Another 737 MAX-8 down

originally posted by: Salander

originally posted by: KansasGirl

originally posted by: RadioRobert

originally posted by: KansasGirl

originally posted by: Zaphod58
On another note, pilots from Southwest, American, United, and two non-US customers were in Renton for a meeting with Boeing, that included testing the software upgrade. Pilots were put in the simulator, into a situation similar to JT610, with the updated software. According to a source, all of the pilots landed safely.

CNN

Do you think the source was truthful? Any possibility they were trying to do some behind-the-scenes PR damage control?

Do you think the pilots who need to repeatedly strap into what you have heavily implied is a defective death trap for a week would be lying in order to get back in the air and put their own and others' life in jeopardy? What motive are we assigning them? Suicidal tendencies? They found a handful of pilots with severe depression and a death wish to greenlight the death traps?

No, not the pilots, but the people perhaps who messed with the certification process to get the thing through faster in the first place. Zaphod didn't specify that his source was a pilot. As I understand it, pilots have been complaining about issues with the aircraft for a while, on forums, and I don't think it was the pilots who had anything to do with how the thing was rolled out.

And if you read my long response to Zaphod, you wouldn't have accused me of "heavily implying" the MAX is a "death trap.". Brush up on your reading comprehension and get off your condescending high horse.

I think it was NBC News within the last week or so that showed and discussed 4 or 5 reports from NASA's program ASRS, Aviation Safety Reporting System. That allows anonymous safety reports to NASA. I have participated in the system myself, once, years ago.

It turns out that a handful of pilots DID report the downward pitching activities of the Max. Fortunately the crew had the airplane back under control by turning off the guarded Pitch Stabilizer switches.

But the failure WAS reported, and nothing was done by NASA or FAA. Makes you wonder why they even have the system if they don't pay attention to what is reported.

Thanks for that info 😊

a reply to: KansasGirl

But the failure WAS reported, and nothing was done by NASA or FAA. Makes you wonder why they even have the system if they don't pay attention to what is reported.

Did the article state that NASA did not pass the info on to the FAA or Boring, or is that just an assumption?

originally posted by: RadioRobert
You seem to be confusing deficiencies with defects. And you've taken a deficiency to mean the plane is an obvious death trap.

I said way early in this thread or another Boeing has an interest in making their airplane as idiot-proof as possible, and it doesn't sound like MCAS does this. That relying on a stick shaker would be preferable. That is a design deficiency. One I would correct if I were managing the project. But the people making decisions (customers and leadership) do not always care to address deficiencies.

That doesn't make Boeing responsible for incidents, particularly the second one after an advisory notice to carriers, unless you can show they didn't address any of the issues. Assuming the system works as designed and indicated, the problem is operator error. That's born out by the number of unrecoverable incidents happening in 1st world countries with adequate training policies (that number is zero).


Every plane flying has design deficiencies. They are ranked in order of importance to flight safety. This would probably be in the second most serious category. It does not directly affect airworthiness.

The DC-3/C-47 was perhaps the most successful and prolific transport aircraft of all time. When evaluated by pilots at the Navy's TPS in the 90's, it was found to have something like 27 deficiencies. From memory, 12 were of the sort that modern certification and military evaluation would not have allowed to be delivered without being addressed. The C-47 was a perfectly safe airplane with design deficiencies.

Similarly, there is nothing inherently unsafe with the design deficiencies reported thus far in the MAX. MCAS behaviour and the single-sensor configuration is at worst a contributing factor when combined with another serious deficiencies in training and standards by carriers.

They still use the stick shaker, the MCAS was "required" if they wanted to avoid training on a different airframe type certificate. The MCAS is there to make sure the stick forces at higher angles of attack are similar to the earlier versions and uses the trim to do that and that is why it is only active when hand flying in cruise configuration. Had they wanted to have the MAX require a different type certificate training they would still have to have, by law, a system that maintains positive back pressure on the yoke at high angles of attack so they probably would have still used the MCAS on a different type certificate, but the training would have included how that particular system works. Not using both AoA sensors was a stupid design decision.

Preliminary findings from officials investigating the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 crash suggest that a flight-control feature automatically activated before the plane nose-dived into the ground, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal.

Link

originally posted by: roadgravel
a reply to: KansasGirl

But the failure WAS reported, and nothing was done by NASA or FAA. Makes you wonder why they even have the system if they don't pay attention to what is reported.

Did the article state that NASA did not pass the info on to the FAA or Boring, or is that just an assumption?

Ask the member who posted that info.

originally posted by: roadgravel

Preliminary findings from officials investigating the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 crash suggest that a flight-control feature automatically activated before the plane nose-dived into the ground, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal.

Link

Thanks for that info!

What happened to Zaphod and the other pilots and experts in this thread? You would think they would want to weigh in.

a reply to: KansasGirl

Waiting for more than "citing sources that wish to remain anonymous" before weighing in.

a reply to: KansasGirl

It was probably the poster's opinion but either way there most likely won't be an answer.

originally posted by: roadgravel
a reply to: KansasGirl

But the failure WAS reported, and nothing was done by NASA or FAA. Makes you wonder why they even have the system if they don't pay attention to what is reported.

Did the article state that NASA did not pass the info on to the FAA or Boring, or is that just an assumption?

Considering that nothing was done to address the MCAS induced runaway trim, one can safely assume that nothing was done about the ASRS reports.

The outsider looking in can assume that since there was no action or discussion by either NASA or FAA, nothing was done.

It's safe to assume that neither agency was even aware of the reports by the line pilots.

a reply to: Salander

You know what they say about "assume"?

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: KansasGirl

Waiting for more than "citing sources that wish to remain anonymous" before weighing in.

Fair enough.

originally posted by: JIMC5499
a reply to: Salander

You know what they say about "assume"?

Whether the assumption is correct or not, both options are bad, right? If the reports weren't passed on, that's bad. I'd the reports were passed on-bad.

a reply to: KansasGirl

I've never heard of this reporting system and I've been around aviation for all of my adult life. In the 80's and 90's I worked towards being an air crash investigator. I know that Boeing has a reporting system and the airlines are required to report certain things to the FAA, but, I've never heard of reporting to NASA.

Pilots fill out the defects in the tech log, but how it gets to NASA or FAA, I do not know
a reply to: JIMC5499

A Pilot just has to feel the yoke and instantly knows if something is amiss
a reply to: Flipper35

I hope they fix the issue. I’ve always been happy to
Fly on Boeing aircraft. They seemed to have less incidents than Airbus over the years.

I’ve really enjoyed reading this thread about the what the issues leading up to the design and production of the Max 8 and what caused the crashes to those two aircraft. Lack of training and safety features important to being alerted to MACS and how to control it.

A stern reminder not to take shortcuts in quality over cost. Quality in design, documentation and training.

It’s a lesson being hopefully relearned by Boeing and not to be repeated again.

a reply to: Salander

Not going to assume. Some times there is a start and it gets stopped in the middle. The higher up in management, the more likely to be squashed.

originally posted by: JIMC5499
a reply to: KansasGirl

I've never heard of this reporting system and I've been around aviation for all of my adult life. In the 80's and 90's I worked towards being an air crash investigator. I know that Boeing has a reporting system and the airlines are required to report certain things to the FAA, but, I've never heard of reporting to NASA.

ASRS has been around since the late '70s and the FAA partnered with NASA to enhance the program with 3rd party oversight.

Reporting is shared with NASA, not directly reported to that agency.

a reply to: ownbestenemy

You learn something new every day. Thanks.

So now they're saying the Ethiopian crew turned off the MCAS according to the procedures outlined in the manual, but then for some reason (perhaps inadvertently) reactivated it... Maybe the Journal is suffering from bad reporting, because my understanding is it would automatically reengage after three seconds at appropriate attitudes. So simply bad sensor resulting in continuous reengagement and they stopped going through the motions to deactivate when it "didn't work"?


I also wonder maybe an outside chance of they trimmed it nose down to turn off MCAS and had a hard time overcoming the trim input. There should be more than enough control authority to overcome a tab fully trimmed though. Were they at an attitude that some how blanked the tail surfaces? That would be a bizarre link in the chain. I can't believe that wouldn't be found in modeling or the tunnel work.

Anyway, the new info points to something more significant at play than simply wrestling the MCAS IF they had issues while it was deactivated.