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Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg Addresses the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 Report

165 points by kaboro 8y ago

xiphias2 8y ago
,,We remain confident in the fundamental safety of the 737 MAX.'' Am I irrational for not wanting to be on the first 1-2 years of flights on 737 MAX after it gets its software update?
- 781 8y ago
  Well, then I'm irrational too, because I won't set foot in a 737 MAX after this shitfest. The FAA also lost a lot of trust, for rubber-stamping this. The first accident was maybe understandable. We all know that shit happens. But Boeing has zero excuses for not immediately grounding the whole fleet after, and for putting out that useless recovery procedure which didn't work in this case. They let a deadly plane fly for 5 months after they were aware of it, and after the second crash they were phoning Trump to keep it in the air.
  - pcurve 8y ago
    I think lack or major crashes in recent years made them complacent and emboldened them to roll the dice. Then hit snake eyes. Then also may have looked down on the foreign pilots are the airline. Had this been a Southwest plane they may have grounded the plane.
    - ams6110 8y ago
      I do think the complacency issue might be a component here. Humans tend to quickly accept recent history as "normal" and over time forget the lessons learned by past disasters. "Those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it" It's been a couple of decades I think, maybe more, since an engineering screwup affected a passenger airliner like this. You could argue that the 787 LiIon battery thermal runaway thing was a red flag. That also resulted in an FAA grounding, but that was fairly easily remedied and nobody died.
  - cyberferret 8y ago
    > The FAA also lost a lot of trust, for rubber-stamping this. From documents I've seen (which I cannot find the links to now), it appears that the FAA let Boeing themselves do some of the certification work and sign offs. Putting the foxes in charge of the hen house, so to speak.
    - nawtacawp 8y ago
      If I recall, this boiled down to the FAA not having engineers who could properly test these systems.
      - bonestamp2 8y ago
        And now whistleblowers have said that Boeing didn't have properly trained people to handle it either.
    - BurningFrog 8y ago
      It's called Regulatory Capture, and it happens to all regulatory agencies sooner or later. They become primarily concerned with the interests of the companies they're regulating, rather than the public interest they're in theory tasked with working for. Unfortunately, that is just how a regulated society works.
      - objektif 8y ago
        How do you arrive at such a conclusion? Have you researched regulatory agencies in EU? For example they just blocked a meeger between two massive train manufacturer. Your argument sounds like a weak libertarian talking point.
        testpostpls 8y ago
        I owned a Volkswagen. Why wouldn’t regulatory capture be a thing everywhere?
        8y ago
  - Stryder 8y ago
    The integrity of engineering excellence should never be sacrificed for profit and/or conveniency in places where it involves human lives. Realistically and pragmatically speaking, you only ever get to have just one single shot at establishing and maintaining that kind of life/death level of trust. Fuck it up, and you're gone- quite literally, mind you. This is some Challenger O-ring type of shitshow. Accidents are one thing; incompetency or, worse yet, callous indifference is absolutely unacceptable.
    - drstewart 8y ago
      >The integrity of engineering excellence should never be sacrificed for profit and/or conveniency in places where it involves human lives. That's just unrealistic. Unless you want plane and car rides to cost as much as a trip to space, after all, since everything would need to be engineered to that level of quality.
      - Stryder 8y ago
        Finish reading first, and then spend some time thinking before responding. I said: "Accidents are one thing; incompetency or, worse yet, callous indifference is absolutely unacceptable."
      - rmrfrmrf 8y ago
        I continue to be fascinated with consumers who assume the role of shareholder in times of crisis, even against their own interests.
        traek 8y ago
        Affordable air travel is in most people's interests.
        objektif 8y ago
        Safe travel surprasses affordable for ALL customers not most.
  - 93s6oz 8y ago
    >The FAA also lost a lot of trust, for rubber-stamping this. I wonder if the European agency (don't remember the name) will stop trusting the FAA from now on and do their own tests. I'd thank them for that. (According to what I read here, the European agency doesn't do exhaustive tests because they mostly trust whatever the FAA says; maybe that's false)
    - CaptainZapp 8y ago
      According to what I read here, the European agency doesn't do exhaustive tests because they mostly trust whatever the FAA says That's true. The FAA had a stellar record as a certification agency, which, it can be argued, they fucked in three days (sure, the hole history of this sad debacle is more complex. But by keeping the plane in the air longer than any other certification body in order to not hurt their buddies at Boeing they completely ruined their reputation, which was built in decades of good work). I can't imagine that any responsible certification body anywhere trusts the FAA anymore without a complete and significant shakeup. It's a sad story, really.
    - matt4077 8y ago
      Europe and the FAA have Cross-certification schemes. In reverse, Airbus is certified primarily in Europe. The same happens to varying degrees in medicines, appliances, etc. This is unlikely to change. It’s expected that some changes will occur at the FAA. Certifying an airliner is also a prohibitively expensive undertaking, which is part of the reason for this mess in the first place. It would take years even to train enough personnel to duplicate all those efforts.
      - FearNotDaniel 8y ago
        Agreed. But the EASA ought to be at least in a position to put pressure on FAA to put their house in order. You can add this to my very long list of reasons why the UK really ought to decide to remain in a position of influence within the EU instead of choosing to join the Trumpist libertarian shitshow those far-right loons are trying to push us into.
    - FabHK 8y ago
  - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
    The fact that the recovery procedure doesn't work proves that the FAA should pull the MAX8 type certificate. It isn't the same aircraft.
  - PopeDotNinja 8y ago
    I will. I like flying places, and I'm not going to let some unfortunate hiccups get in the way of that. I trust Boeing and the people who work on airline safety a heck of a lot more than I trust ride share drivers who flip U-turns in the middle of the block, slam on the brakes, narrowly miss bicycle riders, etc. And I use the heck out of Lyft & Uber. I've got better things to worry about.
    - icebraining 8y ago
      You write as if the 737 MAX was the only airplane in the world.
  - dojomouse 8y ago
    I suspect we're going to end up seeing evidence that the first accident was also the result of known risks being down-played / swept under the rug in the name of profit. One perspective is that the first and second accidents happened because the band-aid fell off, and the first accident should have been the cue to use stickier bandaids. But it seems very unlikely that no engineer anywhere through the development said "This design is for shit and is WAY too dependent on a bandaid that can't realistically be adequate".
- vkou 8y ago
  No, from a cursory reading of the report, it's not entirely clear that software updates are going to fix the problem.
  - neverartful 8y ago
    Exactly. When CEO said "We're taking a comprehensive, disciplined approach, and taking the time, to get the software update right.", I wondered if they would characterize their initial design the same way. It's shameful to even try to pin it on software. The fundamental problem is that they didn't want to do the right thing by admitting and teaching pilots that this plane has different flight characteristics and they need to train for flying a similar, but different plane. As long as this MCAS software even exists on the plane, I'll never fly on one again. If they take MCAS out, certify, and train properly then I'll fly on them. Otherwise, no.
    - jussij 8y ago
      > If they take MCAS out The problem is they can't take the MCAS out. The MCAS is there to fix a design fault whereby the plane has a tendency to pitch up automatically (and hence have a chance of stalling) when accelerating, due to the oversize engines and their placement.
- president 8y ago
  I don't think the general public will be swayed. All it takes is a few Boeing PR campaigns and some time and people will forget.
  - cobookman 8y ago
    People have no clue what plane they are in.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- dylan604 8y ago
  The main thing for me is that NOW pilots will be aware that there is a piece of software running in the background that might fight them. The first thing they will all learn is how to disable it so they can actually fly the airplane. That's even without a software fix. To me, it all comes down to to Boeing being able to self-certify their aircraft, and they knew they were sneaking the "fix" known as MCAS as a way to prevent loss of sales to A320. Super shady in my opinion.
  - Analemma_ 8y ago
    That’s what a bunch of people said after the first crash: “well, this was bad, but now that pilots know about MCAS it won’t happen again”
  - makomk 8y ago
    The reason this preliminary report is so damning is that it's evident that the pilots on flight 302 knew this - they realised what was happening, took the necessary steps to disable MCAS, and still couldn't stop the plane from crashing and killing everyone on board.
    - treis 8y ago
      The took the necessary steps and it was working until they went off script. Whether or not their hand was force because the script stopped working remains to be seen. IMHO, there's little to do except to wait for the full report to come out. The speculation about the crash was wildly wrong and the preliminary report coming out didn't really stop that.
      - msbarnett 8y ago
        > The took the necessary steps and it was working until they went off script. Whether or not their hand was force because the script stopped working remains to be seen The script required them to manually crank in the stabilizer, which wasn't possible. The script was manifestly not "working". That doesn't "remain to be seen" -- it's in the transcript of the cockpit
- ams6110 8y ago
  I see this playing out in a couple of possible ways. One is that it ends up like the DC-10. Public confidence is lost, even though the problem is fixed. The aircraft end up going into freighter service. The other is that they make a convincing case that the problem is resolved. I don't know if that's possible given today's default hate for big corporations, we'll see. They've done it before with the 737 and the rudder problem it had in the 1990s or so. That problem led to a few fatal crashes, but I'm not sure it ever got the attention that this story is getting. The news cycle was different then. I would absolutely fly on one once the problem is corrected.
  - cm2187 8y ago
    In all fairness this plane is only a danger to its crew (and to regular commuters). Even without the software fix, the probability that you get into a crash in one of the few times in a year when you make a leg in this plane is still infinitesimal. For the crew that spends the whole year in there, different story.
    - deleted 8y ago
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    - m_mueller 8y ago
      I assume that AoA sensor disagree would have been warned about still on the ground. Even if both fail, a new take off checklist will probably include comparing AoA information with analog instruments. If one sensor failure is 10E-5, two simultaneous should be 10E-10, multiplied with assumption of competence (say 99/100 will now know how to deal with it), which gives 10E-11 - 10E-12. I.e. I wouldn't worry about MCAS anymore after every plane has been updated. What I would worry about is departure stalls, as MCAS doesn't seem to solve these. I wonder whether there isn't another 10E-5 to 10E-6 risk in there and people have just been lucky so far. Another MAX8 crash involving a stall would kill this plane I think, as it would prove much more that it's inherently unsafe.
      - dvdkhlng 8y ago
        > If one sensor failure is 10E-5, two simultaneous should be 10E-10. That only holds if errors are statistically independent. See also Common Mode Failure [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cause_and_special_cause_(statistics)#Common_mode_failure_in_engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cause_and_special_cause...
- SilasX 8y ago
  He could put his safety where his mouth is and vow to only fly on the MAX for the next two years. That would be a much stronger vote of confidence than whatever words his PR firm came up with.
  - nutjob2 8y ago
    Yes, and tobacco company CEOs smoke. Does that give you the confidence to do the same?
    - sorokod 8y ago
      Genuanly curious - which one?
  - atarian 8y ago
    I thought it was company policy to make their engineers fly on the planes they built.
  - hyeonwho4 8y ago
    That's a terrible show of confidence. What are the chances that the next plane to have an accident is carrying the CEO? What is the average expected punishment to the CEO for getting it wrong? It's probably less risk than BASE jumping. I would rather there be guaranteed liability: have the execs set up a legal system to refund the entire order book and voluntarily plead guilty to federal charges in the event of another > 10 MAX deaths. But frankly, if Boeing is at fault for 340 deaths they should already be doing that.
    - munk-a 8y ago
      I haven't seen any mention yet specifically, are they being held liable for the deaths and forced into some financial penalties or has this case been relegated to the right-wing "The free market will adjust and discourage consumers" sort of liability?
      - hyeonwho4 8y ago
- cm2187 8y ago
  It's actually very rational. No one can declare something complex like a plane or a version of Windows to be "safe" or "secure". Only the absence of incident for a long period of time is an indication that it is.
  - munk-a 8y ago
    You, as a non-expert, can absolutely take that stance - but when it comes to planes I am comfortable demanding that mechanical units can be provably safe and secure and that there is a reasonably exhaustive understanding of those unit interactions that assures safety at some point. There has been the mention that the customization of planes in a certain way exposed this error - that's the bullshit part. Planes are complicated, the testing of them is complicated, allowing your marketing/sales team arbitrarily inject feature flags into your life or death machine to maximize profits is silly. Make a thing and prove it is safe, if you wish to modify said thing, then prove the new version is just as safe - and don't allow corners to be cut with something as dangerous and expensive as a plane, these things aren't cheap and they don't need to rapidly iterate versions, they can move slowly and safely and be held to a standard of provable safety that I agree would be unreasonable for software like windows or instagram. As an aside, I would offer more leeway to Cessna, given their focus on the individual consumer market and emphasis of customization, if someone ordered the plane equivalent of the small pizza with half sausage no cheese and no sauce[1], but not too much more leeway due to the danger these planes can have on others. [1] http://www.thesneeze.com/art/loose_art/dom8.jpg http://www.thesneeze.com/art/loose_art/dom8.jpg
    - cm2187 8y ago
      I don't know. A lot of the problems that occured on planes were hard to predict even though they go through the rigorous process you mention. Battery fire on B787. Cargo door on DC10. Engine leaks on A380, etc. These are all quality/design issues that were not predicted.
- Aloha 8y ago
  Am I the only one who would have no trouble flying on a 737 MAX?
  - xiphias2 8y ago
    Thanks for paying for testing!
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    No. Aside from this one issue, the plane is likely as safe or safer than every previous 737. With this much public attention, this issue will get resolved and then some. The end result will likely be the safest plane in the air.
    - foobar1962 8y ago
      No it’s not as safe as previous 737s. The new engine and its position on the wing has changed the whole balance of the aircraft. Like putting a very big engine in a small car: it’s a different car.
      - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
        It's a different car, but still arguably a safer one. Every part in the 737 MAX is either the same or newer and improved over the previous 737 series. While they should have gone through far more scrutiny in the certification process, the 737 MAX, viewed holistically, is a newer, more modern aircraft that will be safer than older aircraft once the kinks are fixed.
        gdubs 8y ago
        “Once the kinks are fixed” Isn’t that kind of the whole point?
        caconym_ 8y ago
        Every time you change part of a system, even if you claim you're "improving" it, you introduce risk. That is my holistic view of this aircraft: the 737's record is not meaningless but it is also far from the whole picture for the MAX. Any new system introduces the potential for defects that were not present on previous models, and for unanticipated integration issues with existing systems. Add in the facts that Boeing has been caught red-handed implementing a half-baked engineering solution as a regulatory dodge, and that this solution has to date crashed two aircraft and killed 346 (IIRC) people, and your view starts to look downright naive. You might call these tragedies "working out the kinks"; I call them wholly preventable, and evidence that human lives don't carry the proper weight in Boeing's financial calculus.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- lorinm 8y ago
  I would never trust a software patch with my life!
- jeemusu 8y ago
  After the problems with the 737 MAX and the 787 before that. I would avoid flying any Boeing aircraft in the first few years after it's deployed.
  - sslayer 8y ago
    By that same logic, I take it you don't ride in cars or leave the house.
- davedx 8y ago
  No. It's simple, rational, sane risk management. Risk = probability x impact. Even if probability has reduced (who knows by how much), impact is the near-certain death. Avoid.
DevX101 8y ago
> We remain confident in the fundamental safety of the 737 MAX He just finished several paragraphs about how the plane and it's software was not safe ("erroneous activation of the MCAS function"), and then arrives at this conclusion? If my car erroneously responds to the pressure on the gas pedal it's not safe.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  If he says anything other than that, odds of the 737 MAX being scrapped entirely (from customer and air passenger pressure) goes up. Saving face to save the share price.
  - cwalv 8y ago
    Maybe it shouldn't be, but your comment is surprisingly cynical to me. I don't believe share price is at the front of his mind, nor any of the engineers working at Boeing. I, for one, work for much more than a paycheck; I think it's reasonable to think they do too. You could argue that it was at the front of their minds before these accidents, but IMO that conclusion only stands in confirmation of some bias against large corporations (which apparently is pretty common!)
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      What is more likely? That Boeing is genuinely sorry for their enormous process failures (that others on HN have documented in great detail) to catch these product deficiencies earlier in the process, failures that have killed hundreds of people? Or the catastrophic financial losses they will suffer in the event they are forced to scrap the MAX? I'm cynical because of Occam's razor, not because I want to be. I'd very much prefer not to be cynical, to tell you the truth.
    - sundvor 8y ago
      I read that statement as the share price being the only thing on their minds. (Did not explicitly exonerate the pilots.)
- 8y ago
zaroth 8y ago
This is Boeing’s first volley as MCAS is now definitely and undeniably fatally flawed. I am fairly confident that by the time we are done with this, a system called MCAS never flies again. Even if it means the entire MAX is shelved.
- peteradio 8y ago
  That would be an astronomical loss, I just don't see that happening.
  - zaroth 8y ago
    I think $3B in R&D, half of that is the engines, but more importantly, time to market trying to compete with Airbus. They can reuse the engines. If the airframe can’t fly safely without MCAS (it’s getting a new type rating anyway at this point, right?) then I think perhaps it shouldn’t fly.
    - peteradio 8y ago
      Yea somehow I don't think that's how they are crunching the numbers. Stock price is probably sitting on the assumption that those 5000 orders at cool 128M are going to go through. That would be considered 600B loss.
      - mnm1 8y ago
        That's two billion roughly per life lost. Seems like a small price to pay. The CEO should be going to jail too. I highly doubt any of this will happen. Human lives are probably worth a million or two at most to a corporation like Boeing and the political apparatus that lets it operate these planes.
  - jayalpha 8y ago
    In the end, not the FAA but the consumer may decide this. Honestly, I will avoid this plane for at least 1, possible 2 years.
- 8y ago
blatherard 8y ago
"We're taking a comprehensive, disciplined approach, and taking the time, to get the software update right." So what approach did they use the first time around?
- Forge36 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure this will end with retraining or the restoration of "pull up" method of the pilot overriding the feature (the later may require retraining anyway)
- huslage 8y ago
  This is the first time around.
bruceb 8y ago
Any PR pro worth their rate would have him and senior management very publicly flying only on 737 Max flights when they comeback online. Assurances alone are going to mean a very rocky road back for this plane.
- 781 8y ago
  They did that. Doesn't prove a thing. https://www.airlineratings.com/news/boeing-ceo-muilenburg-aboard-737-max-test-flight/ https://www.airlineratings.com/news/boeing-ceo-muilenburg-ab...
  - dylan604 8y ago
    You think they did that with pilots specifically trained in MCAS functionality, or with pilots from some small country halfway around the world where they were specifically told it was the same as any ol' 737?
    - esoterica 8y ago
      Which small country? Ethiopia has 104 million people and Indonesia has 264 million.
    - 781 8y ago
      I wouldn't be surprised if they had parachutes on board and ready to bail.
    - jimktrains2 8y ago
      The Ethiopian pilots knew and applied the mcas-related procedures. Also, Ethiopian airways is quite old and had a good safety record.
  - rixrax 8y ago
    What kind of flight experience or background ‘typical’ (if ever there was such a thing) Boeing or Airbus test pilot has?
- raincom 8y ago
xvf22 8y ago
Safety is one thing but the problem is that MCAS was brought in to keep the common type rating. It's hard to see that common type rating holding now with what we know.
anbop 8y ago
He should offer each family member of a victim one swing at him with a golf club.
bambax 8y ago
It's now fairly obvious MCAS was at the root of those two crashes. But, did it save lives in other circumstances? Meaning, was there ever a case where the nose went up so much, because of the bigger motors and their different location on the wings, that the activation of MCAS prevented a stall? I'm surprised no one seems to talk about this. It's also surprising the MCAS was implemented at all, instead of an alarm. Yes, the point of MCAS is to make appear the MAX is the same plane as earlier models (when in fact it's not), but if pilots need to learn how to deal with MCAS malfunction, isn't it the same as learning to deal with unexpected stalling during take-off? The whole reasoning sounds kind of circular.
- salawat 8y ago
  The only time it has been utilized that in the manner it was intended that I'm aware of is when it was exercised during it's test flights.
- tim333 8y ago
  I guess you can't tell. You could see how often it operated but not know whether the pilots would have saved it. That said it's pretty unusual for professional pilots in an airliner to get into a stall situation.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- robbiep 8y ago
  You’re missing the point of why MCAS was implemented in the first place - for type certification & to avoid retraining. Essentially it was an emulation layer to make what is effectively a new plane behave like an old plane. And now 300+ people are dead.
  - 3327 8y ago
    BA dropped the ball - single sensor, and business shortcut to improve margins. They are liable for the deaths. The real question now is what is a human life worth to a corporation? (i.e. payout). Next Steps: + BA should be heavily fined. +scrutinize ties and lobbying with FAA. + Fire head of FAA, and teams involved in approving MCAS.
acqq 8y ago
Now read again what Boeing issued to the airlines and the pilots after the first crash: https://www.avm-mag.com/faa-issues-emergency-ad-for-boeing-737-8-and-9/ https://www.avm-mag.com/faa-issues-emergency-ad-for-boeing-7... "An erroneous AOA input can cause some or all of the following indications and effects:" "IAS DISAGREE alert." The whole "what to do" is then: "Initially, higher control forces may be needed to overcome any stabilizer nose down trim already applied. Electric stabilizer trim can be used to neutralize control column pitch forces before moving the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches to CUTOUT. Manual stabilizer trim can be used before and after the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches are moved to CUTOUT." We know now that the pilots performed what was there laconically written, and that even these actions couldn't save the plane. Which means either: - Boeing never actually tested how to really handle the situation described then or - Boeing indeed tested that and knew that IAS DISAGREE procedures would also be followed and which would guarantee to make the plane uncontrollable (for details see here: https://leehamnews.com/2019/04/03/et302-used-the-cut-out-switches-to-stop-mcas/ https://leehamnews.com/2019/04/03/et302-used-the-cut-out-swi... how one pilot recently reconstructed that and made a video about it, which was later withdrawn on the demand of the pilot's company -- note a single pilot here did what Boeing, which is supposed to sell hundreds of billions USD worth of these planes didn't want to do), but bet on "it won't happen soon enough, we can get away with it." I can't find that anybody can excuse either of these.
- ams6110 8y ago
  The pilots didn't actually do that. They did not use electric stabilizer trim to "neutralize control column pitch forces before moving the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches to CUTOUT" in fact the trim had been run markedly down by MCAS by the time they switched off the electric trim.
refurb 8y ago
My guess is the 737-MAX will get enough of an update to keep it going for a few years, followed by an overhaul and new model name. Boeing wants to get as far away from this as possible.
sbeef 8y ago
Wonder how much of this is also related to the Mcdonnell Douglas merger. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/02/04/requiem-for-a-dreamliner https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/02/04/requiem-for-a-...
tuna-piano 8y ago
Would the Boeing executives put their families on a 737MAX running the same version of the software that Ethiopian was running? Would they be willing to do this with a purposeful placed hypothetical AoA sensor that was known to manfunction quite often? Can that really be considered a safe plane?
tmd83 8y ago
"We regret the impact the grounding has had on our airline customers and their passengers." - I really hated this. As if they did the grounding for safety reason and regrets the cost. As if the passengers and clamoring for flying in 737-MAX. There's obviously a lot of concern and outrage. But I wonder if Boeing's share price would have been higher than last year if the two crashes were in first world countries specially US.
- neverartful 8y ago
  I had the same reaction. Comes off as being quite callous.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  Indeed. Less a case of "sorry 300 people died" and more a case of "sorry it caused an inconvenience for everyone else".
ndespres 8y ago
I know better than to read between the lines on a press release like this, but can't help but notice that it falls far short of accepting responsibility for the problem. He admits that MCAS "activated in response to erroneous angle of attack information" but doesn't admit that this alone directly resulted in the crashes. Rather, he implies that this sets off a chain of events which the pilots are unable to deal with ("pilots have told us, erroneous activation of the MCAS function can add to what is already a high workload environment") which puts undue blame on the pilots rather than the system. If you'll excuse the analogy, it's as if they installed a new griddle in a restaurant kitchen which randomly gets ten times more hot than it ought to be, with no warning. The cook doesn't know it's too hot until the eggs start burning. Now the manager is saying that since the kitchen is so busy, the cook can't flip the eggs fast enough in response to these randomly fluctuating high temperature events. We're being told it's the cooks' fault. I don't like being bullshitted and find this sort of dodgy language completely inappropriate when 300 people died.
- sundvor 8y ago
  I agree. They certainly stopped short of exonerating the pilots, and the airlines.
- bitreality 8y ago
  With the way litigation works, corporations will never admit blame for anything, since it greatly increases their legal risk. It's unfortunate, but their responsibilities lie with their shareholders, not the people who lost their lives on their planes.
  - bilbo0s 8y ago
    People may get angry about this fact, but it really is the simple reality of an executive's fiduciary obligations. Ideally you run the enterprise in a manner that keeps the discharge of fiduciary duties within your personal moral constraints, but if you're not careful enough, you end up in this guy's shoes. And that's why they pay him the big bucks, because of such risks. That said, it's also true that Boeing is in a boatload of trouble. This is gonna get ugly. Likely not for the CEO. I'm pretty sure his signature is not on any of the relevant paperwork. But now that this report has been released, it might be prudent for people who do have their signatures on the relevant paperwork just to consult with some legal counsel. I suspect Boeing, as a company, wouldn't hesitate to throw them under the bus.
Xcelerate 8y ago
I don't doubt that Boeing will fix the MCAS problem, but the bigger issue for me is what other systems were hacked into place in order to rush this plane to market to compete with Airbus? The whole philosophy behind the design of the 737 MAX is what has me unsettled, not necessarily this one particular issue.
- ncmncm 8y ago
  This. We have seen that there was another problem only noticed because of the extra scrutiny. We have a saying in the software business: two is an impossible number.
  - ncmncm 8y ago
    That said, the Air France Airbus dive into the ocean was caused by an equally stupid design decision that should never have shipped. Pilot and copilot were applying opposite force on the joystick, and instead of a siren going off, it just averaged them. Have they even fixed that yet? It was in ever Airbus.
    - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
      The difference being that Airbus pilots are trained and aware of this behaviour. If it's inherently dangerous why aren't they falling out of the sky?
      - mrguyorama 8y ago
        They are trained and aware, but in high stress situations pilots sometimes forget things like that, which was significant in the air france crash. The pilot who had better control of the situation only momentarily pressed the button used to take full control, when you are supposed to hold it as long as you wish to keep control. I believe the "dual input" warning was also not aggressive enough at the time
        ddalex 8y ago
kerng 8y ago
It sounds like right after the first crash they knew what was going on but didn't bother to ground the fleet. This stands out to me, and I have severely lost trust in Boeing and the FAA. This plane should have not allowed to fly after the first crash, and Boeing knows this! What a disaster - I will refuse to fly in any if these MAX planes going forward. I will not step my foot onboard.
dingo_bat 8y ago
This is a grave lapse on Boeing's part. Saying "sorry" doesn't cut it. Someone needs to go to jail and Boeing shouldn't be allowed to sell any more planes until they demonstrate such software blunders will not happen.
eruci 8y ago
The root problem seems to be FAA not having qualified engineers to thoroughly test the planes Boeing makes. Boeing pays better, so it hires the best engineers. FAA pays less so it gets second-grade engineers. And we all pay by flying in unsafe planes.
- cabaalis 8y ago
  Following your line of reasoning, wouldn't the supposedly better engineers build more safe planes, relegating the poor dunces to only validating the designs from their intellectual superiors? In your hypothetical, they aren't paying more for safety dodgers.
  - eruci 8y ago
    Building a plane is a more challenging task than testing it. As a developer, I can say the same about writing software. Yet, my software is not likely to kill people and comes with no warranties whatsoever. In this scenario, we should make sure the test engineers are even more competent than design engineers. We can't rely on designers to thoroughly test what they build.
  - BFLpL0QNek 8y ago
    Even smart engineers ultimately have a product manager who makes the call. Many times before I've been on projects where the team said we should not do something in a particular way only for a product manager or their superior to say no, we'll do this as it aligns with company goals or "we'll come back and fix it later". Then you either have to put up and do it or you'll be strategically moved elsewhere or be managed out of the job.
- supernova87a 8y ago
  This has been a 50 year problem in the making, and whether it's for better or worse should be more carefully studied. Through WW2 and the proliferating age of defense contractors, the government (mostly defense department, but also civilian agencies) stood almost on equal footing with contractors in their ability to design, scope, and evaluate big projects. You would see scientists and in-house advisers at these departments able to expertly evaluate proposals/designs by contractors with sufficient background knowledge and tools to do so. They even worked closely with contractors to lay out the requirements and designs for systems, or products. But, through the decades, a couple factors eroded this equal footing of the government / regulatory experts: -- Shrinking of government budgets for (or unwillingness of the public to stomach) the ranks of Washington "bureaucrats" who represented this expert class of people (what harm is there in cutting "fat" from public servants who don't seem to produce anything tangible?) -- More attractive pay, career potential, prestige, etc. of working in the private sector -- Political distaste for being seen as working too closely with contractors So what happened is that gradually but surely, government lost the tools to do these things themselves, and by sheer need to still have things approved, shifted the work onto industry. What can you do when industry comes to you with new complicated designs for things, and you have no one who can assess (and no budget to pay for assessments of) whether those designs are safe? You ask the person proposing to critique themselves, and in many cases, they seem to know more than you anyway. Of course, what in part probably led to our current situation. As a society, my question is, how do we make it possible to choose to do these things in the way that produces the right outcome? For a start, I think we need to stop asking everyone to make uninformed votes about things we don't understand, yet rely on every day.
nikofeyn 8y ago
this is just a total saving face scenario. he even mentions that after the lion air flight they knew about this (i would claim they knew about it long before that anyway) and have been working on a fix. then why the cold response still after the ethiopian airlines crash? furthermore, this is summed up by just "we'll fix it in software". hurray, everything we touch including cars and airplanes are now subscribing to the "we'll fix it in software" approach. failed a safety brake test? fix it with software. kill a few hundred people by an automatic system crashing a plane? fix it with software. i really hope society wakes up and SLOWS DOWN. we're trying to move so fast, with hardly any reason at all, and in doing so, we are throwing away all ability to properly design, build, and god forbid, think about things. i don't know what it's going to take, but it feels out of control. everywhere you look is people hurrying and hurrying to release, to productize, to ship it, etc. whenever i ask "why?" to schedules, there has NEVER been a clear answer. it always boils down to basically "just because". in addition, we simply have too much laziness and greed taking place, which is what added to boeing's misstep here. they tried pulling a fast one on buyers (and basically accomplished it) to make a few bucks towards that everlasting capitalist dream.
objektif 8y ago
How did this ahole seriously have courage to give this speech? Unbelievable, I will never set foot on a 737 Max again. And avoid other Boeing models if I can.
jfptech 8y ago
Airbus had similar issues a while back. The software was forcing the nose of the plane down and the pilots had to fight with it to bring the plane out of a dive. Is it absolutely necessary for the computer to be adjusting the angle of attack? https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/the-untold-story-of-qf72-what-happens-when-psycho-automation-leaves-pilots-powerless-20170511-gw26ae.html https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/the-untold-story-of-qf72-wh... https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2008/aair/ao-2008-070/ https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2... *edited to cite sources
- dingaling 8y ago
  Issues? "The occurrence was the only known example where this design limitation led to a pitch-down command in over 28 million flight hours on A330/A340 aircraft" The common-platform A330/40 had been in service for 15 years before this event. It really was a freak failure of one computer unit which went haywire and which led to a design change to mitigate it. That was 11 years ago. It is deceptive to claim it's anything like the 737 Max issue.
- faizmokhtar 8y ago
  lol. This is not a similar issue at all. This is just corruption at its finest.
tmd83 8y ago
Corporate irresponsibility and getting away with it is something I have mostly gotten used to at this point. But this particular incident is still really getting to me specially after the press release. I was just trying to read up a little about sings of sociopath. It seems to me that a big chunk of major corporate big brash could be considered extreme versions of sociopath.
- iliketosleep 8y ago
  It's related to the incentive structures of big corporations. Profit for investors is the primary goal, and the only real constraint is the legal system (where loopholes are often found or bought). People are viewed through the lense of KPIs. It's clear why this type of system selects for leaders who do not value ethics, respect the law, or value the individual. I'm not sure what to call these leaders, but sociopath doesn't seem too far off.
- cal5k 8y ago
  What exactly does “getting away with it” mean in this context? Boeing will get sued from many different directions, their share price will suffer, and likely they’ll have lost orders for their aircraft. Let’s say we wanted to get really punitive... who do we blame? The engineers that worked on it? The Boeing CEO for not personally verifying every piece of software on all of their aircraft? Do we throw someone in jail? How does that help improve safety culture exactly? Boeing & Airbus are largely responsible for the massive improvements in flight safety over the last 40 years. It’s incredible that flying is as safe as it. Yes the deaths are a tragedy, but every time I get in a plane I accept the fact that the physics of flying could ultimately kill me, and I trade that off against the convenience of getting somewhere quickly.
  - tmd83 8y ago
    Assuming what's revealed so far is reasonably accurate and the decisions were not taken for some yet to be revealed completely unexpected reason (unlikely) here's who to blame. This was a business decision to remove re-certification/re-training for some 60B sales. So yes the CEO is responsible. If you can float on money for the success you can spend the lifetime in jail for the deaths too. But that might be a little extreme. So here's a better one for after Lion Air crash there is no reason to believe that Boeing including the CEO didn't go over this, didn't realize they made a risky plan and even then they didn't go through with their temporary mitigation with a fine tooth comb. So yes it seems the CEO and some big shots and maybe some down the line should go to jail. No one is sent to jail for complicated to reason or never before seen problem that they didn't know about or didn't think about and it happened. This wasn't an accident, they implemented absolutely critical safety feature by design without triple redundancy as well understood to be required then they lied about it (if I understood the max change from earlier to later version), tried to downplay it and when a crash happened due to this didn't own up to it. So for sure this helps safely culture. If you hide safety problem knowingly for greed/money, because your boss asked and you didn't care you shouldn't be working in safety critical system. > Boeing & Airbus are largely responsible for the massive improvements in flight safety over the last 40 years. It’s incredible that flying is as safe as it. Yes the deaths are a tragedy, but every time I get in a plane I accept the fact that the physics of flying could ultimately kill me, and I trade that off against the convenience of getting somewhere quickly. I don't even know what to say to this. So I drove safely for 40 years and today I decided to see if I can safely drunk drive if I play the music really loud and killed a family of four. This was not physics, this was not a complicated software bug (at the core) but it was cutting corners for profit.
sathackr 8y ago
This address does nothing to make me feel better about flying on any future Boeing plane. They promise to fix the MCAS system in the current crop, but say nothing about the organizational choices and structures that allowed this to happen in the first place. Allowing the company to produce a plane, equipped with a non-redundant system with control over the vertical attitude of the plane, and doing so in a way that intentionally minimizes the perceived impact and required training to operate a plane with this system is the true mistake here. This is a failure of the both the FAA, Boeing, and pretty much every player along the chain.
supernova87a 8y ago
This has been a 50 year problem in the making, and whether it's for better or worse should be more carefully studied. Because here's my understanding of the history: Through WW2 and the proliferating age of defense contractors, the government (mostly defense department, but also civilian agencies) stood almost on equal footing with contractors in their ability to design, scope, and evaluate big projects. You would see scientists and in-house advisers at these departments able to expertly evaluate proposals/designs by contractors with sufficient background knowledge and tools to do so. They even worked closely with contractors to lay out the requirements and designs for systems, or products. But, through the decades, a couple factors eroded this equal footing of the government / regulatory experts: -- Shrinking of government budgets for (or unwillingness of the public to stomach) the ranks of Washington "bureaucrats" who represented this expert class of people (what harm is there in cutting "fat" from public servants who don't seem to produce anything tangible?) -- More attractive pay, career potential, prestige, etc. of working in the private sector -- Political distaste for being seen as working too closely with contractors So what happened is that gradually but surely, government lost the tools to do these things themselves, and by sheer need to still have things approved, shifted the work onto industry. What can you do when industry comes to you with new complicated designs for things, and you have no one who can assess (and no budget to pay for assessments of) whether those designs are safe? You ask the person proposing to critique themselves, and in many cases, they seem to know more than you anyway. Of course, what in part probably led to our current situation. As I said in the beginning, the pros and cons of operating a system in this way should be looked at. As a society, my question is, how do we make it possible to choose to do these things in the way that produces the right outcome? For a start, I think we need to stop asking everyone to make uninformed votes about certain detailed things we don't understand, yet rely on every day. That definitely produces bad consequences for many issues.
- testpostpls 8y ago
  Industry user fees? The FDA, while not perfect, has been pay to play for a while.
- AuthorizedCust 8y ago
  Can you provide evidence the FAA lacks sufficient expertise?
revskill 8y ago
Just saying "it's safe" without any linked proof is kind of useless to me.
god_bless_texas 8y ago
The amount of oh gotchas and keyboard guesses from lots of google searching is quite comical. Think any real in-depth analysis has been done yet? Silly.
kaveh_h 8y ago
Don’t put the blame squarely on Boeing. It’s clear FAA lacks the expertise to regulate this kind safety issues. It’s not easy for them to have it either since the innovators are always a step ahead but it’s clear they need to shape up. I don’t have any knowledge of the process for verification of new airplane models, but one thought as software developer would perhaps be for FAA to become more digital in their efforts. Require from manufacturers (At least for bigger models) a digital virtual model of the entire airplane that will be used for simulated tests. You could for instance test faulty signaling sensors but also the whole subseqqunt chain of events taking into account pilot actions (or lack of). It should be a routine to replay a simulation with data from previous crashes. In this particular instance perhaps FAA would have understood the reasons of the first crash and been able to stopped the second crash from ever happening. You could even develop methods that can generate data to be able to predict hidden issues with an existing design without a real crash ever happening.
- ncmncm 8y ago
  There is more than enough blame to go around. Boeing fucked up. FAA fucked up. Boeing management fucked up after Lion. Boeing mgmt fucked up after EA. They should resign in disgrace, not issue self-serving press releases. Shame!
hashfunktion 8y ago
https://media.giphy.com/media/l0HlTHgnDtIhkoZOg/giphy.gif https://media.giphy.com/media/l0HlTHgnDtIhkoZOg/giphy.gif
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  This is not Reddit. Sorry.
EngineerDude 8y ago
As a few posters mentioned, an interesting question is why the plane needs MCAS in the first place. I read somewhere that the max 8 got new engines which were bigger than engines on previous 737 series, and that makes the plane nose up. Any kid who ever made a model plane understands the idea of CG - if it pitches up you change something, maybe move the wings back. Is it possible that an industry leader shipped a plane that’s not even freakin balanced, tried to fix it in software(!) to avoid an expensive redesign, screwed up the software and maybe the safety analysis, and then didn’t even manage to mention to the pilots that this software hack even existed? This is hard for me to fathom. If the Ethiopian report is right, it might even be that the procedure to turn off MCAS didn’t even work. I hope I am misunderstanding something here.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  You're partway there. The design isn't inherently unstable under normal conditions, it just becomes unstable under slightly different extreme conditions than the previous 737. Rather than training pilots on this difference, Boeing tried to emulate the old behaviour in software.
  - EngineerDude 8y ago
    OK, so maybe it’s unfair to say that MCAS (as a concept) is a hack, since it could be seen as a good-faith effort to provide a predictable aircraft?
    - mpcjanssen 8y ago
      Not quite, without MCAS the flight behavior is quite predictable, it just doesn't match the existing type certification and it falls outside of the allowed parameters for this class of planes.
- slavak 8y ago
  The new, more economical engines are physically bigger, so in order to maintain the required ground clearance the engines were moved forward and up. This gave the plane a tendency to nose-up in certain extreme circumstances. MCAS was supposed to make the plane behave more like previous 737 models, in order to fulfill the "common type" requirement that would allow 737 pilots to fly it without getting qualified for a new aircraft type. The plane _is_ balanced; it's not like Boeing built an aircraft that falls out of the sky if you slightly nudge the yoke wrong. (Which wouldn't even be unusual; plenty of modern aircraft are completely uncontrollable without computer assistance.) Yes, the problem could've been solved with a re-design of the aircraft- lengthening the landing gear struts, modifying the wings, etc. - but that would negate the point of using an existing and well-tested design. There's A LOT of guilt to go around in this story, but no one can actually be casting doubt on the abilities of Boeing engineers in the fundamentals of aircraft design.
thomasedwards 8y ago
> Dennis Muilenburg > Chairman, President & CEO Aren’t these suppose to be different people to keep the board independent?
lolc 8y ago
> This update, along with the associated training and additional educational materials that pilots want in the wake of these accidents, will eliminate the possibility of unintended MCAS activation and prevent an MCAS-related accident from ever happening again. How can he claim this? They'd have to remove MCAS for this to be true.
fruktstav 8y ago
Apparently, Ethiopia has an average IQ of 64, where as most developed countries have just about 100. Could this be a factor?
tigershark 8y ago
So after hundred of lives lost the only thing that they will do is a software fix. Thanks, but when the max won’t be grounded again I’ll check all my flights to avoid going on that death machine.
phkahler 8y ago
>> We're taking a comprehensive, disciplined approach, and taking the time, to get the software update right. If only you had done that the first time. >> This update, along with the associated training and additional educational materials that pilots want in the wake of these accidents, will eliminate the possibility of unintended MCAS activation and prevent an MCAS-related accident from ever happening again. From what we've read, your company thought that cost too much the first time around. Maybe it's time to reconsider the costs of NOT doing the work up front. Boeing used to be better at this.
unionemployee 8y ago
Ugh. I just read the report and maintain that the pilots acted incompetently. Though they regained control of the plane and turned off the stab trim system, their reaction took considerable time. The fatal blow, however, is this: distracted by the problem, neither pilot paid attention to the aircraft's speed as they flew along in level flight. They had tunnel vision. You can see in the report that the overspeed clacker began alerting them midway through the incident. With the nose-down trim, this high airspeed exacerbated the difficulty of holding the nose up. Had they slowed down, the aircraft would have been controllable. The moment they reactivated the system at high speed, adding even more nose down trim, they killed themselves and everyone on board. I also question the lack of clear communication between the two pilots. Examples such as the captain asking the first officer if the aircraft could be manually trimmed and the first officer replying in the negative, with no verification on the part of the captain and no checklist use make me wonder. Maybe they were doing those things. I'd be interested in seeing a transcript. It's understandable why Muilenburg doesn't seem particularly remorseful.
thefurman 8y ago
"From the days immediately following the Lion Air accident, we've had teams of our top engineers and technical experts working tirelessly..." If they've been working tirelessly, then they should have understood the risks and grounded the fleet. Either they understood the risks, but neglected to ground the fleet, or they didn't understand the risks and hence we can't trust the fix. I also find it sort of nauseating that the CEO implicitly gets the message through that the fix already has been worked on for a long time, has thus matured, can now be fully trusted, and we are just weeks away from flying with a safe plane. I don't buy any of it. Let's analyse this critically. The MCAS still needs to augment the flight characteristics. There is nothing that can be fundamentally changed regarding this fact. We can only change the conditions under which MCAS activates and the conditions under which it is deactivated. It still has to have the same authority for a nose-down and recovering from an erroneous high-magnitude nose-down will still be mechanically hard or require additional pilot knowledge and actions. The latter should be impossible without recertification. The operational characteristics of the airplane are not matched with the operational controls offered to the pilots, by design constraint. The plane is thus unsafe and will forever be unsafe, without redesign and recertification, because with the constraints in place, they can only add additional information on displays, add more reliability by having the MCAS utilise input from more sensors, add more conditions under which the the MCAS deactivates, etc, but none of this attacks the fundamental impedance mismatch between characteristics and controls, as well as the lack of education for it. Deactivation also simply exchanges the risk of stalls for nose downs. All-in-all, the MAX is simply an airplane with a worse flight envelope as far as safety is concerned, and nothing can be done about it.

165 points by kaboro 8y ago

,,We remain confident in the fundamental safety of the 737 MAX.'' Am I irrational for not wanting to be on the first 1-2 years of flights on 737 MAX after it gets its software update?

781 8y ago
Well, then I'm irrational too, because I won't set foot in a 737 MAX after this shitfest. The FAA also lost a lot of trust, for rubber-stamping this. The first accident was maybe understandable. We all know that shit happens. But Boeing has zero excuses for not immediately grounding the whole fleet after, and for putting out that useless recovery procedure which didn't work in this case. They let a deadly plane fly for 5 months after they were aware of it, and after the second crash they were phoning Trump to keep it in the air.
- pcurve 8y ago
  I think lack or major crashes in recent years made them complacent and emboldened them to roll the dice. Then hit snake eyes. Then also may have looked down on the foreign pilots are the airline. Had this been a Southwest plane they may have grounded the plane.
  - ams6110 8y ago
    I do think the complacency issue might be a component here. Humans tend to quickly accept recent history as "normal" and over time forget the lessons learned by past disasters. "Those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it" It's been a couple of decades I think, maybe more, since an engineering screwup affected a passenger airliner like this. You could argue that the 787 LiIon battery thermal runaway thing was a red flag. That also resulted in an FAA grounding, but that was fairly easily remedied and nobody died.
- cyberferret 8y ago
  > The FAA also lost a lot of trust, for rubber-stamping this. From documents I've seen (which I cannot find the links to now), it appears that the FAA let Boeing themselves do some of the certification work and sign offs. Putting the foxes in charge of the hen house, so to speak.
  - nawtacawp 8y ago
    If I recall, this boiled down to the FAA not having engineers who could properly test these systems.
    - bonestamp2 8y ago
      And now whistleblowers have said that Boeing didn't have properly trained people to handle it either.
  - BurningFrog 8y ago
    It's called Regulatory Capture, and it happens to all regulatory agencies sooner or later. They become primarily concerned with the interests of the companies they're regulating, rather than the public interest they're in theory tasked with working for. Unfortunately, that is just how a regulated society works.
    - objektif 8y ago
      How do you arrive at such a conclusion? Have you researched regulatory agencies in EU? For example they just blocked a meeger between two massive train manufacturer. Your argument sounds like a weak libertarian talking point.
      - testpostpls 8y ago
        I owned a Volkswagen. Why wouldn’t regulatory capture be a thing everywhere?
        8y ago
- Stryder 8y ago
  The integrity of engineering excellence should never be sacrificed for profit and/or conveniency in places where it involves human lives. Realistically and pragmatically speaking, you only ever get to have just one single shot at establishing and maintaining that kind of life/death level of trust. Fuck it up, and you're gone- quite literally, mind you. This is some Challenger O-ring type of shitshow. Accidents are one thing; incompetency or, worse yet, callous indifference is absolutely unacceptable.
  - drstewart 8y ago
    >The integrity of engineering excellence should never be sacrificed for profit and/or conveniency in places where it involves human lives. That's just unrealistic. Unless you want plane and car rides to cost as much as a trip to space, after all, since everything would need to be engineered to that level of quality.
    - Stryder 8y ago
      Finish reading first, and then spend some time thinking before responding. I said: "Accidents are one thing; incompetency or, worse yet, callous indifference is absolutely unacceptable."
    - rmrfrmrf 8y ago
      I continue to be fascinated with consumers who assume the role of shareholder in times of crisis, even against their own interests.
      - traek 8y ago
        Affordable air travel is in most people's interests.
        objektif 8y ago
        Safe travel surprasses affordable for ALL customers not most.
- 93s6oz 8y ago
  >The FAA also lost a lot of trust, for rubber-stamping this. I wonder if the European agency (don't remember the name) will stop trusting the FAA from now on and do their own tests. I'd thank them for that. (According to what I read here, the European agency doesn't do exhaustive tests because they mostly trust whatever the FAA says; maybe that's false)
  - CaptainZapp 8y ago
    According to what I read here, the European agency doesn't do exhaustive tests because they mostly trust whatever the FAA says That's true. The FAA had a stellar record as a certification agency, which, it can be argued, they fucked in three days (sure, the hole history of this sad debacle is more complex. But by keeping the plane in the air longer than any other certification body in order to not hurt their buddies at Boeing they completely ruined their reputation, which was built in decades of good work). I can't imagine that any responsible certification body anywhere trusts the FAA anymore without a complete and significant shakeup. It's a sad story, really.
  - matt4077 8y ago
    Europe and the FAA have Cross-certification schemes. In reverse, Airbus is certified primarily in Europe. The same happens to varying degrees in medicines, appliances, etc. This is unlikely to change. It’s expected that some changes will occur at the FAA. Certifying an airliner is also a prohibitively expensive undertaking, which is part of the reason for this mess in the first place. It would take years even to train enough personnel to duplicate all those efforts.
    - FearNotDaniel 8y ago
      Agreed. But the EASA ought to be at least in a position to put pressure on FAA to put their house in order. You can add this to my very long list of reasons why the UK really ought to decide to remain in a position of influence within the EU instead of choosing to join the Trumpist libertarian shitshow those far-right loons are trying to push us into.
  - FabHK 8y ago
- kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
  The fact that the recovery procedure doesn't work proves that the FAA should pull the MAX8 type certificate. It isn't the same aircraft.
- PopeDotNinja 8y ago
  I will. I like flying places, and I'm not going to let some unfortunate hiccups get in the way of that. I trust Boeing and the people who work on airline safety a heck of a lot more than I trust ride share drivers who flip U-turns in the middle of the block, slam on the brakes, narrowly miss bicycle riders, etc. And I use the heck out of Lyft & Uber. I've got better things to worry about.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    You write as if the 737 MAX was the only airplane in the world.
- dojomouse 8y ago
  I suspect we're going to end up seeing evidence that the first accident was also the result of known risks being down-played / swept under the rug in the name of profit. One perspective is that the first and second accidents happened because the band-aid fell off, and the first accident should have been the cue to use stickier bandaids. But it seems very unlikely that no engineer anywhere through the development said "This design is for shit and is WAY too dependent on a bandaid that can't realistically be adequate".
vkou 8y ago
No, from a cursory reading of the report, it's not entirely clear that software updates are going to fix the problem.
- neverartful 8y ago
  Exactly. When CEO said "We're taking a comprehensive, disciplined approach, and taking the time, to get the software update right.", I wondered if they would characterize their initial design the same way. It's shameful to even try to pin it on software. The fundamental problem is that they didn't want to do the right thing by admitting and teaching pilots that this plane has different flight characteristics and they need to train for flying a similar, but different plane. As long as this MCAS software even exists on the plane, I'll never fly on one again. If they take MCAS out, certify, and train properly then I'll fly on them. Otherwise, no.
  - jussij 8y ago
    > If they take MCAS out The problem is they can't take the MCAS out. The MCAS is there to fix a design fault whereby the plane has a tendency to pitch up automatically (and hence have a chance of stalling) when accelerating, due to the oversize engines and their placement.
president 8y ago
I don't think the general public will be swayed. All it takes is a few Boeing PR campaigns and some time and people will forget.
- cobookman 8y ago
  People have no clue what plane they are in.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
dylan604 8y ago
The main thing for me is that NOW pilots will be aware that there is a piece of software running in the background that might fight them. The first thing they will all learn is how to disable it so they can actually fly the airplane. That's even without a software fix. To me, it all comes down to to Boeing being able to self-certify their aircraft, and they knew they were sneaking the "fix" known as MCAS as a way to prevent loss of sales to A320. Super shady in my opinion.
- Analemma_ 8y ago
  That’s what a bunch of people said after the first crash: “well, this was bad, but now that pilots know about MCAS it won’t happen again”
- makomk 8y ago
  The reason this preliminary report is so damning is that it's evident that the pilots on flight 302 knew this - they realised what was happening, took the necessary steps to disable MCAS, and still couldn't stop the plane from crashing and killing everyone on board.
  - treis 8y ago
    The took the necessary steps and it was working until they went off script. Whether or not their hand was force because the script stopped working remains to be seen. IMHO, there's little to do except to wait for the full report to come out. The speculation about the crash was wildly wrong and the preliminary report coming out didn't really stop that.
    - msbarnett 8y ago
      > The took the necessary steps and it was working until they went off script. Whether or not their hand was force because the script stopped working remains to be seen The script required them to manually crank in the stabilizer, which wasn't possible. The script was manifestly not "working". That doesn't "remain to be seen" -- it's in the transcript of the cockpit
ams6110 8y ago
I see this playing out in a couple of possible ways. One is that it ends up like the DC-10. Public confidence is lost, even though the problem is fixed. The aircraft end up going into freighter service. The other is that they make a convincing case that the problem is resolved. I don't know if that's possible given today's default hate for big corporations, we'll see. They've done it before with the 737 and the rudder problem it had in the 1990s or so. That problem led to a few fatal crashes, but I'm not sure it ever got the attention that this story is getting. The news cycle was different then. I would absolutely fly on one once the problem is corrected.
- cm2187 8y ago
  In all fairness this plane is only a danger to its crew (and to regular commuters). Even without the software fix, the probability that you get into a crash in one of the few times in a year when you make a leg in this plane is still infinitesimal. For the crew that spends the whole year in there, different story.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - m_mueller 8y ago
    I assume that AoA sensor disagree would have been warned about still on the ground. Even if both fail, a new take off checklist will probably include comparing AoA information with analog instruments. If one sensor failure is 10E-5, two simultaneous should be 10E-10, multiplied with assumption of competence (say 99/100 will now know how to deal with it), which gives 10E-11 - 10E-12. I.e. I wouldn't worry about MCAS anymore after every plane has been updated. What I would worry about is departure stalls, as MCAS doesn't seem to solve these. I wonder whether there isn't another 10E-5 to 10E-6 risk in there and people have just been lucky so far. Another MAX8 crash involving a stall would kill this plane I think, as it would prove much more that it's inherently unsafe.
    - dvdkhlng 8y ago
      > If one sensor failure is 10E-5, two simultaneous should be 10E-10. That only holds if errors are statistically independent. See also Common Mode Failure [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cause_and_special_cause_(statistics)#Common_mode_failure_in_engineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cause_and_special_cause...
SilasX 8y ago
He could put his safety where his mouth is and vow to only fly on the MAX for the next two years. That would be a much stronger vote of confidence than whatever words his PR firm came up with.
- nutjob2 8y ago
  Yes, and tobacco company CEOs smoke. Does that give you the confidence to do the same?
  - sorokod 8y ago
    Genuanly curious - which one?
- atarian 8y ago
  I thought it was company policy to make their engineers fly on the planes they built.
- hyeonwho4 8y ago
  That's a terrible show of confidence. What are the chances that the next plane to have an accident is carrying the CEO? What is the average expected punishment to the CEO for getting it wrong? It's probably less risk than BASE jumping. I would rather there be guaranteed liability: have the execs set up a legal system to refund the entire order book and voluntarily plead guilty to federal charges in the event of another > 10 MAX deaths. But frankly, if Boeing is at fault for 340 deaths they should already be doing that.
  - munk-a 8y ago
    I haven't seen any mention yet specifically, are they being held liable for the deaths and forced into some financial penalties or has this case been relegated to the right-wing "The free market will adjust and discourage consumers" sort of liability?
    - hyeonwho4 8y ago
cm2187 8y ago
It's actually very rational. No one can declare something complex like a plane or a version of Windows to be "safe" or "secure". Only the absence of incident for a long period of time is an indication that it is.
- munk-a 8y ago
  You, as a non-expert, can absolutely take that stance - but when it comes to planes I am comfortable demanding that mechanical units can be provably safe and secure and that there is a reasonably exhaustive understanding of those unit interactions that assures safety at some point. There has been the mention that the customization of planes in a certain way exposed this error - that's the bullshit part. Planes are complicated, the testing of them is complicated, allowing your marketing/sales team arbitrarily inject feature flags into your life or death machine to maximize profits is silly. Make a thing and prove it is safe, if you wish to modify said thing, then prove the new version is just as safe - and don't allow corners to be cut with something as dangerous and expensive as a plane, these things aren't cheap and they don't need to rapidly iterate versions, they can move slowly and safely and be held to a standard of provable safety that I agree would be unreasonable for software like windows or instagram. As an aside, I would offer more leeway to Cessna, given their focus on the individual consumer market and emphasis of customization, if someone ordered the plane equivalent of the small pizza with half sausage no cheese and no sauce[1], but not too much more leeway due to the danger these planes can have on others. [1] http://www.thesneeze.com/art/loose_art/dom8.jpg http://www.thesneeze.com/art/loose_art/dom8.jpg
  - cm2187 8y ago
    I don't know. A lot of the problems that occured on planes were hard to predict even though they go through the rigorous process you mention. Battery fire on B787. Cargo door on DC10. Engine leaks on A380, etc. These are all quality/design issues that were not predicted.
Aloha 8y ago
Am I the only one who would have no trouble flying on a 737 MAX?
- xiphias2 8y ago
  Thanks for paying for testing!
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  No. Aside from this one issue, the plane is likely as safe or safer than every previous 737. With this much public attention, this issue will get resolved and then some. The end result will likely be the safest plane in the air.
  - foobar1962 8y ago
    No it’s not as safe as previous 737s. The new engine and its position on the wing has changed the whole balance of the aircraft. Like putting a very big engine in a small car: it’s a different car.
    - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
      It's a different car, but still arguably a safer one. Every part in the 737 MAX is either the same or newer and improved over the previous 737 series. While they should have gone through far more scrutiny in the certification process, the 737 MAX, viewed holistically, is a newer, more modern aircraft that will be safer than older aircraft once the kinks are fixed.
      - gdubs 8y ago
        “Once the kinks are fixed” Isn’t that kind of the whole point?
      - caconym_ 8y ago
        Every time you change part of a system, even if you claim you're "improving" it, you introduce risk. That is my holistic view of this aircraft: the 737's record is not meaningless but it is also far from the whole picture for the MAX. Any new system introduces the potential for defects that were not present on previous models, and for unanticipated integration issues with existing systems. Add in the facts that Boeing has been caught red-handed implementing a half-baked engineering solution as a regulatory dodge, and that this solution has to date crashed two aircraft and killed 346 (IIRC) people, and your view starts to look downright naive. You might call these tragedies "working out the kinks"; I call them wholly preventable, and evidence that human lives don't carry the proper weight in Boeing's financial calculus.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
lorinm 8y ago
I would never trust a software patch with my life!
jeemusu 8y ago
After the problems with the 737 MAX and the 787 before that. I would avoid flying any Boeing aircraft in the first few years after it's deployed.
- sslayer 8y ago
  By that same logic, I take it you don't ride in cars or leave the house.
davedx 8y ago
No. It's simple, rational, sane risk management. Risk = probability x impact. Even if probability has reduced (who knows by how much), impact is the near-certain death. Avoid.

DevX101 8y ago

> We remain confident in the fundamental safety of the 737 MAX He just finished several paragraphs about how the plane and it's software was not safe ("erroneous activation of the MCAS function"), and then arrives at this conclusion? If my car erroneously responds to the pressure on the gas pedal it's not safe.

toomuchtodo 8y ago
If he says anything other than that, odds of the 737 MAX being scrapped entirely (from customer and air passenger pressure) goes up. Saving face to save the share price.
- cwalv 8y ago
  Maybe it shouldn't be, but your comment is surprisingly cynical to me. I don't believe share price is at the front of his mind, nor any of the engineers working at Boeing. I, for one, work for much more than a paycheck; I think it's reasonable to think they do too. You could argue that it was at the front of their minds before these accidents, but IMO that conclusion only stands in confirmation of some bias against large corporations (which apparently is pretty common!)
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    What is more likely? That Boeing is genuinely sorry for their enormous process failures (that others on HN have documented in great detail) to catch these product deficiencies earlier in the process, failures that have killed hundreds of people? Or the catastrophic financial losses they will suffer in the event they are forced to scrap the MAX? I'm cynical because of Occam's razor, not because I want to be. I'd very much prefer not to be cynical, to tell you the truth.
  - sundvor 8y ago
    I read that statement as the share price being the only thing on their minds. (Did not explicitly exonerate the pilots.)
8y ago

zaroth 8y ago

This is Boeing’s first volley as MCAS is now definitely and undeniably fatally flawed. I am fairly confident that by the time we are done with this, a system called MCAS never flies again. Even if it means the entire MAX is shelved.

peteradio 8y ago
That would be an astronomical loss, I just don't see that happening.
- zaroth 8y ago
  I think $3B in R&D, half of that is the engines, but more importantly, time to market trying to compete with Airbus. They can reuse the engines. If the airframe can’t fly safely without MCAS (it’s getting a new type rating anyway at this point, right?) then I think perhaps it shouldn’t fly.
  - peteradio 8y ago
    Yea somehow I don't think that's how they are crunching the numbers. Stock price is probably sitting on the assumption that those 5000 orders at cool 128M are going to go through. That would be considered 600B loss.
    - mnm1 8y ago
      That's two billion roughly per life lost. Seems like a small price to pay. The CEO should be going to jail too. I highly doubt any of this will happen. Human lives are probably worth a million or two at most to a corporation like Boeing and the political apparatus that lets it operate these planes.
- jayalpha 8y ago
  In the end, not the FAA but the consumer may decide this. Honestly, I will avoid this plane for at least 1, possible 2 years.
8y ago

blatherard 8y ago

"We're taking a comprehensive, disciplined approach, and taking the time, to get the software update right." So what approach did they use the first time around?

Forge36 8y ago
I'm pretty sure this will end with retraining or the restoration of "pull up" method of the pilot overriding the feature (the later may require retraining anyway)
huslage 8y ago
This is the first time around.

bruceb 8y ago

Any PR pro worth their rate would have him and senior management very publicly flying only on 737 Max flights when they comeback online. Assurances alone are going to mean a very rocky road back for this plane.

781 8y ago
They did that. Doesn't prove a thing. https://www.airlineratings.com/news/boeing-ceo-muilenburg-aboard-737-max-test-flight/ https://www.airlineratings.com/news/boeing-ceo-muilenburg-ab...
- dylan604 8y ago
  You think they did that with pilots specifically trained in MCAS functionality, or with pilots from some small country halfway around the world where they were specifically told it was the same as any ol' 737?
  - esoterica 8y ago
    Which small country? Ethiopia has 104 million people and Indonesia has 264 million.
  - 781 8y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised if they had parachutes on board and ready to bail.
  - jimktrains2 8y ago
    The Ethiopian pilots knew and applied the mcas-related procedures. Also, Ethiopian airways is quite old and had a good safety record.
- rixrax 8y ago
  What kind of flight experience or background ‘typical’ (if ever there was such a thing) Boeing or Airbus test pilot has?
raincom 8y ago

xvf22 8y ago

Safety is one thing but the problem is that MCAS was brought in to keep the common type rating. It's hard to see that common type rating holding now with what we know.

anbop 8y ago

He should offer each family member of a victim one swing at him with a golf club.

bambax 8y ago

It's now fairly obvious MCAS was at the root of those two crashes. But, did it save lives in other circumstances? Meaning, was there ever a case where the nose went up so much, because of the bigger motors and their different location on the wings, that the activation of MCAS prevented a stall? I'm surprised no one seems to talk about this. It's also surprising the MCAS was implemented at all, instead of an alarm. Yes, the point of MCAS is to make appear the MAX is the same plane as earlier models (when in fact it's not), but if pilots need to learn how to deal with MCAS malfunction, isn't it the same as learning to deal with unexpected stalling during take-off? The whole reasoning sounds kind of circular.

salawat 8y ago
The only time it has been utilized that in the manner it was intended that I'm aware of is when it was exercised during it's test flights.
tim333 8y ago
I guess you can't tell. You could see how often it operated but not know whether the pilots would have saved it. That said it's pretty unusual for professional pilots in an airliner to get into a stall situation.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
robbiep 8y ago
You’re missing the point of why MCAS was implemented in the first place - for type certification & to avoid retraining. Essentially it was an emulation layer to make what is effectively a new plane behave like an old plane. And now 300+ people are dead.
- 3327 8y ago
  BA dropped the ball - single sensor, and business shortcut to improve margins. They are liable for the deaths. The real question now is what is a human life worth to a corporation? (i.e. payout). Next Steps: + BA should be heavily fined. +scrutinize ties and lobbying with FAA. + Fire head of FAA, and teams involved in approving MCAS.

acqq 8y ago

Now read again what Boeing issued to the airlines and the pilots after the first crash: https://www.avm-mag.com/faa-issues-emergency-ad-for-boeing-737-8-and-9/ https://www.avm-mag.com/faa-issues-emergency-ad-for-boeing-7... "An erroneous AOA input can cause some or all of the following indications and effects:" "IAS DISAGREE alert." The whole "what to do" is then: "Initially, higher control forces may be needed to overcome any stabilizer nose down trim already applied. Electric stabilizer trim can be used to neutralize control column pitch forces before moving the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches to CUTOUT. Manual stabilizer trim can be used before and after the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches are moved to CUTOUT." We know now that the pilots performed what was there laconically written, and that even these actions couldn't save the plane. Which means either: - Boeing never actually tested how to really handle the situation described then or - Boeing indeed tested that and knew that IAS DISAGREE procedures would also be followed and which would guarantee to make the plane uncontrollable (for details see here: https://leehamnews.com/2019/04/03/et302-used-the-cut-out-switches-to-stop-mcas/ https://leehamnews.com/2019/04/03/et302-used-the-cut-out-swi... how one pilot recently reconstructed that and made a video about it, which was later withdrawn on the demand of the pilot's company -- note a single pilot here did what Boeing, which is supposed to sell hundreds of billions USD worth of these planes didn't want to do), but bet on "it won't happen soon enough, we can get away with it." I can't find that anybody can excuse either of these.

ams6110 8y ago
The pilots didn't actually do that. They did not use electric stabilizer trim to "neutralize control column pitch forces before moving the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches to CUTOUT" in fact the trim had been run markedly down by MCAS by the time they switched off the electric trim.

refurb 8y ago

My guess is the 737-MAX will get enough of an update to keep it going for a few years, followed by an overhaul and new model name. Boeing wants to get as far away from this as possible.

sbeef 8y ago

Wonder how much of this is also related to the Mcdonnell Douglas merger. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/02/04/requiem-for-a-dreamliner https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/02/04/requiem-for-a-...

tuna-piano 8y ago

Would the Boeing executives put their families on a 737MAX running the same version of the software that Ethiopian was running? Would they be willing to do this with a purposeful placed hypothetical AoA sensor that was known to manfunction quite often? Can that really be considered a safe plane?

tmd83 8y ago

"We regret the impact the grounding has had on our airline customers and their passengers." - I really hated this. As if they did the grounding for safety reason and regrets the cost. As if the passengers and clamoring for flying in 737-MAX. There's obviously a lot of concern and outrage. But I wonder if Boeing's share price would have been higher than last year if the two crashes were in first world countries specially US.

neverartful 8y ago
I had the same reaction. Comes off as being quite callous.
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
Indeed. Less a case of "sorry 300 people died" and more a case of "sorry it caused an inconvenience for everyone else".

ndespres 8y ago

I know better than to read between the lines on a press release like this, but can't help but notice that it falls far short of accepting responsibility for the problem. He admits that MCAS "activated in response to erroneous angle of attack information" but doesn't admit that this alone directly resulted in the crashes. Rather, he implies that this sets off a chain of events which the pilots are unable to deal with ("pilots have told us, erroneous activation of the MCAS function can add to what is already a high workload environment") which puts undue blame on the pilots rather than the system. If you'll excuse the analogy, it's as if they installed a new griddle in a restaurant kitchen which randomly gets ten times more hot than it ought to be, with no warning. The cook doesn't know it's too hot until the eggs start burning. Now the manager is saying that since the kitchen is so busy, the cook can't flip the eggs fast enough in response to these randomly fluctuating high temperature events. We're being told it's the cooks' fault. I don't like being bullshitted and find this sort of dodgy language completely inappropriate when 300 people died.

sundvor 8y ago
I agree. They certainly stopped short of exonerating the pilots, and the airlines.
bitreality 8y ago
With the way litigation works, corporations will never admit blame for anything, since it greatly increases their legal risk. It's unfortunate, but their responsibilities lie with their shareholders, not the people who lost their lives on their planes.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  People may get angry about this fact, but it really is the simple reality of an executive's fiduciary obligations. Ideally you run the enterprise in a manner that keeps the discharge of fiduciary duties within your personal moral constraints, but if you're not careful enough, you end up in this guy's shoes. And that's why they pay him the big bucks, because of such risks. That said, it's also true that Boeing is in a boatload of trouble. This is gonna get ugly. Likely not for the CEO. I'm pretty sure his signature is not on any of the relevant paperwork. But now that this report has been released, it might be prudent for people who do have their signatures on the relevant paperwork just to consult with some legal counsel. I suspect Boeing, as a company, wouldn't hesitate to throw them under the bus.

Xcelerate 8y ago

I don't doubt that Boeing will fix the MCAS problem, but the bigger issue for me is what other systems were hacked into place in order to rush this plane to market to compete with Airbus? The whole philosophy behind the design of the 737 MAX is what has me unsettled, not necessarily this one particular issue.

ncmncm 8y ago
This. We have seen that there was another problem only noticed because of the extra scrutiny. We have a saying in the software business: two is an impossible number.
- ncmncm 8y ago
  That said, the Air France Airbus dive into the ocean was caused by an equally stupid design decision that should never have shipped. Pilot and copilot were applying opposite force on the joystick, and instead of a siren going off, it just averaged them. Have they even fixed that yet? It was in ever Airbus.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    The difference being that Airbus pilots are trained and aware of this behaviour. If it's inherently dangerous why aren't they falling out of the sky?
    - mrguyorama 8y ago
      They are trained and aware, but in high stress situations pilots sometimes forget things like that, which was significant in the air france crash. The pilot who had better control of the situation only momentarily pressed the button used to take full control, when you are supposed to hold it as long as you wish to keep control. I believe the "dual input" warning was also not aggressive enough at the time
      - ddalex 8y ago

kerng 8y ago

It sounds like right after the first crash they knew what was going on but didn't bother to ground the fleet. This stands out to me, and I have severely lost trust in Boeing and the FAA. This plane should have not allowed to fly after the first crash, and Boeing knows this! What a disaster - I will refuse to fly in any if these MAX planes going forward. I will not step my foot onboard.

dingo_bat 8y ago

This is a grave lapse on Boeing's part. Saying "sorry" doesn't cut it. Someone needs to go to jail and Boeing shouldn't be allowed to sell any more planes until they demonstrate such software blunders will not happen.

eruci 8y ago

The root problem seems to be FAA not having qualified engineers to thoroughly test the planes Boeing makes. Boeing pays better, so it hires the best engineers. FAA pays less so it gets second-grade engineers. And we all pay by flying in unsafe planes.

cabaalis 8y ago
Following your line of reasoning, wouldn't the supposedly better engineers build more safe planes, relegating the poor dunces to only validating the designs from their intellectual superiors? In your hypothetical, they aren't paying more for safety dodgers.
- eruci 8y ago
  Building a plane is a more challenging task than testing it. As a developer, I can say the same about writing software. Yet, my software is not likely to kill people and comes with no warranties whatsoever. In this scenario, we should make sure the test engineers are even more competent than design engineers. We can't rely on designers to thoroughly test what they build.
- BFLpL0QNek 8y ago
  Even smart engineers ultimately have a product manager who makes the call. Many times before I've been on projects where the team said we should not do something in a particular way only for a product manager or their superior to say no, we'll do this as it aligns with company goals or "we'll come back and fix it later". Then you either have to put up and do it or you'll be strategically moved elsewhere or be managed out of the job.
supernova87a 8y ago
This has been a 50 year problem in the making, and whether it's for better or worse should be more carefully studied. Through WW2 and the proliferating age of defense contractors, the government (mostly defense department, but also civilian agencies) stood almost on equal footing with contractors in their ability to design, scope, and evaluate big projects. You would see scientists and in-house advisers at these departments able to expertly evaluate proposals/designs by contractors with sufficient background knowledge and tools to do so. They even worked closely with contractors to lay out the requirements and designs for systems, or products. But, through the decades, a couple factors eroded this equal footing of the government / regulatory experts: -- Shrinking of government budgets for (or unwillingness of the public to stomach) the ranks of Washington "bureaucrats" who represented this expert class of people (what harm is there in cutting "fat" from public servants who don't seem to produce anything tangible?) -- More attractive pay, career potential, prestige, etc. of working in the private sector -- Political distaste for being seen as working too closely with contractors So what happened is that gradually but surely, government lost the tools to do these things themselves, and by sheer need to still have things approved, shifted the work onto industry. What can you do when industry comes to you with new complicated designs for things, and you have no one who can assess (and no budget to pay for assessments of) whether those designs are safe? You ask the person proposing to critique themselves, and in many cases, they seem to know more than you anyway. Of course, what in part probably led to our current situation. As a society, my question is, how do we make it possible to choose to do these things in the way that produces the right outcome? For a start, I think we need to stop asking everyone to make uninformed votes about things we don't understand, yet rely on every day.

nikofeyn 8y ago

this is just a total saving face scenario. he even mentions that after the lion air flight they knew about this (i would claim they knew about it long before that anyway) and have been working on a fix. then why the cold response still after the ethiopian airlines crash? furthermore, this is summed up by just "we'll fix it in software". hurray, everything we touch including cars and airplanes are now subscribing to the "we'll fix it in software" approach. failed a safety brake test? fix it with software. kill a few hundred people by an automatic system crashing a plane? fix it with software. i really hope society wakes up and SLOWS DOWN. we're trying to move so fast, with hardly any reason at all, and in doing so, we are throwing away all ability to properly design, build, and god forbid, think about things. i don't know what it's going to take, but it feels out of control. everywhere you look is people hurrying and hurrying to release, to productize, to ship it, etc. whenever i ask "why?" to schedules, there has NEVER been a clear answer. it always boils down to basically "just because". in addition, we simply have too much laziness and greed taking place, which is what added to boeing's misstep here. they tried pulling a fast one on buyers (and basically accomplished it) to make a few bucks towards that everlasting capitalist dream.

objektif 8y ago

How did this ahole seriously have courage to give this speech? Unbelievable, I will never set foot on a 737 Max again. And avoid other Boeing models if I can.

jfptech 8y ago

Airbus had similar issues a while back. The software was forcing the nose of the plane down and the pilots had to fight with it to bring the plane out of a dive. Is it absolutely necessary for the computer to be adjusting the angle of attack? https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/the-untold-story-of-qf72-what-happens-when-psycho-automation-leaves-pilots-powerless-20170511-gw26ae.html https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/the-untold-story-of-qf72-wh... https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2008/aair/ao-2008-070/ https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2... *edited to cite sources

dingaling 8y ago
Issues? "The occurrence was the only known example where this design limitation led to a pitch-down command in over 28 million flight hours on A330/A340 aircraft" The common-platform A330/40 had been in service for 15 years before this event. It really was a freak failure of one computer unit which went haywire and which led to a design change to mitigate it. That was 11 years ago. It is deceptive to claim it's anything like the 737 Max issue.
faizmokhtar 8y ago
lol. This is not a similar issue at all. This is just corruption at its finest.

tmd83 8y ago

Corporate irresponsibility and getting away with it is something I have mostly gotten used to at this point. But this particular incident is still really getting to me specially after the press release. I was just trying to read up a little about sings of sociopath. It seems to me that a big chunk of major corporate big brash could be considered extreme versions of sociopath.

iliketosleep 8y ago
It's related to the incentive structures of big corporations. Profit for investors is the primary goal, and the only real constraint is the legal system (where loopholes are often found or bought). People are viewed through the lense of KPIs. It's clear why this type of system selects for leaders who do not value ethics, respect the law, or value the individual. I'm not sure what to call these leaders, but sociopath doesn't seem too far off.
cal5k 8y ago
What exactly does “getting away with it” mean in this context? Boeing will get sued from many different directions, their share price will suffer, and likely they’ll have lost orders for their aircraft. Let’s say we wanted to get really punitive... who do we blame? The engineers that worked on it? The Boeing CEO for not personally verifying every piece of software on all of their aircraft? Do we throw someone in jail? How does that help improve safety culture exactly? Boeing & Airbus are largely responsible for the massive improvements in flight safety over the last 40 years. It’s incredible that flying is as safe as it. Yes the deaths are a tragedy, but every time I get in a plane I accept the fact that the physics of flying could ultimately kill me, and I trade that off against the convenience of getting somewhere quickly.
- tmd83 8y ago
  Assuming what's revealed so far is reasonably accurate and the decisions were not taken for some yet to be revealed completely unexpected reason (unlikely) here's who to blame. This was a business decision to remove re-certification/re-training for some 60B sales. So yes the CEO is responsible. If you can float on money for the success you can spend the lifetime in jail for the deaths too. But that might be a little extreme. So here's a better one for after Lion Air crash there is no reason to believe that Boeing including the CEO didn't go over this, didn't realize they made a risky plan and even then they didn't go through with their temporary mitigation with a fine tooth comb. So yes it seems the CEO and some big shots and maybe some down the line should go to jail. No one is sent to jail for complicated to reason or never before seen problem that they didn't know about or didn't think about and it happened. This wasn't an accident, they implemented absolutely critical safety feature by design without triple redundancy as well understood to be required then they lied about it (if I understood the max change from earlier to later version), tried to downplay it and when a crash happened due to this didn't own up to it. So for sure this helps safely culture. If you hide safety problem knowingly for greed/money, because your boss asked and you didn't care you shouldn't be working in safety critical system. > Boeing & Airbus are largely responsible for the massive improvements in flight safety over the last 40 years. It’s incredible that flying is as safe as it. Yes the deaths are a tragedy, but every time I get in a plane I accept the fact that the physics of flying could ultimately kill me, and I trade that off against the convenience of getting somewhere quickly. I don't even know what to say to this. So I drove safely for 40 years and today I decided to see if I can safely drunk drive if I play the music really loud and killed a family of four. This was not physics, this was not a complicated software bug (at the core) but it was cutting corners for profit.

sathackr 8y ago

This address does nothing to make me feel better about flying on any future Boeing plane. They promise to fix the MCAS system in the current crop, but say nothing about the organizational choices and structures that allowed this to happen in the first place. Allowing the company to produce a plane, equipped with a non-redundant system with control over the vertical attitude of the plane, and doing so in a way that intentionally minimizes the perceived impact and required training to operate a plane with this system is the true mistake here. This is a failure of the both the FAA, Boeing, and pretty much every player along the chain.

supernova87a 8y ago

This has been a 50 year problem in the making, and whether it's for better or worse should be more carefully studied. Because here's my understanding of the history: Through WW2 and the proliferating age of defense contractors, the government (mostly defense department, but also civilian agencies) stood almost on equal footing with contractors in their ability to design, scope, and evaluate big projects. You would see scientists and in-house advisers at these departments able to expertly evaluate proposals/designs by contractors with sufficient background knowledge and tools to do so. They even worked closely with contractors to lay out the requirements and designs for systems, or products. But, through the decades, a couple factors eroded this equal footing of the government / regulatory experts: -- Shrinking of government budgets for (or unwillingness of the public to stomach) the ranks of Washington "bureaucrats" who represented this expert class of people (what harm is there in cutting "fat" from public servants who don't seem to produce anything tangible?) -- More attractive pay, career potential, prestige, etc. of working in the private sector -- Political distaste for being seen as working too closely with contractors So what happened is that gradually but surely, government lost the tools to do these things themselves, and by sheer need to still have things approved, shifted the work onto industry. What can you do when industry comes to you with new complicated designs for things, and you have no one who can assess (and no budget to pay for assessments of) whether those designs are safe? You ask the person proposing to critique themselves, and in many cases, they seem to know more than you anyway. Of course, what in part probably led to our current situation. As I said in the beginning, the pros and cons of operating a system in this way should be looked at. As a society, my question is, how do we make it possible to choose to do these things in the way that produces the right outcome? For a start, I think we need to stop asking everyone to make uninformed votes about certain detailed things we don't understand, yet rely on every day. That definitely produces bad consequences for many issues.

testpostpls 8y ago
Industry user fees? The FDA, while not perfect, has been pay to play for a while.
AuthorizedCust 8y ago
Can you provide evidence the FAA lacks sufficient expertise?

revskill 8y ago

Just saying "it's safe" without any linked proof is kind of useless to me.

god_bless_texas 8y ago

The amount of oh gotchas and keyboard guesses from lots of google searching is quite comical. Think any real in-depth analysis has been done yet? Silly.

kaveh_h 8y ago

Don’t put the blame squarely on Boeing. It’s clear FAA lacks the expertise to regulate this kind safety issues. It’s not easy for them to have it either since the innovators are always a step ahead but it’s clear they need to shape up. I don’t have any knowledge of the process for verification of new airplane models, but one thought as software developer would perhaps be for FAA to become more digital in their efforts. Require from manufacturers (At least for bigger models) a digital virtual model of the entire airplane that will be used for simulated tests. You could for instance test faulty signaling sensors but also the whole subseqqunt chain of events taking into account pilot actions (or lack of). It should be a routine to replay a simulation with data from previous crashes. In this particular instance perhaps FAA would have understood the reasons of the first crash and been able to stopped the second crash from ever happening. You could even develop methods that can generate data to be able to predict hidden issues with an existing design without a real crash ever happening.

ncmncm 8y ago
There is more than enough blame to go around. Boeing fucked up. FAA fucked up. Boeing management fucked up after Lion. Boeing mgmt fucked up after EA. They should resign in disgrace, not issue self-serving press releases. Shame!

hashfunktion 8y ago

https://media.giphy.com/media/l0HlTHgnDtIhkoZOg/giphy.gif https://media.giphy.com/media/l0HlTHgnDtIhkoZOg/giphy.gif

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
This is not Reddit. Sorry.

EngineerDude 8y ago

As a few posters mentioned, an interesting question is why the plane needs MCAS in the first place. I read somewhere that the max 8 got new engines which were bigger than engines on previous 737 series, and that makes the plane nose up. Any kid who ever made a model plane understands the idea of CG - if it pitches up you change something, maybe move the wings back. Is it possible that an industry leader shipped a plane that’s not even freakin balanced, tried to fix it in software(!) to avoid an expensive redesign, screwed up the software and maybe the safety analysis, and then didn’t even manage to mention to the pilots that this software hack even existed? This is hard for me to fathom. If the Ethiopian report is right, it might even be that the procedure to turn off MCAS didn’t even work. I hope I am misunderstanding something here.

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
You're partway there. The design isn't inherently unstable under normal conditions, it just becomes unstable under slightly different extreme conditions than the previous 737. Rather than training pilots on this difference, Boeing tried to emulate the old behaviour in software.
- EngineerDude 8y ago
  OK, so maybe it’s unfair to say that MCAS (as a concept) is a hack, since it could be seen as a good-faith effort to provide a predictable aircraft?
  - mpcjanssen 8y ago
    Not quite, without MCAS the flight behavior is quite predictable, it just doesn't match the existing type certification and it falls outside of the allowed parameters for this class of planes.
slavak 8y ago
The new, more economical engines are physically bigger, so in order to maintain the required ground clearance the engines were moved forward and up. This gave the plane a tendency to nose-up in certain extreme circumstances. MCAS was supposed to make the plane behave more like previous 737 models, in order to fulfill the "common type" requirement that would allow 737 pilots to fly it without getting qualified for a new aircraft type. The plane _is_ balanced; it's not like Boeing built an aircraft that falls out of the sky if you slightly nudge the yoke wrong. (Which wouldn't even be unusual; plenty of modern aircraft are completely uncontrollable without computer assistance.) Yes, the problem could've been solved with a re-design of the aircraft- lengthening the landing gear struts, modifying the wings, etc. - but that would negate the point of using an existing and well-tested design. There's A LOT of guilt to go around in this story, but no one can actually be casting doubt on the abilities of Boeing engineers in the fundamentals of aircraft design.

thomasedwards 8y ago

> Dennis Muilenburg > Chairman, President & CEO Aren’t these suppose to be different people to keep the board independent?

lolc 8y ago

> This update, along with the associated training and additional educational materials that pilots want in the wake of these accidents, will eliminate the possibility of unintended MCAS activation and prevent an MCAS-related accident from ever happening again. How can he claim this? They'd have to remove MCAS for this to be true.

fruktstav 8y ago

Apparently, Ethiopia has an average IQ of 64, where as most developed countries have just about 100. Could this be a factor?

tigershark 8y ago

So after hundred of lives lost the only thing that they will do is a software fix. Thanks, but when the max won’t be grounded again I’ll check all my flights to avoid going on that death machine.

phkahler 8y ago

>> We're taking a comprehensive, disciplined approach, and taking the time, to get the software update right. If only you had done that the first time. >> This update, along with the associated training and additional educational materials that pilots want in the wake of these accidents, will eliminate the possibility of unintended MCAS activation and prevent an MCAS-related accident from ever happening again. From what we've read, your company thought that cost too much the first time around. Maybe it's time to reconsider the costs of NOT doing the work up front. Boeing used to be better at this.

unionemployee 8y ago

Ugh. I just read the report and maintain that the pilots acted incompetently. Though they regained control of the plane and turned off the stab trim system, their reaction took considerable time. The fatal blow, however, is this: distracted by the problem, neither pilot paid attention to the aircraft's speed as they flew along in level flight. They had tunnel vision. You can see in the report that the overspeed clacker began alerting them midway through the incident. With the nose-down trim, this high airspeed exacerbated the difficulty of holding the nose up. Had they slowed down, the aircraft would have been controllable. The moment they reactivated the system at high speed, adding even more nose down trim, they killed themselves and everyone on board. I also question the lack of clear communication between the two pilots. Examples such as the captain asking the first officer if the aircraft could be manually trimmed and the first officer replying in the negative, with no verification on the part of the captain and no checklist use make me wonder. Maybe they were doing those things. I'd be interested in seeing a transcript. It's understandable why Muilenburg doesn't seem particularly remorseful.

thefurman 8y ago

"From the days immediately following the Lion Air accident, we've had teams of our top engineers and technical experts working tirelessly..." If they've been working tirelessly, then they should have understood the risks and grounded the fleet. Either they understood the risks, but neglected to ground the fleet, or they didn't understand the risks and hence we can't trust the fix. I also find it sort of nauseating that the CEO implicitly gets the message through that the fix already has been worked on for a long time, has thus matured, can now be fully trusted, and we are just weeks away from flying with a safe plane. I don't buy any of it. Let's analyse this critically. The MCAS still needs to augment the flight characteristics. There is nothing that can be fundamentally changed regarding this fact. We can only change the conditions under which MCAS activates and the conditions under which it is deactivated. It still has to have the same authority for a nose-down and recovering from an erroneous high-magnitude nose-down will still be mechanically hard or require additional pilot knowledge and actions. The latter should be impossible without recertification. The operational characteristics of the airplane are not matched with the operational controls offered to the pilots, by design constraint. The plane is thus unsafe and will forever be unsafe, without redesign and recertification, because with the constraints in place, they can only add additional information on displays, add more reliability by having the MCAS utilise input from more sensors, add more conditions under which the the MCAS deactivates, etc, but none of this attacks the fundamental impedance mismatch between characteristics and controls, as well as the lack of education for it. Deactivation also simply exchanges the risk of stalls for nose downs. All-in-all, the MAX is simply an airplane with a worse flight envelope as far as safety is concerned, and nothing can be done about it.