Boeing Shares Plunge and Recover Post Plane Crash

[barbos]

However, the software was perhaps hastily designed and probably not designed by very experienced engineers. Boeing is applying patches, but I suspect that the public will shun this aircraft, even if it is "rebranded" with a new name. Personally, I would not want to fly on it.

I wouldn't have any problems with flying on the 737 Max line once the software has been patched. That being said, I suspect the branding will be changed to get around the public's lack of trust.

The preliminary report on the Ethiopian Airlines crash seems to indicate that a significant contributing factor (in addition to the poorly programmed MCAS software) was the very high airspeed that the aircraft had achieved while the pilots were working to recover it. The pilots had left auto-thrust on, apparently going against the Boeing directive in the Runaway Stabilizer Trim Checklist, which allowed the airspeed to climb well beyond the safe limits of the aircraft. Following the checklist, they had apparently activated the Trim Cutoff Switches, which deactivated the MCAS nose down trim command by removing electrical power from the trim controls, which was the right thing to do. The pilots then tried to adjust the trim manually to bring the nose up using the trim wheels (also following the checklist), but the extreme airspeed made it virtually impossible for them to turn the wheels using their hands because of the very high forces acting on the elevators. The black box data indicate that electrical power to the trim controls was restored just before the crash, which was probably a last ditch effort by the pilots to trim the aircraft using electrical power since manual trim was not feasible under the conditions.

If the aircraft had undergone a runaway stabilizer trim problem at regular cruising altitude (300 and above), the pilots would have had the time to use the Boeing checklist procedures to bring the aircraft under control using manual controls. Even at the altitude they were at, if the airspeed had been controlled by the pilots, they might have been able to recover the aircraft following the checklist. It is scary that the software was given so much authority over the flight control system, overriding the pilot's judgement, and that the only way to turn it off also required electrical power to the elevator controls being turned off.

it's not speed which prevented manual trim. it was position of elevator, they should have put it neutral position first and I understand it was in manual in the past but for some reason is not anymore.
I don't trust FAA and Boeing anymore. Planes should had been grounded before the first crash.

 

[Copernicus]

...
it's not speed which prevented manual trim. it was position of elevator, they should have put it neutral position first and I understand it was in manual in the past but for some reason is not anymore.
I don't trust FAA and Boeing anymore. Planes should had been grounded before the first crash.

Well, if you read the article I posted a link to, the engineer points out that the speed is what triggered the problem, because that would have forced the nose up into a stall position. The whole point of the MCAS system was to lower the nose under such conditions. The forward weight of the engines is what destabilized the aerodynamics of the aircraft.

 

[barbos]

...
it's not speed which prevented manual trim. it was position of elevator, they should have put it neutral position first and I understand it was in manual in the past but for some reason is not anymore.
I don't trust FAA and Boeing anymore. Planes should had been grounded before the first crash.

Well, if you read the article I posted a link to, the engineer points out that the speed is what triggered the problem, because that would have forced the nose up into a stall position. The whole point of the MCAS system was to lower the nose under such conditions. The forward weight of the engines is what destabilized the aerodynamics of the aircraft.

I don't see how that refutes my post.
If pilots had put elevator in neutral they would have been able to change trim manually regardless of their speed. That is simply aerodynamics

 

[Copernicus]

...
it's not speed which prevented manual trim. it was position of elevator, they should have put it neutral position first and I understand it was in manual in the past but for some reason is not anymore.
I don't trust FAA and Boeing anymore. Planes should had been grounded before the first crash.

Well, if you read the article I posted a link to, the engineer points out that the speed is what triggered the problem, because that would have forced the nose up into a stall position. The whole point of the MCAS system was to lower the nose under such conditions. The forward weight of the engines is what destabilized the aerodynamics of the aircraft.

I don't see how that refutes my post.
If pilots had put elevator in neutral they would have been able to change trim manually regardless of their speed. That is simply aerodynamics

Then please first read the article that I posted a link to. You, as someone not experienced in flying a 737 aircraft, let alone a totally different 737 Max 8, can try to figure out what should have been done in hindsight, but there were other factors that affected the options available in the heat of the moment. For example:

But it’s also important that the pilots get physical feedback about what is going on. In the old days, when cables connected the pilot’s controls to the flying surfaces, you had to pull up, hard, if the airplane was trimmed to descend. You had to push, hard, if the airplane was trimmed to ascend. With computer oversight there is a loss of natural sense in the controls. In the 737 Max, there is no real “natural feel.”

True, the 737 does employ redundant hydraulic systems, and those systems do link the pilot’s movement of the controls to the action of the ailerons and other parts of the airplane. But those hydraulic systems are powerful, and they do not give the pilot direct feedback from the aerodynamic forces that are acting on the ailerons. There is only an artificial feel, a feeling that the computer wants the pilots to feel. And sometimes, it doesn’t feel so great.

Simulator training might well have affected the actions that the pilots took to resolve the problem, but they had been led to believe that the aircraft was essentially the same as the earlier versions. Boeing did not want to give airlines the impression that they needed to retrain experienced 737 pilots. We don't really know the facts of what those pilots expected the aircraft to do in response to their experience with flying those aircraft. Nor do we know what the language of the checklists was telling them to do and whether it made sense to them at the time.

 

[barbos]

I don't see how that refutes my post.
If pilots had put elevator in neutral they would have been able to change trim manually regardless of their speed. That is simply aerodynamics

Then please first read the article that I posted a link to. You, as someone not experienced in flying a 737 aircraft, let alone a totally different 737 Max 8, can try to figure out what should have been done in hindsight, but there were other factors that affected the options available in the heat of the moment. For example:

No, you read the link I posted first. It has nothing to do with 737 let alone MAX, It's a trivial aerodynamics which applies regardless of the plane model

But it’s also important that the pilots get physical feedback about what is going on. In the old days, when cables connected the pilot’s controls to the flying surfaces, you had to pull up, hard, if the airplane was trimmed to descend. You had to push, hard, if the airplane was trimmed to ascend. With computer oversight there is a loss of natural sense in the controls. In the 737 Max, there is no real “natural feel.”

Once again, pilots acted according to updated after the first crash instruction, it's just instruction was wrong.

True, the 737 does employ redundant hydraulic systems, and those systems do link the pilot’s movement of the controls to the action of the ailerons and other parts of the airplane. But those hydraulic systems are powerful, and they do not give the pilot direct feedback from the aerodynamic forces that are acting on the ailerons. There is only an artificial feel, a feeling that the computer wants the pilots to feel. And sometimes, it doesn’t feel so great.

Simulator training might well have affected the actions that the pilots took to resolve the problem, but they had been led to believe that the aircraft was essentially the same as the earlier versions. Boeing did not want to give airlines the impression that they needed to retrain experienced 737 pilots. We don't really know the facts of what those pilots expected the aircraft to do in response to their experience with flying those aircraft. Nor do we know what the language of the checklists was telling them to do and whether it made sense to them at the time.

Wrong, second crash happened because instruction were simply wrong.

First crash happened becasue MAX is a shitty plane which should never been allowed to fly.
Second crash happened that Boeing updated instruction to deal with their shitty plane itself were shitty.

 

[atrib]

it's not speed which prevented manual trim. it was position of elevator, they should have put it neutral position first and I understand it was in manual in the past but for some reason is not anymore.

This is what appears to have happened with the Ethyopian Air crash (based on the preliminary crash report):

1. Faulty airspeed/AOA data triggered the activation of MCAS, which issued repeated nose-down commands using the elevators.
2. Pilots were not able to regain control of the trim using the yoke mounted controls (restore elevators to neutral trim). MCAS would override their inputs and continue pushing the nose down.
3. Pilots activated the Stabilizer Trim Cutoff, which removed electrical power from the elevator controls. Checklist recommends this.
4. Pilots did not turn AutoThrottle to off as the Runaway Stabilizer Trim Checklist recommends (Appendix 3 of report). This allowed the airspeed to climb well above the ATC mandated speed limits as well as the safe limits of the aircraft.
5. Pilots tried to trim the aircraft manually using the wheels, but the forces acting on the elevators were too high for manual control to be effective. This is because the airspeed was so high.
6. Pilots deactivated the Stabilizer Trim Cutoff to restore electrical power to the elevator controls, but were ineffective at regaining control.

A pilot in Europe tried to replicate a somewhat similar scenario in a 737NG simulator. You can watch the video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoNOVlxJmow

Its not a Max simulator, but the controls are very similar, as is the operational feel, apparently.

 

[Copernicus]

Barbos, Atrib presents the sequence of events accurately. Note #1 on his list. If you don't want to read the IEEE article, I don't care. IEEE is the primary professional society of engineers internationally, but why would they have any better perspective than the reporters and other public sources that you have read?

it's not speed which prevented manual trim. it was position of elevator, they should have put it neutral position first and I understand it was in manual in the past but for some reason is not anymore.

This is what appears to have happened with the Ethyopian Air crash (based on the preliminary crash report):

1. Faulty airspeed/AOA data triggered the activation of MCAS, which issued repeated nose-down commands using the elevators.
2. Pilots were not able to regain control of the trim using the yoke mounted controls (restore elevators to neutral trim). MCAS would override their inputs and continue pushing the nose down.
3. Pilots activated the Stabilizer Trim Cutoff, which removed electrical power from the elevator controls. Checklist recommends this.
4. Pilots did not turn AutoThrottle to off as the Runaway Stabilizer Trim Checklist recommends (Appendix 3 of report). This allowed the airspeed to climb well above the ATC mandated speed limits as well as the safe limits of the aircraft.
5. Pilots tried to trim the aircraft manually using the wheels, but the forces acting on the elevators were too high for manual control to be effective. This is because the airspeed was so high.
6. Pilots deactivated the Stabilizer Trim Cutoff to restore electrical power to the elevator controls, but were ineffective at regaining control.

A pilot in Europe tried to replicate a somewhat similar scenario in a 737NG simulator. You can watch the video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoNOVlxJmow

Its not a Max simulator, but the controls are very similar, as is the operational feel, apparently.

This is the simulator that I was allowed to use while working on the 737 Nonnormal checklists a few years ago. It was a lot of fun, but I crashed when I tried to land. Luckily, there were no casualties, other than my bruised ego. Those simulators are totally realistic. You have the experience that the aircraft is really in motion. However, the simulator was not set up for MCAS, because the NG had the smaller, less fuel-efficient engines, and the aerodynamics responded differently from the front-heavy 737 Max aircraft.

 

[barbos]

it's not speed which prevented manual trim. it was position of elevator, they should have put it neutral position first and I understand it was in manual in the past but for some reason is not anymore.

This is what appears to have happened with the Ethyopian Air crash (based on the preliminary crash report):

1. Faulty airspeed/AOA data triggered the activation of MCAS, which issued repeated nose-down commands using the elevators.
2. Pilots were not able to regain control of the trim using the yoke mounted controls (restore elevators to neutral trim). MCAS would override their inputs and continue pushing the nose down.

that makes no sense. Stabilizer trim and elevators are separate things

3. Pilots activated the Stabilizer Trim Cutoff, which removed electrical power from the elevator controls. Checklist recommends this.
4. Pilots did not turn AutoThrottle to off as the Runaway Stabilizer Trim Checklist recommends (Appendix 3 of report). This allowed the airspeed to climb well above the ATC mandated speed limits as well as the safe limits of the aircraft.

Why would AutoThrottle go above set limit unless plane was speeding up by itself due to falling noise down?

5. Pilots tried to trim the aircraft manually using the wheels, but the forces acting on the elevators were too high for manual control to be effective. This is because the airspeed was so high.

Again, your airspeed tend to increase when you fall nose down. No surprise here.

6. Pilots deactivated the Stabilizer Trim Cutoff to restore electrical power to the elevator controls, but were ineffective at regaining control.

A pilot in Europe tried to replicate a somewhat similar scenario in a 737NG simulator. You can watch the video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoNOVlxJmow

Its not a Max simulator, but the controls are very similar, as is the operational feel, apparently.

The video repeats what I was saying. Left guy should have let column go.

 

[Copernicus]

1. Faulty airspeed/AOA data triggered the activation of MCAS, which issued repeated nose-down commands using the elevators.
2. Pilots were not able to regain control of the trim using the yoke mounted controls (restore elevators to neutral trim). MCAS would override their inputs and continue pushing the nose down.

that makes no sense. Stabilizer trim and elevators are separate things

Where did you get this idea from? Elevator trim is the most basic form of trim control. The term "trim" refers to the shape of the outer skin of the aircraft, so adjusting the elevators to stabilize an aircraft is called "trimming". See  trim tab.

3. Pilots activated the Stabilizer Trim Cutoff, which removed electrical power from the elevator controls. Checklist recommends this.
4. Pilots did not turn AutoThrottle to off as the Runaway Stabilizer Trim Checklist recommends (Appendix 3 of report). This allowed the airspeed to climb well above the ATC mandated speed limits as well as the safe limits of the aircraft.

Why would AutoThrottle go above set limit unless plane was speeding up by itself due to falling noise down?

Note step 4. They did not turn AutoThrottle to OFF, so it was still providing thrust. That likely contributed to their inability to move the control wheel manually.

5. Pilots tried to trim the aircraft manually using the wheels, but the forces acting on the elevators were too high for manual control to be effective. This is because the airspeed was so high.

Again, your airspeed tend to increase when you fall nose down. No surprise here.

Note Step 4 above. The autothrottle was in operation, perhaps as if the nose were pointed upward instead of downward. That is, the autopilot was in a state of confusion. It was apparently trying to correct for a stall condition. Meanwhile, the elevators were adjusted to bring the nose down, since the flight control system thought the nose had swung up too far.

All of this strikes me as a reflection of the fact that Boeing did not require 737 pilots to undergo simulator training for this radically redesigned aircraft. They may not have fully understood the checklist instructions, which sometimes have rather elaborate advice designed to help a pilot diagnose a problem in-flight. I remember that well, because we argued vociferously with engineers about the amount of information they wanted to include in some of the nonnormal checklists. Their position was that the flight controls were complicated and that not having all the information could lead to misdiagnosis. The pilots in the room argued that there would be no time in an emergency to absorb so much detail. They wanted more succinct instructions. In the above case, it appears that the pilots did not disconnect the autothrottle, which may have been couched as a mere "recommendation" rather than a crucial step. (Caveat: Not having the checklist in front of me, I don't actually know what was in it.)

 

[barbos]

You are wrong about everything
educate yourself http://www.dutchops.com/Portfolio_M...ht_Controls/B737_Primary_Flight_Controls.html

then read the orignal link I gave which explains why they crashed
https://www.seattletimes.com/busine...-737-max-may-have-failed-on-ethiopian-flight/

 

[Copernicus]

You are wrong about everything
educate yourself http://www.dutchops.com/Portfolio_M...ht_Controls/B737_Primary_Flight_Controls.html

Barbos, do you even bother to read your own links? You are neither a pilot nor an aerospace engineer, and you seem totally unfamiliar with how airplanes work. So you look stuff up on the internet and try to sound educated. I have no idea where you got the idea that trim had nothing to do with elevators. Here is what your own link says:

...The elevator is used for pitching the aircraft and is attached to the horizontal stabilizer, which can also be moved by systems like stabilizer trim and autopilot trim...

then read the orignal link I gave which explains why they crashed
https://www.seattletimes.com/busine...-737-max-may-have-failed-on-ethiopian-flight/

I read that Seattle Times article long before you posted it. I live in Seattle. That is where Boeing built all 737s until it opened the South Carolina plant. It is also where I worked with Boeing engineers and pilots on the language of the checklists. It isn't a bad article, but the IEEE article I cited above is far better and more detailed. The ST article is written by an aerospace reporter, who is reasonably knowledgeable. So kudos for reading it, even if you don't really understand it very well. The reason that the IEEE article is better is that the author is an experienced aerospace engineer and pilot who develops flight control software. He has an insider's perspective on the disastrous sequence of bad decisions at Boeing that led to the Max 8 disaster. I have shared it with other Boeing engineers, and they have also said that it is one of the best, most detailed articles they've read. It includes many details left out of the shorter ST article that you cited.

 

[barbos]

Barbos, do you even bother to read your own links? You are neither a pilot nor an aerospace engineer, and you seem totally unfamiliar with how airplanes work. So you look stuff up on the internet and try to sound educated. I have no idea where you got the idea that trim had nothing to do with elevators. Here is what your own link says:

It does not contradict what I said. It contradicts what you said which was basically total confusion what is what.
Yes, aircraft systems control everything, but elevator is what I said it was, and stabilizer trim is what I said it was.
And pilots were not able to manually trim stabilizer back because the left pilot kept elevator in "nose up" position, which is understandable, but it was a wrong thing to do and Boeing manuals from past were mentioning it, but not anymore.

then read the orignal link I gave which explains why they crashed
https://www.seattletimes.com/busine...-737-max-may-have-failed-on-ethiopian-flight/

I read that Seattle Times article long before you posted it. I live in Seattle.

The article is from April 3, 2019 at 6:00 am, I posted it on April 6 01:30 AM.
Are you claiming that it it takes almost 3 days to reach Russia over fiber optics?
I posted the article before its last update, that's how fast I was.

That is where Boeing built all 737s until it opened the South Carolina plant. It is also where I worked with Boeing engineers and pilots on the language of the checklists. It isn't a bad article, but the IEEE article I cited above is far better and more detailed. The ST article is written by an aerospace reporter, who is reasonably knowledgeable. So kudos for reading it, even if you don't really understand it very well. The reason that the IEEE article is better is that the author is an experienced aerospace engineer and pilot who develops flight control software. He has an insider's perspective on the disastrous sequence of bad decisions at Boeing that led to the Max 8 disaster. I have shared it with other Boeing engineers, and they have also said that it is one of the best, most detailed articles they've read. It includes many details left out of the shorter ST article that you cited.

I posted that link first and it explains everything better than any other links. So read it again and try to understand what you read this time.

 

[Copernicus]

OK, barbos, I'm not going to try to disentangle your confused neurons any longer. You made a good faith effort to understand the concepts, but I think you got a little confused by the terminology. We can both agree that the pilots did not understand what the automation was doing--the major cause of most airline disasters. We don't really know all the fact, but it is clear that the aerodynamic instability of the new aircraft led to a poorly and hastily designed anti-stall system. Boeing owns a lot of liability for the disasters, and it will take years to straighten this out. I have no idea what the airlines are going to do with their Max 8s, because I would not trust Boeing to fix the problem as quickly as they think they can. They need to put more redundancy into the anti-stall software, but they still need a lot of time to test it. And they should be offering free simulator training to all pilots of the aircraft.

I'm about to leave on a 2-week transpacific cruise, so I won't likely have time to pursue this further. (One port stop in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.) I'm literally hours away from takeoff for Tokyo. Luckily, I will be flying on an A350--a fly-by-wire Airbus with a more modern airframe than the 737 Max.

 

[barbos]

OK, barbos, I'm not going to try to disentangle your confused neurons any longer. You made a good faith effort to understand the concepts, but I think you got a little confused by the terminology. We can both agree that the pilots did not understand what the automation was doing--the major cause of most airline disasters. We don't really know all the fact, but it is clear that the aerodynamic instability of the new aircraft led to a poorly and hastily designed anti-stall system. Boeing owns a lot of liability for the disasters, and it will take years to straighten this out. I have no idea what the airlines are going to do with their Max 8s, because I would not trust Boeing to fix the problem as quickly as they think they can. They need to put more redundancy into the anti-stall software, but they still need a lot of time to test it. And they should be offering free simulator training to all pilots of the aircraft.

I'm about to leave on a 2-week transpacific cruise, so I won't likely have time to pursue this further. (One port stop in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.) I'm literally hours away from takeoff for Tokyo. Luckily, I will be flying on an A350--a fly-by-wire Airbus with a more modern airframe than the 737 Max.

Don't pretend that you are right and I am wrong. It's you who is wrong.

 

[atrib]

that makes no sense. Stabilizer trim and elevators are separate things

The elevators are part of the horizontal stabilizers on the 737. On a big jet it takes a lot of surface area to control the trim (pitch of the longitudinal axis of the aircraft), so the entire stabilizer surface can be adjusted and rotated about a pivot point at the back of the aircraft. In addition, the angle of the elevators can be varied relative to the angle of the stabilizers to effect finer adjustments.

I have been using "stabilizer trim" and "elevator trim" interchangeably in my posts. They are not technically the same, but they are parts of the same system and achieve the same objective, and they are often used interchangeably, depending on the context.

3. Pilots activated the Stabilizer Trim Cutoff, which removed electrical power from the elevator controls. Checklist recommends this.
4. Pilots did not turn AutoThrottle to off as the Runaway Stabilizer Trim Checklist recommends (Appendix 3 of report). This allowed the airspeed to climb well above the ATC mandated speed limits as well as the safe limits of the aircraft.

Why would AutoThrottle go above set limit unless plane was speeding up by itself due to falling noise down?

I don't know. The preliminary report did not get into a discussion of the reasons for the overspeed. The Runaway Stabilizer Trim checklist (found in the appendices of the preliminary report) require Autothrottle/AutoThrust to be turned off, which was apparently not done in the Ethiopian crash. To speculate, I would say the MCAS module was working with the flight control computer to set airspeed at a high value to mitigate the stall condition the system was erroneously reporting. I don't know how the computer is coded, but generally speaking, the higher the airspeed, the higher the lift. Ways to mitigate a stall condition (insufficient lift to stabilize the aircraft) are to reduce the angle of attack (if the nose is pointed up) and to increase airspeed (so that lift increases).

5. Pilots tried to trim the aircraft manually using the wheels, but the forces acting on the elevators were too high for manual control to be effective. This is because the airspeed was so high.

Again, your airspeed tend to increase when you fall nose down. No surprise here.

If you look at the data plots from the black boxes, you will find that the airspeed was too high before the aircraft entered the dive. But my point was that the aerodynamic forces acting on the horizontal stabilizers were too high to allow manual trim adjustments, as is demonstrated by the video I had posted.

6. Pilots deactivated the Stabilizer Trim Cutoff to restore electrical power to the elevator controls, but were ineffective at regaining control.

A pilot in Europe tried to replicate a somewhat similar scenario in a 737NG simulator. You can watch the video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoNOVlxJmow

Its not a Max simulator, but the controls are very similar, as is the operational feel, apparently.

The video repeats what I was saying. Left guy should have let column go.

The pilots in the video were following the checklist, and the "rolling" procedure they mention would work if you had enough altitude. For the Ethiopian crash, letting the stick go completely would hasten the dive since they had an above-ground flight level varying between 4,000 to 6,000 feet (not enough to recover using the old Boeing manual trim procedure).

 

[barbos]

I don't know. The preliminary report did not get into a discussion of the reasons for the overspeed.

That's a shame because it's easy to determine whether or not engines were speeding up.

The Runaway Stabilizer Trim checklist (found in the appendices of the preliminary report) require Autothrottle/AutoThrust to be turned off, which was apparently not done in the Ethiopian crash.

It does not mean it should be the reason for their inability to recover.

To speculate, I would say the MCAS module was working with the flight control computer to set airspeed at a high value to mitigate the stall condition the system was erroneously reporting.

So MCAS determined that data it bases its decisions is crap but decides to use it anyway just adjusting it in wrong (!!!) direction?
That's some insane programming.
The way I understand it, MCAS has separate airspeed sensors used for angle of attack calculation. So speed readings most likely were right and there was no need to increase engine power.

I don't know how the computer is coded, but generally speaking, the higher the airspeed, the higher the lift. Ways to mitigate a stall condition (insufficient lift to stabilize the aircraft) are to reduce the angle of attack (if the nose is pointed up) and to increase airspeed (so that lift increases).

Again MCAS primary input is angle of attack, not airspeed. It was introduced in MAX to prevent "nose up" tendency due to more powerful engines.

If you look at the data plots from the black boxes, you will find that the airspeed was too high before the aircraft entered the dive. But my point was that the aerodynamic forces acting on the horizontal stabilizers were too high to allow manual trim adjustments, as is demonstrated by the video I had posted.

Was it too high or was it reported too high? if it was reported too high then auto-throttle should have reduced engine power and it would not have been a problem. So you see, auto-throttle is not a problem.

The pilots in the video were following the checklist, and the "rolling" procedure they mention would work if you had enough altitude. For the Ethiopian crash, letting the stick go completely would hasten the dive since they had an above-ground flight level varying between 4,000 to 6,000 feet (not enough to recover using the old Boeing manual trim procedure).

They demonstrated that the reason for troubles with manual stabilizer trim is elevator being in far "nose up" position, end of story.

 

[atrib]

nevermind...

 

[barbos]

I remember B787 problems with burning lithium-ion batteries. That's where I started to have doubts about sanity of Boeing engineers.
Of course compared to this debacle that was nothing.
I still don't understand this "speed sensors" situation. They have long been a problem and yet they are not really implementing obvious (to me at least) solutions.

 

[barbos]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/boeing...s-on-737-max-jets-were-turned-off-11556456400

Boeing Co. didn’t tell Southwest Airlines Co. and other carriers when they began flying its 737 MAX jets that a safety feature found on earlier models that warns pilots about malfunctioning sensors had been deactivated, according to government and industry officials.

So Boeing does know how to detect malfunction but choose to have this feature as an option forgetting to inform airlines about it.
And FAA was considering to ban MAX after the first crash but did not.

This is really fucked up. Plane software knew angle of attack was crap but choose to ("consciously") pretend that it was fine and crash the plane, all because Boeing wanted to charge for this safety feature.

This is seriously fucked up.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Meanwhile:

The meeting between the pilots and Boeing happened in November -- just weeks after an October crash of a Lion Air 737 Max into the Java Sea, and four months before a 737 Max operated by Ethiopian Air crashed in Ethiopia.

On the audio, a Boeing official is heard telling pilots that software changes were coming, perhaps in as little as six weeks, but that the company didn't want to hurry the process.

The pilots indicated they weren't aware of the 737 Max's computerized stability program -- the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS.

"We flat out deserve to know what is on our airplanes," a pilot is heard saying.

The revelation of the issue was known in 2017.

A new statement from Boeing indicates that the aerospace manufacturer knew about a problem with the 737 Max aircraft well before the deadly October 2018 Lion Air crash, but decided not to immediately do anything about it.

Boeing previously acknowledged that an alert system that was supposed to be a standard feature in the fleet "was not operable on all airplanes."

But a statement released Sunday describes a troubling timeline that shows how long some at the company were aware of the problem before finally deciding to act.

In its statement Sunday, Boeing maintained that the software issue "did not adversely impact airplane safety or operation."

I'm guessing Boeing's insurance rates are going to spike.