SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Lion Air Flight 610, which took off from Indonesia on Oct. 29, should have never left the runway. On its previous flight, the aircraft gave incorrect speed and altitude readings.
But it's unclear whether the pilots were even aware that the plane had been malfunctioning. They took off at 6:20 a.m.
They immediately received the first signal that something was wrong: The control column started shaking loudly, warning that the plane was in danger of stalling and could crash.
The plane kept climbing, but the pilots could not figure out the correct altitude or airspeed, asking air traffic control for help. And two critical sensors registered different readings between the pilot and co-pilot.
Then the plane dropped over 700 feet, furthering the confusion inside the cockpit. "An aircraft dipping after takeoff is not normal. It's beyond abnormal. It's unacceptable," said Dennis Tajer, a pilot and spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association.
Something alarming had happened: The aircraft's computer system had forced the plane's nose down. The pilots recovered from the drop, but air traffic control noted they were "experiencing a flight control problem."
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 27 2018, @10:15PM (8 children)
I am a licensed pilot. I have ( as a hobby ) studied air crashes for many years. My interest in crashes comes from a strong desire to see what can be learned which may prevent similar events in the future.
.
Like so many other bad "accidents", this one could have been prevented at a number of points along the way to the unfortunate conclusion. The word "accident" is in quotes because this crash was in no way an accident. It was instead the result of a bunch of poor decisions, any of which could have been decided differently and in so doing the crash could have been avoided.
.
I blame Boeing for its lack of proper training for crews who would fly the 737 Max using the MCAS system. I blame the pilots for accepting the aircraft despite the angle-of-attack instrumentation having been flagged as not working properly.
.
The final blame MUST be on the pilots, who could have disabled the autopilot system and for some reason choose not to do so. That failure to disable the autopilot sealed their fate. A lack of knowledge about the behavior of the MCAS system need not have prevented the crew from disabling the system and FLYING the plane by hand like an old-school pilot could do. To be blunt, the pilots ALLOWED the plane to kill them and everyone else on board.
.
The pilot and copilot bear the final responsibility for the safety of any flight. Sadly, there are a lot of pilots out there who are not really very good pilots, and there is no way to know whether your flight will be commanded by such pilots or not, unless you own or rent a plane and fly it yourself.
.
Boeing should pay dearly for their failure to include important info on the MCAS in their training materials. Of course the air crew of the Lion Air flight already paid dearly. Unfortunately everyone else on the aircraft also paid dearly.
The more you know about flying, the more you realize that it's miraculous that there are not more tragic events than there are.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 27 2018, @11:01PM (2 children)
I am not a commercial pilot, but AFAIK training is pretty much programming the pilots to make decisions according to what checklist, computers and company policy tells them to do. To what degree would they have been empowered to disable the autopilot, if it was not yet a sure thing that the unit was faulty?
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Friday December 28 2018, @01:46PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @04:03PM
You are correct. You are not a commercial pilot, or I doubt any kind of pilot.
Training, as it is with all true professions, must be geared to provide the knowledge to be able to operate in independent command when necessary. Pilots are required to understand not just what button does what but what principles keep a plane in flight and how each system contributes to doing that. Checklists can very much help with making sure all procedures are followed in a given situation. Their use can be mandated by policy. But the law (at least US regulatory law) is very clear: A pilot-in-command is always individually responsible at all times for the operation of an aircraft, and in an emergency a pilot may break any rule or procedure necessary to continue an aircraft in flight. The pilot is absolutely empowered to disable an autopilot if they suspect it is faulty if the pilot deems it necessary for the safe operation of the aircraft. And the pilot is expected to have the knowledge as to when such circumstances are required.
Would that pilot face consequences if a rule was broken when the safety of the aircraft was not at stake, or if the pilot misreads a situation such that there really wasn't an emergency? Sure. That's what being a professional is: You are always held responsible for the decisions you make, and you are required to make the correct decisions.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MostCynical on Friday December 28 2018, @12:01AM
If some of the primary flight instruments were not working, the pilots of the prior flight should have logged the problem.
The ground engineers should have indicated that thes instruments were tested and passed or failed.
The pilots of the flight that crashed should ntnhave taken off.
However, most airports do not have ground engineers any more (it is cheaper to put all your enginieering at one airport, which may,or may not, be the airline's hub)
So: no ground engineer, no testing, possibly no logging of the fault in the first place (the logs were probably on the plane)
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @12:58AM
The MCAS system activates when autopilot is OFF. Here is the link [theaircurrent.com]. The pilots should have enabled the autopilot - but the airplane was too unstable for them to do so, and they did not know that MCAS exists. Boeing omitted this system from training manuals.
The article also says that pilots could disable MCAS by trim switches on the yoke - but only for five seconds, after which the problem reappears. To disable it for good one must disable electronic control of trim and manually crank the wheel to the desired setting. As you can see, these are extremely uncommon actions, and without training pilots couldn't know what to do.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday December 28 2018, @02:47AM (1 child)
One among several competing theories is that the autopilot failed while the entire flight crew was asleep.
This is SOP among US Air Force, to all go to sleep at the same time with the autopilot in control.
By contrast, aboard Naval vessels someone _always_ stands watch.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday December 28 2018, @02:55AM
I've heard about a lot of ships crashing into tankers and shit lately, a lot more than I hear about planes crashing. This is not the fault of operating procedure but allowing women to serve as deck officers. Women can barely drive automobiles, and now you want to let them drive ships?
Ironically, planes are one of the few things that women are good at operating. Perhaps because they're airheads.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @08:26PM
Why? Why should the pilots be blamed so much if it's Boeing who added a new feature and changed the behavior of some stuff and didn't inform the pilots about it or how to workaround things if the new stuff goes wrong.
And why are you even modded informative? Disabling the autopilot does not disable the MCAS: https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/opinion-pilots-need-answers-on-737-max-safety-syste-453716/ [flightglobal.com]
This is not small slow mechanicals-only controls plane. This is a mostly computer controlled plane.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/pilots-say-they-were-in-the-dark-about-boeings-737-max-safety-update/2018/11/28/10b2da14-f339-11e8-aeea-b85fd44449f5_story.html [washingtonpost.com]
Maybe some Boeing pilots were informed of the new feature, but plenty of other Boeing pilots have claimed they weren't informed and they aren't happy about it.
When you're flying at 450mph at 5000 feet and the plane nose dives you don't actually have that much time before it hits the ground.
5000 feet / 150mph = 22 seconds. You don't have the luxury of hours to figure out which undocumented workaround to an undocumented feature that's failing works.
One common approach is to prioritize keeping the plane airborne (and higher) then troubleshoot. You can't do much troubleshooting if you hit the ground first.
But when trying to pull the plane up doesn't work reliably, you could start turning stuff off and/or you might assume wrongly (since Boeing didn't tell you) that it's still a normal 737 and a confounding issue is the manual override isn't working so well and you need to pull harder to get it to work reliably.
So would average pilots not knowing about the MCAS feature have been able to have saved the plane? Because if Boeing has started making planes that only top pilots can fly safely perhaps more people should actually resort to flying on Scarebuses...