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posted by chromas on Tuesday April 30 2019, @11:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-not-my-fault dept.

[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.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Tuesday April 30 2019, @05:54PM (3 children)

    by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 30 2019, @05:54PM (#836782) Journal

    Presumably you have also read the full article (yeah, I know, nobody reads the full article....), but this quote jumped out at me...

    Also Tuesday, Boeing responded in a statement to an April 29 Wall Street Journal Report report that said a safety feature designed to alert flight crews to a faulty sensor was not operating on some Max planes that had been delivered to airlines.

    "The alert was intended to be a standard, stand-alone feature on MAX airplanes," the statement said. "However, the disagree alert was not operable on all airplanes because the feature was not activated as intended."

    And you made the following point:

    The accidents both happened with relatively unskilled pilots

    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.

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  • (Score: 2) by The Shire on Tuesday April 30 2019, @08:10PM (2 children)

    by The Shire (5824) on Tuesday April 30 2019, @08:10PM (#836861)

    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)

      by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 01 2019, @06:52AM (#837109) Journal

      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

        by The Shire (5824) on Wednesday May 01 2019, @08:10PM (#837516)

        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.