Boeing pilot involved in Max testing is indicted in Texas

[WillFlyForCheese]

https://apnews.com/article/business-texas-indictments-federal-aviation-administration-b5f4e0a403bc829cfdf249c80c8e4119 (https://apnews.com/article/business-texas-indictments-federal-aviation-administration-b5f4e0a403bc829cfdf249c80c8e4119?utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=AP)

DALLAS (AP) — A Boeing pilot involved in testing the 737 Max jetliner was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury on charges of deceiving safety regulators who were evaluating the plane, which was later involved in two deadly crashes.

The indictment accuses Mark A. Forkner of giving the Federal Aviation Administration false and incomplete information about an automated flight-control system that played a role in the crashes, which killed 346 people.

Prosecutors said that because of Forkner’s “alleged deception,” the system was not mentioned in key FAA documents, pilot manuals or pilot-training material supplied to airlines.

The flight-control system automatically pushed down the noses of Max jets that crashed in 2018 in Indonesia and 2019 in Ethiopia. The pilots tried unsuccessfully to regain control, but both planes went into nosedives minutes after taking off. Most pilots were unaware of the system, called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, until after the first crash.

Forkner, 49, was charged with two counts of fraud involving aircraft parts in interstate commerce and four counts of wire fraud. Federal prosecutors said he is expected to make his first appearance in court on Friday in Fort Worth, Texas. If convicted on all counts, he could face a sentence of up to 100 years in prison.

[WillowRun 6-3]

According to reporting in the Seattle Times, Mr. Forkner faces potential criminal sentences, if convicted, of 20 years per count on the wire fraud counts, and 10 years on each count on the counts alleging fraud with regard to aircraft parts in interstate commerce.

Unsurprisingly, the indictment was returned by a federal grand jury in the jurisdiction of the Northern District of Texas. The same federal district court jurisdiction in which Boeing's plea bargain was entered.

So in the sordid and, at times, shocking saga of the 737 MAX we now receive another invitation for teeing up any of several declarations of over-riding realities by which some sense can be made of what transpired. That Boeing ventured far off course after the McDonnell merger. That corporate governance under capitalism necessarily descends into corruption and betrayal of public interest. That the "system" -- the regulators, the Congressional committees, the other major and significant players in the aviation safety ecosystem -- will make the proper noises, go through the motions, and in the end, nothing of real importance will change. And of course, with one individual bound up and about to be keel-hauled, the unfairness of this saga being loaded onto the shoulders and soul of that one defendant SHOULD invite decrying the lack of -- in today's parlance -- accountability anywhere else where it belongs.

One can hope that good people who have tried to call the shots accurately in the aftermath of the crashes, the revelations, and the corporate machinations by the airframer will yet prevail. That the House Committee, and the FAA Inspector General as well, who did such outstanding work earlier, will sustain and advance their efforts toward accountability. Hope, they say, springs.... But then the Major League team I follow won't be going to the World Series.

[jimjim1]

This seems appalling.

The lowest level guy who did what his management asked of him is facing the wrath of the justice system.

The management meanwhile swan off with tens of millions apiece (at a guess).

The 737 MAX crashes were a management failure. Even after the second one Boeing resisted grounding the aircraft. Boeing management caused these crashes and pretending that an individual engineer was responsible is ridiculous. But here we are.

[letsjet]

It does seem like they found their scapegoat....I'm not saying he's not culpable, but to jimjim1's point there are a few more people that should be answering this call far above him and is the FAA going to accept their role?

[The Sultan]

Regardless of the guilt of others, this guy was the FAA designated pilot to represent them and the aircraft operators. He lost sight of that and now he needs to pay in such a way that no one in the future will dare to put personal profit ahead of customer's lives.

[tdracer]

Exactly
Having been a DER/AR for most of my career (AR is the delegated equivalent of a DER), I'm quite frankly appalled at Forkner's (alleged) behavior. If management had instructed me to do something like that, I'd have told them to shove it, and I have little doubt that all those DER/ARs that I worked with over the years would have done the same.
Forkner's actions have brought all ARs into disrepute.

[Winemaker]

If the charges are true, one wonders (at least I do) what his motivation was. Keeping a job? Money under the table? Ego? I have never understood people lying for management and placing themselves in legal vulnerability.

[blind pew]

Not as simple as that..I was talking to a swiss at a small hotel in a Spanish fishing village about the demise of Swissair and how turning a blind eye for a decade by most of the employees in the company facilitated it. Tribal loyalty, insecurity, worries about getting another job, feeding the family, health care, the lack of support for whistle blowers....and of course the bullies at the top are always Teflon coated
(management were warned by many pilots about the standards at Crossair which would lead to a crash which they ignored..I witnessed one of our chiefs threaten a captain with the loss of his career if he didn’t toe the party line..then they had two fatal accidents..one rolled onto its back after a guy misread the artificial horizon and the second was a guy I knew who wasn’t up to flying a jet and took nearly 6 months on his third go at the conversion course).

[Old Dogs]

I'm absolutely certain no-one else was involved in this deception - just Forkner.🙄

[megan]

It's how companies work. Big, big oil company ran its own private offshore helicopter operation, operations manual ordered all pilots to comply fully with all company and regulatory directives. How did they go about that? Short answer, they didn't bother, all operations required an alternate, didn't bother, didn't bother with weather reports either. If protest was made about not complying with operations manual the excuse was because it was a private operation operation manuals were not a requirement. Complaint about not planning for alternates as demanded by the regulator became an economic argument, as in, if we operated to charter standards, as dictated by the operations manual, the operation would become so expensive that it would be put out to contract, ergo, you all lose your jobs. Company answer ultimately to all concerns was, we have operated for 27 years doing it this way and never had an accident, so all is good. Potential accidents were prevented by always occurring in benign circumstances and conditions, lucky them.

Guess who the operations manual said was going to be accountable for any untoward event?

[WHBM]

tdracer

Yet someone with the opposite attitude managed to get the top job ... because that's what the management wanted, and why he was chosen. Not for technical skill.

[FullWings]

I do hope that the investigations don’t stop at Forkner. It’s easier to say you’ve found the rogue pilot/engineer and pile in but we all know it was a huge corporate failing involving many, many others. A fish rots from the head, as the saying goes...

[safetypee]

FullWings, I agree.
Unfortunately, there appears to be great differences between legal views of blame and accountability, and recent views in aviation safety. Also cultural aspects - litigious societies.

“ The causality credo aligns with the legal tradition of individual responsibility for accidents, where the bad cause is either a crime or a failure to fulfil a legal duty. “

“ It is also convenient for an organisation to focus on individual responsibility. This is not only legally desirable but frames the problem in a way that enables the organisation to continue to operate as usual, leaving its structures, culture and power systems intact. “

State of science: evolving perspectives on 'human error' July 2021

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steven-Shorrock/publication/353144839_State_of_Science_Evolving_Perspectives_on_%27Human _Error%27/links/611371ac0c2bfa282a3761e3/State-of-Science-Evolving-Perspectives-on-Human-Error.pdf?origin=publication_detail
download / read full text
also:-
https://humanisticsystems.com/2013/04/12/why-do-we-resist-new-thinking-about-safety-and-systems/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.company&utm_campaign=postfity&utm_content=postfityb8852

[kontrolor]

they should move up the food chain as well. But wait, CEO has got the golden parachute, didn't he. LOL. I hope this guy will end up in prison, because he has blood on his hands. But as I said, it should not stop there.

[Ancient Observer]

There are a lot of mentions of "alleged" in the various stories about this pilot.

Let's not find him guilty, yet.

[ATC Watcher]

A shame but standard procedure. Going for the scapegoat at the controls to keep the top off the hook . Always been like that, why do we expect different ? .
As to the justice against big corporations I was following in 1987-90 the trail of the ferry "Herald of free enterprise" ( what an appropriate name !) capsizing . same results , the inquiry went deep into management and corporate failures that led to the accident but the trail acquitted everybody in 1990 .https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-10-19-fi-2903-story.html
Maybe this time things turn out differently but I do not hold my breath.

[RatherBeFlying]

Will Boeing be paying his lawyers:}

[WillowRun 6-3]

RatherBeFlying

I'll say, probably "no" on whether Boeing will pay for Forkner's attorneys.

Without minimizing his role or responsibilities, indemnification for defense counsel representation typically is provided for the senior-most managers, as well as directors (board of...) and corporate officers. But even if this indemnity were available somehow, Boeing has admitted that this employee engaged in wrongful conduct - and wrongful conduct works as a disqualification for indemnity that otherwise might apply. And it's glaring in this matter--the admissions by Boeing were part of its plea bargain to criminal charges in the very same federal district court. (Even though the plea bargain didn't cite Forkner by name, it's pretty obvious.)

That the defense could confront very uphill slogging in presenting a case showing how little criminal intent (if any) Forkner had, while also showing how massive, how hard-to-believe was the corporate obtuseness and greed -- that'll be for a LegalRumoursNet or something.

[DaveReidUK]

Boeing has admitted that this employee engaged in wrongful conduct - and wrongful conduct works as a disqualification for indemnity that otherwise might apply.

Would that not be a decision for Boeing to make, rather than a foregone conclusion ?

[WHBM]

indemnification for defense counsel representation typically is provided for the senior-most managers, as well as directors (board of...) and corporate officers.
Is this some difference in US law or practice ? In the UK, if I do some outright stupidity while on the company business, it's covered by our Professional Indemnity insurance and the legal costs by the company. Even something as arch as driving the company vehicle while drunk and getting in a collision. Been there, had to fund that out of the departmental P&L. Our lawyer said it was quite a bit of their work.

[tdracer]

When I was working, there was an agreement in place that - if an AR got personally sued for what he'd done as an AR - the company would pay for their defense and any settlements. But there was a disclaimer that it didn't include 'willful misconduct' - if it was considered willful misconduct (e.g. lying) then you were on your own.
I don't recall anything regarding criminal charges - I suspect it would be treated similarly - but I doubt many of us even thought about that possibility.

[mikehallam]

It looks bad for him I agree, but it's really disappointing to see too many comments above which without caution accept he is wholly guilty - whereas actually he has yet to come to a (fair ?) trial..

[WillowRun 6-3]

For the avoidance of doubt, Forkner is - and must be seen as - innocent until proven guilty. Posting here as SLF/attorney I don't want to leave any ambiguity about that, resulting from my comments.

As tdracer noted, while there can be indemnity for ordinary misdeeds, wilful misconduct is a different matter. And criminal misconduct, if proven, even more so. (This is a bit out of my area, but everyone knows there's no legal advice here and anybody who is actually interested can easily find all sorts of sources to read online.)

About whether Boeing could in effect set its plea bargain aside, the terms of indemnity generally are set by official corporate documents, and it is doubtful the company could pull Forkner out from under the bus they threw him under, consistent with its formal indemnity policy. (But if it tried, wouldn't that be a fun amendment to draft for the shareholders' derivative suit in Delaware....lawyer thinking, sorry).

All along, I mean from the time when the problem messages surfaced, I've thought that the company was trying to set Forkner up as a center of attention, not so much as a scapegoat. Though despicably corrupt in the saga of the 737 MAX Boeing's senior people weren't stupid; they knew not even a haplessly messaging chief technical pilot could be turned into a scapegoat given the reams of evidence of corporate wrongdoing. But maybe his messages could be sensationalized, and deflect attention, long enough at least for those golden, you know, golden parachutes to have their ripcords yanked.

[20driver]

I suspect this will come down to how much money he has to fund his defense.
For sure there were others involved , who told the programers to make the changes etc etc.
Discovery is very expensive and you can bet Boeing is not going to do anything but obstruct.
The bill could easily run to hundreds of thousands.
Unless he has a very good insurance policy or a union somewhere , who has that kind of money?
Was a member of a union or ALPA while at Boeing?
So far the case against seems to consist of texts. A good lawyer can make those mean a lot of things.
What will count is the paper trail of documentation.
I suspect he will cut a deal and the truth will never be told.

[Spooky 2]

Unless something has changed in the last 90 days, I don't think Boeing is picking up any of the cost associated with this debacle.

[BFSGrad]

For those clamoring for senior management scalps, let’s not forget the deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) that Boeing and DOJ signed on 1/6/21. If no new information comes to light and Boeing behaves itself for the period of the DPA, senior management is off the hook, at least criminally. I suspect that senior management could still be liable in a civil suit.

[WhatsaLizad?]

The following explains the scummy inhabitants above Forkner:

Lead Boeing Prosecutor Joins Boeing Corporate Criminal Defense Firm Kirkland & Ellis (corporatecrimereporter.com) (https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/lead-boeing-prosecutor-joins-boeing-corporate-criminal-defense-firm-kirkland-ellis/)

[Sallyann1234]

While things look bad for Forkner before he appears in court, he will no doubt try to share as much blame as possible with senior management.
One wonders what he can still reveal about instructions he received and warnings he may have given, that could cause fresh embarrassment to the company.

[Pilot DAR]

During the process of demonstrating design compliance for certification of a new type, pilot Forkner would have been acting as a member of a certification team. Both in the cockpit, and in the broader certification sense. That certification team would involve many people with delegated authority to make a finding of compliance on behalf of the FAA, not just pilot Forkner. And, that team would not be upper management at Boeing. I have no opinion who might have influenced whom to do what, but an effort to suppress test observations would not be a solo effort. That said, many other certification requirements not associated with flight also required a demonstration and finding of compliance (by FAA staff/DER/delegate) as a part of this effort, it wasn't just pilot stuff....

[cattletruck]

Correct, it wasn't just pilot stuff, it was also industry/political influence to get a product out before the foreign competitor won market domination for the next decade. The FAA also has a lot of skin in all this. Pity it all went wrong, so now the finger pointing starts, but the actual problem started many, many years earlier when engineering took a back seat to handing out corporate bonuses to MBAs.

[RatherBeFlying]

For quite some time many large corporations are conspiracies by upper management to screw employees, customers, shareholders and the public in whichever way will maximize their bonuses.

[WillowRun 6-3]

Do enough work in taking depositions in civil cases in U.S. federal district courts, most or perhaps all state courts, and something like an instinct develops. A questioner asks a witness about what content a specific document includes or does not include . . . . drawing the objection, "the document speaks for itself."

Amidst several aspects of this case possibly worthy of comment, if there's one I'm pretty sure about, it is that certain of Mr. Forkner's written communications, informal though they were, poisoned the atmosphere about everything else involving his role and responsibilities as "chief technical pilot", from the very first time those messages hit the public arena. Those messages speak for themselves -- but only insofar as what specific content is set down in words, in phrasings. Not the context, not the background, and certainly not insofar as proving, beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury of his peers, the criminal intent necessary for a conviction.

Today's WSJ edition contains a piece of excellent reporting on Forkner's appearance in court Friday, and also a typically biting column by the inimitable Holman Jenkins. Your SLF/atty poster recommends these articles. In fact, the succinct yet thorough protestations of innocence by Forkner's legal counsel are enough to want to take suits to the cleaners in case the defense team needs a sub-sub-document hauler.

Many have noted the quite large ladders of hierarchy above Forkner. It doesn't take imagination, or much of it, to visualize volumes of email and other more formal document-type records (reports, memos, etc.) about the change in MCAS function. Have these been disclosed fully, as they would be in a full-authority U.S.D.C. civil case in this matter? Or were they disclosed in the Delaware shareholder suit pre-filing phase? I think it's obvious that Forkner's various reactions, noted in informal messaging documents, are small indications of a much, much larger picture. Everyone working on MAX knew additional training was stridently, relentlessly to be avoided, prevented. And who owns, within the massive corporate bean-counting machine, the decisions about that component of the 737 MAX aircraft program? Certainly not the defendant in this criminal case. (And several other phases of the road to air crash disasters likewise are marked by decisions about which Forkner was one of, what? --hundreds? --certainly dozens -- of Boeing employees who had no decision-making role yet who, in hindsight, are marred by said disasters.)

Beyond accountability, is there no room for sarcasm in informal messaging? Are we to take literally everything anyone bothers to reduce to words through keystrokes? Actually, "the document does not speak for itself" - try putting a document on the witness stand and asking it questions.

The release of documents by the company to the House Committee investigation, if I recall correctly, was tardy by quite a significant time. The excuse at the time was that the documents had also been sought by the Department of Justice. Obviously such a statement could not possibly have been offered without input from the company's legal staff, even its (renowned) general counsel. I'll get to attorney-client privilege in a moment..... The excuse was lame, but maybe it makes more sense now. Possibly the company was looking to force Forkner into his present jeopardy by taking advantage of his perhaps overly casual informal messaging parlance and tone. Sounds conspiratorial on WR's part doesn't it, you may ask.

Well, consider that after the LionAir crash, Boeing continued to play its p.r. game of pretending that all was completely on-course with this aircraft. The Delaware shareholder suit lays out the timeline nicely. If it is to be believed that the company did not merely stumble into a set of decisions about the MAX and MCAS as unconscious, random events or choices, then how much of a naive, gullible person does one need to be not to also believe that after the first crash, the CEO and the General Counsel had extensive communications about, you know, C.Y.A.

But attorney-client privilege bars reaching those communications (on the unproven assertion that such communications took place and could be reflected in documents). So: Boeing Board: Waive Attorney-Client Privilege about the MAX. What, you're afraid this could push the company into more serious decline, that the military-industrial complex of the United States and the Free World (or what there still is of it) will go into decline? Don't worry, you've lost that lovin' feeling, and it's gone, gone, gone . . .

[20driver]

Nice post Willow Run
Both articles in the WSJ are excellent. Forkner is getting thrown under the bus. There are a lot of people who have to answer for this.

[Rainier]

Once they became available, I read through the released emails and instant messages from the House Committee investigation to understand the context in which they were made. The most egregious statements which received the most press, e.g. the phrase "Jedi Mind Trick" and "is designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys", have absolutely no relationship to MCAS functionality, and are immaterial to the case against Forkner. So your assessment here is absolutely correct.

What the majority of people and the press continue to fail to grasp is the timeline of events. The criminal case against Forkner begins in November 2016 when he inadvertently in the simulator learns of the changed functionality of MCAS from the high speed regime to the low speed regime. It was during flight test in March 2016 where MCAS was changed from a system that used two dis-similar sensors--a G-sensor and Angle-of-Attack--operating at high speed to a system that relied only on the AoA sensor operating throughout the flight envelope. This change in functionality was not formally communicated by the 737Max Program to the Technical Pilots which reside in a separate business unit. This explains why MCAS was permitted to be removed from mention in the FCOM which also occurs in March 2016. Forkner signs off on this document believing that the MCAS system had limited capability and operated only within a corner point of the flight envelope.

This is fundamentally a failure in maintaining airplane configuration control first-and-foremost. It was a change that was hurried through without sufficient review. Importantly because finding compliance to MCAS was delegated by the FAA to Boeing AR/DER/O-EMs, this change was also not properly communicated back to the FAA regulators.

According to the consent decree, Forkner knowingly misrepresents the capability of MCAS to the AEG after accidentally finding out about the change in the November 2016 simulator session. This is the basis for the criminal charges of fraud. Fundamentally, the regulatory system should not have to rely upon serendipitous events to ensure safety. The timeline of events indicates that this was the case.

From my perspective, Forkner is being made the scapegoat for poorly written software, poor engineering decisions and poor program management. Boeing is still at fault here.

[Spooky 2]

It might be worth noting that in 2016 Boeing did not have a MAX simulator, rather the engineering staff and technical pilots were utilizing an engineering cab not associated with, nor approved for customer flight training. In addition the simulators that Boeing installed (built by TRU), were not configured to emulate any MCAS flight characteristics.

[A30_737_AEWC]

Here's the US DOJ media release into the matter. I'm amused how people don't seek to go to the original source of the matter. Skynews isn't much of a credible source for anything.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-boeing-737-max-chief-technical-pilot-indicted-fraud

[A30_737_AEWC]

tdracer

Is there any clarity to what appears to be an assumption that the indicted individual was acting as an authorised DER/AR ?

The DOJ media release and the indictment itself make no reference to this, nor any FAA delegation. If it was the case, I would expect it to be identified and to be relevant. Additional charges under Federal law would have been levied IMO if he was acting as a federal govt 'representative' in the certification activity.

I suspect despite his responsibility to disclose matters to the FAA, that doesn't mean he was a DER/AR. I wouldn't trust most media reporting to properly dissect and report these nuances accurately.

[A30_737_AEWC]

The actual indictment is available here:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1442191/download

I recommend y'all read it carefully, because for the moment, that's all that matters in this case. Not what any reporting says or what uniformed commentators posit.

[A30_737_AEWC]

Pilot DAR

You are spot on, however, in the indictment there is NO mention of the individual's role as an FAA authorised representative.

I am not convinced at this stage, that the employer will not be brought into this matter in some other way. I know they've paid the compensation to relatives and fines. But they were not required to plead guilty to criminal charges by the DOJ. And in that last point is the 'rub'.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-08/boeing-fined-by-justice-department-747-max-deadly-crashes/13041586

[tdracer]

WillowRun 6-3

I agree that Forkner is not alone in this - others are going to be dragged in (interesting to see high how up that goes). It wasn't Forkner's responsibility to educate the FAA about the existence of MCAS, or to inform them that the functionality changed late in the program (although it's unforgivable if he intentionally withheld the info from the FAA when he found out). Some AR in flight controls had that responsibility - and he/she has a lot to answer for (that being said, I have it on good authority that there were attempted suicides among the 737 flight controls community in the aftermath of the second crash - although I have no idea how connected they were to the compliance activities or even the design aspect of MCAS). Discovery is going to be interesting - there will be volumes of emails and Coord Sheets that have nothing to do with Forkner. Further, it's unforgivable that Forkner apparently discovered the change in MCAS by accident - again someone in flight controls should have made sure that the Chief Pilot knew all about any flight control changes.

Everyone working on MAX knew additional training was stridently, relentlessly to be avoided, prevented. And who owns, within the massive corporate bean-counting machine, the decisions about that component of the 737 MAX aircraft program?

That's not entirely true. Shortly after the second MAX crash, I ran into a Boeing Experimental Test pilot at an event - a friend that I'd known and worked with for for years . Of course the MAX came up - he'd been involved in the MAX flight testing, and he told me more about it than I could repeat at the time (most - but not all - of which is now out in the public domain). He explained to me why an MCAS failure was considered to be no worse than Major - basically that they expected that if the stab trim started doing something unexpected the crew would turn it off. But he also said that it was assumed by all involved that the pilots would be informed/trained on the existence of MCAS, and what to do if it malfunctioned.

[Rainier]

tdracer

From the initial days after the ET302 accident, I have felt such profound sorrow for the families of the victims on that airplane, primarily because there was never going to be a simple and concise explanation for the airplane to crash. There are so many points along the way where a decision was made which at the time would appear logical and based in fact but in hindsight was found to be the wrong decision. Those who work outside the business of airplane design and certification would have a difficult time understanding how such decisions which are based upon past practice and judgment might have been made. It is so much easier to blame "profits over safety". So much easier to place all the blame on the Technical Pilot, who was not told of the design change. It has been my fear that latching onto this simple narrative will keep the industry from identifying the real root causes of these accidents and thereby delay putting the processes in place so that we do not see a similar event in the future. This news from the 737 flight controls community, should it be true, only makes the 737Max tragedy worse. And so I feel sorrow for them as well as how does one come to closure on decisions that one has made that had such profound consequences.

[safetypee]

Pilot DAR, #31, A30 737, #41
“… would have been acting as a member of a certification team”

Not necessarily so. It appears that Boeing’s organisational structure was in ‘silos’; design / engineering, certification, flight test, and support / ‘training’, each having interface with similar structured FAA. e.g. responsibilities for part 25, or preparing and assisting operators with part 121.
FAR 25, certification activity might imply DER status, but perhaps not so for FAR121.

Also, that ‘training’ aspects should have been based on a known certification standard.
If so; then the key issues revolve around assumptions and communication (culture - individual, organisation, national), but identifying what, when, or who, might be impossible - organisation structure, or more likely hidden by legal process, client / lawyer privilege.

[Pilot DAR]

I agree that Forkner is alone in this

“… would have been acting as a member of a certification team”

Not necessarily so.

I'm not familiar with Boeing's organizational structure, nor how delegation works there, and I'm not much of a part 25 guy, but I do know that including a system like MCAS in a plane requires more than just flight design requirement findings, so more than just DER/AR pilots involved in presenting to/acting on behalf of the FAA. Design requirements other than those for flight would still require a finding of compliance by the FAA or a delegate, who would not be acting in the capacity of pilot. The first two requirements which comes to my mind, for example, (though there are certainly many others):

Sec. 25.1309

[Equipment, systems, and installations.]

..........
(c) Warning information must be provided to alert the crew to unsafe system operating conditions, and to enable them to take appropriate corrective action. Systems, controls, and associated monitoring and warning means must be designed to minimize crew errors which could create additional hazards.

and,

Sec. 25.1322

[Flightcrew alerting.]

[(a) Flightcrew alerts must:

(1) Provide the flightcrew with the information needed to:

(i) Identify non-normal operation or airplane system conditions, and
(ii) Determine the appropriate actions, if any.

(2) Be readily and easily detectable and intelligible by the flightcrew under all foreseeable operating conditions, including conditions where multiple alerts are provided.
(3) Be removed when the alerting condition no longer exists.



Someone had to make a finding for those too, and it would not have been a person acting in the capacity of test pilot.

I have no opinion about pilot Forkner's role in certification of the MAX, but I believe that a failing would not have been his alone...

[Deepinsider]

I've read all this stuff above, and I have no legal training or expertise of any kind.
But I am an aviator, and I can relate to the role that Mr Forkner was in, and many
of us enjoy our bit of B.S. in the pub, part of the unwinding process, relieving
stress and pressure. We never expect it to be recorded and then produced out
of context years later. Emails the same!

How much was it that the incumbent CEO of the time 'retired' with ....$$$

Out of the vast entity that Boeing is, this man seems to be singled out as the bad
guy, and must surely represent the ultimate case of being 'Thrown under the bus'

I just want to say it seems.. plain wrong!

[safetypee]

Pilot DAR,
I agree.
The ‘failure’ involved the whole system of certification - the process was deficient; its difficult to prosecute a process.

Re Alerts and Warnings; these fell through gaps in certification via assumption - mistaken severity level, differing views of pilots capability. Responsibility for this cannot reside with just one ‘lowly’ person.

It was Boeing’s ball game on a muddy pitch with inadequate refereeing, and when found to be offside, loosing the game, blamed the water boy.

[WillowRun 6-3]

tdracer, thanks for correcting my previous over-statement about everyone knowing that increments to pilot training were to be relentlessly avoided. Without having been carried away by the apparent wrongness of the heave-ho of Forkner under the bus, it might have been accurate to state: to the extent it was an objective of the 737 MAX program as directed by senior management and the board to avoid any additional training of pilots if at all possible, this objective was widely known (in the company) and thought to be important. Even if not taken literally by everyone who worked on the program (as you point out).

A30 737 #38 - of course the federal government's media release invokes well-crafted, well-edited platitudes about the heavy responsibility of those who interact with regulatory authorities. If these pronouncements are smug, self-righteous and entirely consistent with the awesome power of the government to seek a criminal conviction in a court of law, so much the better.
As to #41 and the plea bargain the DOJ reached (technically a deferred prosecution agreement), reasonable minds may differ about whether the company received a massive and unwarranted pass, achieved by means of who-knows-what insider connections or otherwise.

There isn't much disagreement, as far as I have read, with regard to the fact that the functionality change in the MCAS system was something that Forkner had some obligation to make known to FAA. But that his failure to do so should be the stuff of a criminal prosecution? Well, everyone on this forum, presumably, completed secondary school, in which the main curriculum is learning to think for yourself.

tdracer said it best and that's why I'm repeating it here:
"It wasn't Forkner's responsibility to educate the FAA about the existence of MCAS, or to inform them that the functionality changed late in the program (although it's unforgivable if he intentionally withheld the info from the FAA when he found out). Some AR in flight controls had that responsibility - and he/she has a lot to answer for . . .[.] Discovery is going to be interesting - there will be volumes of emails and Coord Sheets that have nothing to do with Forkner. Further, it's unforgivable that Forkner apparently discovered the change in MCAS by accident - again someone in flight controls should have made sure that the Chief Pilot knew all about any flight control changes."

[tdracer]

safetypee

To the best of my knowledge, all the Boeing Experimental Test Pilots are ARs (basically same as DER) - certainly all the pilots I knew were ARs. While FAA pilots typically fly certification tests, they don't always do so - during a busy flight test program FAA pilots are not always available, especially during remote testing and on weekends. So they'd delegate the compliance finding to the Boeing AR pilot(s). Further, as an AR, there is a responsibility to keep the regulatory authority informed of meaningful changes - and MCAS certainly qualified. Now there is another possibility - one of my biggest complaints with the delegated certification process was the roadblocks they put inhibiting direct communication between the ARs and the FAA. So it's possible that Forkner expected the Boeing cert group to inform the FAA - and someone in cert dropped the ball - but that still shouldn't stop Forkner from telling the FAA pilots about MCAS.
While

[safetypee]

Thanks td. My uncertainty is if Forkner was employed as a test pilot, thence which chain of command he was in, and from that, for which area of certification / operational support (FAR 25 / 121) he held responsibilities.
I assume that a test team would develop and approve a system (AR), a support team would evaluate a system re training required and manuals.
Which department in the FAA would Forkner liaise with, test certification or operational approval. If test certification then the FAA should have known about the system and the latest changes, if operations, then Forkner could have briefed the FAA to the best of his knowledge, which subsequently was identified as erroneous.
With hindsight it appears that neither of the Boeing teams had appropriate descriptions - common understanding of the system as proposed, also that the test aircraft and development simulator differed.

[PAXboy]

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/2000x1198/boeing_fail_cb00fc327e1422458271da709ad8b2cf61b689f0.jpg

[tdracer]

I'll always remember when I heard that Stonecipher had been named Boeing CEO. I was driving in to work with the radio on - there was an item in the news that Phil Condit had resigned as CEO - I immediately yelled YES!!!, slamming my hand on the car roof. Then the other shoe - 'and will be replace by Harry Stonecipher' - OH :mad:!

[Pugilistic Animus]

Tdracer,
what did this Stonecypher guy do...or not do?

[tdracer]

Where do I start? He brought the MacDac style of building airplanes to Boeing - a system that worked so well that it basically put MacDac out of the business of building commercial aircraft :eek:
It was Stonecypher who masterminded the whole outsourcing thing that made the 787 such a mess. He and Condit were the ones that decided that Boeing needed to focus on making great amounts of money and 'stockholder value' - not on building great airplanes.
The short answer is that pretty much everything that is wrong with Boeing today can be traced back to Phil Condit and Harry Stonecypher

[Alt Flieger]

To those of us who have spent a career on Boeing aircraft this is very very sad.

tdracer. Is it retrievable?

[Less Hair]

Boeing did this to improve the stock market appeal like MDD had done before moving from banks to stock market financing. They even moved their company HQ closer to the big east coast financial places.
And Boeing wanted the defense business of MDD to be able to compete in the JSF selection.

[WHBM]

I still can't understand how Boeing manages to have its stock value getting on for double what it was five years ago. We have had the 737 two-year grounding, now the 787 new deliveries grounding, the 747-8 programme abandoned with few sales, the 777X pushed back by years, all the potential law cases - where on earth are they getting the shareholders' money from. It's no wonder Wall Street thinks there's no real issue if the stock value does this.

[kontrolor]

what happend here is typical capitalist total take over. business is apparently worth more than any kind of professionalism, integrity and knowledge. This as well as CEO and everybody involved in this should be on trial.

[Less Hair]

It sometimes feels like the value of what is given up cannot be measured properly in modern economics so it is just comfortably ignored until the price paid finally shows anyway.

[Turbine D]

tdracer

Below is a very good summary of what happened at Boeing that continues to this day:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how-boeing-lost-its-bearings/602188/

Keep in mind the Boeing CEO, purported to be a hard-nosed leader, was on the Boeing Board of Directors for 10 years all during the lead-up to and during the entire Boeing Max fiasco. Any leader who did due diligence would have discovered early on during that 10 year BOD tenure, that like it or not, the 737 could not compete against the Airbus A320 in the narrow body single aisle market. The Airbus had all the attributes Boeing didn't have and couldn't have without biting the bullet and designing a new aircraft to replace the old 737. Instead, the MAX was simply concocted as a cost saving measure. Right now, Airbus holds a huge advantage over Boeing in the narrow-body jet market. Its A220 is far more efficient than the smallest 737 MAX. Meanwhile, the A321neo and its longer-range variants can fly further and boast better performance than the largest 737 MAX jets.

Boeing's best bet for countering Airbus' advantages would be to launch an all-new narrow-body jet family sooner rather than later. Today, CFMI dominates the engine market for small narrow-bodies. CFMI LEAP engines power all Boeing 737 MAX jets and nearly 60% of Airbus A320neos. The LEAP will also power the COMAC C919: a Chinese-built narrow-body jet that is on track to enter service within the next year.

Boeing's CEO's prediction that jet engines won't get much more efficient will likely prove off-base.

[Killaroo]

How do any of these people get their appointments and promotions? You think it’s solely because they are geniuses at their jobs? How long have you worked in the aviation industry? In my 40 years experience I can say that (saving one or two exceptions) the usual reason is that they are Yes Men who will do anything to further themselves, including stabbing colleagues (and each other) in the back. I could tell you stories about some I know who are at the pinnacle of this industry, and whose true story and route to glory would make a devil blush. When you’re in Aviation Management there are no innocents - you got there because you deserve it, lock stock and barrel.

[WillowRun 6-3]

Turbine D - thanks much for the Atl article about the culture changes brought on by and through the McD-D combination.

It provoked a question and, though this could end up adding nothing but a show of ignorance about aeronautical engineering, manufacturing and flight ops (on my part), here goes. Boeing had been an enterprise where engineering was dominant, and then that got lost because of the McD-D combination. Okay, and McD-D designed and built the DC-10 airplane, with the improperly designed components which led to the Turkish air crash disaster outside Paris. And which also had the configuration of hydraulic lines and slats (IIRC) which, when the engine tore off the port wing from American's Ten on takeoff from Chicago, caused the stall speed to decrease without any conceivable way for the aviators to know that the flying qualities of the airframe had changed. (Another thread some months ago contained a knowledgeable post which pointed this out - that's the basis I have for stating it here.)

So is there a connection, a way to make cause-and-effect sense, between the fact of McD-D Ten design flaws, and the way in which the "culture-change" at Boeing led to air crash disasters again? I've tried to recall something similarly wrong with Boeing commercial aircraft design, like the Ten had (if my understanding is correct) but if there was something like that, it's eluded me.

I tried to convince myself, at the time of the corporate headquarters office move, that it had to do with being awestruck over the quality of the airspace architecture for the area under Chicago ARTCC. But no, that wasn't it.

[Rainier]

Marketing should get more of the blame for Boeing's demise. There is one rule at Boeing that everyone follows. You don't argue with Marketing.

On 787, we had a former cellphone executive running Marketing. And the result was that we had gimmicks like naming the 7E7 airplane. Marketing also really liked the "shark fin" rendition of the airplane and told Engineering to make the airplane look like the marketing promotion materials. Marketing really liked the hump of the 747 as it created "product differentiation". And they wanted the same thing on the 787. Passengers for the most part don't really care which airplane they fly on for the most part, but Marketing wanted the 787 to stand out. So there are features on the 787 that make no appreciable benefit technically but look "cool". Take a guess as to who decided the roll-out date of July 8, 2007? And once that date was selected, everyone worked to maintain the charade that the airplane would be ready on that date. To be frank, everyone on the Engineering team was embarrassed by the state of the airplane at that event. It was a sad and demoralizing event for those who really understood the state of the airplane. I don't think any of the 787 Program leadership at that point had any say in this decision because they are essentially just following Marketing's marching orders.

[Big Pistons Forever]

I have to think Forkner isn’t going down without a fight. His lawyers are going to drag in all his bosses and the picture they will be able to paint to the jury won’t be pretty for Boeing.

Personally I think this is the beginning of the end for Boeing commercial. Their window to show a material change in the company culture that will stop the bleeding caused by the continuing QA and design escapes, is closing rapidly.

As the trial develops the inevitable drip,drip, drip, of revelations of corporate malfeasance will destroy the remaining trust in the company and the downward spiral to failure will accelerate.

What a shame, that such an impressive example of innovation and engineering excellence was destroyed by MBA bean counters that knew the cost of everything but the value of nothing….

[Turbine D]

Killaroo

I worked in the aviation industry right out of college until I retired at age 60, the last 26 years for a major aircraft engine company plus 2 additional years to restore a relationship that was nearly destroyed by the current Boeing CEO when he was still at the aircraft engine company. There are various reasons for their ultimate positions, including the "Peter Principle". For another example, we had a former VP moved up to corporate level to be in charge of the company's corporate jets. We had three corporate jets. The reality is that most dead heads windup in corporate level positions, doing either nothing or being roadblocks to what needs to be done.

Harry Stonecipher's name came up. He was an absolute jerk, and it got him fired. Each year the aviation engine company reserved a day called "Engineer's Day" to recognize the achievements engineers made fo the business and to publicly recognize achievements of deserving engineering individuals that might go unrecognized and unrewarded. It was a happy day until Stonecipher came along. He used his time at the mike that day to chastise engineers and turn the day into a big downer. The the head of the company heard what had happened, he ended Stonecipher's career, telling him was no longer an employee, go find a job in some other company.

Often the problem is that the buildup of veneer attached to individuals is not removed to get at the person him or her self. Once it is removed, often the true person is discovered to be much different than that from the veneered one. Another problem is that managers tend to hire people less capable than they are, job protection I guess. I did the opposite, I tried to hire people more capable than myself which gave me freedom to do the things I liked to do and yet run a strong organization knowing it was in good hands and functioning well. Just some thoughts in response to your questions.

[Turbine D]

There is a connection. McD-D was in competition with Lockheed at the time for a three engine wide body aircraft. Lockheed was engineering driven and McD-D was cost driven. It was McD-D's cost driven approach where all the controls were stuffed inside the leading edge of the wings that lead to the Chicago crash. Lockheed's approach was to not do that but use a more safety engineering approach. Additionally, American Airlines, as a cost reduction measure, decided to use forklift trucks to raise and lower engines from the pylon engine mounting points. By employing this cost reduction method rather than the proven fixture method, the engine mounts were damaged and the damage wasn't noted. So a combination of cost reduction methods by both McD-D and American Airlines, short cuts to save time and money, resulted in the Chicago accident.

The move to Chicago was strictly a personal motivated move by Condit. He wanted to be near where he planned to retire. But things may not be working out as planned:
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/boeings-chicago-hq-ghost-town-priorities-shift-2021-10-07/

[WHBM]

Turbine D;

Old expression :

"The best US aircraft would be designed by Lockheed, built by Boeing, with Sales & Marketing by Douglas".

[PAXboy]

I think that Turbine D nails many points to the table. I worked in the corporate field (Telecommunications) for 27 years, including for an American Merchant Bank. I have worked in retail, finance, shipping, chemicals, local govt and several others both permanent and contract, UK, Europe and international. I then changed career (still freelance) but have seen identical problems in my current field.

I have seen the cost-saving problem where mgmt get praised for saving money and then - when it breaks - they have to spend MORE money to fix it. My father's world, and the one when I started work in 1977, was that mgmt got promoted for keeping things running smoothly. By the time we were in the mid-1990s, I saw that they got praised for fixing the problems they had created! Also, people didn't get fired so often. Incidentally, we have seen this enthusiastically taken up by both the USA and UK govts. There is always a more junior person to blame. The Peter Principle is still alive and well in UK commerce and govt.

Marketing? I saw this when I was in retail. The 'shop window' got money thrown at it and the back office had to wait for things to break and be proved that they could not be patched up. I recall a conversation with a colleague who ran the telecomms in a very large and prominent UK hospital. Budgets always had money for the (much needed) operating suites and equipment not the back office. One day, he quietly showed the CEO irrefutable proof that people had died because the telecomms system was in such a poor state. He got the new system.

Boeing reached the same point that Kodak did - they stopped listening because they were the best and everyone said they were the best. They had the ear (and wallet) of govt, they thought they were brilliant and the usual stuff when they get feet under the big table. Old companies do this all the time - just ask the citizens of Detroit.

On a lighter note. The marketing nonsense of the 787 was a good laugh. It was obvious that the kids in marketing hated that the 747 had been nicknamed Jumbo outside their control and that the 380 was being called Super Jumbo. So they had to find their own name. Easy, think of a name and then have a 'competition' to find it. All the wavy paint lines were just fashion. Probably 80% of my friends and family have zero idea what machine or manufacturer they are in. BUT they can tell you the price they paid for the ticket!

Turning to an earlier post as to why Boeing financial stock is still riding high: My guess is that Wall Street consider Boeing 'Too Big To Fail'. They are probably betting that Washington DC will bail them out because they build too many toys for the military. Not to mention 'national pride' and all that nonsense.

[tdracer]

Big Pistons Forever

As PAXboy notes, I seriously doubt Boeing would be allowed to fail - it's too important. Just as the government bailed out GM and Chrysler, they'll do what they need to keep Boeing going (that being said, I do have my concerns that my Boeing pension could take a serious hit in the process). I do see signs that things are getting better, including the self reporting of quality escapes (although I can see why it might not look that way to an outsider).

As I noted before, discovery is going to be interesting. While I have no doubt that the issues extended beyond Forkner - perhaps well beyond - you'd have to be an idiot to put something in writing that you thought could be considered unethical. Most people understand email is forever, so in spite of Forkner's "Jedi Mind Trick" emails, it's highly unlikely there is anything like a smoking gun in writing. Heck, even Hitler and his henchmen knew better than to put the orders for the "Final Solution" in writing.

I haven't been prime in an accident investigation since Lauda (pre-email), but even in a secondary role, you're instructed to save any and all email communications regarding the accident investigation. At best it's a hassle - and if you forget you can get into big trouble. It's enough that if I wanted to discuss an ongoing investigation, rather than writing an email that I had to make sure I saved and kept track of, I'd just go find the person in question and actually talked to them about it.
I doubt I was an exception...

[arf23]

I don't think discovery will find emails from the top to the bottom instructing them to do unethical things, but I'm certain they'll find email and messages starting from the bottom (engineers, pilots) and going up raising issues about MCAS and it's design suitability for deployment to airlines. And it'll be the total dearth of documented responses from the higher levels, ie the sound of silence, that will show culpability.

[Sallyann1234]

PAXboy

Now here's the thing. As an engineer in a different industry that has also been damaged by corporate mismanagement, I have every sympathy with Boeing engineers who have been frustrated in their work.

But if airline passengers are really only interested in the lowest cost ticket, perhaps the finance-led management style is the one the customers are choosing, and the resulting deaths are just part of that price?

[WillowRun 6-3]

Having not represented any clients in federal criminal matters, I'm not going to say anything about how the civil case discovery process compares to what takes place in a criminal case, with the exception of noting the prosecution's obligation to disclose exculpatory evidence.

But there is a lot of discovery (or its close equivalent) already taking place in other matters in a number of courts. There is likely to be easy access to, and sharing of, document sets from ongoing matters. For instance, the pre-filing disclosures in the Delaware shareholder (derivative) lawsuit. If there are protective orders of confidentiality in place, those would limit the sharing of documents produced in other matters, presumably.

In an earlier phase of career, an opposing attorney indicated her plan to call all of my client's main witnesses as "adverse witnesses" in her case-in-chief. It was a mostly garden-variety employment discrimination case; I was on the defense. Having not encountered adverse witnesses called by the plaintiff previously, I obtained a set of recordings from a plaintiffs' lawyers group about using adverse witnesses in the case-in-chief. I recite this bit of career history for one simple reason: the program material had almost nothing about the actual witness examination at trial -- and several really insightful presentations about crafting and presenting "the story" at the trial.

In other words, the defense of Mr. Forkner will have volumes of material to work with, in crafting the story of what happened, to the judge and the jury. And "story" is not a pejorative term here. Obviously, in a courtroom in an adversary system, it's a fight. And given what is already in the public domain, and what Forkner's counsel said in the press, there will be quite a fight, quite a fight indeed, mounted by his defense.

[RatherBeFlying]

All this talk of discovery, document research and calling adverse witnesses leads me to wonder where Forkner will find the money to pay for it:confused:

Perhaps if he is acquitted, his lawyers can pursue Boeing for his legal fees:E
​​​

[PAXboy]

Sallyann1234

Indeed, I agree. For the last 40 years the UK has gone down the road of Lowest Price Wins. We have seen people abandon trusted suppliers to save a handful of pounds. The UK has fully adopted the USA idea that lowest must be better and, even if you have some difficulties? Hey, you saved money. Afterwards, moan about the poor service / delayed flight / hotel not finished / extra costs / etc.

We have seen the success of a pricing structure that I call, [insert name of well known LCC] pricing. That is, to keep the headline price as low as possible and then stick on extra costs wherever possible. This can work when dealing with things that stay on the ground. But, ultimately, it works its way back. Since Boeing had postponed a brand new narrow body project for too long - they then made savings. In the USA another well known LCC told Boeing that they would not buy an aircraft that required a major conversion course. So they agreed not to have a major conversion course. Bingo. As is often the case, the lowest price turned out to be the most expensive.

I have noticed that, whenever there is a new type of major disaster - engineers and regular staff have been warning about it, increasingly in email and by photo and keeping records. In the UK there was terrible disaster on the London Tube system in 1987 Kings Cross fire Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Cross_fire) and there was the ghastly end of Shuttle Challenger. The top dogs say 'lessons have been learnt' but all they had to do was listen in the first place. Any staff member knows that corporate approach is set from the top table. Think of certain well known media companies, their owner always says the Editors and Correspondents report as they see fit. It is no secret that they report in the style that will ensure they continue to get paid. Whistleblowers often lose out.

It is my view that the USA and UK have the govts and commercial systems they voted for [and that the corporate world paid for]. On current evidence, they are sticking with their choice. Many quotes are said to be Mark Twain, but there is no doubt these words have been around for a long time, in many countries:
We have the best government that money can buy.

The greatest test for the USA system is what happens to the men at the top of Boeing who made these choices.

[ATC Watcher]

Well written PAXboy , could not agree more. There is no such thing as a fully "independent" regulator, and calls for it to intervene when things have gone wrong are just the usual way to pass the buck to the next level. But the USA and the UK , especially the UK, are ( were) always used as the standard to aim at in term of independent regulation , but in this case here we see the limits of the system. Corporate lobbying influences politics and Boeing cannot fail . Still the regulatory system in those 2 countries are far, far better than most parts of the world we should not loose sight of this..

[krismiler]

Managers come in on a short term basis and get bonuses in return for cutting costs, they aren't concerned with the long term consequences as they will have moved on by the time the effects are felt. This can only go on for so long before the wheels come off, in the case of Boeing quite spectacularly and tragically.

The US car industry is a good example of the long term decline this leads to, the Japanese are the opposite and try to continually improve their products.

[slacktide]

A lot of discussion on Forkner here, who certainly appears to have been negligent in performing some of his specific duties. But what about Michael Teal, the Chief Project Engineer? From a technical and certification standpoint, the buck stops with the CPE. He had the ultimate responsibility for the completeness and correctness of all certification deliverables submitted to the FAA. Here's his testimony before the Committee on transportation and Infrastructure: https://transportation.house.gov/imo/media/doc/FINAL%20Michael%20Teal%20(Boeing)%20Transcript%20and%20Exhib its%20and%20Attachment%20(9.9.20).pdf

It's 148 pages of testimony and covers a lot of ground, but I think the portion that starts at the bottom of page 70 is most interesting because it discusses in detail the internal business process by which MCAS was modified to extend into the lower speed regime, and how the FAA was informed of the change.

Many of the interesting parts of the testimony can be found by searching for the phase "I don't know".

[SpyPilot]

What other interesting parts of his testimony might be found by searching for other phrases:

"I don't remember". "Not to the best of my knowledge". "I can't recall". "You should ask Michael Teal about that".

[WHBM]

It's 148 pages of testimony and covers a lot of ground,

Seems appalling that the 737 Max Chief Project Engineer had no knowledge of the DC-10 blowout failures, and says he did not know it was grounded [page 68].

One thing this seems to point to is there will be a likely reluctance to take these various safety roles on projects in future, because Boeing management are saying that if the aircraft project is a success they will take all the credit and the Boeing bonuses/stock options, while if there is a significant problem those involved are on their own with the law and there will be no Boeing support.

I don't quite know how you are ever going to staff another project having said that is the corporate ethos.

[WillowRun 6-3]

slacktide, thanks for reminding this SLF/atty that sometimes the legal stuff is worth the time it takes to read and consider what it means. (Also, I've often wondered just how different an "interview" by Congressional committee staff counsel is, compared to a deposition under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in a case in federal district court -- Answer: Very different (no objections, at least through the first 75 or so pages)).

This witness, following the Lion Air accident, was not part of the internal effort by Boeing to address what had happened. It is known, if the allegations in the Delaware derivative suit are even just mostly true and correct, that the corporate leadership decided to treat the accident as a routine, not extraordinary, event. So perhaps it is not striking, not unusual, that the chief project engineer would not have been in the loop. Nevertheless, part of defense counsel's task will be (IMHO) to ask, repeatedly and often, "what if?" Here, specifically, what if there were discussions at some approximately, or actually, senior levels about consulting Teal, and a decision was taken to leave him uninvolved? Why did the company do that?

Second, confronted with some rather obvious instances where design problems were revealed by accidents, the witness relies on, "we learn and evolve the process". Leave aside the escape from significant knowledge of the history of the DC-10, in the Turkish accident and then the American accident in Chicago - I realize counsel was trying to make a point and wanted to reach other examples (but this was artful dodging by the witness, and he got away with it). The "Special Conditions" (might not be exact terminology) for certification of the batteries on the 787, the subsequent grounding,... just, "we learn and evolve the process"? Well, maybe this is the Big Leagues today, and to wish for more dedication to right answers is naive. But if that is the case, then process has grown too large and all-powerful. The logical implication of this answer is to say that the 737 MAX accidents and what led up to them was just fine, because we can learn and change the process. In fact didn't the witness refuse to say that specific attributes of the MCAS were mistakes? - in what Process-Worshipping world is that an acceptable answer?

Third, without casting any criticisms at the attorneys who conducted the interview, it's too bad we (the flying public, the regulators, the pertinent Congressional committees, etc.) do not yet have a comprehensive and detailed timeline of how all of the relevant events and communications transpired. Example: this witness does not have knowledge about the interactions with Southwest leading up to the million-dollar contract provision. Well, somebody knows!! And would it not stand to reason that there are plenty of facts, lots of facts, about how that contract term eventuated, and how its pendency and move toward final agreement with the airline was communicated to senior levels? Senior levels who certainly knew something about MCAS and Level B and speed trim subroutine and flying or handling characteristics and the four-second reflex standard.

The more I read about the prosecution of the former chief technical pilot, the more unfair and politically motivated it seems. It may seem unrelated, but I lost count, in the first 75 or so pages, of how often Mr. Teal used the phrase "to be honest." A witness should not ever say that, for the obvious reason it can create impressions of less than honesty where it isn't recited. Then too, legal counsel for the witness are from a top-drawer firm, of course.

[punkalouver]

WHBM

Maybe someone is on their own with the law because that someone on their own broke the law. This has already been discussed by TD Racer about when the company will and will not defend you. Do something knowingly illegal which costs many lives and untold billions and you may find a company reluctant to defend you.

Using an example.....How many people here bashing Boeing would be eagerly defending some construction contractors they hired to fix their house, on a tight timeline for a sale, in which the contractor did something blatantly illegal(while you were out at work) that killed the mail delivery man. Answer honestly.

And maybe Boeing is sending the right message to employees.....do this sort of thing and you are on your own.

Is there any chance that if Boeing was defending the employee that broke the law, the same people would be bashing Boeing for defending someone who broke the law.

[DaveReidUK]

There are so many things wrong with that as an analogy, it's hard to know where to start.

[WHBM]

I think this must be some difference between US and UK law, or at least practice. Over here, if one of your employees does something that causes an accident, that's what your insurance and your legal costs cover. Called Employer Liability Insurance. If it impacts members of the public, that's Public Liability Insurance. There are others, like Professional Indemnity or Motor Vehicle Insurance, and anyone doing serious business with you will ask to see all the certificates. To avoid arguments over which of these is responsible, most companies place all these with the same insurer.

Weaseling out by insurers just doesn't significantly happen (I understand it does so more in the USA). If you smash into someone with the company vehicle, you, and thus the insurer, are liable. They can't evade it by saying you have been prosecuted for careless driving and thus outside the terms of the insurance. Most claims beyond being struck by lightning are brought about by doing something against some law somewhere.

[Big Pistons Forever]

I would suggest that from a practical matter the Boeing corporate culture was set by the C suite. It prioritized and incentivized fast and cheap over safe and good at every step. Again as a practical matter saying that Mr. Forkner was a rogue actor solely responsible for the MAX tragedy is laughable. However Mr Forkner's liability from a legal stand point is a whole different matter and one on which several other posters are much more qualified to comment on than myself. It would be very unfortunate if Mr Forkner was the fall guy and the senior management who were the true enablers of the broken Boeing system that produced the MAX, got off.

As an aside any lingering hope that Boeing learned the lessons from MAX and were making substantive change disappeared for me, at least, when they hid an uncommanded pitch down event on a 777X test flight. This only came to light after a FAA review of flight test raw data 7 months later. This review would not have been done except for the enhanced FAA scrutiny resulting from the lack of Boeing transparency on the MAX. The fact that anybody at Boeing though it was a good idea to hide an uncommented pitch down event after the MAX fiasco speaks volumes about the current corporate culture at Boeing......

Finally the lesson for everybody is take care what you say on any e-mail you send, it could come back to haunt you.......

[PAXboy]

take care what you say on any e-mail you send, it could come back to haunt you.......That is the nub of it. Corporate culture is not the same as what the Directors put on the website. By the time they get their feet under the boardroom table - they know not to put things in writing.

[Fortissimo]

I think this might have less to do with insurance and more to do with vicarious liability, acknowledging that UK/US law differs in this respect. Hopefully one of the lawyers will set us straight. In essence (and in the UK!) and employer is liable for the actions of an employee in the course of his/her employment, unless (UK) they have been 'on a frolic of their own, ie their actions are so unexpected and extreme that no employer could reasonably have anticipated or otherwise controlled events. So if this was a process in a UK court, Boeing would have to show that it had no way of knowing or expecting that Forkner would do what he did, or it would be liable for his actions rather than him. Given all that has been written or disclosed so far, and the admissions made in earlier cases, that would be an interesting proposition to put before a court.

[WHBM]

Thank you for this pointer, it seems there is a (notable) UK/US difference of law. As this is a US situation, we (in the UK) can let this point end

Vicarious liability in English law - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicarious_liability_in_English_law)

[visibility3miles]

The Story Of The Boeing 737 MAX https://www.npr.org/2021/11/29/1059796996/the-story-of-the-boeing-737-max

Investigative reporter Peter Robison chronicles the tragic story of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in his new book, 'Flying Blind.' He says Boeing failed to warn pilots that new software in the plane could cause its nose to repeatedly pitch down, a malfunction that led to two deadly crashes in the space of five months. Robison says the 737 MAX disaster is at its heart the story of a corporate culture that prized profits and shareholder value over quality and safety — and of federal regulators more committed to serving the airline industry than protecting the public.

[olster]

Killaroo, how right you are. The rise to the top of these organisations is generally fuelled by a sociopathic desire for attention and ambition. In the airline world this results in a motley group of greedy incompetents that in general were not actually very good at the piloting stuff who rise to the top. Without sounding too geriatric this was not really the case up to the late 90s when in fairness a few managers were capable at the day job, were genuine role models but now replaced by mainly money grabbing narcissists. The unacceptable face of capitalism I suppose. The Max story is horrendous and complicated. Boeing should hang their heads in shame. I was a humble airline pilot that first flew the 737 - 200 in 1979; it was essentially a C172 with jet engines, simple to fly and operate. Even I could see that the 737 series was at the end of the road with the NG and I was astonished when they cobbled together the Max. A tragic story.

[RatherBeFlying]

Boeing should have done a Honda and moved the engines to the top of the wing for later versions;)

[fdr]

Boeing should have done a Honda and moved the engines to the top of the wing for later versions;)

:}

So, the major client for the plane is demanding no sim training requirement for differences, lest a contractual penalty befall the OEM...
ACT 1, SCENE 1: Pilot walks out for his stroll around the toy, gets to where he expects to see a blender.... pilot's head swivels left and right, and slowly pans upwards, [jaw drops]
Suggest replace Tom Cruise in scene with Rowan Atkinson.

[fdr]

The functional structure of the ODA used by Boing is going to get some air time in court I would wager, to ascertain how the repurposing of a system came about and was permitted to get to the point it did of latent risk. The indictment would suggest that the grand jury at least considers that the pilot had an obligation to report to the FAA his discovery in the sim of an issue, however, I would suspect that the mail servers will have considerable communications with those involved in the system from the indicted party. If the pilot kept that information. to himself, then it is curious that he was indicted.... If some info was passed to random bystanders that results with sufficient evidence for a grand jury to contemplate wire fraud (emails etc... ) then it seems extraordinary that the same info was not provided to those on the relevant teams of the design approval team signing off the PSCP steps and statements of compliance.

I would think the trial will result in some major expansion of parties needing legal representation.

If that is not the case, then an insanity defence would appear reasonable, as it appears rationality has decided to leave the region north of Mexico and south of Canada in recent years.

The OEMs management has an extensive history of issues with ethics, and none of the Max story appears to suggest that this once-proud icon of engineering excellence has any intention of acting ethically. The pilot's actions were not in a vacuum, they were within the culture that pervades the OEM and which has resisted calls for it's change. The pilot did not design the system, change the system or fail to determine the consequences of that undisclosed change, He recognized the issue in a simulator, and then acted as he did, within the culture of the system that is the responsibility of the corporate management. The board has known for 1/4 century that the culture they created was rotten and that consequences that impacted engineering performance and product quality resulted from their inaction.

The US federal court will act it's way to find a culprit, and the corporation will be unscathed, as this is the way things are in a free market, unfettered by responsibility or ethics to the decision-makers.

SWA eventually will need to come to terms with their 1-type policy; which has already had variations through their takeovers of other fleets. The 737 growth capacity is limited and the fuselage went past being an optimal configuration last century. Time to do a greenfield design and one without corporate involvement in engineering decisions.

P.S.: SAFETY:
Walk around Renton or Everett, and you find hard hats, ear defenders, eyewash stations, fire extinguishers, and the usual plethora of posters extolling the virtues of OH&S compliance. There are no posters indicating that the actions of the corporate leaders impact the process safety of the company and the safety of their product. There is an utter disconnect between the financially driven component of our western models of industry and the desire to comply with a product standard, and the management gets a free pass, the schmuck at the end of the line making monthly mortgage payments gets to take the hit for the cynical corporate management. Boeing is tarred with the same brush as BP is, as are most of our major institutions. Deepwater, Texas City, B737 Max, B737 ring frames, B767 tanker contract version 1. etc.

[9 lives]

then it seems extraordinary that the same info was not provided to those on the relevant teams of the design approval team signing off the PSCP steps and statements of compliance.


This is important. A person (FAA delegate or ODA member) signed the 8130-9 form, which in part says:

I have complied with Section 21.33(a).

Which says in part:

Sec. 21.33

Inspection and tests.

(a) Each applicant must allow the Administrator to make any inspections and, in the case of aircraft, any flight tests necessary to determine compliance with the applicable requirements, of the Federal Aviation Regulations.
(b) Each applicant must make all inspections and tests necessary to determine--
(1) Compliance with the applicable airworthiness requirements;
..........

Which include in small part (my bold):

Sec. 25.1309

[Equipment, systems, and installations.]

(a) The equipment, systems, and installations whose functioning is required by this subchapter, must be designed to ensure that they perform their intended functions under any foreseeable operating condition.
(b) The airplane systems and associated components, considered separately and in relation to other systems, must be designed so that--
(1) The occurrence of any failure condition which would prevent the continued safe flight and landing of the airplane is extremely improbable, and
[(2) The occurrence of any other failure condition which would reduce the capability of the airplane or the ability of the crew to cope with adverse operating conditions is improbable.
(c) Warning information must be provided to alert the crew to unsafe system operating conditions, and to enable them to take appropriate corrective action. Systems, controls, and associated monitoring and warning means must be designed to minimize crew errors which could create additional hazards.
............

The Boeing test pilot is one of a number of people who would have to have known that (c) above was iffy, or non compliant, yet the Statement of Conformity was still signed for the FAA. And, that form even has a block into which deviations may be reported, so if in doubt, report.

This is not the pilot's responsibility alone, hopefully the investigation will expand to consider the entire ODA role as it relates to this design approval, and who else acting as a delegate for the FAA found design compliance, where it was not demonstrated.

[WillowRun 6-3]

fdr
Expecting the criminal defense attorney for the former chief technical pilot to plan, initiate and complete a factual investigation which would go beyond and go deeper than the investigations already conducted probably is unrealistic. The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of the House of Representatives conducted investigations a lot more focused and effective than what one typically sees from the Congress. Other lawsuits also have yielded (presumably) a lot of factual material - prime example, the shareholder derivative lawsuit in Delaware. To think that this defendant in federal district court in a criminal case would have resources to dig deeper and into other subparts of the overall subject matters might be playing a devil's bargain or game.

To my knowledge there isn't any format in United States law and government for a process like an inquest in which the sole, exclusive, solitary goal is to unearth all the relevant and material facts, or as close to all such facts as humanly possible. Even the House T&I Committee staff work - which I've commended in earlier posts on this thread and others - is constrained by the "every two years cycle" of the Congress, perhaps to a significant extent. And -- while there obviously have been several "administrative" inquiry panels, notably the JATR, if at this late date there are factual gaps about precisely how and where this defendant was a cog in the machine, then those gaps represent and constitute a deeper problem.

Perhaps Boeing's role as a major defense supplier has deterred more aggressive and effective inquiries, or emboldened Boeing to get ahead of the game where it could - or both. And I've read stuff, not that I would be able to cite it here, articles that draw links between participants and members in a network of contacts built around people keeping Boeing's legal skirts clean. (Melvin Belli, the famed 1960s-era "King of Torts", once remarked that he wanted to hire only those young lawyers who wanted to get into the courtroom to vindicate rights of people who had been wronged, rather than mercenary types whose goals in law practice were nothing more than keeping some corporation's "legal skirts clean." Belli was interviewed in The Playboy Interview in circa 1967 and the quote is from there.) Whether the legal eagles for Boeing have been more like vultures, I don't know and would not speculate - but it has been suggested in the press.

How to assess possible solutions to a business enterprise's "culture" which has shown itself to be broken as badly as Boeing's has shown itself in this case, that is beyond the scope of this post and probably also beyond this forum.

[IcanCmyhousefromhere]

Some excellent posts here, especially the last one from fdr. Very well written imo.
The Boeing pilot needs a kick in the nuts for sure but we all know where the true responsibility lies.
I hope that the company can change for the better once everything is settled.

[fdr]

fdr

Expecting the criminal defense attorney for the former chief technical pilot to plan, initiate and complete a factual investigation which would go beyond and go deeper than the investigations already conducted probably is unrealistic.

I admit that assuming that justice is a synonym of legal process is optimistic at best, naiive at worst. However, the accused party will plead a response to the charges, and will quite likely mitigate his culpability to be that of a minor cog, the Nuremberg defense. I would expect that he holds a wealth of information on who else and why. The choice of a fraud charge and by process, wire fraud is curious, it would appear to minimize the potential for the defendant to expand the pool or responsibility, except for the 3rd element of the charge, where I would expect revelations to be made. Simply, if this was me, I would be making a defence that the "US v.." was not expected to rely on the lonely information of the cog sitting at the defence table (english translation: "standing in the dock",UK can't afford seats, before and certainly after Brexit; at least the "bring in the guilty party" in the US FC will have a seat for a while... ) it was expected to rely on the information from all parties that had responsibility for the "feature". You can blame the lone gunman in the repository window, "he was a rogue, an exception..." but when the whole stinking mess comes out, then it looks more like the system shares responsibility for the consequences of the management's actions and failures to act.

Had the charge been an 18USC §1001 matter, then the accused may not have need for a defence that mitigates his alleged culpability.

If the tent pole is not pulled down on this circus, it will certainly happen again, just ask NASA.

Does anyone believe that the accused decided to write emails "and do the other things... and the others [things] too ...."#, matters he is accused of to get better parking at Renton? For self-interest? That is not itself a defence for the charge, but it will weigh on the mitigation and whether free board and lodging for 100 years ensue at one end of the spectrum, or whether the accused gets his parking validated.

# JFK, MLK were orators, today, we have... Trump, Johnson, Deven's Cow... but at least we have gained memes. :ok:

[DaveReidUK]

Small point of order, defendants sit during an English trial. :O

[fdr]

Small point of order, defendants sit during an English trial. :O

General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett, VC, KCB, DSO of 12":1' fame would suggest otherwise. :}

[A0283]

Reuters update 14th december 2021
https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idINL1N2SZ2FT

suggests the trial has been moved to february 2022 ... can anyone conform that?

.... quotes...

Lawyers for Mark Forkner said the FAA official with personal knowledge of the 737-MAX contacted the government and said Forkner "is a 'scapegoat' and should 'not be charged.'" The court filing on Monday did not disclose the official's name.

Boeing did not respond to a request for comment. The FAA did not immediately comment. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Northern Texas, where the case is being heard, declined to comment.

The filing also included parts of a PowerPoint from an unnamed FAA employee that defense lawyers said contain new disclosures about a key system known as MCAS that should have been disclosed by Boeing’s engineering team.

[EDLB]

Boeing top management hopes, that their 2.5 billion dollar "Get out of jail free" card will still be valid. They bear the ultimate organisational responsibility no matter what.

[RatherBeFlying]

More from Reuters Lawyers asked a U.S. judge to allow current or former FAA officials permission to talk with Forkner's defense team ahead of a trial set to begin in February. A redacted filing appears to show Forkner's team wants to talk to two current officials and a former FAA employee...
His lawyers said they have not been allowed to speak to the PowerPoint author.

[tdracer]

There was an article in the Seattle Times a few weeks ago stating that Congress wanted the FAA to go after at least two Boeing ARs who (allegedly) intentionally deceived the FAA.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/democrats-push-faa-for-action-against-boeing-737-max-employees/

This isn't going to stop with Forkner...

[9 lives]

This isn't going to stop with Forkner...

Because it is very unlikely that Pilot Forkner had ODA/FAA delegation to make a finding of compliance for some of the design requirements for which a finding was made, but compliance really had not been demonstrated (25.1309, for example). The presentation to the FAA that the 737 Max with MCAS was worthy of certification was obviously a team effort at Boeing. The rest of the team members are probably identifiable because of what they did sign for, as opposed to what they should not have signed for.

[spornrad]

Not over yet. Boeing's deal with the DJ, which combined a small penalty (on top of already agreed payments) with white-washing of their criminal responsibility, is being challenged:
Families of the crash victims are suing the US. (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/16/business/boeing-crash-victim-families.html) They accused the justice department of denying them an opportunity to weigh in on a criminal investigation into Boeing under a 2004 law meant to protect victims of crime and their representatives. They are asking a federal judge to force the department to turn over documents related to that investigation and to revoke the company’s protection from further criminal prosecution on the matter.

A recent Seattle Times article (https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/faa-insider-says-boeing-pilot-is-a-scapegoat-for-737-max-crashes-defense-claims/)reports the "scapegoat statement" by an undisclosed FAA employee.

[WillowRun 6-3]

As facts or assertions about factual matters about Forkner's words and actions have been disclosed, and as the overall series of events and communications in these matters has become more clearly known, a possible connection between some aspects of the overall story has seemed intriguing. With these latest revelations as well as what this SLF/att'y takes as a deep and wide consensus among the pilot community that Forkner indisputably is being made a scapegoat, I'm going to suggest a possible connection.

It is pretty well-established, is it not, that Southwest did not want the MAX to involve any simulator training time, that this issue was part of its collective bargaining situation, that there were significant financial penalties involved if Boeing did not deliver, and - though I haven't kept current with the lawsuit SWA's pilots' labor organization brought against Boeing - that Boeing made a series of direct representations to Southwest about fulfilling these conditions. And then, Forkner ended up being employed by Southwest, for a time after he left Boeing.

The very central role that Southwest's conditions for the 737 MAX played in the overall progession of events with the aircraft should be significantly helpful to the defense, perhaps very significantly helpful. That is, when looking for ways to describe and to place in context the "larger picture of responsibility" beyond what Mr. Forkner said and did (and what he omitted), the defense need look only as far as Southwest's conditions for the 737 MAX. And if legal counsel was thinking in a sufficiently anticipatory manner, during his stint at the airline, much groundwork could have been set in place by Mr. Forkner. Of course the Southwest portion of the overall 737 MAX debacles is just one such portion, but with Mr. Forkner's immediately successive employment there, it would appear to be one portion, at least, of the larger picture of responsibility which would be comparatively easy to put into evidence.

[WillowRun 6-3]

On Dec. 15 2021 the defendant's attorneys filed a motion to compel discovery, in other words a motion seeking an order by the court requiring the prosecution to turn over to the defense specific information. Taking some liberties here, I'm posting the section which describes, in detail, information the defense believes it is entitled to receive, but the government has not yet produced. First there is a section about the volume of discovery so far in this case (and "Brady" and "Giglio" refer to information the prosecution has to turn over because such information is exculpatory or impeaching). (I know this isn't a lawyers' forum, but a pilot is being held up as a scapegoat by the awesome power of the federal government, and perhaps his brothers and sisters among PPRuNers should, and do, care to know more.)

________________
At the outset, it should be noted that this case is not the usual criminal case. Rather, this case involves an enormous volume of discovery (15.4 million documents, comprising some 60,000,000 pages) and, even as continued, is on a rapid trajectory that makes it extremely challenging, if not impossible, for the defense to digest all of the information provided by the government before the current trial date, less than two months from now.
* * *
C. Specific requests to compel evidence.
In addition to a general order for the government to identify Brady/Giglio evidence in the already disclosed discovery, and to produce any Brady/Giglio material that has not yet been produced, Mr. Forkner also makes the following specific observations about particular items whose production was requested in Appendices A and C.

Appendix A, Items 3 & 3A: Mr. Forkner asked for production of evidence that what he experienced in the 737-MAX simulator on November 15, 2016 was not MCAS acting as designed, but rather simply a simulator malfunction. In response, the government points to grand jury testimony of, and documents relating to, Vince Pupo, DR 1079, and a presentation from TRU Simulation. See Appendix B, at 3. These answers are non-responsive. Mr. Pupo said that he does not know or remember whether, on November 15, 2016, the simulator incorporated a simulation of MCAS. Likewise, TRU Simulation has nothing to say about this, as they provided only hardware and did not know the software. In line with the government’s obligations under Brady, we move to compel the government to produce any and all evidence that Mr. Forkner did not experience MCAS on November 15, 2016, either because MCAS was not programmed into the simulator, or because the trimming that Mr. Forkner saw was an unrelated glitch in the simulator’s software which later got fixed by Boeing.

Appendix A, Item 4: Mr. Forkner requested several categories of evidence regarding, generally, (1) Boeing’s disclosures to the FAA about MCAS prior to the MAX crashes, including the low-speed expansion, as well as certain MCAS features implicated in the crashes; (2) internal FAA communications about those disclosures, including who at the FAA was aware of the expansion, when and how they learned of it, and what they did in response; and (3) the FAA’s own review of its communications with Boeing about MCAS, including any findings or criticisms related to the AEG. This evidence is relevant to establishing whether or not government witness Stacey Klein or others in the AEG in fact knew about the low-speed expansion – and therefore were not deceived – or should have known about the expansion – and thus have a motive or bias to point the finger at Mr. Forkner. As such, this evidence is potentially both exculpatory and impeaching. In response, the government points to a presentation Boeing counsel gave to DOJ and summaries of government interviews with FAA employees, but they do not identify where in the tens of millions of pages of FAA documents this evidence can be found. In line with the principles set forth above, the government “[who] has presumably reviewed the discovery in this case,” should be compelled to specifically identify documents responsive to these requests.

Appendix A, Item 5: Mr. Forkner requested evidence that a large number of personnel at the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) had access to Boeing 737-MAX information on the “Share Point” system; and he particularly requested evidence that FAA employee Stacey Klein, a designated government witness, had such access and, if so, when and how she accessed that system. This evidence is potentially both exculpatory and impeaching, as it could show that Ms. Klein in fact knew or should/could have known about the MCAS expansion even independently of anything Mr. Forkner did or did not tell her. The government, however, refers us to a document range of some 3 million pages. Under the principles set out above, the government should be compelled to identify more specifically where the requested information is located.

Appendix A, Item 6: Mr. Forkner requested any and all evidence, including witness statements, that MCAS and MCAS’s expansion to low speeds was not material to the decision about what level of pilot training should be required for the 737-MAX. Such evidence is obviously exculpatory, since it would negate a critical element of each of the charges against Mr. Forkner. The government, however, simply referred us to “the interview reports and agent notes in this case, including those for both FAA and U.S.-based airlines’ personnel.” In line with the principles set forth above, the government should be compelled to specifically identify the witnesses who made such statements and the particular statements that they made, rather than simply pointing to a mass of discovery.

Appendix A, Item 12: Mr. Forkner requested evidence related to specific representations made by Boeing counsel to the government about Boeing counsel’s preparation of a key witness, who the government intends to call in its case in chief. Specifically, Boeing counsel prepared the witness “using all of the documents that counsel identified for DOJ in advance of [the witness’] testimony,” and after the testimony, DOJ told Boeing counsel that “the Grand Jury went as advertised with regard to [the witness].” Mr. Forkner asked the government to provide (1) the documents that Boeing counsel “identified for DOJ in advance of Loffing’s testimony” and (2) the content of how the witness’ testimony was “advertised” before he appeared. In response, the government points to the same notes referenced above and records of Loffing’s grand jury testimony and interviews. These answers are non-responsive. Obtaining answers is important: this witness claims to have remembered a key verbal conversation with Mr. Forkner “as part of the preparation for testifying in front of the grand jury,” and he places the conversation in a date range that he was “able to narrow [ ] down” with Boeing’s lawyers. Under the principles laid out above, the government should be compelled to either produce any additional notes and records of the referenced conversations, or confirm that they have none.

Appendix A, Item 14: Mr. Forkner requested evidence as to a June 7, 2013 internal meeting at Boeing that concerned how to minimize the certification and training impact of MCAS, but the government simply “refer[red us] to the discovery as to this request.” To the extent this implicates Brady (as we suggest in the last sentence of that item), the Court should definitely compel identification and/or production of the implicated Brady material. But even as to the Rule 16 implications of this request, it is inadequate to refer us to a range of 67.2 million pages of discovery. In order to expedite trial preparation for a February 7, 2022 trial date, the Court should compel the government to more specifically identify and/or produce the requested evidence.
_________

[Superpilot]

Appendix A, Items 3 & 3A

.. Is interesting. I experienced what I could only say at the time was uncommanded and erratic pitching during an airline assessment on the 737 Max back towards the end of 2017. I wasn't the only one. The instructor provided feedback to Boeing immediately. Boeing Training at LGW should have records. If not, these things should be documented henceforth. Just as important as FDRs.

[Peristatos]

I can't help wondering how he felt upon hearing the cause of both crashes. Guilt? Remorse? I'm sure he was aware of the fact that nothing was done by the managent with his doubts and remarks.

[GlobalNav]

I can't help wondering how he felt upon hearing the cause of both crashes. Guilt? Remorse? I'm sure he was aware of the fact that nothing was done by the managent with his doubts and remarks.

Not excusing the management at all, but the pilot did too little, and if ever “scapegoat” deserved to be prosecuted, he does.

[retired guy]

Was Forkner not just a simulator tester and involved with Technical Publications such as VOL2? He wasn't a test pilot like the other 20 or so who actually put the Max through the test program aloft and who would have know EXACTLY how the Max behaved. The simulators during development are pretty crude representations of the real aircraft. So how can one man fairly low down the knowledge tree be held responsible? The design engineers would have had far more knowledge than Forkner too. All very strange and smells like a case of passing the buck. Not to say that what he did was good - it was not. But did this one low level guy change the course of the 737 development program?
Retd Guy

[9 lives]

So how can one man fairly low down the knowledge tree be held responsible?

Though Pilot Forkner is not singularly responsible, he is responsible. As a member of a certification team, he is required to produce written reports of the design compliance of his testing. That includes an understanding of what the design requirements are, and how they have [or have not] been complied with. As a part of that, he, or one of his team members, also had to sign a declaration that there were no unsafe features associated with what he had been involved in testing. (Not unlike an aircraft in service really - if you've just flown it, and you think there's a defect, you report it for the safety of the next pilots and passengers!). So if, in his capacity as a pilot declaring the design compliance has been demonstrated, he either does not notice a compliance failing, or conceals it, he should be held to account. Otherwise, how can the public have faith in the certification system?

[Smilin_Ed]

ANY pilot who flew either the aircraft or the simulator and experienced uncommanded nose down pitch should have screamed long and loud about this unbelievable situation. They all are responsible.

[A0283]

The start of the trial at the USDC of Northern Texas has been moved again. Now from Feb 7th to March 7th, 2022.

Reason again, to give his lawyers more time to shift through the millions of documents and prepare his defence.

[WillowRun 6-3]

And the trial will have a somewhat narrower scope once it does begin. The federal District Court judge has dismissed the part of the indictment against Mr. Forkner that alleges fraud relating to aircraft parts, reportedly on grounds that MCAS was intangible software code, and such code is not within the legal definition of "parts" (based on reporting in WSJ).
Still pending are counts against which the defense is seen as likely to argue no fraud or deceit occurred, given the fact that FAA already knew the material facts about MCAS at the time of Mr. Forkner's allegedly criminal interactions with FAA.
On a related note, also reported is continurd legal sparring over the settlement Boeing entered into with the DOJ to resolve criminal allegations against the company, with families of crash victims arguing the government failed to comply with legally required consultations with them.

[WillowRun 6-3]

Rather than summarizing what is a short and hard-hitting filing by the defense - here is the notice by Mr. Forkner's defense attorneys of their designation of an expert witness. As just an SLF (& att'y) I'm refraining from commenting on any specific credentials of this expert, though it won't (or shouldn't) offend any aviators to note that if this individual is not an expert for purposes of this trial, then there is no such thing as expert witness testimony.

"Pursuant to the Court’s Scheduling Order (ECF No. 12), Mr. Forkner hereby designates D. Lee Moak as a potential witness who may be construed as an expert under Federal Rules of Evidence 702, 703, and 705.

Lee Moak is a former U.S. Marine and U.S. Navy fighter pilot. With the U.S. Marine Corps (1977–1989), he flew the F-4 Phantom and F-18 Hornet and was progressively promoted through the ranks to Captain. With the U.S. Navy Reserve (1989–2001), he was promoted to Commander. While a pilot at Delta Airlines for 26 years (1988–2014), Mr. Moak flew the Boeing 727, 737, 757, and 767, and L1011. Additionally, he was the Master Executive Chairman of the Delta Master Executive Council (2005–2010) and President of the Air Line Pilots Association, International (2011–2014). Mr. Moak received his BA in Communication Arts from the University of West Florida in 1979.

After the tragic Boeing 737 MAX accidents, Mr. Moak was selected by the Secretary of the United States Department of Transportation to co-chair a special committee to review the Federal Aviation Administration’s aircraft certification process. That committee published a report on January 16, 2020, titled, “Official Report of the Special Committee to review the Federal Aviation Administration’s Aircraft Certification Process,” which is attached hereto as Exhibit 1.
We propose that Mr. Moak attend the trial and be prepared to rebut any testimony offered by other pilots who may testify. Beyond that:

Mr. Moak may testify about the training and responsibilities of a Boeing 737 pilot, including: how a trained pilot uses the equipment in the cockpit—such as the control column (or yoke), thrust levers, autopilot, autothrottles, main electric stabilizer trim, manual stabilizer trim, stabilizer trim wheel, and stabilizer trim cutout switches; that a trained pilot does not need to understand how an airplane is engineered in order to fly it safely; that MCAS is a code or software within the 737 MAX, designed to replicate the feel of the flight controls of the 737 NG in a certain regime of flight; that MCAS was designed to activate outside the normal operating envelope of a commercial flight; that a 737 pilot is trained to respond to appropriate and inappropriate stabilizer trim wheel movement and to not diagnose what is causing the movement; that a trained 737 pilot would not experience MCAS while flying the airplane in normal flight because a pilot who follows normal procedures would not place the airplane in or near a stall situation; and that even if a trained 737 pilot were to experience conditions wherein MCAS could activate, the airplane would be restored to normal flight either automatically or due to the trained pilot’s following proper procedures—such as the QRH/QRC.

Mr. Moak may also testify about the causes of the tragic Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines accidents. fn1
fn-1 The government alleges that MCAS contributed to the crashes; that Mr. Forkner withheld information about MCAS from the FAA; and that the FAA would have found that information “material.” At the same time, the government does not contend that Mr. Forkner caused the crashes. Without more, that allegation will be confusing to the jury, and we offer Mr. Moak to put the crashes in greater context.

In the case of the Lion Air accident, Mr. Moak would explain that the airline installed a refurbished Angle-of-Attack sensor in the days leading up to the accident and failed to properly calibrate the sensor—such that the sensor transmitted inaccurate information to the airplane's flight control computer. This led MCAS to activate when it was not intended to. Mr. Moak would explain that Lion Air flight crews flying the airplane with the miscalibrated AOA sensor the day or days before the accident: experienced “uncommanded trim” due to the inaccurate information being fed by the miscalibrated AOA sensor; flew the airplane to the route’s destination; landed the airplane; and either failed to alert maintenance to fix the issue or alerted them but maintenance failed to fix the issue. Mr. Moak would explain that this failure violated acceptable, standard maintenance and flight operations procedures. Mr. Moak would also explain that the captain and first officer on Lion Air Flight 610 experienced “uncommanded trim” multiple times during that flight before crashing. But had the AOA sensor been installed correctly, or been fixed after an earlier flight, or had the crew of Flight 610 followed standard procedures in their manual on “uncommanded trim,” there would have been no crash. The standard procedure in their manual called for a response to “uncommanded trim” regardless of the cause of that trim. This is true in the Ethiopian Airlines crash as well.

Mr. Moak may also testify that U.S.-based airline carriers such as American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and United Airlines did not experience any incidents involving runaway trim on the 737 MAX prior to the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines accidents, including any activation of MCAS during flight due to faulty installation of an AOA sensor. Mr. Moak would explain that a U.S.-based airline crew is trained to respond to “uncommanded trim” and would have been able to respond successfully to the conditions in the cockpits on the flights that crashed.

Mr. Moak may also testify about the FAA’s reaction to the Lion Air accident. Specifically, he would explain that after the Lion Air accident, the FAA did not require training on MCAS and instead issued an Airworthiness Directive restating prior QRH/QRC procedure for runaway stabilizer trim—that is to remind pilots to use the stabilizer cutout switches in the event of “uncommanded trim.” In other words, the Airworthiness Directive was a reminder to pilots to follow the training they had already been given. [fn 2 omitted-WR 6-3]

Mr. Moak’s testimony is based on his training; experience; and work as a pilot, pilot representative, and industry consultant in the aviation field for over 40 years. He is type-rated for the 737-NG, with 744 hours as a Captain. Additionally, Mr. Moak’s testimony is based on his work as co-chair of the Department of Transportation’s Special Committee, including flying the conditions experienced in the cockpits of the two aircrafts that crashed, in a MAX simulator."

[Snyggapa]

Hmm. Mr. Moak appears to be defending an allegation that MCAS didn't cause the crashes, whereas I thought that the trial was about Mr. Forkner and him misleading regulators.
Confused

[GlobalNav]

Mr Moak is certainly an expert witness, though I’m not sure what points the defense proposes to enlist his help with. The prosecution may also find this expert witness useful in providing useful testimony too. I wonder if the prosecution would depose him prior to the trial.

[andrasz]

It would appear that the defense strategy is to shift the focus from Boeing misleading (or colluding with... ?) the FAA to diverge from established safe design and certification requirements (a crime even if the accidents would not have happened) to discussing the degree to which these actions have contributed to the accidents, which indeed is debatable. Aviation safety rests on two pillars: an inherently safe design, and training to be able to cope with the rare unsafe occurrences. The trial is (or should be) about the first, and hopefully will not be hijacked to be about the second.

[olster]

You have to love the statement that US trained crews would have successfully resolved the malfunctioning MCAS, immediately diagnosed Runaway Trim and carried out the Memory Items. Mmmm. Despite the not so subtle implication of the superiority of US training, Boeing wilfully sold Max’s to Lion Air, Ethiopian and other 3rd world operators without adequate operational or engineering oversight. The stab trim through STS will move on its own under various FCOM described situations. At what stage do you interpret Runaway Stab? The 737 series, more than adequate in its evolution up to the -300 era should have been surpassed by a mini 787 fbw type. The continued ‘bits bolted on’ has got Boeing to this place with the 737. I agree that you can’t dump the quasi criminal lack of corporate oversight and regulation on one man. The blame goes all the way to the top.

[Less Hair]

The grandfathering creates the dilemma. Not the best technology but only the maximum level of new stuff permitted is installed to keep the old certification base. You end up with strange combinations of new and old features. Add forward mounted very powerful engines and this is what happens. The MAX will be okay now and integrated FBW aircraft will make future modifications much easier.

[WillowRun 6-3]

Beyond the truism that Mr. Forkner is guilty of no criminal act unless and until his guilt - both his actions and his mental state - are proven with admissible evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, I tend to believe he is not crimimally responsible (i.e., he has not committed a crime). Three items in support:

First, he may be guilty of monumentally ill-advised, even stupid, statements about his work, and certainly he did not stand in front of the (metaphoric) speeding locomotive of 737 MAX design, development and certification, holding up a "STOP" signal. Boeing's criminal case plea-bargain reeks of insider favoritism (though no one asked me). To prosecute Mr. Forkner as if a "lesser included" of the sordid, corrupt corporate malfeasnace is indeed a process of snagging a scapegoat. He acted badly, but that is not a crime, and not even in light of his specific role in the Boeing MAX debacle (itself a yet additional act of the multi-part drama, The Decline of the Once-Great).

Second, look again at fn.1 of the defense filing. The defense has argued that what Forkner did improperly relative to any and all contacts, communications and other interactions with FAA, singly and collectively, was not material to any decision (or failure to decide or act) by FAA. It's a significance argument. His mishandling of communications and information really did not make any difference, or not a material one.

Third, though closely related to the first point, Boeing is getting away with all this. Who in the legal profession or the aviation safety ecosystem - if such a thing exists any longer - is agitating for clawing back severance and other financial consideration received by Boeing's former CEO and General Counsel? Not that they should be prosecuted (though minds can differ, reasonably or not, on that point), but to walk away heavy with major warbucks??

[fdr]

Appendix A, Item 6: Mr. Forkner requested any and all evidence, including witness statements, that MCAS and MCAS’s expansion to low speeds was not material to the decision about what level of pilot training should be required for the 737-MAX. Such evidence is obviously exculpatory, since it would negate a critical element of each of the charges against Mr. Forkner. The government, however, simply referred us to “the interview reports and agent notes in this case, including those for both FAA and U.S.-based airlines’ personnel.” In line with the principles set forth above, the government should be compelled to specifically identify the witnesses who made such statements and the particular statements that they made, rather than simply pointing to a mass of discovery.

_________

Now that is an interesting turn of events.

I don't believe that the FAA acted with malice or otherwise, but I can state categorically that the issue of stability arising in the flight test was pretty much known by the govt, and it seems pretty mean spirited to hold to account Mr Forkner when te FAA was aware that a problem had arisen and had been fixed in the flight test. The FAA asserts that it had awareness of the MCAS as a stability matter in the pre-first flight high-speed wind-up case, but not later, yet, they were aware of a stability issue in the flight test phase of certification.

I think that chasing a pawn (Forkner) and letting the bosses literally get away with the deaths of 346 people due to their greed is unconscionable. I also think that the FAA staff are professional but have had poor "corporate" guidance and have been placed in an untenable position.

As an outsider I was aware of a stability issue that came up in testing, I had to play "who am I?" to work out what the issue was, and then to put in a white paper about whether the Max would behave the same with my own STC as all of the others in the line-up. It was not rocket science to work back and guess the issue that had cropped up, if I had been doing the PSCP, that would have been one of the more obvious issues to raise. In the end, our STC mod would not alter the outcome of the Max, and how Boeing had dealt with the stick force gradient was never disclosed to us, and nor should it have been. Pity.

I have suggested previously, that the Max longitudinal stability issue could have been mitigated by reducing the nacelle vane size, and any "economic" losses could have been more than compensated by TBC through some minor alteration of the TE of the flaps. The upside of doing the TE mod would be to reduce cruise drag, (ask Joe Sutter... ) and a slight shift rearwards of CP in the inner wing area, while shifting the spanwise lift distribution inboard, they happen to cancel each other out, and can be tuned to give eye-pleasing static stability at least. That mod would also improve the wing bending moment for the sluf design, which is getting pretty long in the fangs. The TE mod also happens to stabilize the loads on the flap tracks that the renditions of the 737 have always suffered from. Randolph's treatise on that little bit of design is good bedtime readin', while you are awaiting the gators to come up in the spotlights of the F-150 dual cab (dual cab as you can put more gun racks in there, cuz what's the fun of being outgunned by a hedgehog...., god bless the 2nd amendment, but 'scuze me, the term regulated militia seems to have slipped from the old parchment in it's readin'.) The Vs1g speed gets reduced, which is good for the clown in Chicago who apparently has a laser focus on shareholder value, and the most annoying thing about the B737 (not just my opinion, ask Pete K.C. Rudolph)#, reducing the approach speed to a manageable value would be nice and save some RESA rebuilding.

The corporate management of Boeing since 1997 at least gives ideas for what to do with goats other than curry and fetta cheese.

I doubt that Mr Forkner held his breath for 5 years in a vacuum, yet that is what the charges against him are apparently expecting the jury to believe.

I hope Boeing starts a greenfield single-aisle aircraft, one that has a round barrel, that takes LD-3's and uses CFRP rationally. Given the history, I would be placing my bet on Airbus instead.


# Rudolph, Peter K.C., High-Lift Systems on Commercial Subsonic Airliners, NASA Contractor Report 4746, Nasa Ames Research Center, Moffet Field, CA, Sept 1996 Contract A46374D(LAS)

[fdr]

Beyond the truism that Mr. Forkner is guilty of no criminal act unless and until his guilt - both his actions and his mental state - are proven with admissible evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, I tend to believe he is not crimimally responsible (i.e., he has not committed a crime). Three items in support:

First, he may be guilty of monumentally ill-advised, even stupid, statements about his work, and certainly he did not stand in front of the (metaphoric) speeding locomotive of 737 MAX design, development and certification, holding up a "STOP" signal. Boeing's criminal case plea-bargain reeks of insider favoritism (though no one asked me). To prosecute Mr. Forkner as if a "lesser included" of the sordid, corrupt corporate malfeasnace is indeed a process of snagging a scapegoat. He acted badly, but that is not a crime, and not even in light of his specific role in the Boeing MAX debacle (itself a yet additional act of the multi-part drama, The Decline of the Once-Great).

Second, look again at fn.1 of the defense filing. The defense has argued that what Forkner did improperly relative to any and all contacts, communications and other interactions with FAA, singly and collectively, was not material to any decision (or failure to decide or act) by FAA. It's a significance argument. His mishandling of communications and information really did not make any difference, or not a material one.

Third, though closely related to the first point, Boeing is getting away with all this. Who in the legal profession or the aviation safety ecosystem - if such a thing exists any longer - is agitating for clawing back severance and other financial consideration received by Boeing's former CEO and General Counsel? Not that they should be prosecuted (though minds can differ, reasonably or not, on that point), but to walk away heavy with major warbucks??

ET-302 flight crew followed the advice of TBC as promulgated, they disengaged the STAB TRIM -CUTOUT, and then they were confronted with a trim system that defeated the crew's efforts to effect a recovery. That was following the sage advice of the company that had not hitherto disclosed the system being fitted on the aircraft at all. So, who is culpable for that? That is an issue that was known on the B707 and yet exists on every single B737 and is not covered in any meaningful manner that would resolve the matter before a delicate airframe with lots of loved ones on board tries to alter the spin of the planet. The fact that in some recess a word without explanation may exist does not a summer make; the basic aircraft has an issue that can result in a catastrophic outcome and no one seems to give a tinker's cuss. They have Forkner, after all he sent some emails that would certainly make the attorneys shake their heads, but, he didn't set up the pathological corporate structure of the company, that was the guys who got the get-out-of-jail-free-cards and who have made the term Boeing ethics as incongruous as a Jenny Craig's office in Mogadishu. Forkner did not make the policy of no sims please, that was the line he was required. by his lords and masters to peddle on the unfortunate operators.

The concept of a safety eco-system is not consistent with the world we live in anymore. We live in an ISO9001:2015/AS9100:2016, IATA IOSA box-ticking world. I contend that the system that we now have is so compromised by the bureaucracy that the system itself is a threat to be mitigated. This is a system that does what all systems do, to regulate the rate of development, and that places us in a world where parchment and ostrich feathers and ground-up gerbil gonads (ink) are the order of the day. I have more capability to improve flight safety on my ipad than I have in my 777. The same system that demands we ensure that spurs are kept out of the flight deck oversees the system that mandates a TCAS/ACAS II system at ch7.0, and then without apology demands that all such systems must be upgraded to 7.1, at the operator's expense due to a fault in the logic of the system. It's good to be king apparently. The same ecosystem gives us mandated GPWS systems for 60 years, and doesn't intervene on the 5G interference to stop the rapacious bandwidth spread of the comms companies that compromises the GPWS system integrity.

Eco-systems, the same eco thingy that allows an egotist to place 20,000+ LEO satellites into the sky ensuring that the NEO surveys, on which the very survival of every person on the planet may depend is compromised. Safety Eco-Systems; I wish.

[A0283]

Has anyone seen an organization diagram of the 737 MAX Program organization for the period 2012-2018? And, or included, the associated organization diagram for the certification team? A link or a list of functions, roles, and perhaps even names would be much appreciated.

I know from experience that in practice it can work differently from what the diagram shows, but the diagram is where you start ;-). In practice you use the 'paper' and the 'how it actually works' diagram in mind side by side, and insiders would know which people inside the company might have been used as 'background references' and which people would be 'hitchhikers'.

If it is not in the public domain now, but if someone sees it during the Forkner trial, it would be much appreciated if it can be posted here.
The trial would not make any sense without a detailed diagram. I would expect the trial to focus on the paper diagram, while the people with real expertise would be even more interested in the 'how it worked' diagram, the 'references' and the 'hitchhikers'.

Note: Forkner had 2 different roles in that period. From early 2012 to early 2014 that of Test Pilot, and thereafter until he left for Southwest that of Chief Tech Pilot. Other players are the MAX Program Manager(s) (Messr's ...), the Chief Program/Project Engineer (Mr Teal), the lead engineers of the systems and aerodynamics teams etc. And later you would have a maintenance lead.
Apart from the 737MAX you also have the guys responsible for the overall 737 Program, which would include NG and MAX of course, and will also have a program manager or director, a chief engineer, and a chief test pilot, and ...

[GlobalNav]

Mr Forkner is certainly not the only culpable Boeing figure, but he is one of them, in my opinion. He complied with the corporate pressures with full knowledge of the design problem and expert understanding of potential consequences.

Every manager and executive that established the business objectives of no additional pilot training and every person who deliberately covered up the need for such bears responsibility and should be made accountable.

Everyone who was replaced and given lucrative severance compensation should be made to forfeit the same.

Fat chance.

[sycamore]

Mr Forkner cannot claim to be a `Test` pilot unless he has gone through a Test Pilot School,either civil or military,and graduated as such.

[Spooky 2]

Mr Forkner cannot claim to be a `Test` pilot unless he has gone through a Test Pilot School,either civil or military,and graduated as such.

I don't think Mark Forkner ever claimed to be a Test Pilot. He was the Chief Technical Pilot on the 737 MAX and nothing more as far as I know. Boeing has a lot of pilots of which some do flight test while others have other duties assigned. Not sure but I believe he started in Flight Training-Airplane which is simply another assignment meant to get the product out the door and in the hands of the customers.

It should be noted that his 737 MAX assignment offered very little opportunity to fly the actual airplane.

[tdracer]

Perhaps there should be a further distinction of Boeing "Test Pilots". There are two separate groups of Test Pilots - "Production" and "Experimental". Production test pilots are the ones that take new production aircraft up for their 'shake down' flight(s) - "B1" flight in Boeing lingo - and also go up with the customer pilot(s) when they do their acceptance flight tests. These aircraft are under full production certificates. Experimental test pilots are exactly that - they fly experimental flight tests of uncertified configurations under experimental airworthiness tickets (either new designs, or significant changes to certified designs). There is some crossover between the two groups (and I know of at least one "Experimental" test pilot who was transferred to "Production" test pilot after he did something really stupid during a flight test and nearly lost the aircraft). but for the most part they remain in two separate camps.

[fdr]

Mr Forkner is certainly not the only culpable Boeing figure, but he is one of them, in my opinion. He complied with the corporate pressures with full knowledge of the design problem and expert understanding of potential consequences.

Every manager and executive that established the business objectives of no additional pilot training and every person who deliberately covered up the need for such bears responsibility and should be made accountable.

Everyone who was replaced and given lucrative severance compensation should be made to forfeit the same.

Fat chance.

"and expert understanding of potential consequences" That is a point for a court to consider at some point. The case against Mr Forkner is primarily an 18USC §1001 matter of a false statement to the lords and masters. Whether "expert understanding" actually was either "expert" or was "understanding" is not clear.
I must apologize that I haven't bothered to look at the exact charges, but they center on wire fraud, and the logic applied to dismiss the two fraud charges would potentially also apply to those anyway.

"Expert" status is not determined, and I would suggest that the evidence is that there was no expert in the system, or in risk assessment in a stochastic causation fault analysis. In fact, the fundamental problem of the B737 remains in plain sight and hasn't received more than token discussion on PPRUNE, and zero design review by the regulator, that of a system that relies on a manual backup that may not work in all cases.

"Understanding", as above, there is little evidence that anyone comprehended the impact of having a bad system based on a single channel of data.

I would contend the following:

That the all operators message following the loss of JT-610 showed that even then, no one, repeat, NO ONE in Boeing understood the enormity of their design flaw. Why? because the crew of ET-302 followed the procedure that TBC came out with, in November, on the 10MAR19 accident. And the procedure didn't work. Why? because the fundamental flaw of the B737 remains that if the normal trim system of the THS is out due to any cause, then the manual trim may not be able to function due to airloads. The solution to the airloads issue on the THS, which result from the requirement to have high deflection of the elevator to correct the flight path problem that will invariably be encountered, well, the solution looks fine in a simulator at 35000', but probably looks rather unlikely at 2500' 300KIAS, and with a big close up view of planet earth in the window getting bigger promptly. In order to recover any manual trim takes unloading the elevators, and that means letting the flight path decay even further. THE B737 STABILIZER meets only the requirements of §25.255 by the letter, not the intent, and never has. it arguably doesn't meet §25.143(a) by the evidence of ET-302. It should have a secondary, independent electric trim system, as the hard evidence is that the situation that ET-302 encountered, was not certain to be recoverable due to the airload lockup of the stabilizer manual trim. You are not allowed to pick and choose the parts of the envelope that your emergency system can be used.... and if you did, then it makes a great case for Airbus sales.
Mr Forkner made email comments that appear consistent with his manner of communication which is informal, such as Jedi mind game etc, that isn't a term that would normally arise in a flight test report at Edwards, Pax river, or NTPS or ETPS. His comment that the simulator tried to kill him is consistent with his informal manner of writing.
The same email did not suggest that he had any awareness of the enormity of what he had observed, his associated assumption is that there might need training. What he had actually observed was (assuming it wasn't a sim glitch which is about even odds...) was a system that even a perfunctory design review would have determined was a latent lethal design flaw in the aircraft, and was almost certain to arise at some point in the life of the aircraft program. That was a certification stopper, not just a training matter. The fact that Forkner is only thinking of the consequences in terms of training shows how little comprehension he actually had, which is just in keeping with the whole of Boeing engineering as well to well after the crash of ET-302. Arguably, the penny hasn't dropped even yet, as it is apparent that B737's continue to happily fly around with a manual reversion of the trim that may not be possible to function in all cases.

I would counter that Mr Forkner, and indeed the whole sorry mess of certification of the program, TBC and FAA included display a complete lack of expertise and comprehension at the time in what was in effect a pretty darn simple system, which any cursory examination of the system would have raised questions on fault tolerance of the design as it finally emerged.

Internally, how the change was implemented by engineering is shameful. As is the corporate culture that has seen TBC go from a pillar of engineering excellence targetting safe design and manufacture to a system that punishes the very QA system they are mandated to have function in both design and manufacture. That isn't Mr Forkners fault, that lies squarely on the shoulders of the board and senior management of what is now an embarrassing organisation.

The FAA has good people in a lot of places, but the structure of the FAA needs a review and rethink of what it is there for, and what structure works for meeting its objectives. It has gone from a competent administration that balanced promotion and regulation to being an enforcement tool, and then finds itself interfered with by the politicians. It has had better days.





§ 25.143 General.(a) The airplane (https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/index.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=ee9803083700896cd85aff74cb4f95ea&term_occur=999&term_src=Title:14:Chapter:I:Subchapter:C:Part:25:Subpart:B:S ubjgrp:76:25.143) must be safely controllable and maneuverable during -

(1) Takeoff;

(2) Climb;

(3) Level flight;

(4) Descent; and

(5) Landing.

[WillowRun 6-3]

Saying that Mr. Forkner is culpable, that he should be held accountable, is not the same thing as saying Mr. Forkner should be found Guilty of the criminal acts alleged in the remaining counts of the indictment.

For those hoping to see a conviction, before the evidence is in the record and the jury has been given the instructions, seeing that the man's career probably is over as far as transport category airplanes are concerned, probably will seem not enough. But that's not a valid reason to presume guilty unless proven innocent. Or to assume guilt no matter what the courtroom evidence turns out to show.

[tdracer]

The FAA has good people in a lot of places, but the structure of the FAA needs a review and rethink of what it is there for, and what structure works for meeting its objectives. It has gone from a competent administration that balanced promotion and regulation to being an enforcement tool, and then finds itself interfered with by the politicians. It has had better days.


I've touched on this before in other threads, but the FAA has experienced it's own "brain drain" problem. I was a DER/AR for over 25 years before I retired. Must of the FAA people I dealt with were in the same age group as me - and now many if not most of them have also retired. Further, for a long time, many of the people at the Seattle FAA office were ex-Boeing (often disgruntled ex-Boeing but that's another story). They had real world experience working with aircraft systems, and it showed. The last few years before I retired, the new youngsters coming it simply had no real world experience - fresh faced kids right out of college with minimal mentor support from those with decades of experience. They were into box-checking without really comprehending what the meaning of those boxes was. Submit such and such document, check the box. They lacked the deeper understanding what checking those boxes meant - and hence lacked the judgement to determine if something was really safe regardless of if they could check their box.
I found it extremely frustrating trying to deal with them - submittals would get rejected for ridiculous reasons (seriously - I had a submittal rejected because my 8110 form listed one of the effected models as the 747-SP, when the TCDS says 747SP), and I frequently had to explain very basic aspects of the submittals that anyone familiar with commercial aircraft should know (again, seriously - I had to explain "EGT").

[olster]

Fdr you really nailed it. The 737 as you are well aware has a large powerful stabiliser attached to a small elevator. I have anecdotally seen in the simulator a stab runaway that would have had a catastrophic outcome due air loads if it were not for the timely press of the freeze button. Assuming of course that the sim is programmed to match the aircraft. The fact remains that if your stab runs away at the wrong energy level and you don’t catch it swiftly you could get unravelled real quick. This is regardless of how the stab runs away, MCAS or not this is an Achilles heel on type that remains in a corner of the envelope that I hope nobody finds. Bring on the narrow body mini 777 with full fbw would have been my original advice prior to the tragic accidents and remains so. The Max fiasco is a stain on Boeing which they have to live with and move on from. The fact that executives with large and unimaginable pay have come through this unscathed while functionaries are pursued is beyond shocking. The one source of alpha in defiance of basic engineering principles coupled with the lack of prescription on MCAS to pilots still defies belief.

[fdr]

I've touched on this before in other threads, but the FAA has experienced it's own "brain drain" problem. I was a DER/AR for over 25 years before I retired. Must of the FAA people I dealt with were in the same age group as me - and now many if not most of them have also retired. Further, for a long time, many of the people at the Seattle FAA office were ex-Boeing (often disgruntled ex-Boeing but that's another story). They had real world experience working with aircraft systems, and it showed. The last few years before I retired, the new youngsters coming it simply had no real world experience - fresh faced kids right out of college with minimal mentor support from those with decades of experience. They were into box-checking without really comprehending what the meaning of those boxes was. Submit such and such document, check the box. They lacked the deeper understanding what checking those boxes meant - and hence lacked the judgement to determine if something was really safe regardless of if they could check their box.
I found it extremely frustrating trying to deal with them - submittals would get rejected for ridiculous reasons (seriously - I had a submittal rejected because my 8110 form listed one of the effected models as the 747-SP, when the TCDS says 747SP), and I frequently had to explain very basic aspects of the submittals that anyone familiar with commercial aircraft should know (again, seriously - I had to explain "EGT").

My experience has been similar. I actually like working with the FAA and most of the guys are pretty good. There are great guys in the FSDO in KORL, KABQ, TAD, MIDO ATL, ACOs in LAX... etc.. some are really good. Others make you shake your head.

example: We were asked to determine one device had no chance to the wing loads of the wing.... of a Boeing. A nontrivial matter. Proving a negative sounds like good scientific process, but has its own issues. So we thought about it, did some flight tests with a couple of jets and decided the most effective way of doing that was to use imaging of targets on the wing through a registered gnomon. It was pretty neat, and much later, we found that it was similar to a process that Airbus had tried and found effective for the same application. It was possible to determine the change in the spanwise and chordwise bending of the wing to a load, and we were able to use accelerated flight to prove the exact deflection to load that occurred. We got to the point of having to explain that with a steel ruler clipped to a table edge and moving the ACO's engineers pen along the beam of the ruler to show that, surprise, surprise, bending changes dependent on the arm and mass(force) applied. Even with that we ended up having to do other methods to actually get the ACO guy to accept the data we provided. Similar matter on ice accretion certification. After years of communicating with NASA Lewis on LEWICE modelling, they advised that the FENSAP modelling was so superior they recommended using that instead, and we did find that spectacular in it's realistic modelling of icing, and in fact of flow dynamics in the boundary layer and even sub boundary layer. And it is not approved by the FAA, even with the enthusiastic support of the FAA Icing Resource at that time, of Boeing, etc... so we are left with nonsense sus scale testing in the ice tunnel out of Bethpage, or doing in-flight icing modelling which is an absolute waste of time, resources and acts as an impediment to development while increasing flight test risk.

To make one point, we did a flight test in a military jet that had the ability to set up a known asymmetry in loading at a known arm to determine the impact on lift from the device we were certifying, the fact that lift and drag are orthogonal took some effort to achieve comprehension. We were able to prove measurable lift variations in the order of 30ft.lbs, which on a total lift of 8500lbs is pretty high resolution, around 0.1% change.... and that was not able to be comprehended by guys with aeronautical engineering degrees and years of experience in the OEM's prior to being brought into the FAA.

[fdr]

Fdr you really nailed it. The 737 as you are well aware has a large powerful stabiliser attached to a small elevator. I have anecdotally seen in the simulator a stab runaway that would have had a catastrophic outcome due air loads if it were not for the timely press of the freeze button. Assuming of course that the sim is programmed to match the aircraft. The fact remains that if your stab runs away at the wrong energy level and you don’t catch it swiftly you could get unravelled real quick. This is regardless of how the stab runs away, MCAS or not this is an Achilles heel on type that remains in a corner of the envelope that I hope nobody finds. Bring on the narrow body mini 777 with full fbw would have been my original advice prior to the tragic accidents and remains so. The Max fiasco is a stain on Boeing which they have to live with and move on from. The fact that executives with large and unimaginable pay have come through this unscathed while functionaries are pursued is beyond shocking. The one source of alpha in defiance of basic engineering principles coupled with the lack of prescription on MCAS to pilots still defies belief.

The B737 is well past its use-by date. The grandfathering of 1960's rules has been stretched pretty damn far.
A circular fuse that takes LD3s would be a starting point. The control laws of the B777 & & 787 are really a mixed bag of goodness. The absolute safety level of the C*U is definitely attractive, but when driving the plane, the C* Airbus normal law is a delight. The Airbus laws get a bit odd around the crosswind takeoff and landing phase, but that is not something that can't be improved on with some logic. The amount of switching to force the control laws to revert to alternate or direct is pain on an Airbus, the single switch in the Boeing is a simple manner of getting rid of most if not all of the anomalies.

The U term of the Boeing keeps the crew in the loop with the stabilizer setting, it is the speed reference value that is being set for the flight control system, which means the driver is on the trim all the time in manual flight. The A3xx events of upsets almost invariably involve the change of laws that the crew then have being unable to comprehend that they need to move the manual trim wheel. That is the downside. Upside is when working it does exactly what a pilot wants with an effectively well-damped yet neutral stability pitch law. The fact that Boeing FBW has a phugoid due to the U term is just an irritant, as is the philosophical curiosity that manual flight with the ATR engaged can give essentially a FD in speed mode and the ATR in speed, so they can get out of sorts and cause the driver to flop about the sky a bit. It is below the importance of the coffee cup holder, but it is there.

So control laws wise, the Airbus is nicer to fly in normal mode, and without a great crosswind. Have a fault, and the Brand B system has maintained the driver in the loop, [HMI: D.I.T.L] Why "driver"? If the Pilot-in-command forgets to rotate the aircraft 'cuz the FD is not pointing upwards, it is hard to use the term pilot anymore, it is more a driver, a person who has a certificate of some form that permits them to sit in the seat, competency being apparently an arbitrary requirement any more.

Oh yeah, putting enough wing and flaps and LEDs to get the Vappr down below Vmo would be a great thing too. Was always amazed that my B744s had lower approach speeds than the B737. The number of overruns per sectors flown per type speak for itself. Having a low Vs1g is a safety matter, worth the~ 2% of structure that the flap system costs to the plane.

[olster]

The A380 at normal landing weight has a lower Vapp than the B737-800 at proportionally similar weight value. I always thought that the high Vapp on the -800 was due to geometry ie potential tail strike issues than the wing itself.

[fdr]

The A380 at normal landing weight has a lower Vapp than the B737-800 at proportionally similar weight value. I always thought that the high Vapp on the -800 was due to geometry ie potential tail strike issues than the wing itself.

The Vs1g charts would tell the story from the AFM, but the FCTM manoeuver margin suggests that the speed difference is entirely dependent on the weight, and there is no difference to the factor applied between Vs1g and Vref. Simple observation to be made by a B738 driver if the relatively higher refs. were due to a change in the factor and not the weight, then your stable attitude on final would be about 4 degrees lower on the 800 compared to a B737 that doesn't have any additive, and I cannot recall any such nose-low attitude, it is almost exactly the same attitude difference as a no slat approach would be.... Just on weight alone, the difference in 1.3 Vs manoeuver margin between the 700 and 800 is 20KIAS, just due to weight

[FlightDetent]

What are those speeds, then?

The competitor is clearly designed for Vat = Vref = 140 kts at MLW, to stay inside ICAO category C.

The increased weight A321 went over, but this was culled back with the NEO...

Resulting Vapp is 145 at MLW due the A/THR / handling / wind additive.

I can guess Vf=30 will bring some extra speed over Vref, but is f40 not the standard for the -800?

[fdr]

What are those speeds, then?

The competitor is clearly designed for Vat = Vref = 140 kts at MLW, to stay inside ICAO category C.

The increased weight A321 went over, but this was culled back with the NEO...

Resulting Vapp is 145 at MLW due the A/THR / handling / wind additive.

I can guess Vf=30 will bring some extra speed over Vref, but is f40 not the standard for the -800?


Actually, having a quick look at the manuals, I stand corrected on the Vref that is used for the B737NGs at least. A bit more digging brings up an anecdotal reason for the change unrelated to the tail geometry. The info is related to the stick shaker margin, which is set to trigger before the stall, so there is an offset of the margin per § 25.207 - Stall warning. VSW is normally +5KIAS or +5% of VSR.

I would suspect that there was an increase in VSW for the 600 above the =5KIAS/+5% level for handling, which gives a lower delta from VSW to Vref than the VSR to Vref. Not sure if the B737 was ever amended to 1.23 for refs instead of 1.3, but anyway, at all times, it meets the 1.23 level anyway, and if still certified to 1.3 then the stall warning margin was increased above the §25.207 requirements.

For VSW:
B737-600:
Vref40= ~1.46g
Vref30= ~1.44g

B737-700:
Vref40= ~1.42g
Vref30= ~1.43g

B737-800:
Vref40= ~1.53g
Vref30= ~1.61g

B737-900:
Vref40= ~ 1.54Vs1g
Vref30= ~ 1.66 Vs1g

Adjusting to Vrefxx/Vs1g:

B737-600:
Vref40= ~1.27 Vs1g
Vref30= ~1.26 Vs1g

B737-700:
Vref40= ~1.25 Vs1g
Vref30= ~1.26 Vs1g

B737-800:
Vref40= ~1.30 Vs1g
Vref30= ~1.33 Vs1g

B737-900:
Vref40= ~ 1.30 Vs1g
Vref30= ~ 1.35 Vs1g

[A0283]

About February 9th, 2022FORT WORTH .. A judge tossed 2 of 6 fraud counts against the former Boeing pilot involved in evaluating the 737 MAX… federal judge in Fort Worth dismissed, on technical grounds, counts that accused Forkner making and using “a materially false writing … concerning an aircraft part,” in violation of federal law.. he denied Forkner’s attorneys’ request for dismissal of 4 other wire fraud counts for not stating a case.

[WillowRun 6-3]

It's regrettable PPRuNe doesn't yet have a stringer covering the trial, which (per reliable news outlet reports) opened today.

[Sallyann1234]

It's regrettable PPRuNe doesn't yet have a stringer covering the trial, which (per reliable news outlet reports) opened today.
This looks a good source to follow:

https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2022/03/18/former-boeing-test-pilot-mark-forkner-trial-starts-fraud-charges-737-max/

[beachbumflyer]

Exactly
Having been a DER/AR for most of my career (AR is the delegated equivalent of a DER), I'm quite frankly appalled at Forkner's (alleged) behavior. If management had instructed me to do something like that, I'd have told them to shove it, and I have little doubt that all those DER/ARs that I worked with over the years would have done the same.
Forkner's actions have brought all ARs into disrepute.
What's a DER?

[sb_sfo]

What's a DER?
Designated Engineering Representative

[Big Pistons Forever]

Boeing’s SOP has been cheap and fast instead of safe and good for a long time. This culture was incentivized by the C Suite who were only interested in short term stock market gains to maximize their bonuses. Forkner is the poster child for why drunk texting at midnight about your job is a really really bad idea but to pin the MAX fiasco on him is a travesty of justice.

[9 lives]

Forkner's actions have brought all ARs into disrepute.

I'm unsure if Mr. Forkner was acting in a DER/AR capacity when flying, but in nay case, he sure knew the significance of what he was doing, reporting, and signing for - even if it was just returning the plane for the next pilot to fly.

But, it is certain, that even for a few non flight design requirements, a DER/AR signed for them, when they we not complied with. In my opinion, Mr. Forkner did not do his duty as a pilot/person in respect of all the other people he knew would fly, and fly in that aircraft, he should have spoken up. The fact that he managed to fly it, does not mean that the plane meets the standard of "must not require unusual pilot skill and attention". If in doubt, stop and discuss, don't sign it out and on to the next.

yes, DERs/ARs have been brought into disrepute within Boeing's corporate structure!

[GlobalNav]

I've touched on this before in other threads, but the FAA has experienced it's own "brain drain" problem. I was a DER/AR for over 25 years before I retired. Must of the FAA people I dealt with were in the same age group as me - and now many if not most of them have also retired. Further, for a long time, many of the people at the Seattle FAA office were ex-Boeing (often disgruntled ex-Boeing but that's another story). They had real world experience working with aircraft systems, and it showed. The last few years before I retired, the new youngsters coming it simply had no real world experience - fresh faced kids right out of college with minimal mentor support from those with decades of experience. They were into box-checking without really comprehending what the meaning of those boxes was. Submit such and such document, check the box. They lacked the deeper understanding what checking those boxes meant - and hence lacked the judgement to determine if something was really safe regardless of if they could check their box.
I found it extremely frustrating trying to deal with them - submittals would get rejected for ridiculous reasons (seriously - I had a submittal rejected because my 8110 form listed one of the effected models as the 747-SP, when the TCDS says 747SP), and I frequently had to explain very basic aspects of the submittals that anyone familiar with commercial aircraft should know (again, seriously - I had to explain "EGT").

Thank you. Precisely!! I think his own emails are key evidence of his behavior. I am led to believe he acted in a way to satisfy what he understood to be the Boeing Commercial objectives, rather than reveal a safety issue he thought he discovered and was initially advising others (within the company) of.

A DER I know and respect, like most the ones I've known, realizes that his word, his integrity, is as essential to his role as his technical competence/expertise. Compromise your word and you will never get it back.

There is no excuse for his alleged behavior, but there are reasons for it and the upper echelons of Boeing commercial should be brought to criminal and financial accountability, as well.

[wrench1]

Not guilty.
https://apnews.com/article/business-texas-fort-worth-federal-aviation-administration-boeing-co-db0e14a239e43406d34d7dde99022089

[Deepinsider]

Thank goodness. A jury of twelve normal people willing to apply common sense and fairness.

[albatross]

I assume he will now sue Boeing in civil court for damages to his reputation, defamation of character, pain and suffering, costs ect. ect.

[WillowRun 6-3]

While the potential future litigation pot is being stirred . . . a civil suit brought against Boeing might be very enticing for enterprising legal counsel, and based on a factor that might not be superficially obvious.

Many observers have noted in varying degrees of depth, detail and indignation the decline of Boeing and its departure from the engineering powerhouse of times past. Much of that background information leads directly to the "operative facts" concerning Boeing's failures in designing and bringing to the marketplace the 737 MAX version of the venerable old workhorse - in other words significant portions of that lengthy background saga easily appear relevant to the direct facts about the MAX debacle. And there are several sets of information already gathered and accumulated by pretty reliable processes - a great deal of information was produced by the FAA in the Forkner criminal matter; the House Committee investigation; the FAA/DOT Inspector General process; the shareholder derivative suit in Delaware . . . and this SLF/atty is not privy to what extent discovery may have reached into new and otherwise not disclosed information in the tort suits on behalf of crash victims.

It is more than plausible to conclude that as yet, no court action has assembled through the impactful processes of discovery under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure the full set, or even a mostly full set, of information about what Boeing did wrong and how those wrongful acts occurred. A defamation suit against Boeing might provide such a vehicle, and consider: many observers have argued (myself included) that Mr. Forkner was indeed in the wrong-place wrong-time situation of vulnerability for scapegoating. Exhibit A, the Deferred Prosecution Agreement by which Boeing skated away, "pretty much," with the former tech pilot twisting in the wind.

This is not a prediction of success or of viability or lack of viability of any particular legal claim - the point is, with all the derision cast upon Boeing for all its misdeeds which led up to the 737 MAX debacle, and all the decisions (acts as well as omissions) that constituted the debacle itself - and its aftermath (like the time period between the two crashes) - one would think that assembling all the relevant information that already has been gathered in other forums, and then . . . . oh I don't know, I'm showing you what the court reporter has marked as Plaintiff's Exhibit 4 thousand 3 hundred 12 for identification, have you seen this document before?

[fdr]

What's a DER?

A demigod, frequently rarer than a unicorn, often like NY thick-cut steaks, known to be grumpy with inventors, can have a sense of humor if paid on time. Many times have a go-to position of adding more steel.

DERs can actually decipher the matrix of authorities that are put out by the FAA to drive mere mortals nuts.

There used to be icing DERs, but then they were all sucked into a black hole that lurked about making life miserable for program managers.

[RatherBeFlying]

Jury kicking out the case in two hours is a serious rebuke to the DOJ.

[fdr]

Thank goodness. A jury of twelve normal people willing to apply common sense and fairness.

The wisdom of a crowd.
Willow Run raises a lot of good points, and this is not going to look good on the resume of the corporate dear leaders of the manufacturer, but I still await someone to start the litigation on the inherently oddly flawed manual trim situation of the B737 which doesn't appear to meet the requirements of Part 25 and seems to be at odds of the intent of the requirements. being able to control the aircraft at all foreseeable times seems to be a good idea.

A failure of the primary trim control is a foreseeable condition and leads to the manual trim wheels still gracing the geriatric pedestal of the B737. Yet, where the initial out of trim condition requires the use of manual trim, there are conditions where it will not be possible without unloading the elevators which is only viable if there is enough air below you.

ET-302 was set in motion by MCAS, but that was all, it ended up on the ground in a heap from the fact that reportedly following the manufacturer's procedure post Lion Airs event couldn't be recovered, and the most likely reason for that is the manual trim was overpowered by the need for nose-up elevator.

That leaves the question as to how safe is an aircraft that can be recovered only if you don't mind letting go of the elevator deflection while in an extreme flight attitude with the world rising up rapidly. The certification isn't supposed to have a caveat, "except if you are having a bad day..." pretty sure that Subpart B, ^25.143 doesn't say that, in fact, 25.143(b) seems to suggest that

"It must be possible to make a smooth transition from one flight condition to any other flight condition without exceptional piloting skill, alertness, or strength, and without danger of exceeding the airplane (https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/index.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=ee9803083700896cd85aff74cb4f95ea&term_occur=999&term_src=Title:14:Chapter:I:Subchapter:C:Part:25:Subpart:B:S ubjgrp:76:25.143) limit-load factor under any probable operating conditions..."

That doesn't gell with having to do a rollercoaster at 400kts and 3000'AGL because the stabilizer manual trim actuating torque exceeds the pilot's strength where the elevators are being used for trivial matters such as keeping your nose from burying in the turf.

Separately the trim requirements a bit later hint that trim is important... but also seem to be myopic, and letting a design that may be inherently nasty to be certified. The AOM that was put out to disclose the MCAS system actually existing, and what the manufacturer suggests was a good response also indicated in wording fit for a lawyer as far as being obtuse, knowing that 80% or more of the operators of the plane have English (UK or US variant) as a second language, but still it intimated that the manual trim system sucked, as ET-302 found out.

Lots of these designs floating about, and who is asking the question of how much the inherent weakness of the manual trim contributed to the loss of Ethiopian. That is a question for a sharp lawyer and is also the way in to get some dignity for those impacted by the disgraceful behavior of the feds with giving Boeing a slap over the wrists and a cookie and some fresh milk. So much for the honor, integrity, and independence of the US DOJ.

In my humble opinion. But before discounting this view, read the AOM that was put out to ET, and all other operators by the manufacturer, note the bit about trim and note that the wreckage reported the stab trims in cutout.

Join the dots, respect those that died needlessly, and fix the manual trim system.

I'm not bashing the manufacturer, they were once the pinnacle of conservative while innovative design, and something is missing in their DNA now, seems to have occurred around 1995 or so... curious. I wish for a return to excellence in design (with occasional whoopsies... JAL103 APB repair oops) that made driving their designs a pleasure.

[Asturias56]

I suspect that the jury just saw the defendant as the fall-guy - no senior management, no directors in the dock or even charged. They could hardly have got further down the totem pole to find someone if they'd tried

[Chiefttp]

FDR,
Any blame accorded to the Ethiopian pilot who left the throttles, ooops I mean Thrust Levers at max power the whole time? Isn’t that the reason why the manual trim system was ineffective due to the excessive speed and high loads on it?

[WillowRun 6-3]

Good recap of trial by D. Gates in Seattle Times. Some of what transpired was very focused on MCAS and MAX issues as such - but reportedly defense counsel dealt with one key prosecution assertion by attacking credibility and lack of other evidence supporting the assertion which should have existed if said assertion were true ..... enough for reasonable doubt, quite!

Maybe time will reveal whether the government's case fell down because it was about giving the public a hanging to gawk at, and not one seeking to hold to account an actual key player in the MAX debacle. And to what extent active motion practice by defense counsel served to educate the judge and also to reduce - reduce starkly perhaps - the prosecution's room to maneuver.

[Sallyann1234]

Good recap of trial by D. Gates in Seattle Times. Some of what transpired was very focused on MCAS and MAX issues as such - but reportedly defense counsel dealt with one key prosecution assertion by attacking credibility and lack of other evidence supporting the assertion which should have existed if said assertion were true ..... enough for reasonable doubt, quite!

Maybe time will reveal whether the government's case fell down because it was about giving the public a hanging to gawk at, and not one seeking to hold to account an actual key player in the MAX debacle. And to what extent active motion practice by defense counsel served to educate the judge and also to reduce - reduce starkly perhaps - the prosecution's room to maneuver.
In your opinion, are we now going to see prosecution of other individuals further up the management tree?

[India Four Two]

Good recap of trial by D. Gates in Seattle Times.

An excellent article:

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/why-boeing-pilot-forkner-was-acquitted-in-the-737-max-prosecution/

[WillowRun 6-3]

In your opinion, are we now going to see prosecution of other individuals further up the management tree?

Unlikely, but with a few caveats.

First, a number of news articles have directly quoted a top-drawer aviation attorney currently a partner at one of the top international law firms (arguably the absolute top firm in the field). His view was further prosecutions derived from airplane crashes are unlikely, perhaps quite unlikely, absent evidence of real intentional, overt misconduct. Especially as Mr. Biglaw has represented clients in such matters as well as throughout the civil aviation legal portfolio, I'm referring to his (reported) opinion, before anything original of my own.

Then secondly, after trying to grasp the points raised in some posts recently about how and why the MAX isn't actually in compliance with the correct understanding of requirements .... with regard to trim difficulties and aerodynamic loading of some control surfaces (and as SLF/atty, I hope that's not a totally inaccurate overview) .... well, there's no legal means to challenge the recert or renewal of certification that I'm aware of, anyway. Not that it would do any good now, unless a "second round" of changes to MAX would be initiated. (....wake me up when we get there...)

So is there a lawsuit to be written, researched, planned and filed, against The Decline and Failure(s) of Boeing and those of the more senior people? I'm thinking that such a "day in court" must be entrusted to occur, if it is to occur at all, to a higher court than what our legal system provides and operates.

But that being said, what if Mr. Forkner, now shorn of smart-alecky texting habits, wishes to seek out restoration of his good name? A suit against Boeing, (A) would present all manner of discovery openings and legal maneuvering, and (B) might even unearth, uncover and otherwise expose the sort of intentional misconduct referred to by that big-time senior legal counsel noted earlier. Or something close to that level of direct evidence. (No doubt about it, I gotta git me a new bit, done chomped right on thru this here one....)

[fdr]

FDR,
Any blame accorded to the Ethiopian pilot who left the throttles, ooops I mean Thrust Levers at max power the whole time? Isn’t that the reason why the manual trim system was ineffective due to the excessive speed and high loads on it?

CTP, a good point.

The pilots are humans, and they got airborne and encountered an array of warnings, failures and handling difficulties, a number of those indicative of low speed. Some pilots will have the bandwidth to their cognitive capacity to check the many other cues to indicate the speed of the plane, but under stress that is not all pilots.

The plane did accelerate to a high speed, but the speed was not the factor with the stabiliser other than the higher the speed the rate of change of the MCAS trim which gave a high rate of trim change at all speeds would have exacerbated the out of trim case. The plane was however out of trim at the point that the crew finally hit the stab trims to cutoff between 05:40:45 and 05:40:55 (there was still an MCAS signal, and no subsequent AND trim command until much later). At that point the aircraft had all the bells and whistles going and all the mess on the PFD. Just before 005:43:10, the trim system was reactivated by the crew for a couple of short ANU inputs, and then immediately after, the final AND input occurred. After this AND input by MCAS, for a period the erroneous output of the LH AOA ceased, returned partially and then ceased again. At this point the aircraft had gone to a negative g dive, and that increased towards a recorded negative 2 g pitch rate, which is going to cause major issues in the cockpit.

The pilot has a decision to make in the confusion in the cockpit as to what is done with the thrust. The training programs that the authorities require to be trained and which is reinforced by the airlines FOQA programs teaches the crews to be afraid of stalls. Airlines don't normally provide opportunity for the crews to go fly aircraft that they can actually fly instead of manage, so a reticence in closing the taps is not surprising. There have been numerous events where the crews given a surprise leave the taps where they are. I recall one impressive deal I investigated that the crew got to 435KIAS in a B747-400, which was only just a new data point for the manufacturer, except that the autopilot was still engaged, and the blenders were on full noise. That was at 3000' heading towards mountains, and the subsequent pullup was most impressive.

Crew have a reasonable expectation that they should be able to have control of the aircraft, taps open or not. It is unfortunate that the speed wasn't kept at a lower speed, but that is quite in line with other events that have occurred, the crew were not outliers.

Should crew be able to cope with this sort of event? Would hope so, but it won't happen under the system of training, selection and qualification requirements that we have in place now or in the foreseeable future. Our training and also quality processes actively ensure that the crews remain underprepared for abnormals that are dynamic or complex.

The B744 noted above, had a fast jet captain as the driver and PF, a fast jet examiner in the back seat, and another one in the RHS. they still got startled by a pretty simple trigger event. The amazing thing is that no damage occurred to the aircraft, including with retracting the LE devices at 60 kts over their limit speed. Gotta love Joe Sutters conservative engineering.

I apologize if anyone thinks this commentary stems from a "High Horse" opinion, it is not intended to be, over my safety, accident and flight test career I have had the opportunity to explore into some interesting places and do things like take Part 25 aircraft out to Mdive, and to investigate what may seem like a staggering number of serious events and accidents, but which were mainly repeats of lessons lost. An exceptional crew can achieve remarkable solutions, many crew will do exactly what the checklist calls for in the simulator, and then the serious event analysis shows they don't do it in the real world, for reasons that remain fascinating. The crew prior to the lion air accident coped with the issue without difficulty, another crew on the next leg, with essentially the same training and standardisation did not. ET302 did follow the guidance material, and then at some point got to the place where they re established the stab trim, and it killed them. My point on the certification is that the manual trim should have been able to be applied to the aircraft for the 3 minutes in between, but there was negligible change in the trim, and some point thereafter the crew reversed the cut-out, and the system put them in a big-time dive. -2g at the sensor which by memory was located around the forward CG MAC is a much more intense experience in the cockpit.

[FlightDetent]

a staggering number of serious events and accidents, but which were mainly repeats of lessons lost. An exceptional crew can achieve remarkable solutions, many crew will do exactly what the checklist calls for in the simulator, and then the serious event analysis shows they don't do it in the real world, for reasons that remain fascinating.This forum needs a "quote of the month" feature.

[Icarus2001]

rollercoaster at 400kts and 3000'AGL How does the aircraft in the after take off phase go from Flap out at around 150-180knots to 400 knots, when there is a fully serviceable and usable electric trim system?

[Lookleft]

Thanks fdr. Your post reminds me of why this forum is worth reading. All the HF experts and wannabes simply do not understand the dynamic nature of the flight deck environment when a situation outside of the normal operation occurs. All the so called experts don't experience the confusion and adrenaline surge that the flight crew are experiencing in real time. Too many people focus on the nationality of the crew to try and explain an event.

[megan]

Elsewhere on Pprune fdr has stated he is giving up on Pprune, could we please as a community beg, grovel, or whatever it takes, to ask him to change his mind, a veritable font of experience and knowledge that is rare to find, covering both FW & RW.Extract of fdr post - Good news though, I'm done with PPRuNe, you guys fly safely and keep the blue on the top and the needles in the greenPost by cavuman - fdr, I know many share my sentiments that you contributions here are invaluable. Wisdom, experience, and a sense of humo(u)r are treasured commodities, not just on this we - bsite, but in life. You bring all three. We are, after all, pilots and friends who we look forward to meeting one day! I am certain that I speak for the membership when I ask you to reconsider

[Bergerie1]

Lookleft, I endorse what you say, both about fdr and the confusion and adrenaline surge when faced with a major emergency. Simulators can never induce what it feels like. We need several things on these forums. (1) More well informed words of wisdom such as those from fdr. (2) Less uninformed speculation by those with little or no experience of flying. (3) More sympathy for pilots faced with a real and totally unexpected emergency which is quite unlike anything they may have practised in the simulator.

[compressor stall]

Look left - your comments re confusion and adrenaline surge are hopefully soon to be outdated. UPRT is coming through the industry and a good portion of that deals (well at least in our courses) with the startle effect.

[Bergerie1]

With all due respect UPRT is unlikely to reproduce the genuine startle effect of a totally unusual emergency beyond anything you may have experienced before. UPRT was well after my time so perhaps I am out of date!! And neither have I seen a simulator which can produce the disorientation and 'g' effects (both positive and negative) referred to by fdr in para 2 of his post No. 158 and which can occur in a genuine upset.

[FlightDetent]

confusion and adrenaline surge are hopefully soon to be outdated. UPRT is coming through the industryDone mine, and it was a complex exercise. Notable weak points:
- preceded by 1 day of CBT, I knew a week in advance something out of the ordinary is going to happen with the aeroplane between 4 and 6 p.m.
- SIM is all 1 g exactly irrespective of all the smart tilting
- flown with shoulder harness on, not the standard cruise configuration
- did not experience how it is to slip upwards from the seat and lose physical connection with the flight controls.

Especially the last one. Easy it is to unload inverted if you don't have to use your feet for it, being curled around the IRS switches.

[Lookleft]

Compressor stall, I first did UPRT in the 90's and it was going through the industry. It was in response to the two 737 rudder hardovers. The theory being that airline pilots were not trained to deal with sudden unexpected changes in attitude and needed to be more aggressive in their handling of the aircraft. The pilots on the FBW aircraft in the fleet did not have to do this training as it was assumed that the protections on that aircraft would prevent it from ever requiring the pilots to undergo UPRT. So now we have gone full circle. EBT and UPRT does not prepare you for an aircraft that has a design flaw and requires the reflexes and the thought processes of a test pilot to recover from its software malfunctions.

[Bergerie1]

I know UPRT is valuable, please don't get me wrong. But the point I was trying to make in my post 165 above was, having once been in a genuine sudden emergency where high 'g' forces were involved, I can vouch for the fact that the simulator cannot reproduce the physical and emotional effects adequately. The simulator training is still valuable but the real thing is very much more dramatic.

[FlightDetent]

I think we (at least me) are saying the same thing. It helps you read the abnormal attitude and practice the needed secondary effects of some flight controls. Other than that, the scope did not extend much beyond.

[safetypee]

Bergerie1

I agree with your view of the inability to generate appropriate surprise in simulation: situational surprise vs fundamental surprise.
Startle normally relates to the physical output response.

Simulation can create some surprise - “I did not expect that”, but the situation is plausible with a known or knowable response; training. In very rare simulated situations - the instructor makes it up - the unknowable aspects can be dismissed as only being a simulation, I wont die; lets have fun, I’m not really surprised.

The more extreme, fundamental surprise is unimaginable, not plausible, fearful of an unknown (temporarily unmanageable) outcome; reality in flying, not a simulation.

The question is what type of surprise are pilots expected to manage (encounter):
Situational surprise in normal operations. Reactions should be self evident, education, knowledge, behaviour, training; if not, then the industry has a safety issue.

Fundamental surprise, rare, unforeseeable, cannot have a procedural response. It requires a calm reframing of awareness, to making sense of what is being experienced. To seek understanding, which at best can be turned into situational surprise, but with continuing inherent fear of the unknown - we overreact.
Consider if there is some similar situation, what can be done. Whether that reaction is correct or not depends on questioning understandings, being prepared to change viewpoint and adapt; there is no SOP.

Regarding this thread; Boeing faced fundamental surprise, not that the events were unknowable, but were mentally dismissed as non existent, not a problem. Belatedly they accepted situational surprise, but chose an inappropriate reaction - money before safety, no change of viewpoint (use the money SOP).

The issues in the development simulator could similarly be dismissed - the aircraft was still being developed, the simulator spec or coding incorrect; thus the underlying system problems were not fully appreciated, - there was no threat of death and the much need imagination was put on hold.

‘Flight testers don't like to break things. They like to dispel the illusion that things work’

Prosecuting individuals is akin to error, blame (after the fact); an easy solution for senior management. The industry could minimise this by refocussing safety on the system opposed to the individual.

* never say never; fundamental surprise in simulators. The day the simulator cab fell off the motion jacks - “I don't believe it”, unimaginable at the time, only plausible when outside - ever used the escape ropes for real, are there any escape ropes in the sim.

[soarbum]

FDR,
Any blame accorded to the Ethiopian pilot who left the throttles, ooops I mean Thrust Levers at max power the whole time? Isn’t that the reason why the manual trim system was ineffective due to the excessive speed and high loads on it?

You seem to have convieniently ignored the Autothrottle issue whereby while the pilots were busy trying to figure out the MCAS issue amid the myriad or alarms, the autothrottle was silently accelerating well past the speed set by the pilots.

From ET-302 Interim Investigation Report - p13
"At 05:39:42, the crew engaged Level Change mode and set MCP speed to 238kt"

Description taken from piece by Seattle Times, March 7th 2021

According to the interim investigation report released a year ago, the faulty Angle of Attack sensor on Flight ET302, even before it triggered MCAS to push the plane’s nose down, interfered with other sensor readings of altitude and airspeed. Registering the plane as still below 800 feet above the ground even after it passed that threshold, the jet’s computer had the autothrottle maintain full takeoff thrust for 16 seconds after it should have reduced the power for the climb phase. More significantly, seconds later the pilots set the jet’s speed target at 238 knots, but the autothrottle didn’t follow through. Again because of the faulty sensor on the left, the flight computer detected the discrepancy between the left and right airspeed values and flagged the data as invalid. Unable to validate the aircraft’s speed, the computer stopped sending thrust instructions to the autothrottle. As a result, the engines remained at maximum thrust for the rest of the fatal flight. The plane eventually exceeded the 737’s maximum design speed of 340 knots. This so increased the forces on the jet’s tail that the pilots couldn’t budge it manually.

[compressor stall]

Compressor stall, I first did UPRT in the 90's and it was going through the industry. It was in response to the two 737 rudder hardovers. The theory being that airline pilots were not trained to deal with sudden unexpected changes in attitude and needed to be more aggressive in their handling of the aircraft. The pilots on the FBW aircraft in the fleet did not have to do this training as it was assumed that the protections on that aircraft would prevent it from ever requiring the pilots to undergo UPRT.
UPRT is generation 3 now and has expanded significantly in scope since the 90's. Comparing the current documentation to the late 90's Ansett Jet Upset Recovery Manual of which I had an old copy (until I turfed it a month ago) is chalk and cheese.

So now we have gone full circle.
I wouldn't put it like that - more like the scope of UPRT has expanded to include acquiring the knowledge to recognize and avoid upset situations and to learn to take appropriate and timely measures to prevent further divergence. It matters nought if you are fly by electrons or cable.

EBT and UPRT does not prepare you for an aircraft that has a design flaw and requires the reflexes and the thought processes of a test pilot to recover from its software malfunctions.
Not arguing the toss on that, but that also doesn't mean UPRT is a waste of time (and I'm sure you weren't implying that).

I'm still staggered that no investigative journalist has gone to town on the grandfathering safety standards of the 1960s 737 design still being produced today under the guise of "newly certified" (when it's only the change that's certified), let alone get into the skeletons that FDR is suggesting are hidden in the Chicago closet...

Bergerie1 and others yes, agree 100% that no sim can adequately replicate G. But you can replicate startle factor in a sim, should your training program allow. And you can also train techniques for resilience to the startle and surprise effect, which and the end of the day, is a very important tool in the pilot's kit.

[olster]

Great writing fdr as well as technical insight. A pleasure to read your views. Especially on the vagaries of the 737 stabilizer trim. Regardless of the MCAS debacle I have long mulled over the fact that stabilizer trim issues that I have witnessed in the sim have had potentially catastrophic outcomes. And to suggest that one of the solutions is the fabled rollercoaster technique implies that there is fundamentally an outdated or even fundamentally flawed design not fit for purpose in 2022. A small elevator combined with a large and powerful stabilizer backed up by a Heath Robinson handle so what can possibly go wrong?

[WillowRun 6-3]

Wall Street Journal reporting that in a federal court litigation matter in Texas, a recent "legal filing" includes documents from both companies that show, allegedly, Southwest was much more involved with setting Boeing's pilot training requirements for the 737 MAX than known until now. This SLF/attorney's first reaction was, 'what federal court litigation in Texas?'

Turns out that there's another class-action, though not directly related to the accidents, and it's before the federal appellate court now, on the matter of class certification, evidently.

More to follow.... wondering what impact this might have on efforts by the accident victims' families to reopen the Deferred Prosecution Agreement? Could get interesting.

[ImbracableCrunk]

Anxious to hear more about this scheme.

[fdr]

You seem to have convieniently ignored the Autothrottle issue whereby while the pilots were busy trying to figure out the MCAS issue amid the myriad or alarms, the autothrottle was silently accelerating well past the speed set by the pilots.
From ET-302 Interim Investigation Report - p13
"At 05:39:42, the crew engaged Level Change mode and set MCP speed to 238kt"
Description taken from piece by Seattle Times, March 7th 2021

According to the interim investigation report released a year ago, the faulty Angle of Attack sensor on Flight ET302, even before it triggered MCAS to push the plane’s nose down, interfered with other sensor readings of altitude and airspeed....

... As a result, the engines remained at maximum thrust for the rest of the fatal flight. The plane eventually exceeded the 737’s maximum design speed of 340 knots. This so increased the forces on the jet’s tail that the pilots couldn’t budge it manually.

The failure of the AOA probe results in a mess on the displays, and multiple warnings and alerts going off just to make the day for the drivers. The ATR will disconnect in most cases, (but not all... IIRC...) and yes, the plane will be gaining energy one way or the other. At the same time, the crew are confronted with alerts of being too slow in most cases, (but not all... etc ). If the driver has enough bandwidth left, and is comfortable enough with the basics of all aircraft, that being slow or stalling is not the EOTWAWKI, it is just a bit of the flight envelope we tend to avoid, then intervention on the thrust would alleviate the control problem from the repetitive apparent runaway trim. Easy to say and do after the graphic learning curve of the hole in the ground, not so easy to do while still trying to drink your coffee, and chat with the cabin crew and do all these things and more, not because they are easy, but because they are there.... like Everest... etc.

Our odd industry has taken every opportunity to remove the innate competency of the pilot from the flight deck, and we wonder why when confronted with anomalies, the crew get out of sorts.

We don't spend time training pilots to actually fly the aircraft anymore, we spend valuable resources in ticking boxes of matters that are being tracked by flight data routinely in the real world, but then we have to go and waste our time showing the same again, and again. Our training is cookie cutter to satisfy bureaucracy, not to actually enhance the skill sets of the crew. We do however waste valuable time in the FFS doing HF/CRM/LOFT evolutions that can be done more effectively in PTT or FBTs or FTD's.

I have lamented that the FFS has constraints in fidelity and validity of the aero model at the stall and post-stall, sometimes spectacularly, sometimes trivially... but giving crews confidence that say a B777 or A321 is pretty much still just a glorified Piper Cub is missing. As a result, the crews when they invariably get out of sorts with the world end up having a very steep learning curve and that can result in unfortunate inputs, action, or inaction. Within rational bounds most sims (not the MD-11) do behave in a manner similar to the real plane, and a rational review of the QTG derivatives will give a fairly clear indication of constraints. There is considerable data available outside of the flight test envelope that can be fed in to improve the models, like when roll reversal may occur, (we got that figure at a very high cost...) and what happens when you hold full back stick on a FBW aircraft for half a day (got that one too...sadly)

Would be nice to have regulators that actually reassessed what and why we do what we do in training, and in recurrent/repetitive procedures. Pretty sure that wet drills and fire extinguishers still work the same today as they did in the 70's, same with how an ILS works, a VOR etc.... On occasions, we train in a number of business jets doing base and upper air work, including stalls, and UA's, and they need not be a scary evolution, care, yes; fear, no.

As an industry and as pax, we can hardly blame the crew for the lack of rational guidance from the regulators and those that are happy to tick IOSA/BARS and other ISO standard compliance matters to "prove" that all is good. Frankly, I believe the king has no clothes, and it is time for a sea change.

[john_tullamarine]

I have to go along with fdr's previous post. If one moves back a notch in the armchair, has a coffee, and contemplates the flying universe .. then it becomes clear that when the JB's are doing their things nicely and when the failures are as practised according to Hoyle, things tend to be in the character of a "walk in the park".

Unfortunately, the combination of ever-increasing emphasis on JB solutions, and ever-decreasing pilot stick and rudder skills, can rapidly put us in a situation where the pilot is overwhelmed before he/she can start to get a picture of what might be going on when things go awry.

I'm an unabashed dinosaur. Yes, the pilot does need to be on top of the attractive and eye-catching bells and whistles but when things get too far out of the routine perceptions of line pilot reality, unless the pilot is able to do the stick and rudder stuff adequately, all might be lost very quickly. From some years involvement in sim training/checking (737) and throwing the odd curved ball at crews (pre-briefed no-hazard but, also, no details) I came to a firm conclusion that the crews which could/did dispense with the bells and whistles and put the system back in its simplest state did themselves a favour. From that position, they could figure out whether it was the basic hardware, or the superimposed software, which was trying to kill them and then progressively get things back to a semi-functioning arrangement. While it would be nice to trouble shoot and figure out just what was what, that may not be feasible or necessary. The need is to get back to something approximating a flyable aeroplane and then gingerly figure out how best to get it back onto the ground without killing all the players.

Even the basic aircraft have their ways. fdr mentioned the Cub. Well do I recall my checkout on the wonderful SuperCub many decades ago. For those who haven't flown one and, more particularly, haven't experienced the initial stick loads associated with a missed approach from the flare .....

[Bergerie1]

John T,

I am also an unabashed dinosaur. Every modern FBW and non-FBW jet transport can be flown using basic flying skills, even with many failures this old formula works - level the wings, set the right attitude and thrust, and the result is the correct performance. Simples.

I repeat, when the automatics start to do things you don't like just disconnect them, level the wings and set attitude and thrust.

This recent article from the Royal Aeronautical Society explains a lot:- https://www.aerosociety.com/news/downfall-the-case-against-boeing-reviewed/?dm_i=4OGU,1BCXW,47XU5S,62OYB,1

[BuzzBox]

Our training is cookie cutter to satisfy bureaucracy, not to actually enhance the skill sets of the crew.

That statement says it all.

[A0283]

The standards for training have been much discussed in this thread and many others, and so rightly so. Skills reduction and focussing on the demanded/obligatory parts are regularly mentioned.

Next to those, there are knowledge parts and voluntary choices that help define and maintain the quality of pilots. So what is available to pilots who would want to know more and do even more to better themselves. One element of the safety culture in a number of major airlines was a set of bulletins that were regularly and freely shared with the technical, operational and pilots communities. I wonder what happened to those in other airlines over time.

[Chronic Snoozer]

Our odd industry has taken every opportunity to remove the innate competency of the pilot from the flight deck, and we wonder why when confronted with anomalies, the crew get out of sorts.

Competency is a box ticking exercise as per the regulators requirements. Proficiency is what is missing.

[Chronic Snoozer]

I'm an unabashed dinosaur. Yes, the pilot does need to be on top of the attractive and eye-catching bells and whistles but when things get too far out of the routine perceptions of line pilot reality, unless the pilot is able to do the stick and rudder stuff adequately, all might be lost very quickly.

So am I. It appears that pilots are dispensing with the basics because they have been lulled into a false sense of security by the bells and whistles. I often hear "Why are you checking that, the computer will tell you if it's out of limits". That is the first step on a slippery slope.

[Less Hair]

Wasn't MCAS created and put in the background to provide exactly the stick and rudder feel of the old days while masking the fact that new, heavier, more powerful engines had been moved far forward of the cg changing the physical flight behaviour beyond the expected? Are today's aircraft still "honest" about their behavior? We even have artificial stick feel. We are far down the slippery slope already aren't we?

[AOB9]

Wasn't MCAS created and put in the background to provide exactly the stick and rudder feel of the old days while masking the fact that new, heavier, more powerful engines had been moved far forward of the cg changing the physical flight behaviour beyond the expected? Are today's aircraft still "honest" about their behavior? We even have artificial stick feel. We are far down the slippery slope already aren't we?
I have been quietly following the content on this website for many years out of genuine interest in the topics ( I don't work in aviation). In the past few years there seems to be increasing evidence that the level of automation is creating difficulties for pilots. We have similar issues in my own industry. On paper people are fully trained according to regulations and SOP's. In reality they are not, and this only becomes evident when things get rough, when people are required to dig deep for a solution. I'm afraid it's the world we live in, the "ticky box" culture is in full swing now, I doubt we can do anything about it.

[WB Driver]

What amazes me is that no Boeing upper management was taken to task for this... instead a massive golden handshake.

[WillowRun 6-3]

Reuters reporting on release (as of Wednesday 22 June) of National Academy of Sciences report on the FAA Transport Airplane Risk Assessment Methodology - TARAM - which report was ordered by the Congress as part of its legislative response to the two 737 MAX accidents.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/independent-review-urges-updates-faa-risk-reports-after-boeing-737-max-crashes-2022-06-22/

Source for the report:
http://nap.naptionalacademies.org/26519

With a nomination for FAA Administrator pending before the Senate, and news reports to some extent favoring the nominee precisely because he is not from within the FAA domain other than a brief stint in airport administration, progress or not-progress for confirmation could get very interesting. Or, does lacking extensive or meaningful experience and familiarity with FAA's administrative functions really constitute a "plus" for solving the agency's recently revealed issues and problems?

[tdracer]

IMHO, and based on decades of experience in aircraft certification, I think putting an outsider - with no experience with aircraft cert - in charge of the FAA is about the dumbest thing they could do.
If a plane crashed due to pilot error, would any sane person think the solution would be to put a non-pilot in the pilot's seat?

[Big Pistons Forever]

What amazes me is that no Boeing upper management was taken to task for this... instead a massive golden handshake.
I am amazed that you are amazed. By design there is no accountability in the C suite. A few law makers have tried to remedy this over the years but they were all quickly crushed by the massive industrial lobby infrastructure designed to insulate the bosses from the consequences of their decisions.

[Big Pistons Forever]

With a nomination for FAA Administrator pending before the Senate, and news reports to some extent favoring the nominee precisely because he is not from within the FAA domain other than a brief stint in airport administration, progress or not-progress for confirmation could get very interesting. Or, does lacking extensive or meaningful experience and familiarity with FAA's administrative functions really constitute a "plus" for solving the agency's recently revealed issues and problems?

Oh the irony. The precipitating event for the current crisis in the FAA was Boeing with the MCAS fiasco, a company that had a board of directors that lacked any professional aviation qualifications or significant relevant aviation management experience.

The profound lack of understanding as to the value of engineering excellence lead to the company culture that inevitably lead to the smoking hole. A BOD that didn’t know what they didn’t know directly lead to the appointment of a C suite that incentivized all the wrong behaviours

That ended so well the obvious solution is to ignore what happened and appoint a FAA administrator with no professional aviation qualifications or significant relevant aviation experience so the cycle of management “success” can go on. :ugh:

[safetypee]

Re the NAS report - post #186

“This report responds to the statement of task specified in the Aircraft Certification, Safety, and Accountability Act. It must be noted at the outset that this report does not assess the application of the TARAM process to any specific incidents or accidents, including the 737 MAX accidents. While the committee was provided a copy of the 737 MAX TARAM analysis provided by the FAA to Congress in late 2019, FAA management declined to provide additional details or to discuss the TARAM analysis of the 737 MAX with the committee. The committee, therefore, was unable to comment on the 737 MAX TARAM analysis. Regardless, the committee was able to make recommendations that, if adopted, would significantly improve the TARAM process.” ( my emphasis )

However, the recommendations to the FAA to review their process addresses several issues which are suspected to have been factors in the 737 Max certification; i.e. - recommendations:

Designate new FAA expertise; difficult if this was lacking, no overnight experts.

Define the type of data to be monitored; ‘definitions’ tend to restrict, and ‘monitor’ implies after the fact, not aiding initial type certification.

A significant issue is to quantify human performance. The Max certification assumed (or was persuaded to assume) that the pilot would be capable of managing an abnormal situation (without guidance and training, etc).
Conceptually this is a continuing issue in all certifications which require expert judgement (normally manufacturer); it challenges the ideas of inservice HF expertise, and if the required performance (the judged level of safety) can ever be quantified.

The report continues with recommendations on computation and analysis, implying that human attributes and uncertainties in operation can be expressed numerically.

Probabilistic risk assessment is increasingly difficult in safe industries because of reducing safety data, thus depending more on subjective assessments; computers lack subjectivity (other than that given by humans)

And so on …; tasks and challenges which the FAA, or any other authority might not achieve.

The meaningful issues involve the need to look at safety differently, not rewrite the book (it has got us this far), but to use alternative views as additions and enhancements; considering the human as an asset, error is normal, considering the wider system, etc.

This could become an industrywide issue particularly if other regulators use the NAS report or revised FAA guidance because of the salience of the 737 Max failure, opposed to thinking much deeper, wider, about the uncertainties in modern operations involving human activity at all levels; Congress, NAS, FAA, where individuals’ personal qualities might only be a small part of the need to think about safety differently.

[Pilot DAR]

A significant issue is to quantify human performance. The Max certification assumed (or was persuaded to assume) that the pilot would be capable of managing an abnormal situation (without guidance and training, etc).
Conceptually this is a continuing issue in all certifications which require expert judgement (normally manufacturer); it challenges the ideas of inservice HF expertise, and if the required performance (the judged level of safety) can ever be quantified.

It's a bit subjective. But, the design requirement:

FAR Part 25.101: ........(1) Be able to be consistently executed in service by crews of average skill;......

Does specifically exclude above standard pilot skill and attention for in service flying. Yes, it can be a bit of a variable to have a very practiced company test pilot limit the application of their skill to "average", but, if in doubt, the test pilot confers with the authority in advance of a finding of design compliance.

[calypso]

Isn't 'part of the issue here that the "average skill" is something that has been going down for years. This has been driven mostly by airlines offloading training costs to new pilots. This has made the pool of available pilots self selecting on the basis of ability to pay rather than talent and ability.

[WideScreen]

It's a bit subjective. But, the design requirement:

FAR Part 25.101:

........(1) Be able to be consistently executed in service by crews of average skill;......

Does specifically exclude above standard pilot skill and attention for in service flying. Yes, it can be a bit of a variable to have a very practiced company test pilot limit the application of their skill to "average", but, if in doubt, the test pilot confers with the authority in advance of a finding of design compliance.
You look at the positive side ;-)

I am more worried about these types of design requirements. Nowadays, in new drafts, there is no longer room for such a "non-specification" type of specification.

Bottom line, such a vague specification would imply, the specified design item is allowed to fail on 50% of the "crews". Granted, it depends a bit on the way you define "average" as well, the average level fluctuating "during the day", however it still implies a huge amount of failures is allowed, according to the specification. Add enough of these specifications and the Swiss cheese holes start lining up.

And, having these vague specifications, it widely opens the door to specification (interpretation) manipulation by management, as we have seen with the MAX.

[safetypee]

25.101; I am familiar with this; it relates to initial certification.

NAS refers to the FAA process for calculating risks associated with continued-operational-safety (COS), used for inservice aircraft; this is based on the Transport Airplane Risk Assessment Methodology (TARAM)*.

Thus any relationship with the 737 Max involves activities after the first accident, where the FAA was adamant that their safety model did not justify grounding the Max.

NAS concentrates on the weaknesses in the safety model (computer analysis) and it’s ‘expert’ use (human / computer decision vs judgement). The model used quantified risk ‘data’ based on a numerical certification assessment (weak subjective analysis of human performance), and comparison with similar incidents across the lifetime of the original aircraft type.

Certification depends on knowledge of the system (MCAS unknown or poorly understood by FAA). Malfunction recovery depended on crew action (assumed same as trim runaway), which requires a qualitative assessment to assess the situation recognition and timely action (uncertain human behaviour).

After an inservice event, this data would be considered against the lifetime history of all 737 variants.
However, if the 737 Max safety risk was modelled without MCAS (most likely), then the first Max accident could be mis-designated as a rare ‘trim failure’; compared with a lengthy aircraft history without previous trim related accidents (all variants), and that mitigation required timely crew action (which suited Boeing’s approach - blame the crew / operator).
(and don't forget the old thread on ‘rollercoaster’ manoeuvre for trim failure - assumed crew recognition and action)

NAS identifies generic safety errors in modelling, which with deduction suggests that MCAS should have been designated as a unique new system, such that the first accident would have stood out as a ‘first’ early in the lifetime of a ‘new’ aircraft.
The FAA’s false belief in 737 Max continued safety may have been strengthened by the ‘recovered incident’ before the second accident; where although the crew misdiagnosed the MCAS failure (insufficient knowledge / training), they fortunately choose the correct action, which the FAA took as vindication of their (false) understanding and public position.

After the second accident other regulatory authorities appear to have suspected errors in the airworthiness analysis and choose to re-evaluate both this and the FAA’s original certification.
This is a valuable lesson for future common certifications and safety modelling - questioning how to model crew activity, ‘average’ or otherwise, and how this might be represented numerically for computation.

‘Average’ in this sense is an inappropriate concept; also there is significant risk in ‘digitising’ human activity, both input judgement and biased output application.

* ANM 100 TARAM https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/rulemaking/committees/documents/media/TARAMARC-06222015.pdf

https://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgPolicy.nsf/0/4e5ae8707164674a862579510061f96b/$FILE/PS-ANM-25-05%20TARAM%20Handbook.pdf
(cut and paste)

NAS Report (link broken?)
https://nap.nationalacademies.org/cart/download.cgi?record_id=26519

https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/transport-airplane-risk-assessment-methodology
,

[WideScreen]

@safetypee (https://www.pprune.org/members/62187-safetypee)

Yep, it is all true what you write, though, the moment you can use a ruler to check compliance with a certification aspect, it's much more difficult to cheat on that. Of course, the FAR 25.101 wasn't the MAX crash reason, though the fact, the historic certification criteria are full of these vague definitions is the jackpot for management to reason out of compliance checking. As long as those deciding are operating in honesty, it's not a problem. The moment cheating is requested, it has become too easy to do so, since it's all "interpretation".

[finfly1]

What amazes me is that no Boeing upper management was taken to task for this... instead a massive golden handshake.

To be thoroughly depressed, check out book called "Flying Blind" by Peter Robison. It seems very well researched and non-impassioned.

One of the more memorable parts described Boeing lawyers descending into the air terminal in Indonesia to secure releases from the relatives of that crash. They were accompanied by Indonesian police.

[Busbuoy]

Bottom line, such a vague specification would imply, the specified design item is allowed to fail on 50% of the "crews". Granted, it depends a bit on the way you define "average" as well, the average level fluctuating "during the day", however it still implies a huge amount of failures is allowed, according to the specification. Add enough of these specifications and the Swiss cheese holes start lining up.

And, having these vague specifications, it widely opens the door to specification (interpretation) manipulation by management, as we have seen with the MAX.

I don't think the inclusion of "average" here implies any such thing about the failure "rate". While the acceptable rate of failure may well, and definitely should, be specified elsewhere in the legislation, in this case surely this is merely specifying that procedures to cope with the failure of any component must not depend upon techniques that the "average" pilot might not be able to master within the course of their career development and specific training to be approved to fly the aircraft in question.

To your point about the vagueness of the "average pilot" specification, attempting to more tightly define this at the legislative level would be a herculean task I would have thought. To date we have relied on the industry ensuring, as much as possible, that "below-average" pilots do not progress into flying positions that require "average" skills. While this sounds subjective, in my experience (as a military instructor pilot and senior international airline captain) I am very comfortable with the way "averageness" was tested non-subjectively. No doubt this is imperfect and boundaries will always be tested by the unscrupulous, but I wish the best of luck in the world to anyone who would try and codify in a central document exactly what the skills of an average pilot should look like. We should never let up on the unscrupulous 'tho.

[phylosocopter]

To be thoroughly depressed, check out book called "Flying Blind" by Peter Robison. It seems very well researched and non-impassioned.

One of the more memorable parts described Boeing lawyers descending into the air terminal in Indonesia to secure releases from the relatives of that crash. They were accompanied by Indonesian police.

Well what i found depressing on the first page (of the sample) was a reference to 'torquing rivets" . Needless to say I did not purchase the book!

[fdr]

Well what i found depressing on the first page (of the sample) was a reference to 'torquing rivets" . Needless to say I did not purchase the book!

Seems like something Mel Brooks would say in History of the World...

BPF & TDR make logical cases for competent management of the FAA; it needs competency in at least 2 major disciplines, engineering/risk management, and operations/risk management. Both of these areas seem to have missed the plot in recent times, and the results have been disastrous. The industry has had poor outcomes in the certification of the planes, and we fail too frequently in the training of crews. Along with that, there is a shortage of maintenance engineers as the job has become less inviting, and the depth of expertise in overhaul facilities is hurting. The industry has issues...

At some point, these issues need to be addressed, sooner preferably than later. To achieve all needs, restructuring of the FAA senior organogram may be a fair option, to get TAD/ACOs and FS/FSDOs working towards a more effective system. In both cases, the industry itself needs to provide a voice on what they need, and what they don't consider to be helpful in the current structure and regulatory system that has developed since Wilbur and Orville decided to make a small fortune out of a big one. ICAO is also due a score card on how the bureaucratizing of aviation is coming along, they are not always the solution to the industry's needs. Had our regulators existed in 1903, the Gulf War I would have ended with a no-ride zone, not a no-fly.

[WideScreen]

I don't think the inclusion of "average" here implies any such thing about the failure "rate". While the acceptable rate of failure may well, and definitely should, be specified elsewhere in the legislation, in this case surely this is merely specifying that procedures to cope with the failure of any component must not depend upon techniques that the "average" pilot might not be able to master within the course of their career development and specific training to be approved to fly the aircraft in question.

To your point about the vagueness of the "average pilot" specification, attempting to more tightly define this at the legislative level would be a herculean task I would have thought. To date we have relied on the industry ensuring, as much as possible, that "below-average" pilots do not progress into flying positions that require "average" skills. While this sounds subjective, in my experience (as a military instructor pilot and senior international airline captain) I am very comfortable with the way "averageness" was tested non-subjectively. No doubt this is imperfect and boundaries will always be tested by the unscrupulous, but I wish the best of luck in the world to anyone who would try and codify in a central document exactly what the skills of an average pilot should look like. We should never let up on the unscrupulous 'tho.
Yep, that's why I say, to move away from these vague certification criteria. The moment you can use a ruler to check on certification compliance, you give management far fewer chances to cheat on these things.

"Average" has little to do with predictability, more with a large sample result calculation/evaluation afterwards. But, hey, certification is not about registering history, though setting rules, how history should develop. Average has no place in that.

[megan]

ICAO is also due a score card on how the bureaucratizing of aviation is coming alongDoes a UN agency ever achieve anything? Sully has handed in his notice after six months.

[tdracer]

Yep, that's why I say, to move away from these vague certification criteria. The moment you can use a ruler to check on certification compliance, you give management far fewer chances to cheat on these things.

That may sound great in theory, but in practice it's nearly impossible to implement. Engine failure at V1 must be controllable, and it's demonstrated during cert. But there is a certain probability that a sub-par pilot will botch it when it happens to them in real life. Does that mean we can't certify unless we somehow 100% eliminate the possibility of a V1 engine failure? Better ground the worldwide fleet because no one knows how to do that.
How do you quantify 'controllable' with hard and fast 'ruler' requirements? Hence the requirements are sprinkled with terms like 'unusual pilot skill'. We try to design for the lesser skilled pilots, but you need to draw the line somewhere or we'll never be able to certify a piloted aircraft.

[WillowRun 6-3]

Well, it's nice to know that I've been living under a rock . . . . had not previously seen news of Amb. Sullenberger's resignation.

In fairness to ICAO - I mean as an organization or entity, and also a place where many dedicated people at all levels devote much effort - it predates the UN. The Chicago Convetion of 1944, its Annexes, the SARPs and much more, have contributed greatly to the safety, efficiency, and overall vitality of civil aviation sectors in many countries (I mean, Member States) and internationally. Of course it's within the UN umbrella today, but that shouldn't be the reply to all interest in its work or proceedings.

I have no idea why, exactly, the Ambassador has tendered a resignation. Perhaps it is because within the past several years, the Organization has seemed captivated, or maybe "captured, occupied and indentured" is more accurate, to certain aspects of climate change orthodoxy - while at the same time proving feckless against actual present-day aviation matters (RyanAir diversion, Ukrainian Int'l shootdown, MH17, to name some prominent cases). Plus it evidently is lacking anything like cutting-edge, insightful developmental work on preparing to cope with the coming onslaught of en masse cockpit automation (and ATM automation, and higher airspace traffic and usage, and AI . . . .) at least as well as global civil aviation coped with, say, the arrival of the Jet Age, the arrival also of wide-body aircraft (massive traffic growth) and two-engine overwater ops, you know, the pre-Instagram stuff.

This isn't to say that dealing with concepts, and terminology or phrasing within formal certification regulations, about levels of aviation skills, knowledge and abilities would be a subject matter where ICAO could or should take the lead. But at the same time, I think if and when a solution, at least a workable solution from an operational as well as engineering standpoint, finally is found, it would be better by far if ICAO and its various outputs were in alignment.

Cognescenti will recognize the source for this line, but I'm exercising caution in stating attribution; an airline enmeshed at the time in a matter of international civil aviation diplomatic controversy claimed its operations were "the business of freedom." There is something to that notion. Maybe a lot of something. Anyhow, and much to this attorney-and-SLF's disappoinment, the upcoming Assembly in Montreal just won't be the same without the class, eminence and integrity brought to the role of U.S. Permanent Rep.

[Pilot DAR]

We try to design for the lesser skilled pilots, but you need to draw the line somewhere or we'll never be able to certify a piloted aircraft.

I agree that "average", "must not require unusual skill" and the like are very difficult to quantify. But there has to be a starting point somewhere. For my experience, if the pilot assessing the handling characteristic has any doubt about compliance, the first thing he/she does, is discuss it with the team, including the certifying authority. This would be the opposite of murmuring to one's self that it's "probably okay" and saying nothing, knowing that doing so steps the certification process along.

I have certainly trained pilots on airplane types which I knew to be totally benign, and the pilot had a terrible time with it - it was the pilot! And, I own a certified single engine GA type, which is so demanding of skill, it is actually actually requires a type rating in other countries. In my opinion, it does demand unusual skill, and type specific training, but it was certified "normally".

In any case, like anything in certification, if in doubt, report and discuss (then probably have another pilot assess, with the concern in mind).

[WideScreen]

That may sound great in theory, but in practice it's nearly impossible to implement. Engine failure at V1 must be controllable, and it's demonstrated during cert. But there is a certain probability that a sub-par pilot will botch it when it happens to them in real life. Does that mean we can't certify unless we somehow 100% eliminate the possibility of a V1 engine failure? Better ground the worldwide fleet because no one knows how to do that.
How do you quantify 'controllable' with hard and fast 'ruler' requirements? Hence the requirements are sprinkled with terms like 'unusual pilot skill'. We try to design for the lesser skilled pilots, but you need to draw the line somewhere or we'll never be able to certify a piloted aircraft.
I agree, it's not 100% avoidable to have some vagueness, in the end, flying is (for the foreseeable time) a human driven process.

However, striving to minimize the amount of vagueness could be very useful.

Engine failure at V1 controllable can be specified in maximum flight-path/3D-position/energy deviations vs. time, given a maximum amount/reaction-time of control input.

Compare this with EGPWS. EGPWS effectively creates a dynamic multidimensional "virtual-path", where it is safe to fly. As long as the aircraft stays within these multidimensional boundaries, the aircraft is safe. Move outside this virtual-path and the dangers start adding up, sometimes very quickly.

For the V1 failures, a similar virtual-path can be defined and used as a certification requirement. Define the maximum amount of correction required, vs. the reaction time, and things do get quite deterministic. This would immediately wipe out the possibility that an outright dangerous aircraft will pass the certification tests (because with the vague certification criteria, an ace could save the aircraft certification). This way, you create "a ruler" to be used for the certification. When the current certification criteria were established, technology wasn't available to specify and/or measure this type of specifications, so, one did water down these certification criteria to "average pilot", etc. Nowadays, math, computational power as well as sensor capabilities are an order of magnitude better and a different, less vague, approach to certification would be feasible.

And, because the aircraft certification gets deterministic, the pilot certification can also become more deterministic. Still not perfect, though getting better than the vague "average" qualification.

[WideScreen]

I agree that "average", "must not require unusual skill" and the like are very difficult to quantify. But there has to be a starting point somewhere. For my experience, if the pilot assessing the handling characteristic has any doubt about compliance, the first thing he/she does, is discuss it with the team, including the certifying authority. This would be the opposite of murmuring to one's self that it's "probably okay" and saying nothing, knowing that doing so steps the certification process along.

I have certainly trained pilots on airplane types which I knew to be totally benign, and the pilot had a terrible time with it - it was the pilot! And, I own a certified single engine GA type, which is so demanding of skill, it is actually actually requires a type rating in other countries. In my opinion, it does demand unusual skill, and type specific training, but it was certified "normally".

In any case, like anything in certification, if in doubt, report and discuss (then probably have another pilot assess, with the concern in mind).
The bold part is the problem. As long as one is dealing with honest people, things are fine. The moment greed sets in, we get what happened to the MAX. Have less vague certification specifications and the amount of cheating will be reduced.

Initially, this sounds pretty bad for aircraft designers, though looking further into this, it makes their life a lot easier. Engineers/Technical designers want to have clear criteria of what they need to achieve, and makes preparing for the certification a lot easier. Not to say, for example, the whole car-industry works on these principles. Turn the vague marketing level requirements into technical requirements and create the technical design from there. Once the technical options are exhausted, work with the marketing to update (maybe water down) the marketing goals for that specific item. Since cars are produced in massive amounts, this working mechanism is mandatory to avoid disaster designs.

[slast]

Just as an aside, I’ve never forgotten that many (MANY!) years ago as an IFALPA rep at an ICAO Airworthiness Committee meeting, I worked with a terrific character named Thomas (Tom) Foxworth who was the relevant ALPA committee chairman. We were discussing reaction time for accelerate-stop certification and apropos what “quality” of pilot should be fed into probability models etc, Tom used the phrase “least competent of the competent” to encompass both the pilot who regularly just scraped by on all training, and the one who did pretty well but was at the low end of e.g. fatigue on the day.

[PEI_3721]

In a very safe, yet still evolving industry, the processes required to maintain the highest standards also have to change. The difference between the old and new views of safety (human error) is a simplified example.

Outwardly the FAA and Boeing holds the old view, ‘blame and train’. Build systems assuming that it is possible to sufficiently train people - change human nature - to manage foreseeable situations; thus taking the greatest credit for human performance in system operation - malfunction. (Outwardly Airbus appears to differ - safety attitude - integrated systems; EASA less convincing?)

With evolution, safety depends on recognition that human activity and particularly training is limited, with increasing uncertainty in outcome. Certification decisions via requirement and consensus must now be seen as soft judgements which accommodate the widest range of views and (unforeseen) situations. This in part represents the new view; complex operations depend on human activity, the human is an asset, but limited by the situation.
Certification processes in complex system need greater focus on assumptions and ambiguities, on the situational uncertainties which crews are expected to manage; aviation is slowly adapting, but perhaps not as fast as other industries. 20 yrs ago aviation was the benchmark, HF, CRM, risk management; nowadays aviation appears to lag other transport systems and medical care. In many ways aviation is complacent, slow to change, reluctant to view the world differently.

Note the references below; a wide view, evaluation teams, task orientated.
Human Factors in Risk Assessment
https://www.hse.gov.uk/humanfactors/resources/risk-assessment.htm
note embedded links and also see links and resources
https://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr679.pdf
https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20160607152331/http://orr.gov.uk/publications/guidance/health-and-safety/human-factors-guidance
and ‘Reducing Error And Influencing Behaviour hsg48’

“It is our knowledge — the things we are sure of — that makes the world go wrong and keeps us from seeing and learning.” Lincoln Austin Steffens
“We know more than we’re able to explain that we know.
And I call this inarticulate knowledge — the knowledge that I’m not able to articulate to somebody.
And I have inarticulate knowledge about a lot of things, including other people.
I could have tacit knowledge of why I trust somebody that I couldn’t explain to you. If you asked me to give you specific things, I wouldn’t be able to point to that, “Oh, there’s that one time when we were hanging out together,” because it’s probably not any one particular thing. It’s probably a series of things, call it a gut feeling. I just have that.
And I have the same thing for mistrust. Right? And I think that this kind of tacit knowledge and articulate knowledge is undervalued in our society. It’s undervalued because we always want to be able to explain the science and give the hard reasons for it. But a lot of life doesn’t work like that.”
“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.” Mark Twain

[Big Pistons Forever]

Boeing hasn’t delivered a 787 in more than a year and now the latest kick in the arse

[QUOTE][[color=#222222]The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Office of Inspector General (OIG) has announced plans to audit of the FAA’s oversight of Boeing 737 and 787 production. According to a memorandum released by the OIG, the audit will focus on the FAA’s process for “identifying and resolving production issues and addressing allegations of undue pressure within the production environment.” The audit is expected to begin in July./QUOTE]

You would think that by now Boeing execs would have made sorting the production process issues a high priority starting with getting serious about encouraging a robust safety reporting culture, yet the steady drip drip of own goals continues. I think that sadly, Boeing is too broken to fix….

[Klauss]

Does a UN agency ever achieve anything? Sully has handed in his notice after six months.

6 months....hm. I feel that ICAO isn´t what it used to be. Doesn´t seem to have enouth people, resources and attention by politicians who expect it to play it´s vital role in aviation. Check this out:
https://www.icao.int/annual-report-2019/Pages/supporting-strategies-finances-budget-2020-2021-2022.aspx
Quote:
The budget is a Zero Nominal Growth (ZNG) budget, developed by maintaining the average Assessment of Member States for the next three years at the 2019 level, while retaining all important existing activities and providing additional resources for priorities such as aviation security, Carbon Offsetting ((( plus plus plus....)))
Easy to see that ´´traditional´´ ICAO work is put on hold to cater for fancy (though needed) new projects. However, we need a solid basis for Aviation.... Echos of the Boeing management mess ??
Whatever, I can understand Sully.

[fdr]

You would think that by now Boeing execs would have made sorting the production process issues a high priority starting with getting serious about encouraging a robust safety reporting culture, yet the steady drip drip of own goals continues. I think that sadly, Boeing is too broken to fix….

Boeing corporate has been single-minded in doing nothing much to reverse the rot that arose from the MDD invasion of TBC. If they didn't get the message over the tanker debacle, the B737 ring frame saga, the 787 section joints, the Max, and production in the Carolinas, along with the tanker fuel debris etc... apparently the lads are inured to "signs". Moses, they ain't. Boeing doesn't however need a prophet, they need a leader that places quality higher on their agenda than bloated profits (prophets?) They have had more than a few hints to amend their ways, but seem to have the pioneer spirit to keep on in spite of common sense.,

Time to dislodge the board.

[WideScreen]

Boeing corporate has been single-minded in doing nothing much to reverse the rot that arose from the MDD invasion of TBC. If they didn't get the message over the tanker debacle, the B737 ring frame saga, the 787 section joints, the Max, and production in the Carolinas, along with the tanker fuel debris etc... apparently the lads are inured to "signs". Moses, they ain't. Boeing doesn't however need a prophet, they need a leader that places quality higher on their agenda than bloated profits (prophets?) They have had more than a few hints to amend their ways, but seem to have the pioneer spirit to keep on in spite of common sense.,
I think, it is dangerous to insist on "quality", since this emphasizes "paperwork", which is already available in large quantities at Boeing, though watered down (because of the sheer volume), by those in charge to control the operations are performed according "the books".

What Boeing needs is the reverse to the concept of technical excellence as a leading item. And the understanding that long-term profits only come from the fruits of this technical excellence.

Time to dislodge the board.
I don't think, that is enough, there are far too many managers below that level, who simply miss the capabilities and/or drive for the technical excellence.

But, hey, this is how all big companies in the end start to fail.

[fdr]

I think, it is dangerous to insist on "quality", since this emphasizes "paperwork", which is already available in large quantities at Boeing, though watered down (because of the sheer volume), by those in charge to control the operations are performed according "the books". What Boeing needs is the reverse to the concept of technical excellence as a leading item. And the understanding that long-term profits only come from the fruits of this technical excellence.

Boeing produces both products and services. The client for any of their output makes a determination on the output based on quality and price, which is the basis of economic differentiation in the marketplace. The term Quality in that sense is not the narrow view of a QA program, it is what the output is considered by the purchaser to be fit for, and it occurs in a comparative space. If the alternative is an AN-2, then the B7XX may be attractive, warts n all. If Boeing is being compared to another competent provider, say one starting with the first letter of the alphabet, then when the products seem to be messed up in the kitty litter routinely, and over 25 years of the input from MDD manglement, it appears this is business as usual or business as desired. That's the quality matter that a purchaser looks at. Price can always be made so attractive that the purchaser's shareholders will have kittens (who don't mind the kitty litter surprises) if the customer doesn't take advantage of the short term gains in discounted products. The OEM's QA department is a part of the quality case, but is just a part. Not caring about your product certainly makes pricing a factor, like the AN-2.

I don't think, that is enough, there are far too many managers below that level, who simply miss the capabilities and/or drive for the technical excellence. But, hey, this is how all big companies in the end start to fail.

Gotta start somewhere, and that means probably at the top, they are the ones with the remit to take action. It is conceivable that the engineers and machinists and QA staff of the company could stage a mass walkout, but then it is quite possible that the mgt would care less, they probably can book an improved balance sheet due to the reduction in labor costs, grab their stash 'o cash and retire.

There was a time when we used to be proud of driving Boeing aircraft. Boeing still made hashes occasionally, like JAL 103, but then so did everyone, (DC-10 door locks... L-1011 CWS... Airbus rudder limiter design... vertical stab secondary structure...) Would be nice to have pride in their product.


PS: the AN-2 is actually a pretty neat plane in its own right,

[soarbum]

Boeing must publicly face fraud charge in 737 Max deaths, judge saysU.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor has yet to rule on a separate motion to vacate key parts of a deferred prosecution agreement with the companyhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2023/01/19/boeing-max-crash-texas/

[Bbtengineer]

Boeing produces both products and services. The client for any of their output makes a determination on the output based on quality and price, which is the basis of economic differentiation in the marketplace. The term Quality in that sense is not the narrow view of a QA program, it is what the output is considered by the purchaser to be fit for, and it occurs in a comparative space. If

Boeing are the product owner.

They cannot in any meaningful sense outsource decisions on the safety or suitability of the product to their customer.

The problem we saw recently with MAX is precisely that they were suckered into doing just that.

It doesn’t work. It has no longevity.

You enquire about your customers’ opportunities and constraints. You don’t ask them to define the solution. That isn’t a customer responsibility.

Succumbing to the lowest common denominator of your client requests, outsourcing your product definition to your client is just a death spiral.

What they actually have to do is figure out how to be justifiably proud enough of their product that they are prepared to fire the customer.

If they can get that right, they won’t have to.

[9 lives]

Boeing produces both products and services. The client for any of their output makes a determination on the output based on quality......

Well.... Not exactly. "The client" may make a determination of the output quality, it is their contractual right, should they choose to exercise it. More commonly, the client depends upon the conformity of the product with an approved type design. The authority (in this case, the FAA) has issued that type approval based upon demonstration and finding of design compliance to national or international design standards. The client need not be solely responsible for making a determination of quality, it could be a task beyond their internal technical capability - they depend up the authority for that service to society.

The authority (in this case, again, the FAA) has delegated some of the approval task, of finding of design compliance, to Boeing. Boeing is bound by commitment to the FAA to exercise that delegation ethically - not to find compliance when it has not been demonstrated (the product is not actually compliant). Of course, Boeing is a corporate entity, not a person, so it depends upon people to be ethical in the exercise of the FAA delegation for finding design compliance, and contributing to the FAA's type certification of the product. Every person who is associated with the demonstration and finding of design compliance has an ethical duty to not represent [to the FAA] that compliance has been demonstrated, when it has not. Isn't it fraud when a person (or corporate entity) makes a representation to achieve an outcome, when the representation is false?

25.1309(2)(c):

Warning information must be provided to alert the crew to unsafe system operating conditions, and to enable them to take appropriate corrective action. Systems, controls, and associated monitoring and warning means must be designed to minimize crew errors which could create additional hazards.

A person in the employ of Boeing either made, or led the FAA to make, a finding of compliance that the MCAS system met the foregoing design requirement. Did the MCAS produce a warning to alert the flight crew to an unsafe condition (its failure)? From what I understand, the warning system was an option, which only a few airline customers purchased. The design requirement does not allow the warning system to be optional! It's required for compliance to be found - but, design compliance was found for airplane which did not include the warning system - someone signed for something which was not there. I imagine that a Boeing test pilot would know of this design requirement, and should speak up when he joins the dots that a required, not pilot controlled, stability system could fail, and there be no crew warning. If a person signs for the compliance of a required system which is not present, to gain [approval], isn't that fraud?

[MechEngr]

MCAS did not fail. The AoA subsystem did, producing erroneous data and a false stall warning. MCAS did exactly what it was supposed to do based on the information it was provided. Isn't the suggestion for pilots to push the nose down when there is a stall warning and stick shaker? While MCAS wasn't designed to detect or react to stalls, and appears to have no such input, it is supposed to provide a correction to a high AoA and it did. The FAA, Boeing, foreign CAAs, and all pilots trained on the 737 NG already accepted the chance for a false stall warning and had done so for, estimating, 2 decades.

[fdr]

Boeing are the product owner.They cannot in any meaningful sense outsource decisions on the safety or suitability of the product to their customer. The problem we saw recently with MAX is precisely that they were suckered into doing just that.

Hi BBT,

From a regulatory perspective, the TC holder wears the hat for the program quality as a compliance matter to the regulation framework. The customer has choices, and can elect to make their determination of an acquisition based on the value of the product that is provided to them which is quality v pricing. The AN-2 can look attractive in it's own way. Is the product that is offered at present achieving a desirable acquisition to those that have choices?

[Less Hair]

MCAS did fail because it had been made dependent on single data point input from AoA-systems and data interpretation not being reliable enough.


P.S. traded an a for some e

[MechEngr]

Are false alarms are OK? Wasn't it the startle effect from the false alarm that caused the ET302 crew to ignore that full thrust remained as the plane exceeded the velocity envelope? Wasn't it the false alarm that forced the autopilot to go offline and allow MCAS to operate?

I prefer to focus on the origin of the problem and not the edge of the last chance to correct it.

Why wasn't the autopilot software designed to choose the correct AoA sensor? Why when it went off line didn't the autothrottle also go off line? These are also decades old decisions. Why is the AoA sensor not fail-safe? But, sure, multiple decades of depending on all these bad ideas.

[hans brinker]

Are false alarms are OK? Wasn't it the startle effect from the false alarm that caused the ET302 crew to ignore that full thrust remained as the plane exceeded the velocity envelope? Wasn't it the false alarm that forced the autopilot to go offline and allow MCAS to operate?

I prefer to focus on the origin of the problem and not the edge of the last chance to correct it.

1) Why wasn't the autopilot software designed to choose the correct AoA sensor? 2) Why when it went off line didn't the autothrottle also go off line? These are also decades old decisions. 3) Why is the AoA sensor not fail-safe? But, sure, multiple decades of depending on all these bad ideas.

Very much agree with the first paragraph, but based on what you post here normally, I am not sure if your last paragraph is as clear as you normally are...

1) How can the AP decide what is the correct one if there is two inputs that are different from each other? You need 3 AOAs to vote, or another input like AHRS attitude and GS to rule out the faulty one (currently being studied (implemented?) by Boeing)
2) If the AT had gone offline, it would not have reduced power either. If anything, the AT could have had a function to automatically reduce thrust in an overspeed. (like the A320 has had for 3+ decades for underspeed)
3) What do you mean by fail-safe? How would it know the data it provides is incorrect without being able to compare to other data?

But yes. You are totally correct the B737 design is decades overdue for a systems and cockpit design change. The B737NG was launched 10 years after the A320, over 25 years ago. The A320 has mostly triple sensors that vote, or let the pilot make a more informed choice about what is the correct one, (can still go wrong, look at the crash of the Airbus in Perpignan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XL_Airways_Germany_Flight_888T), where 2 of the 3 sensors were wrong).
The 737NG still makes mostly do with 2, and when 1 breaks, it is up to the pilot to decide. Add the non-cancelable stick-shaker, stall warning and overspeed warning for some AOA faults for some added confusion in the cockpit.
The MAX was the last chance for Boeing to get it right, but they didn't. And the MCAS system, borrowed from the KC-46, initially for high altitude flight characteristics, and later put on steroids for low and slow flight was just the rotting cherry on that already moldy cake. In the KC-46 MCAS takes info from both AOAs. In order to prevent extra training due to the comparator annunciation that came on if there was a difference between the two AOA inputs into MCAS, Boeing decided to do the wrong thing, and make the MCAS single source. It would only be getting the info from 1 AOA, alternating between legs (power cycles). It was a deliberate design choice, to save money, and we know from the confirmed 3 flight that happened in that condition (failed AOA feeding into MCAS) that the first one almost crashed, and the other two ended with a crash.
Some false alarms are inevitable, and every effort should be made to design them out, and make it easy to diagnose and rectify.
But the MCAS part of the story isn't so much about the false alarm IMO. It is about Boeing deliberately stepping backwards in an already outdated design.

[tdracer]

I've posted this before, but some either didn't see or have forgotten:
The certification process groups failures into four categories - Minor, Major, Hazardous, and Catastrophic. These have associated acceptable probability numbers - 10-3, 10-5, 10-7, and 10-9 per flight hour, respectively (occasionally modified to per flight cycle).
The entire problem with MCAS started early in the design process were the malfunctioning of MCAS (either erroneous activation or failure to activate when needed) was judged to be "Major" - Major is considered to be no big deal, readily handled by the crew with a moderate increase in crew workload (I'm quite familiar with Major since most 'benign' engine failures are considered 'Major')
Since 'Major' failures are allowed to occur at a rate of 10-5/hour, redundancy is not required (BTW, apparently those who made that judgement also assumed that the flight crews would be told about and trained with regard to MCAS, but somewhere along the line that requirement was dropped).
Now, if someone had really sat down and thought about it - what the impact of a bad AOA sensor activation MCAS along with all the other bells and warnings that would be going off (stick shaker, unreliable airspeed, etc.) they might have realized that MCAS malfunction was at least Hazardous - but that obviously never happened prior to the first MAX crash. So the certification process for MCAS followed the (correct) process for a "Major" system. Now, if someone along the line realized that MCAS was worse than Major and withheld or hid that information - that's fraud and someone should be prosecuted for it. But if it was all an honest mistake - it's just that, a horrible, tragic, mistake, but humans design aircraft and humans make mistakes. I have it on good authority that there was at least one attempted suicide among the people who worked MCAS. These were not cold-blooded accountants that made these decisions - they were real, flesh and blood humans with feelings that made a horrible mistake. Was management pressure to keep things simple and 'on the cheap' a factor? Perhaps, but I know that I often experienced those pressures, and it never made me do or design something that I honestly believed was wrong.

[alf5071h]

td, :ok:
well posted again, and again.

[GlobalNav]

MCAS did not fail. The AoA subsystem did, producing erroneous data and a false stall warning. MCAS did exactly what it was supposed to do based on the information it was provided. Isn't the suggestion for pilots to push the nose down when there is a stall warning and stick shaker? While MCAS wasn't designed to detect or react to stalls, and appears to have no such input, it is supposed to provide a correction to a high AoA and it did. The FAA, Boeing, foreign CAAs, and all pilots trained on the 737 NG already accepted the chance for a false stall warning and had done so for, estimating, 2 decades.
Sure, it operated as built. Over and over again until people died in the event of a foreseeable abnormal condition - wrongly designed with neglect of well known system safety principles and deceit, in favor of financial gain.

[hans brinker]

I've posted this before, but some either didn't see or have forgotten:
The certification process groups failures into four categories - Minor, Major, Hazardous, and Catastrophic. These have associated acceptable probability numbers - 10-3, 10-5, 10-7, and 10-9 per flight hour, respectively (occasionally modified to per flight cycle).
The entire problem with MCAS started early in the design process were the malfunctioning of MCAS (either erroneous activation or failure to activate when needed) was judged to be "Major" - Major is considered to be no big deal, readily handled by the crew with a moderate increase in crew workload (I'm quite familiar with Major since most 'benign' engine failures are considered 'Major')
Since 'Major' failures are allowed to occur at a rate of 10-5/hour, redundancy is not required (BTW, apparently those who made that judgement also assumed that the flight crews would be told about and trained with regard to MCAS, but somewhere along the line that requirement was dropped).
Now, if someone had really sat down and thought about it - what the impact of a bad AOA sensor activation MCAS along with all the other bells and warnings that would be going off (stick shaker, unreliable airspeed, etc.) they might have realized that MCAS malfunction was at least Hazardous - but that obviously never happened prior to the first MAX crash. So the certification process for MCAS followed the (correct) process for a "Major" system. Now, if someone along the line realized that MCAS was worse than Major and withheld or hid that information - that's fraud and someone should be prosecuted for it. But if it was all an honest mistake - it's just that, a horrible, tragic, mistake, but humans design aircraft and humans make mistakes. I have it on good authority that there was at least one attempted suicide among the people who worked MCAS. These were not cold-blooded accountants that made these decisions - they were real, flesh and blood humans with feelings that made a horrible mistake. Was management pressure to keep things simple and 'on the cheap' a factor? Perhaps, but I know that I often experienced those pressures, and it never made me do or design something that I honestly believed was wrong.

Your level of knowledge of certification is not something I will ever approach. But either the KC-46 was over engineered/certified having dual channel MCAS and a comparator annunciator, or corners were cut with the MAX, when they made it single source. And they definitely made it single source to avoid training and the associated cost. Maybe they thought is was safe enough, but they would have known that is was less safe, and cheaper.......

[tdracer]

Your level of knowledge of certification is not something I will ever approach. But either the KC-46 was over engineered/certified having dual channel MCAS and a comparator annunciator, or corners were cut with the MAX, when they made it single source. And they definitely made it single source to avoid training and the associated cost. Maybe they thought is was safe enough, but they would have known that is was less safe, and cheaper.......
KC-46 MCAS is fundamentally different than 737 MCAS. On the KC-46, it's intended to account for everyday occurrences - the rapidly changing CG as the tanker offloads fuel. Different design requirements when you design something to account for what will routinely happen.
737 MCAS was intended to account something that should rarely occur - the pilot flying the aircraft into a near stall condition. So MCAS would rarely come into play - again, a different design requirement.

Not excusing the sloppy engineering that resulted in the original MAX MCAS implementation, but comparing it to the KC-46 MCAS is apples to oranges.

[hans brinker]

KC-46 MCAS is fundamentally different than 737 MCAS. On the KC-46, it's intended to account for everyday occurrences - the rapidly changing CG as the tanker offloads fuel. Different design requirements when you design something to account for what will routinely happen.
737 MCAS was intended to account something that should rarely occur - the pilot flying the aircraft into a near stall condition. So MCAS would rarely come into play - again, a different design requirement.

Not excusing the sloppy engineering that resulted in the original MAX MCAS implementation, but comparing it to the KC-46 MCAS is apples to oranges.

Thank for that reply, TIL. That distinction is pretty big, but I never saw it mentioned in anything I read...

[soarbum]

I've posted this before, but some either didn't see or have forgotten:
The certification process groups failures into four categories - Minor, Major, Hazardous, and Catastrophic. These have associated acceptable probability numbers - 10-3, 10-5, 10-7, and 10-9 per flight hour, respectively (occasionally modified to per flight cycle).
The entire problem with MCAS started early in the design process were the malfunctioning of MCAS (either erroneous activation or failure to activate when needed) was judged to be "Major" - Major is considered to be no big deal, readily handled by the crew with a moderate increase in crew workload (I'm quite familiar with Major since most 'benign' engine failures are considered 'Major')
Since 'Major' failures are allowed to occur at a rate of 10-5/hour, redundancy is not required (BTW, apparently those who made that judgement also assumed that the flight crews would be told about and trained with regard to MCAS, but somewhere along the line that requirement was dropped).
Now, if someone had really sat down and thought about it - what the impact of a bad AOA sensor activation MCAS along with all the other bells and warnings that would be going off (stick shaker, unreliable airspeed, etc.) they might have realized that MCAS malfunction was at least Hazardous - but that obviously never happened prior to the first MAX crash. So the certification process for MCAS followed the (correct) process for a "Major" system. Now, if someone along the line realized that MCAS was worse than Major and withheld or hid that information - that's fraud and someone should be prosecuted for it. But if it was all an honest mistake - it's just that, a horrible, tragic, mistake, but humans design aircraft and humans make mistakes. I have it on good authority that there was at least one attempted suicide among the people who worked MCAS. These were not cold-blooded accountants that made these decisions - they were real, flesh and blood humans with feelings that made a horrible mistake. Was management pressure to keep things simple and 'on the cheap' a factor? Perhaps, but I know that I often experienced those pressures, and it never made me do or design something that I honestly believed was wrong.

This is perhaps the best summary that I have ever read of how MCAS came to be. What is missing is what happened between the first and the second crash. If the full consequences of an AoA failure had been overlooked when MCAS was designed they were certainly very clear after the first crash. Surely Boeing engineers went back over it with a fine tooth comb at that stage in the simulator and elsewhere and realised what a s--tstorm would be created in the cockpit by such a failure. That was the time to come clean with the airlines and pilots. They could have simply issued an AD to say that if you encounter unreliable airspeed at takeoff, do not retract flaps. They could have explained the MCAS algorithm and how it would not kick back in until x seconds after the last trim input. Instead they doubled down to say that if only the pilots had followed the old trim runaway procedure, it would all have been fine. Boeing gambled that they would get a firmware fix out before another similar AoA failuire occurred. Someone made a decision to gamble with people's lives. Someone in Boeing management made that bet but the people on the Ethiopian flight paid the ultimate price for it.

[ST Dog]

The entire problem with MCAS started early in the design process were the malfunctioning of MCAS (either erroneous activation or failure to activate when needed) was judged to be "Major"
…
(BTW, apparently those who made that judgement also assumed that the flight crews would be told about and trained with regard to MCAS, but somewhere along the line that requirement was dropped).

Now, if someone had really sat down and thought about it … they might have realized that MCAS malfunction was at least Hazardous - but that obviously never happened prior to the first MAX crash.

This points to a hole in the safety process. It's there, without getting into how I know it's there (non-attribution and all that).

The engineers that make changes are the ones that determine if safety needs to look at those changes. Often those engineers don't understand d how their changes impact the larger system, yet the process relies on them at least suspecting it could impact safety in order to bring it to the attention of others.

[ST Dog]

Thank for that reply, TIL. That distinction is pretty big, but I never saw it mentioned in anything I read...

Another thing to note is different certification.

747MAX was FAA certification. The military has their own certification. 3 actually Army, Air Force, and Navy each have different certification for their respective aircraft. Just because the Navy certified something doesn't mean it's good for the Air Force.

[tdracer]

Another thing to note is different certification.

747MAX was FAA certification. The military has their own certification. 3 actually Army, Air Force, and Navy each have different certification for their respective aircraft. Just because the Navy certified something doesn't mean it's good for the Air Force.
Actually, the KC-46 was FAA certified - two FAA certifications were done - the 767-2C (which was the basis for the KC-46), and the KC-46 modification was certified as well. Some aspects of the KC-46 didn't get direct Part 25 certification (there are no regulations regarding air-to-air refueling), but the airworthiness (including MCAS) of the KC-46 was FAA certified.

[ST Dog]

Actually, the KC-46 was FAA certified

Interesting. So is the AF flying under the STC and using commercial maintenance instead of organic maintenance? At least historically military maintainers weren't certified to FAA/Boeing standards and thus didn't meet requirements gpr continued airworthiness.
Seems unusual for the AF (and not a practice I care for where other branches have done so), especially for such a specialized aircraft.

[tdracer]

Interesting. So is the AF flying under the STC and using commercial maintenance instead of organic maintenance? At least historically military maintainers weren't certified to FAA/Boeing standards and thus didn't meet requirements gpr continued airworthiness.
Seems unusual for the AF (and not a practice I care for where other branches have done so), especially for such a specialized aircraft.
Sorry, what you're asking is getting beyond my knowledge base. I know that the 767-2C and KC-46 went through the FAA cert process (although I didn't have direct involvement in the KC-46 cert since my system didn't change from the -2C to the KC-46). I'd retired before the final cert was finished and maintenance practices were finalized. At least in theory, the 767-2C could be sold in it's 'as built' commercial version as a purely cargo aircraft although I don't believe that's happened.
There has been a strong movement towards certifying commercially derived military aircraft to FAA Part 25 standards - something that I quite frankly don't understand since it adds considerable costs (basically you need to certify twice - once to the FAA and once to the USAF) without any real added value.

[ST Dog]

Sorry, what you're asking is getting beyond my knowledge base.
Fair enough.

it would be interesting to see the artifacts the FAA cert was based on, particularly for MCAS.

i can't imagine anyone buying a -2C or KC-46 for strictly cargo use vs another dedicated cargo plane without the baggage of the tanker.

[Bbtengineer]

MCAS did not fail. The AoA subsystem did, producing erroneous data and a false stall warning. MCAS did exactly what it was supposed to do based on the information it was provided. Isn't the suggestion for pilots to push the nose down when there is a stall warning and stick shaker? While MCAS wasn't designed to detect or react to stalls, and appears to have no such input, it is supposed to provide a correction to a high AoA and it did. The FAA, Boeing, foreign CAAs, and all pilots trained on the 737 NG already accepted the chance for a false stall warning and had done so for, estimating, 2 decades.

MCAS did fail.

Its job was to provide a “suitable” stick force gradient in specific flight envelope circumstances.

That didn’t happen here not least because those flight envelope circumstances didn’t even exist.

It’s supposed to do what it’s designed for.

It didn’t.

That’s a failure.

[MechEngr]

Bbtengineer,

Are you satisfied that there was a false stall warning and that the AoA system reported false information?
Satisfied that the major errors in ET-302 happened primarily because of that false stall warning and prior to MCAS activation?

What other sensors should be allowed to lie? Fuel amount? Radalt? Engine fire?

I have been looking at the whole system. I agree - it was the failure to do so that got people killed.

You are looking at a piece of software that acted exactly as it was specified to act. It would have saved AF 447 is Airbus had installed a similar system.

In contrast, the AoA sensor didn't report the correct AoA and the related control subsystems all acted as if it did. All of them relied on the false AoA information, including the autopilot, which bugged out because of the false AoA sensor reading.

[Bbtengineer]

Bbtengineer,

Are you satisfied that there was a false stall warning and that the AoA system reported false information?
Satisfied that the major errors in ET-302 happened primarily because of that false stall warning and prior to MCAS activation?

What other sensors should be allowed to lie? Fuel amount? Radalt? Engine fire?

I have been looking at the whole system. I agree - it was the failure to do so that got people killed.

You are looking at a piece of software that acted exactly as it was specified to act. It would have saved AF 447 is Airbus had installed a similar system.

In contrast, the AoA sensor didn't report the correct AoA and the related control subsystems all acted as if it did. All of them relied on the false AoA information, including the autopilot, which bugged out because of the false AoA sensor reading.

The software had faulty inputs.

I would expect a software engineer to anticipate faulty inputs, and to figure out how to detect them and deal with them.

Apparently they did neither.

In what universe was a totally unconstrained application of AND ever going to be appropriate?

It obviously didn’t work and I can’t quite actually believe we’re discussing a hypothesis that it did.

[tdracer]

The software had faulty inputs.

I would expect a software engineer to anticipate faulty inputs, and to figure out how to detect them and deal with them.

Apparently they did neither.

In what universe was a totally unconstrained application of AND ever going to be appropriate?

It obviously didn’t work and I can’t quite actually believe we’re discussing a hypothesis that it did.
The flaw wasn't in the software - it acted exactly as the software requirements would have it react.
The flaw was in the software requirements. Software is tested to confirm it conforms to the requirements - not to confirm it does what the designer intended...
This, unfortunately, is a common problem with software - poorly defined requirements that result in software not behaving as we'd like.
This is somewhat independent of s/w DAL (Design Assurance Level) - even DAL A (flight critical) software can behave in unanticipated ways if the requirements are not clearly defined.

[Bbtengineer]

The flaw wasn't in the software - it acted exactly as the software requirements would have it react.
The flaw was in the software requirements. Software is tested to confirm it conforms to the requirements - not to confirm it does what the designer intended...
This, unfortunately, is a common problem with software - poorly defined requirements that result in software not behaving as we'd like.
This is somewhat independent of s/w DAL (Design Assurance Level) - even DAL A (flight critical) software can behave in unanticipated ways if the requirements are not clearly defined.

I’m sorry but you’re treating the team implementing the software as idiots.

At best as people who aren’t expected to actually understand the requirement in any context whatsoever.

People who implement software aren’t supposed to exist in a vacuum. They’re supposed to actually understand what they’re building and why.

The requirement apparently said apply nose down repetitively forever.

Nobody should ever have accepted that requirement.

[tdracer]

I’m sorry but you’re treating the team implementing the software as idiots.

At best as people who aren’t expected to actually understand the requirement in any context whatsoever.

People who implement software aren’t supposed to exist in a vacuum. They’re supposed to actually understand what they’re building and why.

The requirement apparently said apply nose down repetitively forever.

Nobody should ever have accepted that requirement.
The people who create the software are not the ones who define the requirements - in aviation they seldom are even in the same company.
That's why it's so critically important to get the s/w requirements correct.
The requirements did not consider what would happen if MCAS kept trimming the nose down, because it was assumed early in the design process that if the stab trim was doing something the pilots didn't want or understand, they'd turn it off. Hence the classification of inappropriate MCAS activation as only Major - that's what a stab trim malfunction was classified as.
As I noted previously - the entire MCAS mess grew from that flawed assumption that an issue with MCAS was no worse than Major.

[Bbtengineer]

The people who create the software are not the ones who define the requirements - in aviation they seldom are even in the same company.
That's why it's so critically important to get the s/w requirements correct.
The requirements did not consider what would happen if MCAS kept trimming the nose down, because it was assumed early in the design process that if the stab trim was doing something the pilots didn't want or understand, they'd turn it off. Hence the classification of inappropriate MCAS activation as only Major - that's what a stab trim malfunction was classified as.
As I noted previously - the entire MCAS mess grew from that flawed assumption that an issue with MCAS was no worse than Major.


I will stop after this but I’m not having it.

Requirements always come from somewhere else. That’s not special.

You don’t take a stupid requirement.

You don’t expect a civil engineer to take a stupid design from an architect. Seldom the same company.

You don’t expect the engine manufacturer to take a dangerous design from the airframe manufacturer. Not the same company.

The fact that it comes from a different place does not relieve your responsibility to understand and interpret it.

There is no universe, regardless ALL the things you said, in which commanding AND indefinitely forever makes sense. It’s fundamentally stupid.

No.

[EDLB]

You can use the same cheese hole analogy here. When you figure out as software or test engineer, that assumptions do not hold water, you don't wait for two passenger planes to spear in. Unless the companies quality philosophy is completely broken. And that fish starts stinking always from the head too.

[MechEngr]

One document that seems not to have escaped and may not have appeared at the Congressional show trial was the one that specified MCAS behavior. From what I can tell that document would have been sent to Collins Aviation to develop the FCC software for the computer they supply to Boeing.

Others are certain Collins refused the "bad" specification and forced Boeing to develop in-house.

The truly deranged think Boeing outsourced to $9 an hour developers in India. Sigh.

There should not be anything competition-critical in that document and it should have been made, unredacted, a matter of public record. There should also be a documentation trail for acceptance testing and, of course, a comparison between what was required and what MCAS actually did.

This thread has drifted away into the Certification thread territory and has left the indictment of the pilot topic.

[alf5071h]

Many discussions use acronyms, but not everyone has the same understanding in their use.
MCAS - refers to a system (S), but the extent of that system may not be given explicitly.

Normally a system is bounded by input, activity (computation) and output, together with monitoring / verification of input(s) and feedback.
Thus a failure of an input sensor could cause the 'system' to malfunction, without reason, if the the design of the activities, output, and feedback are weak. A more robust system might identify internal errors and provide external alerting (MCAS FAIL), reduced the need for human reasoning.

A core issue relating to this thread is the human involvement;

- The assumptions about the operator's ability to detect a system malfunction and act; which relates to the hazard level in certification - which drives the design.

- The defined the piloting task when assessing the assumptions in certification is critical.
Does the design simulator represent the final design.
Is the task constrained to the specific system (MCAS), or the wider context involving other aircraft systems and alerts associated with an input failure; realistic operational context.
Who assesses the task, are the findings widely communicated.

Endless prior discussion suggests weaknesses in all of these areas, and those of other human checks and oversight.

Considering the Big System - specification, technical and commercial, the design, engineering, testing, certification oversight, documentation, training, all involved weaknesses, which independently could have been identified, but when together, the system complexity defied the process which existed.

Neither an individual nor team, group, organisation should be cited. This was a systemic failure, a failure of the aviation process.
Responsibilities can be attributed, but more often these involve a legal viewpoint.

Dr. David Woods discussing automation surprise, learning from incidents and complexity surrounding the Boeing 737 Max.

“...The industry has to stop rationalising away the lessons from accidents - the difficulties of learning after accidents have occurred are profound. It is easier to look at each event in isolation seeing only the specific details that define a narrow set of changes needed to facilitate a return to normal. But this narrow focus on one accident at a time makes it easy to discount the fundamental common vulnerability that needs to be addressed as an industry-wide priority. Neither the regulators nor the safety organisations have been able to recognise this critical vulnerability nor have they been able to energise a coherent, fundamental approach to overcome this vulnerability.”

i.e. we, the industry, are still at risk of an accident from design and certification processes; the continuing task is to minimise this risk.

"Attempts to prevent pilot error by additional regulation, both federal and corporate, have increased the complexity of the environment and increased pilot (design, engineering, test, certification) workload."

[HighWind]

I will stop after this but I’m not having it.
Requirements always come from somewhere else. That’s not special.
You don’t take a stupid requirement.

I see this problem as related to computer architecture, how the computers are connected, and the lack of an EICAS display unit.

The problem is that the B737 was designed at a time when there was no computers in the aircraft.
Problems was indicated by lamps. if you want to indicate a new issue, you need to install a new lamp, and hard-wire it into the master caution.
The instruments and autopilot for left and right side was intentionally separated.

The fault insulation is manual, you disconnect whatever is needed to be disconnected (AP, AT, Trim switches) and then compare instruments to locate the problem.

If you start comparing values in software, you run into the problem of how to display the fault information.
The PFD can display some information, but it will newer be a real EICAS, it will be difficult to indicate multiple issues at the same time.

If the software performs fault insulation, then you need to be able to se from what side it is using data from, and you might need to be able to override this.

You can mount a lamps to indicate this, but how many indicators do you need?
And what if the software for this is upgraded, do you then need to drill new holes for new indicators ?

In the current architecture air data is only connected to one flight control computer, if one flight control computer fails, then the remaining one also looses air data from that side (As I understand it, please correct me if I'm wrong).
With all those issues, it might be tempting to keep tings as is, in order not to wake up the type certification goods, by changing something.
'As is' is to document that the faults is manageable by the pilots.

[WideScreen]

This discussion goes at 2 levels:

- The technical characteristics of the MCAS "box", IE the electronics and the software.
- The functional characteristics of the needed MCAS feature to overcome the prehistoric design limitations of the B737 airframe.

The MCAS tech worked as build.

The MCAS feature as a system, to overcome the prepped up prehistoric B737 airframe limitations, failed.

Why did this MCAS feature fail: Simply because Boeing intentionally compartmented the development groups working on the B737 MAX, where the communication between the compartments was under management control, preventing all items, that could screw up with the Boeing commercial goals/promises, getting (technically) investigated (investigated as a proper engineering company should do).

And the management control of the technical interactions (between the compartments as well as with the FAA) gave Boeing the opportunity to lie towards the FAA about everything that might screw up with the Boeing commercial goals/promises.

Preventing technical development groups to communicate with each other, saves a lot of money, though also creates suboptimal solutions. The individual tech systems worked OK, the collaboration of these tech systems failed, because the overall design was not valued on feasibility (at least not for the MCAS area).

Or so to say, the road to disaster was simply built into the Boeing organization, explicitly designed this way to avoid exceptional costs (B787/B777). Exceptional costs which rise, when engineers step out of their own compartment, to take care of a proper system level integration.

Oh, there are other ways to tackle these exceptional costs: Just take care for a proper overall design right from the start, with sub-system interactions recognized/defined in an early stage. But hey, that doesn't match with the idea to El Cheapo prep-up a prehistoric design airframe with Botox.

[fdr]

Dr. David Woods discussing automation surprise, learning from incidents and complexity surrounding the Boeing 737 Max.

“...The industry has to stop rationalising away the lessons from accidents - the difficulties of learning after accidents have occurred are profound. It is easier to look at each event in isolation seeing only the specific details that define a narrow set of changes needed to facilitate a return to normal. But this narrow focus on one accident at a time makes it easy to discount the fundamental common vulnerability that needs to be addressed as an industry-wide priority. Neither the regulators nor the safety organisations have been able to recognise this critical vulnerability nor have they been able to energise a coherent, fundamental approach to overcome this vulnerability.”

i.e. we, the industry, are still at risk of an accident from design and certification processes; the continuing task is to minimise this risk.

"Attempts to prevent pilot error by additional regulation, both federal and corporate, have increased the complexity of the environment and increased pilot (design, engineering, test, certification) workload."


Finally!:8

[SRMman]

Sorry for entering this discussion rather late, but just a question about the four failure categories described by tdracer. The suggestion is that a higher categorisation would have been appropriate, eg Hazardous.

Assuming the probability number was increased from 10-5 to 10-7, what additional steps typically would have been expected for MCAS to meet certification requirements?

[tdracer]

Sorry for entering this discussion rather late, but just a question about the four failure categories described by tdracer. The suggestion is that a higher categorisation would have been appropriate, eg Hazardous.

Assuming the probability number was increased from 10-5 to 10-7, what additional steps typically would have been expected for MCAS to meet certification requirements?
The short answer is that some level of redundancy would probably have been required to meet the 10-7 requirement - there is sometimes a case for a single thread "Hazardous" system, but you need reems of historical data to back up the reliability claims - the AoA sensor simply doesn't have the level of reliability. Catastrophic must have redundancy - both the FAA and EASA are on record as not accepting probability arguments for single failures for systems with catastrophic consequences.
In addition, if the system had been judged to be Hazardous or Catastrophic, it would have received far more scrutiny from the feds - since 'Major' is considered to be a big deal, they don't tend to look at them very closely.

[HighWind]

- the AoA sensor simply doesn't have the level of reliability. Catastrophic must have redundancy -.
But then I would assume you also would need a competently different flight control computer architecture. On B737 each AoA sensor is afaik connected to each own FCC, if a FCC in one side fails, then the FCC in the other side can't access AoA data from the failed side. If an AoA sensor fails, then it need algorithms for identifying the faulted sensor, isolate it, and and likely also an EICAS display to convey this information to the pilots.