Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pilot Who Hitched a Ride Saved Lion Air 737 on the Day Before Deadly Crash

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 269 posts

Re: Pilot Who Hitched a Ride Saved Lion Air 737 on the Day Before Deadly Crash

#81

Post by inferiorhuman »

Someone1234 wrote: post #79
inferiorhuman wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the normal way of stopping it (the yoke) doesn't necessarily work, and the pilots wouldn't necessarily think to physically stop the wheel with their hands. Well, no. Pulling on the yoke traditionally moves the elevator. MCAS adjusts the horizontal stabilizer. You can adjust the stabilizer with switches on the yoke or with the trim wheels by your knee. MCAS will pause for five seconds if the pilot hits one of the…

I believe you may have misunderstood the comment you were replying to. They were saying you cannot counteract MCAS's control inputs with the elevator alone. Which is a somewhat unconventional design, in a lot of aircraft the elevator can overpower the horizontal stabilizer, whereas with a bad sensor MCAS will continue to move the stabilizer until you cannot overcome it. To use a bad analogy, in a car the break is str…

They were saying you cannot counteract MCAS's control inputs with the elevator alone.

Pulling on the yoke is not how you counteract a runaway stabilizer on the 737. I've pasted the relevant part of the QRH in a few previous comments. Yes, the stabilizer ultimately has more pitch authority under some circumstances. That may be what happened here, but if I'm interpreting the graphs on the preliminary report correctly I wonder about mechanical failure of some sort.

This gets a bit more complex with the 737 because moving the yoke WILL actually stop one of the stabilizer trim algorithms, but not MCAS.

Re: Pilot Who Hitched a Ride Saved Lion Air 737 on the Day Before Deadly Crash

#82

Post by kayfox »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #71
twblalock wrote: post #67

It also seems like this was not properly reported to safety agencies at the time, nor was it reported when that plane crashed in a subsequent flight. Say what you will about Boeing, but this could have been avoided if the airline had better safety practices. Every pilot on that plane should have been trained on the new system. And the malfunction, if reported properly, should have caused that particular plane to be g…

Every pilot on that plane should have been trained on the new system. How is that supposed to work when Boeing didn't inform any of the airlines of this system?

Its in the type certificate and the maintenance manuals.

Re: Pilot Who Hitched a Ride Saved Lion Air 737 on the Day Before Deadly Crash

#83

Post by gok »

> That extra pilot, who was seated in the cockpit jumpseat, correctly diagnosed the problem and told the crew how to disable a malfunctioning flight-control system and save the plane, according to two people familiar with Indonesia’s investigation.

> The presence of a third pilot in the cockpit wasn’t contained in Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee’s Nov. 28 report on the crash and hasn’t previously been reported.

So the NTSC explicitly chose to exclude this and then two whistleblowers went to Bloomberg? That is fucking wild.

Re: Pilot Who Hitched a Ride Saved Lion Air 737 on the Day Before Deadly Crash

#84

Post by jki275 »

markdown wrote: post #76
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the US doesn't choose to do much (though I find it embarrassing the FAA was one of the last regulatory bodies to respond), Boeing will face a reckoning globally from other regulatory agencies. Stock is down 15% since March 1. Hard to know what an executives there are thinking, but I hope some folks in the organization genuinely feels some sort of empathy for the families of the deceased on these flights.

> though I find it embarrassing the FAA was one of the last regulatory bodies to respond The top 3 officials at FAA are unfilled, with seat-warmers there in an "acting" capacity. I wonder if that's related. https://www.faa.gov/about/key_officials/

Honestly, those top positions in almost any organization are often political appointments that have little to do with day to day operations. The current "actings" are generally the ones who "advise" the political appointees on how to handle things. Obviously there are some exceptions, but most bureaucracies tend to run that way.

Not to comment specifically on this as FAA isn't my area, but if the secdef doesn't come to work tomorrow the undersecretary is going to take the same actions he would have. I'd imagine most of those orgs trend that way.

Re: Pilot Who Hitched a Ride Saved Lion Air 737 on the Day Before Deadly Crash

#85

Post by kayfox »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #74
jquery wrote: post #22

Runaway trim is supposed to be part of the "memory checklist" for pilots. The symptoms of MCAS are the same as runaway trim and the fix is the same (which is why Boeing didn't feel like extra pilot training was needed), so I'm curious to see the most recent investigation and hear the black box voice recorder. Did they not know they were dealing with runaway trim? Did they think it was something else? Did they forget…

The symptoms of MCAS are the same as runaway trim No, they're not.

So, how are they not?

Re: Pilot Who Hitched a Ride Saved Lion Air 737 on the Day Before Deadly Crash

#86

Post by kunkurus »

rvolkan wrote: post #75
shiven wrote: post #43

From my point-of-view, two opinion points: 1. I am glad that 737 MAX has been grounded. May it stay that way, globally, until this issue is provably resolved. 2. The entire Boeing chain of management that resulted in these crashes should be publicly flogged, their remuneration & benefits clawed back & subject to a mandatory minimum prison sentence. Who the hell am I kidding! Neither is very likely to happen in the pr…

What happens if your #2 is applied to doctors, car/ship manufacturers, food producers, grocery stores, house builders, taxis, restaurants, software engineers, medical device producers and so on? Every profession caused accidental deaths. "Legal action" against bad decisions is a must. However, mandatory prison sentence for accidents is a terrible idea.

If Boeing knowingly exposed the passengers to the risk of injury it's criminal negligence and usually the punishment is imprisonment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_negligence

Re: Pilot Who Hitched a Ride Saved Lion Air 737 on the Day Before Deadly Crash

#87

Post by twblalock »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #71
twblalock wrote: post #67

It also seems like this was not properly reported to safety agencies at the time, nor was it reported when that plane crashed in a subsequent flight. Say what you will about Boeing, but this could have been avoided if the airline had better safety practices. Every pilot on that plane should have been trained on the new system. And the malfunction, if reported properly, should have caused that particular plane to be g…

Every pilot on that plane should have been trained on the new system. How is that supposed to work when Boeing didn't inform any of the airlines of this system?

Boeing did inform them. Otherwise how would the third pilot have known what to do when he saved the plane?

Re: Pilot Who Hitched a Ride Saved Lion Air 737 on the Day Before Deadly Crash

#88

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

dentemple wrote: post #46
8note wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that sounds like the engineers are at fault for not refusing to stamp the thing.

The ones at fault at the people at the FAA who let Boeing certify their own planes.

Everyone involved can share the fault.

Unfortunately, correctly apportioning all of the blame won’t bring back the souls lost.

Re: Pilot Who Hitched a Ride Saved Lion Air 737 on the Day Before Deadly Crash

#89

Post by sterlind »

segmondy wrote: post #72
dralley wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pilots know that the trim is moving, it's connected to a wheel in the cockpit that's super obvious. But the normal way of stopping it (the yoke) doesn't necessarily work, and the pilots wouldn't necessarily think to physically stop the wheel with their hands.

This 3rd pilot was probably able to figure out the issue due to clarity of mind to not having to fly the plane, pay attention to all the instrument gauges while things are going wrong, trying to diagnosis and correct the issue.

Seems like pilots are overburdened by so much automation, as alluded to by the famous "Children of the Magenta" video[0].

I don't get why the plane doesn't just say what it's doing, and why it's doing it, and have a big red button to put the plane into a safe-mode alternate law. 737s already say warnings like "BANK ANGLE", couldn't it just say "DANGEROUS CLIMB DETECTED, TRIMMING NOSE DOWN. PRESS RED BUTTON TO CANCEL."

0. https://vimeo.com/159496346

Re: Pilot Who Hitched a Ride Saved Lion Air 737 on the Day Before Deadly Crash

#90

Post by mikeash »

jki275 wrote: post #84
markdown wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> though I find it embarrassing the FAA was one of the last regulatory bodies to respond The top 3 officials at FAA are unfilled, with seat-warmers there in an "acting" capacity. I wonder if that's related. https://www.faa.gov/about/key_officials/

Honestly, those top positions in almost any organization are often political appointments that have little to do with day to day operations. The current "actings" are generally the ones who "advise" the political appointees on how to handle things. Obviously there are some exceptions, but most bureaucracies tend to run that way. Not to comment specifically on this as FAA isn't my area, but if the secdef doesn't come…

Amusing example, considering the Secretary of Defense has been vacant since January.
Post reply on HN