4 ms·

Look at how the CEO has handled this mess. It is not the work of someone approaching the problem as an engineer. He is approaching it as a politician, with much

Look at how the CEO has handled this mess. It is not the work of someone approaching the problem as an engineer. He is approaching it as a politician, with much heart felt meaningless responses, blame deflection, ignorance of undesireable facts. An engineer's approach would be to identify the problem through logical, rational thought, generate a few choice viable solutions, test each solution for effectiveness, and implement the best combination of them. And I'd say it is common knowledge by this point that Boeing is ruled by their shareholders' bottom line more than any other metric. So yes, Boeing attempted a business move to counteract the success of Airbuss's new plane by speeding through the design of the Max. Recertification would take too long, losing them market share, so they rode the line as close as they could to avoid recertification and minimize cost. The rushed design meant failures were more likely, the lack of recertification meant the pilots in the cockpit didn't have knowledge to properly deal with these failures, and now we have a lot of dead people. There's not much gray area to this story.

CorvusCrypto 7y ago
I was definitely one who thought it should be so simple to follow a standard stab trim runaway and made several comments to it too. But the more it drags on the more I'm learning from the data that the procedure to correct is just bullshit. Boeing is now in unsaveable waters for this situation and all doubt is being removed. I still am upset that any airline was able to in good faith say "nah we don't want all the safety options not worth it" but here it doesn't seem it would have helped much the more data comes out.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  Since I’m in your old boat (so to speak), what additional evidence suggests that the Ethiopian flight was not saveable by a crew who flew the airplane away under the stick shaker, reduced thrust, and then fixed the trim at altitude? (I’m not saying that is easy or even “par”, but it does seem like they had a salvageable situation until they turned the stab trim back on after correctly putting it in cutout and then left it on and let it run the trim nearly full nose down.)
  - tigershark 7y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19902068 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19902068 Even the simulator proves that it was impossible to save the plane using Boeing suggested procedures. Now imagine doing that while you know that you are going to die soon and there is your answer.
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      The content on that link suggests that it is in fact possible to save the airplane (and on the fatal flight, the Ethiopian Air crew got the airplane climbing and I believe exceeded 8000’ before losing control as they fought the bad hand they were dealt). Possible to save the airplane doesn’t mean that it’s expected, but it’s quite a bit farther from “the simulator proves that it was impossible”.
      - salawat 7y ago
        So the extra detail can be found in the flight data from the flights FDR, and CVR, and is laid out in the crash report. If you combine that with a bit of knowledge with regards to the basic physics involved, and complications introduced by not fully briefing pilots on the system, it becomes obvious the crew was fighting a losing battle without the information we have now. https://www.tailstrike.com/100319.html https://www.tailstrike.com/100319.html The prelim report, and summary of the event can be found at the link above. To lay things out, ET302 ended up having an AoA sensor malfunction. One of the Appendicies includes a page from the flight manual, there are several pages mentioning the possibility of runaway stabilizer, along with a list of other symptoms that may be experienced due to a failed AoA sensor input to the Flight Control Computer. There is also the page on which the Stabilizer Trim Runaway checklist is printed, which also specifically characterizes a Stabilizer Trim Runaway as an uncommanded continuous stabilizer trim activation event with mucho emphasis. The page containing the closest thing to a hint as to the existence of MCAS (page 29), gives a small blurb that the flight computer does something, and that maybe you should be ready to run through the Stab Trim Runaway checklist. Now. Look at the list of associated symptoms. IAS Airspeed disagree is one of those items. There is a memory item for 737 for airspeed unreliable, which if run through before the Stab Trim Runaway can greatly exacerbate the difficulty of recovering from the out of trim condition. Which checklist gets remembered first then, can have a drastic effect on whether you can recover the plane, and the checklist to solve the problem that MCAS caused, if committed to memory entirely, doesn't even characterize the entry point for the checklist in a manner consistent with MCAS malfunction. This is without even taking into account what actually happened, mind. I'm just pointing out documentation/communication failures that could contribute to a pilot not making the connection in time, while trying to parse the cacophony of alerts to ascertain what his plane is trying to tell him. This is coupled with his autopilot being unable to hold things stable so he can troubleshoot, his FEEL DIFF PRESS light indicates the haptic feedback provided by the computer may not be appropriate to actual conditions, so the finely tuned muscle memory that pilots can rely on as a recall aid may be inaccurate or downright dangerous. In short, nothing about this situation feels right, the pilot who has had it ground into them to trust their instruments over their own senses is actually dropped into a situation where almost all of their instruments are lying, because the computer is correcting actual readings with garbage AoA data. Again, we've not even touched on what actually happened. This is just enumerating what could have happened, which constitutes possibilities that a pilot would have to navigate in that moment to successfully come to a conclusion about what was going on. Without the luxury of priming by knowing that's what you're going into the simulator to practice today, and with the additional entropy and complacency that comes from having flown uneventful flights 100's of times before. Now, take into account that a highly experienced pilot, clued into the possibility of the Stabilizer runaway, did manage to troubleshoot, but was left in a bad spot. The torque required to actuate against the airstream at the speeds the flight had achieved were such that they needed the electrical trim motor to overcome the resistance. So they turned it back on, and re trimmed. However, they were unaware they would need to keep signalling with the trim switches to keep the MCAS system from kicking in 5 seconds later. This was a system, snuck in, under the radar, and documented in a completely inconsistent manner to the catastrophic outcomes that could arise from a malfunction. I'm not a legit Aeronautics Engineer. Just a polymath with a penchant for running down and understanding things without having the benefit of having someone explain them to me in good faith. (Immensely important skill for auditing purposes). I don't want you to just take my word for anything. Go back through most of my posts on 737 MAX topics if you'd like, and do your own research. -The relationship between Boeing and it's regulatory framework, was of so much concern, the Office of the Inspector General was calling it out. -The A320neo taking them by surprise. -The work culture at Boeing -the reprioritization of shareholder value over product quality All of these to any Quality Engineer only leads to one variety of outcome. It's a really pervasive pattern.
manigandham 7y ago
> An engineer's approach... People are far more complex than this caricature of "engineer". Nobody actually operates the way you describe. At best, what you're describing is a methodology that teams with proper objectives and resources can accomplish, but it's not a guarantee.
- craftinator 7y ago
  When I'm tackling an engineering problem, that is how I do it. Not with ignorance of facts that I don't like, or heartfelt sentiments that don't solve the problem. I sit down and science the shit out of it. I use data, model the problem, create plausible solutions, math the metrics from those to form differentiation. I do this on a weekly basis. What I listed isn't supposed to be a specific methodology that one uses to accomplish any engineering task; it's a very general representation for how to approach a problem from an engineering perspective. I have no idea what you mean by "teams with proper objectives... not a guarantee". Yes the CEO of Boeing is not a team, he is the team leader; he has all the resources he could possibly need to accomplish this task, and I think that his biggest problem is that his motivations are shit, which is why he is playing the politician instead of kicking his company into high gear to keep any more of the planes from falling out of the sky. And nothing is guaranteed, ever... Are you trolling me? Was that a troll comment? Can't make sense of what you're trying to say, other than telling me I'm wrong. Edit: changed "most" to "very" to sound less pompous.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    > Not with ignorance of facts that I don't like, or heartfelt sentiments that don't solve the problem. I sit down and science the shit out of it. This isn't a TV show. Being an engineer or having an engineering background doesn't turn you into a machine. Nobody works in a perfectly rational vacuum like you describe. Engineers solve technical problems, but how you solve those problems is a process that usually involves many people with defined responsibilities and procedures to produce an outcome, dependent on the proper resources and objectives. This process is needed precisely because of the fallibility of humans, and even then it can still fail, which is why this problem happened in the first place. The role of a CEO is specifically not one of solving technical problems so this isn't applicable anyway, but this Boeing disaster is an outcome of both poor engineering and business practices.

CorvusCrypto 7y ago

I was definitely one who thought it should be so simple to follow a standard stab trim runaway and made several comments to it too. But the more it drags on the more I'm learning from the data that the procedure to correct is just bullshit. Boeing is now in unsaveable waters for this situation and all doubt is being removed. I still am upset that any airline was able to in good faith say "nah we don't want all the safety options not worth it" but here it doesn't seem it would have helped much the more data comes out.

sokoloff 7y ago
Since I’m in your old boat (so to speak), what additional evidence suggests that the Ethiopian flight was not saveable by a crew who flew the airplane away under the stick shaker, reduced thrust, and then fixed the trim at altitude? (I’m not saying that is easy or even “par”, but it does seem like they had a salvageable situation until they turned the stab trim back on after correctly putting it in cutout and then left it on and let it run the trim nearly full nose down.)
- tigershark 7y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19902068 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19902068 Even the simulator proves that it was impossible to save the plane using Boeing suggested procedures. Now imagine doing that while you know that you are going to die soon and there is your answer.
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    The content on that link suggests that it is in fact possible to save the airplane (and on the fatal flight, the Ethiopian Air crew got the airplane climbing and I believe exceeded 8000’ before losing control as they fought the bad hand they were dealt). Possible to save the airplane doesn’t mean that it’s expected, but it’s quite a bit farther from “the simulator proves that it was impossible”.
    - salawat 7y ago
      So the extra detail can be found in the flight data from the flights FDR, and CVR, and is laid out in the crash report. If you combine that with a bit of knowledge with regards to the basic physics involved, and complications introduced by not fully briefing pilots on the system, it becomes obvious the crew was fighting a losing battle without the information we have now. https://www.tailstrike.com/100319.html https://www.tailstrike.com/100319.html The prelim report, and summary of the event can be found at the link above. To lay things out, ET302 ended up having an AoA sensor malfunction. One of the Appendicies includes a page from the flight manual, there are several pages mentioning the possibility of runaway stabilizer, along with a list of other symptoms that may be experienced due to a failed AoA sensor input to the Flight Control Computer. There is also the page on which the Stabilizer Trim Runaway checklist is printed, which also specifically characterizes a Stabilizer Trim Runaway as an uncommanded continuous stabilizer trim activation event with mucho emphasis. The page containing the closest thing to a hint as to the existence of MCAS (page 29), gives a small blurb that the flight computer does something, and that maybe you should be ready to run through the Stab Trim Runaway checklist. Now. Look at the list of associated symptoms. IAS Airspeed disagree is one of those items. There is a memory item for 737 for airspeed unreliable, which if run through before the Stab Trim Runaway can greatly exacerbate the difficulty of recovering from the out of trim condition. Which checklist gets remembered first then, can have a drastic effect on whether you can recover the plane, and the checklist to solve the problem that MCAS caused, if committed to memory entirely, doesn't even characterize the entry point for the checklist in a manner consistent with MCAS malfunction. This is without even taking into account what actually happened, mind. I'm just pointing out documentation/communication failures that could contribute to a pilot not making the connection in time, while trying to parse the cacophony of alerts to ascertain what his plane is trying to tell him. This is coupled with his autopilot being unable to hold things stable so he can troubleshoot, his FEEL DIFF PRESS light indicates the haptic feedback provided by the computer may not be appropriate to actual conditions, so the finely tuned muscle memory that pilots can rely on as a recall aid may be inaccurate or downright dangerous. In short, nothing about this situation feels right, the pilot who has had it ground into them to trust their instruments over their own senses is actually dropped into a situation where almost all of their instruments are lying, because the computer is correcting actual readings with garbage AoA data. Again, we've not even touched on what actually happened. This is just enumerating what could have happened, which constitutes possibilities that a pilot would have to navigate in that moment to successfully come to a conclusion about what was going on. Without the luxury of priming by knowing that's what you're going into the simulator to practice today, and with the additional entropy and complacency that comes from having flown uneventful flights 100's of times before. Now, take into account that a highly experienced pilot, clued into the possibility of the Stabilizer runaway, did manage to troubleshoot, but was left in a bad spot. The torque required to actuate against the airstream at the speeds the flight had achieved were such that they needed the electrical trim motor to overcome the resistance. So they turned it back on, and re trimmed. However, they were unaware they would need to keep signalling with the trim switches to keep the MCAS system from kicking in 5 seconds later. This was a system, snuck in, under the radar, and documented in a completely inconsistent manner to the catastrophic outcomes that could arise from a malfunction. I'm not a legit Aeronautics Engineer. Just a polymath with a penchant for running down and understanding things without having the benefit of having someone explain them to me in good faith. (Immensely important skill for auditing purposes). I don't want you to just take my word for anything. Go back through most of my posts on 737 MAX topics if you'd like, and do your own research. -The relationship between Boeing and it's regulatory framework, was of so much concern, the Office of the Inspector General was calling it out. -The A320neo taking them by surprise. -The work culture at Boeing -the reprioritization of shareholder value over product quality All of these to any Quality Engineer only leads to one variety of outcome. It's a really pervasive pattern.

manigandham 7y ago

> An engineer's approach... People are far more complex than this caricature of "engineer". Nobody actually operates the way you describe. At best, what you're describing is a methodology that teams with proper objectives and resources can accomplish, but it's not a guarantee.

craftinator 7y ago
When I'm tackling an engineering problem, that is how I do it. Not with ignorance of facts that I don't like, or heartfelt sentiments that don't solve the problem. I sit down and science the shit out of it. I use data, model the problem, create plausible solutions, math the metrics from those to form differentiation. I do this on a weekly basis. What I listed isn't supposed to be a specific methodology that one uses to accomplish any engineering task; it's a very general representation for how to approach a problem from an engineering perspective. I have no idea what you mean by "teams with proper objectives... not a guarantee". Yes the CEO of Boeing is not a team, he is the team leader; he has all the resources he could possibly need to accomplish this task, and I think that his biggest problem is that his motivations are shit, which is why he is playing the politician instead of kicking his company into high gear to keep any more of the planes from falling out of the sky. And nothing is guaranteed, ever... Are you trolling me? Was that a troll comment? Can't make sense of what you're trying to say, other than telling me I'm wrong. Edit: changed "most" to "very" to sound less pompous.
- manigandham 7y ago
  > Not with ignorance of facts that I don't like, or heartfelt sentiments that don't solve the problem. I sit down and science the shit out of it. This isn't a TV show. Being an engineer or having an engineering background doesn't turn you into a machine. Nobody works in a perfectly rational vacuum like you describe. Engineers solve technical problems, but how you solve those problems is a process that usually involves many people with defined responsibilities and procedures to produce an outcome, dependent on the proper resources and objectives. This process is needed precisely because of the fallibility of humans, and even then it can still fail, which is why this problem happened in the first place. The role of a CEO is specifically not one of solving technical problems so this isn't applicable anyway, but this Boeing disaster is an outcome of both poor engineering and business practices.