GT says fatal 737 MAX crashes caused by 'incompetent crew.'
So, you have evidence of that?
Boeing has pretty much accepted that the MCAS logic was flawed - as evidenced by their changing the time frame for a flight crew recognizing a stab trim malfunction from four seconds to fifteen seconds (with consequences well beyond MCAS).
GT can say whatever he wants, that doesn't mean Boeing (or anyone else) agrees with him. Like it or not, many in the media think he's an authority, regardless of what more knowledgeable people think.
Boeing has pretty much accepted that the MCAS logic was flawed - as evidenced by their changing the time frame for a flight crew recognizing a stab trim malfunction from four seconds to fifteen seconds (with consequences well beyond MCAS).
GT can say whatever he wants, that doesn't mean Boeing (or anyone else) agrees with him. Like it or not, many in the media think he's an authority, regardless of what more knowledgeable people think.
It is up to the manufacturer (Boeing) to submit for approval what training they consider is required, it is up to the regulator to accept or reject that training as being appropriate.
What an absolute load of ****, typical of leftist, alarmist, everything's a catastrophy garbage.
There are significant numbers of multiple race pilots in all of the countries mentioned. He DID NOT point to skin colour in this post. He is merely pointing out the robust training standards in these countries.
As has been discussed at length on PPRuNe, the "robust training standards" are only as good as what was provided by Boeing, which we know was insufficient. Indeed, the notorious Lionair requested additional MAX 8 training from Boeing and were turned away.
The original threads for each crash are still available in the PPRuNe archives, go and read for yourself how quickly race was implicated as a cause for each incident.
Crawl back into your 'I'm outraged' hole.
An ironic way to end your rant.
For nine months now we have been reading the tripe that a well-trained, sharp crew would be able to recognise MCAS activation as a trim runaway and perform an almost instant override-and-disable action per the checklist.
Fine.
I consider myself a well-trained 737 pilot, with 23 out of the last 31 years on type, including this year. I have actually suffered a trim runaway on a 737-300, but it wasn’t a classic runaway, just a dual brake and clutch failure allowing the trim to free-wheel unless manually restrained. It presented more of a curiosity than a dire situation fraught with peril. The larger trim wheels allowed the two of us to keep it in trim and perform a return. No biggie. The aircraft was never really out of trim, so it was easy. But I can easily see that getting even a couple of units out would be a harder task to manage.
Regarding the stall warning on take-off case, I do not however think that every well-trained crew would react in a timely fashion presented with the cacophony of stick shakers, warnings, trim running, calls etc. The variability of fatigue alone might reduce the effectiveness of even the standard western raised and trained crews* to the failure point.
Assuming none of the foregoing is true. Assume every sharp crew would have been quick to counter the uncommanded trim. Now I am confused. Either the MCAS is needed to provide pitch stability, and hence should not be countered, or it is just a nuisance gizmo that should always be quickly countered. And no fair peeking at the manual, either, because its a special, cryptic feature.
GT is a muppet, and so too is anyone else astride their high horses claiming superior cognitive skills, superior OODA cycle timing or superior stick-n-rudder magic.
*much beating of this particular drum over the past months. I have been trained by dozens of instructors and check pilots from 13 different countries. The two best were not from the west. The culture thing however might be an issue; I don’t know, and I don’t know how to fix it if it is after three decades of CRM awareness.
Fine.
I consider myself a well-trained 737 pilot, with 23 out of the last 31 years on type, including this year. I have actually suffered a trim runaway on a 737-300, but it wasn’t a classic runaway, just a dual brake and clutch failure allowing the trim to free-wheel unless manually restrained. It presented more of a curiosity than a dire situation fraught with peril. The larger trim wheels allowed the two of us to keep it in trim and perform a return. No biggie. The aircraft was never really out of trim, so it was easy. But I can easily see that getting even a couple of units out would be a harder task to manage.
Regarding the stall warning on take-off case, I do not however think that every well-trained crew would react in a timely fashion presented with the cacophony of stick shakers, warnings, trim running, calls etc. The variability of fatigue alone might reduce the effectiveness of even the standard western raised and trained crews* to the failure point.
Assuming none of the foregoing is true. Assume every sharp crew would have been quick to counter the uncommanded trim. Now I am confused. Either the MCAS is needed to provide pitch stability, and hence should not be countered, or it is just a nuisance gizmo that should always be quickly countered. And no fair peeking at the manual, either, because its a special, cryptic feature.
GT is a muppet, and so too is anyone else astride their high horses claiming superior cognitive skills, superior OODA cycle timing or superior stick-n-rudder magic.
*much beating of this particular drum over the past months. I have been trained by dozens of instructors and check pilots from 13 different countries. The two best were not from the west. The culture thing however might be an issue; I don’t know, and I don’t know how to fix it if it is after three decades of CRM awareness.
Tdracer, Sir, I note your address. In the past I have had the utmost respect for Boeing as an engineering employee of an Airline. We were the international launch customer for the B767 and I watched the first prototype built from the time that most of the avionics, fadec, etc. were black painted blocks of timber.
The Boeing employees, engineers and managers i worked with were honest to a fault and had a certain humility as well that made them a joy to deal with. I met with them at least once a year for six years. Either at Everett, Renton or elsewhere on the coast.
You may not know that Geoff Thomas is a know nothing flack for hire in Australia.The opinions attributed to him are beyond his competence to construct - they were placed in his mouth by somebody who paid him to say them.
You should also know that the management of Boeing, and it’s current technical ethics are utterly alien compared to the fine men I worked with. Experienced pilots have already given Boeing’s design of the max’s control system MCAS the thumbs down as has the FAA. Geoff Thomas counts for nothing.
Boeing is now engaged in putting lipstick on a pig, but worse is yet to come as knowledgeable customers ask:”what ELSE has Boeing kludged with the b787 and B777?”
’
The Boeing employees, engineers and managers i worked with were honest to a fault and had a certain humility as well that made them a joy to deal with. I met with them at least once a year for six years. Either at Everett, Renton or elsewhere on the coast.
You may not know that Geoff Thomas is a know nothing flack for hire in Australia.The opinions attributed to him are beyond his competence to construct - they were placed in his mouth by somebody who paid him to say them.
You should also know that the management of Boeing, and it’s current technical ethics are utterly alien compared to the fine men I worked with. Experienced pilots have already given Boeing’s design of the max’s control system MCAS the thumbs down as has the FAA. Geoff Thomas counts for nothing.
Boeing is now engaged in putting lipstick on a pig, but worse is yet to come as knowledgeable customers ask:”what ELSE has Boeing kludged with the b787 and B777?”
’
you actually need to pitch down and unload to start getting manual trim in,
If the trim has runaway forward, then once electrical power is disconnected by means of the stab trim cutout switches, the only way to fix the immediate situation is to have both pilots (if necessary) to pull back the stick to well above the horizon.
Then relax the backward pressure and as the aircraft starts to slowly bunt over (it is called “unloading”), rapid manual back trim operation can be made without excess force. Repeat the roller coaster method until the aircraft is able to maintain normal level flight.
The technique is also described in the April 1961 of the Boeing Airliner magazine.
Successful recovery depends very much on prompt recognition of the runway stab trim before aerodynamic forces on the stabilizer get too strong to overcome. That is the key to success. The crew cannot afford the luxury of watching a sudden uncommanded rotation of the stabilizer trim wheel in either direction and have a nice CRM chat about what to do next.
Interestingly the original Boeing 737 Instructor Handbook published by Boeing with the introduction of the first Boeing 737 into service, was written assuming some non-normal items could be conducted in the air. Demonstration of a runaway electrical stab trim event was one.
In this case, the 737 Instructor Handbook warns not to deliberately allow the stab trim to run more than two units of trim from neutral (being around Five Units in cruise) before actuating the electrical stab trim cutout switches on the pedestal. So there is the clue that allowing more than two units of uncommanded stab trim movement risks loss of pitch control unless prompt action is taken to cut electrical power to the stab trim.
The high-lighted quotation above which says you actually need to pitch down and unload could be better worded in my opinion. In fact the pilot needs to pitch up initially to get the roller coaster method going. The higher the pitch attitude (within reason of course) the more time available to wind the manual stabiliser trim to an in-flight controllable setting
In later versions (737 Classics) of the 737 FCTM, the roller coaster method of regaining manual stab trim control was omitted and replaced with a reference “in extreme cases, it may be necessary to aerodynamically relieve the airloads to allow manual trimming.”
Unfortunately, Boeing failed to amplify the meaning of “aerodynamically relieve.”
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Why didn't the Lion Air pilots apply the basic trim runaway memory items?
Why did the Ethiopian pilots leave the thrust levers TOGA power?
Why did the Ethiopian pilots ignore the Boeing procedures by reenabling MCAS even with extensive lessons learnt from the Lion Air mistakes?
To date we still have to hear from someone having actually run the MCAS scenario in the sim and stating that it was no big deal and they had no difficulties managing the situation.
Maybe there is more to it than just running this one particular memory item at one unspecified moment ?
Even Boeing has admitted that the checklists and memory items they advocated weren't adequate and need reworking, so why continue to spread that "just do the trim runaway" fallacy ?
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Mentour Pilot.
73M type rated instructor who publishes Youtube videos.
He did a video in the sim about MCAS and how easy it is to recover. He was forced to take it down though nevertheless you can still find it floating around on Youtube as it's been re-uploaded by other users.
73M type rated instructor who publishes Youtube videos.
He did a video in the sim about MCAS and how easy it is to recover. He was forced to take it down though nevertheless you can still find it floating around on Youtube as it's been re-uploaded by other users.
Most of us have watched Mentour's videos at the time, and IIRC he did not replicate an MCAS incident, but a runaway trim situation.
His demonstration did show how difficult it was to keep control of an out of trim 737, and that manually retrimming after throwing the pedestal switches was virtually impossible.
If you have seen the video, you may remember that it took them much more than the infamous 3 seconds to identify the runaway and run the procedure, and all without any alarm, altitude issue or other distraction.
You may also remember that he asked his partner to "press the red button" and end the demo before the inevitable outcome.
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Did you notice the date of the video, and how the FO corrects several long seconds of fast spinning wheels with just 7-8 easy turns of the wheel cranks ?
I'll agree with you how easy it is to save the plane with this "simulation".
Tdracer, Sir, I note your address. In the past I have had the utmost respect for Boeing as an engineering employee of an Airline. We were the international launch customer for the B767 and I watched the first prototype built from the time that most of the avionics, fadec, etc. were black painted blocks of timber.
The Boeing employees, engineers and managers i worked with were honest to a fault and had a certain humility as well that made them a joy to deal with. I met with them at least once a year for six years. Either at Everett, Renton or elsewhere on the coast.
You may not know that Geoff Thomas is a know nothing flack for hire in Australia.The opinions attributed to him are beyond his competence to construct - they were placed in his mouth by somebody who paid him to say them.
You should also know that the management of Boeing, and it’s current technical ethics are utterly alien compared to the fine men I worked with. Experienced pilots have already given Boeing’s design of the max’s control system MCAS the thumbs down as has the FAA. Geoff Thomas counts for nothing.
Boeing is now engaged in putting lipstick on a pig, but worse is yet to come as knowledgeable customers ask:”what ELSE has Boeing kludged with the b787 and B777?”
’
The Boeing employees, engineers and managers i worked with were honest to a fault and had a certain humility as well that made them a joy to deal with. I met with them at least once a year for six years. Either at Everett, Renton or elsewhere on the coast.
You may not know that Geoff Thomas is a know nothing flack for hire in Australia.The opinions attributed to him are beyond his competence to construct - they were placed in his mouth by somebody who paid him to say them.
You should also know that the management of Boeing, and it’s current technical ethics are utterly alien compared to the fine men I worked with. Experienced pilots have already given Boeing’s design of the max’s control system MCAS the thumbs down as has the FAA. Geoff Thomas counts for nothing.
Boeing is now engaged in putting lipstick on a pig, but worse is yet to come as knowledgeable customers ask:”what ELSE has Boeing kludged with the b787 and B777?”
’
Most of the rest of your post is pure speculation. Why would Boeing throw good money after bad to pay GT to say things that they'd already acknowledge as untrue?
I've talked to people who worked on the MAX, and the problems all trace back to two things:
1) Pilot reaction time to a trim issue was assumed to be 4 seconds - Boeing has now acknowledged that was too optimistic and 15 seconds is being used going forward.
2) Lack of required training - I've talked to test pilots who flew the MAX and they all agreed sim training was needed, but they were overruled by the Chief Test Pilot.
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I've talked to people who worked on the MAX, and the problems all trace back to two things:
1) Pilot reaction time to a trim issue was assumed to be 4 seconds - Boeing has now acknowledged that was too optimistic and 15 seconds is being used going forward.
2) Lack of required training - I've talked to test pilots who flew the MAX and they all agreed sim training was needed, but they were overruled by the Chief Test Pilot.
1) Pilot reaction time to a trim issue was assumed to be 4 seconds - Boeing has now acknowledged that was too optimistic and 15 seconds is being used going forward.
2) Lack of required training - I've talked to test pilots who flew the MAX and they all agreed sim training was needed, but they were overruled by the Chief Test Pilot.
Did they actually mean Chief Test Pilot, or Chief Technical Pilot (the Jedi), or both ?
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Maybe we should throw GT, or any other hero here who wants to blame a crew who can’t defend themselves anymore, into the sim and recreate the conditions those pilots (I’m thinking more ET) experienced, and see if any of these heroes have the physical strength to physically pitch the aircraft up when the stab has trimmed so far nose down.
After having seen some videos where crews in a sim were presented with similar conditions and struggled to maintain control it would be difficult, even for experienced crews with prior knowledge of what was going to happened as opposed to a crew who was presented with a surprise event that didn’t match any of their prior training.
After having seen some videos where crews in a sim were presented with similar conditions and struggled to maintain control it would be difficult, even for experienced crews with prior knowledge of what was going to happened as opposed to a crew who was presented with a surprise event that didn’t match any of their prior training.
Dont know if you’ve read the report carefully but ET was way over VMO in a dive at full thrust when “they didn’t have the physical strength........”. Nobody would.
The 737 might still get out of that using ELEC TRIM but it has to be held for long enough to wind the trim right back to circa 4 divisions, and Then switches off. That’s going to take about a minute or more. I’m pretty sure the guys had not been trained in this. Looking at FDR there were a few times early on when they did trim ANU but stopped- and we don’t know why.
They will have used trim in that way on a full power go around when you need to trim AND for many seconds to overcome the heavy nose up thrust couple, and the flaps moving from 40-15. It’s a prolonged input - until you are back in trim. Same idea.
Sorry, but of course you don’t let any of this happen in the first place by going switches of while still more or less in trim and with speed and power under control. That never happened because airspeed Unreliable was never accomplished and it’s a memory drill.
The problem we have here is in my view that the crew didn’t really understand that those switches are your life saver after you have it back in trim, using ELEC trim to accomplish that. Not little blips of trim, but prolonged continuous trim input. I know I’ve been around , but when I was trained the instructors called it the “Jesus Switches” because if you don’t turn them off pdq you will indeed meet Jesus.
Here is our problem. The handing down of training that has been accumulated over decades is being lost so fast in the scramble to pretend that a plane is a PlayStation with wings. Airbus designer a few years ago said “ my concierge could fly an Airbus. Don’t think so- AF447?
And we cant forget that this self same problem was handled in Lionair Bali Jakarta the day before successfully, so it wasn’t inevitable.
just a few thoughts from an older pilot, but not a bolder one!
thanks for your post
RGuy
Last edited by retired guy; 25th Jan 2020 at 21:37. Reason: Small addition
Guys this is an important part of my previous post which has been absolutely overlooked and ignored.
The night before the Lion Air accident, a jump seating pilot managed to recognise the trim runaway and took corrective action. This saved the plane. The next day, a different crew crashed in the same situation.
Therefore MCAS was not a death trap as soon as it kicked in. In fact, looking at sim videos on how to disable the stab trim during runaway and "re-trim" the airplane, it is a very easy recovery procedure!
Why didn't the Lion Air pilots apply the basic trim runaway memory items?
Why did the Ethiopian pilots leave the thrust levers TOGA power?
Why did the Ethiopian pilots ignore the Boeing procedures by reenabling MCAS even with extensive lessons learnt from the Lion Air mistakes?
It frustrates me that Boeing are taking far too much blame for this and not the airline's training department!
Yes the pilots messed up big time but it goes deeper than just blaming them. It is the airlines Lion Air (worse safety record in commercial aviation) and Ethiopian who are at fault here.
As much as I respect Captain Sullenberger, a lot of his press releases are now for political gain only. His future is destined for politics but he is wrong in his case about Boeing to blame. Pilots need to focus more on their hand flying skills and less on automation.
The night before the Lion Air accident, a jump seating pilot managed to recognise the trim runaway and took corrective action. This saved the plane. The next day, a different crew crashed in the same situation.
Therefore MCAS was not a death trap as soon as it kicked in. In fact, looking at sim videos on how to disable the stab trim during runaway and "re-trim" the airplane, it is a very easy recovery procedure!
Why didn't the Lion Air pilots apply the basic trim runaway memory items?
Why did the Ethiopian pilots leave the thrust levers TOGA power?
Why did the Ethiopian pilots ignore the Boeing procedures by reenabling MCAS even with extensive lessons learnt from the Lion Air mistakes?
It frustrates me that Boeing are taking far too much blame for this and not the airline's training department!
Yes the pilots messed up big time but it goes deeper than just blaming them. It is the airlines Lion Air (worse safety record in commercial aviation) and Ethiopian who are at fault here.
As much as I respect Captain Sullenberger, a lot of his press releases are now for political gain only. His future is destined for politics but he is wrong in his case about Boeing to blame. Pilots need to focus more on their hand flying skills and less on automation.
It took the crew and the jump seater considerable time to deactivate the electric trim - they did this because they thought the STS was running in the wrong direction.
How on Earth you can interpret that to be - they identified a trim runaway and followed the correct memory item is beyond belief.
This same crew you consider in high regard for dealing with the MCAS in the correct way, continued on to destination with the stick shaker still active - hardly by the book guys.
The second Lion Air guys did not have a "runaway trim" that check list was revised after that crash & the word "continuous" was added.
Ethiopian probably re-engaged the electric trim because the reduced size manual trim wheel was not working - note * the trim wheel was marginal prior to it's reduction in size, that is why the Yo Yo procedure was in the early 737 manuals.
Don't know, they didn't name names, and I'm reluctant to go into too many details since the conversions were "informal" - don't want to get people in trouble. The 4 vs. 15 second thing is well documented (I saw it in the Seattle Times so I'm comfortable posting that).
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Show me the video because I am not able to find that one you describe.
On a side note -
look how easy it is to save the plane with this simulation. Ignore the Oscar worthy acting of the instructor during the "simulated crash scenario".
https://youtu.be/l-tmcQebeN8
Obviously the faster the plane is going, the more difficult it is to manually trim the plane using the wheel. However, had the Ethiopian pilots not left power to TOGA and were doing 300kts+, the wheel would have been easier to move!
On a side note -
look how easy it is to save the plane with this simulation. Ignore the Oscar worthy acting of the instructor during the "simulated crash scenario".
https://youtu.be/l-tmcQebeN8
Obviously the faster the plane is going, the more difficult it is to manually trim the plane using the wheel. However, had the Ethiopian pilots not left power to TOGA and were doing 300kts+, the wheel would have been easier to move!
At 240 kts steady, even a runaway stab x2 as MCAS is reported as running, you can still overcome it with ELEC trim - switches OFF and then, at the under control lower airspeed , use manual trim.
is that not so folks? I trained on 737 from 1986 until recently, all variants up to -800 and that’s how I’ve seen it done.
R Guy
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Geoff Thomas a SME?
Let's get back on topic here.
Are we talking about the same guy here that reported about a Qantas aircraft runway over-run (a week or so back) down under as "being a pretty frequent occurrence with airlines"?
The mind boggles, but as has been already suggested I guess he has quite a few master's in that neck of the woods.
Pity the fools / news agencies / networks that employ such a trash talking ignoramus.
Are we talking about the same guy here that reported about a Qantas aircraft runway over-run (a week or so back) down under as "being a pretty frequent occurrence with airlines"?
The mind boggles, but as has been already suggested I guess he has quite a few master's in that neck of the woods.
Pity the fools / news agencies / networks that employ such a trash talking ignoramus.
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This accident was classic Swiss cheese. It is appalling to lay the blame on the crew who found themselves confused by a complex malfunctioning system they did not know existed. Boeing are liable certainly ethically and morally with a complete failure in management oversight and breakdown of traditional engineering principals. Shame on you, Thomas. It is beyond asinine to claim pilot error when there are so many other factors.
And some of those , which if done correctly would have meant that nobody would have died, was the failure of Lionair the day before the fatal crash to
admit that they had experienced a very serious new fault which was beyond their understanding, that a third pilot knew and effectively saved the day , to not call the safety office right away on landing and pilot management team to inform them, which would have lead to immediate grounding/ or should/ to falsify the tech log entry such that corrective action was not taken. Any of those would have saved both crashes. And perhaps a culture of fear which prevented the honesty required in this situation. And a press on mentality perhaps- but we don’t know that. The rest we do.
And the CVR which has never been released is truly astonishing and one can only draw one conclusion.
can anyone else draw another? If it proves that all the correct procedures were carried out?
Yes this is indeed a multi factorial crash as are most, but I don’t fall into the single cause camp-“ Boeing is the only factor”.
Training is a much bigger factor for the future of safe aviation and if they don’t fix that it’s going to happen again. By the way, Boeing don’t train the line pilots. Only a cadre of trainers - maybe six -ten, who then take that very basic training and using their expertise and knowledge turn that into their own SOPs. Publish their own version of VOL1 (flying manual)
first time I flew at Boeing field with a Boeing co pilot I was amazed at how more comprehensive our own SOPs were. The Boeing training is designed as a bare template- each airline trains to their own, and often much higher standard. Boeing told me often that if you guys would all fly the same and didn’t order hundreds of different options we could knock a few million off the price. Fact is, every airline thinks they have it right for them. Many airlines fly in a manner that is quite different from each other. I have been involved in the training of hundreds of direct entry pilots and it is very difficult indeed to retrain these pilots into a new way of operation. Dan Air for example operated in a very different way to say BA.
Nothing wrong with that. It’s just different.
so it’s a complex situation and if we get into camps it won’t be resolved. Hating GT as I see above is no way to move forward. Tackle the ball not the man
R Guy