Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 150 posts

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

#81

Post by exodust »

bambax wrote: post #39
exodust wrote: post #27

"You're in private mode" (no article for me). Is there another way to view the text?

If you disable JavaScript on the NYT site then there is no more paywall.

Ah ok, didn't try that. All good, I made it past the big beautiful paywall. At work I don't use ad blockers etc.

What they could do is allow everyone in, but reveal each paragraph progressively by viewing ads right there between the paragraphs. Or feeding the meter coins.

Time delayed progressively revealed articles. Pay the fee to unlock all paragraphs.

Or they need granular payment, yes I would pay 1 cent for the next 10 paragraphs. But I don't want to create an account with the publisher to do that. Kind of how I don't sign up to the parking block company to buy a spot for 5 hours in their car park.

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

#82

Post by mannykannot »

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 there is a certain amount of hindsight in your response to scenario 1. While there is a good case to be made that Boeing was wrong to minimize the differences between the latest models and their predecessors, the Lion Air crash investigation did not produce any evidence that an MCAS fault could not be remedied by following the published procedure, and as far as I can tell, no other incidents prior to the Ethiopian Airlines crash have suggested that that, either. Up until possibly this crash, there has been no evidence that an MCAS fault presents any more risk, with a properly informed pilot at the controls, than would a trim runaway in the prior models. That is considered to be an acceptable risk, and the issue with properly informing pilots seemed to have been addressed.

They should have reacted faster after the latest crash, but fortunately this delay has had no consequences.

One would hope that the question of MCAS not being triply redundant will be reassessed, but the argument that it could do no more harm than a fault in the existing trim mechanism is not an unreasonable one, again if considered without hindsight.

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

#83

Post by rahkiin »

jarfil wrote: post #10
ironmagma wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question, why are people being so aggressive about saying that the human aspects should be considered first and foremost? If there was no problem with the aircraft, that would surely lead us to the conclusion that it was a training/pilot problem anyway. What's the point of pushing the human narrative so hard?

This kind of accident doesn't happen for just a single reason, they happen for a SERIES of reasons all together. Some of those reasons are technical, some are environmental, and some are human factor. Blaming any single of them is bullshit... and so is forgetting about any of them.

1) boeing changing geometry 2) boeing adding a new system that takes over control without documenting 3) pushing very hard to classify a new plane as an older type so now retraining happens 4) using only 2 sensors instead of 3, and using just one to control parts of the plane.

A series of reasons

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

#84

Post by CydeWeys »

cjbprime wrote: post #20
Rychard wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having optional safety features on an airplane (i.e. not standard equipment) strikes me as being significantly more egregious (Edit: more so than on vehicles like cars/trucks for the general population). Considering how complex these things are already , how does this not unnecessarily increase the cognitive load on pilots? "Oh, I guess I'm flying the basic trim level airplane today, I better be cognizant of the fact…

I agree with you. I think in practise the feature choices are made per-airline, perhaps to avoid the pilot confusion you mention. "AOA disagree" specifically seems to have been purchased by only the North American airlines that use the MAX.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that an error warning can be an optional paid extra, even when the error being reported is that sensors are malfunctioning in a way that will cause the plane to override stick input and fly itself into the ground.

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

#85

Post by neuronic »

CydeWeys wrote: post #79
neuronic wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify, I meant passengers. Copilots and engineers are fine and likely even necessary to properly train and deal with the new challenges. As a daily driver of your own car, if you do own one, then it might be apparent how different they can be. I constantly switch between automatic Mercedes and BMWs. Both have a near identical handle on the right side of the steering wheel. One turns on wipers (BMW), the other on…

You don't do non-revenue training flights on full-size jetliners. It's way too expensive. You learn to fly (period) on small planes that can't hold passengers at all, then you train in simulators for a specific model, and then finally you're paired up with a more experienced pilot once you start flying it for real. They definitely did not do the proper training that was merited here, but the proper training is not an…

That makes a lot of sense, but shouldn't simulators be updated/upgraded for significantly different models?

One would expect that X hours in a simulator help you adapt to a new aircraft type.

I didn't intend to demand economically stupid things like flying an large aircraft empty for training, just wanted to express that as a passenger I want my pilot to know their way around the machine that keeps me 10km above ground at 600km/h.

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

#87

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…

I'm not sure why you've edited your response rather than responding.

It's a minor system. There is no firm evidence yet that it was responsible for this crash other than some ADS-B data which only really shows that the aircraft was having control difficulties.

Pilots are trained not to get near the stall. Unless something has gone seriously wrong an Airliner will never go near that region of flight in normal service. Most airliners have stall behaviour which is likely to enter a spin or otherwise difficult to recover from, that is why most are fitted with stick pushers which prevent a stall ever occurring.

There are lots of other systems which can control trim on an airliner (the Mach trim system, the auto autopilot etc). Each of these have failure modes that can lead to a runaway trim situation.

The MCAS system is trivial. It may have a flaw which led to both of these accidents but it isn't the world is falling and Boeing tried to patch it with different software.

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

#88

Post by VBprogrammer »

xbb100 wrote: post #67
VBprogrammer wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a well acknowledged fact that 90% of professional pilots online have only piloted their computer desk. The other 10% may never have piloted the aircraft in question or are 'shooting the shit' rather than presenting their professional opinion.

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

#89

Post by gjtorikian »

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…

You have no idea what you’re talking about.

Pilots already warned Boeing about the problem: https://globalnews.ca/news/5055894/u-s-pilots-warned-boeing-...

Boeing ignored it.

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

#90

Post by moftz »

blattimwind wrote: post #75
dredmorbius wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the source of this and is there a URL? Found, James Fallows at The Atlantic ; https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2019/03/heres-what-was-on-...

You can't link to these on the ASRS site but that's the primary source. https://titan-server.arc.nasa.gov/ASRSPublicQueryWizard/Quer... put in ACN = 1555013.

That was a terrible experience trying to search for that report.
Post reply on HN