Boeing 737 MAX

[Revoltingest]

Yeah, the two planes crashing shortly after take off on good weather are more telling of possible risks. The plane hasn't been on the market for a long time, so such things tend to spook people and regulators a bit.


I'm guessing a lot of people are going to make money on their stock this time.

Aye, good weather means no wing icing, sensor freezing, microbursts, wind shear or pilot disorientation.
The cockpit voice recorder & flight data recorder should be intact & accessible.
This should speed things along.
I hope there's no political interference.

 

[Jumi]

Aye, good weather means no wing icing, sensor freezing, microbursts, wind shear or pilot disorientation.
The cockpit voice recorder & flight data recorder should be intact & accessible.
This should speed things along.
I hope there's no political interference.

I believe they're getting the "black boxes" from Ethiopian air quite easily as it had just gotten off the ground. The Indonesian one has it's data in public:

Satcom Guru: First Look at JT610 Flight Data

If it's the same issue we will know, I think quite soon...

 

[Revoltingest]

I believe they're getting the "black boxes" from Ethiopian air quite easily as it had just gotten off the ground. The Indonesian one has it's data in public:

Satcom Guru: First Look at JT610 Flight Data

If it's the same issue we will know, I think quite soon...

Interesting.
First, I'm no expert. I've only a passing familiarity with flight controls.
(Even though I once worked on designing them on the F18, it's surprising
how little one needs to know about the larger picture when running a line
to a tailhook uplatch.)
Some things were odd....
1) One of the angle of attack (AOA) indicators was misbehaving, but also one
of their airspeed indicators also differed from the other. I'd suspect an exterior
contaminant causing simultaneous failure (Pitot tubes & vanes can fail if
painted incorrectly. But that shouldn't happen with a new plane.)

2) The human pilots were arguing with the auto controls (MCAS).
The pilots wanted the nose up, & MCAS wanted it down to increase airspeed
to avoid a stall. Were the pilots flying reading a different angle of attack from
MCAS? Did the latter dive because it thought it was to high an AOA?
I wonder about the last one because I'd expect the computer to link to the
artificial horizon as another voter in the AOA sensor system.

3) Why were the engines not throttled back to avoid overspeed?

 

[Shad]

Lots of countries and airlines are grounding this airplane after the Ethiopian crash. Another crash by this plane model happened in Indonesia where the stabilizer was giving wrong information and thus the sharp angle fall and crash. If one believes the news, the trimming of the information is very slow, slow enough to affect the stability and causing serious danger cause of it.

The EU is going to deliberate today or tomorrow if we are also going to ground the 737 MAX. While in the US the FAA has said there's no need to do anything about it, having investigated the Indonesian crash with the plane type.

Thoughts?

Company failure, airline, needs to be ruled out first in my view.

 

[Revoltingest]

Company failure, airline, needs to be ruled out first in my view.

They won't take a serial approach like that.
For one thing, the failures you cite could be guided by what's found in the debri.

 

[Ellen Brown]

Yeah, the two planes crashing shortly after take off on good weather are more telling of possible risks. The plane hasn't been on the market for a long time, so such things tend to spook people and regulators a bit.


I'm guessing a lot of people are going to make money on their stock this time.

Oddly, Airbus is all "fly by wire". just a little joystick. Boeing control is is still hydraulic. Hmmm

 

[Shad]

They won't take a serial approach like that.
For one thing, the failures you cite could be guided by what's found in the debri.

Sure. However grounding all of the line without knowing the cause is extreme.

 

[Revoltingest]

Sure. However grounding all of the line without knowing the cause is extreme.

It is indeed.
But I can understand it as a public relations move.

 

[Shad]

It is indeed.
But I can understand it as a public relations move.

Only due to the death count. A number of cars had major issues for years yet no one was "banning" those lines. Drop in the bucket and an overreaction in my view

 

[Revoltingest]

Only due to the death count. A number of cars had major issues for years yet no one was "banning" those lines. Drop in the bucket and an overreaction in my view

Of course, cars aren't so deadly because of defects.
And more significantly, people aren't frightened of
them because of the illusion of control.

 

[Shad]

Of course, cars aren't so deadly because of defects.
And more significantly, people aren't frightened of
them because of the illusion of control.

Cars can just be as deadly. The difference is a car does not hold 300 people.

 

[Revoltingest]

Cars can just be as deadly. The difference is a car does not hold 300 people.

Cars' deadliness is mostly all about the drivers.
Just driving reasonably & sober greatly reduces one's odds of dying.
But regarding equipment failure, this is where the cars are safer.
They stay on the ground, so falling is no problem...just crashing
horizontally into things. And this has air bags & slower speeds.
But planes have that potentially deadly transition from air to ground.
Landings & takeoffs are deadlier than cruising at altitude.

So while statistically, flying has fewer deaths per mile, it's complicated.

 

[Shad]

Cars' deadliness is mostly all about the drivers.
Just driving reasonably & sober greatly reduces one's odds of dying.
But regarding equipment failure, this is where the cars are safer.
They stay on the ground, so falling is no problem...just crashing
horizontally into things. And this has air bags & slower speeds.
But planes have that potentially deadly transition from air to ground.
Landings & takeoffs are deadlier than cruising at altitude.

So while statistically, flying has fewer deaths per mile, it's complicated.

I was talking about specific design failures such as the audi 5000.

Yes as I said it is because cars do not care 300 people. Yet no one was banning those cars. That is my point.

 

[Revoltingest]

I was talking about specific design failures such as the audi 5000.

Yes as I said it is because cars do not care 300 people. Yet no one was banning those cars. That is my point.

I understand.
It's more about the drama than objective analysis.

 

[Jumi]

2) The human pilots were arguing with the auto controls (MCAS).
The pilots wanted the nose up, & MCAS wanted it down to increase airspeed
to avoid a stall. Were the pilots flying reading a different angle of attack from
MCAS? Did the latter dive because it thought it was to high an AOA?
I wonder about the last one because I'd expect the computer to link to the
artificial horizon as another voter in the AOA sensor system.

Yeah the sensors or the program interacting with them was reporting falsely that the plane was about to stall, causing the nosedive in the end. We're still waiting to see if the Ethiopian liner had the same issues as the Indonesian, but at least Boeing has already promised(according to newspaper) to roll out a software patch around next week.

 

[Jumi]

Company failure, airline, needs to be ruled out first in my view.

It could be, but almost any site I look at says that their record before this incident is up to western standards. The airliner is considered to have an exceptionally good record, with modern operating procedures and new equipment. The captain had 8000 flight hours. Still, it's human to fail, so who knows.

Sure. However grounding all of the line without knowing the cause is extreme.

It's an exceptional situation. Two of the same line crashing within a short time and it's very new with only a few of them flying so far. The percentage of deadly crashes on the plane exceeds number where we can be worried with reason, not hysteria.

If black boxes show something else then they'll continue to fly. In any case Boeing is making a software patch next week according to what I read in the papers. Google finds other articles on that:

Boeing To Make Key Change in 737 MAX Cockpit Software - Slashdot

 

[Jumi]

Boeing publicly released details about the planned 737 MAX software update late Monday [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source]. A company spokesman confirmed the update would use multiple sensors, or data feeds, in MAX's stall-prevention system -- instead of the current reliance on a single sensor. The change was prompted by preliminary results from the Indonesian crash investigation indicating that erroneous data from a single sensor, which measures the angle of the plane's nose, caused the stall-prevention system to misfire. Then, a series of events put the aircraft into a dangerous dive.

 

[Jumi]

Norwegian Air which has 10+ of the Boeing planes said that it expects Boeing "to pay for the costs" of having their planes grounded.

 

[Jumi]

New York Times reports that two American pilots also filed incidence reports with the new 737 MAX planes.

At least two pilots who flew Boeing 737 Max 8 planes on routes in the United States had raised concerns in November about the noses of their planes suddenly dipping after engaging autopilot, according to a federal government database of incident reports.

 

[pearl]

The EU is going to deliberate today or tomorrow if we are also going to ground the 737 MAX. While in the US the FAA has said there's no need to do anything about it, having investigated the Indonesian crash with the plane type.

I believe there is only an acting director at the FAA as no one has been nominated for the post. Apparently, the Secretary of Transportation has the authority to act and ground the planes. As for the 'fix' it has been suggested that it was delayed due to government shut down!