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It's really easy to pile on and see every single 737 crash from the past as somehow related to the MAX crashes now. There are actually very few similarities be

It's really easy to pile on and see every single 737 crash from the past as somehow related to the MAX crashes now. There are actually very few similarities between this crash and the MAX crashes. The failure was in one part of a highly redundant system with additional warning systems. The pilots failed to correctly react to the failure and failed to do basic airmanship like monitor their speed until it was too late. Whereas the MAX failures may well have required well-above-average piloting skills and instincts to successfully recover from, this one simply required basic competence and attention.

blub 7y ago
Why are you focusing on the technical dissimilarities instead of the poor design based on one sensor and "blame the pilot" similarities?
- _-___________-_ 7y ago
  I don't believe the concept of "blame" has any place in air accident investigation. Pilots should be able to report their mistakes without fear of prosecution or internet mobs, and investigations should be able to highlight errors on the part of pilots where they exist without the same kind of fears. This is not an automatic system relying on a single sensor, as MCAS was. An airliner in flight is a complex system of which the two pilots are a very significant part. There were multiple failures here, and the technical failure was not particularly unusual. What was quite unusual was a failure of basic airmanship on the part of the pilots. A good investigation would (and did) look at how that situation came about so that training or human-machine interface can be improved to prevent it happening again. It's not about blaming, it's about understanding.
  - iknowalot 7y ago
    That sounds interesting, but I still blame Boeing, liability is about blame and Boeing has been bending over backwards to blame pilots for its own technical failures.
    - _-___________-_ 7y ago
      This kind of absolutism really doesn't help. Air travel has made absolutely enormous strides in safety mostly because of rational investigations that don't focus on one party but try to understand all the factors that lead to an incident. The irrational, emotional response to the MAX incidents is eroding that. Boeing and the FAA definitely have significant issues in culture and oversight. They should be resolved so that Boeing can continue to build safe aircraft and the FAA can effectively oversee the US aviation industry. At the same time, not every pilot in every flight deck is the same. Some are more capable than others. Some have been trained better than others. Some come from a culture where the "power gradient" between captain and first officer is hard to overcome in order to provide effective CRM. Some come from a culture where they're afraid they'll lose their job if they accurately report incidents. All of these things, and more, are factors in air safety. Focusing on one factor or one company really doesn't help.
      - DrScientist 7y ago
        Hmm. Agree willingness to own up and discuss errors is critical to long term airline safety. However you only seem to be applying this to pilots and not to Boeing! Isn't the issue with the MAX, and potentially now earlier episodes, that for perhaps perfectly understandable commercial reasons, Boeing and even the FAA haven't been upfront and honest about engineering issues and how to improve stuff - ie they have been guilty of playing the blame game - on to pilots - who are often conveniently dead.
        _-___________-_ 7y ago
        I think I've been quite clear that I see significant issues within Boeing and the FAA and that they should be resolved. If you ignore the shrill media and look at the actual investigative work going on, I don't think anybody is seriously suggesting that the pilots were the sole cause of the MAX issues, and certainly nobody is "blaming" them. At the same time, I don't know anyone working in aviation who thinks it's 100% a coincidence that the first crashes happened with those two airlines. There are always multiple factors in play. My personal view on it is: the MAX was a flawed design due to the expectations it placed on pilot training, competency and in particular, instinct in a surprising situation. That's it. The aircraft was still capable of flying if the pilots reacted correctly to the failure, and the reaction was one that they were in theory trained for, but it's not reasonable to expect an average pilot to be able to do that instinctively in the time available. Talking about "cost-cutting" or whether a certain engineering decision was made to save money is irrelevant, because engineers make trade-offs every day - that's an important part of their job - and every single aircraft flying (yes, including Airbus!) has a design that involves trade-offs, even in safety-related things. For reasons that are now being explored, Boeing's engineers made faulty assumptions when evaluating those trade-offs, probably augmented by pressure to avoid mandated additional training of pilots, and the regulatory oversight didn't catch it, or didn't want to due to being in a too-close relationship with Boeing. Those are the problems that need to be solved on the aircraft side. I'm sure that given enough time you would have seen MAX crashes from other airlines, but it's no surprise to me that the first crashes (and, in an alternate reality where the MAX continued to fly, likely the majority of the crashes) were with airlines that are well-known in the industry to have lower standards of hiring, training and maintenance. Digging into that might well find some problems that need to be solved on the human side.
  - mannykannot 7y ago
    You can take the word 'blame' out of it, but an investigation still has to find the causes of an accident, and if it involved an action, inaction or delayed action by a pilot, the inquiry should consider whether most pilots would have done the same. There are equivalent issues for the equipment. The issue here is not anything technical, but Boeing's alleged pressure on the inquiry. I say alleged, because Boeing should be allowed to, and in fact should be expected to provide a fact-based analysis of the accident. It is ultimately for the investigators and regulators to decide if it is being tendentious and/or manipulative.
    - _-___________-_ 7y ago
      Yes, causes (emphasis on the plural). I really don't see evidence of pressure, and apparently neither did the Dutch investigators. The "whether most pilots would have done the same" is probably where I see the biggest differences between this and the MCAS incidents. Every student pilot knows to monitor their speed, especially in a low-energy situation like approach and landing. Very few student pilots could successfully have recovered from the trim upsets caused by MCAS.

blub 7y ago

Why are you focusing on the technical dissimilarities instead of the poor design based on one sensor and "blame the pilot" similarities?

_-___________-_ 7y ago
I don't believe the concept of "blame" has any place in air accident investigation. Pilots should be able to report their mistakes without fear of prosecution or internet mobs, and investigations should be able to highlight errors on the part of pilots where they exist without the same kind of fears. This is not an automatic system relying on a single sensor, as MCAS was. An airliner in flight is a complex system of which the two pilots are a very significant part. There were multiple failures here, and the technical failure was not particularly unusual. What was quite unusual was a failure of basic airmanship on the part of the pilots. A good investigation would (and did) look at how that situation came about so that training or human-machine interface can be improved to prevent it happening again. It's not about blaming, it's about understanding.
- iknowalot 7y ago
  That sounds interesting, but I still blame Boeing, liability is about blame and Boeing has been bending over backwards to blame pilots for its own technical failures.
  - _-___________-_ 7y ago
    This kind of absolutism really doesn't help. Air travel has made absolutely enormous strides in safety mostly because of rational investigations that don't focus on one party but try to understand all the factors that lead to an incident. The irrational, emotional response to the MAX incidents is eroding that. Boeing and the FAA definitely have significant issues in culture and oversight. They should be resolved so that Boeing can continue to build safe aircraft and the FAA can effectively oversee the US aviation industry. At the same time, not every pilot in every flight deck is the same. Some are more capable than others. Some have been trained better than others. Some come from a culture where the "power gradient" between captain and first officer is hard to overcome in order to provide effective CRM. Some come from a culture where they're afraid they'll lose their job if they accurately report incidents. All of these things, and more, are factors in air safety. Focusing on one factor or one company really doesn't help.
    - DrScientist 7y ago
      Hmm. Agree willingness to own up and discuss errors is critical to long term airline safety. However you only seem to be applying this to pilots and not to Boeing! Isn't the issue with the MAX, and potentially now earlier episodes, that for perhaps perfectly understandable commercial reasons, Boeing and even the FAA haven't been upfront and honest about engineering issues and how to improve stuff - ie they have been guilty of playing the blame game - on to pilots - who are often conveniently dead.
      - _-___________-_ 7y ago
        I think I've been quite clear that I see significant issues within Boeing and the FAA and that they should be resolved. If you ignore the shrill media and look at the actual investigative work going on, I don't think anybody is seriously suggesting that the pilots were the sole cause of the MAX issues, and certainly nobody is "blaming" them. At the same time, I don't know anyone working in aviation who thinks it's 100% a coincidence that the first crashes happened with those two airlines. There are always multiple factors in play. My personal view on it is: the MAX was a flawed design due to the expectations it placed on pilot training, competency and in particular, instinct in a surprising situation. That's it. The aircraft was still capable of flying if the pilots reacted correctly to the failure, and the reaction was one that they were in theory trained for, but it's not reasonable to expect an average pilot to be able to do that instinctively in the time available. Talking about "cost-cutting" or whether a certain engineering decision was made to save money is irrelevant, because engineers make trade-offs every day - that's an important part of their job - and every single aircraft flying (yes, including Airbus!) has a design that involves trade-offs, even in safety-related things. For reasons that are now being explored, Boeing's engineers made faulty assumptions when evaluating those trade-offs, probably augmented by pressure to avoid mandated additional training of pilots, and the regulatory oversight didn't catch it, or didn't want to due to being in a too-close relationship with Boeing. Those are the problems that need to be solved on the aircraft side. I'm sure that given enough time you would have seen MAX crashes from other airlines, but it's no surprise to me that the first crashes (and, in an alternate reality where the MAX continued to fly, likely the majority of the crashes) were with airlines that are well-known in the industry to have lower standards of hiring, training and maintenance. Digging into that might well find some problems that need to be solved on the human side.
- mannykannot 7y ago
  You can take the word 'blame' out of it, but an investigation still has to find the causes of an accident, and if it involved an action, inaction or delayed action by a pilot, the inquiry should consider whether most pilots would have done the same. There are equivalent issues for the equipment. The issue here is not anything technical, but Boeing's alleged pressure on the inquiry. I say alleged, because Boeing should be allowed to, and in fact should be expected to provide a fact-based analysis of the accident. It is ultimately for the investigators and regulators to decide if it is being tendentious and/or manipulative.
  - _-___________-_ 7y ago
    Yes, causes (emphasis on the plural). I really don't see evidence of pressure, and apparently neither did the Dutch investigators. The "whether most pilots would have done the same" is probably where I see the biggest differences between this and the MCAS incidents. Every student pilot knows to monitor their speed, especially in a low-energy situation like approach and landing. Very few student pilots could successfully have recovered from the trim upsets caused by MCAS.