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Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 pilots 'could not stop nosedive'

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 pilots 'could not stop nosedive'

#121

Post by windexh8er »

losvedir wrote: post #105
matt4077 wrote: post #12

I’d love to see those people who accused the airline and crew of being incompetent to apologize in the light of these reports. It was shameful to see Boeing actively encouraging that narrative behind the scenes. Especially considering it plays on racist stereotypes equating „Africa“ with bad training/bad safety record/…. The idea of „dingy third world airline“ was ridiculous on its face, considering how bad a fit fly…

I've never seen anyone blame the crew, as it was recognized from the start that this was probably MCAS. I've seen, and personally believe, that a more experienced crew could have saved the flight, but that's different from calling this crew incompetent. I wish the article was clearer on what procedures were followed that didn't work. Did the crew follow the runaway stab trim checklist? If so, then that's really bad f…

> I've seen, and personally believe, that a more experienced crew could have saved the flight, but that's different from calling this crew incompetent.

I think this jump is unfair. It's easy to say this but the reality of the matter is that all public information we have points to a system that should have been redundant wasn't, a system that was in place (MCAS) was not as well known or understood as it should have been to pilots, and we also know Boeing (just like Volkswagen) made an explicit choice to cheat with the explicit goal of profits. Except in this case Boeing's choice directly led to hundreds of immediate deaths. This last point is why I, personally, think your comment is unfair. You're dismissing Boeing's mistakes but accepting all of the pilot's.

Someone at Boeing in executive ranks, like Volkswagen, needs to go to prison if they are found guilty of neglect. As should the employees of the FAA who approved flightworthiness.

Re: Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 pilots 'could not stop nosedive'

#122

Post by CaptainZapp »

matt4077 wrote: post #12

I’d love to see those people who accused the airline and crew of being incompetent to apologize in the light of these reports. It was shameful to see Boeing actively encouraging that narrative behind the scenes. Especially considering it plays on racist stereotypes equating „Africa“ with bad training/bad safety record/…. The idea of „dingy third world airline“ was ridiculous on its face, considering how bad a fit fly…

Totally agree.

Some of the sentiments expressed here was borderline racist. (badly trained, overworked cluelless third world pilots not even capable to follow a checklist).

One of the worst smear jobs was actually by the New York Times accusing the captain of the Ethiopian plane not having trained in a 787-MAX simulator.

Hello? Wasn't that the whole sales pitch that the plane requires no training at all for certified 787 pilots? In addition the MCAS crash scenario was neither part of the manuals nor of simulator training.

Great smear job, NYT! I'm sure Boeing will thank you with a ton of ads.

This[1] fascinating piece outlines what happened to a US pilot who felt uncomfortable with the minimal training provided and wanted additional simulator training or at least an instructor on his first flight. Spoiler: It was not a great carreer move.

If I sound angry as hell, I am. That Boeing didn't ground the plane after the Lion Air crash (they were busy smearing the airline an the pilots instead) is nothing short of criminal.

What a disgusting company!

[1] https://qz.com/1584233/boeing-737-max-what-happened-when-one...

Re: Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 pilots 'could not stop nosedive'

#123

Post by qaq »

mhandley wrote: post #99
qaq wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why speculate here's memory item (pilot should know without looking at the manual) for all 737s for runaway stabilizer. Do you have any information they followed this. All published information we had was specifically that they did not follow the procedure: CONTROL COLUMN - HOLD FIRMLY AUTOPILOT (if engaged) - DISENGAGE Do not re-engage the autopilot. Control airplane pitch attitude manually with control column and m…

From today's Ethiopian Airlines press release: "The preliminary report clearly showed that the Ethiopian Airlines Pilots who were commanding FlightET 302/10 March have followed the Boeing recommended and FAA approved emergency procedures to handle the most difficult emergency situation created on the airplane. Despite their hard work and full compliance with the emergency procedures, it was very unfortunate that they…

OK it looks like pilots actually followed the procedure but could not manually trim stabilizer back to neutral.

Re: Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 pilots 'could not stop nosedive'

#124

Post by qaq »

mhandley wrote: post #104
qaq wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats a press release there is cockpit audio pilots vocalize actions when they take them the cutout switches were never turned off. Would you point to the part of the actual report that says the position of cutout switches was off?

The preliminary report is not yet public - Ethiopian have seen it, hence their press release, and some of the media have been briefed on its contents, hence the BBC article, but it's not yet public.

Ok on other resources with more details from the report it does look like pilots followed the full procedure

Re: Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 pilots 'could not stop nosedive'

#125

Post by kharms »

Slartie wrote: post #44
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #16

There you have it, folks, programmers killing people. No, it wasn't on-purpose, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. This, of course, has been happening for a long time, it's just getting more and more obvious now. I feel strongly that AF 447 was an example. It's important to understand that this is the natural result of two trends. One, software/hardware systems continue to become more and more complex, many time…

I am pretty sure the software here did exactly what it was supposed to do. There was no buffer overrun, no NullPointerException, not any other kind of bug. There was just software that reacted exactly as specified. The problem is: those specifications were bad. It's a bad idea to just rely on one single sensor when you actually have two, it's a bad idea to write software that disengages on manual input counteracting…

Bad programming was not the sole or root cause but it was a cause, and people died. You can't punt on that unless you want software engineer to actually mean code monkey. The same way a building architect has to sign off on the design demands of a a client, a software engineer on safety-critical systems must evaluate the spec and consider the effects of edge cases.

Re: Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 pilots 'could not stop nosedive'

#126

Post by CaptainZapp »

megablast wrote: post #118
dagaci wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually seems to be normal practice to quickly allocate blame, even when its quite clear that little if any investigation has actually taken place. One of the effects of allocating blame is that large swathes of the general public will "switch off" and not ask questions of their politicians, who in turn apply little pressure to improve or advocate for improved standards (which big business and comfortable institu…

It is called controlling the narrative.

And can brutally backfire.

"First and foremost, our deepest sympathies are with the families and loved ones of those onboard Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302."

and

"Safety is our highest priority as we design, build and support our airplanes."[1]

Yeah, sure! We believe you.

[1] http://www.boeing.com/commercial/737max/737-max-update.page

Re: Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 pilots 'could not stop nosedive'

#127

Post by swiley »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #122
matt4077 wrote: post #12

I’d love to see those people who accused the airline and crew of being incompetent to apologize in the light of these reports. It was shameful to see Boeing actively encouraging that narrative behind the scenes. Especially considering it plays on racist stereotypes equating „Africa“ with bad training/bad safety record/…. The idea of „dingy third world airline“ was ridiculous on its face, considering how bad a fit fly…

Totally agree. Some of the sentiments expressed here was borderline racist. (badly trained, overworked cluelless third world pilots not even capable to follow a checklist). One of the worst smear jobs was actually by the New York Times accusing the captain of the Ethiopian plane not having trained in a 787-MAX simulator. Hello? Wasn't that the whole sales pitch that the plane requires no training at all for certified…

You really shouldn’t ever trust the NYT. They haven’t been trustworthy for a while.

Re: Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 pilots 'could not stop nosedive'

#129

Post by sokoloff »

matt4077 wrote: post #12

I’d love to see those people who accused the airline and crew of being incompetent to apologize in the light of these reports. It was shameful to see Boeing actively encouraging that narrative behind the scenes. Especially considering it plays on racist stereotypes equating „Africa“ with bad training/bad safety record/…. The idea of „dingy third world airline“ was ridiculous on its face, considering how bad a fit fly…

I am one of those people. If in fact the stab trim cutout switches were set to cutout early in the incident sequence, as required by the memory items on the checklist, I will absolutely retract my criticism of the crew and the blame falls much more squarely/exclusively on Boeing.

I’ll make it a point to retract and apologize on all three forums where I made those comments (two tech and one aviation).

I don’t read the minister’s comments today as unequivocally stating that.

Re: Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 pilots 'could not stop nosedive'

#130

Post by CaptainZapp »

throwaway29875 wrote: post #72
matt4077 wrote: post #12

I’d love to see those people who accused the airline and crew of being incompetent to apologize in the light of these reports. It was shameful to see Boeing actively encouraging that narrative behind the scenes. Especially considering it plays on racist stereotypes equating „Africa“ with bad training/bad safety record/…. The idea of „dingy third world airline“ was ridiculous on its face, considering how bad a fit fly…

I'm really surprised they didn't go ahead and blame the pilot's "ethnic culture" like the did with Asiana 214 [1] 1. https://www.cnbc.com/id/100869966

I'm extremely critical with Boeing's responses in general and the smearing and throwing pilots and airlines under the bus.

But in that case they had a point.

Seniority is super important in Asian culture. You just! don't! criticize! your! superiors! period.

That's extremely diametral for resources management and crew communication in a cockpit.

The first officer may tend to say nothing, even if he believes the plane should pull up in order not to offend the senior person.

That said, Asian airlines learned from this and put a lot of effort to rectify this issue.

That's absolutely no excuse for Boeing's despicable behavior on those last two crashes.

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