Boeing 737 Max pilots complained to feds for months about suspected safety flaw • Hacker News Board

Re: Boeing 737 Max pilots complained to feds for months about suspected safety flaw

#181

Post by cjbprime » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 5:03 AM UTC

woofcat wrote: post #81

objektif wrote: post #48

Can anyone at this point provide a legitimate argument for not grounding this model?

A best it's reactionary as we simply don't have enough data. The FAA said it will review once the crash investigation has been completed. Sometimes clustering occurs, such as Maylasian airlines being shot down and lost in an ocean and never found. We didn't ground the whole airline.

It sounds like you're going for a "innocent until proven guilty" approach to the Max's airworthiness, if I'm understanding your comment correctly. That seems opposite to the culture of air safety, where planes are certified airworthy because the data prove them to be so.

I don't think the data prove airworthiness of the Max anymore.

Re: Boeing 737 Max pilots complained to feds for months about suspected safety flaw

#182

Post by callalex » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 5:27 AM UTC

purplezooey wrote: post #123

I think it would've been cool to have a database for anonymous complaints at most of my previous jobs.

I assume you’ve heard of GlassDoor but don’t consider it sufficiently anonymous?

Re: Boeing 737 Max pilots complained to feds for months about suspected safety flaw

#183

Post by lixtra » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 5:27 AM UTC

cjbprime wrote: post #158

varenc wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow... I wonder how much of this could have been avoided if the 737-Max had just been given an entirely new model name like "738". I'd assume that when the 777's came out even pilots with experience on the 767 and other Boeing planes were still given ample training beforehand. The minor difference in the Max's model name disguises the seemingly large difference in their operation.

Boeing fought extremely hard to avoid having this happen, since then any pilot wanting to fly the Max would have to first achieve a type rating certificate for the new type of plane, and the FAA would have to test and certify it instead of Boeing "self-certifying" that it was a type of 737. The determination to shoehorn what aerodynamically kind of is a new type of plane into the 737's type rating seems likely to be…

> seems likely to be the root cause of these deaths.

Given that investigation in both accidents is still ongoing and all we know is wild speculation your conclusion is premature even though it finally may turn out to be true.

Re: Boeing 737 Max pilots complained to feds for months about suspected safety flaw

#184

Post by callalex » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 5:30 AM UTC

known wrote: post #159

Car manufacturers RECALL defective cars; Why isn't Boeing doing that? And hope Boeing is NOT simulating https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_control

This comment reallly comes off as a procedurally generated combination. Can you rephrase your point another way? I don’t think it’s even clear what point you are trying to make.

Re: Boeing 737 Max pilots complained to feds for months about suspected safety flaw

#185

Post by dmead » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 5:30 AM UTC

sfilargi wrote: post #99

For a car analogy, imagine Tesla creates a new model that under certain conditions tends to over-steer left. To prevent any accidents because of that, they have added a system that turns the steering wheel clockwise. To disable the system it is not enough to try to prevent by force the steering wheel from turning, but you have to press a button that disables electric steering assistance. Notice they have never briefe…

That analogy doesn't really hold. My understanding is that these angle correction issues are due to the oversized engines for the 737 fuselage. The correction system is there as a solution to that which doesn't involve scrapping the line and staying with larger plane sizes .

Re: Boeing 737 Max pilots complained to feds for months about suspected safety flaw

#186

Post by toweringgoat » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 5:34 AM UTC

>> Thank you for being a patron of the Dallas Morning News. Unfortunately, our site is unavailable to European Union visitors

Please learn some basic geography. Norway (and Switzerland) are not in the EU.

Re: Boeing 737 Max pilots complained to feds for months about suspected safety flaw

#187

Post by cjbprime » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 5:35 AM UTC

lixtra wrote: post #183

cjbprime wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boeing fought extremely hard to avoid having this happen, since then any pilot wanting to fly the Max would have to first achieve a type rating certificate for the new type of plane, and the FAA would have to test and certify it instead of Boeing "self-certifying" that it was a type of 737. The determination to shoehorn what aerodynamically kind of is a new type of plane into the 737's type rating seems likely to be…

> seems likely to be the root cause of these deaths. Given that investigation in both accidents is still ongoing and all we know is wild speculation your conclusion is premature even though it finally may turn out to be true.

You're quoting the phrase "seems likely". It's not a conclusion. It's my guess at what's most probable based on what we know today.

(Also, I don't agree that we only know "wild speculation" about the Lion Air crash. The investigators have told us much about the proximate cause of the crash, even though their final investigation is not yet complete.)

Re: Boeing 737 Max pilots complained to feds for months about suspected safety flaw

#188

Post by newnewpdro » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 5:36 AM UTC

This is insane.

Between this and Tesla Autopilot I'm left speechless.

Re: Boeing 737 Max pilots complained to feds for months about suspected safety flaw

#189

Post by balaksakrionon » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 5:38 AM UTC

j16sdiz wrote: post #177

ams6110 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MCAS is not active with autopilot engaged, according to Boeing.

"should not", not "is not". That's why boeing promise a software fix ...

Is your statement true, and that is what they are fixing with the software update, or is that just your conjecture?

I have not read in detail yet about the proposed update to MCAS they are working on

Re: Boeing 737 Max pilots complained to feds for months about suspected safety flaw

#190

Post by kqr » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 5:52 AM UTC

dTal wrote: post #86

ordinaryradical wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These all sound extremely serious and damning, but it's hard to know whether these match the typical tone and content of these kind of reports. Is this is well inside the standard for adjusting to a new aircraft or does this suggest a serious hazard left unaddressed?

> I would generally assume it was my automation error, i.e., aircraft was trying to acquire a miss-commanded speed/no autothrottles, crossing restriction etc., but frankly neither of us could find an inappropriate setup error (not to say there wasn't one). Regardless of the usual tone, I find this particular paragraph a fairly terrifying indictment of cockpit human factors across the board. Apparently it's not unusua…

You probably dont want to listen to Captain Warren VanderBurgh on YouTube, then. Iirc, his idea of the most common phrase in the cockpit is, "What's it doing now?"