After Reports of Mid-Air Emergencies, US Will Audit Boeing's Oversight of 737 Max (abc.net.au) 119
"Boeing's troubled 737 MAX planes — which have twice crashed, killing 346 people — have experienced at least six mid-air emergencies and dozens of groundings in the year after an extensive probe cleared them to fly," reports Australia's public broadcaster ABC News:
The incidents, pulled from U.S. government air safety databases, are among more than 60 mid-flight problems reported by pilots in the 12 months after the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recertified the plane's airworthiness in late 2020. Former employees of both Boeing and the FAA characterised the reports — which included engine shutdowns and pilots losing partial control of the plane — as serious and with the potential to end in tragedy.
In one incident in December 2021, a United Airlines pilot declared a mayday after the system controlling the pitch and altitude of the plane started malfunctioning...
The MAX's flight control system also failed on 22 separate flights, a problem which became the primary focus of the FAA's 20-month recertification effort after the two fatal crashes. More than 42 incidents involved equipment malfunctions, and on more than 40 occasions, flight crews chose to ground the affected aircraft while problems were fixed.... Some planes also had a multitude of problems. One Alaskan Airlines MAX-9 was grounded seven times over five months due to malfunctions with its navigation or communication equipment.
A Boeing spokeswoman told the ABC, "none of the reports indicate a trend".
"In fact, the in-service reliability of the 737 MAX is consistent with other commercial airplane models," the spokeswoman said. "Since November 2020, the 737 MAX has flown more than 1.5 million flight hours in more than 580,000 revenue flights. The overwhelming majority of these flights have been conducted without any incident."
Former senior Boeing manager Ed Pierson — who worked at the 737 MAX factory in Seattle between 2015 and 2018 — told ABC "There are a lot of similarities between what we're seeing in some of the reports with what happened during these two crashes."
The article also reports that America's Federal Aviation Administration "has now confirmed it did not investigate Boeing's alleged production problems after the crashes."
Later the article adds that the U.S. government "will announce a new audit examining Boeing's production oversight of the 737 MAX planes."
In one incident in December 2021, a United Airlines pilot declared a mayday after the system controlling the pitch and altitude of the plane started malfunctioning...
The MAX's flight control system also failed on 22 separate flights, a problem which became the primary focus of the FAA's 20-month recertification effort after the two fatal crashes. More than 42 incidents involved equipment malfunctions, and on more than 40 occasions, flight crews chose to ground the affected aircraft while problems were fixed.... Some planes also had a multitude of problems. One Alaskan Airlines MAX-9 was grounded seven times over five months due to malfunctions with its navigation or communication equipment.
A Boeing spokeswoman told the ABC, "none of the reports indicate a trend".
"In fact, the in-service reliability of the 737 MAX is consistent with other commercial airplane models," the spokeswoman said. "Since November 2020, the 737 MAX has flown more than 1.5 million flight hours in more than 580,000 revenue flights. The overwhelming majority of these flights have been conducted without any incident."
Former senior Boeing manager Ed Pierson — who worked at the 737 MAX factory in Seattle between 2015 and 2018 — told ABC "There are a lot of similarities between what we're seeing in some of the reports with what happened during these two crashes."
The article also reports that America's Federal Aviation Administration "has now confirmed it did not investigate Boeing's alleged production problems after the crashes."
Later the article adds that the U.S. government "will announce a new audit examining Boeing's production oversight of the 737 MAX planes."
Still think pilotless aircraft next year? (Score:5, Insightful)
Earlier this week there was an article about a company trying to deploy small passenger aircraft with no pilots at all.
Even with Boeing's experience and budget, the automated systems fall down all the dang time. We see here why pilots are kinda important.
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I was shocked to find out how many people were killed in airline crashes back in the 50s and 60s. While it was still technically safer than driving there was still a lot of crashes they killed people in Mass. I don't see any reason why we can't go back to those days. T
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There are plenty of ways to make really simple automated flying machines.
Half the systems that break on modern planes are there purely because of cost issues, and the fact they break is another cost issue.
Save money by not having to train pilots so much, and need less people in the cockpit, and save money on the electronics themselves.
Aaaand that gives you a rather bad downward spiral.
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There is also the little thing that a pilot can usually mess up badly only once and has rather good motivation to not do it. An automated system can do it again and again and again.
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It's even more than that. Pilots have their own discrete sensor suite known as "human senses". A lot of things can be discerned with things like mark one eyeball, mark one ear, mark one nose, mark one sense of balance and so on.
And while some of them tend to malfunction, a discrepancy between plane's sensors and human sensors will often indicate beginnings of a problem that should be addressed. This is at least one major thing that is not available to any software suite flying the planet, such as modern aut
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By next year, Musk pledged, robotic Tesla taxis will pick up passengers, even though no fully self-driving cars currently exist.
The real test is if insurance companies will be willing to accept liability for such vehicles.
Perfect is the enemy of the good (Score:2)
It is a bit like self driving cars. The computer just needs to be safer than the pilot, not perfect. And pilots have crashed several perfectly functioning airplanes, both accidentally and on purpose.
Certainly, any computer system would be programmed and tested for total engine failure. That plane that crashed into the Hudson a few years ago spent a full 30 seconds flying in the wrong direction. A computer would have calculated that it could easily glide back to the airport with a good safety margin in m
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Notably, there was no system on the plane that landed in the Hudson that was at all capable of making the decision. IIRC, returning to the airport it came from wasn't an option that was on the table.
Note that the problem first needed to be determined. There is no "Hey man, you just charbroiled some geese" light on the panel.
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I think the discussion was about future systems, and whether they could eventually replace a pilot, not existing systems.
Semi automatic systems are dangerous -- you rely on a pilot that rarely actually flies the plane.
The plane absolutely could have made it back to the airport, easily. Just look at the route it took, and you will see it would be possible even if the turn was made 30 seconds late, and easy if much earlier, and with good water options in any case.
Re:Perfect is the enemy of the good (Score:5, Insightful)
Well if we're just going to speculate wildly with no responsibility for anything but hand waving, we could just ditch air travel and have Scotty beam us up.
Perhaps one fine day, automation will be up for that, but it's not going to be in the next 20 years.
Keep in mind that there are still situations where things that can usually be automated rely on the pilot taking over and doing it manually. For example, loss of control surfaces (either ripped from the plane or disabled by severe damage), loss of engines, landing on something that is not an airport runway, etc.
The very first thought after the geese was return to LaGuardia. The pilot reported "Unable". I guess you disagree? Why do you disagree with the experienced pilot who was actually there? Have you ever even flown an A320 (I haven't).
BTW, the NTSB ran your scenario (immediate return to LaGuardia upon bird strike) and only made it 7 of 13 tries even with the pilots already expecting the strike. That was considered unrealistic because recognizing the strike and that both engines are out takes more than zero time. Once that was factored in, no simulations made it back.
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The "Unable" call came long after the bird strike.
The NTSB did NOT run an immediate return to LaGuadia scenario. They ran a return to LaGuadia after the 30 seconds flying in the wrong direction.
You can see it clearly in the map on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I do fly light aircraft, and it was madness to even consider starting the engines at low altitude before choosing a landing option. What is interesting is that nobody pointed that out. Would I have also stuffed it up in the moment of panic? Quit
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Only if by "long", you mean 20 seconds.
Funny how the NTSB report [ntsb.gov] provided as a reference for the Wikipedia article clearly indicates the scenarios they simulated and one of them was immediate return. So you are absolutely right, and the experienced commercial pilot who was actually there and the NTSB were wrong? And the pilots the NTSB ran the simulations with were all incompetent?
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Huh? The report says P89 that the airport could not be reached after 35 seconds. It said there were attempts at immediate turn around but carefully makes no mention as to whether they were successful. I read somewhere that they were, but I cannot remember the citation.
And stop the aggressive shit. It is about facts, not authority.
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Page 50 of the report (Page 67 of the PDF).
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It is a bit like self driving cars. The computer just needs to be safer than the pilot, not perfect
No, they'd also need to be capable of independently assessing the situation and use experience to find a solution that may not have been though of.
. And pilots have crashed several perfectly functioning airplanes, both accidentally and on purpose.
True, and saved a/c in other situations, just as computers have crashed or nearly crashed them as well.
p>Certainly, any computer system would be programmed and tested for total engine failure. That plane that crashed into the Hudson a few years ago spent a full 30 seconds flying in the wrong direction. A computer would have calculated that it could easily glide back to the airport with a good safety margin in milliseconds. And machine vision is getting better, not too hard to recognize a part of a river that is less cluttered than other parts.
So what's the rule? Immediately turn back to the airport on loss of all engines? The problem is, unlike many computers attempt to deal with, is there are two many variables to consider so that a rule is correct in situation A but wrong in B. Programmers simply
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The pilotless (Volocopter and Jetsonareo) mentioned this week are multi-rotor drones, stable by design (e.g. if you stop telling it to go forward, it will just hover until battery is low and it will descend slowly and touch ground gently). Jet aeroplanes require years of learning to pilot and successfully land. Multirotor toy drones can be given to kids, while traditional RC model planes are still prone to funny crashes.
Re:Still think pilotless aircraft next year? (Score:5, Informative)
There's nothing stable about a multi-rotor. They're flyable only because they're computer controlled. If you doubt it, build yourself a quadcopter with only four throttles for controls and see how many funny crashes you're involved in.
Don't forget to film it.
Excellent point (Score:2)
The same also applies to the toy helicopters. People don't, in general, realise that when the fly the machine they are just adding biases to the input of a continually running active stability program.
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I had a manual control quadcopter once. You set the basic rotor current using a throttle control, then the directional controls modified that for the relevant pairs of rotors. The thing was also tiny so there wasn't even much inertia to slow things down. The kit included a lot of spare parts....
It's often pretty funny to ask a helicopter pilot about stability.
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I don't think we're anywhere near having pilotless commercial aircraft, but the 737 MAX is a poor indicator of why that is.
The issues with this aircraft are not a reflection on automation in aviation in general. They are a reflection of grafting increasing automation on a design originally from the 1960s while trying to keep commonality with recent iterations of that design.
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Well, there could be a better company coming up. You never know.
Just look at SpaceX eating ULA's lunch.
Re:Still think pilotless aircraft next year? (Score:4, Informative)
I wouldn't trust Boeing with an automated system. They seem to have a serious problem with lack of testing. Not just the 737 Max.
Mentor Pilot happened to do a video about another lack of testing incident just yesterday: https://youtu.be/WsYU7tjOvm0 [youtu.be]
Boeing knew that there was a chance that the safety interlock that would prevent the thrust reversers deploying in-flight could fail, but did some simulator modelling that suggested the aircraft would remain flyable if it happened. Problem is, they did the testing at low altitude and low speed, because they thought that was the most likely scenario.
In real life it happened to an aircraft at high altitude and high speed. Everyone died. Tests in the simulator found that the crew had about 4 seconds maximum to react to the fault before it became unrecoverable.
To be this seems like head-up-arse fault. Why wouldn't Boeing test this failure at higher speeds and altitudes in the simulator? They didn't need to, the FAA didn't require it, but if I was a Boeing engineer I'd want to do it and look at mitigations anyway.
Too many bad decisions ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... over too many years. At some point you need to stop trying to do something with the old design it was never intended for. Airbus does that. Boeing apparently cannot design a new plane or never decided to do so. So they are stuck with this dangerous ancient design that was good way back, but now cannot be made to work to modern standards anymore. At some point it is over because the evidence has become overwhelming. That happened a while ago with the 373 max.
They're not going to spend the money doing that (Score:2)
So instead every now and then we're just going to have a crash that kills a few hundred people. To be honest it'll probably be mostly on the poor airlines in foreign countries where they don't have to worry about lawsuits because they can bribe the l
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Well, maybe in the US. If they have one or two more crashes like they had, they may well find themselves permanently banned from using airports in the rest of the world. Also note that even in the US, they got a really long, really harsh grounding after two crashes "somewhere else".
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Or unless government pays them to design a new passenger airplane. Boeing is one of the biggest welfare queens.
Re:Too many bad decisions ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Boeings issue with the 737MAX design choice was not a financial one, at least not in the way people make it out to be - they were already researching market replacements in the Yellowstone Project during the 2000s.
The first Yellowstone project to come to fruition, Y2, covered the market that had a major amount of fleet renewals (ie order opportunities) in the early to mid 2000s - this became the Boeing 787.
The second Yellowstone project, Y1, covered the lower end of the market capacity wise - this was to replace the Boeing 737 with a brand new design by 2020.
When Boeing announced their plans for Y1 in 2010, they completely missed market signs that Airbus was planning something much sooner - and the moment Airbus announced their A320NEO plans at the end of 2010, it completely destroyed Boeings Y1 plans.
The problem is that if Boeing had continued with Y1, they would have basically ceded most of the narrow body market to Airbus for at least a decade, skewing market ownership dramatically toward Airbus - the A320NEO was significantly more efficient than the 737NG, and because this efficiency was mainly engine based, anything Boeing could come up with for Y1 was basically only going to be a small enhancement over the NEO, so no one was going to wait for Y1.
Add to that the fact that Airbus spent relatively little on the NEO project ($1.3Billion), while a clean sheet Y1 would have cost Boeing in the order of $10Billion easily, it meant that Airbus would have had a huge pricing advantage over the Y1 - plus the NEO still didn't introduce major enhancements to the actual A320 family airframe, so there are still massive efficiency savings to be had (a new wing for the NEO for example would wipe out any Y1 efficiency savings).
So Boeings options were stark - let Airbus own the narrowbody market for a decade, then enter the market with a plane which cost vastly more, had little efficiency advantage and wouldnt actually be generally available in quantities for another 3-4 years (as ramp up would take that long from a 2020 entry into service).
It wasn't a financial issue in that Boeing could afford to invest money in a clean sheet design - it was a financial issue in that if Boeing had made that investment, it would likely have relegated the company to a minor player in the narrowbody market, and that would have had knock on effects in the widebody markets as well.
Thus, Boeing had to do something with the existing MAX airframe.
At which point they got buttfucked by their largest customer - Southwest Airlines. Who demanded that Boeing provide an aircraft which flew exactly like their existing Boeing 737 fleet, so they didnt have to retrain pilots or operate separate fleets.
And therein the MCAS system was born. And the rest is history.
Re:Too many bad decisions ... (Score:5, Informative)
Even then, they could have had MCAS use the existing redundancy in the AoA sensors, but they didn't. They could have had a switch to disconnect MCAS without disabling electric trim, but they didn't. Alternatively, they could have given the thumb switches more authority than MCAS, but they didn't do that either. They could have put in larger manual trim wheels so it didn't require the strength of a gorilla to re-trim the plane when under aerodynamic load, but they didn't. They could have not nickel and dimed the disagree indicator, but they did.
However anatomically unlikely, Boeing buttfucked itself.
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The truth isn't so simple, because it turns out, Southwest Airlines is a HUGE proponent of the 737 MAX series, and was the primary driver for it.
In fact, there is evidence to suggest that Southwest had Boeing create a version of MCAS for the 737 NG, and had it installed one ONE of Southwest's airplanes. A few months later, it was uninstalled from that aircraft.
The reason for this is obvious - Southwest has a huge investment in 737s and the 737 MAX is the plane they want to transitio
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None of that excuses anything I pointed out. They could have designed MCAS to be safe but they didn't.
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Why would consulting the existing redundant AoA sensor have required documentation? The disagree light was already an option on the 737, they could have made it standard. No reason they couldn't give the already documented electric trim controls more authority than the undocumented MCAS. No reason they couldn't have made manual trim actually work as already documented under aerodynamic load.
So, no. I'm not buying it. They screwed themselves good and hard and took innocent lives with them.
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That has nothing to do with the problems of the MCAS system itself, problems which were related to insufficient documentation and poor redundancy design.
In the field of safety we have a saying: A man with a watch knows the time. A man with two watches is never sure, which is precisely why for highly redundant / available measurement systems you never use two sensors, always three (something that Boeing in its infinite wisdom thought they would make optional). There were fundamental design problems which mad
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Even then, they could have had MCAS use the existing redundancy in the AoA sensors, but they didn't.
Oh absolutely. Boeing made some insanely stupid engineering calls, but this has nothing to do with gweihir's original comment that Boeing can't do something that mighty Airbus can. Which is stupid on the face of it since the currently newest original newly designed airframe platform flying in the sky is the Boeing Dreamliner. So quite clearly they *can*.
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The problem is that, according to PR blurbs from both Boeing and FAA, MAX is now the most inspected and errata'd plane in the skies. For it to have double digit incidents, and a potential new FAA investigation after this short time back in the skies is a major warning signs.
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At this point, that's not likely to be the reason. There is some amount of emergencies that is acceptable, because the more you go into next 0 of percentage of safety, the more costly it becomes. Safety is a balance of risk vs cost to mitigate it. For example, easiest way to not take any risk during flight is to not fly, but that's obviously too costly of a mitigation strategy.
And as much of a terrible concept that 737 MAX turned out to be, it's been so audited at this point that it's likely safer than most
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Boeing apparently cannot design a new plane or never decided to do so.
Of course Boeing *can* design a new plane. The issue is their customers don't *want* a new plane. They want an update to the existing plane which handles, functions, and is type certified the same.
Airbus does that.
Airbus doesn't do shit. The only new platform they have designed they have retired already and in a few years will have had a shorter service life than Boeing's actual new designs (which you conveniently ignore despite the fact that the Dreamliner as a platform is the most recent in service design in the industry)
Such an easy fix... (Score:2)
Re: Such an easy fix... (Score:2)
Re: Such an easy fix... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a physicist and I've worked on aircraft, but only combat aircraft, so take this as a sort of armchair opinion, but I think the flight dynamics of the MAX are such that a pilot might not be able to fly it without computer assistance. Too many controls that need adjustment all at once to maintain stable flight.
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That is true for combat aircraft, because you want high maneuverability. Passenger airplanes are generally made to fly stable.
The reason for the MCAS on the MAX was not to make the airplane more stable, but to make it fly just like the older 737, so that the pilots would not need to go through longer and expensive training to be certified to fly on it.
Re: Such an easy fix... (Score:3)
I had thought (could easily be wrong) that moving the engine position forward and down made the MAX profile unstable, and the MCAS was an attempt to make it apoear to fly the same (to the pilot) as the old 737, but that without the MCAS flying it is pretty difficult.
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The way I understand it, unstable aircraft would not be certified for passenger use.
As for the MCAS, the plane is stable without it, but the behavior is different enough that pilots would have needed to undergo the same training as if they were switching from the 737 to another type (say a 747). With the system, the 737-MAX is considered an upgrade (and not a different type) and the training was supposed to be just reading about the differences (and at first the existence of MCAS was not even mentioned).
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The way I understand it, unstable aircraft would not be certified for passenger use.
As for the MCAS, the plane is stable without it, but the behavior is different enough that pilots would have needed to undergo the same training as if they were switching from the 737 to another type (say a 747). With the system, the 737-MAX is considered an upgrade (and not a different type) and the training was supposed to be just reading about the differences (and at first the existence of MCAS was not even mentioned).
From this discussion [ycombinator.com] it seems the 737 MAX is aerodynamically stable without MCAS, but ramping up the engines would cause the nose to pitch up. And this degree of pitch would make the aircraft uncertifiable without MCAS.
Making it fly the same as other 737s it probably just another feature of the MCAS.
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Here's a nicely-produced flight sim video showing what the Ethiopian Airlines 302 pilots experienced after takeoff. IANAP but perhaps it adds some color to your question. There's one for the Lion Air incident too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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It wasn't less stable, but it did have an unfortunate trait that it would pitch up when thrust was increased.
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It's not even true for combat aircraft, except for occasional ones like the B2 and X-29.
Maneuverability is best for neutrally stable aircraft. That makes them a pain to fly by hand for long periods of time, but not in some way that's qualitatively different than driving a car.
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I think the Gripen has negative stability, and it's in operation and continued development.
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Yes, although not this exact specimen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] @2:20
Or this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] @0:26
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If I remember correctly, those crashes (1989 and 1993) were related to pilot induced oscillations. The Gripen uses fly-by-wire, so it's that way a SW related issue, but it's not a pure SW bug, more an issue with the design of the control algorithms. The control system in closed loop with the pilot and lag caused problems. The control algorithms were updated after the first crash, but there was still a latent design problem that only manifested four years later under a certain combination of flight state and
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The Gripen seems to have mild negative stability. I'm not sure, but it looks like it would probably be flyable if the computer wasn't helping, requiring pilot input to keep it in a particular attitude. Much like driving a car requires driver input even to stay on a perfectly straight road.
High stability is bad for maneuverability because it makes it harder to change direction. High instability is also bad because it makes it hard to stop changing direction one way and go the other way.
The B2 and X-29 are un
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The Gripen is fly-by-wire, so it's impossible to fly without the computer in the loop. So difficult to say if it'd be flyable without assistance.
As linked to the youtube clips by dromgodis above, there's two crashes related to this. But they aren't definitive proof that the aircraft would be unflyable without computer assistance.
I commented to dromgodis that:
If I remember correctly, those crashes (1989 and 1993) were related to pilot induced oscillations. The Gripen uses fly-by-wire, so it's that way a SW related issue, but it's not a pure SW bug, more an issue with the design of the control algorithms. The control system in closed loop with the pilot and lag caused problems. The control algorithms were updated after the first crash, but there was still a latent design problem that only manifested four years later under a certain combination of flight state and pilot input.
Note: Back in those days they didn't have the same possibility to do extensive simulations, so the test pilots had to do the job. It's remarkable that it's the same pilot, Lars Rådeström, in both the -89 and the -93 crash. Although the crash in -93 was with a production aircraft. The flaw in the control system was fixed in 1993.
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High instability is also bad because it makes it hard to stop changing direction one way and go the other way.
I don't think I agree with this. I think high instability should mean e.g. that the real value of one or more of the poles of the closed loop system is "high" (">> 0"). However, theorectically it's "only" a matter of requiring a control system with a faster/stronger actuator response. In practice you might e.g. not be able to change the control surfaces sufficiently fast and it'll be a mess design wise. Regardless, such a system would probably be inefficient, causing extra drag if the control surfaces are moving back and forth rapidly.
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The 737 MAX can be flown without computer based MCAS system. The issue is that the response to the manual controls will be slightly different compared to the previous generation models. One of Boeing's biggest marketing claims is that the MAX can be flown by any pilot who already trained on previous generation models. This is why they implemented the troublesome MCAS system and did not even document well how to override it.
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According to pilots that were more successful dealing with MCAS failures, if you could get the plane in trim after disabling electric trim (and so, MCAS), the 737Max could be hand flown.
Re: Such an easy fix... (Score:4, Informative)
Pilot here. AFAIK there are no civil aircraft that require augmentation to be controllable.
The problem for Boeing is that the 737 is a 1960s design that has had a succession of bigger engines, longer fuselages, wider wings, etc. grafted on it. These have not made it unflyable, just that the handling characteristics are different enough between the MAX and the others (in the view of the Authorities) that extra training would be needed to familiarise pilots with said differences.
Boeing had already promoted the MAX as not requiring any extra training for a 737-rated pilot, so they chose to fudge it by adding a system that overrode the natural tendencies of the airframe under certain conditions. Unfortunately, they appear to have given this job to an unsupervised intern because the result was something that took an input from a single sensor with no range checking or sanitisation and used it to move the horizontal stabiliser autonomously, which is the most powerful flying control on the aircraft. There was also no mention of this system, MCAS, in the manuals. The rest is history...
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but I think the flight dynamics of the MAX are such that a pilot might not be able to fly it without computer assistance.
False. The computer assistance is there not to make the plane flyable, but to make it feel like you're flying the 737NG so that pilots would be need training or recertification.
There's nothing inherently unstable about the design of the MAX and it is not the only commercial airliner developed which pitches up when thrust is increased.
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I'm a physicist and I've worked on aircraft, but only combat aircraft, so take this as a sort of armchair opinion, but I think the flight dynamics of the MAX are such that a pilot might not be able to fly it without computer assistance. Too many controls that need adjustment all at once to maintain stable flight.
If that were the case, the plane could not be rightfully certified for commercial service.
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what am I missing here???
A trend in society. My cousin is a flight instructor and what he tells me he sees in new soon to be pilots reminds me of what I see in the latest batches of new developers joining the ranks. The same thing is happening in all fields of activity. Everything is more and more dumbed-down everywhere.
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Re: Such an easy fix... (Score:2)
Planes used to have pilot, copilot, and flight engineer . this was the guy who did the manual job you mentioned.
you see all these knobs and switches in current cockpits? well, there used to be even more. including a hatch to go and take a look on the cargo area.
This position hasn't existed for decades because it's been replaced by computers.
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When something non-trivial fails you ground the plane until you fix it. Usually by law.
It's been a long time since pilots routinely flew by manual control, and commercial aviation is much, much better for it.
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Planes often fly with non critical faults, such as one of the radios out (there are several) or no auto pilot.
Basic autopilot is nice, but some of the automation is a worry. For example, when landing a small plane one constantly monitors the airspeed. The heavies have an AutoThrotle which controls engines to regulate speed. The pilots then just drive the plane onto the runway. There have been a few crashes where the semi-smart autothrotle has been set to the wrong mode, and the planes have lost speed an
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Junk the shitty outmoded 737 design. Ducttaping motors on it that are just to big for its stubby little legs makes it a deathtrap.
None show a trend? (Score:2)
A Boeing spokeswoman told the ABC, "none of the reports indicate a trend"
Sure, but maybe together they do?
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Agreed. Points never indicate a line, two points always indicate a line, but many points can indicate one or more useful lines.
SLS (Score:3)
What about SLS? When can we have an investigation into why the development of a fully reusable rocket launch system was laughed at and dismissed as impossible? When can we find out how Boeing got politicians to cancel DC-X over a landing gear failure after 8 successful reflights? When will we find out why VentureStar was forced into cancelation by badgering NASA to double down on composite tanks?
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The same reason why the US never developed rockets with multi stage combustion chambers and the Soviet Union did.
Too much separation between design, engineers, construction and management.
If management says "This might cost too much" and engineers say "This is possible it just takes time" and the design team says "We've never done this so it might take a lot of testing", who do you think is going to win?
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In the US? The company that's from the state the senator is from that makes the decision.
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And that certainly doesn't help! Porky McPorkface is a scourge.
They said (Score:3)
"Bigger engine is better they said."
"Just move the engine a bit they said."
"No need for a new design they said."
"We can make if fly 'ok' via software they said."
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"Bigger engine is better they said."
"Just move the engine a bit they said."
"No need for a new design they said."
I don't understand it either, it usually works great in Kerbal Space Program!
Re: They said (Score:2)
but bigger engine IS better . the problem was everything else you mentioned
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They would have been right, except they also said "don't bother designing proper redundant and fault tollerant control systems", and "don't bother training pilots on how the system works".
How does this compare? (Score:5, Insightful)
The source seems to be one investigation from ABC in Australia with no one questioning the data. It could simply be click-bait, or it could be a worthwhile investigation that we should all take seriously.
Re:How does this compare? (Score:5, Interesting)
Huh... I didn't think you were allowed to ask a reasonable question here... That's exactly the right question to ask when reading an article like the one cited. (no moderator points today, so I'll comment instead.)
Seems there are actually 2 sets of questions: (1) incident rates (per flying hour and per sortie) compared to other aircraft; (2) how connected is each incident (i.e. "same system failed" vs "failures randomly distributed across the aircraft systems" - don't forget the two fatal accidents and a couple other incidents were all with the same/related systems, MCAS and the associated Angle of Attack sensor .)
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I think there's an official taxonomy for these.
Re: How does this compare? (Score:5, Informative)
According to a friend of mine who is a pilot, the thing is that all planes will, worst case scenario (during a control failure), continue gliding. the Max will start "falling face down" because the engines are front-heavy.
the plane is also particularly finicky to correct for this (that's why a computer does it), so doing it manually is very difficult to the point of "practically impossible".
so "mid flight failures" can turn catastrophic much more easy on a Max.
IDK how much of this is accurate but that was his dumbed down explanation for me.
Re: How does this compare? (Score:5, Informative)
Your pilot friend is silly. The Max's aerodynamic problems involve the large engine cowlings producing too much lift and increasing pitch *up* at particular high angles of attack and speed. Except for that one corner of the flight envelope it flies just like any other 737. The point of the MCAS system was to make the behaviour in that one little area sufficiently 737-like so that any pilot qualified on a previous 737 was also qualified on the MAX with just some minor difference training.
The 737 Max doesn't "fall face down," nor is it in any way uncontrollable without computer assistance.
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Indeed.
But I think the big issue is the need for extensive training on a minor difference. An experienced pilot should need little more than a briefing, or perhaps a short session in a simulator. But the regulatory aspects appear to be to be so onerous that Boeing played stupid games.
So to a point, it was the safety regulation that caused the problem.
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I think the big issue is the need for extensive training on a minor difference.
Apparently not, since incidents continue to occur.
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The aviation industry, not just regulators, looks at new aircraft variants and determines what kind and how much training is necessary. The MAX probably would have required reading some manuals and spending a bit of time in a simulator for existing NG pilots, but Boeing seems to have wanted *zero* training.
For example, cross crew training for an A320-type pilot who wants to fly an A330 seems to be a theoretical course, three sim training sessions and a sim checkout session.
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the plane is also particularly finicky to correct for this (that's why a computer does it), so doing it manually is very difficult to the point of "practically impossible".
No, not practically impossible. Simply difficult for those people who haven't been type trained for this aircraft. And that is the core of the problem here. All these fancy computer interventions where there to make the plane feel like it is a different plane so you *don't* get training on how to fly it properly.
An American appropriate car analogy:
Most Americans can't drive stick. A computer controls gear changes for them. That doesn't mean driving stick is difficult or impossible, but it would be absolutel
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wish I had mod points now. The above is EXACTLY the right question. (and I don't have any idea of the answer)
So ... lemme get this straight (Score:2)
There is a plane that has already killed people. Now the company that made it said it's ok again. And you just believed them. And again there's problems. And only now you think you might want to take a closer look at it?
Care to inform me why the hell I should ever put a foot into a plane that passed "US safety inspections" again? Very obviously they are a joke.
Re: So ... lemme get this straight (Score:3)
Google Osprey.
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I see your Osprey and raise you a Starfighter [wikipedia.org].
But we're not talking military hardware here. That military equipment is operating at the edge of the possible is a given, and it has to give the pilot the option to operate it beyond specs due to the requirements of warfare. If the choice is to either have the plane possibly break apart because I abuse the airframe or get shot out of the sky, I absolutely DO want to have the option to operate the plane beyond the specifications, knowing fully well that it may c
Re: So ... lemme get this straight (Score:2)
'Cmon, one of 'em dropped into the Potomac with a congressman onboard.
They fail from fires, hydraulic leaks, flying through other aircrafts' turbulence, all kinds of stuff that's far from the edge of the performance envelope.
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'Cmon, one of 'em dropped into the Potomac with a congressman onboard.
That's what I like about you, you see a silver lining even in a tragedy.
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Dig deeper and you will find stories like this all throughout the aviation industry.
In many cases, issues are resolved and everyone goes on their merry way.
Take for example the Airbus A330 - a beautiful aircraft, with a long in-service life that most would consider a pretty safe one. It has had a few notable incidents (AF447 for example), but never has it been considered an unsafe aircraft.
Not many people know tho that it crashed during flight testing, killing all 7 crew on board. The issue was identified
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That's what test flights are here for. Yes, it shouldn't cost the life of test pilots, and I'm fairly sure it did make some waves, but we're talking about a test flight.
Concerning AF447, what I can gather from various sources is that it was due to pilot error, so how's that the plane's fault? If you ignore the stall warning for almost a minute, you should know you're asking for trouble.
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I never said AF447 was an airframe issue, please feel free to check my comment history here whenever anyone has tried to use it as an example against Airbus. But it is a fatal incident in the A330s history.
And test flights should *never* find a serious fault with an aircraft design - if its got that far, somethings gone wrong in the processes leading up to the test flight campaign.
But you miss the point of my comment - many aircraft people fly on every day have “killed people”, the MAX is not i
So what? (Score:2)
There are tons of mid-air emergencies every year for all sorts of passenger aircraft. Not clear if this is anything out of the ordinary. I would be more worried about the quality of maintenance being done by airlines as they get squeezed by pandemic, inflation, and ESG nonsense.
the "fix" here seems broken (Score:2)
A plane that decides to crash itself should be fixed by first removing most autonomic behaviors.
Why don't they just rip out all this autonomous pitch control in favor of stall warnings, a generous (manual) pitch trim range, and autopilot auto-disable if pitch trim is driven past a given limit?
Looks like they were right (Score:2)
blahabl (Score:2)
We don't need a small group of people telling companies that they can't pass unsafe things as safe!