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Ethiopian airliner down in Africa

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Ethiopian airliner down in Africa

Old 11th Mar 2019, 13:23
  #341 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by cervo77
Question: is this plane dangerous?
That's a black/white question to a greyscale issue. Plane is not "dangerous" or "safe". It has a level of safety which looks less than we expected.

Originally Posted by cervo77
If you have children, are you going to let them travel on board of A 737 max ?
I'd give that a miss right now thanks and wait till we see FDR results. But then I'm a coward when I'm SLF
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Old 11th Mar 2019, 13:26
  #342 (permalink)  
 
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Black streak?

https://imgur.com/u0pm0OE


anyone else see the blackened streak leading to the crash site? (Shown in aerial picture)
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Old 11th Mar 2019, 13:29
  #343 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by cervo77
Question: is this plane dangerous? if you have children, are you going to let them travel on board of A 737 max ?
Well, there seems to be an anomaly in terms of crashes per flights. I would not put my family on that plane until the reason for this crash is clearer. And if it's mcas again, then... well then it's going to be grounded anyways I suppose.
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Old 11th Mar 2019, 13:29
  #344 (permalink)  
 
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I had a jump seat ride in a 732 many years ago and have some time in an NG sim. The speed of rotation of the trim wheel and the noise it makes are attention grabbers. cervo77 stated above that the trim wheel is less conspicuous and less noisy in the Max. Is that the case?
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Old 11th Mar 2019, 13:50
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Originally Posted by MLHeliwrench

anyone else see the blackened streak leading to the crash site? (Shown in aerial picture)
Given the shape of the impact crater, I believe the "trail" you are seeing is a debris field beyond the crash site; i.e. the a/c was traveling left-to-right in the orientation of this photo.
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Old 11th Mar 2019, 13:52
  #346 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by MLHeliwrench
https://imgur.com/u0pm0OE


anyone else see the blackened streak leading to the crash site? (Shown in aerial picture)

That’s detritus flying away from the impact point. In that image the aircraft basically crashed from left-to-right, with an awfully large vertical component.
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Old 11th Mar 2019, 14:44
  #347 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by ManaAdaSystem


There is no conversation. MCAS caused this. Ground the MAX. That is what I get from reading the last 10 pages.
Feel free to chime in if you have other ideas, so we can discuss them. That is what this forum is about, rumours and their credibility.
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Old 11th Mar 2019, 14:47
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Agreed. People should have some relevant aviation involvement as crew, engineer, atc, ops etc to post in this group. At the very least, the poster details should contain an option to include a synopsis of their background.
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Old 11th Mar 2019, 14:51
  #349 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by MLHeliwrench



anyone else see the blackened streak leading to the crash site? (Shown in aerial picture)
Am I wrong or was there minimal fire associated with the impact ?
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Old 11th Mar 2019, 14:51
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Manufacturers must design for the lowest common denominator.
MCAS breaks this rule.
Either you ground MAX now or you hand back control to the pilot and hope that
the aerodynamicists concerns over reduced static margin dont result in another smoking hole.

Stick input (the only resort along with opposing trim that a pilot suffering from startle factor turns to when faced with loss of pitch control ) must override MCAS.Once overriden,it must not return for 5/10 seconds giving the pilot time to think.MCAS must not oppose stick input.The aerodynamicists will of course say this totally negates the design intention of MCAS.But a pilot,even a sub standard one,will surely know if he/she is facing a
real stall or a faulty sensor.So let the pilot decide whether to respect MCAS or not.
Secondly,the pilot needs a shaker inhibit switch right there on the stick.Other manufacturers provide this(Fokker/ERJ).For the MCAS-installed
MAX its an absolute must simply because the shaker can mask MCAS activation..But its a great design feature for any commercial airliner.
Boeings AD in November was clear and unambiguous and in a perfect world that would be the end of the matter.But it disregarded
the effect of the shaker and startle factor on cognitive functions.Startle factor disables cognitive functions.Once the pilot has cancelled the shaker and is assured of pitch control of his/her aircraft,cognitive functions will kick in again.
A highly-proficient crew,having read the Lionair report and Boeings AD,would not even retract flaps but remain in the circuit and land.You
dont design for the best crews though,you design for the mere mortals.
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Old 11th Mar 2019, 14:53
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Question Let the matchbox statistics talk.

Average of 350 plane years of operation. (0 to 350 over 2 years) Two hulls lost. Next hull loss will be 6 months from today (on average.)

This equates to a dangerous aircraft on my matchbox. Anyone else get a different mathematical answer?
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Old 11th Mar 2019, 14:53
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Originally Posted by SigWit
Feel free to chime in if you have other ideas, so we can discuss them. That is what this forum is about, rumours and their credibility.
Fuel contamination, engine problems, flight control problems, terrorism, instrument problems, birdstrike, suicide, runaway trim ? Nothing can be excluded, but ony one issue is discussed.
MCAS.
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Old 11th Mar 2019, 14:58
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According to the reports, the aircraft crashed 6 mins after takeoff. Prior to the crash (we don't know exactly when) the crew reported a problem. So we are talking about a very short reaction time to identify and correct any problem. With that in mind, was any correction humanly possible?
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Old 11th Mar 2019, 15:00
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Am I wrong or was there minimal fire associated with the impact ?
An eyewitness at the scene told the BBC there was an intense fire as the aircraft hit the ground.
"The blast and the fire were so strong that we couldn't get near it," he said. "Everything is burnt down."
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Old 11th Mar 2019, 15:03
  #355 (permalink)  
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Originally Posted by Rananim
MCAS breaks this rule.
In that case so does the speed trim system.
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Old 11th Mar 2019, 15:05
  #356 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by ManaAdaSystem


Fuel contamination, engine problems, flight control problems, terrorism, instrument problems, birdstrike, suicide, runaway trim ? Nothing can be excluded, but ony one issue is discussed.
MCAS.
Performance problems have been discussed earlier in this thread, but do not seem to be the cause with the information we have now (as the forward speed was steadily increasing).
Also, there have been rumours about an ATC call to return due to an unreliable airspeed indication.

With this in mind, and also the strong resemblance to the Lion Air flight, it is not so strange that the main focus is on the very system that caused Lion Air to go down.
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Old 11th Mar 2019, 15:06
  #357 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by GoingAroundAgain
Agreed. People should have some relevant aviation involvement as crew, engineer, atc, ops etc to post in this group.
Utter nonsense!

Some of the best contributions I have seen on this forum in nearly 20 years, have come from psychologists, educationalists, electronics engineers, geographers, training specialists, management theorists, data and IT engineers, physicists and chemists, manufacturing experts, metallurgists and logicians, non of whom had any aviation involvement.

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Old 11th Mar 2019, 15:06
  #358 (permalink)  
 
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I looked up the history of ET-AVJ on Flightradar24 and noticed that 2 days before the crash, there was an anomaly in it's flight routine. Can anyone shed some light on what that might have been? Looks like ET2860 and 2861 were the flight numbers. I looked up some other tail numbers of ET planes on that similar routing and didn't see any logging of movement with non-existent flight numbers. Could it have been a maintenance issue being tested during that time?
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Old 11th Mar 2019, 15:09
  #359 (permalink)  
 
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I understand the 737 (at least since the CFM56 variants) has been somewhat pitch sensitive to power changes, but I'm curious about the underlying need for MCAS, as per this article:

At high angles of attack the CFM Leap-1B’s engine nacelle generates its own lift.
(source: https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/what-is-the-boeing-737-max-maneuvering-characteristics-augmentation-system-mcas-jt610/)

It must be quite an increase in moment to justify a protection system.

Only a singular AOA input. and a failure mode that might be riskier than the problem it is trying to solve? Hmm...


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Old 11th Mar 2019, 15:10
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Originally Posted by ManaAdaSystem


Fuel contamination, engine problems, flight control problems, terrorism, instrument problems, birdstrike, suicide, runaway trim ? Nothing can be excluded, but ony one issue is discussed.
MCAS.
Thank you.

Condolences to the friends and family of the passengers and crew. Why don’t we let them Rest In Peace while the investigators sort this out.

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