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Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max crashes killing 157


Nueces River Rat

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2 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

Dang. Sure does seem like you work for Boeing or something. First its the pilots fault the shitty designed plan crashed into the ground, twice, now its the unions just applying pressure during contract negotiations? Boeing management should hire you to be their spokesman.  

And I can’t believe I’m agreeing with onboard here. 

There may be hope for you yet. I doubt it, but miracles happen.

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7 minutes ago, El Diablo said:

My limited understanding is that they needed to flip a switch and fly the plane themselves. I may have oversimplified that.

Reduce thrust, flip a switch, turn a wheel, fly the plane. Something like that.

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2 hours ago, JimmyJames said:

Dang. Sure does seem like you work for Boeing or something. First its the pilots fault the shitty designed plane crashed into the ground, twice, now its the unions just applying pressure during contract negotiations? Boeing management should hire you to be their spokesman.  

And I can’t believe I’m agreeing with onboard here. 

 It’s a big world out there, and you’re not overly acquainted with it. 

Unionized groups claiming products are unsafe during negotiations is an age old tactic. Why, the SWA mechanics union just used it a few months ago. 

You go back and find where I defended Boeing at any point. Particularly once it was clear they let a single sourced system have flight control input on the plane.  I’ll wait. 

Oh, and the pilots crashed the shit out of both of those planes.  I know you don’t understand that because you’ve adequately demonstrated it several times in this thread. 

Edited by Bobby_Batronic
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19 minutes ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

 It’s a big world out there, and you’re not overly acquainted with it. 

Unionized groups claiming products are unsafe during negotiations is an age old tactic. Why, the SWA mechanics union just used it a few months ago. 

You go back and find where I defended Boeing at any point. Particularly once it was clear they let a single sourced system have flight control input on the plane.  I’ll wait. 

Oh, and the pilots crashed the shit out of both of those planes.  I know you don’t understand that because you’ve adequately demonstrated it several times in this thread. 

I’ll just ignore your first childish insult.

Didnt know pilots could read the minds and motivations of employees complaining about safety to always be about union negotiations. Where does that skill come from? Flight school?

Blaming the pilots is by definition defending Boeing and its shitty design. Something you do in every single post. You only assigned a modicum of blame to Boeing after it became absolutely indisputable. 

And there you just did it again, blaming the pilots yet again, and adding yet another childish insult. 

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46 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

I’ll just ignore your first childish insult.

Didnt know pilots could read the minds and motivations of employees complaining about safety to always be about union negotiations. Where does that skill come from? Flight school?

Blaming the pilots is by definition defending Boeing and its shitty design. Something you do in every single post. You only assigned a modicum of blame to Boeing after it became absolutely indisputable. 

And there you just did it again, blaming the pilots yet again, and adding yet another childish insult. 

Childish insult?  You mean where you accused me of defending Boeing or working for them just because you once again demonstrated that you don’t even begin to grasp that it’s not one bad guy at fault. Accidents have chains. Breaking any link usually stops the the accident from happening. There were failures at every link. And the pilots failed egregiously when their time came. 

I’m not an expert in certification. I don’t design planes for a living. I don’t decide how much oversight to give a manufacturer or which safety items to ignore as a purchasing airline. I can only acknowledge those failings. I am an expert in flying airplanes and am type certificated in the ones I’ve talked about in this thread. That’s why I point the finger at the pilots. They had lots of help, but ultimately, as the last line of defense, they failed. 

No, they don’t teach union negotiating in flight school. But you do realize that the aviation industry is heavily unionized?  That every 4-5 years there’s a huge fight with arguments, information, disinformation, strategy and outright dirty tactics being used by both management and the professional group seeking the new contract? I’ve been a professional pilot for nearly two decades. You actually learn things when you pay attention to the process.  

So with that in mind would you consider SWA an unsafe operation?  Sure, they’re making a bit of a habit of departing the pavement, but overall would you say they’re safe? Sure you would. You’d jump on them in a heartbeat and never give it a second thought. But very recently their mechanics union made statements indicating that the planes were unsafe due to maintenance being outsourced. Strangely, this occurred after years of negotiation. At the same time numerous SWA aircraft littered ramps in various states of inspection because the mechanics slowed their work and started refusing overtime. Tactics. It’s an old ass playbook that has no new plays. 

Thats not to say that their might not be some issues at the Charleston 787 plant. One built to take advantage of nonunionized labor. Just as there’s kernels of truth with regard to SWA outsourcing their maintenance to Central American mechanic shops. But really, it’s just a means to publicly apply pressure. And it’ll be used again at another operator or at the same one in a few years. 

And that’s why I say you aren’t acquainted with how somethings work in the world. Because all you see is bad actor Boeing, and it’s a helluva lot more nuanced than that. 

Edited by Bobby_Batronic
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On 4/3/2019 at 10:34 AM, Your Mom said:

The engine and airframe work fine together.  There is a slight tendency to nose up a tiny bit more than in other 737 models but it's very slight and not even noticeable.  I've flown the MAX a dozen or so of times and it flies and handles beautifully.  Never even noticed the smallest bit of excessive nose up in any attitude, at any power setting, in any phase of flight.

 

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8 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

And @Bobby_Batronic, in your professional opinion is the stall potential on this aircraft great enough to allow the MCAS system surface control, or should a warning or alarm be sufficient for a pilot to investigate and correct?

This is interesting.  Seems that a warning to dip the nose to counteract a false signal or the effects of the engines on the airframe would be sufficient. Making the the process more complicated, and adding one more thing in a command chain has been my issue with the situation.

It's not that I think pilots are/were bad or good, it's that why would you knowingly leave or add something to the chain of command to complicate the flying process.  The process of flying seems to be incrementally removed from the pilots duties. Removing confusion in the cockpit should be something that every system is designed to assist.

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And [mention=1245]Bobby_Batronic[/mention], in your professional opinion is the stall potential on this aircraft great enough to allow the MCAS system surface control, or should a warning or alarm be sufficient for a pilot to investigate and correct?
MCAS is not an anti-stall system. The media has pushed that narrative.

Neither of these airplanes were anywhere near a stall. The angle of attack indicators failed, so MCAS did what it was told.

The airspeed tape turns amber to red and black as you near stall speed for your configuration. A pitch limit indicator is displayed on the attitude indicator right in front of your face (with flaps extended) telling you margin of pitch remaining until stick shaker, which is still above stall speed.

Stalls are still happening in this industry. They're just happening 7 miles up where the jet is thrust limited and the margin between min and max speed is small (the top of the flight envelope). Don't go above OPT altitude in turbulence or mountain wave kids.
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10 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

And @Bobby_Batronic, in your professional opinion is the stall potential on this aircraft great enough to allow the MCAS system surface control, or should a warning or alarm be sufficient for a pilot to investigate and correct?

I think the two previous pilot comments cover it well enough. I don’t actively fly the 737 and have never touched a Max. But I suspect most 737 pilots could handle it in a stall with the same effort and outcome as an NG model. 

 

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I love all of the non flying mofos acting like they have a fucking clue in this thread.

There is a reason that I will never fly certain airlines, especially many foreign airlines. Not all pilots are trained the same.

You should see some countries military pilots - just plain bad.

I also keep tabs of the airlines that hire some of the bottom feeder former Navy Pilots that I trained. You start to see some patterns.

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The reason why you should feel free to blame pilots when they do something wrong is that it causes airlines to adjust their training or culture to make sure the same problem doesn't happen again. Just like Boeing is making adjustments to the MAX, airlines need to adjust the training and make sure they are booking enough experience in the cockpit. 

 

Furthermore, if the problem was just the planes and not the pilots then we would be seeing a lot more crashes than we have seen. This was just really bad flying. The procedure isn't working and you hear/see an alarm saying that you are flying faster than the plane is certified to fly. It's so so so so stupid that they didn't slow the damn plane down and instead turned the system that was getting bad data back on. 

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11 minutes ago, Pasken said:

The reason why you should feel free to blame pilots when they do something wrong is that it causes airlines to adjust their training or culture to make sure the same problem doesn't happen again. Just like Boeing is making adjustments to the MAX, airlines need to adjust the training and make sure they are booking enough experience in the cockpit. 

 

Furthermore, if the problem was just the planes and not the pilots then we would be seeing a lot more crashes than we have seen. This was just really bad flying. The procedure isn't working and you hear/see an alarm saying that you are flying faster than the plane is certified to fly. It's so so so so stupid that they didn't slow the damn plane down and instead turned the system that was getting bad data back on. 

A good point.

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1 hour ago, DaysOff said:

MCAS is not an anti-stall system. The media has pushed that narrative.

Neither of these airplanes were anywhere near a stall. The angle of attack indicators failed, so MCAS did what it was told.

The airspeed tape turns amber to red and black as you near stall speed for your configuration. A pitch limit indicator is displayed on the attitude indicator right in front of your face (with flaps extended) telling you margin of pitch remaining until stick shaker, which is still above stall speed.

Stalls are still happening in this industry. They're just happening 7 miles up where the jet is thrust limited and the margin between min and max speed is small (the top of the flight envelope). Don't go above OPT altitude in turbulence or mountain wave kids.

So, you would rather deal with an improper angle of attack, or malfunctioning AoA sensor manually, vs having the plane try to fix it for you and then possibly having to fight the plane before you can fly it?

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Keep in mind the Airbus does the exact same thing. On one hand it’s a bit disconcerting to only be a voting member of the flight control system. On the other it’s nice to be able to pull full aft during an EGPWS escape maneuver and know you won’t over G the plane, and that it will refrain from stalling even as you pull completely back. Pros and cons. So coming from an Airbus perspective it doesn’t overly bother me.

I’m sure lifelong 737 operators are pretty confident that they don’t need it, and I would agree with them if I were in that boat. 

The compromise of having a dual source system with monitoring and  comparators is honestly probably the best solution, and one that shouldn’t have been overridden by Boeing, the FAA via Boeing or the purchasing airlines. 

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3 hours ago, Leeroy Jenkins said:

I love all of the non flying mofos acting like they have a fucking clue in this thread.

There is a reason that I will never fly certain airlines, especially many foreign airlines. Not all pilots are trained the same.

You should see some countries military pilots - just plain bad.

I also keep tabs of the airlines that hire some of the bottom feeder former Navy Pilots that I trained. You start to see some patterns.

Just curious and for future personal reference,  could you name some of those Airlines?   If you want to narrow it down to region specific ,  you can note some of the Asia based carriers.  Or you can do all of us a public service and just list all of them you would stay off even if someone offered you a a couple of suitcases full of C-notes.  

 

 

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lmao i'm sure the unions or SJWs or something are responsible for this.

Quote

Southwest Airlines says Boeing did not disclose that certain safety features on the troubled 737 Max aircraft were not “operable”, raising further questions about poor communication between the manufacturer and its customers ahead of its shareholder meeting on Monday.

Southwest, the largest global carrier with 737 Max aircraft in its fleet, told the Financial Times that it believed it had functioning alerts installed on its Max aircraft so that its pilots would be made aware when the jet’s two angle of attack (AOA) sensors disagreed, signalling a malfunction….

Aviation experts said it was not clear why Southwest was unaware that it did not have functional disagree alerts in its aircraft. American Airlines, another big US Max carrier, had both safety options installed and its pilots union was reassured by Boeing after the Lion Air crash that they were working, American said.

This page has a bunch of interesting information cites from recent stories in the WSJ and FT regarding the FUCKING UNIONS screwing things up.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/boeing-kept-mum-to-customers-faa-about-disabling-of-737-max-warning-system.html

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11 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

lmao i'm sure the unions or SJWs or something are responsible for this.

This page has a bunch of interesting information cites from recent stories in the WSJ and FT regarding the FUCKING UNIONS screwing things up.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/boeing-kept-mum-to-customers-faa-about-disabling-of-737-max-warning-system.html

Listened to an NPR story last week about whistle blowers at Boeing. They had some pretty scary things to say about management, and defective/rejected parts being used over the protests of the folks on the line, all in the interest of pushing out product.

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So you are saying that Southwest spent 100 million per plane times 34 planes and did not know that a particular safety function did not work? Haha. Either their lying to save face or their acceptance testing sucks a dick. Either way they have blame. We spend “millions” of dollars on control systems upgrades and every single I/O and control is checked and rechecked. We spend months on simulators going through everything before we do an upgrade. There can’t be any way that my standards for acceptance are higher than what Southwest says theirs is. If there is a flaw, we find it through testing or simulation, I don’t depend on the vendor/contractor to tell me. I damn sure wouldn’t fill it with 300 people and put it in the sky without knowing exactly what it’s going to do.

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3 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Listened to an NPR story last week about whistle blowers at Boeing. They had some pretty scary things to say about management, and defective/rejected parts being used over the protests of the folks on the line, all in the interest of pushing out product.

Yeah, there was also a NYT or WaPo story linked further up the thread that was probably the basis for or derived from the NPR report.

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3 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Listened to an NPR story last week about whistle blowers at Boeing. They had some pretty scary things to say about management, and defective/rejected parts being used over the protests of the folks on the line, all in the interest of pushing out product.

Yep.

We're getting back to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory days, in that the worker is nothing and profits (and the consequences of pursing them over all else) are everything.

Employees get killed. Customers get killed. The company still makes its profit.

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26 minutes ago, Asithappens said:

Siap, but I read that the pilots on one (maybe both) of the downed planes followed the Boeing flight manual to the letter. The manual said nothing about this "glitch".

This is on Boeing. 

Except they didn't. They apparently started the procedure and when it wasn't working, turned the MCAS system back on. According to the pilots in this thread -- and I'm going to side with them on this -- the Ethiopian Air flight was flying way past the max allowable speed, which made it physically impossible to manually trim the whatchamacallit wheel.

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1 hour ago, Asithappens said:

Yep.

We're getting back to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory days, in that the worker is nothing and profits (and the consequences of pursing them over all else) are everything.

Employees get killed. Customers get killed. The company still makes its profit.

I don't think that anyone working at Triangle ever flew in a 737.

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1 hour ago, C-Man said:

Except they didn't. They apparently started the procedure and when it wasn't working, turned the MCAS system back on. According to the pilots in this thread -- and I'm going to side with them on this -- the Ethiopian Air flight was flying way past the max allowable speed, which made it physically impossible to manually trim the whatchamacallit wheel.

Correct

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1 hour ago, retread said:

There have been several posted, but here's another article re the Ethiopian crash

https://leehamnews.com/2019/04/05/bjorns-corner-et302-crash-report-the-first-analysis/

Terrifying last minutes. My College roommate lost his father and twin brother in a crash in SATX in the early 2000s. We used to talk a bit about those last minutes. Rough shit. 

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Boeing CEO: Pilots didn't 'completely' follow procedures in 737 Max crashes

Published: April 29, 2019 at 5:26 PM

Daniel Uria
 

April 29 (UPI) -- Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said Monday that pilots did not "completely" follow the company's procedures in two crashes involving its 737 Max airliner.

Speaking to media after a shareholder meeting in Chicago, Muilenburg said Boeing was unable to find any "technical slip or gap" in its anti-stall software -- known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System -- that was linked to both crashes.

"When we design these systems, understand that these airplanes are flown in the hands of pilots," he said.

Muilenburg also reiterated the company's stance that it "owns" the responsibility to update the software, but doesn't entirely "own" the Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air crashes that collectively resulted in 346 deaths.

Reports detailing the events of both crashes mentioned that inaccurate sensor readings related to MCAS occurred prior to the crashes. Muilenburg said these issues were "one link in a longer chain of events," but didn't indicate a design flaw.

"There are multiple contributing factors. There are factors that we can control in the design and in this case that common link related to the MCAS system and its activation," Muilenburg said. "We're going to break that link and this will prevent accidents like this from happening again."

Muilenburg also disputed reports that pilots had not been properly made aware of MCAS, saying it is "not a separate system" but rather something that is included in training a pilot to fly the plane.

"We want the airplane to behave in the air similar to the previous generation of 737s -- that's a preferred pilot feel for the airplane, how it feels as they're flying it," he said. "MCAS is designed to provide those kind of handling qualities at high angle of attack. So it's a purposeful design."

American Airlines pilot and union spokesman Capt. Jason Goldberg told NPR pilots do train to overcome pitch adjustment system issues, but MCAS malfunctions create other problems.

"You would have the stick shaker, which [activates] a rather violent aggressive shaking of the control column," Goldberg said. "You would have the appearance of unreliable airspeed. You would have a number of warnings that don't immediately or intuitively give the impression of a pitch trim problem."

Muilenburg said Monday that Boeing can make improvements to the MCAS and the 737 Max to make it safer to fly.

"I am confident that that again will make one of the safest airplanes in the air to fly. We know this is a link in both accidents that we can break," he said.



© 2019 United Press International

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So, in order to absolve itself, Boeing only need provide documentation, predating Lyon Air, in any form, of a discussion with any "young airline" to the effect that MCAS is a purposeful design to make the plane "fly" like the prior generation of 737.   Bonus points for any documentation in any form which also explains the need for MCAS to counter the altered center of gravity from the forward placement of the engines and their consequent effect on moment arm.

batronic, error, other drivers, please critique as warranted.

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Wow, that's a bold strategy by Boeing following SWA saying this week that they had no idea there wasn't a conflict warning light until after the first crash and the stance the American Airline pilots union has taken regarding simulator training before flying the Max again.

Edited by ShaggyBevo RIP
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On 3/12/2019 at 10:19 PM, McCroskey said:

Buncha goddamn knee jerk over-reactors everywhere the last few days that all need some perspective.

We would have lost WW2 had we had this mentality back then.  Forget what the FAA or Boeing C-suite alone says, at the end of the day the pilots who have spent thousands of hours training and flying these things wouldn't continue flying them if they truly thought they were unsafe or if they felt unable to maintain control under virtually any circumstance.  Media needs to stop trying to sensationalize this story.

 

This has aged well. 

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1 hour ago, Hagbard Celine said:

Boeing CEO: Pilots didn't 'completely' follow procedures in 737 Max crashes

Published: April 29, 2019 at 5:26 PM

Daniel Uria
 

April 29 (UPI) -- Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said Monday that pilots did not "completely" follow the company's procedures in two crashes involving its 737 Max airliner.

Speaking to media after a shareholder meeting in Chicago, Muilenburg said Boeing was unable to find any "technical slip or gap" in its anti-stall software -- known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System -- that was linked to both crashes.

"When we design these systems, understand that these airplanes are flown in the hands of pilots," he said.

Muilenburg also reiterated the company's stance that it "owns" the responsibility to update the software, but doesn't entirely "own" the Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air crashes that collectively resulted in 346 deaths.

Reports detailing the events of both crashes mentioned that inaccurate sensor readings related to MCAS occurred prior to the crashes. Muilenburg said these issues were "one link in a longer chain of events," but didn't indicate a design flaw.

"There are multiple contributing factors. There are factors that we can control in the design and in this case that common link related to the MCAS system and its activation," Muilenburg said. "We're going to break that link and this will prevent accidents like this from happening again."

Muilenburg also disputed reports that pilots had not been properly made aware of MCAS, saying it is "not a separate system" but rather something that is included in training a pilot to fly the plane.

"We want the airplane to behave in the air similar to the previous generation of 737s -- that's a preferred pilot feel for the airplane, how it feels as they're flying it," he said. "MCAS is designed to provide those kind of handling qualities at high angle of attack. So it's a purposeful design."

American Airlines pilot and union spokesman Capt. Jason Goldberg told NPR pilots do train to overcome pitch adjustment system issues, but MCAS malfunctions create other problems.

"You would have the stick shaker, which [activates] a rather violent aggressive shaking of the control column," Goldberg said. "You would have the appearance of unreliable airspeed. You would have a number of warnings that don't immediately or intuitively give the impression of a pitch trim problem."

Muilenburg said Monday that Boeing can make improvements to the MCAS and the 737 Max to make it safer to fly.

"I am confident that that again will make one of the safest airplanes in the air to fly. We know this is a link in both accidents that we can break," he said.



© 2019 United Press International

Lawyer talk here.

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6 hours ago, C-Man said:

Except they didn't. They apparently started the procedure and when it wasn't working, turned the MCAS system back on. According to the pilots in this thread -- and I'm going to side with them on this -- the Ethiopian Air flight was flying way past the max allowable speed, which made it physically impossible to manually trim the whatchamacallit wheel.

So the procedure they were supposed to follow wasn’t working so they tried something else? Must have been the pilots fault then for not recognizing the alternative to following the correct procedure that wasn’t working. They should have just been able to improvise on the fly.

So is the new theory that the pilots were speeding and  “refused to drive, 55!!!!! Do don don duh duh Duh don. I can’t drive 55!!”

So in all seriousness, what was the speed limit they were exceeding? How fast were they going and how did that cause the crash of the plane? 

Jesus. The spin to blame the pilots here instead of Boeing’s fucked up system (still grounded by the way) is fucking embarrassing. 

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56 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

So is the new theory that the pilots were speeding and  “refused to drive, 55!!!!! Do don don duh duh Duh don. I can’t drive 55!!”

So in all seriousness, what was the speed limit they were exceeding? How fast were they going and how did that cause the crash of the plane? 

Jesus. The spin to blame the pilots here instead of Boeing’s fucked up system (still grounded by the way) is fucking embarrassing. 

Amazing that someone who apparently lacks understanding for one of the basic principles of flight (i.e., never exceed speed) doesn't hesitate to weigh in with his opinion.

I was genuinely surprised when the commercial pilots in this thread placed at least a portion of the blame on the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines flight crews. If anything, I expected Surly pilots to be cynical and jaded and come to the defense of their departed peers because it seems like corporations and regulating agencies are too often looking to scapegoat those who were at the controls and can no longer defend themselves.

But Bobby Batronic, DaysOff, and Your Mom haven't done this. They've patiently explained to anyone willing to read that those ill-fated flight crews were the final link of the chain to fail, and that speaks volumes to me. To each their own, I suppose.

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So the procedure they were supposed to follow wasn’t working so they tried something else? Must have been the pilots fault then for not recognizing the alternative to following the correct procedure that wasn’t working. They should have just been able to improvise on the fly.
So is the new theory that the pilots were speeding and  “refused to drive, 55!!!!! Do don don duh duh Duh don. I can’t drive 55!!”
So in all seriousness, what was the speed limit they were exceeding? How fast were they going and how did that cause the crash of the plane? 
Jesus. The spin to blame the pilots here instead of Boeing’s fucked up system (still grounded by the way) is fucking embarrassing. 


I think it’s more than fair to criticize Boeing for building a plane that needs this MCAS thing in the first place and if that whistle-blower story is true, well, F Boeing. I’m just slightly correcting the guy who stated they followed the procedure to a T and still crashed. They did not.
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