lawsuits from families of the 346 dead.
Boeing is going to have to write a whole bunch of big checks.
“Boeing bet nearly everything on those four ticks of the clock. The company’s belief in its engineering, and its reliance on pilots to be flawless cogs”
If they wanted those types of pilots, they would have gone back to the old designs where you didn’t have computers running the airplanes and pilots spending 90% of their training time learning how to operate the computers.
They could never have it both ways, as they are now learning.
What makes you think the rest of the software is any better than the MCAS stuff?
It was terrible engineering coupled with corporate deception. There are probably other bugs waiting for you. I imagine every plane since the 767 is garbage.
A healthy company would never have done this. See also, the US Air Force tanker debacle. First fraud to get the contract and then crappy build quality such that the USAF has refused delivery of the tankers.
FTA: Boeing will now rely on two sensors, give pilots information it had withheld about the existence of MCAS and lessen the system’s authority. It will also turn on safety alerts that had only operated in a small number of the planes and make emergency procedures no longer dependent upon textbook pilot reactions.
I wonder how the meeting went that approved of withholding information about the mcas? I cannot wrap my head around this. Just like the execs ignoring the cold weather and the engineers and the O-rings for the space shuttle launch in 1986.
Kind of like changing the braking system in a new car and not telling the drivers. - Tom
There are people in Boeing that should be facing 300+ counts of 2nd degree murder.
There is zero doubt they lied, by omission, or directly to the FAA to get this model of the plane certified, showing wanton disregard for human life. That’s 2nd degree murder for every victim.
“But the pilots never ran the full emergency procedure that would have turned off MCAS.”
Not True!
Just a note. MCAS could not be turned off(It is an automated function). It could only be crippled(The data log on the 2nd plane showed MCAS attempts even when the stab switches were off). Using the STAB cutoff switches Completely kills power to the electric motors that control the trim. Yes that cripples MCAS, but it also kills the manual electric push buttons on the Yoke. This only leaves full manual control which is very slow and will not even work if the stabilizers have high forces on them.
Because of this- if you turn off the Stab switches then you are stuck with the trim being out of position and causing altitude issues.
One theory that seems to be supported by the data(Regardless of what this MSM article says) was that the stab switches were turned off at one point. But the pilots turned them back on just before the crash in order to regain manual electric control of the trim. Sadly that uncrippled MCAS which then crashed the plane.
This article leaves out the fact that the data logs show that for a period of time that MCAS was commanding the nose down, but that there was no reaction from the trim. The only way to account for that is that the STAB switches were off. And the article is wrong about the pilots never having used them(or at least it implies it). Sadly the actual position of the Stab switches is not part of the data recorded on the event data recorder.
The fact that this article is not telling the truth can be proven from this video which shows the actual event data, and information from the voice recorder as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jNbayma9dM&list=PL6SYmp3qb3uPp1DS7fDy7I6y11MIMgnbO&index=9
Jump to about the 7 minute mark(for proof the stab switches were used) if you don’t have time to watch the entire video. I highly recommend the entire video.
In earlier 737s, pulling back on the yoke also turned off a different automated flight-control system and allowed the pilots to manually fly. Boeing didn’t tell pilots that the MAX was different: When they pulled back on the controls, the nose could rise, but it didn’t shut off MCAS, which could keep misfiring, pushing the nose down. MCAS’s design required the change, according to people familiar with the matter.
As details of the Lion Air crash trickled out, pilots pressed Boeing about why they had been kept in the dark.
Kind of like changing the braking system in a new car and not telling the drivers. - Tom
—
Much like that. Every car I’ve ever driven disengages the cruise control when you tap the brakes. Imagine if it didn’t!
But there was not enough ground clearance.
Lengthen the landing gear? Nope, too expensive.
So they shifted the engine mounts forward and upward the wing, which upset the CG and thrust line in certain configurations.
And they decided to put "duct tape" on that problem using software.
Nothing wrong with an airframe that is sometimes inherently unstable and needs software assist - if you are building an air superiority fighter.
But for a plane that will carry a couple hundred paying civilians? Not so much,
Boeing needed a communications czar to limit reputation damage. The company must convince the public it has re-invented itself. It waited too long to get this message out there.
Now, probably; Boeing’s only out is to cancel the 737 8/9 versions and either develop a newer safer version or a whole new airplane or cede the space to Airbus.
Plus, Boeing has made the FAA look foolish. That will cost dearly in the regulatory approval process.
It’s quite a reversal. Boeing was considered the gold standard American manufacturer. The safety record since 2000 has been nothing short of miraculous, but the perception of corporate arrogance will stick and tarnish until they convince us otherwise.
Which company(s) supplied these systems to Boeing?
In which countries are their software development teams located?
How did the word ‘pax’ come to stand for ‘passenger?’ The first time I encountered it was in the mid-80s.
That die was cast when then took the decision to type it along with an existing airframe.
The plane is fine, it’s the computer’s set-up that’s deadly. The 737 is the most widely used medium-haul jet in the world.
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