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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

#61

Post by wccrawford »

neuronic wrote: post #57

Let's preface this by saying I am aware that cause of the accident has not been determined. Seeing reports of experienced pilots being assigned to 737 MAXs without prior flight experience of this precise model, prompts me to make this comment. As a passenger I expect pilots to fully know the plane they are flying and to previously have flown this exact type and model of aircraft in training sessions without any passe…

I expect them to have flown the plane, but not necessarily empty. I'm fine with them flying with someone who does already have experience with it as their first flight. (And maybe second and third.)

But the idea that they can learn the differences from the manual in a short car ride is ridiculous in the extreme.

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

#62

Post by raverbashing »

neuronic wrote: post #57

Let's preface this by saying I am aware that cause of the accident has not been determined. Seeing reports of experienced pilots being assigned to 737 MAXs without prior flight experience of this precise model, prompts me to make this comment. As a passenger I expect pilots to fully know the plane they are flying and to previously have flown this exact type and model of aircraft in training sessions without any passe…

> this exact type and model of aircraft in training sessions without any passengers whatsoever

Nobody does that in a "live aircraft", that's what simulators are for (and the whole flight training curriculum, from the first lesson to being able to fly a commercial jet).

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

#63

Post by acqq »

raverbashing wrote: post #62
neuronic wrote: post #57

Let's preface this by saying I am aware that cause of the accident has not been determined. Seeing reports of experienced pilots being assigned to 737 MAXs without prior flight experience of this precise model, prompts me to make this comment. As a passenger I expect pilots to fully know the plane they are flying and to previously have flown this exact type and model of aircraft in training sessions without any passe…

> this exact type and model of aircraft in training sessions without any passengers whatsoever Nobody does that in a "live aircraft", that's what simulators are for (and the whole flight training curriculum, from the first lesson to being able to fly a commercial jet).

And in this case the Boeing's selling point of the MAX was "not even the new simulator training is needed."

Then we read that the MAX was the "best selling model." It seems, based on the false advertising, that included not acknowledging the differences. Even the "less serious" ones:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19374386

"I had my first flight on the Max [to] ZZZ1. We found out we were scheduled to fly the aircraft on the way to the airport in the limo. We had a little time [to] review the essentials in the car. Otherwise we would have walked onto the plane cold. My post flight evaluation is that we lacked the knowledge to operate the aircraft in all weather and aircraft states safely.

The instrumentation is completely different - My scan was degraded, slow and labored having had no experience w/ the new ND (Navigation Display) and ADI (Attitude Director Indicator) presentations/format or functions (manipulation between the screens and systems pages were not provided in training materials. If they were, I had no recollection of that material)."

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

#64

Post by jcims »

Narrative from ASRS 1555013:

I had my first flight on the Max [to] ZZZ1. We found out we were scheduled to fly the aircraft on the way to the airport in the limo. We had a little time [to] review the essentials in the car. Otherwise we would have walked onto the plane cold.My post flight evaluation is that we lacked the knowledge to operate the aircraft in all weather and aircraft states safely. The instrumentation is completely different - My scan was degraded, slow and labored having had no experience w/ the new ND (Navigation Display) and ADI (Attitude Director Indicator) presentations/format or functions (manipulation between the screens and systems pages were not provided in training materials. If they were, I had no recollection of that material).We were unable to navigate to systems pages and lacked the knowledge of what systems information was available to us in the different phases of flight. Our weather radar competency was inadequate to safely navigate significant weather on that dark and stormy night. These are just a few issues that were not addressed in our training.I recommend the following to help crews w/ their introductory flight on the Max:Email notification the day before the flight (the email should include: Links - Training Video, PSOB and QRG and all relevant updates/FAQ's)SME (Subject Matter Expert) Observer - the role of the SME is to introduce systems navigation, display management, answer general questions and provide standardized best practices to the next generation aircraft.Additionally, the SME will collect de-identified data to provide to the training department for analysis and dissemination to the line pilots regarding FAQs and know systems differences as well best practices in fly the new model aircraft.

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

#65

Post by michaelt »

psadri wrote: post #13
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…

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.

They probably would; I'm sure Harley Davidson executives sometimes ride their bikes, despite motorbikes being much more dangerous than even the 737 Max.

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

#66

Post by VBprogrammer »

acqq wrote: post #60
VBprogrammer wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The 737 MAX is unstable inherently for the sake of mileage This is blatantly false. The MCAS system isn't running a PID control loop or anything like that. It's applying stupidly simple logic to its inputs and giving equally simple outputs. At worst you could claim the aircraft is less stable than the original 737. But more specifically I'd say the 737 Max exhibits undesirable control behaviours at the approach to…

As the plane "approaches a stall" the plane is actually in danger . Traditionally, the pilot is trained (on the simulator) to reflexively (every second matters) move the controls to avoid the danger in case of any problems (the different actual problems are simulated and separately trained for). But the new Boeing 737 Max planes exactly at that dangerous moment behave differently to the pilot's input than what the pi…

You've said a lot but I'm unclear what actual point you are trying to make. I'm fairly certain you have no actual flight training because you seem to be assigning a lot of weight to a very minor system.

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

#67

Post by xbb100 »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #66
acqq wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the plane "approaches a stall" the plane is actually in danger . Traditionally, the pilot is trained (on the simulator) to reflexively (every second matters) move the controls to avoid the danger in case of any problems (the different actual problems are simulated and separately trained for). But the new Boeing 737 Max planes exactly at that dangerous moment behave differently to the pilot's input than what the pi…

You've said a lot but I'm unclear what actual point you are trying to make. I'm fairly certain you have no actual flight training because you seem to be assigning a lot of weight to a very minor system.

People on professional pilot forums [1] call the MCAS "HAL 9000" and "Artificial Stupidity".

[1] They are flying airliners for a living, not small planes.

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

#68

Post by dubbel »

ams6110 wrote: post #43
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…

> Ethiopian has ~100 planes flying around on any given day, and hasn't had a serious crash in 9 years They had one last week. Southwest, by comparison, has been flying since 1967. They operate over 700 aircraft, all of them 737s including the new MAX variant. They've never had a serious crash and in their history have had 3 deaths as a result of accidents or incidents.

Southwest was fined 10.3 million US-dollar (later reduced to 7.5 million) in 2009 by the FAA, because they didn't properly check their 737-300 for material fatigue.

It was the largest amounted the FAA ever fined an airline.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/the-national-today-newsl...

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

#69

Post by dubbel »

thedoctor79 wrote: post #52

The facts so far are that two new aircraft of the same model have crashed in a very short period of time, in the same stage of flight and exhibiting the same problem as evidenced by ATC recordings: loss of flight control. We should not focus only on the software aspect, even though a very questionable (and dangerous in my opinion) decision was made to not communicate to the pilots the existence and operation of the s…

> Even I, as a passenger sometimes look for the lowest price, so the pressure for cost cutting may come from us as well.

Of course you do, and that is not your fault. This is why we have independent regulation organizations like FAA or EASA, to not have matters of security solely in the hand of the free market.

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

#70

Post by usrusr »

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 (!).

A pilot might fire up that inference engine between his ears and make a very well educated guess when two sensors disagree, based on which one reacts more in line with how it should react to some exploratory control inputs or the recent control history.

A control loop cannot do that, it is a stupid fact processor that we prefer to do one simple thing reliably than to venture off on inscrutably deep reasoning adventures. A general flight AI would be an entirely different beast than the arsenal of pilot assistance systems currently employed. And just two sensors, simply disengaging the control loop when they disagree, seem insufficient to me when we deemed the control loop necessary in the first place. And this is the easily overlooked bit here: disengaging the MCAS isn't the final step, then you still need to fly the plane that it's manufacturer did not trust pilots to safely operate unassisted by MCAS.

(a general flight AI able to do the sensor trust inference could be an interesting game of adversarial programming though: plug it into a flight simulator, then try to down it with the smallest set of simulated malfunctions and weather)

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

Oh, that is just crazy. And considering that a bad safe record is just as damaging for Boeing as for the airline, it doesn't seem particularly clever to leave that choice to the customers. Do you have an easily digestible source for that?

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