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Pilot of Boeing flight says he lost control after instrument failure

cnn.com

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Re: Pilot of Boeing flight says he lost control after instrument failure

#221

Post by Retric »

breadwinner wrote: post #214
schlauerfox wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is VERY bad engineering practice, you throw away knowns for unknowns. A blue sky design isn't a fix. Especially if your corporate culture has the wrong leadership. First year engineers take engineering economics for a reason. Money is always an object.

Is there never a case where it is cheaper + better to start over? I think sometimes there is. The design of 737 MAX was flawed from the get-go. They made the engines bigger because bigger engines run hotter and burn less fuel. Ordinarily this would require the fuselage to be raised as well, so that the bigger engine can fit under the wing. Instead they changed the position of the engine. Instead of being hung under t…

Never is a loaded word.

It’s almost impossible for a completely fresh design to be safer on day one. There’s so many different ways to fuck up many of them are counterintuitive because nobody ever considers if someone could install this backwards until someone does. 20+ years of debugging written with people’s lives tests just about everything in a way engineers never really think about

Re: Pilot of Boeing flight says he lost control after instrument failure

#222

Post by rvba »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #14
rob74 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with zero controls, and even if one or more of the various computers decided spontaneously to restart, I would expect the plane to continue flying the way it did before the incident rather than going into an (apparently) uncommanded descent? I mean, we had that with the 737 MAX, so I wouldn't rule it out, but it sounds suspiciously like the pilot messed up and is trying to blame the airplane. However I'm no spec…

Airbus had a problem like this on an A330 due to corrupted AOA data in the flight computers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas_Flight_72

Thanks for the link, it made me move to the article about "Mayday Mayday Mayday" callsign, then listen to a recording of one and read about a ship that hit a bridge in Florida. They rebuild the bridge.

Wikipedia is such a fascinating website

Re: Pilot of Boeing flight says he lost control after instrument failure

#223

Post by burnte »

satellite2 wrote: post #169
dynisor wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

74gear[1] on YouTube is a 747 Captain. It's a great aviation channel in general if anyone is interested in that stuff. He had mentioned two things that really illustrated to me your point a while back: A) Stuff breaks on planes. All the time. They are complex machines, but they typically have so many redundancies that unless there is a completely catastrophic failure, they are still perfectly safe to fly. An example:…

Yes but do the flight crew have the ability to tell if a plane is safe to fly? Without a deep understanding of the design of the plane they rely a lot on the metrics that the plane manufacturer display and on the manufacturers manuals to interpret them.

> Yes but do the flight crew have the ability to tell if a plane is safe to fly?

Yes, it's literally part of the job of the pilots, by federal regulation. If the captain feels the flight isn't fit to fly, the captain can say it's a no go, period.

Re: Pilot of Boeing flight says he lost control after instrument failure

#224

Post by Reason077 »

burnte wrote: post #217
schlauerfox wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is VERY bad engineering practice, you throw away knowns for unknowns. A blue sky design isn't a fix. Especially if your corporate culture has the wrong leadership. First year engineers take engineering economics for a reason. Money is always an object.

Yes. A place design that's 70 years old has had THOUSANDS of bugs fixed. I'd rather fly on a new 737 than an "all new 797 or A390". Side note: I know there isn't a 797 or A390 yet, that was the intent of the statement, a future unknown plane.

All-new aircraft designs are only certified to fly after many years of rigorous analysis and testing. It was Boeing's desire to avoid the full expensive certification process, by claiming that the MAX was just a minor update to an existing design, which led to two catastrophic crashes in the space of a few months.

On the other hand, no 787 or A380 has ever had a crash or incident that resulted in a passenger fatality or hull loss. This LATAM flight is probably the most serious incident that has ever happened on a 787 in almost 10 years of service, with over 1100 aircraft active.

Re: Pilot of Boeing flight says he lost control after instrument failure

#225

Post by rpmisms »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #204
dynisor wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

74gear[1] on YouTube is a 747 Captain. It's a great aviation channel in general if anyone is interested in that stuff. He had mentioned two things that really illustrated to me your point a while back: A) Stuff breaks on planes. All the time. They are complex machines, but they typically have so many redundancies that unless there is a completely catastrophic failure, they are still perfectly safe to fly. An example:…

>It's a great aviation channel in general if anyone is interested in that stuff. It's an aviation channel for people who aren't into aviation. Lot's of clickbait + obvious optimization of titles and topics to appeal to the masses. The Mr Beast of pilots.

Mentour Pilot is for people interested in aviation. He does breakdowns/analyses of plane incidents—not just crashes. He's also a certified trainer on at least one type.

Re: Pilot of Boeing flight says he lost control after instrument failure

#226

Post by breadwinner »

Retric wrote: post #221
breadwinner wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there never a case where it is cheaper + better to start over? I think sometimes there is. The design of 737 MAX was flawed from the get-go. They made the engines bigger because bigger engines run hotter and burn less fuel. Ordinarily this would require the fuselage to be raised as well, so that the bigger engine can fit under the wing. Instead they changed the position of the engine. Instead of being hung under t…

Never is a loaded word. It’s almost impossible for a completely fresh design to be safer on day one. There’s so many different ways to fuck up many of them are counterintuitive because nobody ever considers if someone could install this backwards until someone does. 20+ years of debugging written with people’s lives tests just about everything in a way engineers never really think about

The difference here is that 737 MAX has a flaw (forward positioning of the engine) that cannot be fixed as a "bug".

Re: Pilot of Boeing flight says he lost control after instrument failure

#227

Post by dynisor »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #204
dynisor wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

74gear[1] on YouTube is a 747 Captain. It's a great aviation channel in general if anyone is interested in that stuff. He had mentioned two things that really illustrated to me your point a while back: A) Stuff breaks on planes. All the time. They are complex machines, but they typically have so many redundancies that unless there is a completely catastrophic failure, they are still perfectly safe to fly. An example:…

>It's a great aviation channel in general if anyone is interested in that stuff. It's an aviation channel for people who aren't into aviation. Lot's of clickbait + obvious optimization of titles and topics to appeal to the masses. The Mr Beast of pilots.

Hmm. I think that's interesting. I don't agree with you, but let's take your statement as fact.

What's wrong with that?

The content itself is generally him explaining from a pilot's point of view situations that have happened, like crashes or ATC issues, or responses to clickbait misinformation from other places on social media. His responses tend to be reasonable and enjoyable and for people who "aren't into aviation," maybe his videos will make them more interested. He has never made it about himself, the guy got promoted to Captain and didn't (and hasn't?) even mentioned it. Even his avatar and banner have him at 3 bars. It seems to me that he genuinely cares about aviation and informing people who aren't familiar with it. I feel like he brings a lot of value.

If you're not into it's fine, but I think it's a bit unfortunate you feel the need to play gatekeeper.

Re: Pilot of Boeing flight says he lost control after instrument failure

#228

Post by damiankennedy »

maybelsyrup wrote: post #84

Anyone have the tail number for the airplane involved? Is it CC-BGG? Wondering if there's any way to tell if this is one of the 787s built in South Carolina or in Washington state.

Yes, it was CC-BGG that had the incident and landed in Auckland, then the flight to Santiago was cancelled.

Re: Pilot of Boeing flight says he lost control after instrument failure

#229

Post by Retric »

breadwinner wrote: post #226
Retric wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never is a loaded word. It’s almost impossible for a completely fresh design to be safer on day one. There’s so many different ways to fuck up many of them are counterintuitive because nobody ever considers if someone could install this backwards until someone does. 20+ years of debugging written with people’s lives tests just about everything in a way engineers never really think about

The difference here is that 737 MAX has a flaw (forward positioning of the engine) that cannot be fixed as a "bug".

You can definitely treat it as a design flaw and fix it without impacting most systems.

Designers need to make radical changes before cockpit windows would need to be updated. That specific example may not seem like much but there’s a lot of safety critical engineering that goes into such things and yet design flaws where still uncovered.

Re: Pilot of Boeing flight says he lost control after instrument failure

#230

Post by breadwinner »

Retric wrote: post #229
breadwinner wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference here is that 737 MAX has a flaw (forward positioning of the engine) that cannot be fixed as a "bug".

You can definitely treat it as a design flaw and fix it without impacting most systems. Designers need to make radical changes before cockpit windows would need to be updated. That specific example may not seem like much but there’s a lot of safety critical engineering that goes into such things and yet design flaws where still uncovered.

Sure you can bring over the "good parts" of the old plane, but if this design flaw is fixed then it is essentially a new plane. They will no longer be able to pretend it is the same as the old 737s (and that's what got them into trouble).
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