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[CEO Dennis] Muilenburg said Boeing is making "steady progress" on a fix to the MCAS flight control system that's at the center of crash investigations in Ethiopia and Indonesia, but he stopped short of faulting the software's basic design.
"We've confirmed that it was designed for our standards, certified for our standards and we're confident in that process," he said. "It operated according to those design and certification standards. We haven't seen a technical slip or gap."
Preliminary reports from both crashes suggest that the MCAS system, which is designed to push the Max's nose down under certain flight conditions, was receiving erroneous data from faulty sensors. In both accidents, flight crews struggled unsuccessfully to take control as the airplanes continually dove just after takeoff.
In his remarks, Muilenburg said the incorrect data was a common link in a chain of events that led to both crashes. It's a link Boeing owns and that the software update will fix.
"[The update] will make the aircraft safer going forward," he said. "I'm confident with that change it will be one of the safest airplanes ever to fly."
Without elaborating Muilenburg also said that in some cases pilots did not "completely" follow the procedures that Boeing had outlined to prevent a crash in the case of a MCAS malfunction.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by The Shire on Tuesday April 30 2019, @04:58PM (6 children)
The accidents both happened with relatively unskilled pilots so that's what they will use to limit their liability, and it will work too.
For example, the Lion Air flight had a 29 year old "Captain" (the youngest and least experienced in their fleet) and a co pilot with only 200 hours of experience, and of course there was no flight engineer at all. That pilot spent much of the time looking through the flight manual for instructions on how to proceed. The prior flight had a properly seasoned pilot who encountered the exact same problem and was able to correct it. Pilot experience was a clear factor here.
That's not to defend the poor MCAS design. If you're going to have a software system that controls the flight characteristics of the aircraft you damn well better have it rely on more than just ONE sensor. Lockheed uses FOUR on their aircraft. Ideally MCAS should have simply sounded a stall warning and maybe a stick shaker and then let the pilot respond. If you only have one sensor, you need to trust the pilot more than the sensor. If four sensors say you are about to stall, then maybe you can tell the aircraft what to do.
Also, I don't understand why MCAS didn't take ground proximity into account. Why would you have a piece of software pitch the nose down when that clearly means impacting the surface.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Tuesday April 30 2019, @05:54PM (3 children)
Presumably you have also read the full article (yeah, I know, nobody reads the full article....), but this quote jumped out at me...
And you made the following point:
A major part of the sales pitch for the 737MAX was that any 737 pilot could fly it without needing extra training. A pilot is either qualified or he is not, and if he was qualified he should have been able to fly the plane. Even inexperienced pilots know that flying into the ground is not a good way to operate an aircraft. If the situation that he was presented with meant that it was outside the abilities of a qualified 737 pilot then Boeing should have provided the additional training required.
(Score: 2) by The Shire on Tuesday April 30 2019, @08:10PM (2 children)
I guess my point was that Boeing already knows they're boned on this one, they're just pitching limits to their own liability. They will point out that previous pilots encountered this bad sensor and handled it without trouble, but the inexperienced guy did not. They will then say this shows that experienced pilots required no additional training just as they originally claimed.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday May 01 2019, @06:52AM (1 child)
I agree, but surely that also implies that fully qualified yet inexperienced 737 pilots do need extra training. I suspect that Mullenburg might regret making that statement.
(Score: 2) by The Shire on Wednesday May 01 2019, @08:10PM
That's absolutely the case. I'm not trying to say they're shifting the blame, only that they are working to limit their liability. As a corporation, they would rather lose $2 billion than $10 billion and keep it in the courts as long as possible. It's like saving the bank interesting on billions of dollars. I'm sure they will argue partial liability, going back and forth on how culpable they are, and then argue that they put an adendum in the manual about it and that it's the passenger aircraft companies that didn't review and make note of it. It will go back and forth for years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 30 2019, @06:55PM
"Also, I don't understand why MCAS didn't take ground proximity into account." I am shocked that more people aren't asking this question. IMHO, altitude should be the number one determining factor as to what an aircraft should do AUTOMATICALLY. At the very least, the systems should never allow a jet to fall below 300 feet unless the pilot asks for it via manual control.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 30 2019, @08:02PM
If those certified pilots are not good enough to fly the Max then they'll need to recertify all pilots to fly the Max