Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Boeing 737 Max Hit Trouble Right Away, Pilot’s Tense Radio Messages Show

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 150 posts

Re: Boeing 737 Max Hit Trouble Right Away, Pilot’s Tense Radio Messages Show

#11

Post by serf »

jquery wrote: post #4
gotocake wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this the same Greg Feith who said: Investigators including Boeing are going to have to determine whether or not this crew is properly trained and of course, Boeing is going to have to focus on whether or not they have a software or technical issue.

Probably? He's very famous in the ACI community. And as he always says, a plane never goes down for a single reason. The Airbus that crashed into the Atlantic ocean could've been saved if they made the design decision not to "average" inputs from the sticks. Is that a design flaw? Or bad pilot training? Crashes are always the nexus of a chain of unfortunately and unlucky events. I have no reason to suspect this crash…

>The only thing I'm confident of is that no matter what the problem is, Boeing will make changes ...

Yeah, but it doesn't take Nostradamus to make that prediction. If Boeing doesn't fix their issues, they won't sell planes.

So, say we blame the pilot for incorrectly deactivating the faulted system within a time-frame that allows for recovery; which I think is a silly thing to do : at what level of added complexity and extended abnormal checklists do we transfer the blame from the pilot being unable to follow a checklist thoroughly and quickly enough, to the airframe manufacturer for producing a product with so many potential failure vectors that were added primarily as a cost-savings or for-profit desire?

The 737 MAX is unstable inherently for the sake of mileage, to reduce the overall cost per ticket, and increase corporate profit. I understand the importance of cost/benefit analysis, but at what point are corporations liable for teetering towards the profit side at the sake of safety?

Re: Boeing 737 Max Hit Trouble Right Away, Pilot’s Tense Radio Messages Show

#12

Post by gotocake »

serf wrote: post #11
jquery wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably? He's very famous in the ACI community. And as he always says, a plane never goes down for a single reason. The Airbus that crashed into the Atlantic ocean could've been saved if they made the design decision not to "average" inputs from the sticks. Is that a design flaw? Or bad pilot training? Crashes are always the nexus of a chain of unfortunately and unlucky events. I have no reason to suspect this crash…

>The only thing I'm confident of is that no matter what the problem is, Boeing will make changes ... Yeah, but it doesn't take Nostradamus to make that prediction. If Boeing doesn't fix their issues, they won't sell planes. So, say we blame the pilot for incorrectly deactivating the faulted system within a time-frame that allows for recovery; which I think is a silly thing to do : at what level of added complexity an…

Plus they did everything they could to get it grandfathered in, and not have to re-certify it. As a result there’s no pilot training on it as a distinct type, and as a result...

Re: Boeing 737 Max Hit Trouble Right Away, Pilot’s Tense Radio Messages Show

#13

Post by psadri »

jquery wrote: post #4
gotocake wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this the same Greg Feith who said: Investigators including Boeing are going to have to determine whether or not this crew is properly trained and of course, Boeing is going to have to focus on whether or not they have a software or technical issue.

Probably? He's very famous in the ACI community. And as he always says, a plane never goes down for a single reason. The Airbus that crashed into the Atlantic ocean could've been saved if they made the design decision not to "average" inputs from the sticks. Is that a design flaw? Or bad pilot training? Crashes are always the nexus of a chain of unfortunately and unlucky events. I have no reason to suspect this crash…

It’d be interesting to see if executives from Boeing are willing to fly the 737 Max, as a demonstration of their faith in the plane’s safety.

Re: Boeing 737 Max Hit Trouble Right Away, Pilot’s Tense Radio Messages Show

#14

Post by peteretep »

jquery wrote: post #2

Before the wild speculation, here's some words from an actual aviation expert, Greg Feith: It is sad to hear some of the “junior investigator” talking heads make a storyline out of factoids or no facts about the 737 MAX. They embellish their credentials to sound smart when in fact they have no clue and say things about analyzing data that doesn’t exist.... A good friend of mine who is a former airline captain and fli…

> Before the wild speculation

The wild speculation presumably includes British and Australian authorities — who have exemplary safety records, are nobody’s fools, and are very definitely run by very very senior and experienced people — banning the planes.

Re: Boeing 737 Max Hit Trouble Right Away, Pilot’s Tense Radio Messages Show

#15

Post by alfalfasprout »

tyingq wrote: post #8
jquery wrote: post #2

Before the wild speculation, here's some words from an actual aviation expert, Greg Feith: It is sad to hear some of the “junior investigator” talking heads make a storyline out of factoids or no facts about the 737 MAX. They embellish their credentials to sound smart when in fact they have no clue and say things about analyzing data that doesn’t exist.... A good friend of mine who is a former airline captain and fli…

It's not that weird for technical people to wonder why, when there are 2 AoA sensors, Boeing didn't consider the readings from both of them as input for the MCAS. We probably don't assume that was malicious. But we might assume deflecting away from that as an issue to be malicious. Similar for the fact that the system wasn't well described in the manual.

It's bewildering how even 2 would be sufficient. You'd expect some kind of 3 way setup where a single sensor failure is detected via majority quorum. Especially for anything that directly has the ability to alter control planes on the aircraft.

Re: Boeing 737 Max Hit Trouble Right Away, Pilot’s Tense Radio Messages Show

#16

Post by cjbprime »

alfalfasprout wrote: post #15
tyingq wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that weird for technical people to wonder why, when there are 2 AoA sensors, Boeing didn't consider the readings from both of them as input for the MCAS. We probably don't assume that was malicious. But we might assume deflecting away from that as an issue to be malicious. Similar for the fact that the system wasn't well described in the manual.

It's bewildering how even 2 would be sufficient. You'd expect some kind of 3 way setup where a single sensor failure is detected via majority quorum. Especially for anything that directly has the ability to alter control planes on the aircraft.

Two seems sufficiently airworthy as long as you warn the pilots that there's a failure they need to consider ("AOA disagree") and avoid control decisions based on the disagreeing system.

It appears that the AOA disagree alert exists on the plane but is an optional paid feature (!).

Re: Boeing 737 Max Hit Trouble Right Away, Pilot’s Tense Radio Messages Show

#17

Post by dang »

jquery wrote: post #2

Before the wild speculation, here's some words from an actual aviation expert, Greg Feith: It is sad to hear some of the “junior investigator” talking heads make a storyline out of factoids or no facts about the 737 MAX. They embellish their credentials to sound smart when in fact they have no clue and say things about analyzing data that doesn’t exist.... A good friend of mine who is a former airline captain and fli…

Your edit breaks the site guidelines, which ask: Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

Yes it can sting when one's comment is downvoted, but the guidelines ask all of us not to react in the usual tedious and sarcastic ways. A better approach is to take a moment to reflect on what in your comment might have attracted downvotes; if you notice anything to improve in the future, note it; and if you don't, just move on.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Boeing 737 Max Hit Trouble Right Away, Pilot’s Tense Radio Messages Show

#18

Post by jquery »

serf wrote: post #11
jquery wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably? He's very famous in the ACI community. And as he always says, a plane never goes down for a single reason. The Airbus that crashed into the Atlantic ocean could've been saved if they made the design decision not to "average" inputs from the sticks. Is that a design flaw? Or bad pilot training? Crashes are always the nexus of a chain of unfortunately and unlucky events. I have no reason to suspect this crash…

>The only thing I'm confident of is that no matter what the problem is, Boeing will make changes ... Yeah, but it doesn't take Nostradamus to make that prediction. If Boeing doesn't fix their issues, they won't sell planes. So, say we blame the pilot for incorrectly deactivating the faulted system within a time-frame that allows for recovery; which I think is a silly thing to do : at what level of added complexity an…

You’re talking about this incident as if Boeing anticipated a crash per year but it is happening at an unacceptable 2 crashes per year. We don’t know what went wrong. We don’t know what went wrong. Inherently “stable” planes have been crashing for decades, it’s a little early to be mad at Boeing for a design decision considering we know almost nothing at this point. I’m not blaming the pilots, I’m not blaming anyone, I’m advising we wait for the report before getting out the pitchforks.

Re: Boeing 737 Max Hit Trouble Right Away, Pilot’s Tense Radio Messages Show

#19

Post by Rychard »

cjbprime wrote: post #16
alfalfasprout wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's bewildering how even 2 would be sufficient. You'd expect some kind of 3 way setup where a single sensor failure is detected via majority quorum. Especially for anything that directly has the ability to alter control planes on the aircraft.

Two seems sufficiently airworthy as long as you warn the pilots that there's a failure they need to consider ("AOA disagree") and avoid control decisions based on the disagreeing system. It appears that the AOA disagree alert exists on the plane but is an optional paid feature (!).

Having optional safety features on an airplane (i.e. not standard equipment) strikes me as being significantly more egregious (Edit: more so than on vehicles like cars/trucks for the general population). Considering how complex these things are already, how does this not unnecessarily increase the cognitive load on pilots? "Oh, I guess I'm flying the basic trim level airplane today, I better be cognizant of the fact that it lacks features X, Y and Z"

Re: Boeing 737 Max Hit Trouble Right Away, Pilot’s Tense Radio Messages Show

#20

Post by cjbprime »

Rychard wrote: post #19
cjbprime wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two seems sufficiently airworthy as long as you warn the pilots that there's a failure they need to consider ("AOA disagree") and avoid control decisions based on the disagreeing system. It appears that the AOA disagree alert exists on the plane but is an optional paid feature (!).

Having optional safety features on an airplane (i.e. not standard equipment) strikes me as being significantly more egregious (Edit: more so than on vehicles like cars/trucks for the general population). Considering how complex these things are already , how does this not unnecessarily increase the cognitive load on pilots? "Oh, I guess I'm flying the basic trim level airplane today, I better be cognizant of the fact…

I agree with you. I think in practise the feature choices are made per-airline, perhaps to avoid the pilot confusion you mention. "AOA disagree" specifically seems to have been purchased by only the North American airlines that use the MAX.
Post reply on HN