Ethiopian airline crash

[ChicagoBlue]

Thanks CB, your input, with your professional point of views is a very interesting read.

I'm guessing that this won't be an expensive fix, especially as not many have been delivered yet, but it could be very costly in terms of lost or potentially lost orders.

The cost of this fix will come in some lost orders, and a black eye for Boeing and the FAA, but the REAL cost will be in the lawsuits!

We have yet to see the U.S.A. Class Action lawsuit for all the “pain and suffering” experienced by everyone who has been a passenger on the aircraft to date! I’m sure some sheißter is working on it already!

 

[lancs blue]

Has ANYONE done this in a fully certified, full motion simulator and lived? How many MCAS activations before they couldn’t survive?

Shouldn't that have been done as part of system testing the software, to see what happened if the software encountered unusual in-flight situations such as a faulty vane? "Destructive" testing would be standard practice for most software, let alone something as critical as a flight-control application.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

Shouldn't that have been done as part of system testing the software, to see what happened if the software encountered unusual in-flight situations such as a faulty vane? "Destructive" testing would be standard practice for most software, let alone something as critical as a flight-control application.

I’m of the opinion it was not, because the software was considered safe. If it had been, and the single AOA input been erroneous or inoperative, then it STILL would not have been an issue in most instances. However, in these two instances it was fatal!

Sometimes, it is not testing to failure that proves a concept, but rather the assumptions under which it is tested to failure.

All of that said, I believe your expectations are those of any normal person...surely, this was tested and checked before being approved, right?

The answer to that may be the answer to the $10,000,000,000 question!!

 

[ChicagoBlue]

I’m on vacation, so I’m doing most of this without access to any WiFi or my company iPad containing my manuals, so a good friend who also flies the 737 sent me this link...

https://leehamnews.com/2019/03/22/b...-airlines-flight-302-crash-part-2/#more-29712

Makes for interesting reading, especially the phenomenon known as “Blowback” or what I know as “Blowdown.”

We know that spoilers (those hydraulic panels on top of the wings that aid turning and slowing down/coming down) experience this at high speed. However, I have never EVER seen anything that discusses high speed air forces actually overcoming the 3000psi of the hydraulic pressure on an elevator.

Another friend says that the electric trim system can overcome pressures that cause blowdown, but, again, I have no firsthand or sourcable data to confirm that.

We are now getting into the realm of “outside the envelope” flying, where the design elements built into the aircraft to keep it safe and flyable have been exceeded. In the course of our training, it would be virtually impossible to replicate every such “out of the envelope” situation, so we only do excessive bank angle and upset recovery (aircraft getting flipped by turbulence, high altitude stall due to wake or mountain wave, etc...). Beyond that, you enter the realm of never in a lifetime of lifetimes, which becomes increasingly academic and costly. We basically do what the FAA requires and no more, because more means money!!

I have posited numerous times that at some point in the nose down situation they were still alive but dead already. If this blowdown scenario is true, it may have been before I thought. I had believed they simply didn’t have enough time to manually trim their way out, but maybe there was NO WAY to trim their way out once they were nose down above a certain (blowdown) speed?!

 

[lancs blue]

I’m of the opinion it was not, because the software was considered safe. If it had been, and the single AOA input been erroneous or inoperative, then it STILL would not have been an issue in most instances. However, in these two instances it was fatal!

Sometimes, it is not testing to failure that proves a concept, but rather the assumptions under which it is tested to failure.

All of that said, I believe your expectations are those of any normal person...surely, this was tested and checked before being approved, right?

The answer to that may be the answer to the $10,000,000,000 question!!

Thanks for the reply. Reading that link in your subsequent post, one of the comments (below) suggests that failure modes of the MCAS software weren't included into the 737 MAX simulators.

OV-099
March 22, 2019
"Apparently, the 737 MAX simulator was not designed to replicate failure modes of the MCAS system.

“I think that the differences between the 737 NG and the MAX were underplayed by Boeing,” said John Cox, an aviation safety consultant, former U.S. Airways pilot and former air safety chairman of the U.S. Airline Pilots Association.

“Consequently the simulator manufacturers were not pushing it either. The operators didn’t realize the magnitude of the differences,” he told Reuters in a communication over the Ethiopian pilot’s remarks

 

[ChicagoBlue]

Thanks for the reply. Reading that link in your subsequent post, one of the comments (below) suggests that failure modes of the MCAS software weren't included into the 737 MAX simulators.

OV-099
March 22, 2019
"Apparently, the 737 MAX simulator was not designed to replicate failure modes of the MCAS system.

“I think that the differences between the 737 NG and the MAX were underplayed by Boeing,” said John Cox, an aviation safety consultant, former U.S. Airways pilot and former air safety chairman of the U.S. Airline Pilots Association.

“Consequently the simulator manufacturers were not pushing it either. The operators didn’t realize the magnitude of the differences,” he told Reuters in a communication over the Ethiopian pilot’s remarks

BINGO!!!

“Nothing to see here, move along! It’s a 737, just like all the others that say 737 on them! You can fly this one...same same...oh, yeah, here’s 444 pages of how it’s different and different procedures and how the engines are special and how the spoilers float on landing and how the muse gear is higher do everything will look different, but we’ve got some ‘fixes’ for that, so, like we said, same same, just like any other 737”

(Lion Air crash)

“Oh wait, fuck, MCAS activated and it killed all onboard? Better fix that sharpish!”

(Ethiopian Air crash)

“Shit! What, another one went down? Fuck me, we are screwed! Let’s say we had a fix, but the Govt was shutdown, so the FAA couldn’t approve it, then we can also say EVERYONE knows how to stop stab trim problems because the fix has been in the manuals for 50 yrs!

Not to worry, it’ll be fine. The FAA will take care of us!

What? The Feds are throwing us under the bus and grounding ALL of them, even the ones in the USA? WTF? We should get all that bribe money back, this is bullshit!”

All I know is that my airline has orders for ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY 737-MAX JETS, but we don’t have a MAX Simulator, and even if we did, MCAS wasn’t programmed into the ones they used to test the aircraft!

THAT is no way to run any business, let alone a “Safety is Number 1” business!

 

[Bilboblue]

That IS one of the big issues!

The feeling is that in Boeing’s zeal to ensure the aircraft was kept as a 737 type, with zero caveats other than making airlines/crews aware of differences, they not only sneaked the MCAS single source failure problem by the FAA, but failed to include it in the new manual AND didn’t tell the airlines it even existed at all.

We will see how the FAA deals with this now, in light of Boeing’s sleight of hand, which has resulted in numerous deaths.

Rock, meet hard place!

That is disgusting and quite frankly, outrageous.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

Hello Chicago blue - I like your posts. Don’t understand most of them.

Can I just ask one point?

On my horror flight last week with bad turbulence and an aborted landing would the pilot have been shitting himself and was I in any danger.

Haha! Sounds like just another day at the office, especially at some coastal locations.

That said, “horror flight,” “bad turbulence,” and “shitting himself” are all so subjective as to only assume all three could be absolutely true...or you were so worked up about needing to get off the plane for a wank that you have exaggerated slightly!!!

I’d say that the decision to conduct a safe go-around due to turbulence probably meant the pilot was not shitting himself and was acting out of an abundance of caution, and that you were therefore not in any danger.

The dangerous pilots are the ones who think they CAN land in that weather and are “dying” to prove it to everyone else just how good they are!!

There are old pilots and bold pilots, but very few old bold pilots! ;-)

P.S. Funnily, I feel the same way about some of your political posts! :-D

 

[Henkeman]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47812225

Preliminary report out. If the "repeatedly followed procedure" line is accurate and not government spin, this is extremely damning.

 

[Proy]

Not sure what to make of that report. I'd be keen to wait for the final, official wrap up.

That said, it doesn't look good at this point.