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Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX Investigation Preliminary Report

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Re: Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX Investigation Preliminary Report

#271

Post by darkpuma »

throwaway713 wrote: post #248
rdiddly wrote: post #119

Reading through the chronology in section 1.1, it feels like a movie where the aircraft is a malevolent entity that's trying to kill them. So if I were in the cockpit I'm sure it would've been some mix of fear and anger. My life's not in danger though, so I'm only left with the anger, on their behalf, knowing some greedy bunch of assholes were effectively that malevolent entity, whose will was expressed via the aircr…

I've been on HN for years, and lately some of the downvotes have really been blowing my mind. See this post I made a couple of months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18937864 . Someone actually downvoted and argued against me that their dog's life is more valuable than "a stranger's". I have no doubt it's the same people downvoting your comment. I can't tell if these people are just really good trolls, or t…

I think you probaby struck a raw nerve with that dog issue in particular. Some people have family and dogs, but other people have no family (or not the one they want) and use dogs as surrogates. Pointing out the difference between family and dogs can provoke an intense emotional reaction, not rooted in their feelings towards dogs but rather rooted in the phantom pain they feel where their family should be. So what seems to be an irrational emotional outburst in defense of dogs is in fact their sense of familiar longing or loss. Viewed this way, maybe you can see some common ground.

(I'm sure somebody might want to tell me about how they have a family and a dog, and love both. That's great, but I'm quite sure losing a child would be a greater blow to you than losing a dog. The point here is that somebody who already feels pain from missing family might try to ameliorate that pain with dog ownership.)

Re: Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX Investigation Preliminary Report

#272

Post by dboreham »

na85 wrote: post #227
ummonk wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that getting downvoted? What the heck.

On HN you can say the same things you say anywhere else but GP didn't couch his rant in fancy synonyms and misused Latin phrases like a priori.

I hate it when a priori does that.

Re: Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX Investigation Preliminary Report

#273

Post by cjbprime »

paulmd wrote: post #188
holler wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this may be a naive question but with all of the advanced technology on these planes, why isn't there a check for altitude before any automated command runs which says "hey we just took off, are 400ft above ground, MCAS is saying nose down, we will crash if that command runs, CANCEL"

Because right after takeoff is the single most common point at which you might stall the aircraft. What's more, at that point it is likely to be a power-on stall, which is the specific situation that MCAS is intended to fix (because the 737 MAX has a tendency to pitch upwards in power-on scenarios). Really there should just have been a separate cutout for MCAS itself, but that would have triggered retraining requirem…

> is the specific situation that MCAS is intended to fix

Well, not quite: if they wanted it to protect against stalls at very low altitude, it would be operational with flaps extended.

Re: Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX Investigation Preliminary Report

#274

Post by darkpuma »

cjbprime wrote: post #231
geofft wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "greedy bunch of assholes" are the Boeing execs who optimized for profit over the lives of those pilots and their passengers. (I thought that was pretty clear from the comment, fwiw.) I think it's been pretty thoroughly established at this point that an underlying design constraint in the MCAS was that it was easier for Boeing to get a 737-with-modifications approved than a new airplane, despite the engines being…

Agree on the consensus. There's a piece of additional flavor, which is that as I understand it Boeing proposed building a new type of plane as an a320neo competitor, and the airlines announced that they'd only buy it if it's a 737 subtype to avoid having to retrain their pilots. It's not just "Boeing doesn't want to pay for certifications", but also -- and perhaps primarily -- "Airlines don't want to pay for training…

That's still greedy assholes at work. rdiddly didn't specify that the greedy assholes involved are all Boeing executives; that airline executives have clean hands. And to VBprogrammer's point, airliners making pilots pay for their own training again comes back to airline executives being greedy assholes.

Re: Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX Investigation Preliminary Report

#275

Post by darkpuma »

acqq wrote: post #262
Phrodo_00 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just Boeing, though (not that this exculpate them in any way), but cheap airlines insist in flying 737, but also have demand for more efficiency. This plane was trying to satisfy that impossible "I want the exact same plane but better" demand, so that the other greedy bunch of assholes that are airline execs wouldn't have to spend in training mechanics and pilots because the plane they're flying has another…

No. The redirection of demand would just give some more clients to Airbus and reduce the speed of the growth of the total number of planes flying. Nobody should accept this attempt to excuse Boeing of its responsibility and even less the possible variant of it "we are all guilty we will buy the cheapest flight."

It seems a bit unlikely to me that an airline like South West, that only flies 737s, would sooner buy Airbus planes than non-737 Boeing planes. I mean, stranger things have certainly happened, but it doesn't seem like the kind of existential threat that would force the hand of Boeing executives in such a way that takes blame away from them.

Re: Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX Investigation Preliminary Report

#276

Post by cjbprime »

fgonzag wrote: post #198
robryan wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about a single button to turn MCAS off and return to trim to a neutral position? Or a setting where the pilot is telling the system to ignore the sensor input. Maybe a bit like a self driving car planes will eventually have a system where they can use visual markers as a check on what sensors are reporting.

Seriously, a MCAS indicator light (if MCAS is actively issuing commands), a big red button below it called "Disable MCAS" , and a MCAS disabled light (so pilots actually remember when it is disabled) should be more than enough to prevent this. Besides adding the AoA disagree light AND having MCAS use a triple AoA sensor vote to determine the AoA angle.

I think they're not gonna do that because they'd lose the 737 type.

Re: Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX Investigation Preliminary Report

#277

Post by cjbprime »

js2 wrote: post #122
davepage wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not appear to be "precisely" the procedure, in that sufficient nose up trim was not selected by the yoke manual trim switch prior to pulling the trim cutouts. And then they did not work the mechanical trim wheel hard enough to reset the residual nose down trim. And, the crew left the power setting at climb throughout almost the entire sequence, so they oversped the airframe. And, when they (against procedure)…

You can still point back to Boeing for not recommending flight simulator training of this failure scenario. One thing that I've wondered though as I've read more about MCAS. MCAS can't kick in till the flaps are fully retracted. Usually when something goes wrong in response to an action, the response is to undo the action. Why isn't the procedure or even the pilot instinct to re-extend the flaps when the nose down oc…

There's also a lot going on at that point in flight. It's within ten seconds of autopilot, for example. Would be hard to pinpoint. Besides, they have checklists to follow: airline piloting is not supposed to be creative and experimental.

Re: Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX Investigation Preliminary Report

#279

Post by icebraining »

late2part wrote: post #265
rdiddly wrote: post #119

Reading through the chronology in section 1.1, it feels like a movie where the aircraft is a malevolent entity that's trying to kill them. So if I were in the cockpit I'm sure it would've been some mix of fear and anger. My life's not in danger though, so I'm only left with the anger, on their behalf, knowing some greedy bunch of assholes were effectively that malevolent entity, whose will was expressed via the aircr…

I generally support your first paragraph and the first sentence of your second. But your final sentence is illogical and immature. If you want @dang and mods to ban you; just erase your account. If what you mean to say is "if what I am saying is wrong, then ban me for saying it," you should say that. Regardless you've created a little drama for your biologically degrading snowflake, and it's unlikely they'll want to…

> just erase your account.

There's actually no way of doing that on HN.

Re: Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX Investigation Preliminary Report

#280

Post by late2part »

icebraining wrote: post #279
late2part wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally support your first paragraph and the first sentence of your second. But your final sentence is illogical and immature. If you want @dang and mods to ban you; just erase your account. If what you mean to say is "if what I am saying is wrong, then ban me for saying it," you should say that. Regardless you've created a little drama for your biologically degrading snowflake, and it's unlikely they'll want to…

> just erase your account. There's actually no way of doing that on HN.

How does HN comply w/ GDPR?
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