Ethiopian airliner down in Africa

[2unlimited]

Originally Posted by airtractor

Gouli, can you explain how you save money by flying closer to a stall/higher angle of Attack?
-Closer to stall = more drag= higher fuel burn= wasting money.

cheers

Do you fly at all?
Have you heard of high speed stall? Mach tuck?
And as someone mentioned, Coffin Corner.

[Innaflap]

Originally Posted by zonak

Thank you!!!

A thousand feet of air between the plane and the ground will disappear very quickly if the nose is down. Not sure how that stacks up against the time taken to decide to disable MCAS and executing it.

I must say that if i bought a car where the steering might go wrong under certain conditions and tbe solution was to pull a CB, i would pass

[73qanda]

My question is, if the the MCAS starts to trim the nose down, can the AP be still engaged and save the situation?

I don’t fly the Max but if it was an NG it would be highly unlikely. First up, you want to be decreasing automation when things start getting away on you, not increasing it but if you did try for whatever reason, the NG wouldn’t take the AP if there was an active control column input from either side. From what I have been reading, the situation would be such that it is unlikely you could organise getting both crew members to release pressure completely while engaging the AP.
Anyway, if the solution to any problem was to engage the AP and watch it recover the aircraft I think many pilots would be contemplating a career change soonish.

[DaveReidUK]

Given that, as we all know, MCAS was implicated in the Lion Air accident, it won't come as any surprise that the answers to many posters' questions about what MCAS is, how it's supposed to work and how its misbehaviour can be mitigated have been discussed (extensively) in that thread.

Worth a read for those who haven't and need to ask the same things. Might save a bit of bandwidth in this one.

[zero/zero]

Originally Posted by 73qanda

Anyway, if the solution to any problem was to engage the AP and watch it recover the aircraft I think many pilots would be contemplating a career change soonish.

I think he’s talking about the fact that AP engagement disables the MCAS, not trying to do you out of a
job.

[AmuDarya]

Ethiopan Airlines says via Twitter:

"Senior captain Yared Getachew, who had more than 8,000 flight hours, was in command of the plane.

His first officer, Ahmed Nur Mohammod Nur, had 200 hours of flight time. "

Assuming no typos, is that difference in flight hours very unusual, or is it a case of a relatively new first officer being teamed up with an experienced colleague?

[enniofficial]

WHBM, I realize that you might have some kind of vendetta against them. Ethiopian by all standards is a fairly safe Airline. 1996 was as a result of hijacking. By your logic, United and American are all unsafe airlines because they were hijacked in 2001. The 2010 incident was as a result of pilot error, not any maintenance deficiencies of the airline.

The high foreign passenger count is as a result of a Regional UN conference taking place in Nairobi, with lots of development and foreign aid professionals coming in from Ethiopia (Ethiopia has a significant amount of foreign aid workers. You should probably refrain from disparaging an airline with your distorted opinions.

[cervo77]

RAM has grounded also their 2 x 737 Max (CN-MAX & CN-MAY).... it starts to smell bad

[silverstrata]

Originally Posted by arketip

There is quite a difference between a trim runaway and what seems to happen here.
How do you recognise a trim runaway?

There is this volumous clanking noise going on, as the huge great Titanic trim wheel (taken from the Ju-52) winds its way around. And the controls will need a great deal of pulling for normal flight (something like 50 to 60 kg of force), which is pretty much uncontrollable.

However, if you have the very noisy stick shaker going off (as the Indonesia did), and if the instruments lead you to think you might be stalling (as the Indonesia thought), you are not necessarily know that the stab-trim is trimming.

Trouble-shooting multiple faults is never easy. Which takes priority ? Obviously controlling the perceived stall - that is why the stick shaker is operating. Except it is not a stall, and the most important thing is the trim runnaway - which you might nit even know is happening.

Silver

[cervo77]

Originally Posted by AmuDarya

Ethiopan Airlines says via Twitter:



Assuming no typos, is that difference in flight hours very unusual, or is it a case of a relatively new first officer being teamed up with an experienced colleague?

so what ? Where is the problem ? all the pilots who now have 20,000 flying hours have had a few hours of flying time. the most important is the qualification.
Now if it is a manufacturing and design defect, you can even put the best pilotin the world. the plane will eventually fall to the ground

[Winnerhofer]

Simultaneous double failure of AOAs and Pitots?
Simultaneous double failure of THS and elevators?

[KRUSTY 34]

Originally Posted by 73qanda

I don’t fly the Max but if it was an NG it would be highly unlikely. First up, you want to be decreasing automation when things start getting away on you, not increasing it but if you did try for whatever reason, the NG wouldn’t take the AP if there was an active control column input from either side. From what I have been reading, the situation would be such that it is unlikely you could organise getting both crew members to release pressure completely while engaging the AP.
Anyway, if the solution to any problem was to engage the AP and watch it recover the aircraft I think many pilots would be contemplating a career change soonish.

If correct, and I have no reason to think otherwise, 73qanda has succinctly described what this discussion should be all about. IMHO, MCAS has either been designed by people who don’t have the first clue of the human factors present in such a dynamic occurrence. And/or, they’ve been sitting behind a desk (or computer) for so long that they have lost touch with reality. I mean, someone signed off on the thing. Maybe that’s why in the aftermath of Lion Air, both Boeing and the FAA were conspicuously quiet?

[WingNut60]

Originally Posted by DaveReidUK

Given that, as we all know, MCAS was implicated in the Lion Air accident, it won't come as any surprise that the answers to many posters' questions about what MCAS is, how it's supposed to work and how its misbehaviour can be mitigated have been discussed (extensively) in that thread.

Worth a read for those who haven't and need to ask the same things. Might save a bit of bandwidth in this one.

Sound advice Dave. But since it has already been done to death multiple times in this thread and still ignored then I don't like your chances.

[Wycombe]

Lady "aviation analyst" on BBC Breakfast this morning....

"There are no airlines in the UK operating the Max8. Ryanair and Norwegian have them on order but none delivered yet".

Has she not heard of Tui??

Theirs (and others in the Tui grouping) appear to be flying this morning.

[Lifer01]

I know it's a long read, but just for some perspective the 2010 crash of ET409 (737-800) occurred with similarly experienced flt crew and the same airline with the excellent reputation:

The captain had 10,000 hrs - with 180 hrs on type.
The first officer had 673 hrs - with 350 hrs on type.

Reading the report could lead one to conclude that the captain did not have much of an idea about what he was doing on this aircraft and the first officer didn't feel like he was able to correct him.

http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2010/et-b...b100125.en.pdf

I think I would feel more comfortable if they turned on the autopilot sooner...

[skyrangerpro]

Originally Posted by whitelighter

China has this morning grounded all B737-MAX8 being flown by Chinese airlines - some 97 airframes.

Ethiopian (perhaps with different motivation) have also withdrawn their MAX8 from service

tick tock FAA, tick tock

I'm astonished every single one in existence hasn't been grounded.

[EIFFS]

Given the data so far presented and whilst acknowledging the similarities to the Lion Air accident, it seems that the aircraft was fairly low to have reached a clean configuration given the high airfield elevation.

If it wasn’t clean then the MCAS wouldn’t be active?

Another consideration is loading error, the CoG is much further forward on the MAX when compared to the NG and it’s easy for the loaders to overlook this if they’re not used to handling both types, often the case when a new variant enters a fleet.

I fly both variants, on the NG we normally split the load 2/3rds in bay 3 and 1/3rd in bay 2 ( so for 2100kg of hold luggage/ cargo 1400kg in the aft and 700kg fwd hold) on the MAX that would push the CoG to far forward, in the MAX all of that would go in the rear.

I have had loaders load a MAX as though it was an NG and when I did the W&B on the EFB computer said NO, moved some passengers from zone B to C and computer said yes.

if the early FDR confirms same issue as Lion Air a grounding is likely until a fix installed.

either way I can’t see that Boeing would go with a follow on version of the MAX, a new clean sheet design rather than tweaking a 50 year old design and coming up with auto intervention systems to sort the problems by stretching the design life.

having said all that the MAX is a lovely aircraft to fly and still find the cruise fuel burns unbelievably low, my longest sector length so far is over 8 hours

[73qanda]

I think he’s talking about the fact that AP engagement disables the MCAS, not trying to do you out of a
job.

I understand that zerozero. Pilots wouldn’t be looking for a career change because they think that they might be done out of a job, they’d be looking because the AP can barely fly the thing when on a normal profile let alone in a non-normal.

[silverstrata]

Originally Posted by 73qanda

My question is, if the the MCAS starts to trim the nose down, can the AP be still engaged and save the situation?

Not in the Classic or NG. To engage the autopilot you need to release elevator pressure on the stick, otherwise it will not engage. So if you are pulling against an MCAS-inspired nose down trim, you cannot engage the autopilot. (MCAS gives 10 seconds or 2 degrees worth ofnose down trim for each input - which is a heIIava lot of trim input - and then just while you are wondering what is going on, it gives you another 10 seconds of nose-down trim.)

Silver

[Dan_Brown]

It's a great shame that the passengers and crew,once again, seem to becoming part of the test flight program.

I always thought it risky, the authorities agreeing to a new airframe type and new engine types, on the same aircraft. It seems my fears have been unfounded.

However, when the manufactures start "playing around" with the automation, I become quite concerned.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it comes to mind. Or is it now, fix it until it breaks?