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This is off-topic, but WalterBright's participation here has reminded me of my own weaknesses. Everything I have read about the 737Max has put a pitchfork in my

This is off-topic, but WalterBright's participation here has reminded me of my own weaknesses. Everything I have read about the 737Max has put a pitchfork in my hands to go after Boeing. Walter's are the first comments I have read that make me think perhaps Boeing wasn't completely, utterly, criminally unjustified. It is interesting that Walter has chosen to jump in like this, and to hold his position so firmly so publicly. He must realize that this action threatens to paint him very unfavorably to a lot of people. There seems to be no reason for him to speak out and take such a risk. To do this seems to me to require either a certain level of stupidity or a certain level of conviction and courage. My impression is that Walter has considerable courage and some motivation to try to counteract public ignorance. FWIW, Walter's courage has given at least one person pause. I'm going to put the pitchfork down for a little bit. Boeing still isn't on my good list, but now I admit that I don't know as much about this as I thought I did.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lisper 7y ago
Can you be a little more specific about what WalterBright said that changed your mind? Because the only thing I see that could possibly be considered a mitigating factor is this: > Both the LA and EA did make the adjustments within 10 seconds. They then did NOT throw the cutoff switches (Emphasis added, because I missed this the first time I read it.) If I squint hard enough I guess I can see a tiny hint of merit in the argument that the fault for the two crashes lies at least in part with the pilots because they failed to throw the cutoff switches. But that seems like a mighty thin reed to me. Have I missed something?
- throwanem 7y ago
  I don't think you have. Bright's arguments have focused entirely on the design of the MCAS software, and have as far as I can tell completely ignored the fact that that software, driven by input from a single AoA sensor, creates a very short critical failure path which requires immediate and precise human intervention to avert a fatal accident. That such human intervention was imperfectly performed in two cases does not indict the humans in question, so much as it indicts a design which errs so far on the side of unsafety that perfection in human behavior is required to prevent it killing everyone on board a commercial aircraft. Any competent engineer knows that a design which requires human perfection for safety is a design not only doomed to failure, but a failed design in itself. At least one Boeing engineer raised this very concern during the 737 MAX design process, only to be quashed by management. It would be invidious to suggest that at least one ex-Boeing engineer should argue in the defense of that design out of any motivation other than a genuine conviction of the merit in his argument. But conviction alone doesn't suffice to render that argument meritorious, and I'm surprised and disappointed to see anyone here or elsewhere claim otherwise.
  - lisper 7y ago
    Thanks, but I really would like to hear what supportlocal4h has to say about it. You're just repeating the party line. (And just for the record, I agree with the party line. But I think it's important to listen to and understand dissenting views.)
    - o-__-o 7y ago
      Everybody is at fault. Pilots for not flipping the switch. Foreign aviation regulations for not requiring more knowledge (hours) in the cockpit. Airlines for not buying safety equipment. Boeing for not making safety equipment standard and then playing the cover-up/shift-blame game. You all can debate who is responsible for what %, but I’m not a judge nor a jury so I won’t speculate. But facts is facts, and everyone in the chain above deserves blame
    - supportlocal4h 7y ago
      This it's how I read it: 1. Boeing is not blameless. 2. Boeing has a point about MCAS issues manifesting exactly like another well-known event in other models and having the exact same solution. 3. The well-known solution to the well-known event is one that pilots must memorize because they don't have time to look it up. 4. The pilots seem to have demonstrated that they recognized the problem and, in fact, executed the well-known solution in time. They just failed to complete all the steps for some unknown reason. 5. Points 2-4 don't mean that Boeing is perfect. MCAS needs to be fixed. But it isn't completely absurd to argue that MCAS really is so similar in its misbehavior and so identical in the correct response that a reasonable person might expect pilots to do the right thing even if they had never heard of MCAS. Taken together, this paints a picture to me that is different than the completely evil, conniving picture I had. I'm not sure where to draw the line between them, but probably not on the extreme end where I had it. But my point is not so much about Boeing. I was observing the actions of a person who took what I expect to be a very unpopular stand in the face of overwhelming popular opinion. For what? Who cares if somebody else is mischaracterized? There's nothing you can do about it except get yourself muddy. Just let it happen and keep your head down. I don't know why Walter is speaking up now. I'm not sure how much it changes my opinion. But I still tip my hat to a person who will say what they think is right even when they know they will be burned at the stake for it.
- hadrien01 7y ago
  Except, as dlgeek already answered to WalterBright: the EA crew followed the procedure and used the cutoff switches
  - o-__-o 7y ago
    ...but then turned them back on afterwards because they weren’t sure if that was the correct action. MCAS reenabled until aerodynamic failure caused the crash (wind speed prevented elevator from rising). Ultimately, more knowledge in the cockpit would have helped, see previous LA flight where pilot with training knew the correct action to take.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    They did use the cutoff switches with the nose down too far. The correct procedure (as stated in the Airworthiness Directive distributed to all MAX crews) is to use the column trim switches to restore normal trim, then use the cutoff switches. They had already used the column trim switches twice to restore normal trim. https://theaircurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/B737-MAX-AD-1107.pdf https://theaircurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/B737-MA...
jquery 7y ago
The outrage mob over this has made it difficult for the whole truth to surface. For months, many people have said exactly what Walter is saying in this thread, Walter just happens to be more eloquent and qualified than other people who have made generally the same points. Most of these people receive insults and downvotes so they stop talking about it. This leads to the classic “spiral of outrage” and the truth becomes lost. I’m tooting my own horn here, but I’ve said what Walter has said in previous threads, and my comments were often downvoted into invisibility and I eventually gave up trying to point out that the pilots, the airlines, and the maintenance staff of the 737-MAX deserve some portion of the blame in addition to Boeing. Planes have become so safe that some airlines skip out on pilot emergency safety training, and Airworthiness Directives were ignored by the two airlines which had a 737-MAX crash. This doesn’t mean that Boeing has no culpability, but it does mean that Boeing is not the sole party at fault. For everyone saying “Boeing cut costs and cost lives”, this is equally true for the airlines which skimped on pilot training and skimped on maintenance. The 737-MAX crashes were the result of a series of bad decisions and mistakes, not merely the result of bad MCAS system design. Note: my late father worked at Boeing for 25 years so I have some personal reasons for wanting to defend Boeing. My mother’s widow pension is also dependent on Boeing stock not cratering into the ground.
- jacobush 7y ago
  I may be bigoted, but I expect very little from certain countries, but quite a lot from Boeing.
  - jquery 7y ago
    >The paradox is that the failures of the 737 Max were really the product of an incredible success: a decades-long transformation of the whole business of flying, in which airplanes became so automated and accidents so rare that a cheap air-travel boom was able to take root around the world. Along the way, though, this system never managed to fully account for the unexpected: for the moment when technology fails and humans — a growing population of more than 300,000 airline pilots of variable and largely unpredictable skills — are required to intervene. In the drama of the 737 Max, it was the decisions made by four of those pilots, more than the failure of a single obscure component, that led to 346 deaths and the worldwide grounding of the entire fleet. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/magazine/boeing-737-max-crashes.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/magazine/boeing-737-max-c... In a way, these accidents were inevitable. When safety is so assured, some airlines will begin to take a casual approach to training their pilots. Post-accident, this leads to Boeing/Airbus making their planes even more immune to poor airmanship, and the virtuous cycle continues until another accident inevitably happens, and Boeing/Airbus get fingered instead of the airline (because we want to blame the agents we think we can change, rather than the agents we cannot change).
pdonis 7y ago
> Walter's are the first comments I have read that make me think perhaps Boeing wasn't completely, utterly, criminally unjustified. They shouldn't make you think that; the fact that, considered in the abstract, there were actions the pilots could have taken that would have avoided the fatal crashes does not change the fact that Boeing designed a system where the failure of a single sensor could cause a fatal accident. There can be responsibility in both places.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

lisper 7y ago

Can you be a little more specific about what WalterBright said that changed your mind? Because the only thing I see that could possibly be considered a mitigating factor is this: > Both the LA and EA did make the adjustments within 10 seconds. They then did NOT throw the cutoff switches (Emphasis added, because I missed this the first time I read it.) If I squint hard enough I guess I can see a tiny hint of merit in the argument that the fault for the two crashes lies at least in part with the pilots because they failed to throw the cutoff switches. But that seems like a mighty thin reed to me. Have I missed something?

throwanem 7y ago
I don't think you have. Bright's arguments have focused entirely on the design of the MCAS software, and have as far as I can tell completely ignored the fact that that software, driven by input from a single AoA sensor, creates a very short critical failure path which requires immediate and precise human intervention to avert a fatal accident. That such human intervention was imperfectly performed in two cases does not indict the humans in question, so much as it indicts a design which errs so far on the side of unsafety that perfection in human behavior is required to prevent it killing everyone on board a commercial aircraft. Any competent engineer knows that a design which requires human perfection for safety is a design not only doomed to failure, but a failed design in itself. At least one Boeing engineer raised this very concern during the 737 MAX design process, only to be quashed by management. It would be invidious to suggest that at least one ex-Boeing engineer should argue in the defense of that design out of any motivation other than a genuine conviction of the merit in his argument. But conviction alone doesn't suffice to render that argument meritorious, and I'm surprised and disappointed to see anyone here or elsewhere claim otherwise.
- lisper 7y ago
  Thanks, but I really would like to hear what supportlocal4h has to say about it. You're just repeating the party line. (And just for the record, I agree with the party line. But I think it's important to listen to and understand dissenting views.)
  - o-__-o 7y ago
    Everybody is at fault. Pilots for not flipping the switch. Foreign aviation regulations for not requiring more knowledge (hours) in the cockpit. Airlines for not buying safety equipment. Boeing for not making safety equipment standard and then playing the cover-up/shift-blame game. You all can debate who is responsible for what %, but I’m not a judge nor a jury so I won’t speculate. But facts is facts, and everyone in the chain above deserves blame
  - supportlocal4h 7y ago
    This it's how I read it: 1. Boeing is not blameless. 2. Boeing has a point about MCAS issues manifesting exactly like another well-known event in other models and having the exact same solution. 3. The well-known solution to the well-known event is one that pilots must memorize because they don't have time to look it up. 4. The pilots seem to have demonstrated that they recognized the problem and, in fact, executed the well-known solution in time. They just failed to complete all the steps for some unknown reason. 5. Points 2-4 don't mean that Boeing is perfect. MCAS needs to be fixed. But it isn't completely absurd to argue that MCAS really is so similar in its misbehavior and so identical in the correct response that a reasonable person might expect pilots to do the right thing even if they had never heard of MCAS. Taken together, this paints a picture to me that is different than the completely evil, conniving picture I had. I'm not sure where to draw the line between them, but probably not on the extreme end where I had it. But my point is not so much about Boeing. I was observing the actions of a person who took what I expect to be a very unpopular stand in the face of overwhelming popular opinion. For what? Who cares if somebody else is mischaracterized? There's nothing you can do about it except get yourself muddy. Just let it happen and keep your head down. I don't know why Walter is speaking up now. I'm not sure how much it changes my opinion. But I still tip my hat to a person who will say what they think is right even when they know they will be burned at the stake for it.
hadrien01 7y ago
Except, as dlgeek already answered to WalterBright: the EA crew followed the procedure and used the cutoff switches
- o-__-o 7y ago
  ...but then turned them back on afterwards because they weren’t sure if that was the correct action. MCAS reenabled until aerodynamic failure caused the crash (wind speed prevented elevator from rising). Ultimately, more knowledge in the cockpit would have helped, see previous LA flight where pilot with training knew the correct action to take.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  They did use the cutoff switches with the nose down too far. The correct procedure (as stated in the Airworthiness Directive distributed to all MAX crews) is to use the column trim switches to restore normal trim, then use the cutoff switches. They had already used the column trim switches twice to restore normal trim. https://theaircurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/B737-MAX-AD-1107.pdf https://theaircurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/B737-MA...

jquery 7y ago

The outrage mob over this has made it difficult for the whole truth to surface. For months, many people have said exactly what Walter is saying in this thread, Walter just happens to be more eloquent and qualified than other people who have made generally the same points. Most of these people receive insults and downvotes so they stop talking about it. This leads to the classic “spiral of outrage” and the truth becomes lost. I’m tooting my own horn here, but I’ve said what Walter has said in previous threads, and my comments were often downvoted into invisibility and I eventually gave up trying to point out that the pilots, the airlines, and the maintenance staff of the 737-MAX deserve some portion of the blame in addition to Boeing. Planes have become so safe that some airlines skip out on pilot emergency safety training, and Airworthiness Directives were ignored by the two airlines which had a 737-MAX crash. This doesn’t mean that Boeing has no culpability, but it does mean that Boeing is not the sole party at fault. For everyone saying “Boeing cut costs and cost lives”, this is equally true for the airlines which skimped on pilot training and skimped on maintenance. The 737-MAX crashes were the result of a series of bad decisions and mistakes, not merely the result of bad MCAS system design. Note: my late father worked at Boeing for 25 years so I have some personal reasons for wanting to defend Boeing. My mother’s widow pension is also dependent on Boeing stock not cratering into the ground.

jacobush 7y ago
I may be bigoted, but I expect very little from certain countries, but quite a lot from Boeing.
- jquery 7y ago
  >The paradox is that the failures of the 737 Max were really the product of an incredible success: a decades-long transformation of the whole business of flying, in which airplanes became so automated and accidents so rare that a cheap air-travel boom was able to take root around the world. Along the way, though, this system never managed to fully account for the unexpected: for the moment when technology fails and humans — a growing population of more than 300,000 airline pilots of variable and largely unpredictable skills — are required to intervene. In the drama of the 737 Max, it was the decisions made by four of those pilots, more than the failure of a single obscure component, that led to 346 deaths and the worldwide grounding of the entire fleet. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/magazine/boeing-737-max-crashes.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/magazine/boeing-737-max-c... In a way, these accidents were inevitable. When safety is so assured, some airlines will begin to take a casual approach to training their pilots. Post-accident, this leads to Boeing/Airbus making their planes even more immune to poor airmanship, and the virtuous cycle continues until another accident inevitably happens, and Boeing/Airbus get fingered instead of the airline (because we want to blame the agents we think we can change, rather than the agents we cannot change).

pdonis 7y ago

> Walter's are the first comments I have read that make me think perhaps Boeing wasn't completely, utterly, criminally unjustified. They shouldn't make you think that; the fact that, considered in the abstract, there were actions the pilots could have taken that would have avoided the fatal crashes does not change the fact that Boeing designed a system where the failure of a single sensor could cause a fatal accident. There can be responsibility in both places.