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I'm going to get a little meta here. After the crash, reading the online comments about it (and the things said about Lion Air and the pilots) was pretty inter

I'm going to get a little meta here. After the crash, reading the online comments about it (and the things said about Lion Air and the pilots) was pretty interesting given how things have turned out. It is also interesting how much play the initial discussion received relative to the follow up stories about the safety bulletin and now criticism from within the industry. And when we finally do get an article on the safety issue, the top comment is focused on the pilot's supposed issues instead: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18409041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18409041 Or trying to continue to blame Lion Air: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18408540 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18408540 I guess what I am saying is; there seems to be a deep unwillingness to criticize Boeing. This isn't recent or specific to this accident, Boeing is a very challenging topic to discuss without people getting tribal. Why is that?

danso 8y ago
I think non-engineering issues were a focus in the Lion Air crash because of how poor Lion Air’s safety history has been, which included the egregious decision the allow its plane to continue flying despite sensor errors in its previous flights.
- Someone1234 8y ago
  > egregious decision the allow its plane to continue flying despite sensor errors in its previous flights. They fixed the previous issue[0]. Why is flying a fixed aircraft after following Boeing's own procedures to fix it a "egregious decision?" [0] https://www.financialexpress.com/world-news/indonesia-plane-crash-lion-air-ceo-edward-sirait-says-aircraft-had-technical-problem-in-previous-flight/1365164/ https://www.financialexpress.com/world-news/indonesia-plane-...
  - inferiorhuman 8y ago
    > They fixed the previous issue[0]. Why is flying a fixed aircraft after following Boeing's own procedures to fix it a "egregious decision?" The New York Times accused Lion Air of falsifying maintenance records. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/08/world/asia/indonesia-plane-crash-last-moments.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/08/world/asia/indonesia-plan... > Pilots and former safety regulators said that Lion Air flight and maintenance crews regularly filled out two log books, one real and one fake, to hide malfeasance.
  - cjbprime 8y ago
    There may be some semantics here. They "resolved" the issue, which I think can involve merely documenting that it is known.
  - _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
    How can it be fixed when the plane crashed?
  - danso 8y ago
    The story you posted is from Oct. 29. Since then, it has been reported that the airspeed indicator was malfunctioning in its final 4 flights: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/world/asia/lion-air-crash.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/world/asia/lion-air-crash...
- tigershark 8y ago
  We are speaking about a brand new plane delivered in August that crashed after two months. Even if you really wanted to blame lion air, do you think is acceptable for a new plane to self destruct after two months for a bug? I think is not acceptable and I will never fly a 737 max. These airplanes should all be grounded now until a fix is in place.
jorblumesea 8y ago
Boeing is a company with a 100 year history and an impeccable safety record. Lion air is a budget airline of budget airlines that skimps on maintenance and was once banned by the EU from operating. Just look at their incident list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Air#Incidents_and_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Air#Incidents_and_acciden... Accident after accident. That is not to excuse anything Boeing has done, but it's easy to see why most had that reaction.
- CamperBob2 8y ago
  I don't know about "impeccable," but Lion reportedly kept this particular aircraft in service after previous flights experienced serious difficulties with the same subsystem. That takes a lot of the potential blame away from the manufacturer in my book.
  - tmd83 8y ago
    So LionAir is definitely at some fault here. But it doesn't in general lessen Boeing's fault at to in my eyes. This could have happened on the first flight where the sensor had issue. I have no idea how common it is to have a sensor fail on a few months old plane but Boeing is damn lucky that the accident didn't happen on the first flight with sensor issue so they can't at least point to LionAir negligence. Imagine this happening on a first rate airlines and what the reaction would have been.
  - markdown 8y ago
    The manufacturer gives airlines training, SOP's, manuals, etc. All the failures that occurred on previous flights were fixed according to the requirements set forth by Boeing. This happens every single day on thousands of aircraft worldwide. Problems show up, the engineers fix them, and the aircraft are returned to service. I'm not sure what you're suggesting should happen... if you want Boeing to sign-off every pitot-tube cleaning or AoA sensor replacement, most planes would be grounded waiting for Boeing to show up.
- ozmaverick72 8y ago
  Boeing as a company does have an excellent safety record but it has had its safety issues: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_rudder_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_rudder_issues
A2017U1 8y ago
I know little about aviation nor this incident, but the pilot never once radioed panpan let alone mayday despite having the time to do so. This is very unusual. For anyone interested the best sources of knowledgeable commentary is ppprune and avherald. Every other site is armchair speculation.
- throwawayinside 8y ago
  I have a feeling you don’t understand what angle of attack is, or how quickly you die when the sensors + autopilot conspire against you on this metric.
  - A2017U1 8y ago
    Sensors fail all the time, everything can be turned off. There's a half dozen ways to determine AoA and apparently the previous flight did exactly that, turn off the faulty sensor.
- raverbashing 8y ago
  Aviate, Navigate, Communicate in that order If you can't Aviate you don't do the other 2
- cjbprime 8y ago
  It's a little unusual, but not extremely. There's both the instruction to "aviate, navigate, communicate" -- in that order -- and the fact that when you are "task-saturated" you often straight up fail to hear people talking to you. If you believed your airplane was at imminent risk of a stall, it would be deeply negligent to spend mental cycles talking to ATC instead of fixing it. ATC exists to sequence traffic; they can't fly your plane for you.
  - A2017U1 8y ago
    The pilot negotiated turning around and returning to the airport with ATC, which takes more effort than a distress call. The previous flight which suffered the same problems called in a PanPan before resolving the faulty sensor issue. Reports are also saying that this fault was noted on the last 4 flights.
TeMPOraL 8y ago
I think there's plenty of will to criticize Boeing itself on this board - just mention things like ULA, or weapons manufacturing (erm, Boeing Defense). Just in this case, the default position is to look for a fault in the airline with a known bad record - passenger planes, be it Boeing or Airbus, and 737 in particular, are incredibly well-tested and used without incidents all around the world. If it was Airbus A320 that crashed, I think people would still first ask if the issue really wasn't caused by Lion mishandling maintenance.
inferiorhuman 8y ago
> I guess what I am saying is; there seems to be a deep unwillingness to criticize Boeing. This isn't recent or specific to this accident, Boeing is a very challenging topic to discuss without people getting tribal. Why is that? Boeing is a large employer in the United States, people will get defensive when it threatens their livelihood. That said, as evidenced by the internal AA email Boeing fucked up. Rational or not I'm not planning on setting foot on a MAX anytime soon (and was fully prepared to get a refund if Southwest were to sub a MAX on my last flight). But... you've also got the Indonesian aviation industry to contend with. Indonesian air travel is notoriously unsafe and in fact all Indonesian airlines were banned from EU airspace for a while. Lion Air, as well, stands out as being less safe than the Indonesian average. Here's an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-alq0iuujOE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-alq0iuujOE Watch the second landing. I'm not a pilot but I'm pretty sure that the pilot not flying is NOT supposed to adjust the control surfaces in an unannounced manner. Likewise I'm pretty sure you're supposed to arm the speed brakes BEFORE you touch down. Shit like that is why people pile onto Lion Air (and Indonesian airlines).
FabHK 8y ago
Good point. Aviation in Indonesia operates in a particularly challenging environment (many islands, short hops, inclement weather, problematic infrastructure, institutional culture with massive corruption and shortcuts, pervasive poverty). Given that background, I think commercial aviation there is amazingly successful and safe, by and large. On the other hand, Lion Air does have a bad reputation even in Indonesia, and I suspect not without reason. So some speculation in that regard was to be expected. What's a shame is that some commentators pinned it on Lion Air without waiting for the full picture to emerge, and it seems Boeing screwed up, here. But I don't think Boeing specifically is sacrosanct here; the discussion would have been much the same if it had been an Airbus. FWIW, I've suggested to my Indonesian friend (who's just been to the funeral of one of the victims) to avoid both Lion Air and Boeing 737-8, -9 MAX for now.

danso 8y ago

I think non-engineering issues were a focus in the Lion Air crash because of how poor Lion Air’s safety history has been, which included the egregious decision the allow its plane to continue flying despite sensor errors in its previous flights.

Someone1234 8y ago
> egregious decision the allow its plane to continue flying despite sensor errors in its previous flights. They fixed the previous issue[0]. Why is flying a fixed aircraft after following Boeing's own procedures to fix it a "egregious decision?" [0] https://www.financialexpress.com/world-news/indonesia-plane-crash-lion-air-ceo-edward-sirait-says-aircraft-had-technical-problem-in-previous-flight/1365164/ https://www.financialexpress.com/world-news/indonesia-plane-...
- inferiorhuman 8y ago
  > They fixed the previous issue[0]. Why is flying a fixed aircraft after following Boeing's own procedures to fix it a "egregious decision?" The New York Times accused Lion Air of falsifying maintenance records. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/08/world/asia/indonesia-plane-crash-last-moments.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/08/world/asia/indonesia-plan... > Pilots and former safety regulators said that Lion Air flight and maintenance crews regularly filled out two log books, one real and one fake, to hide malfeasance.
- cjbprime 8y ago
  There may be some semantics here. They "resolved" the issue, which I think can involve merely documenting that it is known.
- _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
  How can it be fixed when the plane crashed?
- danso 8y ago
  The story you posted is from Oct. 29. Since then, it has been reported that the airspeed indicator was malfunctioning in its final 4 flights: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/world/asia/lion-air-crash.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/world/asia/lion-air-crash...
tigershark 8y ago
We are speaking about a brand new plane delivered in August that crashed after two months. Even if you really wanted to blame lion air, do you think is acceptable for a new plane to self destruct after two months for a bug? I think is not acceptable and I will never fly a 737 max. These airplanes should all be grounded now until a fix is in place.

jorblumesea 8y ago

Boeing is a company with a 100 year history and an impeccable safety record. Lion air is a budget airline of budget airlines that skimps on maintenance and was once banned by the EU from operating. Just look at their incident list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Air#Incidents_and_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Air#Incidents_and_acciden... Accident after accident. That is not to excuse anything Boeing has done, but it's easy to see why most had that reaction.

CamperBob2 8y ago
I don't know about "impeccable," but Lion reportedly kept this particular aircraft in service after previous flights experienced serious difficulties with the same subsystem. That takes a lot of the potential blame away from the manufacturer in my book.
- tmd83 8y ago
  So LionAir is definitely at some fault here. But it doesn't in general lessen Boeing's fault at to in my eyes. This could have happened on the first flight where the sensor had issue. I have no idea how common it is to have a sensor fail on a few months old plane but Boeing is damn lucky that the accident didn't happen on the first flight with sensor issue so they can't at least point to LionAir negligence. Imagine this happening on a first rate airlines and what the reaction would have been.
- markdown 8y ago
  The manufacturer gives airlines training, SOP's, manuals, etc. All the failures that occurred on previous flights were fixed according to the requirements set forth by Boeing. This happens every single day on thousands of aircraft worldwide. Problems show up, the engineers fix them, and the aircraft are returned to service. I'm not sure what you're suggesting should happen... if you want Boeing to sign-off every pitot-tube cleaning or AoA sensor replacement, most planes would be grounded waiting for Boeing to show up.
ozmaverick72 8y ago
Boeing as a company does have an excellent safety record but it has had its safety issues: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_rudder_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_rudder_issues

A2017U1 8y ago

I know little about aviation nor this incident, but the pilot never once radioed panpan let alone mayday despite having the time to do so. This is very unusual. For anyone interested the best sources of knowledgeable commentary is ppprune and avherald. Every other site is armchair speculation.

throwawayinside 8y ago
I have a feeling you don’t understand what angle of attack is, or how quickly you die when the sensors + autopilot conspire against you on this metric.
- A2017U1 8y ago
  Sensors fail all the time, everything can be turned off. There's a half dozen ways to determine AoA and apparently the previous flight did exactly that, turn off the faulty sensor.
raverbashing 8y ago
Aviate, Navigate, Communicate in that order If you can't Aviate you don't do the other 2
cjbprime 8y ago
It's a little unusual, but not extremely. There's both the instruction to "aviate, navigate, communicate" -- in that order -- and the fact that when you are "task-saturated" you often straight up fail to hear people talking to you. If you believed your airplane was at imminent risk of a stall, it would be deeply negligent to spend mental cycles talking to ATC instead of fixing it. ATC exists to sequence traffic; they can't fly your plane for you.
- A2017U1 8y ago
  The pilot negotiated turning around and returning to the airport with ATC, which takes more effort than a distress call. The previous flight which suffered the same problems called in a PanPan before resolving the faulty sensor issue. Reports are also saying that this fault was noted on the last 4 flights.

TeMPOraL 8y ago

I think there's plenty of will to criticize Boeing itself on this board - just mention things like ULA, or weapons manufacturing (erm, Boeing Defense). Just in this case, the default position is to look for a fault in the airline with a known bad record - passenger planes, be it Boeing or Airbus, and 737 in particular, are incredibly well-tested and used without incidents all around the world. If it was Airbus A320 that crashed, I think people would still first ask if the issue really wasn't caused by Lion mishandling maintenance.

inferiorhuman 8y ago

> I guess what I am saying is; there seems to be a deep unwillingness to criticize Boeing. This isn't recent or specific to this accident, Boeing is a very challenging topic to discuss without people getting tribal. Why is that? Boeing is a large employer in the United States, people will get defensive when it threatens their livelihood. That said, as evidenced by the internal AA email Boeing fucked up. Rational or not I'm not planning on setting foot on a MAX anytime soon (and was fully prepared to get a refund if Southwest were to sub a MAX on my last flight). But... you've also got the Indonesian aviation industry to contend with. Indonesian air travel is notoriously unsafe and in fact all Indonesian airlines were banned from EU airspace for a while. Lion Air, as well, stands out as being less safe than the Indonesian average. Here's an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-alq0iuujOE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-alq0iuujOE Watch the second landing. I'm not a pilot but I'm pretty sure that the pilot not flying is NOT supposed to adjust the control surfaces in an unannounced manner. Likewise I'm pretty sure you're supposed to arm the speed brakes BEFORE you touch down. Shit like that is why people pile onto Lion Air (and Indonesian airlines).

FabHK 8y ago

Good point. Aviation in Indonesia operates in a particularly challenging environment (many islands, short hops, inclement weather, problematic infrastructure, institutional culture with massive corruption and shortcuts, pervasive poverty). Given that background, I think commercial aviation there is amazingly successful and safe, by and large. On the other hand, Lion Air does have a bad reputation even in Indonesia, and I suspect not without reason. So some speculation in that regard was to be expected. What's a shame is that some commentators pinned it on Lion Air without waiting for the full picture to emerge, and it seems Boeing screwed up, here. But I don't think Boeing specifically is sacrosanct here; the discussion would have been much the same if it had been an Airbus. FWIW, I've suggested to my Indonesian friend (who's just been to the funeral of one of the victims) to avoid both Lion Air and Boeing 737-8, -9 MAX for now.