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U.S. Grounds Boeing Planes, After Days of Pressure
After days of mounting pressure, the United States grounded Boeing's 737 Max aircraft on Wednesday, reversing an earlier decision in which American regulators said the planes could keep flying after a deadly crash in Ethiopia.
The decision, announced by President Trump, followed determinations by safety regulators in some 42 countries to ban flights by the jets, which are now grounded worldwide. Pilots, flight attendants, consumers and politicians from both major parties had been agitating for the planes to be grounded in the United States. Despite the clamor, the Federal Aviation Administration had been resolute, saying on Tuesday that it had seen "no systemic performance issues" that would prompt it to halt flights of the jet.
That changed Wednesday when, in relatively quick succession, Canadian and American aviation authorities said they were grounding the planes after newly available satellite-tracking data suggested similarities between Sunday's crash in Ethiopia and one involving a Boeing 737 Max 8 in Indonesia in October.
Previously: Second 737 MAX8 Airplane Crash Reinforces Speculation on Flying System Problems
Related: Boeing 737 MAX 8 Could Enable $69 Trans-Atlantic Flights
(Score: 2) by physicsmajor on Thursday March 14 2019, @06:54AM (21 children)
All I seem to be able to find is that some control system changed, but I'd like to know more. Is the design changed significantly, but they failed to update the autopilot? Any pilots around here or aviation enthusiasts with more info?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2019, @07:10AM (11 children)
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday March 14 2019, @07:30AM
There have been other crashes where autopilots were "on" and thought to be off, or off when thought to be on, or something inbetween.
https://www.wired.com/story/boeing-737-max-8-ethiopia-crash-faa-software-fix-lion-air/ [wired.com]
A software fix could be enough.
separately, pilots have been comolaining the aircraft checklists are awful.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 5, Informative) by bob_super on Thursday March 14 2019, @07:34AM (3 children)
MCAS was added because the bigger engines had to be put higher and far forward, changing the plane's behavior slightly.
MCAS is extra SW supposed to make it seamless for a regular 737 pilot.
But they didn't document it (before the first crash).
And they seem to be a lack of redundancy (preliminary result from the first crash, faulty AoA sensor blamed).
And it may override pilot orders unless explicitly disabled (change in behavior).
At this point, everyone has heard about it, so every 737 pilot should have checked how to disable it if it misbehaves.
The MCAS software update after the first crash prelim report got delayed by the FAA shutdown.
BUT this is all speculation until the black boxes are thoroughly checked, and there might be another failure mode than the AoA sensor and MCAS. It just happens that symptoms seem to be similar.
At already over 300 bodies, the safe answer is to err on the side of caution, even if 2 crashes in over 40000 flights means it's not epidemic.
After the 787 batteries, one would have thought Boeing would have been careful to be spotless on the next plane and new features, but apparently there was a ... problem.
(Score: 5, Informative) by isostatic on Thursday March 14 2019, @09:39AM (1 child)
At this point, everyone has heard about it, so every 737 pilot should have checked how to disable it if it misbehaves.
That was after Lionair. Every 737 pilot knew about lionair, yet a major airline still had a crash. Until it's proven that the crash wasn't caused by the same problem it makes perfect sense to ground the planes.
At already over 300 bodies, the safe answer is to err on the side of caution, even if 2 crashes in over 40000 flights means it's not epidemic.
There are 687 A320neos, they've been flying since 2016. No crashes.
There are 376 737-maxes, been flying since 2017, two crashes, the first one attributed to a feature of the new plane, the second with a very similar flight profile.
On a terms of fatalities per mile, the 737-max has flown less than 1 billion miles since introduction (average age about 12 months, say 5 flights a day at 1000 miles a flight is 2 million miles per plane, 350 planes delivered is 700m miles), and had 346 deaths in two separate instances, at least 189 deaths related to the new design
So 737-max fatalities per billion mile are in the 300-500 range.
By comparison general airline fatalities per mile are int he region of 0.03-0.05 range.
A 737-max is 10,000 times more dangerous than a normal plane. Only the de Havilland Comet, back in the 50s, had such a terrible start.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2019, @05:41PM
I was going to retort to you to compare against car driving, but apparently there is an average of about 12 fatalities per billion miles traveled [wikipedia.org].
So this really is worse than I had taken it for. (Not listed are the maimings and other life-changing effects of car accidents.)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday March 14 2019, @12:07PM
Software... agile mantra: release early, release often.
Translation: let the user's be your QA, you'll fix the bugs within the boundaries of your (evershrinking) budget.
Nothing wrong with that, right? After all, it does increase the profits.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2019, @07:35AM (5 children)
That is bad enough, but when a Real Estate developer from New York City claims to know enough about flight systems to issue a no-fly rule? Donald! You are a moron! And this only makes it more apparent to everyone! And you have caved to public pressure! So where is the Medicare for All, eh? Big guy? Make me an offer you cannot refuse!
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday March 14 2019, @09:23AM (4 children)
Every country on the planet had grounded these planes until the reason for this latest crash can be found out.
The FAA and Beoing should have done so within an hour of the last crash.
It could be the investigation finds that it was a meteorite that crashed through the plane, it could be that they find the pilots had fallen asleep, it could be that it was the same cause as LionAir and the modifications that SouthWest have had are all that's needed.
Until then a plane that's 500 times more dangerous than other similar planes in the 737 and a320 category was still flying, but only in the U.S.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2019, @12:10PM
The country where profit is king and the populace is cheap.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2019, @12:50PM
Where are you getting this number? It at most has a crash rate 10x higher, but crash rates seem to drop as the plane gets more flights (crashes are more likely early on): https://i.ibb.co/bBVhF0Z/planecrash.png [i.ibb.co]
It could be all thes other planes had such "kinks" to be worked out when they had only 500k flights.
(Score: 2) by physicsmajor on Thursday March 14 2019, @09:14PM (1 child)
The FAA grounded them. Trump announced it, he didn't really make the call. Stop.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday March 15 2019, @07:39AM
That’s not the order of events, but I didn’t mention trump at all.
The order of events were countries from singapore to austrailia to France to Uk to Canada had grounded them, but the faa was still saying they were fine.
Then the faa finally changed their mind days after the second crash of a brand new plane in 6 months. Something that statistically was highly unlikely to happen without the cause of the two crashes being linked, and the first crash already blamed on the new plane.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2019, @07:35AM (7 children)
The engines are much larger for efficiency (similar power) and far forward to make them fit on a plane is stuck with short landing gear for compatibility. At some angles, the outside of the engines generates a surprising amount of lift.
Airlines want to avoid pilot training. For legal reasons, this requires that the plane act just like the old 737. As a bonus, lots of stuff is grandfathered in from older standards.
That life throws everything off. Being so far forward, it can cause the nose to pitch up. This is particularly worrisome right near a stall because it means that pitching the aircraft upward becomes easier the more upward it goes. That is, there is positive feedback for the angle of attack.
Well, that won't do. It would prevent certification. Boeing decides to compensate with software. Teaching all the pilots about this isn't really an option, because if they need to know about the feature then the plane obviously isn't acting just like any old 737.
The system tips the stabilizer. That is the whole horizontal tail piece, not just the movable part that is normally used to fly the plane. (using a jackscrew, while the other part is done with cables)
The pilot can override this by adjusting a manual trim wheel, but that only lasts 5 seconds before the automatic system goes back to messing with things.
The automatic system is only hooked up to a single device (despite the aircraft having two) to measure the plane's angle of attack. If that is defective, as it very often does due to being an external moving part like a wind vane, the automatic system gets bad data and then makes bad adjustments.
Thus, people die.
Southwest deserves to keep flying. They had special training and they had some extra equipment installed to alert the pilots when the measurement equipment was malfunctioning.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2019, @08:04AM (4 children)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2019, @08:22AM (3 children)
With MCAS off, there isn't much extra chance of a stall. The positive feedback does mean that you have to be a little careful, perhaps, and that this is different from an old 737. As you pitch up (purposely) on an old 737, you'd need to apply more and more force. As you do likewise on the new 737, you find that it suddenly gets easier. Well, don't just shove the controls and expect resistance to not weaken. That isn't so hard to learn. Granted, it would be best to practice this in a simulator, but any pilot should be able to manage the oddity.
Flying manually without MCAS is not any more trouble than that. This isn't a B2 or F117. It's just a passenger jet with some positive feedback to catch you off guard if you aren't expecting it.
With or without MCAS, the whole problem is fixable with pilot education. Trouble is, that would mean the airplane doesn't count as a 737 for regulatory purposes. It wouldn't be grandfathered in, and airlines would not be able to toss a random ordinary 737 pilot in the cockpit. Boeing is going to try really hard to keep this aircraft as just another 737, using patched software and avoiding any extra training requirement.
Despite the certification as just another 737, Southwest decided to have special training and to add a warning for inconsistent sensor readings. Those pilots should still be able to fly those planes.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PocketSizeSUn on Thursday March 14 2019, @02:36PM (2 children)
Sounds like reckless disregard for customers, pilots and passengers.
That is good to know. When the training is mandatory and the pending 'fixes' are applied then maybe flying a MAX that isn't being flown by southwest pilots would be safe. As it is Boeing needs to be held accountable and perhaps the FAA and other regulatory bodies should be considering how to fix the hole in the regulations that allowed Boeing to pass off the (very bad) redesign as just the same 'ol plane.
The actions of Boeing have been reckless as the consequences had to have been understood, otherwise why would Southwest have decide to have special training for the MAX?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2019, @03:08PM
The extra training that Southwest uses will not be mandatory. Boeing will really fight that because it would break certification. That would make airlines much less interested in buying the aircraft. Nearly the whole point of this awful design is to avoid needing to train pilots.
The other trouble is that the grandfathered certification would be lost. Extra requirements would then be added, such as triple-redundant sensors, jacking up the cost of the aircraft. If that happens, Boeing might as well just design a totally new aircraft.
(Score: 2) by mrchew1982 on Thursday March 14 2019, @11:47PM
Boeing is hurting bad right now... Lockheed got the contract for the next military airplane, SpaceX is murdering them in the rocket launch business, they almost lost the airtanker bid to BAE for bribery, Airbus is nipping at their heels for passenger jets, China really wants to start making their own passenger jets, etc.
At this point I think Boeing needs a major shake up at the top, maybe even splitting all of those different branches mentioned above into separate companies.
(Score: 2) by eravnrekaree on Thursday March 14 2019, @06:53PM (1 child)
Thanks for the insights. I dont want to set foot on one of these things now knowing the whole thing counts on one sensor. Why not have more redundancy with many different sensors and a voting system to go with the majority and also could generate warnings in the cockpit and possibly allow for a fast manual takeover.
I am also glad to hear about Southwest and the attention to such things such as treating their passengers like human beings is one reason people choose that airline. Definitely my favorite airline.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Thursday March 14 2019, @07:49PM
That alone should have Boeing execs in prison. I've never heard of anything as fucking crazy as that, in a multi-million dollar plane. Zero excuses here. NASA has been operating for over 50 years, and they sure as fuck learned the value of redundant systems, THE HARD WAY. This is cost cutting by Boeing so that execufucks can have more cocaine and hookers.
THREE sensors. THREE sensors are the minimum. I'm developing tech that administrates and monitors networks and our mantra is simple; No Single Point Of Failure. Our systems are not directly and intimately involved in the safety of human lives either. It's so that uptime can consistently be four 9's. The value of three data inputs is also the fact you can apply error correction codes. If there were three sensors, and two sensors agreed on one thing, and the last was faulty giving bad data, there would not have been a crash and lives would have been saved.
This is why we should rise up and kill every executive. They treat us like disposable cattle when they make the decision to have only one sensor. I'll bet you anything you want that the Boeing engineers were against a single sensor, but an executive overrode the decision.
Boeing no longer deserves our trust. This isn't the same company, or the same corporate culture, that existed in WW II. They clearly have a corporate culture infected by avarice and a complete disregard for the value of human life.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 5, Informative) by RedBear on Thursday March 14 2019, @11:07AM
You may want to check a channel on YouTube called Mentour Pilot, where an actual commercial airline pilot explains many things about airplanes. He did a very thorough video on the issue a few months ago, related to the findings after the LionAir crash. Search for "mentour pilot mcas".
Or just clicky the linky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfQW0upkVus [youtube.com]
Basically a part of the autopilot system in the 737 MAX can take over and run the plane straight down into the ground if it gets faulty data from an air speed or Angle of Attack sensor that leads it to think the plane is about to stall. There seems to be a dangerous lack of redundancy for the system that will cause it to just keep trying to force the nose of the plane downward more and more as long as it believes there is a danger of a stall. A faulty sensor means the system will end up sending the plane straight down or even flipping the whole plane over forward. I wonder how many pilots could recover from that at 1500 feet?
The pilots need to know this system (MCAS) exists and how to disable it immediately, because even both pilots pulling back on the stick together can't physically overpower the system if they don't disable it. It's mechanically augmented to be more powerful than the pilot input. That's probably the ultimate reason for the fatal results. The pilots can't just fight with a misbehaving system for 15 minutes while they try to figure out what's wrong, they literally have to immediately understand what is happening within a minute or so (depending on height above ground) before everyone is dead.
It's implied that the MCAS behavior was poorly documented by Boeing prior to the LionAir crash, but since the FAA results came out a few months ago every pilot on Earth should have known about the MCAS, when it might kick in, and how to disable it.
Needless to say I was dumbfounded by the apparent stupidity of the design and implementation of this system after I watched this video.
All details I've heard of the new incident so far are very similar to what happened to the LionAir flight. The fact that it happened again even though the pilots should have been perfectly aware of how to prevent the issue is very scary, and it's embarrassing that the US took so long to finally ground all 737 MAX planes while the cause is being confirmed.
I can't vouch for the usefulness of the following content yet because I've just started watching it, but here is a cached livestream video from yesterday (also on the Mentour Pilot channel) dedicated to the current 737 MAX situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJwUk5HH4KI [youtube.com]
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¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ