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Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max crashes killing 157


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5 minutes ago, Hagbard Celine said:

The difference is, the Lion Air and Ethiopian crashes, the pilots couldn't and/or didn't know how to turn off their cruise control.  And in an airplane, you can't turn the car off and pull over.  In an airplane you have to know that 1) you have a cruise control, 2) you need to know how to turn it off, 3) you have to know how to drive the car, rather than expect it to drive itself.

That said, 24 hours ago I didn't know Boeing had not "told" "everyone" about the MCAS and it appears they "did not".

Apparently there's a $9.95 subscription rate.

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8 hours ago, PilotsError said:

 

 

Oh go fuck yourself you sack of shit.  This IS regulation, and it failed.  The idea that free market capitalism doesn't care about quality control is so fucking stupid it could only come from you.  We're the most regulated nation of earth.  You can't even cut hair without a fucking permit.  And yet...government supervision continues to fail.  Weird.

Go fuck your mother.

Well, I would, but the last time I dug her up and fucked her, I got a nasty infection on my prepuce.  I guess we’ll all just have to jerk off at the thought instead.

Boeing shit the bed even worse than you shit this thread.  All problems being kicked around are downstream from the fact they cut corners for fiscal reasons multiple times and the FAA let them.  Had they not done so, there would be no single points of failure that slipped through the cracks.  No context where a lack of training or pilot error comes into play.  This is egregious corporate greed run amok coupled with regulation failure that resulted in the death of hundreds.  I don’t give a rats ass if you don’t like to hear the fucking truth.

Edited by Goredho
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1 hour ago, hayden_horn said:

Dude, i really appreciate your perspective on this thread, even if, as a layman, it seems like a massive design failure. Your comparing it to other design failures does not move the meter for me, but i get it. My car has design failures that i deal with every day. But this seems different. 

The example above of your cruise control accelerating every time you hit the brake resonates. "All you gotta do is toggle off the cruise control..." Except sometimes people panic and that is an unnecessary design fault. 

Can you comment on the correction amplifying every time the pilot tried to correct?

Couple of things:

People don’t have a set of rules to follow, rules they must memorize and are tested on, to act upon when driving a car. To make the cruise control comparison apt the average driver would have to know to disconnect the cruise control immediately if it fouled up. They would then have to show knowledge of this through memory and or practical application in a car simulator twice a year at the DMV. 

 

As for the problem amplifying itself, and this is my understanding since I don’t fly the 737 Max, the MCAS nose down input can be stopped by trimming against it with the toggle on the yoke. Think of trimming much like adjusting the motor on a boat up and down so that it planes out nicely. The proper way to trim an airplane is to put the nose where you want it, hold it there, and then apply trim until it stays where you are holding it until the control pressure is relieved. It sounds like the Lion Air crew didn’t do this. Actually, it sounds like the Ethiopian crew didn’t either if the jack screw was found fully nose down. 

If the crew only stopped the nose down input with opposite trim, and then failed to retrim to hands off pressure free level flight then the problem would be exacerbated because MCAS would start all over again trimming down from the new nose down stab position where the crew has stopped it. So the nose up back pressure in the yoke would be greater after each occurrence until the pilots could no longer over come it. 

If you hit the stab disconnect switches you then have the ability to manually trim the plane with the large trim wheels on the center pedestal. Even the Airbus has these. 

Edited by Bobby_Batronic
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So, just finished talking with a friend at SWA....

Apparently the runaway stab procedure is no longer a Memory Item. The procedure is still on the Quick Reference Card. 

Sooo, both crews may not have had the knowledge to turn the stab cutout switches off. There’s only something like 4-5 procedures on that card so you’d like to think someone gave it a once over, but the institutional/tribal knowledge of an airline operating on type of airplane for years, and what to do in some situations may not have existed. On this I stand very much corrected. 

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I think it’s possible and that nose down pitch forces required to avoid a stall are greater without MCAS. Boeing is trying to make the Max fly as much like an NG as possible. 
That's correct.

Once this calms down in the press and the lawyers get paid the software patch and training bulletins will go out. I don't know how long this grounding will be, but MAX will be back because the thing sips fuel and will print money.
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2 minutes ago, DaysOff said:

That's correct.

Once this calms down in the press and the lawyers get paid the software patch and training bulletins will go out. I don't know how long this grounding will be, but MAX will be back because the thing sips fuel and will print money.

Is the stab cutout procedure still a Memory Item at your operation?

 

 

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So, just finished talking with a friend at SWA....
Apparently the runaway stab procedure is no longer a Memory Item. The procedure is still on the Quick Reference Card. 
Sooo, both crews may not have had the knowledge to turn the stab cutout switches off. There’s only something like 4-5 procedures on that card so you’d like to think someone gave it a once over, but the institutional/tribal knowledge of an airline operating on type of airplane for years, and what to do in some situations may not have existed. On this I stand very much corrected. 
It was a memory item when I was first typed. Then it went away. As of yesterday it's back for us.

Memory item or not the runaway stab trim procedures for Boeings has been the same for decades. MCAS installed or not it fixes your problem.
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Just now, DaysOff said:

It was a memory item when I was first typed. Then it went away. As of yesterday it's back for us.

Memory item or not the runaway stab trim procedures for Boeings has been the same for decades. MCAS installed or not it fixes your problem.

That’s very much my stance, and it was a Memory Item when I was typed. Nose keeps pointing down then turn of thing that points nose down. 

I suspect it will be back for everyone in short order. 

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The FAA delegating their responsibilities to Boeing sounds like a wonderful idea.  

Quote

The FAA, citing lack of funding and resources, has over the years delegated increasing authority to Boeing to take on more of the work of certifying the safety of its own airplanes.

Early on in certification of the 737 MAX, the FAA safety engineering team divided up the technical assessments that would be delegated to Boeing versus those they considered more critical and would be retained within the FAA.

But several FAA technical experts said in interviews that as certification proceeded, managers prodded them to speed the process. Development of the MAX was lagging nine months behind the rival Airbus A320neo. Time was of the essence for Boeing.

A former FAA safety engineer who was directly involved in certifying the MAX said that halfway through the certification process, “we were asked by management to re-evaluate what would be delegated. Management thought we had retained too much at the FAA.”

“There was constant pressure to re-evaluate our initial decisions,” the former engineer said. “And even after we had reassessed it … there was continued discussion by management about delegating even more items down to the Boeing Company.”

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/failed-certification-faa-missed-safety-issues-in-the-737-max-system-implicated-in-the-lion-air-crash/

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12 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

This is a chart evidencing that regulation has worked to reduce accidents. Not the opposite. 

The complaints about FAA ceding regulatory power to Boeing began in the W administration.  So whatever is being done seems to be making commercial air travel in the USA much safer.

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8 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

The complaints about FAA ceding regulatory power to Boeing began in the W administration.  So whatever is being done seems to be making commercial air travel in the USA much safer.

So... you see the same trend line across multiple decades and come to this conclusion how?

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1 hour ago, Dahobbs said:

So... you see the same trend line across multiple decades and come to this conclusion how?

Regulation bad.  Business good!  Business loves us and would never betray us!  Trust the business, they will always protect us, even when no one is looking!

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4 hours ago, Johnny Sack said:

The complaints about FAA ceding regulatory power to Boeing began in the W administration.  So whatever is being done seems to be making commercial air travel in the USA much safer.

Maybe they're not flying as many Boeing products now.

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Doesn't really matter if Boeing was doing a world-class job policing themselves if they screwed up with the 737 Max.  With planes, it's not good enough to be right 99.99%. or whatever percentage.

If Boeing is allowing carriers to allow bad pilots in the air, then Boeing was shortsighted. Boeing is being hurt more financially than everyone else.

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Quote

The first concrete evidence of a possible link between two deadly Boeing 737 MAX crashes came from space.

A new satellite network capable of tracking planes in high fidelity across the globe captured the flight path of the Boeing Co. 737 MAX that crashed Sunday. The data was critical in persuading the U.S. to join the rest of the world in grounding the jet, according to industry and regulatory officials.

  

The erratic, six-minute flight of the Ethiopian Airlines plane convinced the Federal Aviation Administration that it was close enough to what preceded the Oct. 29 crash of another MAX off the coast of Indonesia to warrant concern.

After reviewing the data “it became clear — to all parties, actually — that the track of the Ethiopian Airlines flight was very close and behaved very similarly to the Lion Air flight,” agency Acting Administrator Daniel Elwell said Wednesday.

Canada’s Transport Minister Marc Garneau also cited satellite tracking on Wednesday as the reason his country joined more than 50 other nations in grounding the 737 MAX models.

The data was provided by Aireon LLC, which was formed in 2012 by Iridium Communications Inc. and Nav Canada, a nonprofit company that guides air traffic in Canada. After years of development and the launches of 66 satellites into orbit, Aireon will introduce a new commercial flight-tracking service in coming weeks.

The company shared the information with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration, as well as “several European aviation authorities and various African aviation authorities,” said Jessie Hillenbrand, an Aireon spokeswoman.

Elwell said that initial tracks of the plane available immediately after the accident by a separate company with a ground station in Ethiopia weren’t consistent with how aircraft fly and weren’t credible. However, when agency experts reviewed a refined track provided by Aireon, it raised concerns.

  
The Lion Air plane experienced more than two dozen sharp dips shortly after takeoff. Indonesian investigators said in a preliminary report that the plane was automatically commanded to dive because software known as Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, thought the plane was in danger of losing lift on the wings.

Aerodynamic Stall

Boeing had added the MCAS as protection against an aerodynamic stall. However, in the case of the Lion Air flight, a malfunctioning sensor signaled that the plane was in danger when it wasn’t and it commanded unnecessary dives.

Rather than switching off the motor triggering the dives — a procedure pilots on all models of the 737 are taught to memorize — the Lion Air crew continued counteracting it with their controls until it dove into the sea.

While Elwell and Canada’s Garneau didn’t detail the Ethiopian plane’s flight path, it apparently made the same highly unusual descents followed by climbs. Normally, a jet climbs steadily after takeoff.

“It certainly puts a magnifying glass on the MCAS system,” said Peter Goelz, a former managing director at the NTSB who is now senior vice president at O’Neill & Associates, a Washington lobbying and public relations firm. “There’s an implication that there were two similar accidents and that it likely involved the interaction of the MCAS system with the flight of the aircraft.”

Kevin Durkin, an aviation lawyer, said the connection could be important in any court cases. If Boeing knew of a defect in the 737 MAX fleet, the plane manufacturer could face extra damages in lawsuits. The company’s knowledge might be demonstrated by its statements that it was making software changes after the Lion Air crash, he said.

“If you have a defective product and it turns out Boeing knew about it, this could easily expose them to punitive damages,” said Durkin, a partner at Clifford Law Offices in Chicago. The standard is whether the company engaged in conduct with a “conscious indifference to the safety of others,” he said.

Boeing has said that following longstanding procedures should prevent accidents involving MCAS failures.

On Wednesday, the Chicago-based manufacturer issued a statement saying it still has “full confidence” in the plane.

“We are supporting this proactive step out of an abundance of caution,” Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg said in the statement, referring to the FAA action. “We are doing everything we can to understand the cause of the accidents in partnership with the investigators, deploy safety enhancements and help ensure this does not happen again.”

Elwell cautioned that there is still no definitive evidence suggesting that the two accidents are related.

The Indonesian accident investigation isn’t complete. In addition to MCAS, the preliminary report cited repeated maintenance failures and pilot performance issues. For example, the Lion Air plane suffered the same MCAS malfunction on a previous flight but it wasn’t repaired.

The Ethiopian pilots had received notice about MCAS and additional training suggested by Boeing after the Lion Air accident, Tewolde Gebre Mariam, chief executive of Ethiopian Airlines told reporters in a broadcast on state-controlled ETV.

The tracking of aircraft from space was made possible by technology designed to move away from traditional radar tracking as the U.S., Europe and other regions introduce more modern technology to their air-traffic systems. By the end of 2020, most aircraft in the U.S. will have to be equipped with devices that use GPS to calculate a plane’s position and then broadcast that and other information about the flight.

The U.S. invested more than $1 billion in building a network of ground stations that track the signals as it attempts to move to the tracking technology, known as Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast or ADS-B. That network is operated by Harris Corp., which is also a partner with Aireon.

The same data transmissions reach space only a small fraction of a second after the ground antennas and it’s what Aireon relied on to track the Ethiopian Airlines flight. A ground station operated by tracking firm FlightRadar24 captured only data from the first two minutes of the flight before the plane went out of range.

Aireon has agreements to sell its data to countries including Canada and the U.K. to track flights over the ocean, where ground-based radar doesn’t reach and planes must be kept far apart.

In addition to helping air-traffic agencies monitor flights over oceans and in countries without radar, Aireon has said the data may also assist accident investigations and help locate aircraft that crash in remote areas.

It took about two years to find an Air France plane that went down in the Atlantic in 2009, but Aireon’s data would have limited the search area to a mile or less.

“We now have a global picture of all aircraft,” Don Thoma, Aireon’s chief executive officer, said in an interview last month. “It’s finally real. It’s finally here.”

–With assistance from Ryan Beene and Janan Hanna
 

Maybe not a whole lot of new information for this thread.

https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2019/03/14/520598.htm

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19 hours ago, El Diablo said:

Maybe they're not flying as many Boeing products now.

The Boeing takeover and phase out of McDonnell Douglas lines as well as the rise of Airbus probably have something to do with it.  The A320 variants have a lower crash rate than the 737 variants, but both are historically safe.  We've come a long way since the DC10, MD11, and MD80 were falling out of our skies.  Although the MD80 isn't/wasn't so bad for its day.

Edited by FondrenRoad
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The Boeing takeover and phase out of McDonnell Douglas lines as well as the rise of Airbus probably have something to do with it.  The A320 variants have a lower crash rate than the 737 variants, but both are historically safe.  We've come a long way since the DC10, MD11, and MD80 were falling out of our skies.  Although the MD80 isn't/wasn't so bad for its day.


There is a pertinent similarity between the 737 and MD-11. Both are stretched out versions of the originals. And it appears (thus far) that both have vastly inferior safety records than their predecessors.


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On 3/18/2019 at 9:07 AM, Dahobbs said:

This is a chart evidencing that regulation has worked to reduce accidents. Not the opposite. 

A big part of it is more automation. For example, Sully’s airbus kept him from stalling while going down in the Hudson by maxing out his inputs with constant analyzation of the sensory information of the plane. These systems have made flying safer except for when pilots become overwhelmed or confused by what’s going on which is much more rare than the problems we saw before autopilot and automations.

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5 minutes ago, Pasken said:

A big part of it is more automation. For example, Sully’s airbus kept him from stalling while going down in the Hudson by maxing out his inputs with constant analyzation of the sensory information of the plane. These systems have made flying safer except for when pilots become overwhelmed or confused by what’s going on which is much more rare than the problems we saw before autopilot and automations.

I honestly haven’t read the entire Hudson account, but the Airbus displays “green dot” on the speed tape which equates to L/Dmax. That’s the best speed trade off between lift and drag or best gliding speed. Any deviation from that speed would decrease gliding performance. 

He could have held full aft stick and the plane theoretically wouldn’t have stalled based on its programming logic. I bet he pitched  for green for speed. Also, Airbus has a Ditch PB that closes various valves to help keep the plane afloat in a water landing. 

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37 minutes ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

I honestly haven’t read the entire Hudson account, but the Airbus displays “green dot” on the speed tape which equates to L/Dmax. That’s the best speed trade off between lift and drag or best gliding speed. Any deviation from that speed would decrease gliding performance. 

He could have held full aft stick and the plane theoretically wouldn’t have stalled based on its programming logic. I bet he pitched  for green for speed. Also, Airbus has a Ditch PB that closes various valves to help keep the plane afloat in a Non Tilt-A-Whirl water landing. 

FIFY

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From the LA Times article above

 

Quote

"After this horrific Lion Air accident, you’d think that everyone flying this airplane would know that’s how you turn this off,” said Steve Wallace, the former director of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s accident investigation branch.

The combination of factors required to bring down a plane in these circumstances suggests other issues may also have occurred in the Ethiopia crash, said Jeffrey Guzzetti, who also directed accident investigations at FAA and is now a consultant.

“It’s simply implausible that this MCAS deficiency by itself can down a modern jetliner with a trained crew,” Guzzetti said.

 

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I honestly haven’t read the entire Hudson account, but the Airbus displays “green dot” on the speed tape which equates to L/Dmax. That’s the best speed trade off between lift and drag or best gliding speed. Any deviation from that speed would decrease gliding performance. 
He could have held full aft stick and the plane theoretically wouldn’t have stalled based on its programming logic. I bet he pitched  for green for speed. Also, Airbus has a Ditch PB that closes various valves to help keep the plane afloat in a water landing. 


From what I’d read, they didn’t get to use the ditch button...however his decision to start the APU seems to have massively contributed to saving the day by pressurizing hydraulics, keeping all the panels lit and avoided direct law.
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The APU would have powered the blue hydraulics which could also have been powered by the RAT. The RAT would also pressurize the blue system. Also, the yellow electric pump could have pressurized the yellow system and and green system via the PTU, but I don’t know if he did any of that. 

Direct Law isn’t so bad. It’s just touchy. Mechanical backup would be hinky. That’s pitch by trim wheel and steer with the rudders time. 

Edited by Bobby_Batronic
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The APU would have powered the blue hydraulics which could also have been powered by the RAT. The RAT would also pressurize the blue system. Also, the yellow electric pump could have pressurized the yellow system and and green system via the PTU, but I don’t know if he did any of that. 

Direct Law isn’t so bad. It’s just touchy. Mechanical backup would be hinky. That’s pitch by trim wheel and steer with the rudders time. 

 

Do you guys get any simulated RAT time? I’ve wondered if the control feel would be wonky as IAS wound down, and the blades spun slower.

 

Also the thought of the dog barking the whole way down to the Hudson cracks me up for some reason, it seems about 1/3 of the time I’m on one there’s either a laugh or a question if everything is ok when one engine is running and the PTU is working.

 

Of course I’m about to get on a Cathay Dragon A321 back to HKG, so will see if the Thai notice. After that my wife and I will board my favorite of them all, 77W back to LA in the comforts of Cathay J...so it’s gonna be a good evening regardless of the PTU scaring people. Love me some GE-90 howling.

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If a ride along pilot has to save a flight from crashing because the pilots don’t know what to do, shouldn’t that trigger a worry that other pilots may also not cognizant or clear on the problem and action to take?  Or would that info stay quiet as to not embarrass or get those pilots grounded/fired?

and it wouldn’t be the first industry that has a culture of silence. 

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How has it taken 5 months for the story to get reported about a ride along pilot saving the same flight the day before.
That would seem like very relevant information - if it is some good old boy network thing, you'd think when it happened the next day someone, crew or passenger would have spoken up and said same shit happened just yesterday.
I get that the cockpit occupants might not want to come forward, but nobody. And if It happened those 2 days in a row, someone should be interviewing all the crews around the globe, and looking at the satellite data that caused the FAA to finally realize Ethiopian Airlines flight path was so close to Lion Air, like nobody looked at any of this data before to see if there were other problems. I find it hard to believe that these 3 flights are the only ones who've run into a MCAS issue.

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5 hours ago, Homercles said:

Do you guys get any simulated RAT time? I’ve wondered if the control feel would be wonky as IAS wound down, and the blades spun slower.

The RAT provided sufficient hydraulic power down to 100knots. VMCL is 109, 114 and 116 respectively in the three Airbus variants I fly. So it shouldn’t be a problem. But no, I haven’t had any RAT sim time. That may change in the future with the extra EET sim time giving other opportunities to train. 

I always laugh at the PTU doing the pneumatic torque wrench routine at the gate and wonder if that was an unintended consequence of the design. Still haven’t been on a 773. 

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2 hours ago, XYZ said:

So what this off-duty pilot told the crew was the “runaway stab trim yada yada” procedure that Bobby_Batronic mentioned several times?

That and probably the other ways to counter the system as well as consequences of letting it run again. 

4 hours ago, RPM said:

Don't think the ditch button would have made much difference once someone opened the aft door.

It would make a difference in liability. 

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3 hours ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

The RAT provided sufficient hydraulic power down to 100knots. VMCL is 109, 114 and 116 respectively in the three Airbus variants I fly. So it shouldn’t be a problem. But no, I haven’t had any RAT sim time. That may change in the future with the extra EET sim time giving other opportunities to train. 

I always laugh at the PTU doing the pneumatic torque wrench routine at the gate and wonder if that was an unintended consequence of the design. Still haven’t been on a 773. 

 

9 hours ago, Homercles said:

 

Do you guys get any simulated RAT time? I’ve wondered if the control feel would be wonky as IAS wound down, and the blades spun slower.

Also the thought of the dog barking the whole way down to the Hudson cracks me up for some reason, it seems about 1/3 of the time I’m on one there’s either a laugh or a question if everything is ok when one engine is running and the PTU is working.

 

10 hours ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

The APU would have powered the blue hydraulics which could also have been powered by the RAT. The RAT would also pressurize the blue system. Also, the yellow electric pump could have pressurized the yellow system and and green system via the PTU, but I don’t know if he did any of that. 

Direct Law isn’t so bad. It’s just touchy. Mechanical backup would be hinky. That’s pitch by trim wheel and steer with the rudders time. 

Jesus. What the fuck are you dorks talking about?

 

 

j/k but I had to google all of the above, rep incoming.

 

 

 

 

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News today said Lion air had been purchasing "3rd party" (used?) replacement parts from an outfit in a desert boneyard.

No mention if that had anything to do with this sensor/crash, but that sounds pretty sketch for maintaining such a new airframe.

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On 3/19/2019 at 8:55 AM, FondrenRoad said:

The Boeing takeover and phase out of McDonnell Douglas lines as well as the rise of Airbus probably have something to do with it.  The A320 variants have a lower crash rate than the 737 variants, but both are historically safe.  We've come a long way since the DC10, MD11, and MD80 were falling out of our skies.  Although the MD80 isn't/wasn't so bad for its day.

If a DC10 is good enough for Xenu, it's good enough for me.

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Btw, the reason the Airbus “barks” at the gate is that the Power Transfer Unit is trying to keep green and yellow hydraulic pressure up, and uses the higher pressure system to charge the lower system anytime the difference exceeds 500 psi. 

With regard to trim, RATS etc...

There are pressure sensors in the overhead panel that will unlock the flight deck door if they sense a loss of pressurization. You can trick them by blowing on them and unlock the door. It’s a favorite trick to show newbie FA’s, and most think you are trying to fool them. I showed one and she was delighted, but then went out loudly telling the two FA’s guarding the door (and any passenger in earshot) that the pilot showed her the trick to blow on the thingy....

Oops. 

Edited by Bobby_Batronic
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