Originally Posted by
A0283
@
737driver
A normal (fatalities included) accident safety investigation (the path that I am trying to follow) roughly takes a year. Complex ones can take more years (the 737 rudder reversals took many more years). Your "100%" statement, if true, would make fools of the majority of accident investigators. Including US investigations. That can not be your intention.
That is not my intention. I understand that it takes time to flesh out all the details in a final accident report. However, enough information may be present during the preliminary phase that indicates the need for immediate action. The obvious example in this case is that the certificate authorities did not wait for the final report to order the grounding of the MAX. Similarly, I would argue that there is enough evidence of crew member lapses, particularly when taken together with a trend that spans airlines and airframes, that we should not wait until the ink is dry on the final report before we do something about it.
My impression is that you create (unintentional) confusion on these pages by acknowledging failures of all parties in the system (you have written an excellent short post on this a number of pages back) . But then quickly and repeatedly focussing elaborately on the failure of the pilots. Which can give the general reader the idea that you are only bashing the heads of these four guys. The style of writing (for an international audience including non-native english speakers) could also be perceived by some as a bit (unintentional) arrogant and bullying. Which is something people dont expect from a (CRM) cockpit.
As I have already stated on several occasions, while there was a definite chain of causation, the people who populate this forum only really have the power to address the remedy for one link in that chain - the crew performance. We can bash Boeing all we want, but there is not a thing said on PPRuNe that is going to have a direct effect on Boeing. Personally, I'm not into complaining just to complain. If I'm going to invest my time and energy here, I would like to think that I might just move the needle some and get a reasonable number of the professional aviators who populate this forum thinking about how they can change how they approach their flying so that future accidents may be avoided. That starts with admitting, that yes, there really is a problem with the existing standards and expectations for professional pilots.
As far as my writing style, it is what it is. I am passionate about this subject, and I'm sure it comes through. I suspect I am also a bit irritating because I am uncompromisingly presenting a message that some people just do not want to hear. Boeing did not produce a resilient aircraft in the MAX. Likewise, the current pilot training pipeline is not producing resilient aviators. When the MAX is fixed, which one of those problems are we left with?
The viewpoint that I myself try to take in this accident thread is that of trying to understand facts and doings of all the parties involved. If you take that overall view, then Boeing and FAA actions appear to be (many many facts 'pending') 'unprecedented' and 'incomprehensible' and contra the long established Boeing culture (at least before the 787) ... with the FAA having mixed reviews over the last 60 years. It would also be interesting to get more facts about the impact that airlines have had here (collaborative design is also collective involvement). Therefore it is no surprise to me, and certainly a positive sign, that there are multiple (US) investigations running in parallel. Which is rather unusual by itself though. And only getting the facts in those areas will take at least one year (the DoT IG for example for his investigation said that they normally need 1 year but in this case he expects it to be longer). I would expect the NTSB to go beyond a more 'technical' investigation and include an extensive proper 'certification process and design process' investigation. It is not only a pilot thing or design thing anymore, the credibility of a significant part of US aerospace is at stake. Considering the size of US aerospace the global system has a stake in this as well.
I have no doubt that Boeing, the FAA, and a number of airlines are going to get the colonoscopy from hell in regards to how they all basically conspired to rush this program through at maximum speed and minimum costs. There are currently armies of lawyers besieging Fortress Boeing as we speak. It is an interesting spectacle to watch, and I'm sure we will learn a lot in the process. However, as I have said before, I'm not going to dwell on Boeing because Boeing doesn't really give a crap about anything I have to say. I think my energies are better directed toward people who I might actually be able to influence.
So in your posts it would sincerely help me to better understand them, if you can make clear when you are talking about general or US standards of pilot training/hrs, or training/hrs specific to 'which' accident(s). And also, if the scope of your post covers all the parties involved or that you focus 'mainly' on the piloting aspects.
Let be absolutely clear that I think that training standards and expectations have fallen across the board. I think we get away with it better in North America because we have a deeper pool of pilots to draw from than other areas of the world. It is rare to see a new hire at my airline with less than 4,000 hours, and by that time this pilot has probably seen a lot of interesting flying that did not involve engaging the autopilot at 500' on takeoff and clicking it off at 1000' on approach, if you know what I mean. Even so, I am sometimes dismayed to how much has been removed from our sim training and how much technical information has been removed from our manuals. We supposedly have on of the best airline training and safety programs in North America, yet I continually see cracks in the foundation. I suspect this is being driven by the constant race to the bottom in terms of delivering the product at the lowest possible cost.