Plane Engines and the 737 MAX 8 Accidents

[taemo]

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Falling asleep is my superpower. I can fall asleep anywhere very quickly.

with your username and superpower, this must be your spirit animal

[Xtrema]

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Regarding the 2 737 Max incidents, given that they were both with garbage airlines, and the first one was clearly the fault of the airline, I don't expect anything different to come to light with this latest one. A bunch of reputable airlines including West Jet and Air Canada have been flying the MAX for a while now with no such problems and I doubt that's a coincidence.

Nobody know about MCAS on 737 Max 8 before the Lion Air incident. It could have be anyone flying this.

https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-s...em-mcas-jt610/

Now everyone should have been briefed about it, it should be safer but than Ethiopian incident happened.

So now the question is if there is any fundamental flaws because of lack of training or bad MCAS, if both incidents concluded to have the same cause.


These are not old planes maintained poorly. And the Chinese finished 737 Max 8 from Zhoushan didn't even roll out until Dec 2018 and only the Chinese domestic purchases anyway. So neither of these were even touched by Chinese factory.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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Nobody know about MCAS on 737 Max 8 before the Lion Air incident. It could have be anyone flying this.

https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-s...em-mcas-jt610/

Now everyone should have been briefed about it, it should be safer but than Ethiopian incident happened.

So now the question is if there is any fundamental flaws because of lack of training or bad MCAS, if both incidents concluded to have the same cause.


These are not old planes maintained poorly. And the Chinese finished 737 Max 8 from Zhoushan didn't even roll out until Dec 2018 and only the Chinese domestic purchases anyway. So neither of these were even touched by Chinese factory.

Not understanding the aircraft you're flying's new features or inquiring about the existence of new features is incredibly negligent IMO. It doesn't get any more basic than what essentially amounts to "RTFM". The Lion Air plane also had previous issues that weren't properly addressed from what I've read.

Airlines like American, Southwest, AC, WJ, etc. don't seem to be having any of these problems with dozens of the same aircraft.

[max_boost]

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Falling asleep is my superpower. I can fall asleep anywhere very quickly.

You're my hero.

If there's one ability I want, that's the one.

[95EagleAWD]

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Not understanding the aircraft you're flying's new features or inquiring about the existence of new features is incredibly negligent IMO. It doesn't get any more basic than what essentially amounts to "RTFM". The Lion Air plane also had previous issues that weren't properly addressed from what I've read.

Airlines like American, Southwest, AC, WJ, etc. don't seem to be having any of these problems with dozens of the same aircraft.

Pilots are given the training by their airlines, and the MCAS wasn't in the type rating training, or in the FCOM provided by Boeing. What exactly are the pilots supposed to do about it?

[Mitsu3000gt]

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Pilots are given the training by their airlines, and the MCAS wasn't in the type rating training, or in the FCOM provided by Boeing. What exactly are the pilots supposed to do about it?

Should these airlines not be asking Boeing what additional features the MAX has vs the outgoing aircraft and passing that along to staff? That seems like the absolute bare minimum they should be doing specifically in case anything is missed in documentation. Like I said earlier, more reputable airlines don't seem to be having any problems with the feature.

Nobody said it's the pilot's fault. If they are being assured by their employer that they have been 100% briefed on any new features, and they weren't, that is more on the airline.

[rage2]

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Not understanding the aircraft you're flying's new features or inquiring about the existence of new features is incredibly negligent IMO. It doesn't get any more basic than what essentially amounts to "RTFM". The Lion Air plane also had previous issues that weren't properly addressed from what I've read.

Airlines like American, Southwest, AC, WJ, etc. don't seem to be having any of these problems with dozens of the same aircraft.

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Pilots are given the training by their airlines, and the MCAS wasn't in the type rating training, or in the FCOM provided by Boeing. What exactly are the pilots supposed to do about it?

To be fair it's a bit of finger pointing. Airlines have said that it's Boeing that decided to exclude mention of MCAS in the manual, because Boeing felt that it's unnecessary information since it never activates unless it's in a high stall situation where it's helping pilots correct the situation. Pretty poor excuse if true.

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Should these airlines not be asking Boeing what additional features the MAX has vs the outgoing aircraft and passing that along to staff? That seems like the absolute bare minimum they should be doing specifically in case anything is missed in documentation. Like I said earlier, more reputable airlines don't seem to be having any problems with the feature.

Luck of the draw. The weird thing is that the situation has happened before, and pilots were able to mitigate the problem even without the training or documentation by flying manually. The Lion Air flight suffered the same problem on the previous flight, and the pilots mitigated it, reported it. Maintenance believe they fixed the problem by replacing sensors, and next flight crew didn't know how to handle it and crashed.

But yea, based on what we know so far, I wouldn't be surprised if it could've happened to any airline with a pilot that doesn't handle stressful situations well.

[Misterman]

It's actually kind of scary how many pilots either can't recognize, or don't know how to respond to a stall. From what I understand, the physics of flight like air speed and lift, are day one sort of stuff for learning to be a pilot. How could anyone even just interested in flight not have some type of grasp on that subject? Yet, failure to correct a stall seems like the number 1 cause of a crash any time I watch That Mayday show on Discovery.

Ironic that that show is always on the seat back TV any time I get on a WestJet flight it seems.

[rage2]

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It's actually kind of scary how many pilots either can't recognize, or don't know how to respond to a stall. From what I understand, the physics of flight like air speed and lift, are day one sort of stuff for learning to be a pilot. How could anyone even just interested in flight not have some type of grasp on that subject? Yet, failure to correct a stall seems like the number 1 cause of a crash any time I watch That Mayday show on Discovery.

Ironic that that show is always on the seat back TV any time I get on a WestJet flight it seems.

This isn't a stall (at least what we know with Lion Air). This is the plane thinking it's a stall due to bad data, and auto recovering by forcibly going nose down. Basically, you're taking off, MCAS decides it's stalling even when it's not, and nose dives into the ground trying to recover from a non existent stall.

From a pilots perspective, plane is gaining altitude during take off, and then suddenly and inexplicably just pitches down under it's own control even with autopilot off. Pulling back on the stick doesn't disable MCAS, which is probably a pretty big design flaw right there.

[95EagleAWD]

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Should these airlines not be asking Boeing what additional features the MAX has vs the outgoing aircraft and passing that along to staff? That seems like the absolute bare minimum they should be doing specifically in case anything is missed in documentation. Like I said earlier, more reputable airlines don't seem to be having any problems with the feature.

Nobody said it's the pilot's fault. If they are being assured by their employer that they have been 100% briefed on any new features, and they weren't, that is more on the airline.

I get what you’re sayin but.... no? I mean, do you call the factory every time you buy a new car? No. You assume everything is in the manuals, and if you need them, the technical manuals. The same is true of airplanes. It should all be in there, ESPECIALLY a system that is a) new, and b) can obviously profoundly affect the operation of the aircraft.

More reputable airlines haven’t.... yet. It’s been winter here in North America, we’re not exactly dealing with turbulence and heat, and all that garbage in the summer.

Obviously, this needs to be added to the manuals, and pilots trained accordingly, which they have been at both WJ and AC.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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I get what you’re sayin but.... no? I mean, do you call the factory every time you buy a new car? No. You assume everything is in the manuals, and if you need them, the technical manuals. The same is true of airplanes. It should all be in there, ESPECIALLY a system that is a) new, and b) can obviously profoundly affect the operation of the aircraft.

More reputable airlines haven’t.... yet. It’s been winter here in North America, we’re not exactly dealing with turbulence and heat, and all that garbage in the summer.

Obviously, this needs to be added to the manuals, and pilots trained accordingly, which they have been at both WJ and AC.

I agree Boeing should have probably done more to spread the word and most of the time it is probably reasonable to assume Boeing's documents capture everything. However I also think there is a much higher standard of responsibility when it comes to a plane vs something like a car. I don't know of any car features that would not be listed in the manual, could unexpectedly activate, and block the driver from intervening subsequently killing 100+ people. In light of the Lion Air event, is there now a kill switch or something for this 'feature'?

[BerserkerCatSplat]

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I agree Boeing should have probably done more to spread the word and most of the time it is probably reasonable to assume Boeing's documents capture everything. However I also think there is a much higher standard of responsibility when it comes to a plane vs something like a car. I don't know of any car features that would not be listed in the manual, could unexpectedly activate, and block the driver from intervening subsequently killing 100+ people. In light of the Lion Air event, is there now a kill switch or something for this 'feature'?

The problem is that the MAX was sold to the airlines by Boeing under the auspices of not needing to retrain their pilots - the financial advantages of introducing a new plane to the fleet that doesn't require a pilot retraining regimen is huge and was a major sales advantage for the MAX. This is arguably why Boeing was so cagey with the details about MCAS - if they start telling airlines there's a new software layer and it makes the plane behave differently than the old 737, the airlines might conclude retraining is actually necessary after all and there goes a competitive advantage.

Yes, there is switch that kills MCAS. The auto-trim kill switch has been in the 737 for quite some time. However, it wasn't commonly used, as grabbing the stick would also override auto-trim, and most pilots found that a more natural way of dealing with trim runaway. The MAX removed that function, leaving the rarely-used kill switch as the only way to disable MCAS - so a pilot used to just grabbing the stick to disable auto-trim would instead find themselves fighting the MCAS. As I understand it, this was not something that was common knowledge when the planes were sold/delivered.

[Tik-Tok]

As Boeing said after the initial crash though. It's on the checklist. If there's something on the checklist a pilot doesn't know/understand, then he hasn't had enough training for it and someone should be raising the question... "Wtf does this switch do?"

[killramos]

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The problem is that the MAX was sold to the airlines by Boeing under the auspices of not needing to retrain their pilots - the financial advantages of introducing a new plane to the fleet that doesn't require a pilot retraining regimen is huge and was a major sales advantage for the MAX. This is arguably why Boeing was so cagey with the details about MCAS - if they start telling airlines there's a new software layer and it makes the plane behave differently than the old 737, the airlines might conclude retraining is actually necessary after all and there goes a competitive advantage.

Yes, there is switch that kills MCAS. The auto-trim kill switch has been in the 737 for quite some time. However, it wasn't commonly used, as grabbing the stick would also override auto-trim, and most pilots found that a more natural way of dealing with trim runaway. The MAX removed that function, leaving the rarely-used kill switch as the only way to disable MCAS - so a pilot used to just grabbing the stick to disable auto-trim would instead find themselves fighting the MCAS. As I understand it, this was not something that was common knowledge when the planes were sold/delivered.

Great explanation

[95EagleAWD]

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As Boeing said after the initial crash though. It's on the checklist. If there's something on the checklist a pilot doesn't know/understand, then he hasn't had enough training for it and someone should be raising the question... "Wtf does this switch do?"

They know what the switches do. The training never covered the fact that they’re now also used to override this system as well.

[rage2]

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Great explanation

Yup. Long story short, all signs points to Boeing.

Also, there's supposedly 2 switches that kill MCAS. The auto trim that BCS mentioned, and the stabilizer trim. The fact that nobody even knew stabilizer trim did this as well until well after the crash is a pretty big red flag.

[revelations]

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The problem is that the MAX was sold to the airlines by Boeing under the auspices of not needing to retrain their pilots - the financial advantages of introducing a new plane to the fleet that doesn't require a pilot retraining regimen is huge and was a major sales advantage for the MAX. This is arguably why Boeing was so cagey with the details about MCAS - if they start telling airlines there's a new software layer and it makes the plane behave differently than the old 737, the airlines might conclude retraining is actually necessary after all and there goes a competitive advantage.

Yes, there is switch that kills MCAS. The auto-trim kill switch has been in the 737 for quite some time. However, it wasn't commonly used, as grabbing the stick would also override auto-trim, and most pilots found that a more natural way of dealing with trim runaway. The MAX removed that function, leaving the rarely-used kill switch as the only way to disable MCAS - so a pilot used to just grabbing the stick to disable auto-trim would instead find themselves fighting the MCAS. As I understand it, this was not something that was common knowledge when the planes were sold/delivered.

Absolutely the case. Its sad that airplanes have to crash before something actually gets done - tombstone engineering - and not just a Boeing thing as well.

Profits before lives is the name of the game in the industry, at a corporate-level.

[Tik-Tok]

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They know what the switches do. The training never covered the fact that they’re now also used to override this system as well.

But if it's on a checklist, why are pilots ignoring it?

[Mitsu3000gt]

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Yes, there is switch that kills MCAS. The auto-trim kill switch has been in the 737 for quite some time. However, it wasn't commonly used, as grabbing the stick would also override auto-trim, and most pilots found that a more natural way of dealing with trim runaway. The MAX removed that function, leaving the rarely-used kill switch as the only way to disable MCAS - so a pilot used to just grabbing the stick to disable auto-trim would instead find themselves fighting the MCAS. As I understand it, this was not something that was common knowledge when the planes were sold/delivered.

If a kill switch for this scenario was also on previous 737's (Auto Trim), that makes it a lot worse IMHO because they should have known that was an option if just grabbing the controls didn't work like they may have been used to.

I get that it's easy for me to criticize something like this, but at the same time these people are professionals in charge of hundreds of lives - if they don't know how to operate the plane they are flying, they should not be allowed to fly commercially.

[Tik-Tok]

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I get that it's easy for me to criticize something like this, but at the same time these people are professionals in charge of hundreds of lives - if they don't know how to operate the plane they are flying, they should not be allowed to fly commercially.

The thing is that Boeings customers wanted a newer larger capacity aircraft with way better fuel efficiency, but still conformed to the 737 design so they wouldn't have to pay extra for training etc. Boeing delivered that. The problem as mentioned was the CofG was extremely different. So all these pilots that have been flying 737's for the past decade, are TOO comfortable with the aircraft and expect it to fly exactly the same and their experience and "muscle memory" kick in, and fight the MCAS instead of turning it offf.