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Alaska Airlines flight 1282 NTSB preliminary report [pdf]

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Re: Alaska Airlines flight 1282 NTSB preliminary report [pdf]

#111

Post by DiggyJohnson »

zer00eyz wrote: post #100
hencq wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's some validity to the privacy concerns, but it seems those could be addressed with proper access controls and rules. The recordings should only really be listened to in the aftermath of an accident, in which case, as you say, the expectation of privacy should (in my opinion) take a backseat.

On one hand I agree with you. On the other hand, if someone recored my whole work day every day I would not be happy. I don't think you would stay at your job of that was a condition of it. There has to be a better solution to this issue.. extended recordings in an emergency, triggers based on conditions, private keys for pilots... IDFK, cause I try not to get involved in engineering that might KILL someone.

Why not? Do you think other engineers are better suited for such work?

I’m just curious, because I personally work on things that could kill people directly or indirectly.

Re: Alaska Airlines flight 1282 NTSB preliminary report [pdf]

#112

Post by DiggyJohnson »

rantingdemon wrote: post #91
hencq wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's some validity to the privacy concerns, but it seems those could be addressed with proper access controls and rules. The recordings should only really be listened to in the aftermath of an accident, in which case, as you say, the expectation of privacy should (in my opinion) take a backseat.

Indeed. Pretty much all your communication is recorded at any company you work for anyway.

My work does not have a recording of most of my verbal communication in office, and it’s a very secure site and project.

Re: Alaska Airlines flight 1282 NTSB preliminary report [pdf]

#113

Post by pests »

zer00eyz wrote: post #100
hencq wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's some validity to the privacy concerns, but it seems those could be addressed with proper access controls and rules. The recordings should only really be listened to in the aftermath of an accident, in which case, as you say, the expectation of privacy should (in my opinion) take a backseat.

On one hand I agree with you. On the other hand, if someone recored my whole work day every day I would not be happy. I don't think you would stay at your job of that was a condition of it. There has to be a better solution to this issue.. extended recordings in an emergency, triggers based on conditions, private keys for pilots... IDFK, cause I try not to get involved in engineering that might KILL someone.

> if someone recored my whole work day every day I would not be happy

Many people live with this reality every day already. Remote workers with screen sharing software, certs installed so companies can spy on everything you do, retail workers under cameras all day.

Re: Alaska Airlines flight 1282 NTSB preliminary report [pdf]

#114

Post by imoverclocked »

cjbprime wrote: post #102
imoverclocked wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the blowback from the missing data here might be strong enough to be able to get it passed anyway Nice pun. What do you think would have been gained from the CVR data in this case? Do you think pilot error had anything to do with the door-plug failure? Do you think the CVR was left running on purpose/accident? If I were one of those pilots, the first words out of my mouth probably would have been, "what the $&#*?!"…

I'm not an accident investigator and don't know what exactly would turn out to be useful, but I think changing your intuition for why we study the CVR away from "because there might have been a large pilot error" to "so that we can learn more about how pilots react to emergencies with a goal of seeing if we can come up with process improvements" may help. If there was some aspect of the response that was not perfect,…

That's not what is at stake here though. CVRs are not intended for improving process like a call-center recorded line. "Both recorders are installed to help reconstruct the events leading to an aircraft accident." [ntsb.gov]

This creep of intended-use is exactly why many people oppose surveillance in the first place.

Re: Alaska Airlines flight 1282 NTSB preliminary report [pdf]

#115

Post by onetimeuse92304 »

gtmitchell wrote: post #55

A very thorough preliminary report. I've worked for a long time in quality systems, and this is a perfect example of a systemic failure. They've got work being handed off between Boeing employees and 3rd party contractors with insufficient controls in place to verify that very basic tasks are being performed. I'd be curious to know how many non-conformances they typically see during assembly of a plane and whether ma…

> I'd be curious to know how many non-conformances they typically see during assembly of a plane (...)

Very likely that number is meaningless. I suspect this is the kind of environment that incentivises hiding non-conformances whenever possible.

For example, better quality control usually results in an increase of number of defects, at least temporarily. But that just because large portion of these defects were undetected before.

So... you are looking at a number that you have nothing to compare to that also depends on how closely the process is monitored and also depends a lot on the definition of what is non-conformance.

It is like trying to give an answer to "what is the length of Britain's coastline?" Everybody knows that you can get whatever answer you want depending on how long the ruler is.

Re: Alaska Airlines flight 1282 NTSB preliminary report [pdf]

#116

Post by michaelt »

mazugrin2 wrote: post #56
throwworhtthrow wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't leave your assigned altitude/trajectory without coordinating with ATC. Otherwise you may collide with another plane, which would make a bad situation worse.

Sure you can, and they likely did start descending before contacting ATC. But before they did any of that, they had to spend some time donning their oxygen masks and doing a few other "memory items" before then descending.

In this instance the report explicitly says:-

> Both flight crew said they immediately donned their oxygen masks. They added that the flight deck door was blown open and that it was very noisy and difficult to communicate.

> The flight crew immediately contacted air traffic control (ATC), declared an emergency, and requested a lower altitude. The flight was assigned 10,000 ft. The captain said he then requested the rapid decompression checklist, and the FO executed the required checklist from the Quick Reference Handbook (QRH). As the FO completed the checklist, the captain flew the airplane as they coordinated with ATC to return to the PDX airport. The flight landed on runway 28L without further incident and taxied to the gate.

So in this particular instance, when the depressurisation happened at a comparatively low altitude, the pilots did get ATC clearance before descending.

Re: Alaska Airlines flight 1282 NTSB preliminary report [pdf]

#117

Post by cezart »

lp4vn wrote: post #97
gtmitchell wrote: post #55

A very thorough preliminary report. I've worked for a long time in quality systems, and this is a perfect example of a systemic failure. They've got work being handed off between Boeing employees and 3rd party contractors with insufficient controls in place to verify that very basic tasks are being performed. I'd be curious to know how many non-conformances they typically see during assembly of a plane and whether ma…

>I'd be curious to know [...] whether management is actually allowing the quality department sufficient independence to investigate these issues and fully resolve them If management in the aerospace industry works like management in the software industry, then I guess they are pushing for results as agressively as possible without much concern about safety or anything else.

At a company I worked in, we had a joke about this: "Good thing we don't build nuclear reactors".

In some software projects the level of rush, and the fact that bugs sometimes would leak into production was kinda horrifying. It would've been way more so, if it would've been the kind of project that could kill people in case of failure. Like it happened in Chernobyl with nuclear reactors, or at Boeing with planes.

I can't really imagine what these engineers feel when they rush this kind of work knowing what's at stake.

Re: Alaska Airlines flight 1282 NTSB preliminary report [pdf]

#118

Post by crznp »

imoverclocked wrote: post #66
cjbprime wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The largest US pilots union opposes it on pilot privacy grounds. (To be clear, I think having an expectation of vocal privacy while you are in charge of an airliner is absurd.)

Well, there is the theory and then there is the reality. Theory: having less privacy makes things easier for accident investigators, post-mortem. Reality: In this case, the pilots did their job and got the plane down safely despite rapid depressurization and literally having their headsets sucked off of their heads. It is extremely unlikely to be pilot-error that a door-plug ripped off the airframe at 16,000' or that…

That is a non-sequitur. Investigators should have access to accident data regardless of whether the pilots did their job.

Root cause analysis isn't the only reason: it would be good for pilots to have this case study, as well as analysis on how systems responded to the abrupt change.

Having this data is strictly better than not having it.

Re: Alaska Airlines flight 1282 NTSB preliminary report [pdf]

#119

Post by WatchDog »

> The flight crew reported that the cockpit door had opened during the depressurization event. In a revision to the Flight Crew Operations Manual, issued on January 15, 2024, Boeing confirmed that the door functioned as designed.

Interesting for terrorists. Cause a rapid decompression, and get easy access to the cockpit.

Re: Alaska Airlines flight 1282 NTSB preliminary report [pdf]

#120

Post by mikeyouse »

reddit_clone wrote: post #107
hn8305823 wrote: post #75

I wonder how close the door plug was to hitting the tailplane or vertical stabilizer/rudder?

Considering all those scary scenarios, what happened was probably the most favourable outcome. It could have been a major disaster hundred different ways..

It sure could have -- the plane was still climbing which puts that plug door almost directly in line with the horizontal stabilizers;

https://i.cbc.ca/1.7077373.1704733027!/fileImage/httpImage/g...

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