10 ms·

Max: Boeing 'inappropriately coached' pilots in test after crashes

229 points by aluket 6y ago

helsinkiandrew 6y ago
> Investigators accused Boeing and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials of "attempting to cover up important information". This will hamper peoples trust in both Boeing and the FAA for years. It doesn't take much for flyers to choose an alternate flight that isn't on a Boeing. And for overseas aviation authorities to not trust FAA airworthiness certificates.
- avh02 6y ago
  you'd be surprised at how often they'll change a plane out. In europe at least I tend to get told about that, but not sure how much of a right i have to object to or refund that flight. Pretty sure part of the terms and conditions are "we can change your plane out for operational reasons".
  - waheoo 6y ago
    So ask for a ticket with the terms of conditions allowing you to refuse that switch and be able to wait for a suitable replacement.
    - umanwizard 6y ago
      Are you seriously suggesting it’s possible for normal consumers to negotiate boilerplate in airline ticket contracts?
      - markdown 6y ago
        Maybe they meant pay for a more expensive ticket. In my country the national airline sells different types of tickets. You can get cheap non-refundable, non-transferable tickets, or you can pay more to get a ticket that allows you to reschedule any time.
      - waheoo 6y ago
        Yes. Are you suggesting they can't? I didn't say they would succeed, but that's not really the point. If people don't ask for this, no airline will implement it. The airline industry has made customer segmentation an artform. They manage to charge hundreds of people different prices for the exact same service. You don't think they can add a premium upgrade that lets you choose the aircraft type? Get outta here. Maybe that's what's wrong with the world. People aren't taught to ask for the things they want and just blindly accept the status quo. Don't bother responding. The downvotes for my suggestion speaks for itself. Sheople.
        II2II 6y ago
        > I didn't say they would succeed, but that's not really the point. If people don't ask for this, no airline will implement it. If you address the right people in the right way in writing, you may elicit a written response and (if you're extremely lucky) some form of compensation. It is very doubtful that many companies that can afford a 747 Max will change their operations unless political pressure is put on them due to an extreme imbalance of power. If we lived in a world where the imbalance did not exist, things would be different. In some cases, we can see that in smaller airlines which tend to be more responsive to customer concerns and needs. But those companies are flying much smaller planes to start with.
        waheoo 6y ago
        There are plenty of operators that already have flight routes not serviced by Boeing. They would more than happy to guarantee certain tickets a certain flight with a certain seat.
nitinreddy88 6y ago
Its already discussed here and was in front page for a while: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25473215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25473215
phire 6y ago
They were testing to see if pilot reaction times were fast enough to counter MCAS. > The whistleblower alleges Boeing officials were present for the testing and encouraged the test pilots to “remember, get right on that pickle switch” immediately prior to the exercise. > “Pickle switch” refers to the stabilizer trim control switches The implication is that the pilot reaction times were only fast enough to counter the original MCAS design if they were explicitly reminded how to react immediately before the exercise.
- SahAssar 6y ago
  Seems weird that pilots doing tests for boeing would need to be reminded about MCAS countermeasures, I would have guessed that would be on their mind already.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  I mean, if pilots know they're there to test the MCAS changes then surely they'll be right on it anyway. So the whole "test" is sort of pointless isn't it?
  - yk 6y ago
    I would guess that depends on how complicated the entire thing is, if they have ten possible solutions and get told to try the one that works first would certainly improve reaction times. However, that to me points to the larger problem, that "Boeing officials," whoever that group may entail precisely, treat the 737 Max safety as a test that needs to be passed, instead of a safety problem, that would require best effort.
  - gbin 6y ago
    Unfortunately this is true for a lot of professional certifications. The goal is too often not really to teach anything but protect the company from liability.
    - LatteLazy 6y ago
      It reminds me a bit the "training" we do in finance. Is the right answer "call the police" or "help the terrorist hide the money in offshore accounts"?
mrkwse 6y ago
I'm unfamiliar with the FAA so is there a particular set of circumstances that would give incentive to them being complicit in the cover up? Do Boeing contribute funding to the FAA in a direct and discretionary way? I can't comprehend how a federal body would aid a private company like this when the ramifications could be so severe (threat to life and to the FAA's public credibility).
- markus_zhang 6y ago
  The old buddy network.
- voisin 6y ago
  > I can't comprehend how a federal body would aid a private company like this when the ramifications could be so severe (threat to life and to the FAA's public credibility). Entrenched government agencies never appear to have concern about public credibility. Their security is guaranteed not by the public but by politicians, and these same politicians are the beneficiaries of donations by large corporations like Boeing. Further, large corporations employ lots of people who would be rather pissed off if they lost their job. So by punishing the large corporation, the agency would in effect be giving an incentive to its key stakeholder (politicians) an incentive to punish the agency (limiting authority, etc). The world is a messed up place, where agencies tasked to do a very specific thing undermine that task out of self-preservation.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - dm319 6y ago
    Not sure it's the whole world. US lobbying is something not really seen in a lot of other countries.
- f6v 6y ago
t_henry 6y ago
It is a pity that this study did not mention such Boeing flaws, I would certainly update it: https://ivypanda.com/essays/boeing-strategic-plan/ https://ivypanda.com/essays/boeing-strategic-plan/
joantune 6y ago
They definitely deserve to 'go under' because of the way they handled this. Anything less and it's going to be enabling these shannanigans
- pps43 6y ago
  If Boeing goes under, then Airbus becomes a monopoly.
  - erikpukinskis 6y ago
    Or more likely some other American aerospace buys the assets for cheap and the business merrily continues on. People act like corporate death is similar to the death of a person. It’s not. The body parts just get shuffled around into other companies.
bartread 6y ago
Hang on: Boeing and FAA officials coached test pilots towards an outcome of a test related to a system where, if there were a problem with it (as there has been in the past), people will die in relatively large numbers (as they have in the past)? What is wrong with these people? If the plane can't be brought up to snuff without you fudging the test results then you can the thing. There is no other way. Because if you don't can it what's going to happen? More crashes. The subsequent investigations will reveal that there is still a problem with the plane. Investigators will follow the trail back to the certification, and then you'll find yourselves in a whole heap of trouble. Oh, and Boeing will go under. Where's your shareholder value then? Of all the short-sighted, obtuse, shady, unethical, blithering idiocy we have all witnessed in various quarters in 2020 this ranks amongst the worst. I honestly no longer care what the certification status of the 737 Max is. There is such a cloud of untrustworthiness around the plane, its systems and its certifications that there is no way I will ever risk flying on one. Boeing have done some amazing things in the past. The 747, for example, was for its time an extraordinary aircraft and is still without doubt the most iconic passenger airliner even today. The Boeing museum near Seattle is incredible, and I highly recommend it. In more recent years it's clear that they've lost their way, but I hope that they are able to get back on track, and back to building more amazing aircraft. It's time to let the 737 Max die though.
- sumanthvepa 6y ago
  I agree. The decline of Boeing started with the merger with McDonald Douglas. Douglas, was famously lead by bean counters to Boeing's engineering driven culture. And the bean counters won.
- clueless123 6y ago
  I might be biased (I am an engineer) but I call this behaviour " MBA mentality VS Engineer mentality". Is this malady that slowly has infected top engineering firms (Read HP, Boeing, IBM) and converted them into "sales organizations" that rely on marketing and old reputation to survive. MBA's concentrate on the (albeit short term) profits, Engineers concentrate on the the product.
  - 6y ago
jonplackett 6y ago
I’m shocked! Boeing and the FAA have proven to be such a truthful and reliable company up to now... Do I need to put a big Borat style Naaaat on the end to stop these down votes?
bjarneh 6y ago
Didn't Ryan Air just buy 75 of these?
- ichbinwiederda 6y ago
  Yes. It goes to show how much they care about safety.
  - hansthehorse 6y ago
    Boeing is practically giving them away. I'm sure that fed into Ryan Air's decision.
    - bjarneh 6y ago
      I guess that airline really feels somewhat left out as many of the "national" ones (Lufthansa, SAS etc.) are getting enormous amounts of money as Corona relief, while they are on their own. Too bad they are making up for the difference with these planes
  - bjarneh 6y ago
    Sounds crazy nonetheless, everything that leaks about this plane makes it look like a lemon
boublepop 6y ago
So in the tests to the feature that they claimed did not need additional pilot training to be safe, they effectively provided spot training for the pilots testing it to demonstrate that training wasn’t needed... Am I getting this right? At what point do these people start to become criminally liable for all the deaths caused by this circus?
blackrock 6y ago
It seems that you’re not going to die, if the pilot is from a major western airliner company. However, if the 737 Max is flown by a pilot from a 3rd world country, then, yes, you might die. And this was the problem to begin with. The pilots in 3rd world countries were not even trained on the 737 Max. They just told them, that it flew the same way as the older 737 planes. To everyone’s horror, they found out the hard way. While the plane was in flight.

229 points by aluket 6y ago

> Investigators accused Boeing and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials of "attempting to cover up important information". This will hamper peoples trust in both Boeing and the FAA for years. It doesn't take much for flyers to choose an alternate flight that isn't on a Boeing. And for overseas aviation authorities to not trust FAA airworthiness certificates.

avh02 6y ago
you'd be surprised at how often they'll change a plane out. In europe at least I tend to get told about that, but not sure how much of a right i have to object to or refund that flight. Pretty sure part of the terms and conditions are "we can change your plane out for operational reasons".
- waheoo 6y ago
  So ask for a ticket with the terms of conditions allowing you to refuse that switch and be able to wait for a suitable replacement.
  - umanwizard 6y ago
    Are you seriously suggesting it’s possible for normal consumers to negotiate boilerplate in airline ticket contracts?
    - markdown 6y ago
      Maybe they meant pay for a more expensive ticket. In my country the national airline sells different types of tickets. You can get cheap non-refundable, non-transferable tickets, or you can pay more to get a ticket that allows you to reschedule any time.
    - waheoo 6y ago
      Yes. Are you suggesting they can't? I didn't say they would succeed, but that's not really the point. If people don't ask for this, no airline will implement it. The airline industry has made customer segmentation an artform. They manage to charge hundreds of people different prices for the exact same service. You don't think they can add a premium upgrade that lets you choose the aircraft type? Get outta here. Maybe that's what's wrong with the world. People aren't taught to ask for the things they want and just blindly accept the status quo. Don't bother responding. The downvotes for my suggestion speaks for itself. Sheople.
      - II2II 6y ago
        > I didn't say they would succeed, but that's not really the point. If people don't ask for this, no airline will implement it. If you address the right people in the right way in writing, you may elicit a written response and (if you're extremely lucky) some form of compensation. It is very doubtful that many companies that can afford a 747 Max will change their operations unless political pressure is put on them due to an extreme imbalance of power. If we lived in a world where the imbalance did not exist, things would be different. In some cases, we can see that in smaller airlines which tend to be more responsive to customer concerns and needs. But those companies are flying much smaller planes to start with.
        waheoo 6y ago
        There are plenty of operators that already have flight routes not serviced by Boeing. They would more than happy to guarantee certain tickets a certain flight with a certain seat.

nitinreddy88 6y ago

Its already discussed here and was in front page for a while: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25473215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25473215

phire 6y ago

They were testing to see if pilot reaction times were fast enough to counter MCAS. > The whistleblower alleges Boeing officials were present for the testing and encouraged the test pilots to “remember, get right on that pickle switch” immediately prior to the exercise. > “Pickle switch” refers to the stabilizer trim control switches The implication is that the pilot reaction times were only fast enough to counter the original MCAS design if they were explicitly reminded how to react immediately before the exercise.

SahAssar 6y ago
Seems weird that pilots doing tests for boeing would need to be reminded about MCAS countermeasures, I would have guessed that would be on their mind already.
LatteLazy 6y ago
I mean, if pilots know they're there to test the MCAS changes then surely they'll be right on it anyway. So the whole "test" is sort of pointless isn't it?
- yk 6y ago
  I would guess that depends on how complicated the entire thing is, if they have ten possible solutions and get told to try the one that works first would certainly improve reaction times. However, that to me points to the larger problem, that "Boeing officials," whoever that group may entail precisely, treat the 737 Max safety as a test that needs to be passed, instead of a safety problem, that would require best effort.
- gbin 6y ago
  Unfortunately this is true for a lot of professional certifications. The goal is too often not really to teach anything but protect the company from liability.
  - LatteLazy 6y ago
    It reminds me a bit the "training" we do in finance. Is the right answer "call the police" or "help the terrorist hide the money in offshore accounts"?

mrkwse 6y ago

I'm unfamiliar with the FAA so is there a particular set of circumstances that would give incentive to them being complicit in the cover up? Do Boeing contribute funding to the FAA in a direct and discretionary way? I can't comprehend how a federal body would aid a private company like this when the ramifications could be so severe (threat to life and to the FAA's public credibility).

markus_zhang 6y ago
The old buddy network.
voisin 6y ago
> I can't comprehend how a federal body would aid a private company like this when the ramifications could be so severe (threat to life and to the FAA's public credibility). Entrenched government agencies never appear to have concern about public credibility. Their security is guaranteed not by the public but by politicians, and these same politicians are the beneficiaries of donations by large corporations like Boeing. Further, large corporations employ lots of people who would be rather pissed off if they lost their job. So by punishing the large corporation, the agency would in effect be giving an incentive to its key stakeholder (politicians) an incentive to punish the agency (limiting authority, etc). The world is a messed up place, where agencies tasked to do a very specific thing undermine that task out of self-preservation.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- dm319 6y ago
  Not sure it's the whole world. US lobbying is something not really seen in a lot of other countries.
f6v 6y ago

t_henry 6y ago

It is a pity that this study did not mention such Boeing flaws, I would certainly update it: https://ivypanda.com/essays/boeing-strategic-plan/ https://ivypanda.com/essays/boeing-strategic-plan/

joantune 6y ago

They definitely deserve to 'go under' because of the way they handled this. Anything less and it's going to be enabling these shannanigans

pps43 6y ago
If Boeing goes under, then Airbus becomes a monopoly.
- erikpukinskis 6y ago
  Or more likely some other American aerospace buys the assets for cheap and the business merrily continues on. People act like corporate death is similar to the death of a person. It’s not. The body parts just get shuffled around into other companies.

bartread 6y ago

Hang on: Boeing and FAA officials coached test pilots towards an outcome of a test related to a system where, if there were a problem with it (as there has been in the past), people will die in relatively large numbers (as they have in the past)? What is wrong with these people? If the plane can't be brought up to snuff without you fudging the test results then you can the thing. There is no other way. Because if you don't can it what's going to happen? More crashes. The subsequent investigations will reveal that there is still a problem with the plane. Investigators will follow the trail back to the certification, and then you'll find yourselves in a whole heap of trouble. Oh, and Boeing will go under. Where's your shareholder value then? Of all the short-sighted, obtuse, shady, unethical, blithering idiocy we have all witnessed in various quarters in 2020 this ranks amongst the worst. I honestly no longer care what the certification status of the 737 Max is. There is such a cloud of untrustworthiness around the plane, its systems and its certifications that there is no way I will ever risk flying on one. Boeing have done some amazing things in the past. The 747, for example, was for its time an extraordinary aircraft and is still without doubt the most iconic passenger airliner even today. The Boeing museum near Seattle is incredible, and I highly recommend it. In more recent years it's clear that they've lost their way, but I hope that they are able to get back on track, and back to building more amazing aircraft. It's time to let the 737 Max die though.

sumanthvepa 6y ago
I agree. The decline of Boeing started with the merger with McDonald Douglas. Douglas, was famously lead by bean counters to Boeing's engineering driven culture. And the bean counters won.
clueless123 6y ago
I might be biased (I am an engineer) but I call this behaviour " MBA mentality VS Engineer mentality". Is this malady that slowly has infected top engineering firms (Read HP, Boeing, IBM) and converted them into "sales organizations" that rely on marketing and old reputation to survive. MBA's concentrate on the (albeit short term) profits, Engineers concentrate on the the product.
- 6y ago

jonplackett 6y ago

I’m shocked! Boeing and the FAA have proven to be such a truthful and reliable company up to now... Do I need to put a big Borat style Naaaat on the end to stop these down votes?

bjarneh 6y ago

Didn't Ryan Air just buy 75 of these?

ichbinwiederda 6y ago
Yes. It goes to show how much they care about safety.
- hansthehorse 6y ago
  Boeing is practically giving them away. I'm sure that fed into Ryan Air's decision.
  - bjarneh 6y ago
    I guess that airline really feels somewhat left out as many of the "national" ones (Lufthansa, SAS etc.) are getting enormous amounts of money as Corona relief, while they are on their own. Too bad they are making up for the difference with these planes
- bjarneh 6y ago
  Sounds crazy nonetheless, everything that leaks about this plane makes it look like a lemon

boublepop 6y ago

So in the tests to the feature that they claimed did not need additional pilot training to be safe, they effectively provided spot training for the pilots testing it to demonstrate that training wasn’t needed... Am I getting this right? At what point do these people start to become criminally liable for all the deaths caused by this circus?

blackrock 6y ago

It seems that you’re not going to die, if the pilot is from a major western airliner company. However, if the 737 Max is flown by a pilot from a 3rd world country, then, yes, you might die. And this was the problem to begin with. The pilots in 3rd world countries were not even trained on the 737 Max. They just told them, that it flew the same way as the older 737 planes. To everyone’s horror, they found out the hard way. While the plane was in flight.