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Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes

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Re: Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes

#91

Post by kayfox »

treis wrote: post #84
dahart wrote: post #62

This seems like a good thing, they should be testing with people who don’t know the answers. Though I can’t help but wonder if this is a very subtle re-framing of the Max accidents to shift blame back towards pilots. This approach of a regulatory agency recommending “average pilot” testing makes both the agency and Boeing look good, and tends to downplay the fact that Boeing intentionally avoided training the pilots,…

>Though I can’t help but wonder if this is a very subtle re-framing of the Max accidents to shift blame back towards pilots. Blame is a loaded word. Boeing assumed that pilots could be relied upon to recover from a MCAS induced runaway trim. Practice has shown that they can't. Whether Boeing or the pilots is at fault is, from a safety perspective, irrelevant. The bottom line is that an assumption was made, it was wro…

To be more precise, Boeing assumed that all pilots flying their aircraft would be up to the standards of the United States as opposed to the different standards around the world.

Re: Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes

#92

Post by Insanity »

sly010 wrote: post #88
rowanG077 wrote: post #81

Actually they must use the worst pilots. If they use average pilots that means 50% of the pilots might be out of their depth flying that plane. What kind of insanity is this?

Imagine the job postings for such positions ...

You would word it differently, such as "Max 2 years of experience".

Re: Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes

#93

Post by ISL »

myself248 wrote: post #46
ohduran wrote: post #23

Wouldn't you need the worse pilot you can get? Average doesn't account for the fact that 50% of the sample are WORSE.

Robert Sheckley has a short story called The Minimum Man, which is about precisely this. An unlucky, clumsy, error-prone schlub who gets hired by basically-NASA for testing purposes. Turns out, when he's placed in a life-or-death situation, he finds some focus and skill, and is no longer the minimum man. So they have some ways to counter that tendency....

In times of crisis, we rarely rise to the occasion, but rather sink to the level of our training.

Re: Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes

#95

Post by sudhirj »

rowanG077 wrote: post #81

Actually they must use the worst pilots. If they use average pilots that means 50% of the pilots might be out of their depth flying that plane. What kind of insanity is this?

This assumes the skill variance among pilots is pretty low. Average not in skill (I don’t think there’s a way to rate or rank pilots) but in specialised Boeing plane specific training. The problem with Boeing’s assumption was that pilots would have specialised training on that model, and the regulators seem to be trying to remediate that.

Re: Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes

#97

Post by larrik »

ebg13 wrote: post #21

Uh oh. What are they going to do when they discover that there aren't any average pilots? https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-... (HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11230287 ) https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/the-inv... (HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11155889 )

I'm pretty sure they mean "active duty pilots" va "dedicated test pilots", and I also assume they mean in addition to the test pilot tests they already do.

Re: Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes

#98

Post by elbrian »

treis wrote: post #84
dahart wrote: post #62

This seems like a good thing, they should be testing with people who don’t know the answers. Though I can’t help but wonder if this is a very subtle re-framing of the Max accidents to shift blame back towards pilots. This approach of a regulatory agency recommending “average pilot” testing makes both the agency and Boeing look good, and tends to downplay the fact that Boeing intentionally avoided training the pilots,…

>Though I can’t help but wonder if this is a very subtle re-framing of the Max accidents to shift blame back towards pilots. Blame is a loaded word. Boeing assumed that pilots could be relied upon to recover from a MCAS induced runaway trim. Practice has shown that they can't. Whether Boeing or the pilots is at fault is, from a safety perspective, irrelevant. The bottom line is that an assumption was made, it was wro…

> Boeing assumed that pilots could be relied upon to recover from a MCAS induced runaway trim. Practice has shown that they can't. Whether Boeing or the pilots is at fault is, from a safety perspective, irrelevant.

From a practical perspective, however, Boeing making universal assumptions about pilot capabilities in life-or-death situations, utilizing new equipment that they were not trained on, is anything but irrelevant.

Re: Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes

#99

Post by dahart »

treis wrote: post #84
dahart wrote: post #62

This seems like a good thing, they should be testing with people who don’t know the answers. Though I can’t help but wonder if this is a very subtle re-framing of the Max accidents to shift blame back towards pilots. This approach of a regulatory agency recommending “average pilot” testing makes both the agency and Boeing look good, and tends to downplay the fact that Boeing intentionally avoided training the pilots,…

>Though I can’t help but wonder if this is a very subtle re-framing of the Max accidents to shift blame back towards pilots. Blame is a loaded word. Boeing assumed that pilots could be relied upon to recover from a MCAS induced runaway trim. Practice has shown that they can't. Whether Boeing or the pilots is at fault is, from a safety perspective, irrelevant. The bottom line is that an assumption was made, it was wro…

I appreciate the attempt to be diplomatic, and I agree that using average pilots is sensible. But, with respect, I could not disagree more with the rest of that.

> Blame is a loaded word.

Boeing’s response to the accidents was to blame the pilots, there is precedent for this word in this situation.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/23/business/american-airlines-bo...

> Boeing assumed that pilots could be relied upon

No, Boeing intentionally hid information from pilots. This is well known.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/boeing-withheld-information-on-...

> Whether Boeing or the pilots is at fault is, from a safety perspective, irrelevant

No. If you want to fix the problem, you must know what the problem is. The cause may be irrelevant to the people who are dead, but it is absolutely relevant to solving the problem in the future especially from a safety perspective.

Re: Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes

#100

Post by rowanG077 »

sudhirj wrote: post #95
rowanG077 wrote: post #81

Actually they must use the worst pilots. If they use average pilots that means 50% of the pilots might be out of their depth flying that plane. What kind of insanity is this?

This assumes the skill variance among pilots is pretty low. Average not in skill (I don’t think there’s a way to rate or rank pilots) but in specialised Boeing plane specific training. The problem with Boeing’s assumption was that pilots would have specialised training on that model, and the regulators seem to be trying to remediate that.

If the skill variance is pretty low then you might as well use test pilots. Their skill will hardly be better then the worst of the worst.

I don't think there is actual data on skill variance among professional airline pilots so I rather they just force testing on groups which are statistically more significant to get into crashes.

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