Boeing 737 Max8 Crashes

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gera

Re: Boeing 737 Max8 Crashes

Post by gera »

I took the liberty to post the whole article from Bloomberg.com . The website puts severe restrictions on free access to articles. Thus it may be helpful to have the whole article here. The major points:
1. In case of both crashes crews could avoid them.
2. The required fix is software only. No hardware changes required.
I do not want to pretend that I am an expert in the field but what I gather from the article is that though there exist conditions which can jeopardise the flight, they are extremely rare and adequately trained pilots can recover even without software update. These conditions were known at the time FAA certified the plain but certified it anyway. Now situation changed , everybody would try to protect their butt and certification will become much more difficult. I still maintain that the plain was airworthy but Boeing failed to provide adequate training for pilots.
Jun

Re: Boeing 737 Max8 Crashes

Post by Jun »

gera wrote: Sat Jul 27, 2019 6:49 pmIn case of both crashes crews could avoid them.
That may be the case, but I imagine crews COULD manage the plane without the systems, such as MCAS etc. It's just there to help. Or it's supposed to help.
However, if fairly frequent malfunctions require special know how to prevent a crash, then we have an unsatisfactory situation. Having frequent simulator training might be one way of dealing with this.
However, I wouldn't think it's the best way. Simulators cost money and even after all that, we still rely on pilots not making errors.
Also, what happens if the error occurs when the plane is too close to the ground and the pilot has insufficient time to react ?

If you compare with an automotive ESP/VDC system, that can brake any vehicle wheel individually to prevent understeer, oversteer or other loss of control. On those systems, every single is plausibility checked, which is why we don't get the systems failing and throwing the driver off into the ditch. Also, the driver doesn't require special training to switch the system off. It switches itself off if there is a serious malfunction & flags up a warning.

I cannot understand why the Boeing systems do not have a similar level of integrity. These fancy systems should have plausibility checks from independent sensors, or better still a completely different measurement source.
fountainhall

Re: Boeing 737 Max8 Crashes

Post by fountainhall »

gera wrote: Sat Jul 27, 2019 6:49 pm I took the liberty to post the whole article from Bloomberg.com . The website puts severe restrictions on free access to articles. Thus it may be helpful to have the whole article here. The major points:
1. In case of both crashes crews could avoid them.
2. The required fix is software only. No hardware changes required.
gera - I wonder where you find that information. The fact is item 1 is not so stated in the Bloomberg article.

Point 1 quoted from the article
gera wrote: Sat Jul 27, 2019 6:39 pm As U.S. government test pilots ran through dozens of flight scenarios on the Boeing Co. 737 Max in recent weeks, a potential failure got their attention.

The plane’s flight computer tried to push the aircraft’s nose down repeatedly during a simulator run, prompted by a stream of erroneous flight data. The Federal Aviation Administration pilot concluded commercial pilots might not have time to react and avoid a tragedy in a real plane.
Note the conclusion. "Commercial pilots might not have had time to avoid a tragedy in a real place." That to me is pretty conclusive. We are not just talking about the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines pilots here. At least 20 other US pilots with US airlines reported major difficulties with the handling of the 737 Max before the Lion Air crash! Besides Boeing had for years insisted to its engineers that simulator training must not be necessary to fly the plane. When they entered the simulator, the FAA pilots were 100% aware of the nose down problems and indeed were specifically looking out for them. The crash pilots had no idea about it. Pilots had little or no clue about the new software and its handling characteristics were not hard-wired into their brains as should have been in a simulator.

I have added a new article from Reuters with information about these FAA simulator test pilots. This is especially interesting in the light of your comments -
they concluded that a typical pilot might not be able to respond adequately
So to suggest the pilots made mistakes merely repeats the lies that Boeing and one US senator have peddled even before the official crash reports are ready. Indeed, Boeing has since stopped reiterating such lies. Besides, Boeing admitted some months ago that it installed a new system without redundancy back up in the aircraft, an almost unheard of practice in the airline business in the last few decades.

Point 2 quoted from the article.
gera wrote: Sat Jul 27, 2019 6:39 pm “We are confident that is a software update, not a hardware update,” Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg said during an earnings call on Wednesday. “It’s an understood update and we’re in the middle of working our way through that.”
Now, over the last few months can you recall how many times we have heard Boeing claim their software update was not just nearing completion, it was in fact ready? Far too many! And how come it is still not ready? Yet Southwest Airlines has just added another two months to the time it will take before they will schedule flights on the 737 Max will fly again. In fact, over a month ago a Boeing spokesman was quoted as saying the company
now thinks it will complete the latest software update for the grounded 737 Max by September after new issue arose last week during a simulator test, a Boeing official said on Thursday.
But let's also note the following from the same Reuters article -
Muilenburg said the company expects it can complete a software patch by the end of September, while cautioning that the timeline remains uncertain.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethi ... SKCN1TS31K

"Cautioning that the timeline remains uncertain." Well, that's pretty definite, isn't it? The fact is Boeing has little clue when their patch will be ready, nor when the world's regulators will finally sign off the changes and permit the aircraft to fly again.

Now let's recall your earlier comments on the 737 Max. You stated the importance of relying on facts - the implication being that what was being reported and quoted in this thread by myself and others were not facts. You even stated this -
gera wrote: Thu Jun 20, 2019 3:28 pm If one wants to objectively discuss the situation, one should rely on facts. It is well established that in both crashes pilots made numerous mistakes and the critical sensor malfunctioned..
Fact: not proven and nowhere confirmed. Not facts!
gera wrote: Sat Jun 22, 2019 11:45 am The plane will be certified within two to three weeks . . . Let me repeat once again: pilots of two crashed plains made numerous mistakes. It is a fact confirmed by analysis of black boxes.
Ah, such a definite statement! Please note the date on which you made it! Was this based on the facts you insisted were essential and you insisted posters rely on? Well, those facts also did not turn out to be facts, did they? In fact they were not facts at all. That was 100% speculation based on nothing. I think I need add nothing more.
fountainhall

Re: Boeing 737 Max8 Crashes

Post by fountainhall »

gera wrote: Sat Jul 27, 2019 6:49 pm 1. In case of both crashes crews could avoid them.
I think it is imperative that this lie is consigned to the trash heap once and for all. It was a specific ploy by Boeing and repeated during the House Transportation and Infrastructure Aviation Sub-Committee by Rep. Sam Graves (apologies - earlier I said it was a senator who backed Boeing's claim) in mid-May. The is how it was reported -
In recent weeks, Boeing has tried to shift blame for both crashes from its software systems. In April, Dennis Muilenburg, the company’s chief executive, claimed the 737 Max was correctly designed and suggested the pilots did not “completely” follow the procedures that Boeing had outlined
We now know that both those statements were outright LIES!

In the same article this idea is trashed by the American Airines Plots Union. Not, note, representatives of the Indonesian pilots or the Ethiopian pilots.
American Airlines’ pilots’ union has hit back at Boeing for insinuating that some responsibility for the two crashes of its 737 Max jets lies with the pilots, and claimed AA pilots made several suggestions to Boeing to fix the plane’s anti-stall systems before the second crash.

Describing Boeing’s position as “inexcusable”, Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, accused Boeing of unfairly blaming foreign pilots involved in the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes.

Tajer told CNN: “Shame on you. We’re going to call you out on it. That’s a poisoned, diseased philosophy.” Asked if the Ethiopian crash might have been prevented if Boeing had acted on the US pilots’ concerns, Tajer said: “I think that’s a fair conclusion.”

Tajer said the Ethiopian Airlines pilots did what they were instructed to do, but that Boeing’s controversial anti-stall software (MCAS) forced the plane into such an aggressive nosedive that the pilots could not recover. “They had wired that thing so that it was irrecoverable. It just blew us away,” Tajer said.
And if an aircraft is wired "so that it was irrecoverable", I defy anyone, anywhere to suggest as gera has on more than one occasion that US pilots in the same situation would have "avoided" the crashes.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... union-mcas
fountainhall

Re: Boeing 737 Max8 Crashes

Post by fountainhall »

For those interested, there is a damning report into irregularities between Boeing and the FAA in yesterday's New York Times. I can not access more NYT articles this month, but parts of the article appear in several other news outlets. I quote from two of them.

in 2005, intense lobbying by the the airline industry led to Congress agreeing to the FAA delegating more responsibility for certification to manufacturers. This in turn led to some regulators to question the approval process. These questions frequently again arose during the 737 Max design process. The FAA appointed just two staffers to work with Boeing.
During the 737 Max’s development, the Times wrote, the FAA assigned two engineers to oversee flight control systems at its Boeing Aviation Safety Oversight Office that other staff say were poorly qualified for the roles.
As we have known for months, the early version of the new MCAS system could move the 737 Max’s horizontal stabilizer by 0.6 degrees. But then Boeing decided on a major change that would make it move up to 2.5 degrees. This change was never reported to the two FAA staffers.
the FAA assumed the “system was insignificant” and further allowed Boeing to remove mentions of it from pilots’ manuals; the FAA “did not mention the software in 30 pages of detailed descriptions noting differences between the Max and the previous iteration of the 737.”
The consultation between Boeing and the FAA was so bad -
According to the Times, an FAA official said that by 2018, the agency was letting Boeing self-certify 96 percent of its own work. After the Lion Air crash, the paper wrote, FAA officials were stunned to learn details of MCAS from Boeing.
As damning, if not more so, the article refers to the larger engines and their position required for the Max.
In another example provided by the paper, FAA engineers concluded that the plane’s upgraded engines could pose a risk to cables controlling the rudder if they disintegrated in midair. The FAA acknowledged in a subsequent investigation that the Max “does not meet” its standards “for protecting flight controls,” the Times wrote, but sided with Boeing in 2015 that it would be “impractical at this late point in the program” to compel a change.
But the bigger, more complex engines could do more damage if they broke apart midair.
Boeing did not want to make a change, according to internal F.A.A. documents reviewed by The Times. A redesign could have caused delays. Company engineers argued that it was unlikely that an engine would break apart and shrapnel would hit the rudder cable . . .

F.A.A. managers conceded that the Max “does not meet” agency guidelines “for protecting flight controls,” according to an agency document. But in another document, they added that they had to consider whether any requested changes would interfere with Boeing’s timeline. The managers wrote that it would be “impractical at this late point in the program,” for the company to resolve the issue. Mr. Duven at the F.A.A. also said the decision was based on the safety record of the plane.
The article concludes that a fix for the MCAS may not be the end of Boeingt's problems -
it is unclear whether hardware solutions will ultimately be required.
So, an MCAS system was installed and it was assumed by Boeing that pilots need to know about it. When the angle of the stabiliser movement was radically altered, the FAA was not informed about it. Then, in the event of an engine exploding and damaging the ruder cable and other flight controls, both Boeing and the FAA determined this was so unlikely to happen nothing need to be redesigned.

When this thread first started, I suggested someone or some group within Boeing - and perhaps now the FAA - were responsible for murder. This was poo-pooed by some including a good friend who is a lawyer by profession. The more I learn about the way this plane was developed, the haste, the lying to the FAA, the deliberate withholding of crucial information to pilots, the deliberate turning their backs by the FAA - the list just goes on, the more I believe culpability for the death of 346 souls lies squarely with both organisations and that heads will not only have to roll but criminal prosecutions must follow.

https://gizmodo.com/faa-reportedly-dele ... 1836761865
https://headtopics.com/us/the-roots-of- ... ht-7166881
firecat69

Re: Boeing 737 Max8 Crashes

Post by firecat69 »

I am in complete agreement with everything you posted. Disgraceful to try to put the blame on pilots when it has become clear BA and FAA are both at fault. How did such a great company stumble into such hypocrisy? I know how the FAA failed . Things rot from the Top when you select incompetent people to Cabinet posts and profit and donations are all you care about accidents will happen.

I'm pretty sure I understand the failures on both sides better than anyone else on this board can . I had a Commercial - Multi Engine , Instrument Rated license for many years. In addition I was an FAA employee for 15 years as an Air Traffic Controller . I have been in the cockpit as an observer on many flights of all classes of aircraft up to and including B747.

Of course the one thing that does not seem to get mentioned enough is the culpability of airlines . FH is better than I am at finding on point articles . They are the ones who are ultimately responsible for the acceptance of shoddy engineering and lack of training for their products. Pilot Unions also should have been on top of this!

Lots of blame to go around IMHO.
fountainhall

Re: Boeing 737 Max8 Crashes

Post by fountainhall »

One correction to me earlier post. In the first line of the penultimate paragraph, the wording should read "it was assumed by Boeing that pilots need NOT know about it."
fountainhall

Re: Boeing 737 Max8 Crashes

Post by fountainhall »

Tonight in the UK the BBC will air a programme on its Panorama series titled

Boeing's Killer Plane
Adam Dickson worked at Boeing for 30 years and led a team of engineers who worked on the 737 Max. He said they were under constant pressure to keep costs down.

"Certainly what I saw was a lack of sufficient resources to do the job in its entirety," he says.

"The culture was very cost centred, incredibly pressurised. Engineers were given targets to get certain amount of cost out of the aeroplane."

. . . Mr Dickson said engineers were under pressure to downplay new features on the 737 Max.

He said by classifying them as minor rather than major changes, Boeing would face less scrutiny from the US regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration.

"The goal was to show that those differences were so similar to the previous design that it would not require a major design classification in the certification process. There was a lot of interest and pressure on the certification and analysis engineers in particular, to look at any changes to the Max as minor changes."

. . . "My family won't fly on a 737 Max. It's frightening to see such a major incident because of a system that didn't function properly or accurately."
Since 2013, Boeing has paid $17bn (£13.74bn) in dividends to shareholders and has spent a further $43bn buying its own shares - a spending spree that has helped Boeing treble its share price in just five years.

Chief executive Dennis Muilenburg has also been paid more than $70m.

Critics have accused Boeing of paying more attention to the stock market than the safety of its passengers.

Economist William Lazonick said senior management were too focused on making money.

"If you supercharge the incentives of top executives and tell them that their job is to get the stock price up, they're not going to pay the kind of attention they need to pay to ensuring they produce a safe plane," he said.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49142761
fountainhall

Re: Boeing 737 Max8 Crashes

Post by fountainhall »

The rudder cable issue was raised in the previous posts. There is a damning indictment of Boeing in respect of the new, larger engines, their placement and the rudder cable in a post on the pprune.org chat site. Pprune is basically short for Professional Pilots Rumour and News and it requires registration to post. The majority of its posters are pilots, engineers, mechanics and others involved in the airline industry, but not all. Like all chat rooms, there are agreements and disagreements. The following is therefore just one poster's view. The key issue is that the fan blades for the new Max engines are one third larger than those in the 737-800s. With the engines being set further forward on the wing, if an engine explosion cannot be contained within its casing, there is a greater danger of damage to the plane's fuselage and consequently severance of the rudder cable.

Post #1584 dated 28 july by a poster who joined in 2004
The rudder cable issue is for me the truly scary indication of how deep the rot at Boeing and FAA oversight has become. I could almost see how the MCAS slipped through the cracks because the conditions where it would activate are very unlikely to ever occur out on the line so the fail modes never got properly investigated and thus the consequences were not appreciated.

The rudder cable issue is totally different. The rudder cables are in the direct path of major rotating parts of the engine. If the engine grenades and engine bits cut the rudder cables the airplane will almost certainly be lost. This doesn't require an aeronautical engineering degree to understand. The fail mode is totally obvious.

It is also directly covered by certification criteria, yet Boeing didn't want to deal with it because it would cost money to fix and the FAA management over ruled their own expert staff and gave Boeing a pass. I feel confident that pre merger Boeing (ie up to the late 1990's) would never have balked at fixing the issue and the FAA in any case would have insisted on a fix.

The part I can't understand is if after the return to service a Max engine grenades, pieces cut the rudder cables and the airplane crashes, the resulting shyte [sic] storm will make the MCAS issue look trivial. So I can only conclude that Boeing management are willing to bet the company on a totally preventable accident sequence not happening, rather then spend what is the grand scheme of things is a trivial amount of money to make the scenario impossible to occur.
In fairness, posters responding to the above post point out that engine explosions directly piercing the fuselage have rarely happened throughout the 737's history. They add that there is greater danger to passengers from flying debris and there has been at least one such incident when a passenger was killed. But however remote, the possibility that rudder cables might be severed is obviously serious, the more so considering the engine powering the Max is a new one. We just have to remember what happened to a Qantas A380 flight when the new Rolls Royce engine disintegrated and the aircraft's systems began to fail. It took the expertise of the two sets of pilots to manually get that aircraft safely on the ground with no loss of life even though they were flying by brain rather than wire and landing much heavier and at a vastly higher speed than the maxima recommended by Airbus.
gera

Re: Boeing 737 Max8 Crashes

Post by gera »

This is from Bloomberg. 737max most likely will fly again by October. Hope it will stop all insinuations about physical design of the plain. The plain was always airworthy
Technology
Boeing 737 Max’s Certification Flight Likely to Occur in October
By Julie Johnsson , Alan Levin , and Richard Weiss
August 23, 2019, 6:49 PM EDT
Timing consistent with a fourth-quarter return to service
Company engineers working on hundreds of regulatory queries
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BOEING CO/THE
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The Federal Aviation Administration is likely to conduct its certification flight for Boeing Co.’s 737 Max in October, a key milestone toward returning the grounded jetliner to the skies, said people briefed on the matter.

That timing would be broadly consistent with Boeing’s estimate that the Max will return to service early in the fourth quarter, but may push the submission of a final certification package slightly beyond September, as the company previously estimated.




The U.S. planemaker is testing changes to the flight-control software architecture of its best-selling jetliner, which suffered two fatal crashes in a five-month span. Boeing engineers have almost worked their way through hundreds of queries fielded by the FAA from colleagues around the world, with few new concerns being raised at this point in the process, the people said.

The Chicago-based company is also briefing customers on its plans for unwinding an unprecedented global grounding that has already surpassed five months, with about 600 planes temporarily mothballed.

“We continue to support the FAA and global regulators on the safe return of the Max to service,” Boeing said in a statement.

The FAA is focused on ensuring that the revamped 737 Max systems meet safety requirements, and doesn’t have a timeline for returning the plane to service, according to a statement by the agency. FAA employees have already spent 110,000 hours working on the project, it said.

‘All Aspects’
“The FAA’s certification of the Boeing 737 Max is the subject of several independent reviews and investigations that will examine all aspects of the five-year effort,” the agency said. “While the agency’s certification processes are well established and have consistently produced safe aircraft designs, we welcome the scrutiny from these experts and look forward to their findings.”

There are still numerous tasks to be accomplished before Boeing can complete its submission to recertify the plane, said another person familiar with the process. The person wasn’t aware of a specific projection that the FAA test flight would occur in October, but said it was a possibility.

A certification flight with FAA test pilots is one of the final steps that must be conducted before Boeing’s submission is finalized, and based on the timing, the final paperwork may not be completed until the fourth quarter.

If the plane behaves as expected, the results become part of the package for certification. Even though FAA engineers have worked closely with Boeing for months, the agency must perform a series of checks after the submission is made before granting approval.

Another step in the process is a review by the FAA’s Flight Standardization Board, which must recommend training requirements for the plane. In April, it made a preliminary conclusion that pilots wouldn’t need simulator training before flights resume. But the body hasn’t issued its final conclusions.

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