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

nytimes.com

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

#31

Post by balaji_raghavan »

crowdpleaser wrote: post #30
tuna-piano wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethiopian has ~100 planes flying around on any given day, and hasn't had a serious crash in 9 years. Presumably the skill of their pilots and maintenance crews is pretty similiar across MAX and non-MAX planes. If their maintenance crew and pilots were solely to blame, I would expect to see a good deal more Ethiopian planes crashing. Of course, it could be (and maybe even is likely) that a properly trained maintenance…

Maybe the ethopian air crews are deficient but the inferiority is only apparent when tasked to fly advanced planes?

Shouldn't a more advanced plane be easier to operate?

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

#32

Post by dmix »

Gigablah wrote: post #7
robjan wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a feeling that people wouldn't be pushing the human/airline aspect quite so much if both of the aforementioned were American or "Western"

Yeah, it's funny how the people decrying "knee-jerk" reactions are the same ones insinuating "suspect pilot qualifications". Actually, no, it's not funny.

That’s not a fair representation of what the OP just posted or the person he quoted said.

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

#33

Post by HarryHirsch »

crowdpleaser wrote: post #30
tuna-piano wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethiopian has ~100 planes flying around on any given day, and hasn't had a serious crash in 9 years. Presumably the skill of their pilots and maintenance crews is pretty similiar across MAX and non-MAX planes. If their maintenance crew and pilots were solely to blame, I would expect to see a good deal more Ethiopian planes crashing. Of course, it could be (and maybe even is likely) that a properly trained maintenance…

Maybe the ethopian air crews are deficient but the inferiority is only apparent when tasked to fly advanced planes?

The selling point of the 737-MAX was that for purposes of type rating it was a plain old 737, no retraining required. So on paper it wasn't advanced at all.

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

#34

Post by concerned_user »

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.

It is even worse than that, those 2 are independent each connected to one of the two FMS so the FMS has no idea there is another sensor at all, they are supposed to be alternated between flights. Also there is an indicator somewhere that lights up if AoA sensors are in disagreement but again FMS does not know this. How did this design got approved I have no idea.

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

#35

Post by concerned_user »

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 (!).

It is optional on 737NG but not on a MAX.

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

#36

Post by cjbprime »

crowdpleaser wrote: post #29
leggomylibro wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking about what you call '#2' the other day, when a family member remarked that the FAA was right to keep the planes in the sky because US airline unions felt like their pilots had received adequate advice and information from Boeing. I'm not sure where they got that from, but why would it be okay if the US pilots got training immediately, while others had to wait?

It would be extremely irregular for an aviation company to give training / instruction to exclusive clubs. The reality is that occident pilots tend to be a cut above the rest of the world. American Airline pilots tend to have military aviation experience and/or thousands of hours of experience. Pilots in less developed nations tend to have significantly less training, I heard the copilot of the lion air flight only h…

But the pilot in the latest crash had been flying for Ethiopian for a decade, and Ethiopian's reputation for safety is excellent.

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

#37

Post by cjbprime »

tuna-piano wrote: post #24

In the likely event that this is another MCAS related crash, I see only two possible reasons: 1. Boeing's suggested process (including flipping the two trim switches and spinning a wheel) does not work for some reason. -or- 2. The Ethiopian pilots did not follow this process. I see #1 as putting a huge, huge amount of blame on Boeing and the FAA - especially given their months of "safe plane" reaction after Lion Air…

I think both end up with blame on Boeing. If a discussion in world news isn't enough to prepare an experienced 737 pilot (ten years!) to counteract spurious MCAS, then nothing is, at least to the level of safety expected in airline travel.

A plausible explanation for (1) that I've seen discussed is that, after disabling the auto trim, it may be impossible to manually re-trim while the yoke's pulled back, without first relieving aerodynamic stress on the elevator -- in this case by pointing the nose even farther down temporarily, which no sane pilot is going to want to do close to the ground.

(I don't know whether it could actually happen this way.)

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

#38

Post by mike00632 »

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…

1. The standard for pilots and their training worldwide is very high and the safety records of the Lion Air crew and the Ethiopian crew reflects this. Training and metrics for pilots is similar around the globe, airline companies are worldwide and pilots often work overseas. We absolutely should not think of pilots and their training standards as being associated with nationality or location because that doesn't reflect reality.

2. The sentiment that some pilots can figure it out and others can't so we need better screening/training to deal with faulty equipment is wrong-headed. Pilots shouldn't have to waste any of their attention during flight dealing with engineering failures. Furthermore they should be informed of any changes that are made to their equipment, which it seems Boeing didn't do when they updated the pitch override software.

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

#40

Post by kniub »

crowdpleaser wrote: post #29
leggomylibro wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking about what you call '#2' the other day, when a family member remarked that the FAA was right to keep the planes in the sky because US airline unions felt like their pilots had received adequate advice and information from Boeing. I'm not sure where they got that from, but why would it be okay if the US pilots got training immediately, while others had to wait?

It would be extremely irregular for an aviation company to give training / instruction to exclusive clubs. The reality is that occident pilots tend to be a cut above the rest of the world. American Airline pilots tend to have military aviation experience and/or thousands of hours of experience. Pilots in less developed nations tend to have significantly less training, I heard the copilot of the lion air flight only h…

The copilot had 5000 flights hours.

Bhavye Suneja, the pilot - Suneja had logged more than 6,000 flight hours, according to Lion Air.

His co-pilot, whose name was Harvino - Harvino had logged more than 5,000 flight hours, according to Lion Air, which named him alongside Suneja.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/lion-air-plane-crash-vict...

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