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The overlooked point is that the MCAS system had been in place and functioning for 10,000 hours +, with hundreds of pilots, and none of them even noticed MCAS e
by tiahura 5y ago
The overlooked point is that the MCAS system had been in place and functioning for 10,000 hours +, with hundreds of pilots, and none of them even noticed MCAS existed.
If not for a brain dead design decision to not check for bad AOA data, we probably still would never have heard of MCAS.
- ncmncm 5y agoEven if ground crews reliably checked and fixed AOAs, we probably would never have heard of it. But ultimately MCAS was a symptom of a failure of process, with people whose entire job was to check and veto designs failing to veto designs, apparently for fear of management pressure. To be clear, the failure was in management. It sucks that people had to die to get us to notice ordinary management failure.
- inferiorhuman 5y ago> none of them even noticed MCAS existed The Lion Air jet had the same MCAS failure on its previous flight. If you dig through ASRS you'll find other reports of uncommanded pitch down events on the MAX. Just because MCAS hadn't yet crashed a plane doesn't mean that nobody noticed its presence.
- kayfox 5y agoThe last time ASRS came up I looked, all of the uncommanded pitch down incidents to that point on MAX aircraft were while the autopilot was connected or flaps extended, those conditions disable MCAS. Do you have examples of incidents that appear otherwise?