Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg Addresses the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 Report

Now read again what Boeing issued to the airlines and the pilots after the first crash:

https://www.avm-mag.com/faa-issues-emergency-ad-for-boeing-7...

"An erroneous AOA input can cause some or all of the following indications and effects:"

"IAS DISAGREE alert."

The whole "what to do" is then:

"Initially, higher control forces may be needed to overcome any stabilizer nose down trim already applied. Electric stabilizer trim can be used to neutralize control column pitch forces before moving the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches to CUTOUT. Manual stabilizer trim can be used before and after the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches are moved to CUTOUT."

We know now that the pilots performed what was there laconically written, and that even these actions couldn't save the plane.

Which means either:

- Boeing never actually tested how to really handle the situation described then or

- Boeing indeed tested that and knew that IAS DISAGREE procedures would also be followed and which would guarantee to make the plane uncontrollable (for details see here: https://leehamnews.com/2019/04/03/et302-used-the-cut-out-swi... how one pilot recently reconstructed that and made a video about it, which was later withdrawn on the demand of the pilot's company -- note a single pilot here did what Boeing, which is supposed to sell hundreds of billions USD worth of these planes didn't want to do), but bet on "it won't happen soon enough, we can get away with it."

I can't find that anybody can excuse either of these.

The integrity of engineering excellence should never be sacrificed for profit and/or conveniency in places where it involves human lives. Realistically and pragmatically speaking, you only ever get to have just one single shot at establishing and maintaining that kind of life/death level of trust. Fuck it up, and you're gone- quite literally, mind you.

This is some Challenger O-ring type of shitshow. Accidents are one thing; incompetency or, worse yet, callous indifference is absolutely unacceptable.

> It's now fairly obvious MCAS was at the root of those two crashes. But, did it save lives in other circumstances?

Let's say Boeing ships a new airliner, where in 1/1,000 flights, the wings fall off for no reason.

Would you be asking the question of: "But did the wings save lives in other circumstances?"

Of bloody course, they did. Doesn't mean that they should have ever shipped an aircraft, where the wings fall off for no reason!

MCAS was a hack around a redesign of the plane. If the plane would have crashed at an even higher rate, without that hack, then the conclusion is not: "WOW, MCAS saves lives."

The conclusion is: "That airplane should never have been shipped, because it is a deathtrap."

If it would have crashed at a lower rate, without MCAS, then no, MCAS was not a net life-saver.

Boeing chose to redesign the place, making it more dangerous to operate. To mitigate the danger, they added MCAS, which was also dangerous to operate. It doesn't matter whether or not a MAX with MCAS, or a MAX without MCAS is more dangerous. What matters is that a MAX with MCAS is dangerous. Nobody put a gun to their head, and made them redesign their plane.

>The integrity of engineering excellence should never be sacrificed for profit and/or conveniency in places where it involves human lives.

That's just unrealistic. Unless you want plane and car rides to cost as much as a trip to space, after all, since everything would need to be engineered to that level of quality.

The main thing for me is that NOW pilots will be aware that there is a piece of software running in the background that might fight them. The first thing they will all learn is how to disable it so they can actually fly the airplane. That's even without a software fix.

To me, it all comes down to to Boeing being able to self-certify their aircraft, and they knew they were sneaking the "fix" known as MCAS as a way to prevent loss of sales to A320. Super shady in my opinion.