Safety as a DLC; Two 737 MAX Airliners That Crashed Did Not Have Optional Safety Equipment

[Trixanity]

47 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

Read up on the Boeing Y1.

 

That’s the jetliner that’s going to replace the 737 range entirely. The MAX was never planned until American Airlines ordered a heap of the A320neos. Boeing was adamant that they were going to do a whole new airframe until the aforementioned order.

That reeks of a rushed product. No surprise that things would go overlooked.

[Yun4xGaming]

7 hours ago, ravenshrike said:

Except the MAX only comes with one AoA sensor as standard, not two.

Wrong. ANY 737MAX has 2 AOA Sensors, one for the Cpt the other one for the FO (FCC1 and FCC2) respectively, Heck even All of the 737NG's flying have 2 AOA sensors, there isnt a 737MAX/NG with 1 Aoa Sensor.

[D13H4RD]

37 minutes ago, Trixanity said:

That reeks of a rushed product. No surprise that things would go overlooked.

 It’s more on the failure of communication and such, tbh.

 

Still a lot of questions left unanswered 

[yian88]

Thats what happens when EA Games CEO leads Boeing ......

[Tech_Dreamer]

lol, read about this , it's like DLC Upgrade. very stupid. but i do blame the parent company not making sure the plane had this feature rather than saving some cash.

[CarlBar]

8 hours ago, porina said:

Would it be fair to say that safety isn't a fixed line to cross. Different choices will have different impacts in different areas. As new knowledge comes in, this can be refined and requirements tightened where necessary.

 

This, 99% of required safety features on anything you use from a dishwasher to a multi-million dollar aircraft are the result of unexpected tings happening and authorities realising there's an issue and regulating them into place.

 

7 hours ago, S w a t s o n said:

>designs plane that tends to stall due to it pitching upwards by itself (how is this even a risk if the planes can fly on a single engine?)

>instead of fixing design creates system to push nose down and alert pilots (doesnt tell pilots systems exists)

>charges money for alert system to tell pilots when the bandaid fix is actually causing problems

>planes fall out of sky because of the free "safety feature" that doesnt come with the warning system needed

 

how is this legal?

 

Look below.

 

2 hours ago, D13H4RD said:

There’s one question though.

 

There are hundreds of 737 MAX airframes out there. They’re obviously now grounded but they were flying. How did the ones who encountered a malfunctioning automated system managed to recover whilst the ill-fated flights didn’t? 

 

I have a feeling this is more than just an onboard flight envelope system going haywire.

 

They read their manuals. The first of these two crashes occurred because pilots aren't adequately briefed on how to cope with a malfunctioning MACS. But the procedures where in their SOP manual. The Airline just didn't emphasize that aspect of things much in training sessions. The aircraft that went down in the first accident actually had an identical problem on it's previous flight but the pilots where able to cope.

 

2 hours ago, S w a t s o n said:

Boeing designs much more complex things than a refit of an airframe that is decades old. I dont buy that the engineers COULDNT have designed the plane better. I do buy the management didnt want to spend the money on designing the plane to be better.

 

Your clearly clueless about aero/fluid dynamics. I don't have the depth of knowledge i'd like there but it's a sufficiently major area of interest for me that i've put a lot of effort into reading up on it over the years and quite small changes can produce large effects. In this case it's likely they couldn't fix the issues without so significantly redesigning the aircraft that they'd functionally be designing an all new one.

 

Bear in mind most large airliners have a lot of different automatic control systems designed to fly the plane through all kinds of complex situations. For that matter military aircraft have been using systems of a similar purpose for decades without issue in the overwhelming majority of cases. The F-16 was the first aircraft setup that way as a production model AFAIK. Having to rely at least partially on an automatic system to fly the plane if you don't have absolute grade A++~ flight crew is pretty normal. Thats why any major systems malfunction usually results in the flight diverting. The pilots might be able to cope but it's allways considered safer to get them down now in case more systems fail to the point the pilots can't cope.

[S w a t s o n]

1 minute ago, CarlBar said:

snip

Yo dawg, this is boeing not a paper airplane factory. They can extensively simulate and test this shit, they can send shit back to the drawing board if needed. Thank you for assumption of my knowledge of fluid dynamics as if that has literally anything to do with what I'm saying.

 

I dont see any evidence that other 737 MAX's had this problem and were able to recover. Even if they had maybe it was the additional systems they had to pay for. Or maybe it wasn't this specific issue.

 

Either way you're completely missing the point. Boeing knew this was a problem and used a bandaid to fix it and charged for the adhesive basically. What happens when the bandaid falls off?

[CarlBar]

4 minutes ago, S w a t s o n said:

Yo dawg, this is boeing not a paper airplane factory. They can extensively simulate and test this shit, they can send shit back to the drawing board if needed. Thank you for assumption of my knowledge of fluid dynamics as if that has literally anything to do with what I'm saying.

 

I dont see any evidence that other 737 MAX's had this problem and were able to recover. Even if they had maybe it was the additional systems they had to pay for. Or maybe it wasn't this specific issue.

 

Either way you're completely missing the point. Boeing knew this was a problem and used a bandaid to fix it and charged for the adhesive basically. What happens when the bandaid falls off?

 

At no point did i say boeing where unaware of the problem, the point i'm trying to make that your ignoring, (as you seem to anything in any argument that undermines your position), is that fixing it may and probably would require significant redesign work. Weather thats worth it or necessary is a complex calculation based on some of those factors i mentioned.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Air_Flight_610#Previous_flight_problems

 

Turns out it was a pilot on the ground that walked them through disabling.

 

As for what happens when the bandaid falls off. What almost allways happens when an automated flight control system malfunctions and the pilots are unable to disable it. The aircraft crashes. This isn't unique to the MACS system, most of the automated flight systems can and will cause this. The issue appears to be that unlike prior automatic systems no one adequately briefed the pilots on the necessary info to recognise and cope with a MACS problem.

[S w a t s o n]

14 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

 

At no point did i say boeing where unaware of the problem, the point i'm trying to make that your ignoring, (as you seem to anything in any argument that undermines your position), is that fixing it may and probably would require significant redesign work. Weather thats worth it or necessary is a complex calculation based on some of those factors i mentioned.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Air_Flight_610#Previous_flight_problems

 

Turns out it was a pilot on the ground that walked them through disabling.

 

As for what happens when the bandaid falls off. What almost allways happens when an automated flight control system malfunctions and the pilots are unable to disable it. The aircraft crashes. This isn't unique to the MACS system, most of the automated flight systems can and will cause this. The issue appears to be that unlike prior automatic systems no one adequately briefed the pilots on the necessary info to recognise and cope with a MACS problem.

what? I think you're projecting in that first paragraph my dude

 

Lets not "ignore" and go through your points:

 

WHO CARES IF IT REQUIRES ADDITIONAL DESIGN WORK???? That's literally my fucking point man. I dont give a fuck about boeing's reasoning, it's shit reasoning. When you build airplanes you do what you need to, to ensure the fucking things dont fly out of the sky. And yea boeing really fucked up by advertising these planes as flying like 737's and not preemptively informing flight crews.

 

The issue here appears to be them charging for a fucking warning system that their shitty engineering required. If they had engineered the plane properly the MCAS system would not be needed, there would be no need for the AOA indicator or disagree light and this would be a non fucking issue. Other automated systems have the warning systems in place, if they didn't planes would be falling out of skies just like this and it would be mandated to be added.

 

so lets try this again:

 

I dont give a flying fuck if boeing had to re-engineer the entire plane. They should have kept making and flying older 737's if they had to. They obviously knew the plane was poorly engineered because they had to implement the mcas system. Them charging for warnings that the mcas system is failing is unacceptable. Them charging for warning systems on other automated piloting systems would also be wrong, it's all wrong.

[justpoet]

4 minutes ago, S w a t s o n said:

The issue here appears to be them charging for a fucking warning system that their shitty engineering required. If they had engineered the plane properly the MACS system would not be needed, there would be no need for the AOA indicator or disagree light and this would be a non fucking issue. Other automated systems have the warning systems in place, if they didn't planes would be falling out of skies just like this and it would be mandated to be added.

 

so lets try this again:

 

I dont give a flying fuck if boeing had to re-engineer the entire plane. They should have kept making and flying older 737's if they had to. They obviously knew the plane was porrly engineering because they had to implement the macs system. Them charging for warnings that the macs system is failing is unacceptable. Them charging for warning systems on other automated piloting systems would also be wrong, it's all wrong.

 

You're…uninformed.  Let me try to help.

 

1) Most all planes have some form of flight correction software and sensor loop.  This is normal.

2) Most large planes have secondary systems or sensors, such as these also do, in case of a malfunction.

3) Sensors of most kinds are often flakey, especially around other equipment or when going through electrical events, such as clouds or storms.

4) Even with the disagreement light, that still wouldn't have changed what was going on.

5) Those options are not making it easier on techs, who get all that information and more from plugging in diagnostic equipment.

6) The plane documentation includes information about this system and how to handle it.

7) Most pilots know about various safety systems in various planes and both how to use and circumvent them when the need arises.

 

Now, for the unique bits:

1) The airline didn't point out the system to their pilots, nor the sections on how to deal with it if something went wrong.

2) The "intuitive" thing for a pilot to do will actually not compensate for this, as when the safety system is functioning properly the pilot action to correct the errant problem would actually cause what the system is designed to prevent (stall angle), so they NEED to have had the training.

3) The options discussed don't create more safety, they just provide more information among an already huge amount of information, for pilots to try and weed through to be quickly decisive.

 

Could the information have been more "in your face"?  Sure…but generally it shouldn't be…that would be like saying your computer is highly dependent on the voltage coming from the wall, so should always display power supply input voltage in the middle of your screen at all times.   While it is important, you generally trust that your UPS and the power supply itself will self regulate as they're designed to do.

 

Really…this is a sophisticated bit of technology.  Much like the Tesla driver assist, issues can crop up.  If you're going to be operating it, you need to fully understand the system and the ramifications of it…and that's when people using Teslas in autopilot while not paying attention to the road crash, and when issues like this happen because the airline didn't train the pilots on their newly purchased technology.  Ultimately, from the information provided thus far by the various investigations, this is really about trust in airlines to do the right things and look after everything and everybody they employ correctly…and these didn't…so we probably shouldn't trust them.

[S w a t s o n]

9 minutes ago, justpoet said:

sniparoo

You're making an ass of you and.... well just you.

 

1. Thanks I knew this

2. Thanks I knew this

3. That's a cool story bro, innovate to create more accurate sensors. Nothing is perfect but you can improve, doesnt change anything. This applies to all planes

4. Would have helped, also who the fuck makes a warning light optional?

5.Those options are not meant to make techs lives easier they are meant to save lives when the fucking system fails.

6. Yes the manual does in fact contain information, thanks for the tip. (aka knew this)

7. Most pilots do know about the safety systems, but in this case they didnt because people didnt tell them.

 

Now for the pointless bits

 

1. True, and boeing and the airlines both misrepresented this to the pilots

2. I didnt make any comment about compensating but yes they did need to be told and trained, thats a failing on boeing and the airlines

3. They create the ability for a pilot to figure out that shit's fucked. That's the entire point. An AoA indicator should be pretty useful information that a pilot can easily digest, I dont see the problem here

 

I would not compare this to fucking tesla autopilot. Not only is it a disparate comparison it just isnt logical. Any software can have bugs? In the case a driver crashes because they didnt pay attention that's pretty much on them. In this case it's not the pilot's fault or problem.

[justpoet]

2 minutes ago, S w a t s o n said:

You're making an ass of you and.... well just you.

 

3. That's a cool story bro, innovate to create more accurate sensors. Nothing is perfect but you can improve, doesnt change anything. This applies to all planes

Nice personal attack.

Just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean you don't use it to help when it makes sense to do so.  Innovation would never move forward in anything otherwise, and you'd still be feeding your horse to commute to work.

2 minutes ago, S w a t s o n said:

4. Would have helped, also who the fuck makes a warning light optional?

You're mistaking a disagreement light for a warning light.  It is pretty common for most sensors to not agree at various times for various reasons.

2 minutes ago, S w a t s o n said:

5.Those options are not meant to make techs lives easier they are meant to save lives when the fucking system fails.

Except, those really aren't.  They're simply designed to provide more information in an already highly dense information cluster, and many will opt for easier to read instrumentation that can make them more reactive to what they generally care about in the majority of cases, rather than more information that makes the average situation harder to find the info you want.

2 minutes ago, S w a t s o n said:

6. Yes the manual does in fact contain information, thanks for the tip. (aka knew this)

7. Most pilots do know about the safety systems, but in this case they didnt because people didnt tell them.

So…the pilots didn't do their jobs to know how to operate the equipment they were flying, nor were they sent through training about it.  That's where the real issue lies.

 

2 minutes ago, S w a t s o n said:

I would not compare this to fucking tesla autopilot. Not only is it a disparate comparison it just isnt logical. Any software can have bugs? In the case a driver crashes because they didnt pay attention that's pretty much on them. In this case it's not the pilot's fault or problem.

I'd call not knowing how to react, because they didn't RTFM, and crashing to death, pretty much exactly the same, their fault and problem, and "on them" in both cases.

[79wjd]

 

11 minutes ago, S w a t s o n said:

7. Most pilots do know about the safety systems, but in this case they didnt because people didnt tell them.

I'd like to meet the schmuck of a pilot that flies a 737 Max, hears about what happened to Lion air, hears that the prior flight also had the same problem (I.e. there is a workable solution) and didn't commit that solution to memory.

 

 

[S w a t s o n]

Just now, justpoet said:

Nice personal attack.

Just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean you don't use it to help when it makes sense to do so.  Innovation would never move forward in anything otherwise, and you'd still be feeding your horse to commute to work.

You're mistaking a disagreement light for a warning light.  It is pretty common for most sensors to not agree at various times for various reasons.

Except, those really aren't.  They're simply designed to provide more information in an already highly dense information cluster, and many will opt for easier to read instrumentation that can make them more reactive to what they generally care about in the majority of cases, rather than more information that makes the average situation harder to find the info you want.

So…the pilots didn't do their jobs to know how to operate the equipment they were flying, nor were they sent through training about it.  That's where the real issue lies.

 

I'd call not knowing how to react, because they didn't RTFM, and crashing to death, pretty much exactly the same, their fault and problem, and "on them" in both cases.

It's word play on the word "assume" and about as much of a personal attack as you calling me uninformed.

 

No one said not to use sensors???? Of course you use the fucking sensors

 

The disagreement light WARNS THEM of a DISAGREEMENT with the fucking AOA sensors that cause the FUCKING PLANE TO DIVE INTO THE GROUND. How is that not a warning light?

 

Except they are? They are literally designed to give the pilots information that would alert of them this ahead of time and avoid the crash thereby saving the lives without having to you know, ACTUALLY SAVE THEM FROM DEATH BY KAMIKAZE.

 

No the pilots did their jobs. Boeing told the airlines that the jets fly pretty much like older 737's and didnt require additional flight training and didnt really raise the issue of the MCAS systems. So neither did the airlines. They told the pilots it's all good to go and the pilots being reasonable humans believed them.

 

You dont read manual of a plane you've been told is just like any other 737 before take off. They do flight checks but it only seems to be in the actual manual, read above point again if you're confused about this. I can't imagine anyone thinking the pilots should be psychic, do you really think the crash is on them? Step away from the internet argument for a second and think about your arguments.

 

[S w a t s o n]

7 minutes ago, 79wjd said:

 

I'd like to meet the schmuck of a pilot that flies a 737 Max, hears about what happened to Lion air, hears that the prior flight also had the same problem (I.e. there is a workable solution) and didn't commit that solution to memory.

  

 

The solution was to dive bomb into the ground in the case of lion air? They may have heard about the crash but that doesnt mean they knew how to disable MCAS. Or that they even realised it was MCAS, remember they are flying a complex jet, it could be lots of shit. The WARNING system would have helped them figure out it was MCAS. They almost certainly would have needed someone to tell them exactly what to do, aka training.

[79wjd]

8 minutes ago, S w a t s o n said:

The solution was to dive bomb into the ground in the case of lion air? They may have heard about the crash but that doesnt mean they knew how to disable MCAS. Or that they even realised it was MCAS, remember they are flying a complex jet, it could be lots of shit. The WARNING system would have helped them figure out it was MCAS. They almost certainly would have needed someone to tell them exactly what to do, aka training.

The flight literally right before Lion air also documented running into the same problem, but they knew to disable MCAS and not just just try to unsuccessfully use the yoke. The first case is excusable as it's entirely different behavior from prior 737s, although clearly not impossible to figure out and be prepared for given that the flight right before Lion air managed.

 

After that news you either need to have a death wish or be an incompetent fool of a pilot to not commit it to memory.

 

On top of that if you fly a 737 Max and you encounter something that is oddly similar to something like the known MCAS issue, then it's a safe assumption to prepare for that eventuality. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck.

[S w a t s o n]

Just now, 79wjd said:

The flight literally right before Lion air also documented running into the same problem, but they knew to disable MCAS and not just just try to unsuccessfully use the yoke.

 

After that news you either need to have a death wish or be an incompetent fool of a pilot to not commit it to memory.

 

On top of that of you fly a 737 Max and you encounter something that is oddly similar to something like the known MCAS issue, then it's a safe assumption to prepare for that eventuality. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck.

The plane diving doesnt automatically mean it's MCAS, obviously lt it's on the short list but you dont just assume. Lots of problems can cause the plane to rapdily lose altitude or pitch downwards. It's not like the pilots knew how to disable MCAS just from hearing about the crash. It's probably multiple buttons in a certain order, something they would have had to been shown.

[79wjd]

 

Quote

It's not like the pilots knew how to disable MCAS just from hearing about the crash. It's probably multiple buttons in a certain order, something they would have had to been shown.

Yes, and if you don't put in the effort to commit that to memory you shouldn't be piloting a plane.

 

I run into a road that I know is prone to being dangerous to drive on in the winter when it snows; guess what, I learn routes to avoid that hill rather than just saying 'Fuck it, if I slide, I slide'.

[S w a t s o n]

Just now, 79wjd said:

 

Yes, and if you don't put in the effort to commit that to memory you shouldn't be piloting a plane.

 

I run into a road that I know is prone to being dangerous to drive on in the winter when it snows; guess what, I learn routes to avoid that hill rather than just saying 'fuck it's, if I slide, I slide.

If they arent shown it, they can't commit it to memory....

[79wjd]

Just now, S w a t s o n said:

If they arent shown it, they can't commit it to memory....

Because they can't look into the manual. Right, the pilots who successfully disabled it must have just guessed how to turn the system off.

[S w a t s o n]

Just now, 79wjd said:

Because they can't look into the manual. Right, the pilots who successfully disabled it must have just guessed how to turn the system off.

Or, they received the training they were supposed to? Plane manuals aint flyers, i'd guess closer to a phone book.

[79wjd]

12 minutes ago, S w a t s o n said:

Or, they received the training they were supposed to? Plane manuals aint flyers, i'd guess closer to a phone book.

No, it appears to be quite straight forward in the manual actually. https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/61480/what-are-the-checklist-items-for-a-runaway-stab-trim-on-a-b737-max-8-and-max-9

 

The biggest problem is that it's very different from previous 737s where just pulling on yoke would override everything whereas it no longer does.

[S w a t s o n]

7 minutes ago, 79wjd said:

No, it appears to be quite straight forward in the manual actually. https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/61480/what-are-the-checklist-items-for-a-runaway-stab-trim-on-a-b737-max-8-and-max-9

 

The biggest problem is that it's very different from previous 737s where just pulling on yoke would override everything whereas it no longer does.

Finding the pages on the internet doesn't mean the manual isn't a fucking phone book. That also is a special bulletin issued AFTER the lion air crash and may have not even been in the manual they had on hand, if they even had the entire manual with them.

 

Edit:I'm getting off track, I want to point out my main point was this is a bandaid to fix shit engineering. If the engineering had not been shit, none of this matters.

[79wjd]

Just now, S w a t s o n said:

Finding the pages on the internet doesn't mean the manual isn't a fucking phone book. That also is a special bulletin issued AFTER the lion air crash and may have not even been in the manual they had on hand, if they even had the entire manual with them.

Again, I don't fault the Lion air pilots. Could they have done things better? Obviously, given that the previous pilots did better. But it was an unexpected situation in a plane where pilots weren't properly trained. But AFTER Lion air, any competent pilot could have looked into the manual as there was certainly some mention of MCAS or they could do a tiny bit of research about a major and easily solvable catastrophic fault was discovered.

 

The FCOM is quite thorough and on the flight deck....for use by the flight crew as its name implies.

[S w a t s o n]

7 minutes ago, 79wjd said:

Again, I don't fault the Lion air pilots. Could they have done things better? Obviously, given that the previous pilots did better. But it was an unexpected situation in a plane where pilots weren't properly trained. But AFTER Lion air, any competent pilot could have looked into the manual as there was certainly some mention of MCAS or they could do a tiny bit of research about a major and easily solvable catastrophic fault was discovered.

 

The FCOM is quite thorough and on the flight deck....for use by the flight crew as its name implies.

Yea, it's not up to the pilots to ensure their employer trains them correctly. In Canada, if you tried that you get laughed at. The employer provides the training, if they have not provided it, it's their fault full stop. They could have read the manual, maybe they even did. Or maybe the guys flying the plane don't come home after work and want to flip through a phone book of a plane manual of their own volition. I guarantee you most pilots did not go out of their way to do what you are saying.

 

At the end of the day, if Boeing just made a plane that didnt pitch upwards by itself and cause a stall danger they wouldnt need to implement a bandaid fix (and charge extra to even receive the WHOLE bandaid) which then leads to this. The real solution is to avoid the possibility of any human error when possible.