We had a discussion last week about those 2 737's that crashed. Seems that the one in Indonesia had had the same problem the previous day and it was saved by a quick thinking off-duty pilot who was along for the ride. But then, the airline put it right back in the air again a few hours later and killed almost 200 people. This looks like a case where someone with the airline needs a long prison sentence. Keeping a plane with a known problem in service is inexcusable.

737 CRASH

+1

Indonesia doesn't believe in long prison sentences . they chop off heads, which would be the right thing in this case.

If I heard it right, the airplanes are certified for use by the FAA but the FAA used or subbed the cert process or part of the process back to Boeing. What kind of sense does that make?

What we don't know yet is if the on duty flight crew reported the problem after landing or if the third pilot after the crash offered up 'oh yeah, it did that same thing yesterday'

TRIM DISCONNECT BUTTON, "PRESS"

If the flight crew didn't report it, they're the ones who need to hang. It was a known problem and somewhere along the line, someone is culpable.

The issue sounds like a software problem. The solution is TRAINING THE CREWS.

kwg

The problem as I see it is that after the gear and flaps are up, the "training" is to engage the GPS-coupled autopilot and cross your arms. Crews don't actually fly the plane anymore, they watch the computer fly the plane. When the SHTF, they sit there stunned for a bit, and then try to remember how to fly.

You don't understand software development. Who better to software testing, which should be done during development, than the people developing the software. Outside agency to review the testing protocol, insure that the protocol is followed, and review the results. Properly testing software of any complexity is extraordinarily difficult. Why Microsoft is updating your OS all the time.

What this tells me is that we have people flying jumbo jets around that world... That shouldn't be.

That 3d pilot knew what to do and he saved the plane. That doesn't settle the problem of why the plane did it, though. Someone was responsible for putting it back in the air before they knew what caused it to go haywire. Pilots are trained to deal with emergencies. That doesn't mean that emergencies should be handled like this one was.

There are a lot of people flying around the world who probably shouldnt be.
Same with driver both private and commercial.
Aircraft are flown everyday with known maintenance problems using FARs, minimum Equipment lists or approved operating specs.

Modetn aircraft are complicated to set and fly let alone maintain. Many flight crew and maintenance do not understand how the systems interelate. You must be careful when you use the MEL and not have mulriple systems down at the same time. The MEL is not intended to help operations make a flight schedule.

There is a pilot shortage here in Canada

Lion Air could have called Boeing in Nov. 2018 and asked about the 'problem',
Boeing would have told them stop complaining, the jet is certified safe to fly.

Boeing were still ardently saying that till about a week ago.

S*** happens. Been so since time immemorial. Best you can do is make it so it's manageable.

Only common denominator between these two crashes is inexperienced pilots. Everybody scared to death to say they were both inexperienced MUSLIM pilots.

FAA are over stretched

Boeing then helps themselves by helping the FAA.

The problem it seems is that the FAA was helping Boeing by skimping on good and proper [thorough] certification.
the US Dept. of Transport has been concerned about the 'relationship' between the FAA and Boeing for some yrs.

There was a previous fleet grounding (2013) concerning the certification of 787 Dreamliner and its combusting batteries
again involving that special certification 'relationship' between FAA and Boeing.

Riiiight, Boeing intentionally sabotaged certification testing because they like selling defective aircraft that fall out of the sky and kill people. It's so good for the bottom line.

I said Skimp , not sabotage., you really are proving yourself a rambling halfwit on the 737 MAX discussions.

EXPERIENCED 737 captains around the world are at odds with your views, so are Boeing industry insiders
involved with the 737 MAX and MACS.

This!

This too!

Skimp == Sabotage where a flight critical systems are concerned. At least to us half-wits.

Are those the same pilots that say it's never pilot error, it's always somebody else's fault? The union mantra.

Okie,

The way these things are resolved is into contributing factors and cause. What lead to the incident, and what happened that inevitably caused it. If the situation was recoverable, why wasn't it?

Sabotage (verb) - to deliberately destroy, damage, vandalise, cripple, etc

If you think thats the same as a manufacturer 'skimping' as many do [within the law] to please shareholders,
you truly are all the idiot you proudly show yourself as.




LOL...I don't know - are they?...Id say its just more of your trademark conjecture at work.

Rational folk would rather listen and give some credence to 737 captains and Boeing technicians involved with 737 MAX

than clueless rambling types like yourself that desperately scramble around in the dark of their minds and point fingers.

(Does this guy ever stop )

I’m not an expert, but every airplane I fly has a MSW, a master switch on the control column. A nice bright red button under my left thumb that if pushed, disconnects the autopilot and the yaw damper. It’s there to take control of the aircraft and ‘hand fly’ it due to some abnormality with the autopilot and/or yaw damper (Flight management system) or to land the airplane. There are two FMS’s. Normally it gets pushed at 200’ agl to land. I’ve pushed it due to severe turbulence recently. I’ve never flown a Boeing Max, but I’m sure it also has a MSW used for the same purposes. If the aircraft is not doing what it is supposed to be doing, you are supposed to be trained to ‘fly the airplane’ by hand.

I’m trying to figure out why these two foriegn crews in the MAX watched the airplane fly itself into the ground.

In days of old
When pilots were bold
And autopilots weren't invented
They were rarely sold
On machinery malcontented

Watch the movie Sully.

Different incident, circumstances, airplane, and manufacturer.

The response was identical.

Lie, connive, whatever it takes to make the company look good,
destroying a good pilot who did everything right, just make the optics positive.

Pilot error, pilot training, or Boeing Incompetence... I imagine it'll all come out eventually. Difference in who the pilots are and their competence might not be so easy to understand. The way that I've understood it so far is that their is a difference in the planes exported and the ones sold to U.S. airlines, in that the sensor at the hart of the problem has a back-up on U.S. planes and the exports don't. On the planes flown by U.S airlines if one sensor fails or the two don't agree, the autopilot automatically disconnects giving the pilots immediate control.

Story had it that that was the reason Boeing wasn't too worried about letting U.S. planes continue to fly until the patch was released... but apparently that fact wasn't common knowledge to airlines around the globe.


Phil

So, the MCAS works with both the autopilot and when the pilots are flying. Apparently, in the Max the trim button in the column DOES NOT override the MCAS trim. The solution is to flip the master switch and turn off power to the trim motor. And yes, the Lion plane was known to have a faulty AOA sensor. What was not known by the pilots or the airlines was that the M AS system existed and how it depended on the AOA sensor.

Was it something that a US pilot or, as we saw any well trained or experienced pilot should figure out? Yeah, for a lesser crew with the autopilot engaged? I can see how they might think that it was a problem with the autopilot instead of what it really was. And in the Lion plane apparently the stick shaker was going, the stall warning was blaring, and they were too distracted to notice the trim wheel spinning. But of course that would have stopped as soon as it reached its full travel which was the position it was found in.

In Naval Aviation there are four broad categories of contributing factors that lead to a root cause: Pilot Error, Mechanical Failure, Manufacturing Defect, and Maintenance Error.

If we (the public) assume the software in the Max was defective and inadvertently or incorrectly caused the control configuration that resulted in the crash, then you have to focus in on Manufacturing Defect (Software)

But, Boeing has already stated publicly that the switch to disconnect the software from the catastrophic automatic control configuration, was right next to the pilot's knee. (example of go/no go)

So then you have to ask, assuming this is the case, why didn't the pilot switch off the erratic software which had the aircraft configured to crash?

Possible reasons: The switch was manipulated by the pilot, but was inoperative/failed to deactivate the software; the pilots had not received proper/effective training on this emergency procedure, and were unaware of the switch's location/purpose.

So then you have to ask, if the switch was activated by the pilots, but didn't work, why didn't it work? (You return to Manufacturer Defect); If the pilots were not properly trained on this emergency procedure, you have to ask who failed to properly/effectively train, and why did they fail to complete/ensure the required training. Depending on the sales contract for the aircraft from Boeing, this could be Boeing's negligence (again, why were they negligent?) or it could be a supervisory error in the oversight of the pilots.

All of these rat holes have to be tapped and followed to their conclusion, to find the root cause, with a continuation of why, why, why. Along the way, one can find certain go/no go decisions that could have interrupted the chain of events, but finding the root cause allows the powers that be to come up with lessons learned and effective corrective action. It is a complicated process, and a proper and thorough mishap investigation can take a year or more to complete.

How would a pilot not know his AOA sensor was bad? I would think it would show up on the display.

Like I said they knew it was bad. It isn’t too critical of an item. What they did not know was that there was an MCAS system that would trim the airplane regardless of other control input from either the autopilot based on information from that faulty sensor.

For all we know, the crew from earlier in the day reported the runaway trim incident and the trim motor and controls were checked out and the autopilot checked out and all found to be in order.

But Boeing DID NOT TELL ANYONE about the MCAS and what it did.

I would imagine it would also make a big difference at what altitude the plane was at when that one sensor failed... My understanding is that in both crashes it was at take-off.

Phil

Bear in mind that Boeing designed a system that would trim the aircraft right into the ground if not stopped by the pilots. They could have designed it to move 2 degrees or something like that and stop.

Boeing's KC-46 problems, probable loss of any F-15X work, and now this... I'm thinking Boeing is in deep-doo-doo

Phil

If a had a nickel for every time a line mechanic cleared an aircraft for the next flight by writing “unable to duplicate - ops check good”....

I’m not saying that is necessarily what happened here.

As mentioned, it seems to me the ultimate cause of incident, for both crashes, was pilot error.

Under trained, inexperienced, and never should have been in the cockpit of a passenger jet to begin with.

Boeing should have done a few things different. The FFA should have done a few things different. Neither is as culpable as the pilots and the airlines that put them in the cockpit.