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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, Interesting) by bob_super on Tuesday April 30 2019, @07:05PM (2 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday April 30 2019, @07:05PM (#836823)

    The lack of input redundancy was a criminal oversight, especially when there are two sensors available ...

    But the override can be explained easily: The plane was supposed to silently hide the dynamic flight characteristics changes caused by putting the bigger, more forward, engines. "The pilot should get no costly training or certification, because the plane behaves the same, see?" If you properly diagnose a problem, and shake the stick in response, a highly experienced old-737 pilot will wonder why the plane is not behaving as expected in a familiar situation, braking the "training-free" concept. So you don't, and just nudge the controls to make it seem like the old behavior.
    At least, that's the decision Boeing appears to have made.

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  • (Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday May 01 2019, @07:11AM (1 child)

    by driverless (4770) on Wednesday May 01 2019, @07:11AM (#837118)

    The lack of input redundancy was a criminal oversight

    It wasn't a criminal oversight, as Boeing have pointed out it was available as an optional, paid-for extra. I hope this teaches all the other airlines a lesson and they'll now cough up the dough to Boeing to pay for that optional extra.

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @08:45AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @08:45AM (#837144)

      Nope. The optional, paid-for extra was only an indicator light that showed if the two AoA sensors reported different data. It did not suddenly feed two sensor streams into the MCAS system.