5 ms·

I sympathize with the engineers there. It's like a bug that will not go away in some software. You think you've fixed it and all seems well and you get a good

I sympathize with the engineers there. It's like a bug that will not go away in some software. You think you've fixed it and all seems well and you get a good nights sleep with the gleam of satisfaction in your eyes. But the next day your manager says "That bug is still there". You incredulously do not believe that bug report and go to replicate it yourself. And surely, under some edge weird case scenario, it really happened. You put the fix in and uneasily sleep the next night. You actually dreamed about the issue. And wake the morning with no reports. Over the next weeks and months, its all good. No new reports. and your mind has turned to some new projects. Surely that bug has been squashed. And then one day... I feel their pain. It's not the same, because lives and reputations are at stake. It's so much worse.But I feel their pain.

na85 6y ago
Aerospace engineer here. From TFA: >A component of the main electric trim system became inoperative. Our pilots ran the appropriate checklist, which included manually trimming the aircraft. They returned to MIA and landed uneventfully. The issue was not related to MCAS. That statement is from the airline, not from Boeing, so I'm more inclined to trust it. Additionally, if the airline lies and it turns up on an airworthiness audit (air maintenance organizations are subject to regular audits) then the penalties are quite severe. In any case, per the airline's statement it was an issue unrelated to MCAS. Aircraft break literally every day in a myriad of ways that are often invisible/imperceptible to people riding on that very aircraft. In this particular case it was some unspecified component of the electric trim system. You can look up the Master Minimum Equipment List for the B737[0] and see for yourself just how granular the approved maintenance program gets for aircraft like this. Everything on the MMEL is essentially an item that can be broken and the aircraft can still take off legally. Note that this is a different (and more rigorous) standard than "can be broken and aircraft can take off/operate safely". I don't know exactly what broke here but I suspect it is a part that has broken on 737s hundreds if not thousands of times in the past, with similar outcomes. I merely dabble in software but to further your analogy: This situation is when you've been dreaming about that bug for weeks and you get the call from the boss thinking it has recurred but instead it turns out it was a similar-smelling failure caused by some intern's microservice not failing gracefully when confronted with a network outage that brought down the system anyways. [0] https://fsims.faa.gov/wdocs/mmel/b-737%20r55a.htm https://fsims.faa.gov/wdocs/mmel/b-737%20r55a.htm
- worker767424 6y ago
  But this doesn't feed the machine that is the 24-hour news cycle. I fully expect cable news to try to declare "more trouble for troubled plane," even though it appears to be a garden variety failure.
  - weego 6y ago
    I think that attempts to whitewash the fact that Boeing have managed to burn the trust it spent decades building on the space of 2 or 3 years. This is the natural outcome -- until time proves otherwise again, every failure will be under a lens
    - corndoge 6y ago
      > until time proves otherwise again, every failure will be under a lens But it's really not every failure. There were 2 other failures on Boeing airliners yesterday alone and nobody posted the other two. American B38M near Nassau on Mar 29th 2021, pitch trim issue/failure (OP's article) Southwest B737 at Denver on Mar 30th 2021, speedbrake arming issue United B739 at Denver on Mar 30th 2021, flaps problem Day before Batik B739 at Semarang on Mar 28th 2021, hydraulic fault Aeroflot B738 at Krasnodar on Mar 28th 2021, flaps problems Day before that ANA B773 over Pacific on Mar 28th 2021, engine shut down in flight iAero B734 near Evansville on Mar 27th 2021, loss of cabin pressure Here's a 737-800 with a similar electrical trim issue recently https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLonztIXXWQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLonztIXXWQ You probably didn't hear about that one Like others said these aircraft fail every single day. People who read about them don't post them on HN because they're so common.
      - timw4mail 6y ago
        Not to mention that the 737 series of planes is the most produced passenger plane in history. The odds of none of them having issues on a given day is slim.
- mypalmike 6y ago
  These common imperceptible failures... Do they involve the aircraft turning around and flying an hour back to the departure airport?
trynton 6y ago
It's not the engineers pain, as it wasn't an engineering decision to mount the engines higher and forward of the wing. Precipiting a pronounced nose-up aspect. All the same, I admire your attempt to deflect blame from the management at boeing.
- koonsolo 6y ago
  It's definitely the engineers pain. It's clear that management is the cause of all this shit, but the problem now lies in the engineers lap. So who has to solve it? Right, the engineers.
  - sofixa 6y ago
    They're the ones that accepted and designed an unsafe aircraft ( a single sensor known for failure feeding a critical system that can crash an airplane? And they hid it from the FAA? They absolutely knew what they were doing and should rot in jail for at least a few years).
- ramblerman 6y ago
  > I admire your attempt to deflect blame from the management at boeing. Bah, what a vile comment. He didn't contest that at all. It's the engineers who will have to go through this exercise of fixing it, and he identified something most of us can probably relate to.
igravious 6y ago
FTA: "The issue was not related to MCAS"
BillyTheKing 6y ago
the good old programming testing rule: the number of bugs you will find in a piece of software is proportional to the number of bugs you already found
- eric4smith 6y ago
  Lol so true.

na85 6y ago

Aerospace engineer here. From TFA: >A component of the main electric trim system became inoperative. Our pilots ran the appropriate checklist, which included manually trimming the aircraft. They returned to MIA and landed uneventfully. The issue was not related to MCAS. That statement is from the airline, not from Boeing, so I'm more inclined to trust it. Additionally, if the airline lies and it turns up on an airworthiness audit (air maintenance organizations are subject to regular audits) then the penalties are quite severe. In any case, per the airline's statement it was an issue unrelated to MCAS. Aircraft break literally every day in a myriad of ways that are often invisible/imperceptible to people riding on that very aircraft. In this particular case it was some unspecified component of the electric trim system. You can look up the Master Minimum Equipment List for the B737[0] and see for yourself just how granular the approved maintenance program gets for aircraft like this. Everything on the MMEL is essentially an item that can be broken and the aircraft can still take off legally. Note that this is a different (and more rigorous) standard than "can be broken and aircraft can take off/operate safely". I don't know exactly what broke here but I suspect it is a part that has broken on 737s hundreds if not thousands of times in the past, with similar outcomes. I merely dabble in software but to further your analogy: This situation is when you've been dreaming about that bug for weeks and you get the call from the boss thinking it has recurred but instead it turns out it was a similar-smelling failure caused by some intern's microservice not failing gracefully when confronted with a network outage that brought down the system anyways. [0] https://fsims.faa.gov/wdocs/mmel/b-737%20r55a.htm https://fsims.faa.gov/wdocs/mmel/b-737%20r55a.htm

worker767424 6y ago
But this doesn't feed the machine that is the 24-hour news cycle. I fully expect cable news to try to declare "more trouble for troubled plane," even though it appears to be a garden variety failure.
- weego 6y ago
  I think that attempts to whitewash the fact that Boeing have managed to burn the trust it spent decades building on the space of 2 or 3 years. This is the natural outcome -- until time proves otherwise again, every failure will be under a lens
  - corndoge 6y ago
    > until time proves otherwise again, every failure will be under a lens But it's really not every failure. There were 2 other failures on Boeing airliners yesterday alone and nobody posted the other two. American B38M near Nassau on Mar 29th 2021, pitch trim issue/failure (OP's article) Southwest B737 at Denver on Mar 30th 2021, speedbrake arming issue United B739 at Denver on Mar 30th 2021, flaps problem Day before Batik B739 at Semarang on Mar 28th 2021, hydraulic fault Aeroflot B738 at Krasnodar on Mar 28th 2021, flaps problems Day before that ANA B773 over Pacific on Mar 28th 2021, engine shut down in flight iAero B734 near Evansville on Mar 27th 2021, loss of cabin pressure Here's a 737-800 with a similar electrical trim issue recently https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLonztIXXWQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLonztIXXWQ You probably didn't hear about that one Like others said these aircraft fail every single day. People who read about them don't post them on HN because they're so common.
    - timw4mail 6y ago
      Not to mention that the 737 series of planes is the most produced passenger plane in history. The odds of none of them having issues on a given day is slim.
mypalmike 6y ago
These common imperceptible failures... Do they involve the aircraft turning around and flying an hour back to the departure airport?

trynton 6y ago

It's not the engineers pain, as it wasn't an engineering decision to mount the engines higher and forward of the wing. Precipiting a pronounced nose-up aspect. All the same, I admire your attempt to deflect blame from the management at boeing.

koonsolo 6y ago
It's definitely the engineers pain. It's clear that management is the cause of all this shit, but the problem now lies in the engineers lap. So who has to solve it? Right, the engineers.
- sofixa 6y ago
  They're the ones that accepted and designed an unsafe aircraft ( a single sensor known for failure feeding a critical system that can crash an airplane? And they hid it from the FAA? They absolutely knew what they were doing and should rot in jail for at least a few years).
ramblerman 6y ago
> I admire your attempt to deflect blame from the management at boeing. Bah, what a vile comment. He didn't contest that at all. It's the engineers who will have to go through this exercise of fixing it, and he identified something most of us can probably relate to.

igravious 6y ago

FTA: "The issue was not related to MCAS"

BillyTheKing 6y ago

the good old programming testing rule: the number of bugs you will find in a piece of software is proportional to the number of bugs you already found

eric4smith 6y ago
Lol so true.