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After the Lion Air crash it wouldn't have been unreasonable to assume pilot error. Almost all recent accidents have been pilot error. I read somewhere that the

After the Lion Air crash it wouldn't have been unreasonable to assume pilot error. Almost all recent accidents have been pilot error. I read somewhere that the sensor was misreading by 20° and Lion should have noticed. Should Boeing have shipped the system with a single point of failure by default? Probably not. Should the FAA have raised questions about that? Probably. Should Boeing have considered a test case where a pilot didn't know about MCAS? Probably. But we don't know that they didn't. Perhaps they did and their test pilots recovered the plane in time. That would make it a Lion Air training failure. There's no single point of blame here, but thankfully the airline industry reacts as a whole to incidents like this and takes as many steps as possible to make sure it doesn't happen any more.

CaptainZapp 8y ago
That would make it a Lion Air training failure. Well, how could they train for it, when Boieing conveniently hushed over such a significant change, because it was commercially expedient? Until the Lion Air crash the airlines and their pilots didn't even know that such a system is in place. According to an AA pilot the entire training consisted of less than an hour presentation on an iPad, in which the new behavior wasn't mentioned at all. Add to that that Boeing offered a paid upgrade which at least would make pilots aware that the system malfunctions. This paid upgrade sounds a bit like "Nice plane you have here, would be a shame if it crashes" No matter how you look at it: Boeing displayed despicable behavior in this whole sorry mess. Behavior which comes back now to bite them badly. I don't disagree with your reasoning, for what it's worth. I just think there really should be a special place in hell for the Boeing executives who allowed this to happen. Especially after the first crash.
- huffmsa 8y ago
  Again, unless I've missed a statement, we don't know if Boeing has tested for this case internally. This case being "pilots untrained and unfamiliar with the MCAS system recovering from a catastrophic systems failure / error". They are at fault no matter what though from straying from their long held principle that the pilot has the final say on control of the aircraft. Inputs from the yoke and throttle levers should always supercede the computer.
- kayfox 8y ago
  The pilots could have been trained to understand all the control surfaces on the airplane and how to identify their configuration. From what is reported about the Lion Air crash it sounds like the pilots may not have sorted out what the stabilizer trim was set to and what to do to correct it. Hopefully that is not the case as such a situation would be a glaring problem with pilot competence.
wyattpeak 8y ago
This is all fairly irrelevant to the fact that the safety procedures themselves seem unjustifiable. How could the FAA have raised questions if they weren't even doing the testing? Nobody in either the article or this train of comments has suggested that it was unreasonable to assume pilot error after a single crash. The problem is the oversight process which allowed it to be certified in the first place. The airline industry isn't responsibly reacting, they're reacting after trying for quite some time to ignore the problem because it's becoming increasingly obvious that they and the FAA have been horrendously negligent, and ignoring it isn't working anymore.

CaptainZapp 8y ago

That would make it a Lion Air training failure. Well, how could they train for it, when Boieing conveniently hushed over such a significant change, because it was commercially expedient? Until the Lion Air crash the airlines and their pilots didn't even know that such a system is in place. According to an AA pilot the entire training consisted of less than an hour presentation on an iPad, in which the new behavior wasn't mentioned at all. Add to that that Boeing offered a paid upgrade which at least would make pilots aware that the system malfunctions. This paid upgrade sounds a bit like "Nice plane you have here, would be a shame if it crashes" No matter how you look at it: Boeing displayed despicable behavior in this whole sorry mess. Behavior which comes back now to bite them badly. I don't disagree with your reasoning, for what it's worth. I just think there really should be a special place in hell for the Boeing executives who allowed this to happen. Especially after the first crash.

huffmsa 8y ago
Again, unless I've missed a statement, we don't know if Boeing has tested for this case internally. This case being "pilots untrained and unfamiliar with the MCAS system recovering from a catastrophic systems failure / error". They are at fault no matter what though from straying from their long held principle that the pilot has the final say on control of the aircraft. Inputs from the yoke and throttle levers should always supercede the computer.
kayfox 8y ago
The pilots could have been trained to understand all the control surfaces on the airplane and how to identify their configuration. From what is reported about the Lion Air crash it sounds like the pilots may not have sorted out what the stabilizer trim was set to and what to do to correct it. Hopefully that is not the case as such a situation would be a glaring problem with pilot competence.

wyattpeak 8y ago

This is all fairly irrelevant to the fact that the safety procedures themselves seem unjustifiable. How could the FAA have raised questions if they weren't even doing the testing? Nobody in either the article or this train of comments has suggested that it was unreasonable to assume pilot error after a single crash. The problem is the oversight process which allowed it to be certified in the first place. The airline industry isn't responsibly reacting, they're reacting after trying for quite some time to ignore the problem because it's becoming increasingly obvious that they and the FAA have been horrendously negligent, and ignoring it isn't working anymore.