GT says fatal 737 MAX crashes caused by 'incompetent crew.'

[MelbourneFlyer]

Everybody's favourite Aviation Expert Geoffrey Thomas is in Seattle for the Boeing 777X first test flight. We all know he is a Boeing fan and apologist but a friend who follows him on Facebook sent me these comments he made there about the 737 MAX.

The overriding problem with the MAX is badly trained and incompetent crew. Far more to come out on this aspect soon. In fact there ae a number who hold that view and when you delve into the pilot reports they make for slickening reading. The co-pilot of the Lion Air crash "didn't understand the concept of the stall" according to his instructor. He was the one that lost control of the plane. Some very highly respected voices in the industry are blaming the pilots. BUT they get no "air" because the mass media decided long ago that Boeing was guilty. Things like it rushed the design...nonsense, it was the longest development of any Boeing derivative. I have just been with one of Southwest's check and training captains and he said they love the plane. It will take a while for all to come out but this is I assure you a major watershed for the industry in that it will have to rethink who is flying their planes. All assumptions are out. The mistake Boeing -and Airbus - have made is assuming an experienced well trained crew would fly a well maintained aircraft.

So basically a Boeing apologist, "the 737 MAX is a wonderful plane and it was all the airlines fault".

[UnderneathTheRadar]

From a guy who tried to demonstrate a 777 takeoff with the parking brake on? :hmm:

[ACMS]

Not a fan of GT but in this case I agree with him.

[Lookleft]

Nearly two years before its allowed to fly again-yeah it was just stupid pilots. If it was just stupid pilots then Boeing would have had it back in the air well before now. Stupid pilots or stupid CEO?

[Union Jack]

The overriding problem with the MAX is badly trained and incompetent crew. Far more to come out on this aspect soon. In fact there ae a number who hold that view and when you delve into the pilot reports they make for slickening (sic) reading. The co-pilot of the Lion Air crash "didn't understand the concept of the stall" according to his instructor. He was the one that lost control of the plane. Some very highly respected voices in the industry are blaming the pilots. BUT they get no "air" because the mass media decided long ago that Boeing was guilty. Things like it rushed the design...nonsense, it was the longest development of any Boeing derivative. I have just been with one of Southwest's check and training captains and he said they love the plane. It will take a while for all to come out but this is I assure you a major watershed for the industry in that it will have to rethink who is flying their planes. All assumptions are out. The mistake Boeing -and Airbus - have made is assuming an experienced well trained crew would fly a well maintained aircraft.

If I may drop in from the northern hemisphere, surely this deserves much wider circulation, including the lawyers for at least two airlines who presumably loved the aircraft enough to have ordered it.. GT also appears to need some help with writing clear unambiguous English.

Jack

[Green.Dot]

Didn’t know GT had access to the Boeing Chairman’s Lounge as well?!

[Cactus Jack]

GT wouldn't know his ass from his elbow. Having said that, there are some aspects of what he says to be true though.

Good lord, did I just agree with GT?

[Rated De]

Throwing bags for a season at MMA and copy pasting QF media spin is no qualification for much.

However, he may be right. The incompetence of the pilots is likely due the fact that they were not trained to deal with a system they did not know existed on an aircraft so far different form the original design to be unrecognisable.

Of course though, Thomas is neither nuanced in matters of aviation or intellect.
He is simply another mouth piece for a broken corporate model desperately cleaning up the slops ofrom the table of big business.

One might hope the families of the deceased pilots issue proceedings against him and the rag he works for in WA.

[CurtainTwitcher]

Hang on, this would be a Boeing friendly "leak"* right GT?

This would be the same Boeing that mocked operators who actually wanted to give their pilots additional training (beyond the one hour iPad course): Bloomberg Report: Boeing Mocked Lion Air Calls for More 737 Max Training Before Crash (https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/628840-bloomberg-report-boeing-mocked-lion-air-calls-more-737-max-training-before-crash.html).

Is this the same Boeing that would allow their own family to travel on the MAX and described the FAA thus:
The messages also show the disdain Boeing's ranks held for the FAA, vowing to fight any efforts to require additional simulator training for pilots and comparing presentations the company gave for the FAA to "like dogs watching TV."
my bold. Source :The Register What was Boeing through their heads? Emails show staff wouldn't put their families on a 737 Max over safety fears (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/11/boeing_737_max_emails/)

again from the Boeing chat logs
Embarrassing communications were sent to investigators last week, which included a comment that “this airplane is designed by clowns, who are in turn supervised by monkeys.”


The same Boeing who also had a hand in suppressing a 2009 Human Factors report on a fatal 737 accident that had a large degree of system design failure in addition to flight crew error and undocumented behaviour with a system relying on a SINGLE CHANNEL failure just like the MAX (Capt's RA triggered autothrottle flair mode causing idle thrust with the same annunciation RETARD that the crew would expect to see at that point in the configuration sequence), they were happy to see the pilots take all the credit for the accident: NYT: How Boeing’s Responsibility in a Deadly Crash ‘Got Buried’ (https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/629009-nyt-how-boeing-s-responsibility-deadly-crash-got-buried.html)

Do I understand exactly who you are now carrying water for GT, the same Boeing? How can you sleep at night?

Source Documents

737 Max Chat logs US House Transportation Committee https://transportation.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Compressed%20Updated%202020.01.09%20Boeing%20Production.pdf
REPORT OF THE FLIGHT CREW HUMAN FACTORS INVESTIGATION CONDUCTED FOR THE DUTCH SAFETY BOARD INTO THE ACCIDENT OF TK1951, BOEING 737- 800 NEAR AMSTERDAM SCHIPHOL AIRPORT, FEBRUARY 25, 2009 (https://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/nl/media/inline/2020/1/21/human_factors_report_s_dekker.pdf).


*Geoffrey Thomas, will you disclose any consideration or benefit in kind, directly or indirectly from Boeing?

[Bug Smasher Smasher]

GT is a f*****g idiot.

Have we really gone back to the bad old days of accidents simply being blamed on “pilot error” with no acknowledgment of the systemic problems that lined up the holes in the Swiss cheese and lead to that error?

The guy is an embarrassment to journalism and aviation.

Ignore.

[maggot]

Hang on, this would be a Boeing friendly "leak"* right GT?

This would be the same Boeing that mocked operators who actually wanted to give their pilots additional training (beyond the one hour iPad course): Bloomberg Report: Boeing Mocked Lion Air Calls for More 737 Max Training Before Crash (https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/628840-bloomberg-report-boeing-mocked-lion-air-calls-more-737-max-training-before-crash.html).

Is this the same Boeing that would allow their own family to travel on the MAX and described the FAA thus:

my bold. Source :The Register What was Boeing through their heads? Emails show staff wouldn't put their families on a 737 Max over safety fears (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/11/boeing_737_max_emails/)

again from the Boeing chat logs



The same Boeing who also had a hand in suppressing a 2009 Human Factors report on a fatal 737 accident that had a large degree of system design failure in addition to flight crew error and undocumented behaviour with a system relying on a SINGLE CHANNEL failure just like the MAX (Capt's RA triggered autothrottle flair mode causing idle thrust with the same annunciation RETARD that the crew would expect to see at that point in the configuration sequence), they were happy to see the pilots take all the credit for the accident: NYT: How Boeing’s Responsibility in a Deadly Crash ‘Got Buried’ (https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/629009-nyt-how-boeing-s-responsibility-deadly-crash-got-buried.html)

Do I understand exactly who you are now carrying water for GT, the same Boeing? How can you sleep at night?

Source Documents

737 Max Chat logs US House Transportation Committee https://transportation.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Compressed%20Updated%202020.01.09%20Boeing%20Production.pdf

REPORT OF THE FLIGHT CREW HUMAN FACTORS INVESTIGATION CONDUCTED FOR THE DUTCH SAFETY BOARD INTO THE ACCIDENT OF TK1951, BOEING 737- 800 NEAR AMSTERDAM SCHIPHOL AIRPORT, FEBRUARY 25, 2009 (https://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/nl/media/inline/2020/1/21/human_factors_report_s_dekker.pdf).




*Geoffrey Thomas, will you disclose any consideration or benefit in kind, directly or indirectly from Boeing?

New media spin campaign to move on and hope everyone forgets whilst they try to get the 777x going

[lucille]

It takes two hands to clap. Boeing were decidedly dodgy with their minimalist excuse for training. Likewise the operators of the two crashed MAXs were, shall we politely say, not known for their high standards of required minimum crew competence.

In my mind, the blame lies squarely with airline management across the world - they demand new generation aircraft that can be operated by cheap, minimally trained, dumbed down pilots. And that can be maintained by equally clueless and cheap engineers. Boeing (and Airbus) are merely meeting this demand. The travelling public may want low cost, but they don’t realize the price they’re really paying.

[SCPL_1988]

GT is a a shocking example of fake news at its worst.
Its a display of a lack of empathy and a mercenary attitude towards other peoples
suffering, and a corrupt attitude towards aviation safety.

[bankrunner]

From a guy who tried to demonstrate a 777 takeoff with the parking brake on? :hmm:

He's an expert mate, he's got his GFPT :=

[megan]

GT's dug a mighty deep hole that he can't climb out of, could we club together and fill it in?

[Chris2303]

GT's dug a mighty deep hole that he can't climb out of, could we club together and fill it in?

Nah - he'll be like the donkey who climbs out as the fill proceeds and then bites you on the ass.

[dr dre]

Maybe we should throw GT, or any other hero here who wants to blame a crew who can’t defend themselves anymore, into the sim and recreate the conditions those pilots (I’m thinking more ET) experienced, and see if any of these heroes have the physical strength to physically pitch the aircraft up when the stab has trimmed so far nose down.

After having seen some videos where crews in a sim were presented with similar conditions and struggled to maintain control it would be difficult, even for experienced crews with prior knowledge of what was going to happened as opposed to a crew who was presented with a surprise event that didn’t match any of their prior training.

[ACMS]

A level of experience would have gone a long way to fixing this issue, many times 737’s have experienced issues with the Elec pitch trim after takeoff ( either runaways, locked or failed trims ) and handled the situation to a successful outcome by disconnecting the elec stab trim and using manual trim. They lived to tell the story and write it up in the book ( and make a report in the NASA database )

and that’s just the US failures I’ve located, there would be many more stab trim runaways and failures around the World in the last 20 years....

Thats the way it is.......

There is no substitute for experience, full stop end of story.

[Rated De]

Just when it appears Thomas has plumbed new lows, he dives even deeper

[megan]

as was done many times in the US by highly experienced crews that applied the memory items for runaway stab trim quickly and correctly. Without it seems any knowledge of this MCAS system.There is no documented case of a MAX trim runaway in the US, or anywhere else, save for two Lion and one Ethiopia events.

[Bend alot]

A level of experience would have gone a long way to fixing this issue, as was done many times in the US by highly experienced crews that applied the memory items for runaway stab trim quickly and correctly. Without it seems any knowledge of this MCAS system.

Thats the way it is.......

I expect you are happy to supply some reference/s links to your comment.

Post ..... and that is the way it is - your expected to back it up.

[AerialPerspective]

GT is a f*****g idiot.

Have we really gone back to the bad old days of accidents simply being blamed on “pilot error” with no acknowledgment of the systemic problems that lined up the holes in the Swiss cheese and lead to that error?

The guy is an embarrassment to journalism and aviation.

Ignore.

"To journalism"?

I wouldn't even classify him as a journalist... just look at his one foray into 'Air Crash Investigation' where he used the most sensationalist and exaggerated language to describe Garuda both before and after it's 'rebirth' and restructure after the Jogjakarta overrun. That is not journalism, it's big noting, big noting is fine as long as the person has the basic knowledge with which to big note... I roll my eyes every time I see him trotted out by 7 News or someone else as an 'expert'... 'CEO of Airline Ratings'... Airline Ratings is a website and not much else. I'll give him one thing, he has managed to rise to make money in the era of weasel words and BS, an era where expertise is brushed over and the ability to bull--it is what gets people up the ladder... the era of the Dunning-Kruger take-over...

[AerialPerspective]

Just when it appears Thomas has plumbed new lows, he dives even deeper

Perhaps he should change the name of his website to 'Submarine Ratings'... he is now plumbing such low depths... LOL

[ACMS]

I expect you are happy to supply some reference/s links to your comment.

Post ..... and that is the way it is - your expected to back it up.


Already did mention NASA and the database of reports of many varied stab trim issues......go look yourself, it ain’t hard.

[ACMS]

I have to somewhat agree with the expert.

Listen guys.

Re: Lion Air. The guys didn't really have all the knowledge regarding MCAS but how comes an off duty Lion Air pilot occupying the jump seat managed to save the aircraft on the previous sector?

Re: Ethiopian. These guys were very inexperienced and it showed. They had so much information available to them regarding MCAS because of the Lion Air tragedy. These guys were just overwhelmed by the whole situation. They did not apply the proper memory items and procedures despite Boeing introducing them months earlier! They simply forgot to fly the plane and even switched the MCAS back on (talk about breaking SOPs!)

Any Canadian, US, European or Aussie crew would have dealt with the situation immediately.

Unfortunately it has to be said. I am not current on the 73M but a lot of my friends are and they have even said that Boeing has received too much negativity surrounding this. Unfortunately it comes back to the piss poor media.



True and my experience of the issue as well.

[Mr Approach]

GT may well be correct however it begs the question about why otherwise competent crew members become incompetent in this Boeing aircraft!
If an independent safety assessment had been done to support this iteration of the B737 then my non-airline pilot safety training would have detected a couple of hazards (see emails released to the public for evidence) which would require mitigation/barriers:
1. There is a single point of failure in the MCAS, the AOA sensor. The only mitigation being (correct me if I am wrong) that one AoA sensor was for the captain and the other for the FO;
2. There was, however, to be no mention of the MCAS during crew training. The mitigator being that it was automatic and would recover the aircraft without crew input. (is this true?) and that for point 1 that the crew would realise that the two AOA vanes were disagreeing even though they did not know this was a potential hazard (is this true?)
3. MCAS can only be over-ridden by switching the system off, unlike runaway trim. The crews, however, were not informed therefore no mitigator existed;
4. MCAS only operates when the auto-pilot is disengaged. Mitigator is therefore to leave auto pilot engaged.
5. Auto-pilot will not however not engage if aircraft is outside of flight envelope (is this true?). Therefore hazard above not mitigated if the aircraft is in a stalled condition, or thinks it is due erroneous AOA indications.
6. It cannot be assumed that all pilots are equally competent and the lead operator has a sub-optimal safety record. Mitigator - hope nothing goes wrong!

I won't bore you to death with more but regardless of whether the aircraft design is faulty or Lion/Ethiopian pilots are poorly trained, these factors should have been considered by the Boeing Safety Management System (mandated by the FAA) and appropriate mitigators put in place to return the risk to as low as reasonably practicable. (For definitions see: NOPSEMA Guidance Note: ALARP, N-04300-GN0166, Australia, Revision 4, December 2012. Regulatory Guidance). In Australia the High Court has said "if a measure is practicable and it cannot be shown that the cost of the measure is grossly disproportionate to the benefit gained, then the measure is considered reasonably practicable and must be implemented."

.

[fdr]

GT may well be correct however it begs the question about why otherwise competent crew members become incompetent in this Boeing aircraft!
If an independent safety assessment had been done to support this iteration of the B737 then my non-airline pilot safety training would have detected a couple of hazards (see emails released to the public for evidence) which would require mitigation/barriers:
1. There is a single point of failure in the MCAS, the AOA sensor. The only mitigation being (correct me if I am wrong) that one AoA sensor was for the captain and the other for the FO;
2. There was, however, to be no mention of the MCAS during crew training. The mitigator being that it was automatic and would recover the aircraft without crew input. (is this true?) and that for point 1 that the crew would realise that the two AOA vanes were disagreeing even though they did not know this was a potential hazard (is this true?)
3. MCAS can only be over-ridden by switching the system off, unlike runaway trim. The crews, however, were not informed therefore no mitigator existed;
4. MCAS only operates when the auto-pilot is disengaged. Mitigator is therefore to leave auto pilot engaged.
5. Auto-pilot will not however not engage if aircraft is outside of flight envelope (is this true?). Therefore hazard above not mitigated if the aircraft is in a stalled condition, or thinks it is due erroneous AOA indications.
6. It cannot be assumed that all pilots are equally competent and the lead operator has a sub-optimal safety record. Mitigator - hope nothing goes wrong!

I won't bore you to death with more but regardless of whether the aircraft design is faulty or Lion/Ethiopian pilots are poorly trained, these factors should have been considered by the Boeing Safety Management System (mandated by the FAA) and appropriate mitigators put in place to return the risk to as low as reasonably practicable. (For definitions see: NOPSEMA Guidance Note: ALARP, N-04300-GN0166, Australia, Revision 4, December 2012. Regulatory Guidance). In Australia the High Court has said "if a measure is practicable and it cannot be shown that the cost of the measure is grossly disproportionate to the benefit gained, then the measure is considered reasonably practicable and must be implemented."

.

The information to the ET crew was only partially that needed to handle the event. The manual trim problem was only alluded to, not briefed. It remains deficient to this date.

The trim speed of MCAS being 4 times faster than the pilot trim rate at the speed that the event occurs was not known less briefed in the OEB.

At exactly what age and experience level do we expect an unsuspecting crew to make up for the deficiency of the system, from the regulator, designers, certification that gave them a shoddy system?

​If the crew are the cause, then feel free to book a flight on the max this day, obviously the grounding is unnecessary, and we can all feel happy blaming the deceased, after all, victimising victims is a grand sport of ours.

GT... Really?

[Rated De]

The information to the ET crew was only partially that needed to handle the event. The manual trim problem was only alluded to, not briefed. It remains deficient to this date.

The trim speed of MCAS being 4 times faster than the pilot trim rate at the speed that the event occurs was not known less briefed in the OEB.

At exactly what age and experience level do we expect an unsuspecting crew to make up for the deficiency of the system, from the regulator, designers, certification that gave them a shoddy system?

​If the crew are the cause, then feel free to book a flight on the max this day, obviously the grounding is unnecessary, and we can all feel happy blaming the deceased, after all, victimising victims is a grand sport of ours.

GT... Really?

​​
​​​​​



That is the most erudite and constructive element.

That the fail safe is the pilot gives them all an out.
Or it did until it happened twice.

[CurtainTwitcher]

Same crews globally, Same training, Same AoA vane.

Boeing have done a unfortunate "natural experiment" between the NG and the MAX. Almost everything remained constant, the only really significant change was the inclusion of additional software and larger engines. The engines have not been directly implicated in either accident.

Same crew training on the NG and the MAX, yet the fatality rate is 3.08 per million departures compared to 0.06 per million on the NG. Not only that, the NG has more than 100+ x the flights. This is a massive sample size of NG departures, I will also concede the sample size is relatively small for the MAX.

Everything is as constant as we could reasonably expect to perform a valid scientific comparison between two models.

Why did the MAX crash at more than 100 times the rate of the NG when they were almost indistinguishable from a crew perspective?


I posted on another thread #2891 (https://www.pprune.org/10586897-post2891.html)
This comes back to the natural experiment that Boeing have performed between the MAX and the NG. Same AoA vane (IIRC same part number), and almost everything identical. So if you want to assume constant component failure rate, why are there no NG accidents related to flight controls or instrument failures that I can recall?

Boeing has been undone by this high degree of commonality. The difference in the accident rates with almost identical systems was too stunning to ignore. When investigation reveal there was a new MCAS system (previous rebuke for calling it software accepted in post #2459 (https://www.pprune.org/10574954-post2459.html) ) there was nowhere for Boeing to hide. A single system change related to flight controls could be pin pointed as the single cause of the accidents. Sure there were plenty of other factors (training, experience, organisational, SOPs), but they were all held constant between the NG and the MAX.

Pilots have been dealing with AoA vane failures and faults since 1997 at the same rate as the MAX with the introduction of the NG without a fatality. MCAS is the only significant variable that has been implicated in these accidents. It simply could not be ignored.

I posted earlier, Boeing's October 2018 own data (https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/625547-boeing-board-call-safety-changes-after-737-max-crashes-2.html#post10581317), that attested to the safety of the NG. Some 100+ million flights without flight control issues, and then 0.65 million MAX departures with two flight control fatal accidents. It was not the AoA vane failure that was the cause, it was the MCAS system, and only the MCAS system that the airworthiness authorities could not sweep under the rug and dismissed as pilot error and ignore because everything was so common with the NG.

Put yourself in the shoes of a senior CAA official looking at these figures comparing the max to the NG. Could you honestly let it fly in your airspace? Because I would be certain, this is the data that each CAA would have had compiled very quickly

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1222x1106/screen_shot_2019_09_28_at_5_48_07_pm_535a233632ca9812cfb6cc0 cd33f5ebd30c6cdb5_f0fc4bc589949a083c0618e04915c938be0fe784.p ng


As an aside, I keep thinking that this whole failure is looking more similar to the first computer accident, the Therac-25 accident X-Ray machine as documented by Nancy Leveson (http://sunnyday.mit.edu/papers/therac.pdf).

In that accident, a sequence of models of new software dose control were held constant, and a physical interlock preventing a lethal does of radiation to the patient was eventually removed. This interlock was from the previous non-computerised model where the operator could accidentally overdose a patient. What the company failed to understand, was the software was actually faulty right from the start, the interlock was saving patients for years without the company understanding the fault.

To me, the MAX accidents have a similar theme, engineering assumptions made on the basis of almost identical systems, with small iterative flawed changes that lay dormant until the accident sequences.

Here is Boeing's own data
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/2000x1493/screen_shot_2019_09_28_at_5_42_21_pm_21cbef47414c1f4a362813c 55794751e1f922b9d_899118e8818c1109982b6323880c7d1971fef8ad.p ng


Source: Boeing Statistical Summary of Commercial Jet Airplane Accidents Worldwide Operations | 1959 – 2017 (http://www.boeing.com/resources/boeingdotcom/company/about_bca/pdf/statsum.pdf)

[FlightlessParrot]

I would love to listen to the Ethiopian CVR. I'm sure it will just be full of the captain praying and his inexperienced first officer trying to solve it.


Most probably the captain was a member of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Although this church diverges from the majority of Christian churches on the question of the nature(s) of Christ, I know of no evidence that suggests that miaphysitism is incompatible with the operation of modern technology.

[fireflybob]

Surely one of the over arching aims of type certification is that the aircraft is benign enough to be safely operated by an average crew rather than a test pilot.

in the case of the B737 Max it would seem from much of the evidence presented this was not the case.

[Angle of Attack]

There has never ever been a Boeing jet that puts Stabilizer trim commands in remotely. This is the crux of the deal, in a Boeing you fly it and don’t expect any computer inputs. Airbus fine that’s a given, but not in a Boeing. This is a big deal and especially as it uses one sensor a disaster in the making.

[Asturias56]

Surely one of the over arching aims of type certification is that the aircraft is benign enough to be safely operated by an average crew rather than a test pilot.

in the case of the B737 Max it would seem from much of the evidence presented this was not the case.


You can sell a high performance piece of kit to someone who has no experience of it without training or a warning but expect the lawyers to come calling if they kill anyone with it - applies to all industries

[anson harris]

There has never ever been a Boeing jet that puts Stabilizer trim commands in remotely. This is the crux of the deal, in a Boeing you fly it and don’t expect any computer inputs. Airbus fine that’s a given, but not in a Boeing. This is a big deal and especially as it uses one sensor a disaster in the making.

What about the 777?

[Luke SkyToddler]

Captain Sully Sullenberger, is not what anyone would call an incompetent or poorly trained crew

He is one of the few who has actually flown the profile of the two fatal crashes, in a 737 max sim

He found the MCAS runaways to be completely different to a trim runaway, very insidious and dangerous in how they first present themselves, and how difficult they were to control

His conclusion was 100% opposite to Thomas's

I know who I'd rather believe

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/captain-sully-boeing-737-max-crash-pilots-plane-a9162386.html

[Good memories]

GT is a a shocking example of fake news at its worst.
Its a display of a lack of empathy and a mercenary attitude towards other peoples
suffering, and a corrupt attitude towards aviation safety.

I fully agree with you.

[olster]

This accident was classic Swiss cheese. It is appalling to lay the blame on the crew who found themselves confused by a complex malfunctioning system they did not know existed. Boeing are liable certainly ethically and morally with a complete failure in management oversight and breakdown of traditional engineering principals. Shame on you, Thomas. It is beyond asinine to claim pilot error when there are so many other factors.

[EEngr]

Lets be fair to Boeing. It was their customers that asked for similarity and no additional training from the 737NG. Boeing (or its subsidiaries) would have been more than happy to sell additional simulator time to cover 737 MAX differences. Adding an AOA disagree warning light to the baseline model would have required a procedure: What do we does that light mean and what do we do about it? And that means training. Even quietly handling the AOA sensor failure (with dual inputs) wouldn't work either, as changing the handling characteristics without notifying the flight crew would be unacceptable.

[Fly Aiprt]

Lets be fair to Boeing. It was their customers that asked for similarity and no additional training from the 737NG. Boeing (or its subsidiaries) would have been more than happy to sell additional simulator time to cover 737 MAX differences.

How does that reconcile with news a company asking for more sim training for its MAX crews, and some Boeing Chief technical pilot talking them out of it and mocking them between colleagues ?

[aox]

Hang on, this would be a Boeing friendly "leak"* right GT?

This would be the same Boeing that mocked operators who actually wanted to give their pilots additional training (beyond the one hour iPad course): Bloomberg Report: Boeing Mocked Lion Air Calls for More 737 Max Training Before Crash (https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/628840-bloomberg-report-boeing-mocked-lion-air-calls-more-737-max-training-before-crash.html).

Is this the same Boeing that would allow their own family to travel on the MAX and described the FAA thus:

my bold. Source :The Register What was Boeing through their heads? Emails show staff wouldn't put their families on a 737 Max over safety fears (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/11/boeing_737_max_emails/)

again from the Boeing chat logs



The same Boeing who also had a hand in suppressing a 2009 Human Factors report on a fatal 737 accident that had a large degree of system design failure in addition to flight crew error and undocumented behaviour with a system relying on a SINGLE CHANNEL failure just like the MAX (Capt's RA triggered autothrottle flair mode causing idle thrust with the same annunciation RETARD that the crew would expect to see at that point in the configuration sequence), they were happy to see the pilots take all the credit for the accident: NYT: How Boeing’s Responsibility in a Deadly Crash ‘Got Buried’ (https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/629009-nyt-how-boeing-s-responsibility-deadly-crash-got-buried.html)

Do I understand exactly who you are now carrying water for GT, the same Boeing? How can you sleep at night?

Source Documents

737 Max Chat logs US House Transportation Committee https://transportation.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Compressed%20Updated%202020.01.09%20Boeing%20Production.pdf

REPORT OF THE FLIGHT CREW HUMAN FACTORS INVESTIGATION CONDUCTED FOR THE DUTCH SAFETY BOARD INTO THE ACCIDENT OF TK1951, BOEING 737- 800 NEAR AMSTERDAM SCHIPHOL AIRPORT, FEBRUARY 25, 2009 (https://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/nl/media/inline/2020/1/21/human_factors_report_s_dekker.pdf).




*Geoffrey Thomas, will you disclose any consideration or benefit in kind, directly or indirectly from Boeing?

The same Boeing that fired the top boss, saying the company had “decided that a change in leadership was necessary to restore confidence in the company moving forward as it works to repair relationships with regulators, customers, and all other stakeholders”.

Whatever the range of facts and opinions, this is the same Boeing that has since then announced it will take longer than previously declared expectations to get the thing back in the air.

Incurring all that extra work doesn't suggest Boeing support for what Mr Thomas is saying.

[EEngr]

How does that reconcile with news a company asking for more sim training for its MAX crews, and some Boeing Chief technical pilot talking them out of it and mocking them between colleagues ?

Probably because other companies had asked Boeing to make the MAX similar enough to the NG to require no additional training. With possible contract language attached (my assumption). So if enough people say they need extra training, maybe the FAA will catch on and tell everyone to get it. And Boeing would have to do an about face on the issue and maybe cough up some cash or simulator time to those that they made promises to.

[Sunfish]

GT is a national disgrace and anything he approves of is worthless. The fact that Boeing would stoop to giving a poisonous briefing a turd like GT also speaks volumes for the current culture of what was once a great company.

Every current and former employee of Boeing should feel ashamed. I’m stuck with tickets on a B787 later this year but if I could change to an Airbus I would. No more Boeing for me.

[Old Dogs]

Any Canadian, US, European or Aussie crew would have dealt with the situation immediately.


What an appalling thing to say.

[tdracer]

GT is a national disgrace and anything he approves of is worthless. The fact that Boeing would stoop to giving a poisonous briefing a turd like GT also speaks volumes for the current culture of what was once a great company.


So, what you're saying is that Boeing should have prevented a foreign national - who doesn't work for Boeing - from talking to the press.
Pretty sure that would be against the law...

[Old Dogs]

I would love to listen to the Ethiopian CVR. I'm sure it will just be full of the captain praying and his inexperienced first officer trying to solve it.


What an awful thing to say.

Trash talking dead aircrew. 😡

[rattman]

I

Any Canadian, US, European or Aussie crew would have dealt with the situation immediately.

.

Except when test in a simulator 20-30% of the superior "western crews" failed to recover the aircraft in the same situation

[Cactus Jack]

What an awful thing to say.

Trash talking dead aircrew. 😡
He doesn't only trash talk dead aircrew. He trash talks the live one's too.

This bloke fits into the same category as GT. Ignorant, arrogant fool.

[Centaurus]

Some years ago I was in email contact with a Boeing Seattle simulator instructor who had just checked out on the Boeing 787 full flight simulator. In an email letter to me he described talking to one of the Boeing 787 test pilots. The test pilot told him "Boeing designed the 787 assuming it would be flown by incompetent pilots from airlines around the world. Hence the design included automatic features designed where possible to prevent the aircraft from crashing."

Now these may not be the exact words but that is how I remember the conversation. But the 'flown by incompetent pilots" I will never forget. The test pilot was right, though. And not necessarily only the 787, either..

[Bend alot]

Probably because other companies had asked Boeing to make the MAX similar enough to the NG to require no additional training. With possible contract language attached (my assumption). So if enough people say they need extra training, maybe the FAA will catch on and tell everyone to get it. And Boeing would have to do an about face on the issue and maybe cough up some cash or simulator time to those that they made promises to.
Boeing developed the MAX because they woke up and found they were second place to Airbus.

They had to get back in the game fast and at any cost.

Any cost ended up NO COST and a few Jedi's.

Lion Air wanted MAX simulator training and Boeing persuaded them not to - Ethiopian had one of the 3 MAX simulators in the World at the time of second crash.

Interestingly Southwest had the $1M per frame sim training deal (seems exclusively) - that suggests they had doubts, and it was a Boeing incentive idea not customers demand.

- In reply to another post, there are only 3 known MCAS events 2 Lion Air and 1 Ethiopian. The first Lion Air event took some time to disable and an extra pilot in the cockpit that assisted to deactivate it, it seems they reported it as STS running in wrong direction.

During the development of the MAX Boeing needed to make Rick Assessments and the results determinate what path to follow or what was required. These were not carried out "accurately".

So as example of this - What is the worst that could happen if I thrust this large knife into your chest?
Most of us would say the worst is it could be fatal, but Boeing would say you might get cut and need a band-aid.

That is how MCAS ended up on the MAX, acceptable as a low risk.

Now as you can see the band-aid needs to be replaced to address a possible fatal condition. The aircraft has been designed and built, and the first aid kit only contains a box of band-aids to work with. The gloves (the FAA) were foolishly throw away when the first band-aid was applied.

[Global Aviator]

What we need to do is put the clown in a sim and give him the MCAS fault.......

[Sunfish]

So, what you're saying is that Boeing should have prevented a foreign national - who doesn't work for Boeing - from talking to the press.
Pretty sure that would be against the law...

GT is spouting Boeing manufactured fake news.

[Lookleft]

There has never ever been a Boeing jet that puts Stabilizer trim commands in remotely. This is the crux of the deal, in a Boeing you fly it and don’t expect any computer inputs. Airbus fine that’s a given, but not in a Boeing. This is a big deal and especially as it uses one sensor a disaster in the making.

Whats that phrase about letting people think you are a fool rather than making a statement and proving it. You didn't answer the question about the 777, or did you do some research and find out you should have kept your hand off the keyboard?

[The name is Porter]

It has been discussed ad-infinitum, how much of a moron this sorry excuse for a 'journalist' is.

- How many of you have contacted Channel 7 with expert evidence?
- How many of you have posed questions on his peurile website?
- How many of you spread it far and wide how useless, compromised and fraudulent his ratings 'system' is?

Put the moron and fraud out of business, just like the other moron and fraud at Moorabbin.

[SCPL_1988]

"The name is Porter" - There has been an increasing number of flight schools world wide
that rip off their students. There has also been an increasing trend to have a million
question FAQ that never ever spells out the hour cost.
Also increasing is the fraud committed upon gullible students paying up front
or getting nasty discoveries half way thru their training that means it is going to
cost them more than they were misled to believe.

Australia seems to have just experienced a jump in the number of flight schools
and coincident with that is , the presence of misleading websites that have all
the appearances of fraudulent misrepresentation.

[The name is Porter]

Just say white, we all know what you mean

What an absolute load of ****, typical of leftist, alarmist, everything's a catastrophy garbage.

There are significant numbers of multiple race pilots in all of the countries mentioned. He DID NOT point to skin colour in this post. He is merely pointing out the robust training standards in these countries.

Crawl back into your 'I'm outraged' hole.

[The name is Porter]

Senior Commercial, I don't have knowledge or experience of those overseas, just this a/hole. Not wanting to hijack this thread, lots of my thoughts on the other thread!

[SCPL_1988]

The Name is Porter - I'm not quite sure who you are referring to at Moorabbin but suspect
its the most notorious one. While I'm overseas, I believe I had some phone contact
with them a while back and heard familiar sounds that told me to stay away.

[The name is Porter]

You probably won't have any phone contact in the near future, I'd imagine they'll be cut off!

[Paragraph377]

Thomas is a media whore, the fake news media executives who pay his wages are his pimps and his clients are the fools who believe his crap and support him. He is nothing more more than a plane spotter who has taken an interest in planes to the next level in the world of plane spotter. He is not a SME and I would rather watch two snails f*****g than watch or listen to a word of the absolute ****e that dribbles from his mouth.

[deja vu]

Lets be fair to Boeing. It was their customers that asked for similarity and no additional training from the 737NG. Boeing (or its subsidiaries) would have been more than happy to sell additional simulator time to cover 737 MAX differences. Adding an AOA disagree warning light to the baseline model would have required a procedure: What do we does that light mean and what do we do about it? And that means training. Even quietly handling the AOA sensor failure (with dual inputs) wouldn't work either, as changing the handling characteristics without notifying the flight crew would be unacceptable.

Surely the decision in regard to additional training should not be left to Boeing or it's customers but to a REGULATOR. Or is it that they don't want to get involved if possible and are happy to abrogate their responsibilities if able.?

[tdracer]

GT is spouting Boeing manufactured fake news.
So, you have evidence of that?
Boeing has pretty much accepted that the MCAS logic was flawed - as evidenced by their changing the time frame for a flight crew recognizing a stab trim malfunction from four seconds to fifteen seconds (with consequences well beyond MCAS).
GT can say whatever he wants, that doesn't mean Boeing (or anyone else) agrees with him. Like it or not, many in the media think he's an authority, regardless of what more knowledgeable people think.

[Bend alot]

Surely the decision in regard to additional training should not be left to Boeing or it's customers but to a REGULATOR. Or is it that they don't want to get involved if possible and are happy to abrogate their responsibilities if able.?
It is up to the manufacturer (Boeing) to submit for approval what training they consider is required, it is up to the regulator to accept or reject that training as being appropriate.

[chuboy]

What an absolute load of ****, typical of leftist, alarmist, everything's a catastrophy garbage.

There are significant numbers of multiple race pilots in all of the countries mentioned. He DID NOT point to skin colour in this post. He is merely pointing out the robust training standards in these countries.

As has been discussed at length on PPRuNe, the "robust training standards" are only as good as what was provided by Boeing, which we know was insufficient. Indeed, the notorious Lionair requested additional MAX 8 training from Boeing and were turned away.

The original threads for each crash are still available in the PPRuNe archives, go and read for yourself how quickly race was implicated as a cause for each incident.

Crawl back into your 'I'm outraged' hole.
An ironic way to end your rant.

[Australopithecus]

For nine months now we have been reading the tripe that a well-trained, sharp crew would be able to recognise MCAS activation as a trim runaway and perform an almost instant override-and-disable action per the checklist.

Fine.

I consider myself a well-trained 737 pilot, with 23 out of the last 31 years on type, including this year. I have actually suffered a trim runaway on a 737-300, but it wasn’t a classic runaway, just a dual brake and clutch failure allowing the trim to free-wheel unless manually restrained. It presented more of a curiosity than a dire situation fraught with peril. The larger trim wheels allowed the two of us to keep it in trim and perform a return. No biggie. The aircraft was never really out of trim, so it was easy. But I can easily see that getting even a couple of units out would be a harder task to manage.


Regarding the stall warning on take-off case, I do not however think that every well-trained crew would react in a timely fashion presented with the cacophony of stick shakers, warnings, trim running, calls etc. The variability of fatigue alone might reduce the effectiveness of even the standard western raised and trained crews* to the failure point.

Assuming none of the foregoing is true. Assume every sharp crew would have been quick to counter the uncommanded trim. Now I am confused. Either the MCAS is needed to provide pitch stability, and hence should not be countered, or it is just a nuisance gizmo that should always be quickly countered. And no fair peeking at the manual, either, because its a special, cryptic feature.

GT is a muppet, and so too is anyone else astride their high horses claiming superior cognitive skills, superior OODA cycle timing or superior stick-n-rudder magic.


*much beating of this particular drum over the past months. I have been trained by dozens of instructors and check pilots from 13 different countries. The two best were not from the west. The culture thing however might be an issue; I don’t know, and I don’t know how to fix it if it is after three decades of CRM awareness.

[Sunfish]

Tdracer, Sir, I note your address. In the past I have had the utmost respect for Boeing as an engineering employee of an Airline. We were the international launch customer for the B767 and I watched the first prototype built from the time that most of the avionics, fadec, etc. were black painted blocks of timber.

The Boeing employees, engineers and managers i worked with were honest to a fault and had a certain humility as well that made them a joy to deal with. I met with them at least once a year for six years. Either at Everett, Renton or elsewhere on the coast.

You may not know that Geoff Thomas is a know nothing flack for hire in Australia.The opinions attributed to him are beyond his competence to construct - they were placed in his mouth by somebody who paid him to say them.

You should also know that the management of Boeing, and it’s current technical ethics are utterly alien compared to the fine men I worked with. Experienced pilots have already given Boeing’s design of the max’s control system MCAS the thumbs down as has the FAA. Geoff Thomas counts for nothing.

Boeing is now engaged in putting lipstick on a pig, but worse is yet to come as knowledgeable customers ask:”what ELSE has Boeing kludged with the b787 and B777?”
’

[Centaurus]

you actually need to pitch down and unload to start getting manual trim in,

According to the original Boeing 737-200 Pilot Training Manual which addresses runaway electrical stab trim, the unloading technique is called The Roller Coaster or YoYo. The same technique is used on the Boeing 707

If the trim has runaway forward, then once electrical power is disconnected by means of the stab trim cutout switches, the only way to fix the immediate situation is to have both pilots (if necessary) to pull back the stick to well above the horizon.

Then relax the backward pressure and as the aircraft starts to slowly bunt over (it is called “unloading”), rapid manual back trim operation can be made without excess force. Repeat the roller coaster method until the aircraft is able to maintain normal level flight.

The technique is also described in the April 1961 of the Boeing Airliner magazine.

Successful recovery depends very much on prompt recognition of the runway stab trim before aerodynamic forces on the stabilizer get too strong to overcome. That is the key to success. The crew cannot afford the luxury of watching a sudden uncommanded rotation of the stabilizer trim wheel in either direction and have a nice CRM chat about what to do next.

Interestingly the original Boeing 737 Instructor Handbook published by Boeing with the introduction of the first Boeing 737 into service, was written assuming some non-normal items could be conducted in the air. Demonstration of a runaway electrical stab trim event was one.

In this case, the 737 Instructor Handbook warns not to deliberately allow the stab trim to run more than two units of trim from neutral (being around Five Units in cruise) before actuating the electrical stab trim cutout switches on the pedestal. So there is the clue that allowing more than two units of uncommanded stab trim movement risks loss of pitch control unless prompt action is taken to cut electrical power to the stab trim.

The high-lighted quotation above which says you actually need to pitch down and unload could be better worded in my opinion. In fact the pilot needs to pitch up initially to get the roller coaster method going. The higher the pitch attitude (within reason of course) the more time available to wind the manual stabiliser trim to an in-flight controllable setting

In later versions (737 Classics) of the 737 FCTM, the roller coaster method of regaining manual stab trim control was omitted and replaced with a reference “in extreme cases, it may be necessary to aerodynamically relieve the airloads to allow manual trimming.”

Unfortunately, Boeing failed to amplify the meaning of “aerodynamically relieve.”

[Fly Aiprt]

Why didn't the Lion Air pilots apply the basic trim runaway memory items?

Why did the Ethiopian pilots leave the thrust levers TOGA power?

Why did the Ethiopian pilots ignore the Boeing procedures by reenabling MCAS even with extensive lessons learnt from the Lion Air mistakes?


Maybe for the same reasons some US crews - duly briefed in advance - failed to recover in the sim ?

To date we still have to hear from someone having actually run the MCAS scenario in the sim and stating that it was no big deal and they had no difficulties managing the situation.
Maybe there is more to it than just running this one particular memory item at one unspecified moment ?

Even Boeing has admitted that the checklists and memory items they advocated weren't adequate and need reworking, so why continue to spread that "just do the trim runaway" fallacy ?

[Fly Aiprt]

Mentour Pilot.
73M type rated instructor who publishes Youtube videos.

He did a video in the sim about MCAS and how easy it is to recover. He was forced to take it down though nevertheless you can still find it floating around on Youtube as it's been re-uploaded by other users.

There must be some confusion here.
Most of us have watched Mentour's videos at the time, and IIRC he did not replicate an MCAS incident, but a runaway trim situation.
His demonstration did show how difficult it was to keep control of an out of trim 737, and that manually retrimming after throwing the pedestal switches was virtually impossible.
If you have seen the video, you may remember that it took them much more than the infamous 3 seconds to identify the runaway and run the procedure, and all without any alarm, altitude issue or other distraction.
You may also remember that he asked his partner to "press the red button" and end the demo before the inevitable outcome.

[Fly Aiprt]

Show me the video because I am not able to find that one you describe.

On a side note -

look how easy it is to save the plane with this simulation.

The video you provide is not one of Mentour's and looks more like a staged demo for movies.
Did you notice the date of the video, and how the FO corrects several long seconds of fast spinning wheels with just 7-8 easy turns of the wheel cranks ?

I'll agree with you how easy it is to save the plane with this "simulation".

[Chris2303]

Guys this is an important part of my previous post which has been absolutely overlooked and ignored.

Just as they should be

[tdracer]

Tdracer, Sir, I note your address. In the past I have had the utmost respect for Boeing as an engineering employee of an Airline. We were the international launch customer for the B767 and I watched the first prototype built from the time that most of the avionics, fadec, etc. were black painted blocks of timber.

The Boeing employees, engineers and managers i worked with were honest to a fault and had a certain humility as well that made them a joy to deal with. I met with them at least once a year for six years. Either at Everett, Renton or elsewhere on the coast.

You may not know that Geoff Thomas is a know nothing flack for hire in Australia.The opinions attributed to him are beyond his competence to construct - they were placed in his mouth by somebody who paid him to say them.

You should also know that the management of Boeing, and it’s current technical ethics are utterly alien compared to the fine men I worked with. Experienced pilots have already given Boeing’s design of the max’s control system MCAS the thumbs down as has the FAA. Geoff Thomas counts for nothing.

Boeing is now engaged in putting lipstick on a pig, but worse is yet to come as knowledgeable customers ask:”what ELSE has Boeing kludged with the b787 and B777?”
’
Sunfish, I'm fully aware of who Geoff Thomas is - he shows up on the tube here with some regularity, and the one thing we agree on is that he's a self-important flack.
Most of the rest of your post is pure speculation. Why would Boeing throw good money after bad to pay GT to say things that they'd already acknowledge as untrue?
I've talked to people who worked on the MAX, and the problems all trace back to two things:
1) Pilot reaction time to a trim issue was assumed to be 4 seconds - Boeing has now acknowledged that was too optimistic and 15 seconds is being used going forward.
2) Lack of required training - I've talked to test pilots who flew the MAX and they all agreed sim training was needed, but they were overruled by the Chief Test Pilot.

[Fly Aiprt]

I've talked to people who worked on the MAX, and the problems all trace back to two things:
1) Pilot reaction time to a trim issue was assumed to be 4 seconds - Boeing has now acknowledged that was too optimistic and 15 seconds is being used going forward.
2) Lack of required training - I've talked to test pilots who flew the MAX and they all agreed sim training was needed, but they were overruled by the Chief Test Pilot.

That's interesting, tdracer, thanks for that.
Did they actually mean Chief Test Pilot, or Chief Technical Pilot (the Jedi), or both ?

[retired guy]

Maybe we should throw GT, or any other hero here who wants to blame a crew who can’t defend themselves anymore, into the sim and recreate the conditions those pilots (I’m thinking more ET) experienced, and see if any of these heroes have the physical strength to physically pitch the aircraft up when the stab has trimmed so far nose down.

After having seen some videos where crews in a sim were presented with similar conditions and struggled to maintain control it would be difficult, even for experienced crews with prior knowledge of what was going to happened as opposed to a crew who was presented with a surprise event that didn’t match any of their prior training.
Hi DRE
Dont know if you’ve read the report carefully but ET was way over VMO in a dive at full thrust when “they didn’t have the physical strength........”. Nobody would.
The 737 might still get out of that using ELEC TRIM but it has to be held for long enough to wind the trim right back to circa 4 divisions, and Then switches off. That’s going to take about a minute or more. I’m pretty sure the guys had not been trained in this. Looking at FDR there were a few times early on when they did trim ANU but stopped- and we don’t know why.
They will have used trim in that way on a full power go around when you need to trim AND for many seconds to overcome the heavy nose up thrust couple, and the flaps moving from 40-15. It’s a prolonged input - until you are back in trim. Same idea.

Sorry, but of course you don’t let any of this happen in the first place by going switches of while still more or less in trim and with speed and power under control. That never happened because airspeed Unreliable was never accomplished and it’s a memory drill.

The problem we have here is in my view that the crew didn’t really understand that those switches are your life saver after you have it back in trim, using ELEC trim to accomplish that. Not little blips of trim, but prolonged continuous trim input. I know I’ve been around , but when I was trained the instructors called it the “Jesus Switches” because if you don’t turn them off pdq you will indeed meet Jesus.
Here is our problem. The handing down of training that has been accumulated over decades is being lost so fast in the scramble to pretend that a plane is a PlayStation with wings. Airbus designer a few years ago said “ my concierge could fly an Airbus. Don’t think so- AF447?
And we cant forget that this self same problem was handled in Lionair Bali Jakarta the day before successfully, so it wasn’t inevitable.
just a few thoughts from an older pilot, but not a bolder one!
thanks for your post
RGuy

[Bend alot]

Guys this is an important part of my previous post which has been absolutely overlooked and ignored.

The night before the Lion Air accident, a jump seating pilot managed to recognise the trim runaway and took corrective action. This saved the plane. The next day, a different crew crashed in the same situation.

Therefore MCAS was not a death trap as soon as it kicked in. In fact, looking at sim videos on how to disable the stab trim during runaway and "re-trim" the airplane, it is a very easy recovery procedure!

Why didn't the Lion Air pilots apply the basic trim runaway memory items?

Why did the Ethiopian pilots leave the thrust levers TOGA power?

Why did the Ethiopian pilots ignore the Boeing procedures by reenabling MCAS even with extensive lessons learnt from the Lion Air mistakes?

It frustrates me that Boeing are taking far too much blame for this and not the airline's training department!

Yes the pilots messed up big time but it goes deeper than just blaming them. It is the airlines Lion Air (worse safety record in commercial aviation) and Ethiopian who are at fault here.

As much as I respect Captain Sullenberger, a lot of his press releases are now for political gain only. His future is destined for politics but he is wrong in his case about Boeing to blame. Pilots need to focus more on their hand flying skills and less on automation.

Absolute rubbish!

It took the crew and the jump seater considerable time to deactivate the electric trim - they did this because they thought the STS was running in the wrong direction.

How on Earth you can interpret that to be - they identified a trim runaway and followed the correct memory item is beyond belief.
This same crew you consider in high regard for dealing with the MCAS in the correct way, continued on to destination with the stick shaker still active - hardly by the book guys.

The second Lion Air guys did not have a "runaway trim" that check list was revised after that crash & the word "continuous" was added.

Ethiopian probably re-engaged the electric trim because the reduced size manual trim wheel was not working - note * the trim wheel was marginal prior to it's reduction in size, that is why the Yo Yo procedure was in the early 737 manuals.

[tdracer]

That's interesting, tdracer, thanks for that.
Did they actually mean Chief Test Pilot, or Chief Technical Pilot (the Jedi), or both ?
Don't know, they didn't name names, and I'm reluctant to go into too many details since the conversions were "informal" - don't want to get people in trouble. The 4 vs. 15 second thing is well documented (I saw it in the Seattle Times so I'm comfortable posting that).

[retired guy]

Show me the video because I am not able to find that one you describe.

On a side note -

look how easy it is to save the plane with this simulation. Ignore the Oscar worthy acting of the instructor during the "simulated crash scenario".

https://youtu.be/l-tmcQebeN8

Obviously the faster the plane is going, the more difficult it is to manually trim the plane using the wheel. However, had the Ethiopian pilots not left power to TOGA and were doing 300kts+, the wheel would have been easier to move!

This is the key. What are we doing at VMO + ? In an emergency?
At 240 kts steady, even a runaway stab x2 as MCAS is reported as running, you can still overcome it with ELEC trim - switches OFF and then, at the under control lower airspeed , use manual trim.
is that not so folks? I trained on 737 from 1986 until recently, all variants up to -800 and that’s how I’ve seen it done.
R Guy

[Fly Aiprt]

Don't know, they didn't name names, and I'm reluctant to go into too many details since the conversions were "informal" - don't want to get people in trouble.

Of course. Understand.
Thx

[ifylofd]

Let's get back on topic here.
Are we talking about the same guy here that reported about a Qantas aircraft runway over-run (a week or so back) down under as "being a pretty frequent occurrence with airlines"?
The mind boggles, but as has been already suggested I guess he has quite a few master's in that neck of the woods.
Pity the fools / news agencies / networks that employ such a trash talking ignoramus.

[tdracer]

Let's get back on topic here.

Pity the fools / news agencies / networks that employ such a trash talking ignoramus.

Sadly such ignorance is quite common among so-called media "Aviation Experts". When Asiana 777 landed short at SFO a few years back, I was watching a news channel for updates in the immediate aftermath. One of their "experts" stated that it was 'obvious the aircraft had crashed because the tail broke off'. Just looking at the helicopter shots it was obvious to me that it was the other way around, but that didn't stop their expert from repeating that nonsense several times...

[retired guy]

This accident was classic Swiss cheese. It is appalling to lay the blame on the crew who found themselves confused by a complex malfunctioning system they did not know existed. Boeing are liable certainly ethically and morally with a complete failure in management oversight and breakdown of traditional engineering principals. Shame on you, Thomas. It is beyond asinine to claim pilot error when there are so many other factors.
many factors....
And some of those , which if done correctly would have meant that nobody would have died, was the failure of Lionair the day before the fatal crash to
admit that they had experienced a very serious new fault which was beyond their understanding, that a third pilot knew and effectively saved the day , to not call the safety office right away on landing and pilot management team to inform them, which would have lead to immediate grounding/ or should/ to falsify the tech log entry such that corrective action was not taken. Any of those would have saved both crashes. And perhaps a culture of fear which prevented the honesty required in this situation. And a press on mentality perhaps- but we don’t know that. The rest we do.
And the CVR which has never been released is truly astonishing and one can only draw one conclusion.
can anyone else draw another? If it proves that all the correct procedures were carried out?
Yes this is indeed a multi factorial crash as are most, but I don’t fall into the single cause camp-“ Boeing is the only factor”.
Training is a much bigger factor for the future of safe aviation and if they don’t fix that it’s going to happen again. By the way, Boeing don’t train the line pilots. Only a cadre of trainers - maybe six -ten, who then take that very basic training and using their expertise and knowledge turn that into their own SOPs. Publish their own version of VOL1 (flying manual)
first time I flew at Boeing field with a Boeing co pilot I was amazed at how more comprehensive our own SOPs were. The Boeing training is designed as a bare template- each airline trains to their own, and often much higher standard. Boeing told me often that if you guys would all fly the same and didn’t order hundreds of different options we could knock a few million off the price. Fact is, every airline thinks they have it right for them. Many airlines fly in a manner that is quite different from each other. I have been involved in the training of hundreds of direct entry pilots and it is very difficult indeed to retrain these pilots into a new way of operation. Dan Air for example operated in a very different way to say BA.
Nothing wrong with that. It’s just different.
so it’s a complex situation and if we get into camps it won’t be resolved. Hating GT as I see above is no way to move forward. Tackle the ball not the man
R Guy

[Sunfish]

Tdracer:1) Pilot reaction time to a trim issue was assumed to be 4 seconds - Boeing has now acknowledged that was too optimistic and 15 seconds is being used going forward.

I’m afraid I can’t agree to classify this event as just a”trim issue” that’s like calling the collision between the Titanic and an iceberg an ice issue.

The MCAS failure included multiple alarms unrelated to trim position and the behavior of the trim system was not identifiable as a known failure mode.

To put that another way, how would you react if someone fitted a Tesla like automatic steering system to your old F100 without telling you? How can you identify a system failure if you have no knowledge of the existence of the system itself? That is the logical iceberg that Boeing founders on.

It must be terrible living through all this in the Seattle area.

[ifylofd]

Hating GT as I see above is no way to move forward. Tackle the ball not the man
R Guy

Not hating the guy, just hating the unfounded commonly incorrect rubbish that flows from him on a regular basis. Couldn't imagine waking to that trash on my local network or daily news read all the time. It's a sad situation when his so called reporting / journalism (use that term very loosely) pervades media sources and outlets here on the other side of the pond.

[retired guy]

Show me the video because I am not able to find that one you describe.

On a side note -

look how easy it is to save the plane with this simulation. Ignore the Oscar worthy acting of the instructor during the "simulated crash scenario".

https://youtu.be/l-tmcQebeN8

Obviously the faster the plane is going, the more difficult it is to manually trim the plane using the wheel. However, had the Ethiopian pilots not left power to TOGA and were doing 300kts+, the wheel would have been easier to move!

Hi 320
Quite so. At lower air speeds the elevator can cope with the trim being well out AND. If any trainer reading has access to a sim. Please run trim to zero and see if elevator can cope and at what max airspeed. I can do it tomorrow but I’d have to rent a sim for 1000 pounds ! I am retired on pension!

This video is a farce when he shows “correct way”. He turns off the STAB switches before using MANUAL TRIM to retrim back into safe green range.
He should use the easy fast electric trim first line of defence and hold those thumb switches until he’s no longer pulling. Ie plane in trim. Then SWITCHES OFF
Trim manually

The other thing is that they seem to be easily able to trim manually when way out of trim in a dive. As we know that’s not possible and was never meant to be possible so I’m guessing the sim doesn’t represent the true forces.
R Guy. With insomnia

[megan]

It frustrates me that Boeing are taking far too much blame for this and not the airline's training department!Lion wanted to provide their crews with additional training but were talked out of it by guess who............Boeing

[retired guy]

As has been discussed at length on PPRuNe, the "robust training standards" are only as good as what was provided by Boeing, which we know was insufficient. Indeed, the notorious Lionair requested additional MAX 8 training from Boeing and were turned away.

The original threads for each crash are still available in the PPRuNe archives, go and read for yourself how quickly race was implicated as a cause for each incident.


An ironic way to end your rant.

I haven’t picked up on the race word too much to be fair. Might have missed it though. Point me! Many commentators have mentioned AF447 as almost same inability to fly basic modes when it all turns sour. Asiana too. And many others like that. But it is true that in the last ten years most serious accidents to passenger airlines were in three regions of the world. And only a few were in USA Europe. German Wings Turkish AMS. Others? But not many. I think it’s fact rather than racial prejudice. 200 airlines are banned from flying in EU. Many were/are in former USSR, Indonesia and Africa. Lionair was not, at the time of the crash, on the list. Point is that not all airlines are the same.
Some are way above the minimum requirements to obtain an AOC. Most are somewhere well above the red line. 200 or so are not . Unless one believes the EU. is prejudiced along racial lines.
just trying to get a balance on this racial card.
best wishes
R Guy

[retired guy]

Lion wanted to provide their crews with additional training but were talked out of it by guess who............Boeing

it’s up to each airline to train to whatever standard above the minimum they see fit. I’ve worked for three. And they all added in extra training where needed. But to do that the airline needs to have bags of experience itself. With newer and startups a totally different model may be needed. But would they be happy to have the manufacturer insisting on very high standards and checking those standards through the years through audits? And Manufacturers although they do train and have audit capabilities would need to massively expand that to monitor literally hundreds of new airlines coming along. Daunting task.
Food for thought.
R Guy

[Sunfish]

Oh I see, the crashes were caused by letting ignorant black savages fly modern technology airliners. Everyone knows blacks are inferior technologically. (sarcasm mode off). That is Boeing’s message as relayed by Thomas.

[Another Number]

GT is spouting Boeing manufactured fake news.
I'd tend to agree with tdracer regarding Boeing's involvement in production of GT's trash ...
More likely, the clown is just trying, yet again, to big-note and sound like The Man, after having spent hours studying blogs and fora, absorbing opinions, including those of the biased and clueless (like many of the sim kids that often rant on here).
He probably believes he'll get preferential treatment from Boeing if he publishes the most glowing pieces, polishing as he goes.
I've never met the clown, but know others who have ... and not one has liked him, let alone agreed with him (his boss had zero respect for him, as did most if not all of his colleagues!).

[swh]

When a Boeing test pilot takes 4 attempts to recover from this in a sim knowing it was coming, what chance did any line pilot have ?

”The pilot, Mark Forkner, told another Boeing employee in 2016 that the flight system, called MCAS, was “egregious” and “running rampant” while he tested it in a flight simulator.“So I basically lied to the regulators (unknowingly),” wrote Forkner, then Boeing’s chief technical pilot for the 737.”

https://apnews.com/822e02570983487f8cac3b43fd9defcb

[retired guy]

Not hating the guy, just hating the unfounded commonly incorrect rubbish that flows from him on a regular basis. Couldn't imagine waking to that trash on my local network or daily news read all the time. It's a sad situation when his so called reporting / journalism (use that term very loosely) pervades media sources and outlets here on the other side of the pond.

I’m not that familiar with him. Just googled a few videos and he seems about as clued up as most, and more than some. Maybe you can point me to one where he speaks rubbish? I’ve an open mind and he does seem to irritate a few folk on this thread. But then it started about him and it all seems rather personal. If you don’t like him don’t listen! I don’t I’ve come across more overt dislike of someone in a long time.
I’ll see some more of his utterances and see how it goes. Maybe he likes adverse publicity like some airlines.
R Guy

[fdr]

Curious if true. From the early 00's, Alteon was the training provider to ET. Alteon was a subsidiary of Boeing and was later renamed Boeing Training.
If Boeing remains the training provider to ET, then any argument on poor training is kind of circular.

[retired guy]

Oh I see, the crashes were caused by letting ignorant black savages fly modern technology airliners. Everyone knows blacks are inferior technologically. (sarcasm mode off). That is Boeing’s message as relayed by Thomas.
Don’t think AF447 crew were black. Plenty of nasty crashes close to home. But we need to
make sure that airlines operate to high standards- not white standards.
R Guy

[retired guy]

Curious if true. From the early 00's, Alteon was the training provider to ET. Alteon was a subsidiary of Boeing and was later renamed Boeing Training.
If Boeing remains the training provider to ET, then any argument on poor training is kind of circular.

If true I would agree. CAE seem to have a tie up
with Ethiopia Academy? Google it. Let’s find out!

I’m not a fan of setting up your own academy with 95% pass rate - bit too close to marking your own homework! Then you go to your airline which wants/needs you to pass- certainly pressure to pass.
That said I went to Hamble which was same idea for BOAC/BEA. Difference was heavy selection process with three days of elements which weeded out 3/4 or more of applicants. very high failure rate on 18 month course with few holidays. 250 hours flying in bad weather mostly. 50 hours aerobatics on chipmunks. 50 hours on twins (Aztec) much of it solo. Then further attrition at the airline with failures on the type rating and especially at base training which went on for several days due to no good sims. Runaway Stab on 707 was done at 5000 ft in circuit for real and the TC would run it AND for a l o n g time to get it really tough before saying “recover”
And this was in the dark ages when Pontius was still a pilate (pun).
This has changed utterly, the justification being that automation fills the gap. Recent FBW crashes and the Max crashes may point in a different direction, and it’s not one the industry wants to tackle. At all.
R Guy
in case anyone thinks I have a firework up the jacksy and have the opposite of writers cramp, I’m in hospital and on pain killers and half out of it, and bored to tears. But even so, I can still make sense of your postings folks and may our conversations long continue. The only ones I don’t really like are the personal ones.

[George Glass]

Gee sunfish , didn’t know you were so “woke”. I haven’t met a single B737 pilot , and I know plenty, that doesn’t think both accidents were anything other than a clusterf#@K, MCAS or no MCAS. If you think there aren’t training issues in developing countries talk to somebody whose trained Chinese / Indonesian/ African low cost carriers. It’s a massive issue and only going to get bigger. Personally , I wont fly domestically in Indonesia ....period. And its got nothing to do with color , just lots of experience operating there.

[mudguard01]

I agree with you.

The pilots are dead and therefore cannot defend themselves.

Boeing person tells GT about one of the dead persons training file. Of course defending their product and blaming those that flew it. GT now tells everyone he has the latest scoop on this whole affair. Very ethical to say the least NOT! The more this person opens up his mouth on TV or writes, the sillier he looks. What next? Perhaps he has already solved the C130 crash for us. GT is an idiot.

As for Boeing I have a feeling the idiot from Boeing ( after all we only have GT word for that) that spoke to GT does not represent Boeing especially when they have a number of matters involving litigation before the Court or pending.

[The name is Porter]

As has been discussed at length on PPRuNe, the "robust training standards" are only as good as what was provided by Boeing, which we know was insufficient. Indeed, the notorious Lionair requested additional MAX 8 training from Boeing and were turned away.

The poster was NOT referring to Boeing, the request for additional training or anything of the like.

The original threads for each crash are still available in the PPRuNe archives, go and read for yourself how quickly race was implicated as a cause for each incident.

So, another thread brings up race issues, this thread doesn't but you pick whatever post you can to create a race issue where there isn't one.

If you think there aren’t training issues in developing countries talk to somebody whose trained Chinese / Indonesian/ African low cost carriers. It’s a massive issue and only going to get bigger.

Rascist? Hardly. But 'outraged' people like you will turn it into a race issue.

Personally, I wont fly domestically in Indonesia ....period. And its got nothing to do with colour, just lots of experience operating there.

Rascist? Hardly. But 'outraged' people like you will turn it into a race issue.

[Sunfish]

GT brought up the race issue in thinly veiled slanderous comments finishing with “my friends at Southwest love the aircraft” and stating that Boeing’s only mistake was assuming that the aircraft would be flown by competent (ie: not brown africans or asian) crews.

Boeing actively discouraged simulator training on the max and sold it as “just your good ol’ B737 that your pappy flew”.

However even that is debatably unsafe since they didnt tell anyone about mcas.

[retired guy]

Absolute rubbish!

It took the crew and the jump seater considerable time to deactivate the electric trim - they did this because they thought the STS was running in the wrong direction.
Reply. We have no evidence of that since CVR is not release. CVR holds the clue to,a problem hurting the aviation industry and yet not in public domain.

How on Earth you can interpret that to be - they identified a trim runaway and followed the correct memory item is beyond belief.

reply. They turned off the STAB SWITCHES in time. That’s the life saver technique that’s taught or should be to all 737 pilots

This same crew you consider in high regard for dealing with the MCAS in the correct way, continued on to destination with the stick shaker still active - hardly by the book guys.

Reply. True. I would have landed back in Bali following a serious malfunction I didn’t understand and that required a pilot passenger to assist me with stick shaker going too- very noisy and distracting. But, that error is small compared with saving the plane. One of our pilots stalled a jumbo in a holding pattern. Not too good really. But his stall recovery was flawless. On balance nobody died and that’s what matters


The second Lion Air guys did not have a "runaway trim" that check list was revised after that crash & the word "continuous" was added.

Reply. Not so. Continuous has been there since the 707 and 737-100. They had all they needed like the guy(s) the day before b

Ethiopian probably re-engaged the electric trim because the reduced size manual trim wheel was not working - note * the trim wheel was marginal prior to it's reduction in size, that is why the Yo Yo procedure was in the early 737 manuals.

Reply. If you do not sort out the trim using the ELECTRIC MANUAL TRIM , as the drill says, and leave on full power and get over design speed limit of the plane: even beyond test pilot limits you are into no man’s land in terms of manual trim response , yes the wheel won’t turn. The reduction in wheel size I agree will mean that it will be harder to turn for a given out of trim condition. But I bet that up to VMO Boeing tested it with “two pilot effort” as described in the flight training manual. That’s both guys cranking together. But you don’t need to do that if you correct the trim electrically before going SWITCHES OFF.
And I bet it worked. They never expected anyone to leave on full power and get way out of design parameters. No manufacturer guarantees a plane outside design limits.

Thats just another view of the same events from a different perspective

[CurtainTwitcher]

Simple facts: Same crews, Same training, Same Angle of Attack vane (identical part number) for the NG and the MAX.

Fatal accident rate: NG 0.06 per million departures (100+ million departures), MAX 3.08 per million departures (0.65 million departures). No know flight control fatal accidents for NG.
Same everything EXCEPT additional software in the MAX controlling the stabiliser trim.

If we took out over-runs, undershoots, loss of control and a mid air due to human errors, the rate for the NG would be even lower, the NG is an amazingly safe aircraft. The MAX as certified was not regardless of where the accidents occurred. The NG is just as capable of killing when crewed by incompetent pilots. Ten fatal accidents for the NG since 1997, two for the MAX in less than 2 years.

Put yourself in the position of the airworthiness authorities with the above comparable accident rate. Would you allow it to fly in your jurisdiction based on those numbers? How could you have justify allowing this to fly if there was an accident on your watch?
That is why the MAX is still grounded.

[retired guy]

Gee sunfish , didn’t know you were so “woke”. I haven’t met a single B737 pilot , and I know plenty, that doesn’t think both accidents were anything other than a clusterf#@K, MCAS or no MCAS. If you think there aren’t training issues in developing countries talk to somebody whose trained Chinese / Indonesian/ African low cost carriers. It’s a massive issue and only going to get bigger. Personally , I wont fly domestically in Indonesia ....period. And its got nothing to do with color , just lots of experience operating there.

George. You’re a brave man in a PC world! I don’t know any 737 pilots either that don’t think that. But there are two EU airlines very close to UK that I wouldn’t fly on either. So it’s not just about race or anything like that. It’s about confidence. Arrogance can be a factor in some “western” airlines. Over confidence. Hubris. That’s as bad as incompetence as we have seen. I know for example a lot of business people who fly on airlines based entirely on safety record and confidence. Even though the cabin service can be awful.
I am in hospital right. Now recovering from surgery. Any hospital? No. I picked the one with the best safety record. They aren’t all the same as we know .
Home today so less time to rattle off on these pages but I really enjoy the arguments ebbing and flowing whether I agree with them or not. We all benefit here.
R Guy

[retired guy]

Simple facts: Same crews, Same training, Same Angle of Attack vane (identical part number) for the NG and the MAX.

Fatal accident rate: NG 0.06 per million departures (100+ million departures), MAX 3.08 per million departures (0.65 million departures). No know flight control fatal accidents for NG.
Same everything EXCEPT additional software in the MAX controlling the stabiliser trim.

If we took out over-runs, undershoots, loss of control and a mid air due to human errors, the rate for the NG would be even lower, the NG is an amazingly safe aircraft. The MAX as certified was not regardless of where the accidents occurred. The NG is just as capable of killing when crewed by incompetent pilots. Ten fatal accidents for the NG since 1997, two for the MAX in less than 2 years.

Put yourself in the position of the airworthiness authorities with the above comparable accident rate. Would you allow it to fly in your jurisdiction based on those numbers? How could you have justify allowing this to fly if there was an accident on your watch?
That is why the MAX is still grounded.

Hi curtain twitcher
Another slant
The sample rate for Max is very small outside USA. So percentage crash rates are not comparable. How did the USA rate compare? What was the max accident rate per million USA departures where most of The flying took place?
The 737 100/200 had a poor start like the 727. Both went on to be a success. Reminds me of an ad in Ireland last year
” Dacia, Ireland’s biggest selling car since last year” . It’s true. They sold ten last year and 20 this year. That’s double. 200% increase ( figures not accurate but makes the point). Ford sold 50,000 or so.

Since 1997 you say. Well what has been the biggest change since then? It’s not MCAS . It’s the change in training requirements. In my view. But I do wear glasses.
all the best and thanks for your own viewpoint which I accept is a valuable to as mine is to me
R Guy

[Bend alot]

The reduction in wheel size I agree will mean that it will be harder to turn for a given out of trim condition. But I bet that up to VMO Boeing tested it with “two pilot effort” as described in the flight training manual. That’s both guys cranking together.

Well that makes it compliant for certification then doesn't it!

Emergency to be carried out by a single crew member - trim run away a memory item!! but needs two crew to crank the handle/s

And all simulators under stated the trim wheel forces (the only training crews ever get/got).

Retired Guy it was known well before the NG that the trim wheel was "marginal" and a procedure was put in the manuals - but that was removed and the wheel reduced in size.

But for certification (inc the MAX) up till VMO will need a single pilot to carry out the trim adjustment, not two or both.

That will be tricky I expect (even for an NG!).

[XPMorten]

FDR data replay of the Ethiopian flight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIUM0q8Fnsk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUvsXxT62HE

[172510]

A level of experience would have gone a long way to fixing this issue, many times 737’s have experienced issues with the Elec pitch trim after takeoff ( either runaways, locked or failed trims ) and handled the situation to a successful outcome by disconnecting the elec stab trim and using manual trim. (..) There is no substitute for experience, full stop end of story.
How much experience do you think is required to be able to figure out that disconnecting the elec stab trim and using manual trim is the thing to do in case of trim runaway, failed or locked? Believe it or not, I knew that even before my first type rating.

[tdracer]

Oh I see, the crashes were caused by letting ignorant black savages fly modern technology airliners. Everyone knows blacks are inferior technologically. (sarcasm mode off). That is Boeing’s message as relayed by Thomas.
Good grief Sunfish, so now Boeing is racist because GT said something stupid.
If you, as you claim, walked the halls around Boeing engineering, you should know just how ridiculous that accusation is. There is absolutely no shortage of engineers of Asian descent and more than a few black/brown faces along with other "people of color" as the woke say these days.
Your groundless speculation knows no bounds...

[know_nothing_PPL]

Hi curtain twitcher
Another slant
The sample rate for Max is very small outside USA. So percentage crash rates are not comparable. How did the USA rate compare? What was the max accident rate per million USA departures where most of The flying took place?
The 737 100/200 had a poor start like the 727. Both went on to be a success.
Since 1997 you say. Well what has been the biggest change since then? It’s not MCAS . It’s the change in training requirements. In my view. But I do wear glasses.
all the best and thanks for your own viewpoint which I accept is a valuable to as mine is to me
R Guy
The accident proportions for Boeing 737-600/700/800/900 and the Boeing 737 Max of 0.06 and 3,08 per million flights are different on the 0.000000000000001 level (two-tailed z-test for two proportions). That means that in saying the MAX is unsafer than the MAX, your risk to be wrong is 1:1000000000000000. I have never before seen such a significance level.

To answer your question: let's bend statistics and assume that 10% of the MAX and 30% of the 737-600/700/800/900 flights took place outside the US and all fatal MAX crashes and 50% of the pre-MAX fatal crashes were outside the US. The incredibly high significance level remains about the same. In other words, even outside the "well-trained-western-pilots"-US there is absolutely no uncertainty that the MAX has a way higher fatal accident rate.

[Rated De]

The accident proportions for Boeing 737-600/700/800/900 and the Boeing 737 Max of 0.06 and 3,08 per million flights are different on the 0.000000000000001 level (two-tailed z-test for two proportions). That means that in saying the MAX is unsafer than the MAX, your risk to be wrong is 1:1000000000000000. I have never before seen such a significance level.

To answer your question: let's bend statistics and assume that 10% of the MAX and 30% of the 737-600/700/800/900 flights were outside the US and all fatal MAX crashes and 50% of the pre-MAX fatal crashes took place outside the US. The ridiculously high significance level remains the same, in other words, even outside the US there is no uncertainty that the MAX has a way higher fatal accident rate.

The inference is very clear..

[Sunfish]

Good grief Sunfish, so now Boeing is racist because GT said something stupid.
If you, as you claim, walked the halls around Boeing engineering, you should know just how ridiculous that accusation is. There is absolutely no shortage of engineers of Asian descent and more than a few black/brown faces along with other "people of color" as the woke say these days.
Your groundless speculation knows no bounds...



I know Boeing’s workforce (or used to), that’s why the Thomas message is so degrading.

[Rated De]

For all of Boeing’s business coups and innovation, one stark statistic has come to symbolize the company’s priorities: Over the past six years, Boeing spent $43.4 billion on stock buybacks, compared with $15.7 billion on research and development for commercial airplanes. The board even approved an additional $20 billion buyback in December 2018, less than two months after the first 737 Max crash, though it subsequently shelved that plan.

Share buy backs, short term focus long term neglect.
Have a read Geoffrey, there are actual journalists out there, not just dingle-berry types.

https://fortune.com/longform/boeing-737-max-crisis-shareholder-first-culture/

Much easier to blame deceased people for corporate negligence.

[MickG0105]

Hi curtain twitcher
Another slant
The sample rate for Max is very small outside USA. ... What was the max accident rate per million USA departures where most of The flying took place?

In fact, the sample rate for the MAX is very small in the US.

You seem to be under the impression that most of the MAX fleet is in the US. It's not. Out of 387 MAXs delivered only 76 are registered in the US, 69 of those shared between American, United and Southwest. There are more MAXs in China than the US. The overwhelming majority of the MAXs delivered are flown outside of the US.

[fdr]

The accident proportions for Boeing 737-600/700/800/900 and the Boeing 737 Max of 0.06 and 3,08 per million flights are different on the 0.000000000000001 level (two-tailed z-test for two proportions). That means that in saying the MAX is unsafer than the MAX, your risk to be wrong is 1:1000000000000000. I have never before seen such a significance level.

To answer your question: let's bend statistics and assume that 10% of the MAX and 30% of the 737-600/700/800/900 flights took place outside the US and all fatal MAX crashes and 50% of the pre-MAX fatal crashes were outside the US. The incredibly high significance level remains about the same. In other words, even outside the "well-trained-western-pilots"-US there is absolutely no uncertainty that the MAX has a way higher fatal accident rate.

Take care undertaking statistical comparisons where the events are exceptional outcomes, and where the compared populations are uneven sizes.

By grace, there is usually so few accidents that a normal or poisson distribution of any population does not occur. Comparing disparate populations with such low levels of events can be done by various methods, however the error or reliability of the methods tends to swamp the signal that is being looked at. Whenever looking at statistical data, the truth resides in the notes.

If a regional analysis is undertaken on all types, then the confounding factors include age of fleet, maintenance, ATC, terrain, weather etc, and these are not easy to filter out. If one wants to just look at exceptions, then ET 409 is a probable example of a crew losing spatial orientation, and having a bad day. The crew were from Ethiopia, the plane was likely serviceable to impact. Therefore Ethiopian training is "no good"? Thats 2010, In 2019, a serviceable B767-300F is parked in the water to the east of Houston, GTI3591. Does that indicate that the training and regulator of that flight is also incompetent? If ET and all other AFR/ME/SEA/NA are collectively shown to be incompetent on the basis of a single event, then the corollary has to also hold, that AA, DL, SWA etc are also collectively tainted by a single exceptional event, and that would obviously be considered unreasonable, as it indeed is, as is collectively arguing statistics of exceptional events as being a basis for a holier than thou position across national boundaries.

A valid analysis of the differences between the international populations that removes or at least quantifies the various factors meaningfully would take much more data than is thankfully at hand.

[George Glass]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aviation_accidents_and_incidents_in_Indonesia

The name is Porter, check that out and then tell me there isn’t a problem.

Not racist, Just rational.

[Bend alot]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aviation_accidents_and_incidents_in_Indonesia

The name is Porter, check that out and then tell me there isn’t a problem.

Not racist, Just rational.

wiki - List of victims of aviation accidents or incidents.

Will show the USA higher than Indonesia.

Lion Air was trying for more simulator training for the MAX and any training is good - they were basically told they will look like fools if they mandated the training.

Don't tell me that's not a problem - the weak ask for help then get laughed at by people expecting $1,000 per phone call.

[George Glass]

“Will show the USA higher than Indonesia.”

Absolute nonsense.

[Rated De]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aviation_accidents_and_incidents_in_Indonesia

The name is Porter, check that out and then tell me there isn’t a problem.

Not racist, Just rational.

Not sure George, but other than the Lion Air crash were any of the aircraft fitted with MCAS?

[George Glass]

Rated De , have you looked at the flight data recorder transcript of the Lion Air accident ? If so , did you understand it? Have you operated a B737 ? Have you operated in Indonesia ? Want me to bore you with “war stories” about my experiences there ? If you want to convince yourself that all carriers are equal on ideological grounds ,well, knock yourself out. I cant help you. Meanwhile I’ll stick to reality.

[fdr]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aviation_accidents_and_incidents_in_Indonesia

The name is Porter, check that out and then tell me there isn’t a problem.

Not racist, Just rational.

Operation in Indonesia has it's fair share of challenges. No argument on that. The weather can be remarkably severe, runways are of questionable condition, as they are in many places around the world. ATC can be problematic. Growth rates of the LCC come with challenges. The legacy carriers had their moments. Terrain has its shares of lumpy bits.

The Adam Air B734 accident was directly attributable to the crews actions following lack of knowledge and training. A lot of runway excursions occurred over the years, from a toxic mix of bad weather, poor friction coefficients, unstable approaches etc. As often as those are crew related, they also reflect the management pressure and the environmental condition. Still, highest likely hood to own a Boeing is to buy some land off the end of a runway, or side sometimes.

Be that as it may, the problems of JT43/JT610 (and ET302) took over 6 months of investigation to become understood, and so far, the cure for it is still not in place. That doesn't gel with a causation being the crew only. At the point in time that the crew had their bad days, none of what is known now was known, and they were confronted with novel conditions. If the manufacturers TP's weren't aware of the system, how do we expect the crew to be able to work it out, while fighting for their lives? No pressure.... If the manufacturers TP had to have multiple goes to get a successful recovery from the same starting conditions, knowing what they did after the events, and knowing when it was going to occur, then it seems somewhat unreasonable to blame the crew.

The crew were not the designers of the ICAO standards for crew training or experience, nor part of personnel selection, nor the designers of the system that was added without any advice to the operators. The crew are victims of the system, not the cause of the system. That goes far higher up the food chain.

just sayin'

[Sunfish]

George, I think we are all aware of ‘cultural differences”between various countries, but I fail to see how they are relevant to a bizarre system failure in a badly designed model of the B737. My understanding is the FAA, Regulators and perhaps the FBI and major American law firms agree with me.

[Bend alot]

“Will show the USA higher than Indonesia.”

Absolute nonsense.
From memory USA has 209 pages of victims and Indonesia was in low double numbers - 20ish pages if that.

Check the wiki yourself - the same listing you posted to prove a point you wished to make.

I will concede that there is much more to take into consideration - but that is not what you did.

Lion Air wanted extra training for the MAX - Boeing stopped that happening.

P.S PNG has a poor aviation history- bloody expats!

[Rated De]

George, I think we are all aware of ‘cultural differences”between various countries, but I fail to see how they are relevant to a bizarre system failure in a badly designed model of the B737. My understanding is the FAA, Regulators and perhaps the FBI and major American law firms agree with me.

Quite correct Sunfish.

A logical fallacy no matter how cleverly constructed whether it be race, education,political or ethnic grounds does not excuse corporate malfeasance.
A non sequitur is just that and to suggest that nationality is the reason why the thing pitched itself vertical is a deductive failure.

[knackered IV]

How much experience do you think is required to be able to figure out that disconnecting the elec stab trim and using manual trim is the thing to do in case of trim runaway, failed or locked? Believe it or not, I knew that even before my first type rating.
172510 and ACMS, you guys need to read your accident reports more carefully.

It was not as simple as just applying the stab trim cutout then winding the trim manually back to neutral or wherever. The fact that MCAS had so much authority (multiples of what they had told the FAA) meant that by the time the pilots realised what was going on and applied the correct procedure, the amount of mis-trim was substantial. This then exposed what was an unappreciated flaw in the B737 stab trim operation: that it can be difficult if not impossible to operate manually if there is significant pressure on it. Relaxing the back pressure with the nose pointing at he ground would take great courage I'm sure. This would have been the case for the Ethiopian crew and explains why they restored the stab trim cut out switches in an effort to get back some control of the stab. Grasping at straws for sure but understandable.

[patplan]

...snipped...
Another slant
The sample rate for Max is very small outside USA. So percentage crash rates are not comparable. How did the USA rate compare? What was the max accident rate per million USA departures where most of The flying took place?...

You must be joking retired guy. I don't know how you based your statistics. Do you know that nearly 75% of DELIVERED AND IN-SERVICE Boeing 737 Max 8 is being operated outside the US [and Canada]?? I'm sure you miss that fact; otherwise, you won't be making your statement.

Boeing 737 Max 8 in service in North America [see here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_737_MAX_orders_and_deliveries)]:
American Airlines - 24
United Airlines - 14
Southwest Airlines - 34
Air Canada - 24
Sunwing - 4
Westjet - 13

[b]Total B38M operational in US and Canada: 113
Total B38M operational worldwide: 423

I guess you don't have to be a math genius to figure out that [b]ONLY ABOUT 26% [113/423] of B38M is operational in US and Canada. So, THE AIRLINES FROM THE REST OF THE WORLD STATISTICALLY KNOW THE ERRATIC/ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR OF B38M BETTER THAN ONES IN THE US [plus CANADA].

And, let me show you one "MIND BOGGLING" statistic from THE "FIRST" and "MOST EXPERIENCED" B38M crews in the universe: the Lion Air Group. Yes. It's the first and very fortunate airline to experience Boeing's cut-corner-for-profit-and-to-hell-with-safety mentality.

This is from the FINAL Accident Report of Lion Air PK-LQP:https://i.ibb.co/4JWQ62V/cycle1.png (https://imgbb.com/)
https://i.ibb.co/yRSNh55/engine.png (https://imgbb.com/)
Does it look "normal" to you? If you do, take a look again at the numbers because this airplane PK-LQP had only been in service from 13th August 2018 to 29th October 2018 [only 75 days!!]. Around ~900 hours / ~450 cycles in just 75 DAYS !! Guess what. Lion Air utilizes virtually every single plane it has the same way. Lion air seems to have played the dice called Boeing 737 Max 8. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to them, they had played with a flawed and deadly dice, and the consequence had been disastrously fatal- 189 people perished.

I think you finally realize that all airlines in the world are unwittingly played the game of "Russian Roulette" created by Boeing and its cohorts, and, unfortunately, the odds are EXPONENTIALLY HIGHER for the owners of 74% of ALL Boeing 737 Max 8 in operation worldwide [excluding the US/Canada] to face some major catastrophes. And, while looking at that number and that big utilization numbers by Lion Air, I won't be that surprised if in reality 80-90% of historical B38M utilization had been performed by airlines outside the US and Canada.

And, you've asked...

...snipped...
How did the USA rate compare?
For B38M? Sorry retired guy. NO CONTEST. But, if for some reason the FAA would let "the new and improved" B38M to only fly in North America... Well...

[WHBM]

Maybe we should throw GT, or any other hero here who wants to blame a crew who can’t defend themselves anymore, into the sim and recreate the conditions those pilots (I’m thinking more ET) experienced, and see if any of these heroes have the physical strength to physically pitch the aircraft up when the stab has trimmed so far nose down.

After having seen some videos where crews in a sim were presented with similar conditions and struggled to maintain control it would be difficult, even for experienced crews with prior knowledge of what was going to happened as opposed to a crew who was presented with a surprise event that didn’t match any of their prior training.
I believe one mainstream carrier who did this found that some of their crews, notably well-skilled and fully aware of the issues, still managed to lose the aircraft in the exercise first time round.

[retired guy]

Patplan
Thanks a lot for that breakdown of utilization.
yes, if your figures are correct, I was completely wrong and thought that there were more in USA.
So that rendered that part of my piece incorrect. It’s what makes PPRUNE so good. You don’t get away with dbad info for too long. As long as we are not afraid of posting what we believe, take some trouble to ensure it’s not just a rant, and accept that others may disagree I haven’t found a better forum than this one.
Tail between legs, I will now have to spend today rethinking that part of this very complex saga! Thanks to you.
R Guy

[retired guy]

In fact, the sample rate for the MAX is very small in the US.

You seem to be under the impression that most of the MAX fleet is in the US. It's not. Out of 387 MAXs delivered only 76 are registered in the US, 69 of those shared between American, United and Southwest. There are more MAXs in China than the US. The overwhelming majority of the MAXs delivered are flown outside of the US.
Yes Mick
got that completely wrong so thanks a lot for putting me right.
This forum is for speaking up, yes, but also for learning, listening and humility to admit when someone else has it right....!
Humbly
R Guy

[retired guy]

Related to the current debate about the accident rate for the. MAX by region, over the last ten years this slide seems to paint some sort of picture. I know the sample rate is low these days so one crash among few can skew the stats. For example a really poor startup somewhere with maybe 30 planes might be fatality free after 5 years and would look really good, while incubating a very poor future. A really good airline with 40 years fatality free and with a generally excellent safety focus and organisation with good training can be unlucky. I am not picking out this next airline as necessarily fitting those criteria but they are close and it illustrates the point. ---- BA 777 LHR at LHR for example nearly killed more people than any crash in history - if the engines had failed over London 5 minutes earlier. We all need a bit of luck as well as first class pilots, training, engineering and corporate/regulatory safety culture.
The left two columns are region. The right two are the airlines.
Excluding small accidents. No Military or Freighters. No Hot Air Baloons. Just scheduled passenger planes with major accidents
Ignore the yellow highlight. Not relevant.
R Guy

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1439x1070/regions_9f82e69d1979e849ec1106cc26566f6cfd1b9e23.png

[Centaurus]

Relaxing the back pressure with the nose pointing at the ground would take great courage I'm sure. This would have been the case for the Ethiopian crew and explains why they restored the stab trim cut out switches in an effort to get back some control of the stab. Grasping at straws for sure but understandable.

Read Post 66. In the Roller Coaster method described in early Boeing 737 Pilot Training Manuals, relaxing the back pressure is carried out with the nose held well above the horizon. Not while in a dive..

[jmmoric]

For example a really poor startup somewhere with maybe 30 planes....

That's a lot of aircraft...

But I'm a bit unsure what you meant? If Lion Air has a bad reputation, then yes... But taking every single pilot from the company, and putting into the same bucket, is not fair. And I'm sure Lion Air is/has been working hard on the issues... but you can never blame them for something they had no idea in their wildest dreams would be comming their way.

Though I agree pilots could use more "on hands" time, I'm not sure that is even doable in modern aircraft, they're very much automated, and that goes even for Boeing.... Airbus has just taken the step fully, and re-done how you control an aircraft completely.... which works fine (until you pull that fuse).

[retired guy]

That's a lot of aircraft...

But I'm a bit unsure what you meant? If Lion Air has a bad reputation, then yes... But taking every single pilot from the company, and putting into the same bucket, is not fair. And I'm sure Lion Air is/has been working hard on the issues... but you can never blame them for something they had no idea in their wildest dreams would be comming their way.

Though I agree pilots could use more "on hands" time, I'm not sure that is even doable in modern aircraft, they're very much automated, and that goes even for Boeing.... Airbus has just taken the step fully, and re-done how you control an aircraft completely.... which works fine (until you pull that fuse).

Hi jmmoric
No I wasn’t referring to Lionair. Just about how stats can be misleading. New airlines can seem great but you can’t tell from a small fleet over a short time. Older airlines with great decades of safe flying can become complacent. Things change. Then even luck can come into it as per BA 777 LHR on the grass. 40 odd years of great safety. Great skill in the circumstances. But ten miles earlier it could have been very different over central London.
Another stat that gets missed is how many total or near hull losses were there. With no fatalities. That is a massive warning sign. I can think of a few right now.

Your second point is of course now at the epicenter of the automation argument. Do we train to still retain basic stick and rudder “in case”, or do we say the automatics can handle most things better than humans? And is there an in between where the automatics do most of it with a bit of pilot intervention (takeoff and windy landings at the moment). But does this give our pilot enough practice when it’s needed?
good subject this.
I am in stick an rudder camp but my name gives that away!R Guy

[retired guy]

Read Post 66. In the Roller Coaster method described in early Boeing 737 Pilot Training Manuals, relaxing the back pressure is carried out with the nose held well above the horizon. Not while in a dive..

I still have my 707 manual and I think that image was an idealized concept. Nice level plane all out of trim nose down. Raise nose. Let go& Unload. Trim like crazy ANU for twenty seconds. But nose dropping all the time during unload period. But, your now more or less back in trim. Raise nose with elevator and finish manual trim. I’m not sure they meant you couldn’t do it from a high or low pitch attitude?
R Guy

[WingNut60]

The Adam Air B734 accident was directly attributable to the crews actions following lack of knowledge and training

Agree about 90%. But you can't overlook WHY they had their heads under the dashboard in the first place.

[MickG0105]

Yes Mick
got that completely wrong so thanks a lot for putting me right.
This forum is for speaking up, yes, but also for learning, listening and humility to admit when someone else has it right....!
Humbly
R Guy
RG, that's no problem at all, you're more than welcome. The 'most MAXs in the US' misconception is commonly held.

Salute to your gracious and mature acceptance of the correction. That's not all that common in this forum.

[fdr]

Agree about 90%. But you can't overlook WHY they had their heads under the dashboard in the first place.

Maintenance may indeed be a causal factor in that case, however would lay odds that no existing Boeing or Airbus will take kindly to turning off the AHRS/INS/ADIRU/ADIRS in flight in unstable conditions... Now if they had an ipad, iphone, android phone, then there are $0.99 apps that will give better info than you get from your stby AI, integrated or not.

[puposiciliano]

It takes two hands to clap. Boeing were decidedly dodgy with their minimalist excuse for training. Likewise the operators of the two crashed MAXs were, shall we politely say, not known for their high standards of required minimum crew competence.

In my mind, the blame lies squarely with airline management across the world - they demand new generation aircraft that can be operated by cheap, minimally trained, dumbed down pilots. And that can be maintained by equally clueless and cheap engineers. Boeing (and Airbus) are merely meeting this demand. The travelling public may want low cost, but they don’t realize the price they’re really paying.
Agree 200%!

[puposiciliano]

True and my experience of the issue as well.
Spot on!!!

[42...]

There has never ever been a Boeing jet that puts Stabilizer trim commands in remotely. This is the crux of the deal, in a Boeing you fly it and don’t expect any computer inputs. Airbus fine that’s a given, but not in a Boeing. This is a big deal and especially as it uses one sensor a disaster in the making.
Uh, speed trim ring a bell?

[Sunfish]

lucille? It takes two hands to clap. Boeing were decidedly dodgy with their minimalist excuse for training. Likewise the operators of the two crashed MAXs were, shall we politely say, not known for their high standards of required minimum crew competence.

In my mind, the blame lies squarely with airline management across the world - they demand new generation aircraft that can be operated by cheap, minimally trained, dumbed down pilots. And that can be maintained by equally clueless and cheap engineers. Boeing (and Airbus) are merely meeting this demand. The travelling public may want low cost, but they don’t realize the price they’re really paying.

Yes, Boeing are meeting this demand - by designing, manufacturing and selling sub standard products that they represented as perfectly safe in the hands of your so called dumbed down pilots and engineers.

Boeing actively discouraged simulator training on the B737 Max! The dumbing down was greatest at Boeing Headquarters in Chicago!

As for Airbus, I wouldn’t compare them to Boeing.

[Dora-9]

As for Airbus, I wouldn’t compare them to Boeing.

Then talk to anybody who's converted from the A330 to the A350; ask how little they're told about what is a very different aeroplane.

[George Glass]

So Sunfish , your Check and Training experience on Boeing aircraft is what , precisely?
Or are you just making it up as you go along?

[neville_nobody]

Here's probably a better explanation as to how this whole mess came about: 737-Max (https://wondery.com/shows/business-wars/)

[P51D]

Great question George, can’t wait to see Sunfish’s answer. He comes across as sooo knowledgeable about everything Aviation. He’d have to have 20,000+ hours as PIC on widebody heavies...wouldn’t he??? Might get GT to do a story!

[Sunfish]

I note your attempt at an Ad Hominem attack. I comment within my competence and at present, the FAA and Regulators around the world reckon that the Max is unfit to fly. If the regulators and knowledgeable pilots say MCAS is a crock, that’s good enough for me. I don’t need to be a 20,000 hr check pilot to understand that this is a major crock and no amount of spin by Thomas, P51d or George can reverse that fact.

MCAS is a kludge that should never have been designed and installed the way it was, which is probably why the FBI has launched an investigation. The argument that MCAS is a minor glitch just doesn’t wash. That happens to be why 737 production is not just temporarily halted but actually stopped, but I don’t expect you would understand the huge difference in what that means in manufacturing terms.

Furthermore the “dumb third world crew” argument doesn’t fit these accidents and besmirches anyone who tries to use it for reasons of simple logic.

I stand by my comments on Boeing in the old days - it was a great company to work with and had wonderful employees as I have posted before. Now, obviously, as evidenced by published internal company communications, a great company to work for? not so much.

As for Airbus, how dare anyone slander them by saying that they are in the same crap as Boeing?

[misd-agin]

There has never ever been a Boeing jet that puts Stabilizer trim commands in remotely. This is the crux of the deal, in a Boeing you fly it and don’t expect any computer inputs. Airbus fine that’s a given, but not in a Boeing. This is a big deal and especially as it uses one sensor a disaster in the making.

777?
787?
737-800 STS?
767-300 autoland?

[George Glass]

Uuuuuuuum , you didn’t answer the question Sunfish. Why do you feel the need to comment on subjects you know nothing about? I know its fun to pile on but its not the same as informed comment is it ?

[Icarus2001]

If the regulators and knowledgeable pilots say MCAS is a crock, that’s good enough for me.

Which regulator has said "MCAS is a croc"?

So you accept knowledgeable pilots who say "MCAS is a crock" but ignore those who disagree with that statement?

Based on what knowledge and experience on your part?

[Clandestino]

There has never ever been a Boeing jet that puts Stabilizer trim commands in remotely.

That's what a whole lot of people think, however, it's not true.

According to NTSB submittal to KKNT (page 246 of final PK-LPQ report), Speed Trim System and Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System are, despite the nomenclature, not the systems but merely software. They are flight control laws through which Flight Control Computers act on the horizontal stabilizer during manual flight. What NTSB has written about STS being installed on NGs is true but it's not the whole truth: STS has been introduced on 737-300. Baby Boeings have track record of FCC meddling with pitch trim while autopilot is off since 1984. but as STS has far lesser authority than MCAS (especially as installed, compared to as certified) it is at worst just a mild nuisance.

[Sunfish]

Icarus: So you accept knowledgeable pilots who say "MCAS is a crock" but ignore those who disagree with that statement?

False logic. The regulators - FAA and EASA, etc. say it is a crock and grounded the fleet. Knowledgeable pilots have explained in great detail exactly why it is a crock. Internal Boeing communications explain the motivation for the crock and the engineering solution to the problem of the Max not meeting the FAR’s in relation to yoke forces at high angles of attack. Furthermore Boeing internal communications show that Boeing actively discouraged customer simulator training on the Max for marketing reasons.

Furthermore aircraft production is not just temporarily halted but actually stopped.

But wait! There’s more.... the FBI is conducting a criminal investigation into the matter of how the Max was certified at all!

But wait! There’s even more - 300 lives lost in two accidents involving malfunctioning MCAS!

Disagreement with the statement that “MCAS is a crock” simply demonstrates that the person making such a statement is obviously not knowledgeable at all and should not be flying passenger aircraft.

To put that another way, do you also believe the world is flat?

[CurtainTwitcher]

Which regulator has said "MCAS is a croc"?
Transport Canada expert, Jim Marko, for one, others within the FAAIn the emails, Jim Marko, the manager in aircraft integration and safety assessment at Transport Canada Civil Aviation, wrote that the “only way I see moving forward at this point, is that MCAS has to go,” the Times reported.

According to a different email reviewed by The Times, at least one FAA manager, Linh Le, shares his view.

Le, a system safety manager, reportedly forwarded Marko’s email to colleagues, and writing that Marko was concerned that “MCAS introduces catastrophic hazards that weren’t there before,” and that “it and the fix add too much complexity.” Le reportedly also said that he had similar concerns.

In the email, Marko reportedly expressed concerns that regulators would feel pressured into accepting the updated software and certifying the Max to fly, even if issues with the fix continued to arise.


https://airlinerwatch.com/canadian-official-warns-regulators-not-to-allow-the-737-max-to-fly/

Full Marko email https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/transport-canada-safety-official-urges-removal-of-mcas-from-737-max/

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/720x768/marko_email_93710c2567a3537da70a808334009259055ec6ca.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1440x810/jim_marko_tc_mcas_slide_2_0e51bd4a81180a80bd7b136cd83e68ba4e fd59f3.jpg

[swh]

What NTSB has written about STS being installed on NGs is true but it's not the whole truth: STS has been introduced on 737-300.

More of a half truth. The FAA certified the 737NG without STS, however JAA would not certify the aircraft as it did not meet certification standards. To meet the JAA certification standards Boeing were forced to install STS, that was subsequently retrofitted to all 737NGs as standard.

[Going Boeing]

This timeline indicates that GT’s time has come AND gone.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/2000x1274/4b6a2631_5aa0_476e_99e4_497ccc99c209_dc9217158ab9b56d101c9c9 a24e0a0ee6279c219.jpeg

[megan]

I know there is no answer available to us, but I wonder what operating restrictions there would be if MCAS were removed, as we were told early in the piece that it existed only to tune the handling at low weights and aft CoG

How often do you -800 chaps find yourselves with aft CoG and low weight?

[ScepticalOptomist]

I know there is no answer available to us, but I wonder what operating restrictions there would be if MCAS were removed, as we were told early in the piece that it existed only to tune the handling at low weights and aft CoG

How often do you -800 chaps find yourselves with aft CoG and low weight?

The aircraft wouldn’t have been certified without it, so moot point?

[QuarterInchSocket]

GT ain’t wrong. Boeing built a dud, no doubt... pilots had the capacity to apply a solution engineered into the plane to overcome the issue, but didn’t. Why? from memory, nor did they bother to adjust thrust for nose down attitude. All of this, so close after the lion air problems.

apart from Boeing’s complacency costing them big time, I find myself asking what the point is there in having pilots if they are inexperienced and incapable of performing their primary role (fly the plane). Might as well let the computers do the job with a single pilot monitoring, from the ground. (Rhetoric). We haven’t got to that stage yet, fortunately, the world is still filled chockablock of Sully’s and De Crespigny’s

[Clandestino]

More of a half truth. The FAA certified the 737NG without STS, however JAA would not certify the aircraft as it did not meet certification standards. To meet the JAA certification standards Boeing were forced to install STS, that was subsequently retrofitted to all 737NGs as standard.

I would really love to see the reference for that, thank you in advance.

I know there is no answer available to us, but I wonder what operating restrictions there would be if MCAS were removed, as we were told early in the piece that it existed only to tune the handling at low weights and aft CoGJust the usual restrictions shared with all other EXPERIMENTAL category aeroplanes.

How often do you -800 chaps find yourselves with aft CoG and low weight?Well, if the STS is there only to cater for aft CG and low weight, than my every flight is so, notwithstanding what loadsheet claims.

[fdr]

Transport Canada expert, Jim Marko, for one, others within the FAA

https://airlinerwatch.com/canadian-official-warns-regulators-not-to-allow-the-737-max-to-fly/

Full Marko email https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/transport-canada-safety-official-urges-removal-of-mcas-from-737-max/

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/720x768/marko_email_93710c2567a3537da70a808334009259055ec6ca.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1440x810/jim_marko_tc_mcas_slide_2_0e51bd4a81180a80bd7b136cd83e68ba4e fd59f3.jpg

The Max problem could be fixed aerodynamically, but it comes with a time cost and a likely increase in TODR, which can be mitigated, but takes some curious aero to do. The current low speed issue is associated with the flow around the wing from the nacelle and vane. There is good understanding on the effect of the vane on the wing and that could be adjusted to return to compliant stall behaviour. Doing so would affect CLmax for that section of the wing, but that can be improved, as although the flaps are a nice design, there are other things that can done to make them better, returning the CLmax to levels near or above the current levels, but increasing the Cm of the section in a beneficial manner. That is simple aero to apply. Peter Randolph should go chat with J. C. Lin, and then go chat with Doc Rose. Just dropping the vanes results in a structural problem as much as a performance one, the wing bending moment goes bad so the CLmax has to be massaged without the Cm that exists from the nacelle. FWIW, we happened to fly this particular aero device on a B737 over 5 years ago, for other reasons, but that is what is possible.

Or stay with MCAS.

[anonfly]

I know there is no answer available to us, but I wonder what operating restrictions there would be if MCAS were removed, as we were told early in the piece that it existed only to tune the handling at low weights and aft CoG

How often do you -800 chaps find yourselves with aft CoG and low weight?

Often enough. Especially on some of the more regional routes, CAVOK days. However with the availability to fix derate and the use of assumed temperature for take off it helps negate the big pitch up. Also most guys I fly with brief the fact we are light and the nose is going to pitch up and the a/c climb like a homesick angel.
In the endorsement it’s one of the things hammered into you pretty early.
Low gross weight, aft c.g watch out. Especially in the go around as guys can give it a handful too much thrust and bust level restrictions and have problems handling it early on starting out flying on the 73.
All very manageable however as it’s a known fact of flying a 73

[megan]

Many thanks anon, you understood the thrust of my question.

[SLF3]

Max, one hull loss per 80,000 cycles.

NG, one hull loss per 5,000,000 cycles.

Same pilot community.

You can argue it’s a small sample, but it looks like the plane, not the pilots.

The FAA agree, EASA agree, the Canadians agree. Boeing are no longer trying to defend the design.

This SLF doesn’t buy ‘foreigners can’t fly’.

[PPRuNeUser0198]

https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-28/boeing-whistleblower-dreamliner-production-issues-safety-threat/11904396?pfmredir=sm&sf229060199=1

[Double_Clutch]

Fair enough

[Capn Rex Havoc]

I think this is the best article I have read about this whole 737 max mess. (I am an A380 skipper (never flown Boeing) - so it was a well written and informative read.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/magazine/boeing-737-max-crashes.html

[Sunfish]

I think this is the best article I have read about this whole 737 max mess. (I am an A380 skipper (never flown Boeing) - so it was a well written and informative read.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/magazine/boeing-737-max-crashes.html

Why do we need the NTSB? This guy nails the cause in paragraph two:


‘’From the NYT:

when he was hired by Lion Air. Like thousands of new pilots now meeting the demands for crews — especially those in developing countries with rapid airline growth — his experience with flying was scripted, bounded by checklists and cockpit mandates and dependent on autopilots. He had some rote knowledge of cockpit procedures as handed down from the big manufacturers, but he was weak in an essential quality known as airmanship. Sadly, his captain turned out to be weak in it, too.

“Airmanship” is an anachronistic word, but it is applied without prejudice to women as well as men. Its full meaning is difficult to convey. It includes a visceral sense of navigation, an operational understanding of weather and weather information, the ability to form mental maps of traffic flows, fluency in the nuance of radio communications and, especially, a deep appreciation for the interplay between energy, inertia and wings. Airplanes are living things. The best pilots do not sit in cockpits so much as strap them on. The United States Navy manages to instill a sense of this in its fledgling fighter pilots by ramming them through rigorous classroom instruction and then requiring them to fly at bank angles without limits, including upside down. The same cannot be expected of airline pilots who never fly solo and whose entire experience consists of catering to passengers who flinch in mild turbulence, refer to “air pockets” in cocktail conversation and think they are near death if bank angles exceed 30 degrees. The problem exists for many American and European pilots, too. Unless they make extraordinary efforts — for instance, going out to fly aerobatics, fly sailplanes or wander among the airstrips of backcountry Idaho — they may never develop true airmanship no matter the length of their careers. The worst of them are intimidated by their airplanes and remain so until they retire or die. It is unfortunate that those who die in cockpits tend to take their passengers with them.




Oh I see...... ...The cause is using crews of ignorant cheap locals who aren’t real pilots. Obviously hadn’t read Dads book/; stick and rudder.

[BusyB]

Perhapshecan explain the 767 freighter that crashed on Approach to Houston!!!!

[Buttscratcher]

....perhaps they were not from Idaho

[retired guy]

Why do we need the NTSB? This guy nails the cause in paragraph two:


‘’From the NYT:




Oh I see...... ...The cause is using crews of ignorant cheap locals who aren’t real pilots. Obviously hadn’t read Dads book/; stick and rudder.
Sunfish
Nobody is saying that. They are saying that standards are standards and that those should be the same whether you are flying in Indonesia, Ethiopia or anywhere else. Nobody said the poor pilots were ignorant. They may or may not have been well trained which is different matter.
There is an argument being put forward here that to criticise the standards in some countries is to demonise the whole population and is racist. In this context this is pure bunkum.
Consider that until 2016 Lionair for example, was on the EU banned list. Lionair rose from those ashes. So they don't have a long history of excellence in aviation as do some other airlines. This all counts.
So let's drop the racist card and just stick with the hard facts when discussing the competence of airlines or their pilots to operate safely.
When I fly as a passenger I look for the competence of the airline/crew combination and am not at all concerned about their ethnicity. In one airline I worked for recently there were over 30 nationalities flying as pilots. But they all flew to the same standard.
Bye for now.
R Guy

[retired guy]

I think this is the best article I have read about this whole 737 max mess. (I am an A380 skipper (never flown Boeing) - so it was a well written and informative read.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/magazine/boeing-737-max-crashes.html

I think it is an excellent article Capn Rex. I could pick a few holes in bits of it but it is the best account I have seen. I have just heard on a podcast the full account of the first Lionair that did not crash, and they handled the MCAS runaway pretty well. So, it was not irrecoverable. That they then flew on for two hours is another matter!
R Guy

[Sunfish]

R Guy, the article is a desperate apologia for Boeing. Period. Dissection tomorrow.

[dr dre]

Airplanes are living things. The best pilots do not sit in cockpits so much as strap them on. The United States Navy manages to instill a sense of this in its fledgling fighter pilots by ramming them through rigorous classroom instruction and then requiring them to fly at bank angles without limits, including upside down.


The same cannot be expected of airline pilots who never fly solo and whose entire experience consists of catering to passengers who flinch in mild turbulence, refer to “air pockets” in cocktail conversation and think they are near death if bank angles exceed 30 degrees. The problem exists for many American and European pilots, too. Unless they make extraordinary efforts — for instance, going out to fly aerobatics, fly sailplanes or wander among the airstrips of backcountry Idaho — they may never develop true airmanship no matter the length of their careers.

Nonsense and lazy stereotyping to the max.

AA 1420 and AA 965 pilots were in the former group.

BA 38 and U6 178 pilots were in the latter group.

The second two showed airmanship, the first two did not.

I know that some cannot comprehend this fact (like the author of the article) but it’s the truth.

[retired guy]

Airplanes are living things. The best pilots do not sit in cockpits so much as strap them on. The United States Navy manages to instill a sense of this in its fledgling fighter pilots by ramming them through rigorous classroom instruction and then requiring them to fly at bank angles without limits, including upside down.


The same cannot be expected of airline pilots who never fly solo and whose entire experience consists of catering to passengers who flinch in mild turbulence, refer to “air pockets” in cocktail conversation and think they are near death if bank angles exceed 30 degrees. The problem exists for many American and European pilots, too. Unless they make extraordinary efforts — for instance, going out to fly aerobatics, fly sailplanes or wander among the airstrips of backcountry Idaho — they may never develop true airmanship no matter the length of their career
Nonsense and lazy stereotyping to the max.

AA 1420 and AA 965 pilots were in the former group.

BA 38 and U6 178 pilots were in the latter group.

The second two showed airmanship, the first two did not.

I know that some cannot comprehend this fact (like the author of the article) but it’s the truth.


DRE
Add in this one for pure airmanship. Not many people know about this one which is in my view on of the most significant recoveries I have seen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_2069
Summary
One dark night over Africa en route CPT, a guy broke into the cockpit. The copilot was being strangled by the intruder, the 747 fell 18,000 ft (2 miles) in a minute or so with bank angle in excess of 90 degrees in the dark. Airspeed around 100 its - same as AF 447.
Co pilot eventually struggled free (Captain attacked the attacker) but by now they were falling so fast that impact was less than a minute away.
But, once he broke free from the attacker, he recovered the plane wings level and pulled out of the dive without over stressing the wings.
Landed Nairobi and plane found perfectly airworthy after a day or so.
He never flew for the US Navy. Nor did Eric Moody. This nonsense that we hear occasionally that airline pilots are not the 'real thing' is a nonsense. Airline pilots are trained to do a very different job which military pilots are often unsuited to perform. Many of them fail conversion course on to civil airlines.
R Guy

[LowObservable]

At this point, buying the theory GT is peddling means that you buy this: Boeing has lost $18bn, its customers are losing Gawd-knows-how much, and the industry is being disrupted, all because the leaders involved, including worldwide regulators, are too PC, or too scared of being insulted on Twitter, to tell the truth and insist that a perfectly safe airplane was brought down by inept, badly trained crews. Moreover, this error of judgment is protected by ironclad secrecy so that not a word of dissent has leaked out of FAA, EASA, Boeing, SWAL &c.

Any less credible theory would have to involve recovered alien spacecraft.

[Sunfish]

Beautifully put!

[itsnotthatbloodyhard]

One dark night over Africa en route CPT, a guy broke into the cockpit. The copilot was being strangled by the intruder, the 747 fell 18,000 ft (2 miles) in a minute or so with bank angle in excess of 90 degrees in the dark. Airspeed around 100 its - same as AF 447.
Co pilot eventually struggled free (Captain attacked the attacker) but by now they were falling so fast that impact was less than a minute away.
But, once he broke free from the attacker, he recovered the plane wings level and pulled out of the dive without over stressing the wings.
Landed Nairobi and plane found perfectly airworthy after a day or so.
He never flew for the US Navy. Nor did Eric Moody. This nonsense that we hear occasionally that airline pilots are not the 'real thing' is a nonsense. Airline pilots are trained to do a very different job which military pilots are often unsuited to perform. Many of them fail conversion course on to civil airlines.

Not a great example of a bloke with a non-military background doing a good job, since the pilot in question was ex-RAF. But as you say, a really good example of airmanship.

[AerialPerspective]

Whats that phrase about letting people think you are a fool rather than making a statement and proving it. You didn't answer the question about the 777, or did you do some research and find out you should have kept your hand off the keyboard?

Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States:

"Best to remain silent and risk being thought a fool than to open one's mouth and put the question beyond doubt".

[George Glass]

Langewiesche’s article is spot on.
Pity so many posters who obviously have no Boeing , no RPT experience , no ATPL but perhaps a single engine VFR PPL masquerade as knowledgeable commentators. Why do you do it ?

[Lookleft]

Thanks AP that’s the one. GG if the article was correct then the Max would have been back in the air months ago. BTW I meet all the criteria you think is necessary to have an informed opinion on the subject.

[dr dre]

Langewiesche’s article is spot on.
Pity so many posters who obviously have no Boeing , no RPT experience , no ATPL but perhaps a single engine VFR PPL masquerade as knowledgeable commentators. Why do you do it ?

How many pilots would be flying Boeing jets today in dynamic environments all over the world who don’t fit yours and Langewiesche’s criteria of a “real pilot”?

Most I would say (all with ATPLs and Boeing RPT jet time).

[73qanda]

It doesn’t matter if you’re not an ex-Navy ace.
It does matter if executive management know so little about what skills are required to safely fly an Airliner that they cut the amount and quality of training given to a point where pilots don’t feel comfortable flying aircraft.
The accountants run the industry and they have cocked it up.

[RetiredBA/BY]

[QUOTE=retired guy;10678360]Airplanes are living things. The best pilots do not sit in cockpits so much as strap them on. The United States Navy manages to instill a sense of this in its fledgling fighter pilots by ramming them through rigorous classroom instruction and then requiring them to fly at bank angles without limits, including upside down.


The same cannot be expected of airline pilots who never fly solo and whose entire experience consists of catering to passengers who flinch in mild turbulence, refer to “air pockets” in cocktail conversation and think they are near death if bank angles exceed 30 degrees. The problem exists for many American and European pilots, too. Unless they make extraordinary efforts — for instance, going out to fly aerobatics, fly sailplanes or wander among the airstrips of backcountry Idaho — they may never develop true airmanship no matter the length of their career



DRE
Many of them fail conversion course on to civil airlines.

R Guy[/QUOTE

Really. As an ex military trainer myself, I have encountered a few who had trouble adapting to two crew operation, but many failing, I doubt it.

[LowObservable]

Langewiesche’s article is spot on.
Pity so many posters who obviously have no Boeing , no RPT experience , no ATPL but perhaps a single engine VFR PPL masquerade as knowledgeable commentators. Why do you do it ?

My comment was based on logic (for A to be true, B and C must be true). Don't need flight time for that.

[George Glass]

dr dre , if you really believe that you’re delusional. “Most” ? Rubbish. Most of the pilots I have had the privilege of flying with over the last 30 years were exactly that sort of “real Pilot”.

[Lookleft]

The problem is George that Boeing and Airbus are designing aircraft for those who will be flying for the next 30 years. The pilots you have flown with during the past 30 years have had a very different pathway to airline cockpits. What Boeing has done has designed an aeroplane that tries to take the pilot out of the equation because they don't trust pilots to be able to handle certain parts of the flight envelope. What Boeing should have done is started from scratch and designed an aeroplane that is compatible with the pilot training that currently exists. i.e. a very narrow pathway providing a very specific set of skills. In the case of the Max it would seem that most pilots from the last 30 years and those for the next 30 years were going to have problems because the 737 was designed 60 years ago.

[gcafinal]

I am at a loss to understand how anyone can make judgements of aircrew or anyone else for that matter, when formal investigations have not been completed. I am particularly at a loss, when the judgements are coming from people who are not qualified commercial pilots or involved professionally and permanently in the aviation industry. However, the attached news item appeared this morning, allegedly from a former Boeing senior employee and is interesting.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-15/ex-boeing-manager-says-one-in-25-737-max-had-safety-incident/11957634

[Capn Rex Havoc]

GCAFINAL - 727 MAX ? WOW that is an interesting development - Boeing could be on to something here.

[gcafinal]

H'mmm, thank you Capn Rex Havoc. A case of keyboard finger failure !! B737 MAX it is. The same finger works fine in the cockpit by the way !!

[machtuk]

I read UAL, AA and South West have all pushed back their intended return of the Max to latter this year, I'd hate to be in Boeings management team these days!
Airbus must be smiling!

[halas]

Airbus aren't smiling.
$4 billion fine in the UK with more to come over graft convictions.
A400M losing 100's of millions.
A380 wind down to wipe out many more 10's of millions

halas