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Boeing 2016 internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX

reuters.com

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Re: Boeing 2016 internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX

#51

Post by WalterBright »

jacquesm wrote: post #45
WalterBright wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd also get no new airplane designs.

That may be preferable to broken ones, but no I don't think that will be the outcome. The outcome will be that companies will still follow the money and that executives will make it very plain that we're all playing by the same set of rules. Rules without accountability and enforcement are meaningless.

Charging people with crimes means they'll go to great lengths to cover it up, instead of fixing it. The aviation system is as safe as it is because the people involved don't get prosecuted for making mistakes.

Standing over people with a sword is not going to get you any risk taking. All aviation improvement, including safety improvements, will come to a dead stop.

Re: Boeing 2016 internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX

#52

Post by jacquesm »

WalterBright wrote: post #51
jacquesm wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be preferable to broken ones, but no I don't think that will be the outcome. The outcome will be that companies will still follow the money and that executives will make it very plain that we're all playing by the same set of rules. Rules without accountability and enforcement are meaningless.

Charging people with crimes means they'll go to great lengths to cover it up, instead of fixing it. The aviation system is as safe as it is because the people involved don't get prosecuted for making mistakes. Standing over people with a sword is not going to get you any risk taking. All aviation improvement, including safety improvements, will come to a dead stop.

> because the people involved don't get prosecuted for making mistakes.

And they shouldn't be. But there is a very large difference between 'mistakes' and 'intentionally circumventing processes put in place to ensure safety'. Having to draw lines is always difficult, but in this case the line has been crossed. Consider what Martha Stewart went to jail for, then compare to what happened here. If justice is to be observed as even handed there ought to be some serious consequences here, not some already rich guys getting richer with their golden parachutes, the irony of which I'm sure will not be lost on the relatives of the people who died.

Re: Boeing 2016 internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX

#53

Post by jacquesm »

WalterBright wrote: post #50
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd get no new broken airplane designs - which is the point of the exercise. Management culture needs to change. Feral greed needs to stop being seen as an acceptable excuse for unacceptable behaviour.

> You'd get no new broken airplane designs - which is the point of the exercise. Nobody seems able to write software that doesn't have bugs in it, in fact it seems to be humanly impossible. So, if you're going to jail people for buggy software, no new software will get written. The same goes for airplanes.

Buggy software will happen. Buggy software that isn't reported when it should be, that isn't fixed, reviewed and tested shouldn't happen. Software development for aviation is pretty good, that's not where the issue lies here. The issue is a systematic attempt to circumvent proper type certification for a new aircraft, and downright trickery in order to pretend it's just a minor change to an existing aircraft when in fact the aircraft was substantially different from the previous one sharing the same type number. That's not an innocent mistake.

Re: Boeing 2016 internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX

#54

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi »

Why are journalists still calling this an 'anti-stall' system. It's not, and it's so deceptive about what it actually does. The crashes had nothing to do with stalls, the system does nothing to prevent stalls, and the safety regulations that brought it about are only indirectly related to stalls.

The system affects how the flight stick feels and that's really it. The more you pull up (higher AoA), the more force is needed on the stick. That's supposed to be linear within some margin of error. The big fat new engines took it out of the linear envelope, making it a bit lighter than it 'should' be at high AoA as the engines caught the wind. They either fixed this, or else needed a new type rating (pilots can't hold more than one, so it's a huge issue for existing operators of 737s).

The solution was MCAS which, as originally designed, wasn't powerful enough to cause problems. But test pilots said that the stick was still a bit light, so they reworked it and made it way too strong, while still being invisible to pilots and lacking the reliability of a critical system. Then several hundred people died.

Re: Boeing 2016 internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX

#55

Post by WalterBright »

jacquesm wrote: post #53
WalterBright wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You'd get no new broken airplane designs - which is the point of the exercise. Nobody seems able to write software that doesn't have bugs in it, in fact it seems to be humanly impossible. So, if you're going to jail people for buggy software, no new software will get written. The same goes for airplanes.

Buggy software will happen. Buggy software that isn't reported when it should be, that isn't fixed, reviewed and tested shouldn't happen. Software development for aviation is pretty good, that's not where the issue lies here. The issue is a systematic attempt to circumvent proper type certification for a new aircraft, and downright trickery in order to pretend it's just a minor change to an existing aircraft when in…

It is a minor change. There is nothing inherently wrong with adjusting the flight controls so one airplane flies like another. In fact, engineers try to do it, as it reduces both costs and accidents. (There have been many aircraft accidents where the pilot did the right thing for airplane X, but unfortunately was flying airplane Y. These happen even when the pilot is experienced and properly trained to fly Y.)

> Software development for aviation is pretty good, that's not where the issue lies here.

MCAS is a software system, and the rules programmed into it had human factors mistakes in it.

You might want to read Aviation Week, 19-Aug, for more detailed information.

Re: Boeing 2016 internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX

#56

Post by WalterBright »

jacquesm wrote: post #52
WalterBright wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charging people with crimes means they'll go to great lengths to cover it up, instead of fixing it. The aviation system is as safe as it is because the people involved don't get prosecuted for making mistakes. Standing over people with a sword is not going to get you any risk taking. All aviation improvement, including safety improvements, will come to a dead stop.

> because the people involved don't get prosecuted for making mistakes. And they shouldn't be. But there is a very large difference between 'mistakes' and 'intentionally circumventing processes put in place to ensure safety'. Having to draw lines is always difficult, but in this case the line has been crossed. Consider what Martha Stewart went to jail for, then compare to what happened here. If justice is to be obser…

> not some already rich guys getting richer with their golden parachutes

Seeing how Boeing stock is doing, they ain't getting rich on their stock options.

Re: Boeing 2016 internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX

#57

Post by anticensor »

Obi_Juan_Kenobi wrote: post #54

Why are journalists still calling this an 'anti-stall' system. It's not, and it's so deceptive about what it actually does. The crashes had nothing to do with stalls, the system does nothing to prevent stalls, and the safety regulations that brought it about are only indirectly related to stalls. The system affects how the flight stick feels and that's really it. The more you pull up (higher AoA), the more force is n…

> pilots can't hold more than one, so it's a huge issue for existing operators of 737s

You can hold more than one but you need to maintain each separately.

Re: Boeing 2016 internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX

#58

Post by jomoio »

WalterBright wrote: post #39
jacquesm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's super simple: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_passing#%22The_buck_stops... If the CEO's are held responsible for the deeds of the companies they lead you can bet that there would be an instant improvement of corporate accountability.

You'd also get no new airplane designs.

Airbus A380 sustained a catastrophic uncontained engine failure due to a Rolls Royce flaw. Landed and everybody went home. Maybe they can help.

Re: Boeing 2016 internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX

#59

Post by Haga »

jacquesm wrote: post #18
nostromo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prison: our solution to every problem.

I'm normally against prison as a deterrent because it is used against people where it wouldn't work as a deterrent. In cases such as these it might actually work if the execs of such companies were simply jailed for a very long time as though they were about equally responsible as a regular bus driver would be if they were negligent at their job and killed a bunch of people. It just might have a positive effect the n…

Prison is the only fine that hits all citizens equally

Re: Boeing 2016 internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX

#60

Post by ckcheng »

Obi_Juan_Kenobi wrote: post #54

Why are journalists still calling this an 'anti-stall' system. It's not, and it's so deceptive about what it actually does. The crashes had nothing to do with stalls, the system does nothing to prevent stalls, and the safety regulations that brought it about are only indirectly related to stalls. The system affects how the flight stick feels and that's really it. The more you pull up (higher AoA), the more force is n…

> system affects how the flight stick feels and that's really it

I kept hearing this too, so I wondered why they didn't just directly change how the stick feels, like with a force feedback system?

And I looked it up[1]: Turns out MCAS was also there to push the nose down at high AoA, to imitate what the 737 NG does even in the absence of control input, so it's not just a stick feel thing.

"The added nose down trim has the side effect of requiring more elevator input at high angles of attack", so simultaneously fixing the stick feel issue.

It seems to me like MCAS solved two related problems at the same time... and sadly thus created an even larger unintended problem.

[1]: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/62067

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