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" The Chicago-based planemaker, while careful not to be seen blaming a customer, has noted the role pilot actions also played in the Ethiopian and Lion Air disa

" The Chicago-based planemaker, while careful not to be seen blaming a customer, has noted the role pilot actions also played in the Ethiopian and Lion Air disasters." "What were they doing flying our planes if they didn't want to crash?"

tomglynch 7y ago
This is a lie to save face. Boeing literally decided against telling the pilots about MCAS [1] [2]. [1] https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/u-s-pilots-flying-737-max-werent-told-about-new-automatic-systems-change-linked-to-lion-air-crash/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/u-s-p... > Jon Weaks, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, said Monday the airline and the pilots “were kept in the dark.” “We do not like the fact that a new system was put on the aircraft and wasn’t disclosed to anyone or put in the manuals,” he said in an interview. What’s more, he noted, Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration have now warned “that the system may not be performing as it should.” [2] https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/what-is-the-boeing-737-max-maneuvering-characteristics-augmentation-system-mcas-jt610/ https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/what-is-the-boeing... > "Since it operates in situations where the aircraft is under relatively high g load and near stall, a pilot should never see the operation of MCAS. As such, Boeing did not include an MCAS description in its FCOM. The explainer continues: "In this case, MCAS will trim nose as designed to assist the pilot during recover, likely going unnoticed by the pilot." There is another explanation, according to a Tuesday report in The Wall Street Journal: "One high-ranking Boeing official said the company had decided against disclosing more details to cockpit crews due to concerns about inundating average pilots with too much information - and significantly more technical data - than they needed or could digest."
- mannykannot 7y ago
  That last statement is extremely patronizing towards airline pilots, and also self-defeating: the more Boeing says telling pilots would have added "significantly more technical data", the less defensible is its position that no additional training was needed. The alternative to telling pilots in advance was to blindside them with unexpected and inexplicable aircraft behavior when the system failed.
  - FabHK 7y ago
    Boeing’s position was: if there is uncommanded Stab trim movement, use the stab trim runaway checklist, just as before. No need to know why the issue occurred in the first place. Now, clearly that didn’t work very well, and there are many other problems, but I wouldn’t call Boeing’s initial attitude there “lies” or “extremely patronising”.
    - mannykannot 7y ago
      My "extremely patronising" comment was explicitly in response to one specific statement from Boeing. Personally, I would not call Boeing's response "lies"; rather, it seems to me, it is probably being careful to not make any objectively false statements that could come back at them in an inquiry or court of law, while also attempting to imply that its actions always put safety first, and that training cost avoidance was never an overriding concern. My main point here is that, in doing so, Boeing appears to contradict itself in a way that weakens their position on the latter issue.
mannykannot 7y ago
Boeing cannot say anything suggesting that this pilot was right, and that his warnings should have been heeded, without simultaneously admitting that it was wrong in saying that such training was not necessary. There's another issue raised here: what sort of training was available? By withholding the existence of MCAS, did Boeing create a situation where there were no simulators with the capability to train pilots in handling an MCAS failure?
- jandrese 7y ago
  It seems like Boeing never considered the possibility of an MCAS failure beyond some footnotes in the manual. It smells like a classic case of under-engineering. In a properly engineered system someone would have asked "What if an AoA sensor fails during flight?" and forced the MCAS to be redesigned. This question would have been asked about every single part of the system before it was deemed ready for production.
  - FabHK 7y ago
    Yes. Clearly, there was some failure in systems engineering. And one must look at this very carefully and find out what went wrong such that many good diligent highly qualified people screwed up so royally. But unreflective ill-informed hostile accusations sometimes seen here (“lies”, “care only about profits”, etc.) is certainly neither appropriate nor helpful in avoiding a repeat of the problem.
supergauntlet 7y ago
It actually reads like the quote from Airplane! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn0WdJx-Wkw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn0WdJx-Wkw How oblivious and callous do you have to be?

tomglynch 7y ago

This is a lie to save face. Boeing literally decided against telling the pilots about MCAS [1] [2]. [1] https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/u-s-pilots-flying-737-max-werent-told-about-new-automatic-systems-change-linked-to-lion-air-crash/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/u-s-p... > Jon Weaks, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, said Monday the airline and the pilots “were kept in the dark.” “We do not like the fact that a new system was put on the aircraft and wasn’t disclosed to anyone or put in the manuals,” he said in an interview. What’s more, he noted, Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration have now warned “that the system may not be performing as it should.” [2] https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/what-is-the-boeing-737-max-maneuvering-characteristics-augmentation-system-mcas-jt610/ https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/what-is-the-boeing... > "Since it operates in situations where the aircraft is under relatively high g load and near stall, a pilot should never see the operation of MCAS. As such, Boeing did not include an MCAS description in its FCOM. The explainer continues: "In this case, MCAS will trim nose as designed to assist the pilot during recover, likely going unnoticed by the pilot." There is another explanation, according to a Tuesday report in The Wall Street Journal: "One high-ranking Boeing official said the company had decided against disclosing more details to cockpit crews due to concerns about inundating average pilots with too much information - and significantly more technical data - than they needed or could digest."

mannykannot 7y ago
That last statement is extremely patronizing towards airline pilots, and also self-defeating: the more Boeing says telling pilots would have added "significantly more technical data", the less defensible is its position that no additional training was needed. The alternative to telling pilots in advance was to blindside them with unexpected and inexplicable aircraft behavior when the system failed.
- FabHK 7y ago
  Boeing’s position was: if there is uncommanded Stab trim movement, use the stab trim runaway checklist, just as before. No need to know why the issue occurred in the first place. Now, clearly that didn’t work very well, and there are many other problems, but I wouldn’t call Boeing’s initial attitude there “lies” or “extremely patronising”.
  - mannykannot 7y ago
    My "extremely patronising" comment was explicitly in response to one specific statement from Boeing. Personally, I would not call Boeing's response "lies"; rather, it seems to me, it is probably being careful to not make any objectively false statements that could come back at them in an inquiry or court of law, while also attempting to imply that its actions always put safety first, and that training cost avoidance was never an overriding concern. My main point here is that, in doing so, Boeing appears to contradict itself in a way that weakens their position on the latter issue.

mannykannot 7y ago

Boeing cannot say anything suggesting that this pilot was right, and that his warnings should have been heeded, without simultaneously admitting that it was wrong in saying that such training was not necessary. There's another issue raised here: what sort of training was available? By withholding the existence of MCAS, did Boeing create a situation where there were no simulators with the capability to train pilots in handling an MCAS failure?

jandrese 7y ago
It seems like Boeing never considered the possibility of an MCAS failure beyond some footnotes in the manual. It smells like a classic case of under-engineering. In a properly engineered system someone would have asked "What if an AoA sensor fails during flight?" and forced the MCAS to be redesigned. This question would have been asked about every single part of the system before it was deemed ready for production.
- FabHK 7y ago
  Yes. Clearly, there was some failure in systems engineering. And one must look at this very carefully and find out what went wrong such that many good diligent highly qualified people screwed up so royally. But unreflective ill-informed hostile accusations sometimes seen here (“lies”, “care only about profits”, etc.) is certainly neither appropriate nor helpful in avoiding a repeat of the problem.

supergauntlet 7y ago

It actually reads like the quote from Airplane! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn0WdJx-Wkw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn0WdJx-Wkw How oblivious and callous do you have to be?