Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max crashes killing 157

[skeeter 453]

3 hours ago, EuroHorn said:

So what's the bottom on Boeing stock?  And when should I  buy?

Sell! Sell! Sell!

[Bobby_Batronic 1994]

Well, the Lion air was a stall sensor, but it activated the MCAS, so I bet mx went down the wrong rabbit hole. 

[Buffsoldier 1895]

4 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Once it really flames out.

Once it hits rock bottom

After it crashes.

(C'mon, this one was obvious.)

[retread 2951]

siap ....  https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-pilots-reported-problems-boeing-737-max-162400954.html

Quote

Washington (AFP) - The US decision on Wednesday to ground the Boeing 737 MAX came after authorities noted similarities between two recent crashes, eerily echoing reports from American pilots who complained of problems with the plane late last year.

At least four US pilots filed reports following the October crash of a Lion Air flight in Indonesia shortly after takeoff and all complained the aircraft suddenly pitched downward, according to documents reviewed by AFP on a flight safety database.

 

One pilot on a US carrier reported an incident in November 2018, just weeks after the Lion Air crash, saying the plane "pitched nose down" two to three seconds after engaging the autopilot following takeoff, according to the report on the Aviation Safety Reporting System, maintained by NASA.

"The captain immediately disconnected the autopilot and pitched into a climb," the report said. "The rest of the flight was uneventful."

The flight crew reviewed the incident "at length... but can't think of any reason the aircraft would pitch nose-down so aggressively."

Another pilot on a flight in November said the crew discussed the concerns about the aircraft following the Lion Air crash, and "I mentioned I would engage the autopilot sooner than usual."

But again once engaged, there was a quick automated warning of "DONT SINK DONT SINK!"

"I immediately disconnected the AP (autopilot) ... and resumed climb," the officer said. But after review, "frankly neither of us could find an inappropriate setup error."

"With the concerns with the MAX 8 nose-down stuff, we both thought it appropriate to bring it to your attention."

The ASRS is a voluntary system of reports that allows research to "lessen the likelihood of aviation accidents."

 

[Deej 76510]

I wonder what would cause the autopilot to suddenly pitch down?

[Surly Bevo 24692]

13 minutes ago, Deej said:

I wonder what would cause the autopilot to suddenly pitch down?

uh I think things pitch up in that in-flight scenario

[Telegraph_it 3353]

One time I set the autopilot and had the plane nose down immediately. Turns out 1,000 is different then 10,000. It definitely had the adrenaline pumping. 

Edited March 14, 2019 by Telegraph_it

[Pato del Muerto 52321]

Is this only happening at takeoff?  Or has it happened when AP is engaged/in use at slighter angles of incline or during level flight or descent?

[Homercles 10205]

The English, Germans, French and Australians have all grounded the Max8.  This is not a drill.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13391]

I imagine some of the pressure to ground the planes in the US came from the airlines themselves. Customers were calling in and demanding to be on other planes. Yes, the airlines can ground their own whenever but crisis mgmt calls for the FAA to ground all of them, investigate and then declare safe. This is the best path to get beyond this problem.

how much influence does Boeing have to require commercial carriers put competent pilots in the planes? I know the commercial carrier owns the plane and may only be subjected to laws based on where they are flying, but this situation shows that Boeing themselves are extremely impacted if pilots screw up. Boeing might be one crash away from losing all future sales of this line.

[Telegraph_it 3353]

Then they can bring back the 757 line. 

[phdhorn 6224]

Give me a half-off and a parachute and I say fuck all of this.  I leave in 2 weeks for Denver, and I'm going.  Just drop me off like Elroy Jetson going to Little Dippers Elementary School.

[Pato del Muerto 52321]

Just now, phdhorn said:

Give me a half-off and a parachute and I say fuck all of this.  I leave in 2 weeks for Denver, and I'm going.  Just drop me off like Elroy Jetson going to Little Dippers Elementary School.

Planes are nosediving at takeoff. You wouldn’t get out the door before you went splat and if you did AND got your chute open in time, you’d be a mile from the airport and not making it to Denver. 

[phdhorn 6224]

Just now, Pato del Muerto said:

Planes are nosediving at takeoff. You wouldn’t get out the door before you went splat and if you did AND got your chute open in time, you’d be a mile from the airport and not making it to Denver. 

Then put in ejector seats.  Powerful ones that shoot me 900 miles. This ain't hard.

Edited March 14, 2019 by phdhorn

[Pato del Muerto 52321]

Just now, phdhorn said:

Then put in ejector seats.  This ain't hard.

[smuggs 9340]

[gecko 1104]

Ahhhh yes....Western Airlines

[NoRagrets 1125]

1 minute ago, smuggs said:

Only Colonel Matrix could jump out of a plane at 200mph, land in some 2ft marsh, and walk away.

[Nueces River Rat 5528]

3 minutes ago, smuggs said:

That was probably the best part of the what was a predictable movie.  

[XYZ 2154]

58 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Planes are nosediving at takeoff. You wouldn’t get out the door before you went splat and if you did AND got your chute open in time, you’d be a mile from the airport and not making it to Denver. 

Party pooper.

[Bobby_Batronic 1994]

3 hours ago, phdhorn said:

Then put in ejector seats.  Powerful ones that shoot me 900 miles. This ain't hard.

Put an entire aircraft parachute system like a Cirrus. 

You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger darling. 

Edited March 14, 2019 by Bobby_Batronic

[Wally Fairway 5517]

I'm giving up air travel and waiting for the hyperloop before I go cross country.
The hyperloop won't crash on take off and landing - putting people in a pod, in a vacuum, in an enclosed tube....what could possibly go wrong?

[PilotsError 2280]

My understanding from the intelligentsia is we're eliminating planes anyway.  This is a good jumping off point.

[Hagbard Celine 10734]

5 hours ago, Telegraph_it said:

Then they can bring back the 757 line. 

nope, the 707 jigs were scrapped after the last 7-5 was built in 04.

[Buffsoldier 1895]

12 hours ago, gecko said:

Ahhhh yes....Western Airlines

The oooooooooonly way to fly.

[JimmyJames 12271]

On 3/13/2019 at 3:20 PM, Your Mom said:

The trim system makes minor adjustments  so you don’t have to hold constant back pressure on the yoke in a climb or constant forward pressure in a descent. You put it where you want it and then trim it to stay there until you’re ready for a different flight attitude.    If the trim motors “Runaway”  and won’t stop they will continue to force the airplane in one direction or the other and there is a process to stop it. 1) Autpilot and Autothrottles off  2) Stab Trim Switches to Cut Out. That’s it.   That removes the connection between the trim motors and controls surface.   That’s the whole procedure. It’s one of only a few required memory items and it almost the shortest memory item in the whole manual. 

 Lion Air did not crash because of a true runaway trim.  The trim system was doing exactly what it was told to.   The angle of attack indicators were sensing a stall. So the MCAS logic told the trim motors to trim nose down.  And they did their job correctly all the way to the ground.   The actual problem was in the angle of attack indicator, not the trim motors. But in the cockpit the problem presents itself exactly like a runaway trim. You’re trying to level the plane off but the trim motors continue to push it down.  Even if it’s not a true runaway trim it would present the exact same. You run that memorized procedure and it solves the problem. 

 Even before Lion Air crashed and before anyone knew this was going to be a recurring problem any decent pilot would’ve got his hands on those switches. And actually it’s looking like simply turning the auto pilot off would have also stopped the nose down trim.   It’s basic day one stuff in fancy airplane school.   But when the first officer has 200 total hours of flight time, day one simple stuff is going to be pretty hard.  I have no idea what the training is like at Lion Air or Ethiopia  but it’s hard to imagine a professional pilot in the United States not being able to stop a runaway trim within two or three seconds.    The kind of airline that would hire a guy with less than 200 hours is probably also the kind of airline that doesn’t take its training department real seriously. That’s just speculation on my part based on current events.    

The other big question is why wasn’t this specific airplane grounded after the pilot reported a runaway trim or something like it?    That’s not something you just casually tell the mechanic before you walk over to the next gate.  I don’t know why it was handled the way it was. 

 None of that is to say that I’m crazy about this system. I don’t like it and I’ll be glad when they change it.   But in the meantime Southwest has flown 41,000 flights in the MAX  without a single instance of this and I feel like  we can handle it until they change the logic. 

I admit that not only is this a lot of words but you seem to know a whole lot more about this subject than me but riddle me this.

If this problem is more in the nature of egregious pilot error as you seem to imply, then why has the entire world grounded the plane, why did two planes on a relatively new airplane go down under similar circumstances killing hundreds, and even if pilot error is a factor, wouldn’t you agree that the plane itself might represent an unacceptable risk of harm, namely mass death?

Im sure southwest and other airlines have managed to log thousands of flights without the plane falling out of the sky. So what?

And are you arguing the pilots were negligent? Because if so you should just come right out and say it directly instead of implying it indirectly based on your claims of lack of flight hours and training.

[KaiserSoze 997]

2 hours ago, JimmyJames said:

And are you arguing the pilots were negligent? Because if so you should just come right out and say it directly instead of implying it indirectly based on your claims of lack of flight hours and training.

That's exactly what he's saying. Jesus Christ- are you typically restricted to reading pop-up books or something? 

Edited March 15, 2019 by KaiserSoze

[Homercles 10205]

That was probably the best part of the what was a predictable movie.  

Wtf???

I’ll be back, Bennet
This isn’t a plane it’s a canoe with wings...we’ll get in and start paddling
Don’t disturb my friend, he’s dead tired
Let off some steam, Bennett
You’re a funny guy Sully, I like you, that’s why I’ll kill you last
Leave anything for us? Just bodies.


Saw blades, hand held M60s chopping up flowers...it’s a blueprint for Arnold movies and you suck

[Pato del Muerto 52321]

He’s right you know jpg

[HornsOverIthaca 2333]

2 hours ago, Homercles said:

 

Wtf???

I’ll be back, Bennet
This isn’t a plane it’s a canoe with wings...we’ll get in and start paddling
Don’t disturb my friend, he’s dead tired
Let off some steam, Bennett
You’re a funny guy Sully, I like you, that’s why I’ll kill you last
Leave anything for us? Just bodies.


Saw blades, hand held M60s chopping up flowers...it’s a blueprint for Arnold movies and you suck

 

This is the type of quality analysis that we need more of in this day and age.

[Nueces River Rat 5528]

2 hours ago, Homercles said:

 

Wtf???

I’ll be back, Bennet
This isn’t a plane it’s a canoe with wings...we’ll get in and start paddling
Don’t disturb my friend, he’s dead tired
Let off some steam, Bennett
You’re a funny guy Sully, I like you, that’s why I’ll kill you last
Leave anything for us? Just bodies.


Saw blades, hand held M60s chopping up flowers...it’s a blueprint for Arnold movies and you suck

 

You forgot...    I let him go..

The Flight Attendant chic was cute.   A 10 in my book as a horny teenager back then.

[Homercles 10205]

You forgot...    I let him go..
The Flight Attendant chic was cute.   A 10 in my book as a horny teenager back then.

Tommy Chong’s daughter

[Lat22 3990]

The only video the media shows is Boeing footage of these planes doing vertical takeoffs and steep turns. The uninformed public is probably thinking “holy shit I’m not getting into one of those”. 

[Cajun 11675]

11 minutes ago, Homercles said:

 

Tommy Chong’s daughter

 

She was a HOT naked cavewoman.

[Wally Fairway 5517]

not a 737 Max problem, but I'll throw this in here as another Boeing problem

The USAF stopped taking deliveries of KC-46 (767 derivative) in February because of debris and tooling found on planes from Boeing.
 

Quote

In a blistering attack on Boeing, the Air Force's top acquisition official said the company has a "severe situation" with flawed inspections of its new KC-46 air refueling tanker aircraft, after trash and industrial tools were found in some planes after they were delivered to the Air Force.

After discovering the problem, the Air Force stopped accepting the new tankers from Boeing on February 20.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/14/politics/air-force-boeing-refueling-plane/index.html

So I'm guessing it is not the time to jump back into BA, but it will get to an attractive number; maybe around 350

[Fozzz 152]

Boeing is fucked.

 

 

[Armybrat 40678]

So it is a software failure? 

[mulletpelini 5209]

always download the updates.

[Telegraph_it 3353]

Well, it started with a hardware fault on the AoA sensor. Software/program is only as good as the data fed into it. The fact that Boeing had an "add-on" package to display a warning when the AoA sensor is giving potentially erroneous data is not good. 

[Deej 76510]

"I must have put the decimal in the wrong place or something."

[Fozzz 152]

Maybe it's a bad thing that Boeing practically has a monopoly on US commercial aircraft manufacturing.  

[Fudge Nuggets 19118]

45 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

Boeing is fucked.

 

 

Yeah, p.e. moskowitz... lol... real fucking funny, asshole.

[Bobby_Batronic 1994]

1 hour ago, Telegraph_it said:

Well, it started with a hardware fault on the AoA sensor. Software/program is only as good as the data fed into it. The fact that Boeing had an "add-on" package to display a warning when the AoA sensor is giving potentially erroneous data is not good. 

Airliners are replete with customization options. You’d be surprised how bare bones they can be ordered if so specified.

The bottom line is that the stab cutout switches OR opposite trim ( this stops the MCAS downward pitch inputs in the Max) would have definitely saved the Lion Air flight, and likley the Ethiopian one as well. 

The same public who wouldn’t trust Fox News or CNN any farther than they could throw each respective HQ building is buying this s**t hook, line and sinker from aviation news experts who don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. 

Edited March 15, 2019 by Bobby_Batronic

[jkates 313]

A close relative of mine is a recently retired SWA pilot. Here's a text he sent me when I inquired about the MAX.

"There's a switch to disengage the MCAS system (pitches nose down at max electric trim motor speed if AOA sensors sense nose is too high). Boeing didn't put it in the pilot training manual that a faulty AOA sensor would put the nose down 17.5 degrees and trigger the stabilizer trim motor into the high-speed mode. Pulling back on the yoke is the natural reaction when this happens, but the correct action is to reach behind yourself to the back of the center console and disengage a switch that sticks up less than an inch. 

The Indonesian pilots fought the elevator for 17 seconds before crashing, but it doesn't matter how hard you pull on the yoke, the 17-degree dive mode is going to return until you disable the trim motor. 

Now, after November, everyone should have been made aware that the MAX has this fatal design error (It should never have been certified to do this), but it's not an easy process to redo the entire software design of the MCAS when there are so many systems, autopilot functions, fly control components, and interfaces together. It was supposed to have come out in January, but it got pushed back to April. They can say all they want about the government shutdown not delaying this, but I don't believe it. The FAA is responsible for signing off on every design change Boeing makes. The parameters of this MCAS system are way out of kilter for what its purpose should be. 17.5 degrees nose down command with full high-speed trim going is a handful of airplane for one pilot to handle with both hands. If the other guy doesn't get that switch turned off, they are going down.

SWAPA said before Trump's announcement that the MAX was safe to fly. Yeah, because this thing has been pounded into everyone's head since the first crash, so US pilots are keyed to disengage the system. It's still my opinion that it's a design flaw (software fix). 

Boeing is gonna be on the hook for all the lost revenue for these canceled flights."

I sent another text saying that as a non-pilot I don't understand it all but get what he's saying. He replied again,

"The new engines have so much more power, which causes a pitch up from where they're located when the power is advanced, hence the MCAS system. They just decided not to tell anyone what it did, so some idiot marketing decision maker left it out of the training manual. They're lucky one of those crashes didn't happen in US airspace because the victim liability claims are unlimited here for willful negligence."

[TornACL 7673]

Quote

They're lucky one of those crashes didn't happen in US airspace because the victim liability claims are unlimited here for willful negligence

Ehhh not sure I would go that far to describe this.

But, hey, that's why I don't want lawyers flying my planes and I don't want pilots representing me in court. 

[Telegraph_it 3353]

27 minutes ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

Airliners are replete with customization options. You’d be surprised how bare bones they can be ordered if so specified.

The bottom line is that the stab cutout switches OR opposite trim ( this stops the MCAS downward pitch inputs in the Max) would have definitely saved the Lion Air flight, and likley the Ethiopian one as well. 

The same public who wouldn’t trust Fox News or CNN any farther than they could throw each respective HQ building is buying this s**t hook, line and sinker from aviation news experts who don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. 

I understand where you are coming from, but some data is more important than others. It seems like AoA sensor is a crucial component to stable flight in the MAX given the need for MCAS.

I'd still fly on the MAX today and I definitely would if I knew the pilot knew how to compensate for this issue. In my nonexpert opinion, this particular feature should never have been optional from the beginning. 

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

1 hour ago, Fozzz said:

Maybe it's a bad thing that Boeing practically has a monopoly on US commercial aircraft manufacturing.  

Brah, Juan Tripp doesn't agree.

[retread 2951]

24 minutes ago, jkates said:

"The new engines have so much more power, which causes a pitch up from where they're located when the power is advanced, hence the MCAS system. They just decided not to tell anyone what it did, so some idiot marketing decision maker left it out of the training manual. They're lucky one of those crashes didn't happen in US airspace because the victim liability claims are unlimited here for willful negligence."

Thanks for posting that. I don't know anything about airline or pilot culture, but I wonder how much the airlines were relying on word of mouth to clarify or modify the procedure in the manual. I would think that the manual would be the gospel for pilots, but how many key tasks are learned by word of mouth? Seems there's always a tendency for employees to rathole information that they find useful, instead of sharing it with everyone. Does that happen with pilots/airlines?

[Bobby_Batronic 1994]

31 minutes ago, Telegraph_it said:

I understand where you are coming from, but some data is more important than others. It seems like AoA sensor is a crucial component to stable flight in the MAX given the need for MCAS.

I'd still fly on the MAX today and I definitely would if I knew the pilot knew how to compensate for this issue. In my nonexpert opinion, this particular feature should never have been optional from the beginning. 

The AOA sensor is installed. If it weren’t the MCAS wouldn’t have pitched down based on erroneous AOA sensor inputs. The option not installed on the Lion Air Max per the information above was a graphic description of that AOA’s information. 

Again, the general public is thoroughly ignorant of the realities of options on airliners. I’ll give you an example. All airliners have ice detectors. In the Airbus, for example, an airline can opt for the fairly standard electronic installation which consists of a heated mast that vibrates, and any interruption of that vibration indicates ice. This indication is displayed as a message for the pilots. OR, there’s a small mast that protrudes from the center winsdscreen post that the pilots can stare at and see if it’s accumulating ice. 

One is gee whiz and one is bare bones simple to the point of near embarrassment. Both work fine. The AOA sensor in the Lion Air Max was talking to the MCAS. A graphic display wasn’t required for this though I suspect it will be in the future to assuage the outcry generated so far. The larger point is that you hit the stab cutout switches if the plane pitches down uncommanded. It doesn’t matter why. It doesn’t matter if you have the indicator on the primary flight display. You do the memory item and fly the plane. 

[Telegraph_it 3353]

Bobby agreed on complexities and media being terrible when it comes to reporting on aviation. I guess the potential argument is some pilots apparently needed  that graphic display to not put the plane in the ground - even if they had 1,000 of hours.

Anyway I don’t fly anything nearly as advanced and it boggles my mind how a pilot would not be able to maintain level flight assuming everything else is working and clear conditions. 

Words to live by: Fly the plane. Don’t do it the other way around.