Ethiopian plane crash

[Speed 3]

Whilst much of the article is correct about differential standards around the globe, the writer does shoot himself in the foot by criticising Boeing for not following the same path as Airbus (ie automate to mitigate pilot failings) but then concludes poor airmanship was the root cause in both accidents. He even states that Airbus' design philosophy in itself has accelerated the loss of airmanship skills. He also does what every pilot on the ground does - assumes that logic holds in stressful / tunnel vision situations, loads of accident investigations have proved that isn't the case, even with the very best pilots.

[alfaman]

George Smiley said:

Looks like a Boeing sponsored smear campaign

Yep - a lot of judgemental and highly subjective language is used in the article.... making some perjorative assumptions about the pilots and how they flew the plane.

‘Half hearted attempt’ etc. The writer wasn’t in the cockpit.

Also noteworthy that it is the first article that the ‘journalist’ has written for the paper.

Does not come across as neutral or objective

[alfaman]

Munter said:

Well yes. My thought has always been that the worst certified crew should be able to fly the plane without it killing them.

These chaps were certified. There was 2 of them active in case one failed or needed to confirm something. They did a bunch of obvious things while staring death in the face, in a very short time frame, in a situation they had never faced in a simulator, but which initially could have seemed like other situations they had trained for.

There was 1 AoA sensor active, it had one job, and it was wrong. It was connected to a computer that was performing actions outside it's certified on paper design. The plane was taking actions it should not ever have been taking.

Even if they could have done a better job. They should never be expected to cope with the situation they were put in by Boeing.

Well said

[Digga]

JuniorD said:

Quite an assassination of the Lion Air crew. It all begs the question, if this crew was so poor that the accident could be laid at their door, how come the airlines and the regulatory bodies have seen fit for the entire 737 MAX to be grounded indefinitely while its issues are sorted out.

It's disgraceful.

I spoke to a time-served 747 pilot a few weeks back (He's actually on here, in Porsche bit.) and he felt there was little to no chance the crew could have saved the aircraft. That their skill as aircrew was not the definitely issue. Strikes me as a very cheap shot by Boeing.

[JuniorD]

Here is a counterpoint to that above-linked MSN article / assassination by William Langewiesche

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/09/14000-words-...

[IforB]

That article is a disgusting and scurrilous attempt to try and deflect the attention from Boeing onto two people who cannot answer back.

To say that leaves a bad taste in the mouth is something of an understatement.

[Europa1]

IforB said:

That article is a disgusting and scurrilous attempt to try and deflect the attention from Boeing onto two people who cannot answer back.

To say that leaves a bad taste in the mouth is something of an understatement.

The article seems to ignore the basic issue of how 2 pilots, regardless of their experience or training, were put in that situation in the first place, which seems to be an aeroplane with a fundamental aerodynamic flaw, which needed software to sort out.

[petop]

Whilst the comments in the article on the Pilots is damning and to be fair the Company itself should be pilloried for allowing them to fly if they were that bad the Indonesian standards is more truthful.

In the airline fuel industry there is a big problem with fuel filtration methods. Standby for a bit of a aircraft fuel lesson!
So the industry use 2 types of filtration that get rid of water and bits. Water is actually quite prevalent in aircraft fuel. So you need filters that remove or hold back the water in them, allowing good fuel to pass through and go into aircraft. The most common (read less £££) is Filter Monitors. You look at the majority of fuel tankers and little trucks that connect to the underground pipes on a airport refuelling your holiday plane, it will more than likely have Fuel Monitors fitted. Now a few years ago and the one instance that caused this problem was in Surabaya, Indonesia we had a Boeing 777 engine failure because polymers were forming in the aircraft engines. The reason was aircraft refuellers were overwhelming the safe flowrate of Monitors to get fuel into aircraft. Trouble is Monitors will eventually need replacing or what happened, you just keep going pushing all the water/polymers into the engine. If this was UK/US you train and manage the problem out. In $10 a day places like Indonesia you cant so you tell the whole world to stop using them........without a solution.

Edited by petop on Friday 20th September 16:47

[George Smiley]

Digga said:

It's disgraceful.

I spoke to a time-served 747 pilot a few weeks back (He's actually on here, in Porsche bit.) and he felt there was little to no chance the crew could have saved the aircraft. That their skill as aircrew was not the definitely issue. Strikes me as a very cheap shot by Boeing.

El stovey kept saying he felt confident to fly the max still which seems to suggest many pilots may think they are the ones flying the machine

[eliot]

Europa1 said:

aeroplane with a fundamental aerodynamic flaw, which needed software to sort out.

Incorrect. MCAS exists to make the new plane have the same handling characteristics as the other 737’s which avoids the need for significant pilot retraining.

It’s a bit like how windows 10 can still run windows 7 software - if it couldn’t do that, nobody would ever upgrade.

Watch the blancoliro youtube videos.

[anonymous-user]

George Smiley said:

Digga said:

It's disgraceful.

I spoke to a time-served 747 pilot a few weeks back (He's actually on here, in Porsche bit.) and he felt there was little to no chance the crew could have saved the aircraft. That their skill as aircrew was not the definitely issue. Strikes me as a very cheap shot by Boeing.

El stovey kept saying he felt confident to fly the max still which seems to suggest many pilots may think they are the ones flying the machine

I don’t fly the max but have many friends who do. They were all happy to fly it with the information they had from Boeing and I’d be happy to fly on it. Boeing released plenty of information in circulars about what to do to recover from these events. The pilots didn’t do it. Many pilots were on here saying the same thing but have stopped posting because A) It seemed to upset other posters and B) They’re reluctant to blame fellow pilots. I was even accused of being an unsafe pilot by some bloke who fixes bathrooms.

Obviously the initial training by Boeing was substandard and it’s exposed huge issues with Boeing’s role in how aircraft are certified and their relationship with the FAA and problems with cost cutting and their culture.

Also, whether it’s reasonable to expect pilots to deal with these characteristics in a new aircraft is up to individuals to judge though.

Many aircraft have known design faults characteristics which are underplayed by the manufacturer but they’ve caused crashes when pilots haven’t known about them or dealt with them correctly.

The B777/787 for instance suffer from something called “auto throttle wake up” or the “flight level change trap” It was a main factor in the Asiana B777 crash

https://aviationweek.com/awin/777-autothrottle-des...

Boeing have done a lot wrong with the max but in both events, the pilots didn’t correctly respond to the event and they were both recoverable. As I said though, it’s debatable whether it’s reasonable to put them in this position in the first place.

Edited by anonymous-user on Saturday 21st September 08:47

[nikaiyo2]

Digga said:

It's disgraceful.

I spoke to a time-served 747 pilot a few weeks back (He's actually on here, in Porsche bit.) and he felt there was little to no chance the crew could have saved the aircraft. That their skill as aircrew was not the definitely issue. Strikes me as a very cheap shot by Boeing.

Not sure how experience in a 747 is hugely relevant to the Max situation?

I know a number of people who fly BBJ2/3, lets put it this way they are not surprised that the Max incidents occurred where they did, feeling that these accidents would never have occurred in the US, U.K. Europe etc.

[bitchstewie]

A long read, and of course I can't vouch for its accuracy

https://newrepublic.com/article/154944/boeing-737-...

[George Smiley]

El stovey said:

I don’t fly the max but have many friends who do. They were all happy to fly it with the information they had from Boeing and I’d be happy to fly on it. Boeing released plenty of information in circulars about what to do to recover from these events. The pilots didn’t do it. Many pilots were on here saying the same thing but have stopped posting because A) It seemed to upset other posters and B) They’re reluctant to blame fellow pilots. I was even accused of being an unsafe pilot by some bloke who fixes bathrooms.

Obviously the initial training by Boeing was substandard and it’s exposed huge issues with Boeing’s role in how aircraft are certified and their relationship with the FAA and problems with cost cutting and their culture.

Also, whether it’s reasonable to expect pilots to deal with these characteristics in a new aircraft is up to individuals to judge though.

Many aircraft have known design faults characteristics which are underplayed by the manufacturer but they’ve caused crashes when pilots haven’t known about them or dealt with them correctly.

The B777/787 for instance suffer from something called “auto throttle wake up” or the “flight level change trap” It was a main factor in the Asiana B777 crash

https://aviationweek.com/awin/777-autothrottle-des...

Boeing have done a lot wrong with the max but in both events, the pilots didn’t correctly respond to the event and they were both recoverable. As I said though, it’s debatable whether it’s reasonable to put them in this position in the first place.

Edited by El stovey on Saturday 21st September 08:47

Would your friends, flying with a broken aoa sensor being used for MCAS, with an MCAS system that’s more powerful than Boeing anticipated, been able to overcome everything in a plane that had just taken off?

The max is the equivalent of unsafe at any speed and whilst I’ve no doubt your friends are skilled that with such a fundamentally failed system they’d fair no better.

[anonymous-user]

George Smiley said:

Would your friends, flying with a broken aoa sensor being used for MCAS, with an MCAS system that’s more powerful than Boeing anticipated, been able to overcome everything in a plane that had just taken off?

The max is the equivalent of unsafe at any speed and whilst I’ve no doubt your friends are skilled that with such a fundamentally failed system they’d fair no better.

Yes they would, as would anyone else, if they’d followed the Boeing circulars released before these crashes. At no point did those two crews follow the correct recovery techniques.

As I said, it’s debatable whether they should have been put in that position in the first place but it’s definitely a survivable event when it happens.

[dudleybloke]

Still no excuse for Boeing releasing such a poorly designed system.

[anonymous-user]

dudleybloke said:

Still no excuse for Boeing releasing such a poorly designed system.

I agree.

[AW111]

eliot said:

Incorrect. MCAS exists to make the new plane have the same handling characteristics as the other 737’s which avoids the need for significant pilot retraining.

That's not correct.
In order to be certified, an aircraft must have increasing stick loads as the AOA inreases. The max8 doesnt.
It's the equivalent of the steering going light as you turn harder.
That is what MCAS was a bandaid fix for.
The reason it was hidden from the pilots and left out of the manuals was to avoid retraining - which would have cost Boeing a $1m per aircraft penalty in their contract with Southwest airlines, their major customer.

[bitchstewie]

There's an interesting video on trying to do things manually at speed here

https://youtu.be/aoNOVlxJmow

If I'm honest with pilots on the thread I'm nervous posting it as I don't want to appear to be second guessing people who do this.

But for people who don't that kind of video is interesting

[IforB]

The issue for me has little to do with the actual problem with MCAS, it is the culture of Boeing that has lead up to it and allowed it to happen.

I'd happily fly a Max knowing what the problem is now, the thing that is concerning me is whether there are any other elephant traps that have been hidden.

I suspect not, but my trust of Boeing has been smashed to bits and I say that as someone who has a lot of time flying their products.