5 ms·

I think instead of talking about the past 2 accidents so much, at this point the question is if the current system is safe enough. I wish he went more into the

I think instead of talking about the past 2 accidents so much, at this point the question is if the current system is safe enough. I wish he went more into the details of the software certification.

sho_hn 6y ago
The key point I took away from the article is that some complex interactions with and misbehaviors of the autothrottle system remain unaddressed in the upgrades (or at least Boeing was not ordered to make changes there, and Jacobsen chose to make this public, so presumably they remain unaddressed), so I think it answers your question.
- xiphias2 6y ago
  For some reason the pilots are still confident enough to fly the new planes, though they don’t have many options now that a big part of them have been laid off because of the coronavirus. It seems that now the Boeing hopes that those complex interactions are rare enough that they don’t pose a serious problem. We’ll see in a few years.
  - sho_hn 6y ago
    One takeaway I got from reading many articles like this over the past two years: Airplanes are a lot like JavaScript, quirky and full of gotchas, and what the pilots rely on is being well-informed and having access to good documentation on the evil. Everything seems to rely on a complex system of diseminating errata through bulletins, checklist and manual updates and training. The best airplane might not be the most bug-free but the best documented and most well-understood. The worst airplane may be the one with the most undefined or unknown (by pilots) behavior. Part of what made this such a fiasco is that the behavior and interactions of these systems were purposely not documented and kept not just from the FAA, but pilots in particular. This meant they had no chance to do their job well and operate the equipment correctly. Add to this manufacturers reaching for "pilot error" quickly and as a pilot I'd imagine being rather pissed off. This seems interesting with the 737 in particular: It's been around for a long time and was probably considered well-understood. Boeing introduced the MAX telling everyone "it's still the same", and then threw pilots one gigantic (as well as defectively implemented) curveball. Instead, deviations from and additions to a well-known system should have been pointed out and documented especially well. It also seems to suggest there must be a system complexity ceiling where pilot recall of checklists and subsystem interaction permutations fails to scale anymore, and the addition of new systems probably needs to be evaluated against that notion. Assistance systems like MCAS are supposed to make things easier - but their edge cases and interactions potentially carry a "recall tax". Another pattern I see in articles like this (another example is the A380 engine failure in I think a Quantas plane years ago) is that planes rely on informing pilots of subsystem state through what's basically a stack of notification message dialogs with the goal to get pilots to explicitly confirm/react to each one, but that means by the time the pilot has time to work through the stack during a crisis the content may already be outdated, or there's no time to tend to the stack to begin with. There may be better UX designs possible such as master system diagrams with status? Dunno. Note: I'm a layman, and in topics like this I feel uneasy whenever I relay or suggest what may be based on wrong assumptions.
    - marshmallow_12 6y ago
      Also on the subject of documentation, I understand that the manufacturers regularly update their manuals. the owners are legally required to have these manuals. They are therefore compelled to shell out exorbitant sums of money for something that should be free. Can't remember where i picked up this tidbit.
jskrablin 6y ago
That remains to be seen. However it still doesn't inspire a lot of trust. Wondering what would the fallout be if another MAX crashed because of another ugly hack turned deadly.
- xiphias2 6y ago
  It seems to me like Boeing management doesn’t care, they just want their stock bonuses as soon as possible to finance their lifestyle.
  - Raptor22 6y ago
    I feel like if the average person knew just how right you are, not just about Boeing but about almost every major company, there would be unending riots across the U.S. Management pretty much across the board only care and understand one thing: money. You want safer planes? Take every Boeing manager's bonus and stock away for a few years. That'll get their attention.
- inetsee 6y ago
  I would image that if another Boeing 737 Max crashes, especially if it crashed in the United States, that it would be the end of Boeing as an airliner manufacturer. I could see all the 737 Maxes ending up in an aircraft boneyard, and airlines looking at alternatives for other classes of aircraft too.
  - interestica 6y ago
    I think Boeing is just in the too-big-to-let-fail group-- especially if we enter a post-pandemic world on a rebound. The US wouldn't let such a key company fall -- especially as China pushes their competing airplanes. A US-crash, I think, would push greater scrutiny and overhaul of the FAA. Boeing could shift some of the blame to them. And they could actually benefit in the long run (as terrible as that is.)
yborg 6y ago
The thing that should really be discussed is that given the full regulatory capture of the FAA over the last 20 years, how many other such hidden timebombs exist in the complex software systems in aircraft. As a software tester, it's actually fairly amazing to me that planes these days don't fall from the skies every day.
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
  It's because we test planes and use old designs for a long time, hard for a 30 year old plane to fall out of the sky for something that hasn't been found in 30 years.

I think instead of talking about the past 2 accidents so much, at this point the question is if the current system is safe enough. I wish he went more into the details of the software certification.

sho_hn 6y ago

The key point I took away from the article is that some complex interactions with and misbehaviors of the autothrottle system remain unaddressed in the upgrades (or at least Boeing was not ordered to make changes there, and Jacobsen chose to make this public, so presumably they remain unaddressed), so I think it answers your question.

xiphias2 6y ago
For some reason the pilots are still confident enough to fly the new planes, though they don’t have many options now that a big part of them have been laid off because of the coronavirus. It seems that now the Boeing hopes that those complex interactions are rare enough that they don’t pose a serious problem. We’ll see in a few years.
- sho_hn 6y ago
  One takeaway I got from reading many articles like this over the past two years: Airplanes are a lot like JavaScript, quirky and full of gotchas, and what the pilots rely on is being well-informed and having access to good documentation on the evil. Everything seems to rely on a complex system of diseminating errata through bulletins, checklist and manual updates and training. The best airplane might not be the most bug-free but the best documented and most well-understood. The worst airplane may be the one with the most undefined or unknown (by pilots) behavior. Part of what made this such a fiasco is that the behavior and interactions of these systems were purposely not documented and kept not just from the FAA, but pilots in particular. This meant they had no chance to do their job well and operate the equipment correctly. Add to this manufacturers reaching for "pilot error" quickly and as a pilot I'd imagine being rather pissed off. This seems interesting with the 737 in particular: It's been around for a long time and was probably considered well-understood. Boeing introduced the MAX telling everyone "it's still the same", and then threw pilots one gigantic (as well as defectively implemented) curveball. Instead, deviations from and additions to a well-known system should have been pointed out and documented especially well. It also seems to suggest there must be a system complexity ceiling where pilot recall of checklists and subsystem interaction permutations fails to scale anymore, and the addition of new systems probably needs to be evaluated against that notion. Assistance systems like MCAS are supposed to make things easier - but their edge cases and interactions potentially carry a "recall tax". Another pattern I see in articles like this (another example is the A380 engine failure in I think a Quantas plane years ago) is that planes rely on informing pilots of subsystem state through what's basically a stack of notification message dialogs with the goal to get pilots to explicitly confirm/react to each one, but that means by the time the pilot has time to work through the stack during a crisis the content may already be outdated, or there's no time to tend to the stack to begin with. There may be better UX designs possible such as master system diagrams with status? Dunno. Note: I'm a layman, and in topics like this I feel uneasy whenever I relay or suggest what may be based on wrong assumptions.
  - marshmallow_12 6y ago
    Also on the subject of documentation, I understand that the manufacturers regularly update their manuals. the owners are legally required to have these manuals. They are therefore compelled to shell out exorbitant sums of money for something that should be free. Can't remember where i picked up this tidbit.

jskrablin 6y ago

That remains to be seen. However it still doesn't inspire a lot of trust. Wondering what would the fallout be if another MAX crashed because of another ugly hack turned deadly.

xiphias2 6y ago
It seems to me like Boeing management doesn’t care, they just want their stock bonuses as soon as possible to finance their lifestyle.
- Raptor22 6y ago
  I feel like if the average person knew just how right you are, not just about Boeing but about almost every major company, there would be unending riots across the U.S. Management pretty much across the board only care and understand one thing: money. You want safer planes? Take every Boeing manager's bonus and stock away for a few years. That'll get their attention.
inetsee 6y ago
I would image that if another Boeing 737 Max crashes, especially if it crashed in the United States, that it would be the end of Boeing as an airliner manufacturer. I could see all the 737 Maxes ending up in an aircraft boneyard, and airlines looking at alternatives for other classes of aircraft too.
- interestica 6y ago
  I think Boeing is just in the too-big-to-let-fail group-- especially if we enter a post-pandemic world on a rebound. The US wouldn't let such a key company fall -- especially as China pushes their competing airplanes. A US-crash, I think, would push greater scrutiny and overhaul of the FAA. Boeing could shift some of the blame to them. And they could actually benefit in the long run (as terrible as that is.)

yborg 6y ago

The thing that should really be discussed is that given the full regulatory capture of the FAA over the last 20 years, how many other such hidden timebombs exist in the complex software systems in aircraft. As a software tester, it's actually fairly amazing to me that planes these days don't fall from the skies every day.

WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
It's because we test planes and use old designs for a long time, hard for a 30 year old plane to fall out of the sky for something that hasn't been found in 30 years.