Downfall, Netflix documentary
SkyGod
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nature to flip those 2 switches to OFF.
Surely every Boeing pilot had to do it as well.
Thread Starter
Is a runaway stab on the 737 accompanied by several warnings more likely to be encountered during an airspeed unreliable event?
Ansett blue shirt on, clear throat.............."I did runaway trim drills on my conversion course in 1982. Part of the syllabus and still have my notes". Blue shirt off, runaway to hide from the Ansett haters.
The MCD influence with DC10 standards combined with Wall St greed and money focus took an engineering led Boeing to an almost terminal position. Add up the total costs and it is around $80Bn - enough to develop new NMA, new narrow body (and more) to put Boeing in a longer-term market leading position based on product and engineering.
Muilenburg paid an exit bonus of USD$62m for leading the decimation of Boeing! Nice one.
Dreamliner quality issues continue that impact customers like AA with their route plans.
All companies evolve. Maybe the Seattle forever focus was not realistic but they sure lost the plot.
Greed. Lies. Criminal-like behaviour covered by shareholders $20Bn in cash. It is a disgrace.
This has to be the worst example of corporate corruption in history. The costs are well beyond BP - Deepwater, Exxon Valdez and Volkswagen dieselgate.
Good insights and well worth watching the doco. Thanks Ron Howard and Netflix.
Muilenburg paid an exit bonus of USD$62m for leading the decimation of Boeing! Nice one.
Dreamliner quality issues continue that impact customers like AA with their route plans.
All companies evolve. Maybe the Seattle forever focus was not realistic but they sure lost the plot.
Greed. Lies. Criminal-like behaviour covered by shareholders $20Bn in cash. It is a disgrace.
This has to be the worst example of corporate corruption in history. The costs are well beyond BP - Deepwater, Exxon Valdez and Volkswagen dieselgate.
Good insights and well worth watching the doco. Thanks Ron Howard and Netflix.
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I did runaway stab drills in the simulator on the B707 late in the 1960s. In other Boeing types later in life , the hard bit was getting the verbiage word perfect eg Stabiliser Hydraulic Cutoff Swiches : Cutoff.
Apparently not. That was one of the findings of the Joint Authorities Technical Review of the MAX Flight Control System - the training didn't accurately reflect what a crew would be faced with. And as Boeing decided to leave any mention of MCAS out of the FCOM (in fact, content on MCAS functionality was originally in the draft FCOM and was subsequently removed without any proper consultation) that meant that the FSB was not in a position to adequately assess training needs.
This documentary was certainly well worth watching because it shows the current corporate ethic beautifully - MONEY IS EVERYTHING!
The same credo was to blame in the lead up to the GFC in 2008. A book about the failure of Lehman Brothers and the narrowly-avoided collapse of the American financial system was called “Too big to Fail”. I think the title of this book also applies to Boeing - as the only remaining manufacturer of airliners in the US, there is no way that it will be allowed to fail.
It’s a pity that Wall Street, Boeing and Alan Joyce can’t understand that “you can’t put a dollar value on reputation but, once it’s gone, it’s very difficult (if not impossible) to get back”. As well as probably being more expensive than having done the job properly in the first place.
The same credo was to blame in the lead up to the GFC in 2008. A book about the failure of Lehman Brothers and the narrowly-avoided collapse of the American financial system was called “Too big to Fail”. I think the title of this book also applies to Boeing - as the only remaining manufacturer of airliners in the US, there is no way that it will be allowed to fail.
It’s a pity that Wall Street, Boeing and Alan Joyce can’t understand that “you can’t put a dollar value on reputation but, once it’s gone, it’s very difficult (if not impossible) to get back”. As well as probably being more expensive than having done the job properly in the first place.
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Ansett blue shirt on
Ansett, back in the old days, had a decided over training philosophical attitude and it showed in general line flying standards back then. Not always, and not everyone but, certainly, as a general observation. George and I were of similar vintage, as I recall, he a little after me.
Ansett, back in the old days, had a decided over training philosophical attitude and it showed in general line flying standards back then. Not always, and not everyone but, certainly, as a general observation. George and I were of similar vintage, as I recall, he a little after me.
short flights long nights
I can’t believe ( OK yes I can) that the CEO who led this mess.. got the sack.. with $60 million. It’s fxxking repulsive.
A few people here seem to have missed an important part of the memory items for the Runaway Stabilizer procedure, namely the bit that says (my emphasis):
Selecting the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches to CUTOUT is NOT the first step in the procedure.
The pilot of the Lion Air aircraft managed to keep the aircraft under control through several cycles of MCAS nose down trim and main electric trim in the opposite direction before he lost control. If he had thought to select the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches to CUTOUT while the aircraft was in a reasonable trim state, the accident might not have occurred.
NOTE: That does not excuse the design faults of the MAX aircraft, or Boeing’s behaviour.
Control airplane pitch attitude manually with control column and main electric trim as needed.
The pilot of the Lion Air aircraft managed to keep the aircraft under control through several cycles of MCAS nose down trim and main electric trim in the opposite direction before he lost control. If he had thought to select the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches to CUTOUT while the aircraft was in a reasonable trim state, the accident might not have occurred.
NOTE: That does not excuse the design faults of the MAX aircraft, or Boeing’s behaviour.
Last edited by BuzzBox; 20th Feb 2022 at 20:29.
Of course it’s easy to say crew should do this or that and it was possible to save the aircraft. I don’t really think this is the point. The point it the design was bad and the faults covered up. At best negligence that resulted in hundreds of lives lost. The most sickening thing for me was they bet it wouldn’t happen again so doubled down.
It still comes down to an automation in a primary flight control which operates silently and uses only a single data source. Even Boeing know that's not the right way to design aeroplanes, which is why they hid it from the regulators. All the rest is just the consequences - the core crime is (and remains) inacceptable, which is why the corporate and engineering leadership should be facing murder charges.
Ideally in a death penalty State.
PDR
Ideally in a death penalty State.
PDR
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I have not flown the 737 ...
But lets do what you say.
The system kicks in and trims the aircraft, lets say, 8 or 10 degrees Nose Down, before you react by acting on those 2 switches.
Now you have an aircraft trimmed 8 or 10 degrees Nose Down, and, to the best of my knowledge, you can not trim Nose Up because those switches are Off.
Do you think that you are going to get out of it ?
But lets do what you say.
The system kicks in and trims the aircraft, lets say, 8 or 10 degrees Nose Down, before you react by acting on those 2 switches.
Now you have an aircraft trimmed 8 or 10 degrees Nose Down, and, to the best of my knowledge, you can not trim Nose Up because those switches are Off.
Do you think that you are going to get out of it ?
So by your reasoning pilots should be allowed more than ten seconds to input the correct rudder when an engine fails just after V1. Try arguing that with your next 737 sim checker as you roll inverted at 20 feet.
Last edited by Maisk Rotum; 21st Feb 2022 at 08:04.
Corporate greed, incompetence, arrogance all caused the Max to be rolled out with a flaw. I won't argue with that. However a pilot with a left seat type rating in the 737 should know that when faced with an aircraft that has a trim wheel moving forward that the corrective action is to first use electric trim and if it's still trimming forward to do the Memory Items that you are paid to do. Lion crew never touched the switches. Ethiopian Captain had to be prompted by the FO and by then the stab was well out of trim.
The previous sector prior to the crash of Lion Air 610 was flown with continuous stick shaker and trim runaway but the pilots of that flight didn’t report it. 31 pages of the technical log were missing. It’s all there in the NTSC report.
Draw your own conclusions. Read the report. It’s eye watering. Gross negligence on so many fronts at Lion Air.
Draw your own conclusions. Read the report. It’s eye watering. Gross negligence on so many fronts at Lion Air.
Last edited by Troo believer; 21st Feb 2022 at 10:12.