Doomed Boeing Jets Lacked 2 Safety Features That Company Sold Only as Extras Standard 737 Max planes

[Denizen]

This is a criminal rip-off by Boeing which should get their executives tried for murder.

The FAA is complicit in Boeing's crimes.

This has destroyed the safety image of American manufactured aircraft.

Doomed Boeing Jets Lacked 2 Safety Features That Company Sold Only as Extras

Doomed Boeing Jets Lacked 2 Safety Features That Company Sold Only as Extras
Standard 737 Max planes are not equipped with a so-called angle of attack indicator or an angle of attack disagree light. The indicator will continue to cost airlines extra, but the light won’t.
Credit
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
Image
Standard 737 Max planes are not equipped with a so-called angle of attack indicator or an angle of attack disagree light. The indicator will continue to cost airlines extra, but the light won’t.CreditCreditRuth Fremson/The New York Times
By Hiroko Tabuchi and David Gelles
March 21, 2019
658
As the pilots of the doomed Boeing jets in Ethiopia and Indonesia fought to control their planes, they lacked two notable safety features in their cockpits.
One reason: Boeing charged extra for them.
For Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers, the practice of charging to upgrade a standard plane can be lucrative. Top airlines around the world must pay handsomely to have the jets they order fitted with customized add-ons.
Sometimes these optional features involve aesthetics or comfort, like premium seating, fancy lighting or extra bathrooms. But other features involve communication, navigation or safety systems, and are more fundamental to the plane’s operations.
Many airlines, especially low-cost carriers like Indonesia’s Lion Air, have opted not to buy them — and regulators don’t require them.

Now, in the wake of the two deadly crashes involving the same jet model, Boeing will make one of those safety features standard as part of a fix to get the planes in the air again.
It is not yet known what caused the crashes of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10 and Lion Air Flight 610 five months earlier, both after erratic takeoffs. But investigators are looking at whether a new software system added to avoid stalls in Boeing’s 737 Max series may have been partly to blame. Faulty data from sensors on the Lion Air plane may have caused the system, known as MCAS, to malfunction, authorities investigating that crash suspect.

That software system takes readings from two vanelike devices called angle of attack sensors that determine how much the plane’s nose is pointing up or down relative to oncoming air. When MCAS detects that the plane is pointing up at a dangerous angle, it can automatically push down the nose of the plane in an effort to prevent the plane from stalling.
Boeing’s optional safety features, in part, could have helped the pilots detect any erroneous readings. One of the optional upgrades, the angle of attack indicator, displays the readings of the two sensors. The other, called a disagree light, is activated if those sensors are at odds with one another.
Boeing will soon update the MCAS software, and will also make the disagree light standard on all new 737 Max planes, according to a person familiar with the changes, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they have not been made public. The angle of attack indicator will remain an option that airlines can buy.

Neither feature was mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration. All 737 Max jets have been grounded.
“They’re critical, and cost almost nothing for the airlines to install,” said Bjorn Fehrm, an analyst at the aviation consultancy Leeham. “Boeing charges for them because it can. But they’re vital for safety.”
[After a Lion Air 737 Max crashed in October, questions about the plane arose.]
Earlier this week, Dennis A. Muilenburg, Boeing’s chief executive, said the company was working to make the 737 Max safer.
“As part of our standard practice following any accident, we examine our aircraft design and operation, and when appropriate, institute product updates to further improve safety,” he said in a statement.

Add-on features can be big moneymakers for plane manufacturers.
In 2013, around the time Boeing was starting to market its 737 Max 8, an airline would expect to spend about $800,000 to $2 million on various options for such a narrow-body aircraft, according to a report by Jackson Square Aviation, a consultancy in San Francisco. That would be about 5 percent of the plane’s final price.
[The F.A.A.’s approval of the Boeing jet has come under scrutiny.]
Boeing charges extra, for example, for a backup fire extinguisher in the cargo hold. Past incidents have shown that a single extinguishing system may not be enough to put out flames that spread rapidly through the plane. Regulators in Japan require airlines there to install backup fire extinguishing systems, but the F.A.A. does not.

“There are so many things that should not be optional, and many airlines want the cheapest airplane you can get,” said Mark H. Goodrich, an aviation lawyer and former engineering test pilot. “And Boeing is able to say, ‘Hey, it was available.’”
But what Boeing doesn’t say, he added, is that it has become “a great profit center” for the manufacturer.
Both Boeing and its airline customers have taken pains to keep these options, and prices, out of the public eye. Airlines frequently redact details of the features they opt to pay for — or exclude — from their filings with financial regulators. Boeing declined to disclose the full menu of safety features it offers as options on the 737 Max, or how much they cost.
But one unredacted filing from 2003 for a previous version of the 737 shows that Gol Airlines, a Brazilian carrier, paid $6,700 extra for oxygen masks for its crew, and $11,900 for an advanced weather radar system control panel. Gol did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The three American airlines that bought the 737 Max each took a different approach to outfitting the cockpits.
American Airlines, which ordered 100 of the planes and has 24 in its fleet, bought both the angle of attack indicator and the disagree light, the company said.
Southwest Airlines, which ordered 280 of the planes and counts 36 in its fleet so far, had already purchased the disagree alert option, and it also installed an angle of attack indicator in a display mounted above the pilots’ heads. After the Lion Air crash, Southwest said it would modify its 737 Max fleet to place the angle of attack indicator on the pilots’ main computer screens.

United Airlines, which ordered 137 of the planes and has received 14, did not select the indicators or the disagree light. A United spokesman said the airline does not include the features because its pilots use other data to fly the plane.
Boeing is making other changes to the MCAS software.
When it was rolled out, MCAS took readings from only one sensor on any given flight, leaving the system vulnerable to a single point of failure. One theory in the Lion Air crash is that MCAS was receiving faulty data from one of the sensors, prompting an unrecoverable nose dive.
In the software update that Boeing says is coming soon, MCAS will be modified to take readings from both sensors. If there is a meaningful disagreement between the readings, MCAS will be disabled.
Incorporating the disagree light and the angle of attack indicators on all planes would be a welcome move, safety experts said, and would alert pilots — as well as maintenance staff who service a plane after a problematic flight — to issues with the sensors.
The alert, especially, would bring attention to a sensor malfunction, and warn pilots they should prepare to shut down the MCAS if it activated erroneously, said Peter Lemme, an avionics and satellite-communications consultant and former Boeing flight controls engineer.
“In the heat of the moment, it certainly would help,” he said.

Sounds like the buyer opted not to buy the option, they were the ones cutting corners. But somehow this is Boeing’s fault.

No, a "safety feature" is not supposed to crash the plane. That's called a defect, design flaw, etc.

The 737 Max is an aerodynamic dud and could not fly or glide without software to compensate for the aerodynamic defects.

The aircraft has a tendency to climb when power is increased and nose dive when power is decreased.

Boeing has turned the 737 Max into a flying coffin.

The actions of Boeing and the FAA are criminal and there shall be criminal prosecutions of officials of both entities.

All aircraft climb when you apply power and descend when you reduce power. If they didn’t you wouldn’t be able to have controlled flight.

The 737Max and Why Software Engineers Might Want to Pay Attention

That is an article about the software and system issue on the 737 Max. If you want to know why the system was designed to override the pilot, then I can help you out there, if you are willing to learn.

The Air France flight that crashed into the Atlantic because of a frozen Pitot tube. The Pilot pulled back on the stick, and stalled the aircraft. The aircraft fell and slammed into the ocean, with the pilot holding back on the stick until it was just about to hit the water, by then, it was too late to correct the problem and save the plane. It was part of an effort by all manufacturers, and airlines, to eliminate or at least reduce pilot error accidents.

If you think that the airplane crashes are bad, wait until you learn a little more. The day before the Lion Air crash, you remember that one, it was the first one you ran around like Chicken Little screaming ground all Boeing Airplanes, the day before, the plane did the same thing, put the nose down because of a faulty sensor. The reason the plane didn’t crash? There was another pilot in the plane who was deadheading to the destination. He was in the cockpit, and told the pilots how to get out of the problem.

Now, here is how things like that work in Aviation. The Pilot writes up the aircraft. He writes down anything the plane did that wasn’t normal. An uncommanded and unwelcome adjustment of attitude is one of those things that is certainly supposed to be written up. That write up should “ground” that aircraft until it is repaired.

Now, when the next pilot boards the plane, he has read all the maintainance logs, and write ups of the previous pilots. Which means he should have read that the previous flight was having a problem with the attitude or angle of attack sensor system. Also in the write up is what if anything Maintainance did to fix the problem. The book and page number of the manual is usually used here. For example.

Engine number one stalled at 10,000 feet during descent into airport.

Maintainance report to “fix” the problem. “Engine replaced. Engine serial number 23329 removed and replaced with Engine 18764.” Or. “Engine throttle adjustment cable repaired. Engine tested at testing location, no further defect detected.”

I don’t know if the previous pilot had written it up. I don’t know what if anything maintainance did. I don’t know what the discussions with the doomed pilot were, but when he signed for that aircraft, he said that according to the paperwork, that plane was ready to fly.

Now, there are problems with all aircraft, especially with new technology. Take the Airbus Air France Flight 296 - Wikipedia

In that one the computer refused to accept the pilots commands to prevent the aircraft from stalling. Airbus swore that their plane was right, and it was all the pilots fault. The investigators agreed. So is Airbus a criminal organization? Should the FBI rampage around the Airbus headquarters? Or since it is in France, the Gendarms?

Remember the five week Government Shutdown? What if I told you, or you might already know if you read the first link. Oh wait, never mind. I know you didn’t read the first link. The software fix had to be approved by the FAA. That was the one after the Lion Air crash. That fix sat and collected dust for five weeks during the shut down. While Trump and the Congress blamed each other. Five weeks, if the shut down hadn’t happened, it is possible, even probable, that the fix would have been in this latest incident, possibly preventing the crash.

But it’s Boeing’s fault. I don’t know what Boeing did to you. I honestly don’t. Perhaps your Father was fired, or you were. Perhaps you had a relative who died on one of the crashes from years gone by. I don’t know. But I think most of us understand that sometimes choices made by the manufacturer has unintended consequences. We expect those choices, once they come to light, to be fixed. It is why the term Recall has been so prevalent in our language. My Toyota Mini-Van has had a couple recalls. The system that holds the spare tire could fail. The automatic sliding door had a bit of software code that was wonky. Oh and the Airbags were from the company that didn’t waterproof it properly. I took the van in, and the Dealer fixed it.

I expect things to be as good as they can be, and if they aren’t, I expect the companies to fix the damned things.

Do you understand the expression 'degraded flight characteristics' which is a description of the Boeing 737 Max aerodynamics.

The aircraft is a lemon, a flying coffin which is prevented from plowing in by software which is defective and which has to be switched off to prevent plowing in.

Perhaps Boeing engineers are more suited to submarine design.

"Kludge" keeps coming up when pilots and engineers discuss Boeing's 737 Max

... “My concern is that Boeing may have developed the MCAS software as a profit-driven kludge to mitigate the Max 8’s degraded flight characteristics due to the engine relocation required to maintain ground clearance,” commented Philip Wheelock on a New York Times story about the plane’s certification process this week. “Not convinced that software is an acceptable solution for an older design that has been pushed to its inherent aeronautical design limits.” ...

 

[Denizen]

This is a criminal rip-off by Boeing which should get their executives tried for murder.

The FAA is complicit in Boeing's crimes.

This has destroyed the safety image of American manufactured aircraft.

Doomed Boeing Jets Lacked 2 Safety Features That Company Sold Only as Extras

Doomed Boeing Jets Lacked 2 Safety Features That Company Sold Only as Extras
Standard 737 Max planes are not equipped with a so-called angle of attack indicator or an angle of attack disagree light. The indicator will continue to cost airlines extra, but the light won’t.
Credit
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
Image
Standard 737 Max planes are not equipped with a so-called angle of attack indicator or an angle of attack disagree light. The indicator will continue to cost airlines extra, but the light won’t.CreditCreditRuth Fremson/The New York Times
By Hiroko Tabuchi and David Gelles
March 21, 2019
658
As the pilots of the doomed Boeing jets in Ethiopia and Indonesia fought to control their planes, they lacked two notable safety features in their cockpits.
One reason: Boeing charged extra for them.
For Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers, the practice of charging to upgrade a standard plane can be lucrative. Top airlines around the world must pay handsomely to have the jets they order fitted with customized add-ons.
Sometimes these optional features involve aesthetics or comfort, like premium seating, fancy lighting or extra bathrooms. But other features involve communication, navigation or safety systems, and are more fundamental to the plane’s operations.
Many airlines, especially low-cost carriers like Indonesia’s Lion Air, have opted not to buy them — and regulators don’t require them.

Now, in the wake of the two deadly crashes involving the same jet model, Boeing will make one of those safety features standard as part of a fix to get the planes in the air again.
It is not yet known what caused the crashes of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10 and Lion Air Flight 610 five months earlier, both after erratic takeoffs. But investigators are looking at whether a new software system added to avoid stalls in Boeing’s 737 Max series may have been partly to blame. Faulty data from sensors on the Lion Air plane may have caused the system, known as MCAS, to malfunction, authorities investigating that crash suspect.

That software system takes readings from two vanelike devices called angle of attack sensors that determine how much the plane’s nose is pointing up or down relative to oncoming air. When MCAS detects that the plane is pointing up at a dangerous angle, it can automatically push down the nose of the plane in an effort to prevent the plane from stalling.
Boeing’s optional safety features, in part, could have helped the pilots detect any erroneous readings. One of the optional upgrades, the angle of attack indicator, displays the readings of the two sensors. The other, called a disagree light, is activated if those sensors are at odds with one another.
Boeing will soon update the MCAS software, and will also make the disagree light standard on all new 737 Max planes, according to a person familiar with the changes, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they have not been made public. The angle of attack indicator will remain an option that airlines can buy.

Neither feature was mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration. All 737 Max jets have been grounded.
“They’re critical, and cost almost nothing for the airlines to install,” said Bjorn Fehrm, an analyst at the aviation consultancy Leeham. “Boeing charges for them because it can. But they’re vital for safety.”
[After a Lion Air 737 Max crashed in October, questions about the plane arose.]
Earlier this week, Dennis A. Muilenburg, Boeing’s chief executive, said the company was working to make the 737 Max safer.
“As part of our standard practice following any accident, we examine our aircraft design and operation, and when appropriate, institute product updates to further improve safety,” he said in a statement.

Add-on features can be big moneymakers for plane manufacturers.
In 2013, around the time Boeing was starting to market its 737 Max 8, an airline would expect to spend about $800,000 to $2 million on various options for such a narrow-body aircraft, according to a report by Jackson Square Aviation, a consultancy in San Francisco. That would be about 5 percent of the plane’s final price.
[The F.A.A.’s approval of the Boeing jet has come under scrutiny.]
Boeing charges extra, for example, for a backup fire extinguisher in the cargo hold. Past incidents have shown that a single extinguishing system may not be enough to put out flames that spread rapidly through the plane. Regulators in Japan require airlines there to install backup fire extinguishing systems, but the F.A.A. does not.

“There are so many things that should not be optional, and many airlines want the cheapest airplane you can get,” said Mark H. Goodrich, an aviation lawyer and former engineering test pilot. “And Boeing is able to say, ‘Hey, it was available.’”
But what Boeing doesn’t say, he added, is that it has become “a great profit center” for the manufacturer.
Both Boeing and its airline customers have taken pains to keep these options, and prices, out of the public eye. Airlines frequently redact details of the features they opt to pay for — or exclude — from their filings with financial regulators. Boeing declined to disclose the full menu of safety features it offers as options on the 737 Max, or how much they cost.
But one unredacted filing from 2003 for a previous version of the 737 shows that Gol Airlines, a Brazilian carrier, paid $6,700 extra for oxygen masks for its crew, and $11,900 for an advanced weather radar system control panel. Gol did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The three American airlines that bought the 737 Max each took a different approach to outfitting the cockpits.
American Airlines, which ordered 100 of the planes and has 24 in its fleet, bought both the angle of attack indicator and the disagree light, the company said.
Southwest Airlines, which ordered 280 of the planes and counts 36 in its fleet so far, had already purchased the disagree alert option, and it also installed an angle of attack indicator in a display mounted above the pilots’ heads. After the Lion Air crash, Southwest said it would modify its 737 Max fleet to place the angle of attack indicator on the pilots’ main computer screens.

United Airlines, which ordered 137 of the planes and has received 14, did not select the indicators or the disagree light. A United spokesman said the airline does not include the features because its pilots use other data to fly the plane.
Boeing is making other changes to the MCAS software.
When it was rolled out, MCAS took readings from only one sensor on any given flight, leaving the system vulnerable to a single point of failure. One theory in the Lion Air crash is that MCAS was receiving faulty data from one of the sensors, prompting an unrecoverable nose dive.
In the software update that Boeing says is coming soon, MCAS will be modified to take readings from both sensors. If there is a meaningful disagreement between the readings, MCAS will be disabled.
Incorporating the disagree light and the angle of attack indicators on all planes would be a welcome move, safety experts said, and would alert pilots — as well as maintenance staff who service a plane after a problematic flight — to issues with the sensors.
The alert, especially, would bring attention to a sensor malfunction, and warn pilots they should prepare to shut down the MCAS if it activated erroneously, said Peter Lemme, an avionics and satellite-communications consultant and former Boeing flight controls engineer.
“In the heat of the moment, it certainly would help,” he said.

Sounds like the buyer opted not to buy the option, they were the ones cutting corners. But somehow this is Boeing’s fault.

No, a "safety feature" is not supposed to crash the plane. That's called a defect, design flaw, etc.

The 737 Max is an aerodynamic dud and could not fly or glide without software to compensate for the aerodynamic defects.

The aircraft has a tendency to climb when power is increased and nose dive when power is decreased.

Boeing has turned the 737 Max into a flying coffin.

The actions of Boeing and the FAA are criminal and there shall be criminal prosecutions of officials of both entities.

Your brain is an aerodynamic dud. You have no clue what you're talking about.

Every plane on the planet climbs when power is applied or descends when it is reduced. Why? Because a plane in level flight is going to always seek an airspeed. You don't trim for attitude or altitude, you trim for airspeed. If you are doing 100mph and reduce power, how will the plane seek 100mph? It's going to descend until it reaches 100mph again then it will level out. If you apply power at 100mph its going to climb to maintain 100mph because applying power will increase airspeed.

I sure the FUCK would not want to fly on a plane that pitches UP when power is reduced. That's a stall waiting to happen.

The 737max 8 and 9 aircraft are some of the most sophisticated airplanes flying today. But with that sophistication comes complexity and the need for adequate pilot training.

And your link doesn't work, OP. You have to log in. Quit subscribing to the new york slimes.

The link doesn't work for morons. Others are able to view it using incognito mode in browsers.

The 737 Max is a flying coffin incompetently designed.

"Kludge" keeps coming up when pilots and engineers discuss Boeing's 737 Max

... Wise described the design decision Boeing was faced with when France’s Airbus in 2014 unveiled its A320neo, a more fuel-efficient narrow-body aircraft, in a piece for Slate March 11:
To maintain its lead, Boeing had to counter Airbus’ move. It had two options: either clear off the drafting tables and start working on a clean-sheet design, or keep the legacy 737 and polish it. The former would cost a vast amount—its last brand-new design, the 787, cost $32 billion to develop—and it would require airlines to retrain flight crews and maintenance personnel.
Instead, it took the second and more economical route and upgraded the previous iteration. Boeing swapped out the engines for new models, which, together with airframe tweaks, promised a 20 percent increase in fuel efficiency. In order to accommodate the engine’s larger diameter, Boeing engineers had to move the point where the engine attaches to the wing.* This, in turn, affected the way the plane handled. Most alarmingly, it left the plane with a tendency to pitch up, which could result in a dangerous aerodynamic stall. To prevent this, Boeing added a new autopilot system that would pitch the nose down if it looked like it was getting too high. According to a preliminary report, it was this system that apparently led to the Lion Air crash.
If Boeing had designed a new plane from scratch, it wouldn’t have had to resort to this kind of kludge.
A kludge, as Granholm notes, isn’t the work of amateurs—it’s a combination of complexity and “designasininity” that introduces errors in some unrelated, unexpected part.
In the case of the 737 Max, it’s the combination of how two separate problems interacted—a plane whose design introduced aerodynamics issues and what now appears to have been a poorly designed anti-stall system—that seems to be drawing many to turn to Granholm’s term. The problems were compounded in many ways, including by the fact that pilots were not told of or trained for the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) before the Lion Air crash, which killed all 189 on board. ...

 

[Denizen]

This is a criminal rip-off by Boeing which should get their executives tried for murder.

The FAA is complicit in Boeing's crimes.

This has destroyed the safety image of American manufactured aircraft.

Doomed Boeing Jets Lacked 2 Safety Features That Company Sold Only as Extras

Sounds like the buyer opted not to buy the option, they were the ones cutting corners. But somehow this is Boeing’s fault.

No, a "safety feature" is not supposed to crash the plane. That's called a defect, design flaw, etc.

The 737 Max is an aerodynamic dud and could not fly or glide without software to compensate for the aerodynamic defects.

The aircraft has a tendency to climb when power is increased and nose dive when power is decreased.

Boeing has turned the 737 Max into a flying coffin.

The actions of Boeing and the FAA are criminal and there shall be criminal prosecutions of officials of both entities.

All aircraft climb when you apply power and descend when you reduce power. If they didn’t you wouldn’t be able to have controlled flight.

The 737Max and Why Software Engineers Might Want to Pay Attention

That is an article about the software and system issue on the 737 Max. If you want to know why the system was designed to override the pilot, then I can help you out there, if you are willing to learn.

The Air France flight that crashed into the Atlantic because of a frozen Pitot tube. The Pilot pulled back on the stick, and stalled the aircraft. The aircraft fell and slammed into the ocean, with the pilot holding back on the stick until it was just about to hit the water, by then, it was too late to correct the problem and save the plane. It was part of an effort by all manufacturers, and airlines, to eliminate or at least reduce pilot error accidents.

If you think that the airplane crashes are bad, wait until you learn a little more. The day before the Lion Air crash, you remember that one, it was the first one you ran around like Chicken Little screaming ground all Boeing Airplanes, the day before, the plane did the same thing, put the nose down because of a faulty sensor. The reason the plane didn’t crash? There was another pilot in the plane who was deadheading to the destination. He was in the cockpit, and told the pilots how to get out of the problem.

Now, here is how things like that work in Aviation. The Pilot writes up the aircraft. He writes down anything the plane did that wasn’t normal. An uncommanded and unwelcome adjustment of attitude is one of those things that is certainly supposed to be written up. That write up should “ground” that aircraft until it is repaired.

Now, when the next pilot boards the plane, he has read all the maintainance logs, and write ups of the previous pilots. Which means he should have read that the previous flight was having a problem with the attitude or angle of attack sensor system. Also in the write up is what if anything Maintainance did to fix the problem. The book and page number of the manual is usually used here. For example.

Engine number one stalled at 10,000 feet during descent into airport.

Maintainance report to “fix” the problem. “Engine replaced. Engine serial number 23329 removed and replaced with Engine 18764.” Or. “Engine throttle adjustment cable repaired. Engine tested at testing location, no further defect detected.”

I don’t know if the previous pilot had written it up. I don’t know what if anything maintainance did. I don’t know what the discussions with the doomed pilot were, but when he signed for that aircraft, he said that according to the paperwork, that plane was ready to fly.

Now, there are problems with all aircraft, especially with new technology. Take the Airbus Air France Flight 296 - Wikipedia

In that one the computer refused to accept the pilots commands to prevent the aircraft from stalling. Airbus swore that their plane was right, and it was all the pilots fault. The investigators agreed. So is Airbus a criminal organization? Should the FBI rampage around the Airbus headquarters? Or since it is in France, the Gendarms?

Remember the five week Government Shutdown? What if I told you, or you might already know if you read the first link. Oh wait, never mind. I know you didn’t read the first link. The software fix had to be approved by the FAA. That was the one after the Lion Air crash. That fix sat and collected dust for five weeks during the shut down. While Trump and the Congress blamed each other. Five weeks, if the shut down hadn’t happened, it is possible, even probable, that the fix would have been in this latest incident, possibly preventing the crash.

But it’s Boeing’s fault. I don’t know what Boeing did to you. I honestly don’t. Perhaps your Father was fired, or you were. Perhaps you had a relative who died on one of the crashes from years gone by. I don’t know. But I think most of us understand that sometimes choices made by the manufacturer has unintended consequences. We expect those choices, once they come to light, to be fixed. It is why the term Recall has been so prevalent in our language. My Toyota Mini-Van has had a couple recalls. The system that holds the spare tire could fail. The automatic sliding door had a bit of software code that was wonky. Oh and the Airbags were from the company that didn’t waterproof it properly. I took the van in, and the Dealer fixed it.

I expect things to be as good as they can be, and if they aren’t, I expect the companies to fix the damned things.

“Denizen” is just an anti-American shill that needs to spread anti-American propaganda.

Keep it under your MAGA hat with all that other brown, smelly stuff.

 

[deanrd]

This is a valuable lesson about Republicans. Remember they’re only for profit, wealth,, and power.
Forget safety. Forget lives. It’s all about the money.
They’ve been that way for decades.

 

[Denizen]

There will be criminal prosecutions of Boeing and FAA personnel.

 

[james bond]

This is a criminal rip-off by Boeing which should get their executives tried for murder.

The FAA is complicit in Boeing's crimes.

This has destroyed the safety image of American manufactured aircraft.

Doomed Boeing Jets Lacked 2 Safety Features That Company Sold Only as Extras

Sounds like the buyer opted not to buy the option, they were the ones cutting corners. But somehow this is Boeing’s fault.

No, a "safety feature" is not supposed to crash the plane. That's called a defect, design flaw, etc.

The 737 Max is an aerodynamic dud and could not fly or glide without software to compensate for the aerodynamic defects.

The aircraft has a tendency to climb when power is increased and nose dive when power is decreased.

Boeing has turned the 737 Max into a flying coffin.

The actions of Boeing and the FAA are criminal and there shall be criminal prosecutions of officials of both entities.

All aircraft climb when you apply power and descend when you reduce power. If they didn’t you wouldn’t be able to have controlled flight.

The 737Max and Why Software Engineers Might Want to Pay Attention

That is an article about the software and system issue on the 737 Max. If you want to know why the system was designed to override the pilot, then I can help you out there, if you are willing to learn.

The Air France flight that crashed into the Atlantic because of a frozen Pitot tube. The Pilot pulled back on the stick, and stalled the aircraft. The aircraft fell and slammed into the ocean, with the pilot holding back on the stick until it was just about to hit the water, by then, it was too late to correct the problem and save the plane. It was part of an effort by all manufacturers, and airlines, to eliminate or at least reduce pilot error accidents.

If you think that the airplane crashes are bad, wait until you learn a little more. The day before the Lion Air crash, you remember that one, it was the first one you ran around like Chicken Little screaming ground all Boeing Airplanes, the day before, the plane did the same thing, put the nose down because of a faulty sensor. The reason the plane didn’t crash? There was another pilot in the plane who was deadheading to the destination. He was in the cockpit, and told the pilots how to get out of the problem.

Now, here is how things like that work in Aviation. The Pilot writes up the aircraft. He writes down anything the plane did that wasn’t normal. An uncommanded and unwelcome adjustment of attitude is one of those things that is certainly supposed to be written up. That write up should “ground” that aircraft until it is repaired.

Now, when the next pilot boards the plane, he has read all the maintainance logs, and write ups of the previous pilots. Which means he should have read that the previous flight was having a problem with the attitude or angle of attack sensor system. Also in the write up is what if anything Maintainance did to fix the problem. The book and page number of the manual is usually used here. For example.

Engine number one stalled at 10,000 feet during descent into airport.

Maintainance report to “fix” the problem. “Engine replaced. Engine serial number 23329 removed and replaced with Engine 18764.” Or. “Engine throttle adjustment cable repaired. Engine tested at testing location, no further defect detected.”

I don’t know if the previous pilot had written it up. I don’t know what if anything maintainance did. I don’t know what the discussions with the doomed pilot were, but when he signed for that aircraft, he said that according to the paperwork, that plane was ready to fly.

Now, there are problems with all aircraft, especially with new technology. Take the Airbus Air France Flight 296 - Wikipedia

In that one the computer refused to accept the pilots commands to prevent the aircraft from stalling. Airbus swore that their plane was right, and it was all the pilots fault. The investigators agreed. So is Airbus a criminal organization? Should the FBI rampage around the Airbus headquarters? Or since it is in France, the Gendarms?

Remember the five week Government Shutdown? What if I told you, or you might already know if you read the first link. Oh wait, never mind. I know you didn’t read the first link. The software fix had to be approved by the FAA. That was the one after the Lion Air crash. That fix sat and collected dust for five weeks during the shut down. While Trump and the Congress blamed each other. Five weeks, if the shut down hadn’t happened, it is possible, even probable, that the fix would have been in this latest incident, possibly preventing the crash.

But it’s Boeing’s fault. I don’t know what Boeing did to you. I honestly don’t. Perhaps your Father was fired, or you were. Perhaps you had a relative who died on one of the crashes from years gone by. I don’t know. But I think most of us understand that sometimes choices made by the manufacturer has unintended consequences. We expect those choices, once they come to light, to be fixed. It is why the term Recall has been so prevalent in our language. My Toyota Mini-Van has had a couple recalls. The system that holds the spare tire could fail. The automatic sliding door had a bit of software code that was wonky. Oh and the Airbags were from the company that didn’t waterproof it properly. I took the van in, and the Dealer fixed it.

I expect things to be as good as they can be, and if they aren’t, I expect the companies to fix the damned things.

Do you understand the expression 'degraded flight characteristics' which is a description of the Boeing 737 Max aerodynamics.

The aircraft is a lemon, a flying coffin which is prevented from plowing in by software which is defective and which has to be switched off to prevent plowing in.

Perhaps Boeing engineers are more suited to submarine design.

"Kludge" keeps coming up when pilots and engineers discuss Boeing's 737 Max

... “My concern is that Boeing may have developed the MCAS software as a profit-driven kludge to mitigate the Max 8’s degraded flight characteristics due to the engine relocation required to maintain ground clearance,” commented Philip Wheelock on a New York Times story about the plane’s certification process this week. “Not convinced that software is an acceptable solution for an older design that has been pushed to its inherent aeronautical design limits.” ...

You are overstating your case, jumping to conclusions and going by some commenter on a website. If it was a bug, then it can be fixed but a kludge is different. If it was a kludge, then Boeing should have put out something to explain the situation and how its software handles it. It also should have informed the airlines and most importantly the pilots to describe the kludge and how to respond to its software taking action. There is usually a work around until the next software update can correct it. If it was a bug, then it would have to be corrected to meet specifications and is more clear that it is the fault of the software. This sounds like a lack of information being disseminated by Boeing, but we have to find out for certain.

Here is the supposed workaround -- "to cut power to the motor in the trim system that was driving the nose down, according to the people familiar, part of a checklist that all pilots are required to memorize." If true, then it would have been pilot error. We still do not know the exact circumstances as there is a criminal case and investigation of the FAA in progress.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

 

[Denizen]

The article said that Boeing had not included training on overcoming the problem causing the crashes.

Boeing probably supplies standard training for 737s which excludes the features of the new software.

 

[SavannahMann]

Your ignorance is truly without equal.

 

[james bond]

The article said that Boeing had not included training on overcoming the problem causing the crashes.

Boeing probably supplies standard training for 737s which excludes the features of the new software.

From another anonymous commenter. What kind of fool are you to trust as truth an anonymous commenter? There is no fool like an old fool.

 

[Denizen]

The Boeing shills are out in force. Boeing is responsible for the deaths of 346 people on the two recent 737 Max death flights.

The Boeing 737 has defective aerodynamic characteristics.

The Boeing 737 Max will forever be a suspect aircraft irrespective of whether it ever flies again.

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

The Boeing shills are out in force. Boeing is responsible for the deaths of 346 people on the two recent 737 Max death flights.

The Boeing 737 has defective aerodynamic characteristics.

The Boeing 737 Max will forever be a suspect aircraft irrespective of whether it ever flies again.

Allegations of the FAA allowing aircraft manufacturers to put profits above safety go back at least until 70s that I'm aware of.

The articles & books below detail the known flaw in the DC-10 regarding it's response to explosive decompression due to a faulty cargo door. These explosions were severing the hydraulics controlling the plane's tail control surfaces resulting in loss of control of the aircraft. Apparently politics in addition to profits played a significant part in allowing this aircraft to remain ungrounded.

It isn't that the skies are unfriendly for any of the major United States airlines. Indeed, this country's big four domestic carriers, United, American, Eastern and Delta, have made about 48 million flights in the last 25 years and only 35 of those have ended in a crash. Of the 1.1 billion passengers who went along, only 1,390—about one ten‐thousandth of one percent—were killed.

Still, aside from bad weather and daydreaming ground controllers, there are some lethal hazards even when everything outwardly seems fake. The greatest risk of all, as these two fascinating books prove, is the airplane manufacturer who chooses higher profits over safer equipment and who is permitted to do so by a Federal Aviation Agency that is intellectually lethargic and politically motivated.

That corporate/bureaucratic combination brought about the worst aviation disaster in history. On March 3, 1974, a Turkish Airlines DC‐10 crashed nine minutes after taking off from the Paris airport. About one minute before the crash, at an altitude of 13,000 feet, the plane's rear cargo door came off. When that happened, the, pressurized air within the plane exploded through the opening where the door had been and the violent rush of air hurled six passengers, still strapped in their seats, out the hole; it also crushed the cabin floor and that, in turn, crushed the plane's hydraulic steering apparatus—leaving the DC‐10 helpless. It hit the ground at 490 miles an hour after cutting a half‐mile path through a forest. The crew and remaining passengers were minced into an estimated 18,000 pieces; no one knows for sure how many people the pieces add up to....​

Destination Disaster: From The Tri-Motor to The DC-10 (New York Times news story)
Fat, Dumb & Happy: The Failure of The FAA

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

The Boeing shills are out in force. Boeing is responsible for the deaths of 346 people on the two recent 737 Max death flights.

The Boeing 737 has defective aerodynamic characteristics.

The Boeing 737 Max will forever be a suspect aircraft irrespective of whether it ever flies again.

It's not the 737 that is the problem. The 737 is the most popular "workhorse" of all of the planes flying commercially at least in the U.S. The problem according to internal documents made public via a FOIA request is that Boeing wanted an entirely new plane in order to counter competition with Airbus but when it came down to crunch time, they opted (cheaper & faster allegedly) to rework the 737 and thus the MAX version was born.

They basically took a good aircraft and in an effort to squeeze "more" out of the plane, ended up making modifications which made the aircraft aerodynamically unstable. I understand the desire to want to help the pilot avoid stalls during climb out which is why to me it's inheriently dangerous to do anything to the aircraft that would increase the risk of stall during the most critical phases of the flight which is takeoff and landing.

 

[Denizen]

The Boeing shills are out in force. Boeing is responsible for the deaths of 346 people on the two recent 737 Max death flights.

The Boeing 737 has defective aerodynamic characteristics.

The Boeing 737 Max will forever be a suspect aircraft irrespective of whether it ever flies again.

It's not the 737 that is the problem. The 737 is the most popular "workhorse" of all of the planes flying commercially at least in the U.S. The problem according to internal documents made public via a FOIA request is that Boeing wanted an entirely new plane in order to counter competition with Airbus but when it came down to crunch time, they opted (cheaper & faster allegedly) to rework the 737 and thus the MAX version was born.

They basically took a good aircraft and in an effort to squeeze "more" out of the plane, ended up making modifications which made the aircraft aerodynamically unstable. I understand the desire to want to help the pilot avoid stalls during climb out which is why to me it's inheriently dangerous to do anything to the aircraft that would increase the risk of stall during the most critical phases of the flight which is takeoff and landing.

They took an aeronautical cadaver, stuck a bolt in its neck, and created a flying Frankenstein.