Ethiopian airliner down in Africa
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Muilenberg HAS to say that (there is nothing wrong with the aircraft -- everything has been corrected with utmost perfection, and anyway it was all the pilots' fault). Can you imagine the company lawyers or shareholders suggesting he say otherwise? One sniff of an admission of liability and Boeing would be sued out of existence.
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To the several posters commenting that the "Turn of the Magic" piece of the mantra is inappropriate during this malfunction, let me make a couple of observations:
.
The going-in assumption is the crew DOES NOT KNOW what the correct procedure is because they haven't correctly identified the problem. I can't stress this strongly enough. You don't get to the mantra if you know what the malfunction is. You don't get to the mantra if you are already applying to the appropriate procedure. You get to the mantra when you don't understand what is going on. I think it is clear from the data that the ET302 crew did not understand their situation. In that case, if the Captain had simply:
.
.
- "Turn of the Magic" on the 737 refers specifically to the Autopilot, Autothrottles, Flight Director, and Flight Path Vector. Other aircraft may have a different list. It does not refer to turning off MCAS, because obviously, there is no off switch for MCAS. However, the "Trim the Aircraft" step will definitely override MCAS input until the crew has the time to execute the Runaway Stab Trim procedure.
- The post-Lion Air 610 AD (posted above) says quite explicitly that the autopilot may not remain engaged, a fact demonstrated three times by the Ethiopian Captain. In this malfunction, the autopilot will not be there to save you. This critique also assumes that the flight crew was aware of MCAS and the items that inhibit its activation. If that were the case, the best recourse was not to engage the autopilot, but to leave the flaps extended.
- To those who have said that the mantra is not the best way to handle an MCAS failure, I AGREE! The best way to have handled this malfunction was for the crew to execute the Airspeed Unreliable NNC and leave the flaps extended. They did not.
The going-in assumption is the crew DOES NOT KNOW what the correct procedure is because they haven't correctly identified the problem. I can't stress this strongly enough. You don't get to the mantra if you know what the malfunction is. You don't get to the mantra if you are already applying to the appropriate procedure. You get to the mantra when you don't understand what is going on. I think it is clear from the data that the ET302 crew did not understand their situation. In that case, if the Captain had simply:
.
Turned off the Magic, Set the Pitch, Set the Power, Trimmed the Aircraft, Monitored the Performance, and Moved the Aircraft to a Safe Altitude,
.
that is, if he had FLOWN THE AIRCRAFT until such time that he could determine what the malfunction and appropriate procedure was, we would not be having this conversation today.
that is, if he had FLOWN THE AIRCRAFT until such time that he could determine what the malfunction and appropriate procedure was, we would not be having this conversation today.
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All the more more reason to disbelieve every word out of his mouth.
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Secondly, the FCOM specifically points pilots towards considering not turning off the magic immediately - "electric trim can be used to neutralise control column pitch forces before moving stab trim cutout switches". I'm not a 737 driver but one wonders how much time (MCAS iterations) one would spend trying to balance the forces before switching off. Prior to MCAS, did the NNC include this note?
.
As far as how much time one spends neutralizing the trim forces, basically as much time as you needed. Keep in mind that every time the pilot inputs any amount of stab trim, MCAS stops in its tracks for 5 seconds. Thus, as long as the pilot trim inputs were separated by less than 5 seconds, they could trim as long as they needed to return the control forces to neutral before using the cutout switches. From that point, they would use the manual trim wheel.
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If I have to read "Turn off the Magic, Set the Pitch, Set the Power, Trim the Aircraft, Monitor the Performance, and Move the Aircraft to a Safe Altitude" one more time my head is going to explode like a pimple on a teenage girls nose.
I have no idea why a few very well-invested individuals here are pounding this drum so loudly and consistently.....
I have no idea why a few very well-invested individuals here are pounding this drum so loudly and consistently.....
Exactly! I could not agree more, and therein lies the key to understand where all this has been going.
FEAR. Gut-wrenching, mind-numbing FEAR. FEAR is the killer. FEAR is the enemy. FEAR is the obstacle to successfully navigating so many aircraft emergencies. So how do we overcome this very predictable human reaction?!
Think for a moment what transpires in military training. Military commanders know that their soldiers will be engaging with FEAR on the front lines, but they also know that paralyzing FEAR is the one thing most likely to doom them. How do they overcome this obstacle? Through training and repetition. Training and repetition. Training and repetition. One of those famous cliches you hear in military-themed movies when the battle is about to be joined, "Remember your training!" And yes, some number of soldiers will still forget their training and freeze at a critical moment, but that doesn't mean the training was useless.
To the uninitiated pilot in training, I can think of a lot of simulator events that can stimulate the fear reflex - Engine Fire at V1, uncommanded engine failure at high altitude leading to decompression and an emergency descent, low altitude windshear recovery. That is exactly why we train for them. You need to train, and you need the repetition of training so that the correct responses are drilled deep down into your reptilian brain. The current training practices at most airlines do an okay job at training for the KNOWN.
What the current training regime is failing to train for is the UNKNOWN.
Yes, paralyzing fear is one possible outcome when faced with an unknown emergency, particularly at low altitude. Since we know this, we ought to train for it. How? As I have amply described, you train for it by intentional subjecting the flight crew to the unknown and novel situations where the only correct answer is: "Turn off the Magic, Set the Pitch, Set the Power, Trim the Aircraft, Monitor the Performance, and Move the Aircraft to a Safe Altitude." You do this literally again and again until their heads want to explode. The inborn FEAR response is usually described as: Fight, Flee, or Freeze. As aviators, we need to add a fourth - FLY THE AIRCRAFT.
To those who may say this is idealistic or somehow not possible, this grey-haired pilot will tell you that this is what we used to do. Somewhere along the way, the training environment stopped emphasizing one of our most important tasks - when all else fails, when the world is going to **** around you, when you feel the fear rise in your throat, FLY THE AIRCRAFT, first, last, and always. Yes, the crew's ineffectual response is ultimately a human factors issue, but it is a human factors issue that has a very definite fix.
The Ethiopian crew failed in their response to this malfunction because their training regime failed them first.
Last edited by 737 Driver; 5th May 2019 at 16:52.
@737 Diver:
The issue here, having just gone through the last 7 pages of this thread, remains a multi party setting up of this crew (as I see it).
1. Boeing and various companies were chasing a dollar/profit objective, and the AoA miscompare "alert" was apparently optional equipment.
2. A primary flight control is moved by an aircraft sub system with no pilot in put, but (as has been discussed at length) a number of ways of disabling it.
3. Training on this subsystem: of questionable quality. Doubly so due to wide variation between air line companies in how much (in terms of time and money) they invest in their crews, not just for the upgrade to Max but in general.
4. Crew training(??) / inexperience becoming an international norm.
5. Over-reliance on automation becoming an international norm.
6. Arriving at your points in your latest post, (none of which seem unreasonable to me, but I don't fly 737) the above mentioned factors suggest that unless you are in a company who values crew competence, and puts money / time / resources toward that core value, your crews are open to being set up - not only for the startle factor increasing a challenge, but incomplete systems knowledge (and practice with it) getting in the way of timely and correct decision making when dealing with a systems malfunction. Years ago when I was running sim training the ability to do some "free play" at the end of a session to test where a crew got oversaturated with systems malfunctions/emergencies was good training, and a lot of crews really appreciated them.
7. (Pax Britannica made some interesting points previous but I lost my train of thought). The cockpit gradient in a given cockpit does not develop in isolation from cockpit / corporate culture, which is also informed by larger cultural issues regarding authority. It is unclear how that played out for ET to me, and is one of those hard to quantify factors.
8. A company (be it ET, Lion, or perhaps if things had played out differently, United or American?) has a powerful financial motive to move the blame indicator arrow to point ONLY at the manufacturer. (And the single point of failure issue that looks to be a root causal factor gives them fair grist for that mill). Some of this is cultural, some of this is purely financial due to how litigation works.
9. In the time between Lion Air and ET: what training, what systems training, and what crew training with related malfunctions did this crew have? What are the effects of negative training, and how do those play out in a cockpit?
10. Recency and upset training was mentioned above. I'll offer an idea here: any malfunction that is related to the movement of primary flight controls is subject to a recency factor (as seen in the AF 447 accident).
Were they, the crew in ET, set up?
At least in part, I offer that the answer is yes. The system that set them up all of the world's airline companies are a part of, and are core players in. So too are regulators, and nations.
I can't disagree with the general point that the pitch and power chorus are making (this singing group is once again on stage was they were for most of the AF 447 discussion on PPRuNe) . Power plus attitude equals performance.
But are people really being trained that way anymore?
Are their behaviors being incentivized to ground their operation of aircraft with that fundamental principle foremost?
If not, why not?
The corporations who make their money in this business (be it manufacturing, operating, or training people to operate the equipment) need to answer that question. So who is holding them all to account?
Aside: I do not believe that there is now an international standard of what a professional pilot is - I have seen some appeal to that thought - no matter how badly I wish that were true.
There may once have been such a standard. (But hey, all that is now needed is a concierge, eh? Tech is magic! (/sarcasm off))
There's a lot of lip service paid to it, though, and professional pilots (those who are the real deal) are rightly dismayed to see the profession that learned hard lessons over the course of a century, under attack. The two dead men (and their passengers) from ET are casualties in a war that seems to be going on between price and professionalism, and the use of automation to replace human function.
The issue here, having just gone through the last 7 pages of this thread, remains a multi party setting up of this crew (as I see it).
1. Boeing and various companies were chasing a dollar/profit objective, and the AoA miscompare "alert" was apparently optional equipment.
2. A primary flight control is moved by an aircraft sub system with no pilot in put, but (as has been discussed at length) a number of ways of disabling it.
3. Training on this subsystem: of questionable quality. Doubly so due to wide variation between air line companies in how much (in terms of time and money) they invest in their crews, not just for the upgrade to Max but in general.
4. Crew training(??) / inexperience becoming an international norm.
5. Over-reliance on automation becoming an international norm.
6. Arriving at your points in your latest post, (none of which seem unreasonable to me, but I don't fly 737) the above mentioned factors suggest that unless you are in a company who values crew competence, and puts money / time / resources toward that core value, your crews are open to being set up - not only for the startle factor increasing a challenge, but incomplete systems knowledge (and practice with it) getting in the way of timely and correct decision making when dealing with a systems malfunction. Years ago when I was running sim training the ability to do some "free play" at the end of a session to test where a crew got oversaturated with systems malfunctions/emergencies was good training, and a lot of crews really appreciated them.
Meme/clue for the non pilots in the audience here: when a malfunction turns into an emergency (or a fatal crash) to simply blame the pilots is to overlook that layers of human endeavor and responsibility that got them to that point.
7. (Pax Britannica made some interesting points previous but I lost my train of thought). The cockpit gradient in a given cockpit does not develop in isolation from cockpit / corporate culture, which is also informed by larger cultural issues regarding authority. It is unclear how that played out for ET to me, and is one of those hard to quantify factors.
8. A company (be it ET, Lion, or perhaps if things had played out differently, United or American?) has a powerful financial motive to move the blame indicator arrow to point ONLY at the manufacturer. (And the single point of failure issue that looks to be a root causal factor gives them fair grist for that mill). Some of this is cultural, some of this is purely financial due to how litigation works.
9. In the time between Lion Air and ET: what training, what systems training, and what crew training with related malfunctions did this crew have? What are the effects of negative training, and how do those play out in a cockpit?
10. Recency and upset training was mentioned above. I'll offer an idea here: any malfunction that is related to the movement of primary flight controls is subject to a recency factor (as seen in the AF 447 accident).
Were they, the crew in ET, set up?
At least in part, I offer that the answer is yes. The system that set them up all of the world's airline companies are a part of, and are core players in. So too are regulators, and nations.
I can't disagree with the general point that the pitch and power chorus are making (this singing group is once again on stage was they were for most of the AF 447 discussion on PPRuNe) . Power plus attitude equals performance.
But are people really being trained that way anymore?
Are their behaviors being incentivized to ground their operation of aircraft with that fundamental principle foremost?
If not, why not?
The corporations who make their money in this business (be it manufacturing, operating, or training people to operate the equipment) need to answer that question. So who is holding them all to account?
Aside: I do not believe that there is now an international standard of what a professional pilot is - I have seen some appeal to that thought - no matter how badly I wish that were true.
There may once have been such a standard. (But hey, all that is now needed is a concierge, eh? Tech is magic! (/sarcasm off))
There's a lot of lip service paid to it, though, and professional pilots (those who are the real deal) are rightly dismayed to see the profession that learned hard lessons over the course of a century, under attack. The two dead men (and their passengers) from ET are casualties in a war that seems to be going on between price and professionalism, and the use of automation to replace human function.
Last edited by Lonewolf_50; 5th May 2019 at 16:51.
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Perhaps I have not been clear enough on this point. My participation here has very little to do with the last accident. It has everything to do with the next accident.
It is highly unlikely that the next major aircraft accident will be due to MCAS or even anything related to the MAX. It is reasonably probable that the next hull loss will have a flight crew related cause, and high on the list of potential causes is that someone forgot to FLY THE AIRCRAFT. Plain and simple.
Until we take this seriously enough to actually do something about it, we are just going to be back here someday discussing some other unlucky pilot who got caught at a time he didn't expect with a problem he didn't expect and who somehow forgot to FLY THE AIRCRAFT first, last, and always.
It is highly unlikely that the next major aircraft accident will be due to MCAS or even anything related to the MAX. It is reasonably probable that the next hull loss will have a flight crew related cause, and high on the list of potential causes is that someone forgot to FLY THE AIRCRAFT. Plain and simple.
Until we take this seriously enough to actually do something about it, we are just going to be back here someday discussing some other unlucky pilot who got caught at a time he didn't expect with a problem he didn't expect and who somehow forgot to FLY THE AIRCRAFT first, last, and always.
Until we take this seriously enough to actually do something about it, we are just going to be back here someday discussing some other unlucky pilot who got caught at a time he didn't expect with a problem he didn't expect and who somehow forgot to FLY THE AIRCRAFT first, last, and always.
So who is incentivizing pilots all over the world to do as you say?
What are their company SOPs, norms, habits, training, and requirements doing to incentivize behaviors that is not defaulting to that core principle?
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@ 737driver
A normal (fatalities included) accident safety investigation (the path that I am trying to follow) roughly takes a year. Complex ones can take more years (the 737 rudder reversals took many more years). Your "100%" statement, if true, would make fools of the majority of accident investigators. Including US investigations. That can not be your intention.
My impression is that you create (unintentional) confusion on these pages by acknowledging failures of all parties in the system (you have written an excellent short post on this a number of pages back) . But then quickly and repeatedly focussing elaborately on the failure of the pilots. Which can give the general reader the idea that you are only bashing the heads of these four guys. The style of writing (for an international audience including non-native english speakers) could also be perceived by some as a bit (unintentional) arrogant and bullying. Which is something people dont expect from a (CRM) cockpit.
The viewpoint that I myself try to take in this accident thread is that of trying to understand facts and doings of all the parties involved. If you take that overall view, then Boeing and FAA actions appear to be (many many facts 'pending') 'unprecedented' and 'incomprehensible' and contra the long established Boeing culture (at least before the 787) ... with the FAA having mixed reviews over the last 60 years. It would also be interesting to get more facts about the impact that airlines have had here (collaborative design is also collective involvement). Therefore it is no surprise to me, and certainly a positive sign, that there are multiple (US) investigations running in parallel. Which is rather unusual by itself though. And only getting the facts in those areas will take at least one year (the DoT IG for example for his investigation said that they normally need 1 year but in this case he expects it to be longer). I would expect the NTSB to go beyond a more 'technical' investigation and include an extensive proper 'certification process and design process' investigation. It is not only a pilot thing or design thing anymore, the credibility of a significant part of US aerospace is at stake. Considering the size of US aerospace the global system has a stake in this as well.
So in your posts it would sincerely help me to better understand them, if you can make clear when you are talking about general or US standards of pilot training/hrs, or training/hrs specific to 'which' accident(s). And also, if the scope of your post covers all the parties involved or that you focus 'mainly' on the piloting aspects.
I would expect most here to agree with your statements about the importance of training and the worry about the training levels and low hour pilots. The question we are dealing with here is an accident where within that context we want to know how important the training/hrs of these pilots was in the overall picture.
if he had FLOWN THE AIRCRAFT until such time that he could determine what the malfunction and appropriate procedure was, we would not be having this conversation today.
My impression is that you create (unintentional) confusion on these pages by acknowledging failures of all parties in the system (you have written an excellent short post on this a number of pages back) . But then quickly and repeatedly focussing elaborately on the failure of the pilots. Which can give the general reader the idea that you are only bashing the heads of these four guys. The style of writing (for an international audience including non-native english speakers) could also be perceived by some as a bit (unintentional) arrogant and bullying. Which is something people dont expect from a (CRM) cockpit.
The viewpoint that I myself try to take in this accident thread is that of trying to understand facts and doings of all the parties involved. If you take that overall view, then Boeing and FAA actions appear to be (many many facts 'pending') 'unprecedented' and 'incomprehensible' and contra the long established Boeing culture (at least before the 787) ... with the FAA having mixed reviews over the last 60 years. It would also be interesting to get more facts about the impact that airlines have had here (collaborative design is also collective involvement). Therefore it is no surprise to me, and certainly a positive sign, that there are multiple (US) investigations running in parallel. Which is rather unusual by itself though. And only getting the facts in those areas will take at least one year (the DoT IG for example for his investigation said that they normally need 1 year but in this case he expects it to be longer). I would expect the NTSB to go beyond a more 'technical' investigation and include an extensive proper 'certification process and design process' investigation. It is not only a pilot thing or design thing anymore, the credibility of a significant part of US aerospace is at stake. Considering the size of US aerospace the global system has a stake in this as well.
So in your posts it would sincerely help me to better understand them, if you can make clear when you are talking about general or US standards of pilot training/hrs, or training/hrs specific to 'which' accident(s). And also, if the scope of your post covers all the parties involved or that you focus 'mainly' on the piloting aspects.
I would expect most here to agree with your statements about the importance of training and the worry about the training levels and low hour pilots. The question we are dealing with here is an accident where within that context we want to know how important the training/hrs of these pilots was in the overall picture.
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Believe it or not Gordon, sarcasm was the furthest thing from my mind.
I didn’t see the promo link, but IMHO the program succinctly went to the heart of just about everything that is wrong with the MCAS fiasco.
And no, I have no affiliation with 60 Minutes, or the Nine Network.
I didn’t see the promo link, but IMHO the program succinctly went to the heart of just about everything that is wrong with the MCAS fiasco.
And no, I have no affiliation with 60 Minutes, or the Nine Network.
Edit: Skim read. Nothing new IMO.
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I think you are right,and I don't want to be sitting in the back when that happens. (I have to fly to visit my parents next week.)
So who is incentivizing pilots all over the world to do as you say?
What are their company SOPs, norms, habits, training, and requirements doing to incentivize behaviors that is not defaulting to that core principle?
So who is incentivizing pilots all over the world to do as you say?
What are their company SOPs, norms, habits, training, and requirements doing to incentivize behaviors that is not defaulting to that core principle?
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I'm going to post a deeper link to today's Seattle Times article (the previously-posted link led me to another link with the headlines only).
Highly-recommended reading: It appears that this is a scandal that's way worse than we thought. Clear, mendacious malfeasance and misfeasance by Boeing. This should be a gigantic scandal!
https://www.seattletimes.com/busines...uding-737-max/
I wish everyone would quit with the hostile attacks on 737 Driver. He clearly knows exactly WTF he's talking about and he should be thanked for his continuing campaign! Remember AF447!
Highly-recommended reading: It appears that this is a scandal that's way worse than we thought. Clear, mendacious malfeasance and misfeasance by Boeing. This should be a gigantic scandal!
https://www.seattletimes.com/busines...uding-737-max/
I wish everyone would quit with the hostile attacks on 737 Driver. He clearly knows exactly WTF he's talking about and he should be thanked for his continuing campaign! Remember AF447!
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Excuse me if this was already mentioned before, but I have to ask:
Nobody seems to be disturbed about the fact that the Unreliable Airspeed memory items include two performance settings only, and none of those are suitable for an initial climb after take off.
80% 10 degress pitch is the one with flaps extended and gear up. Starting actions at 400 AGL would mean that somewhere around 1000' these values would be set if I happened to follow the memory items without thinking.
So then what? What about high terrain and MSA?
Why is there no initial thrust and pitch setting for take off?
My personal game plan would be to keep the take off thrust and an initial pitch somewhere 14-16 degrees up until MSA or in case of VMC to an altitude where I'm absolutely sure that there will be no terrain threat, then set the 80% 10 deg.
Can anybody here show me what am I missing? Is there any of you here, who would consider setting that pitch and power right after take off? Is there even any data about the actual climb rate at MTOW for that setting?
Nobody seems to be disturbed about the fact that the Unreliable Airspeed memory items include two performance settings only, and none of those are suitable for an initial climb after take off.
80% 10 degress pitch is the one with flaps extended and gear up. Starting actions at 400 AGL would mean that somewhere around 1000' these values would be set if I happened to follow the memory items without thinking.
So then what? What about high terrain and MSA?
Why is there no initial thrust and pitch setting for take off?
My personal game plan would be to keep the take off thrust and an initial pitch somewhere 14-16 degrees up until MSA or in case of VMC to an altitude where I'm absolutely sure that there will be no terrain threat, then set the 80% 10 deg.
Can anybody here show me what am I missing? Is there any of you here, who would consider setting that pitch and power right after take off? Is there even any data about the actual climb rate at MTOW for that setting?
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Seattle Times article
https://www.seattletimes.com/busines...uding-737-max/
Engineers say Boeing pushed to limit safety testing in race to certify planes, including 737 MAX
May 5, 2019 at 6:00 am
By Dominic Gates and Mike Baker
Seattle Times staff reporters
In 2016, as Boeing raced to get the 737 MAX certified by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), a senior company engineer whose job was to act on behalf of the FAA balked at Boeing management demands for less stringent testing of the fire-suppression system around the jet’s new LEAP engines.
That June he convened a meeting of all the certification engineers in his unit, who collectively agreed with his assessment. Management initially rejected their position, and only after another senior engineer from outside the MAX program intervened did managers finally agree to beef up the testing to a level the engineer could accept, according to two people familiar with the matter.
But his insistence on a higher level of safety scrutiny cost Boeing time and money.
Less than a month after his peers had backed him, Boeing abruptly removed him from the program even before conducting the testing he’d advocated.
The episode underscores what The Seattle Times found after a review of documents and interviews with more than a dozen current and former Boeing engineers who have been involved in airplane certification in recent years, including on the 737 MAX: Many engineers, employed by Boeing while officially designated to be the FAA’s eyes and ears, faced heavy pressure from Boeing managers to limit safety analysis and testing so the company could meet its schedule and keep down costs.
That pressure increased when the FAA stopped dealing directly with those designated employees — called “Authorized Representatives” or ARs — and let Boeing managers determine what was presented to the regulatory agency.
“The ARs have nobody supporting them. Nobody has their backs,” said one former Authorized Representative who worked on the 737 MAX and who provided details of the engineer’s removal from the program. “The system is absolutely broken.”
FAA-designated oversight engineers are supposed to enjoy protection from management pressure. Removing one who proves a stickler for safety regulations will inevitably produce a chilling effect on others who see the consequences of being too rigid about safety concerns, said John Goglia, former member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
“It negates the whole system,” said Goglia. “The FAA should have come down on that really hard.”
Following two deadly 737 MAX crashes off the coast of Indonesia and in Ethiopia that killed 346 people, and the subsequent grounding of the airplane worldwide, the certification of the jet has come under intense scrutiny, including a slew of lawsuits, congressional hearings and a criminal investigation.
None of the people interviewed were involved in certifying the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, the flight-control software implicated in the two crashes. But one area of scrutiny is sure to be the delegated system under which Boeing employees, paid by the company but acting as FAA designees, did the detailed certification work. It may slow down plans by the FAA and Boeing for a future certification regimen that would further erode the FAA’s oversight.
Boeing, in a statement responding to Seattle Times questions, said that FAA procedures, including regular, FAA-mandated training, “ensure Boeing employees serving in this capacity act independently on behalf of the FAA.”
It added that “there are processes in place to carefully evaluate any concerns regarding the AR’s ability to act independently.” The company declined to comment on individual cases cited in this story.
Yet as the FAA has increasingly delegated certification tasks to Boeing itself, it’s also made changes to the reporting structure that leave its designees to fend for themselves inside the company.
While a few former employees involved in certifications said they handled the pressure as a regular part of the job, others described the work environment as hostile, focused on achieving FAA approval within schedule and cost targets. Some of those workers spoke on condition of anonymity to protect professional relationships or for fear of retribution.
This echoes the findings of a Seattle Times investigation in March of what happened on the FAA side of the MAX certification. Within the FAA, its safety engineers worked under constant pressure from their managers to delegate more and more work to Boeing itself, and to speedily approve the safety assessments the Boeing designees came up with.
On the Boeing side of that process, the removal of the senior engineer acting as an FAA Authorized Rep was an extreme example that highlights the broader negative impact of two changes: The FAA no longer appoints its own ARs, instead leaving that to Boeing. And these designees now rarely interact with the FAA directly, according to former Boeing ARs interviewed by The Times.
They said these changes have stripped them of protection and given managers more opportunity to push for shortcuts.
In a statement, the FAA said it oversees the Boeing certification system “to ensure procedures are followed.” The agency also said it has “received no whistleblower complaints or any other reports … alleging pressure to speed up 737 MAX certification.”
Boeing managers are supposed to undergo “undue pressure” training to ensure that they aren’t crossing boundaries with the FAA’s representatives. And some ARs said that, despite some tensions, their managers were respectful of the role.
Fred Stong, an AR who worked on electrical systems at Boeing, said his experience was that everyone works through differences to reach common ground. He said he was always assertive in his role and didn’t face any problems.
“At no time in my career would anybody dare to pressure me,” Stong said.
Yet the former AR on the MAX said managers overseeing that jet’s certification were “extremely aggressive” about anything that affected the program cost or schedule.
“Managers were pounding on the ARs to get what the company needs in terms of reduced testing,” he said. “If it costs the company time and money, they’d pound on you to change the test design.”
The radical shift from DERs to ARs
Before 2004, those Boeing technical employees who worked safety on behalf of the FAA were called “Designated Engineering Representatives,” or DERs. Though paid by Boeing, they were appointed by the FAA and reported directly to their technical counterparts at the FAA.
What changed since 2004 is that safety engineers, now called Authorized Representatives, are appointed by and report to Boeing managers.
The opaque bureaucratic name for this new structure — Organization Designation Authorization (ODA) — masks the significant change: Instead of having individual Boeing employees authorized as FAA reps, Boeing now has an entire organization within the company so authorized. The individual FAA Authorized Reps — Boeing engineers — report up the chain to their Boeing managers, not the FAA.
A veteran aviation-safety engineer who over the decades worked for long stints as a DER at Boeing and later as a Boeing AR on a variety of projects including the MAX, said there’s “nothing inherently wrong” with the FAA delegating safety certification — provided it retains oversight.
This consultant asked for anonymity to protect his current livelihood doing certification work for multiple aviation companies.
Working as a DER with smaller aviation companies that don’t have an ODA designation, it’s his job to ensure their products comply with all safety regulations. On those projects, he can consult directly with FAA technical people if any problem arises or if he needs advice on what exactly may be required to demonstrate compliance.
“If I need guidance, I call my FAA adviser,” he said. “I’m overseen directly by the FAA. And every year there is a pretty robust audit of my activity before the FAA will delegate me for the following year.”
His experience working as an AR at Boeing and other companies was quite different.
“Under ODA, the FAA no longer manages the people making the compliance findings,” he said. “They never even talk to them.”
And because Boeing appoints the representatives, he said, accountability is severely curtailed. “If the company is happy with their decisions, obviously, they’ll be kept in their jobs.”
Under the old system, “we knew we’d lose our livelihood if we didn’t maintain the integrity of making decisions the way the FAA would do it,” the consultant said. “That check is no longer there.”
The FAA, contradicting the accounts of the former Authorized Representatives interviewed, said that ARs “have frequent interaction and access to FAA personnel to communicate concerns directly.”
However, a copy of one version of the Boeing ODA manual, an internal document labeled proprietary but obtained by The Times, told ARs with concerns about their workload or pressure from managers to first report them to the AR administrator, who is a higher level Boeing manager.
The manual also states that AR performance will be judged in part by whether they are “completing their duties in a timely and cooperative manner.”
It’s a Boeing manager who determines if an individual representative’s performance is sufficiently cooperative, as evidenced by the experience of Mike Levenson, who has worked as an FAA representative at several companies and served in an AR role at Boeing for five years until 2013.
He said that while there’s always a pressure on FAA representatives in an aviation world full of deadlines and cost considerations, most industry managers are able to find a balance to ensure the ARs have independence. He said he didn’t find that to be the case at Boeing.
Levenson worked on certifying aircraft repairs at Boeing and said he certified more than 500 in his time there, though he did not work on the MAX. On three occasions, he declined to certify repairs. The first two times, Levenson said, he got called into a supervisor’s office.
On the third occasion, in June 2013, a proposed repair clearly did not meet all FAA requirements, he said. After he declined to approve it, Levenson said, his manager “told me to go back and find compliance or my contract would not be extended.”
Levenson agreed to do additional work and consulted with other colleagues but still couldn’t certify the repair’s compliance.
“When I reported this to my manager, I was told this was unacceptable and was summarily dismissed the following day,” Levenson said.
The FAA said it has no record of Levenson filing a complaint. Levenson said he talked to the agency but didn’t file anything formally.
MAX inherits 737 legacy issues
The removal from the MAX program of the FAA’s Authorized Rep who insisted upon stricter engine fire-suppression testing is briefly summarized in a February 2017 report obtained by The Seattle Times. The report does not name the engineer, and the two people who described what happened spoke on condition that he not be named.
In the report, prepared by the three unions that represent FAA technical staff, the incident was listed among a long series of problematic decisions made under the current system of delegating FAA certification and oversight to Boeing.
The engineer removed from the program had more than two decades of experience at Boeing doing certification work on behalf of the FAA. Managers transferred him to Boeing’s “Central Engineering” unit, with no particular job description, and appointed as his replacement on the MAX team an engineer with relatively little experience in certification.
Four additional concerns specific to the 737 MAX were listed in the 2017 report. All were related to certification of legacy systems inherited from the earliest 737 models that were found by FAA technical staff to be noncompliant with the latest safety regulations.
These involved a lack of redundancy in the rudder cables; a too-high surface temperature allowed in the fuel tank; insufficient fireproofing around the plane’s auxiliary power unit in the tail; and using high-power wiring to connect to a switch inside the fuel tank.
All these issues were flagged by safety engineers working at the FAA as requiring fixes before the MAX could be certified.
The MAX won certification anyway after managers on the Boeing side of certification insisted that these were non-issues and managers on the FAA side agreed to let it move ahead with these shortcomings unaddressed.
All were waved through by the Boeing ODA and signed off by FAA management, according to the union report.
The FAA, in its statement to The Times, said it ordered the findings to be investigated at the time but said it wouldn’t address the specific items “because of the ongoing investigations into the aircraft’s certification.”
A better oversight structure
When Acting FAA Administrator Dan Elwell appeared before the U.S. Senate subcommittee on aviation in March, he was asked if the FAA could pull the oversight of air safety back in-house instead of delegating it to Boeing and other manufacturers.
“It would require roughly 10,000 more employees and another $1.8 billion for our certification office,” Elwell told the senators.
But that’s assuming the FAA would end delegation of oversight completely and take back all the certification work for a new airplane. That’s impractical, not only for the lack of resources, but also because all the leading-edge technological expertise needed is concentrated inside Boeing and its suppliers.
Many of the FAA’s safety engineers formerly worked for Boeing. But when they leave industry to work for the government, after a few years they inevitably lose touch with the latest innovations.
As the former NTSB member Goglia puts it: “You can’t stay on the pointy end of the arrow and work for the government.”
The former Boeing Authorized Rep who described the current system as “broken” agrees.
“It’s impossible for someone sitting at a desk at the FAA to keep up with the technology,” he said. “Once you step out, it will bypass you really fast.”
Still, he said, there’s no need to contemplate a wholesale removal of delegation from industry. Instead, he said, what’s needed is to have the same Boeing engineers continue to do the safety evaluations, but to have them chosen by and reporting to the FAA — in other words, to revert to the old DER structure of oversight.
The former AR said that worked well because the FAA “was able to see into the design process from the beginning and have direct input as it was developed.”
“I’m not asking for the FAA to add 10,000 engineers,” he said. “Keep the same ARs as today. Just change who they report to, who is overseeing them. That doesn’t mean transferring the work to the FAA.”
John Cox, chief executive of Safety Operating Systems and formerly the top safety official for the Air Line Pilots Association, said that following the accidents and questions raised about how the errant flight control system on the MAX was certified, “there probably needs to be a review of the ODA system.”
“The (older) DER approach worked extremely effectively,” Cox said. “If engineers are working on behalf of the FAA, they should have a direct technical liaison with the FAA.”
And Goglia, the former NTSB member, said the AR system, with these engineers appointed by and reporting to Boeing, may need to be adjusted.
“I like the older system better than Boeing, or any manufacturer, having that kind of control,” Goglia said.
Moving toward complete self-certification
Yet before the MAX crashes, the FAA was heading in exactly the opposite direction: toward more delegation of oversight, with FAA participation reduced to a bare minimum.
A 2012 report to the FAA by a committee co-chaired by a Boeing representative and the FAA’s top aviation safety official, Ali Bahrami, recommended increased delegation of oversight to industry, working toward a “future state” beyond ODA with another deliberately obscure bureaucratic name: Certified Design Organization, or CDO.
If Boeing were to achieve CDO status, its employees could certify their own designs. Employees doing the certification work would not be designees technically working on behalf of the FAA, just Boeing engineers working for Boeing.
This would be true self-certification, but has not yet been implemented.
Levenson said such a shift would increase safety risks for the industry.
“It’s a horrible idea,” Levenson said. “There’s not enough oversight as it is now. That would remove almost all oversight.”
The former AR on the MAX who provided details of the engineer’s removal said he spoke to The Seattle Times because he hopes for action to reverse the industry’s direction.
He said the two crashes that claimed so many lives in Indonesia and Ethiopia starkly emphasize the need to force the FAA to go back to a DER-style structure, where those working at Boeing on behalf of the FAA are directly overseen by agency technical experts.
“Unfortunately, in our industry, the pendulum swings when people die,” he said. “Let those people’s deaths mean something.”
Seattle Times researcher Miyoko Wolf contributed to this story.
Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or [email protected]; on Twitter: @dominicgates.
Mike Baker: 206-464-2729 or [email protected]; on Twitter: @ByMikeBaker.
May 5, 2019 at 6:00 am
By Dominic Gates and Mike Baker
Seattle Times staff reporters
In 2016, as Boeing raced to get the 737 MAX certified by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), a senior company engineer whose job was to act on behalf of the FAA balked at Boeing management demands for less stringent testing of the fire-suppression system around the jet’s new LEAP engines.
That June he convened a meeting of all the certification engineers in his unit, who collectively agreed with his assessment. Management initially rejected their position, and only after another senior engineer from outside the MAX program intervened did managers finally agree to beef up the testing to a level the engineer could accept, according to two people familiar with the matter.
But his insistence on a higher level of safety scrutiny cost Boeing time and money.
Less than a month after his peers had backed him, Boeing abruptly removed him from the program even before conducting the testing he’d advocated.
The episode underscores what The Seattle Times found after a review of documents and interviews with more than a dozen current and former Boeing engineers who have been involved in airplane certification in recent years, including on the 737 MAX: Many engineers, employed by Boeing while officially designated to be the FAA’s eyes and ears, faced heavy pressure from Boeing managers to limit safety analysis and testing so the company could meet its schedule and keep down costs.
That pressure increased when the FAA stopped dealing directly with those designated employees — called “Authorized Representatives” or ARs — and let Boeing managers determine what was presented to the regulatory agency.
“The ARs have nobody supporting them. Nobody has their backs,” said one former Authorized Representative who worked on the 737 MAX and who provided details of the engineer’s removal from the program. “The system is absolutely broken.”
FAA-designated oversight engineers are supposed to enjoy protection from management pressure. Removing one who proves a stickler for safety regulations will inevitably produce a chilling effect on others who see the consequences of being too rigid about safety concerns, said John Goglia, former member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
“It negates the whole system,” said Goglia. “The FAA should have come down on that really hard.”
Following two deadly 737 MAX crashes off the coast of Indonesia and in Ethiopia that killed 346 people, and the subsequent grounding of the airplane worldwide, the certification of the jet has come under intense scrutiny, including a slew of lawsuits, congressional hearings and a criminal investigation.
None of the people interviewed were involved in certifying the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, the flight-control software implicated in the two crashes. But one area of scrutiny is sure to be the delegated system under which Boeing employees, paid by the company but acting as FAA designees, did the detailed certification work. It may slow down plans by the FAA and Boeing for a future certification regimen that would further erode the FAA’s oversight.
Boeing, in a statement responding to Seattle Times questions, said that FAA procedures, including regular, FAA-mandated training, “ensure Boeing employees serving in this capacity act independently on behalf of the FAA.”
It added that “there are processes in place to carefully evaluate any concerns regarding the AR’s ability to act independently.” The company declined to comment on individual cases cited in this story.
Yet as the FAA has increasingly delegated certification tasks to Boeing itself, it’s also made changes to the reporting structure that leave its designees to fend for themselves inside the company.
While a few former employees involved in certifications said they handled the pressure as a regular part of the job, others described the work environment as hostile, focused on achieving FAA approval within schedule and cost targets. Some of those workers spoke on condition of anonymity to protect professional relationships or for fear of retribution.
This echoes the findings of a Seattle Times investigation in March of what happened on the FAA side of the MAX certification. Within the FAA, its safety engineers worked under constant pressure from their managers to delegate more and more work to Boeing itself, and to speedily approve the safety assessments the Boeing designees came up with.
On the Boeing side of that process, the removal of the senior engineer acting as an FAA Authorized Rep was an extreme example that highlights the broader negative impact of two changes: The FAA no longer appoints its own ARs, instead leaving that to Boeing. And these designees now rarely interact with the FAA directly, according to former Boeing ARs interviewed by The Times.
They said these changes have stripped them of protection and given managers more opportunity to push for shortcuts.
In a statement, the FAA said it oversees the Boeing certification system “to ensure procedures are followed.” The agency also said it has “received no whistleblower complaints or any other reports … alleging pressure to speed up 737 MAX certification.”
Boeing managers are supposed to undergo “undue pressure” training to ensure that they aren’t crossing boundaries with the FAA’s representatives. And some ARs said that, despite some tensions, their managers were respectful of the role.
Fred Stong, an AR who worked on electrical systems at Boeing, said his experience was that everyone works through differences to reach common ground. He said he was always assertive in his role and didn’t face any problems.
“At no time in my career would anybody dare to pressure me,” Stong said.
Yet the former AR on the MAX said managers overseeing that jet’s certification were “extremely aggressive” about anything that affected the program cost or schedule.
“Managers were pounding on the ARs to get what the company needs in terms of reduced testing,” he said. “If it costs the company time and money, they’d pound on you to change the test design.”
The radical shift from DERs to ARs
Before 2004, those Boeing technical employees who worked safety on behalf of the FAA were called “Designated Engineering Representatives,” or DERs. Though paid by Boeing, they were appointed by the FAA and reported directly to their technical counterparts at the FAA.
What changed since 2004 is that safety engineers, now called Authorized Representatives, are appointed by and report to Boeing managers.
The opaque bureaucratic name for this new structure — Organization Designation Authorization (ODA) — masks the significant change: Instead of having individual Boeing employees authorized as FAA reps, Boeing now has an entire organization within the company so authorized. The individual FAA Authorized Reps — Boeing engineers — report up the chain to their Boeing managers, not the FAA.
A veteran aviation-safety engineer who over the decades worked for long stints as a DER at Boeing and later as a Boeing AR on a variety of projects including the MAX, said there’s “nothing inherently wrong” with the FAA delegating safety certification — provided it retains oversight.
This consultant asked for anonymity to protect his current livelihood doing certification work for multiple aviation companies.
Working as a DER with smaller aviation companies that don’t have an ODA designation, it’s his job to ensure their products comply with all safety regulations. On those projects, he can consult directly with FAA technical people if any problem arises or if he needs advice on what exactly may be required to demonstrate compliance.
“If I need guidance, I call my FAA adviser,” he said. “I’m overseen directly by the FAA. And every year there is a pretty robust audit of my activity before the FAA will delegate me for the following year.”
His experience working as an AR at Boeing and other companies was quite different.
“Under ODA, the FAA no longer manages the people making the compliance findings,” he said. “They never even talk to them.”
And because Boeing appoints the representatives, he said, accountability is severely curtailed. “If the company is happy with their decisions, obviously, they’ll be kept in their jobs.”
Under the old system, “we knew we’d lose our livelihood if we didn’t maintain the integrity of making decisions the way the FAA would do it,” the consultant said. “That check is no longer there.”
The FAA, contradicting the accounts of the former Authorized Representatives interviewed, said that ARs “have frequent interaction and access to FAA personnel to communicate concerns directly.”
However, a copy of one version of the Boeing ODA manual, an internal document labeled proprietary but obtained by The Times, told ARs with concerns about their workload or pressure from managers to first report them to the AR administrator, who is a higher level Boeing manager.
The manual also states that AR performance will be judged in part by whether they are “completing their duties in a timely and cooperative manner.”
It’s a Boeing manager who determines if an individual representative’s performance is sufficiently cooperative, as evidenced by the experience of Mike Levenson, who has worked as an FAA representative at several companies and served in an AR role at Boeing for five years until 2013.
He said that while there’s always a pressure on FAA representatives in an aviation world full of deadlines and cost considerations, most industry managers are able to find a balance to ensure the ARs have independence. He said he didn’t find that to be the case at Boeing.
Levenson worked on certifying aircraft repairs at Boeing and said he certified more than 500 in his time there, though he did not work on the MAX. On three occasions, he declined to certify repairs. The first two times, Levenson said, he got called into a supervisor’s office.
On the third occasion, in June 2013, a proposed repair clearly did not meet all FAA requirements, he said. After he declined to approve it, Levenson said, his manager “told me to go back and find compliance or my contract would not be extended.”
Levenson agreed to do additional work and consulted with other colleagues but still couldn’t certify the repair’s compliance.
“When I reported this to my manager, I was told this was unacceptable and was summarily dismissed the following day,” Levenson said.
The FAA said it has no record of Levenson filing a complaint. Levenson said he talked to the agency but didn’t file anything formally.
MAX inherits 737 legacy issues
The removal from the MAX program of the FAA’s Authorized Rep who insisted upon stricter engine fire-suppression testing is briefly summarized in a February 2017 report obtained by The Seattle Times. The report does not name the engineer, and the two people who described what happened spoke on condition that he not be named.
In the report, prepared by the three unions that represent FAA technical staff, the incident was listed among a long series of problematic decisions made under the current system of delegating FAA certification and oversight to Boeing.
The engineer removed from the program had more than two decades of experience at Boeing doing certification work on behalf of the FAA. Managers transferred him to Boeing’s “Central Engineering” unit, with no particular job description, and appointed as his replacement on the MAX team an engineer with relatively little experience in certification.
Four additional concerns specific to the 737 MAX were listed in the 2017 report. All were related to certification of legacy systems inherited from the earliest 737 models that were found by FAA technical staff to be noncompliant with the latest safety regulations.
These involved a lack of redundancy in the rudder cables; a too-high surface temperature allowed in the fuel tank; insufficient fireproofing around the plane’s auxiliary power unit in the tail; and using high-power wiring to connect to a switch inside the fuel tank.
All these issues were flagged by safety engineers working at the FAA as requiring fixes before the MAX could be certified.
The MAX won certification anyway after managers on the Boeing side of certification insisted that these were non-issues and managers on the FAA side agreed to let it move ahead with these shortcomings unaddressed.
All were waved through by the Boeing ODA and signed off by FAA management, according to the union report.
The FAA, in its statement to The Times, said it ordered the findings to be investigated at the time but said it wouldn’t address the specific items “because of the ongoing investigations into the aircraft’s certification.”
A better oversight structure
When Acting FAA Administrator Dan Elwell appeared before the U.S. Senate subcommittee on aviation in March, he was asked if the FAA could pull the oversight of air safety back in-house instead of delegating it to Boeing and other manufacturers.
“It would require roughly 10,000 more employees and another $1.8 billion for our certification office,” Elwell told the senators.
But that’s assuming the FAA would end delegation of oversight completely and take back all the certification work for a new airplane. That’s impractical, not only for the lack of resources, but also because all the leading-edge technological expertise needed is concentrated inside Boeing and its suppliers.
Many of the FAA’s safety engineers formerly worked for Boeing. But when they leave industry to work for the government, after a few years they inevitably lose touch with the latest innovations.
As the former NTSB member Goglia puts it: “You can’t stay on the pointy end of the arrow and work for the government.”
The former Boeing Authorized Rep who described the current system as “broken” agrees.
“It’s impossible for someone sitting at a desk at the FAA to keep up with the technology,” he said. “Once you step out, it will bypass you really fast.”
Still, he said, there’s no need to contemplate a wholesale removal of delegation from industry. Instead, he said, what’s needed is to have the same Boeing engineers continue to do the safety evaluations, but to have them chosen by and reporting to the FAA — in other words, to revert to the old DER structure of oversight.
The former AR said that worked well because the FAA “was able to see into the design process from the beginning and have direct input as it was developed.”
“I’m not asking for the FAA to add 10,000 engineers,” he said. “Keep the same ARs as today. Just change who they report to, who is overseeing them. That doesn’t mean transferring the work to the FAA.”
John Cox, chief executive of Safety Operating Systems and formerly the top safety official for the Air Line Pilots Association, said that following the accidents and questions raised about how the errant flight control system on the MAX was certified, “there probably needs to be a review of the ODA system.”
“The (older) DER approach worked extremely effectively,” Cox said. “If engineers are working on behalf of the FAA, they should have a direct technical liaison with the FAA.”
And Goglia, the former NTSB member, said the AR system, with these engineers appointed by and reporting to Boeing, may need to be adjusted.
“I like the older system better than Boeing, or any manufacturer, having that kind of control,” Goglia said.
Moving toward complete self-certification
Yet before the MAX crashes, the FAA was heading in exactly the opposite direction: toward more delegation of oversight, with FAA participation reduced to a bare minimum.
A 2012 report to the FAA by a committee co-chaired by a Boeing representative and the FAA’s top aviation safety official, Ali Bahrami, recommended increased delegation of oversight to industry, working toward a “future state” beyond ODA with another deliberately obscure bureaucratic name: Certified Design Organization, or CDO.
If Boeing were to achieve CDO status, its employees could certify their own designs. Employees doing the certification work would not be designees technically working on behalf of the FAA, just Boeing engineers working for Boeing.
This would be true self-certification, but has not yet been implemented.
Levenson said such a shift would increase safety risks for the industry.
“It’s a horrible idea,” Levenson said. “There’s not enough oversight as it is now. That would remove almost all oversight.”
The former AR on the MAX who provided details of the engineer’s removal said he spoke to The Seattle Times because he hopes for action to reverse the industry’s direction.
He said the two crashes that claimed so many lives in Indonesia and Ethiopia starkly emphasize the need to force the FAA to go back to a DER-style structure, where those working at Boeing on behalf of the FAA are directly overseen by agency technical experts.
“Unfortunately, in our industry, the pendulum swings when people die,” he said. “Let those people’s deaths mean something.”
Seattle Times researcher Miyoko Wolf contributed to this story.
Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or [email protected]; on Twitter: @dominicgates.
Mike Baker: 206-464-2729 or [email protected]; on Twitter: @ByMikeBaker.
Fit hitting shan on Boeing MAX certification and safety testing
From seattle times today 5 may-- article goes into great detail
https://www.seattletimes.com/author/dominic-gates/
From seattle times today 5 may-- article goes into great detail
https://www.seattletimes.com/author/dominic-gates/
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Excuse me if this was already mentioned before, but I have to ask:
Nobody seems to be disturbed about the fact that the Unreliable Airspeed memory items include two performance settings only, and none of those are suitable for an initial climb after take off.
80% 10 degress pitch is the one with flaps extended and gear up. Starting actions at 400 AGL would mean that somewhere around 1000' these values would be set if I happened to follow the memory items without thinking.
So then what? What about high terrain and MSA?
Why is there no initial thrust and pitch setting for take off?
My personal game plan would be to keep the take off thrust and an initial pitch somewhere 14-16 degrees up until MSA or in case of VMC to an altitude where I'm absolutely sure that there will be no terrain threat, then set the 80% 10 deg.
Can anybody here show me what am I missing? Is there any of you here, who would consider setting that pitch and power right after take off? Is there even any data about the actual climb rate at MTOW for that setting?
Nobody seems to be disturbed about the fact that the Unreliable Airspeed memory items include two performance settings only, and none of those are suitable for an initial climb after take off.
80% 10 degress pitch is the one with flaps extended and gear up. Starting actions at 400 AGL would mean that somewhere around 1000' these values would be set if I happened to follow the memory items without thinking.
So then what? What about high terrain and MSA?
Why is there no initial thrust and pitch setting for take off?
My personal game plan would be to keep the take off thrust and an initial pitch somewhere 14-16 degrees up until MSA or in case of VMC to an altitude where I'm absolutely sure that there will be no terrain threat, then set the 80% 10 deg.
Can anybody here show me what am I missing? Is there any of you here, who would consider setting that pitch and power right after take off? Is there even any data about the actual climb rate at MTOW for that setting?
Like everything else, common sense and airmanship. Boeing (or Airbus, etc) can’t write a procedure for every possible circumstance (weight, altitude, temperature, terrain) so if one or more of those items precludes you from setting 10 degrees/80% then stick with take-off power/15 degrees or so until you are clear of any threats then go to the recommended values.
Perhaps I have not been clear enough on this point. My participation here has very little to do with the last accident. It has everything to do with the next accident.
It is highly unlikely that the next major aircraft accident will be due to MCAS or even anything related to the MAX. It is reasonably probable that the next hull loss will have a flight crew related cause, and high on the list of potential causes is that someone forgot to FLY THE AIRCRAFT. Plain and simple.
Until we take this seriously enough to actually do something about it, we are just going to be back here someday discussing some other unlucky pilot who got caught at a time he didn't expect with a problem he didn't expect and who somehow forgot to FLY THE AIRCRAFT first, last, and always.
It is highly unlikely that the next major aircraft accident will be due to MCAS or even anything related to the MAX. It is reasonably probable that the next hull loss will have a flight crew related cause, and high on the list of potential causes is that someone forgot to FLY THE AIRCRAFT. Plain and simple.
Until we take this seriously enough to actually do something about it, we are just going to be back here someday discussing some other unlucky pilot who got caught at a time he didn't expect with a problem he didn't expect and who somehow forgot to FLY THE AIRCRAFT first, last, and always.
Text version: https://www.9news.com.au/national/60...6-a0c47ddfe293
Edit: Skim read. Nothing new IMO.
Edit: Skim read. Nothing new IMO.
It’s just taken 5 months and another 157 lives for the mainstream media to finally join the dots.
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What??
From the Seattle Times Article:
"Four additional concerns specific to the 737 MAX were listed in the 2017 report. All were related to certification of legacy systems inherited from the earliest 737 models that were found by FAA technical staff to be noncompliant with the latest safety regulations.
These involved a lack of redundancy in the rudder cables; a too-high surface temperature allowed in the fuel tank; insufficient fireproofing around the plane’s auxiliary power unit in the tail; and using high-power wiring to connect to a switch inside the fuel tank.
All these issues were flagged by safety engineers working at the FAA as requiring fixes before the MAX could be certified.
The MAX won certification anyway after managers on the Boeing side of certification insisted that these were non-issues and managers on the FAA side agreed to let it move ahead with these shortcomings unaddressed."
I'm sorry, I'm trying to pick my jaw up off the floor. The 737 has no redundancy in it's rudder control system?? I've had a rudder cable failure- trust me when I say it can end very badly!! Can any (ahem) 737 Driver confirm that this is in fact accurate, that there is either no or a lack of redundancy in the 737's rudder??
If that is true that is the most shocking thing I have read about aviation in a very long time- and that the airplane was granted its STC just three years ago makes this even more shocking.
If it is true.
Cheers-
dce
"Four additional concerns specific to the 737 MAX were listed in the 2017 report. All were related to certification of legacy systems inherited from the earliest 737 models that were found by FAA technical staff to be noncompliant with the latest safety regulations.
These involved a lack of redundancy in the rudder cables; a too-high surface temperature allowed in the fuel tank; insufficient fireproofing around the plane’s auxiliary power unit in the tail; and using high-power wiring to connect to a switch inside the fuel tank.
All these issues were flagged by safety engineers working at the FAA as requiring fixes before the MAX could be certified.
The MAX won certification anyway after managers on the Boeing side of certification insisted that these were non-issues and managers on the FAA side agreed to let it move ahead with these shortcomings unaddressed."
I'm sorry, I'm trying to pick my jaw up off the floor. The 737 has no redundancy in it's rudder control system?? I've had a rudder cable failure- trust me when I say it can end very badly!! Can any (ahem) 737 Driver confirm that this is in fact accurate, that there is either no or a lack of redundancy in the 737's rudder??
If that is true that is the most shocking thing I have read about aviation in a very long time- and that the airplane was granted its STC just three years ago makes this even more shocking.
If it is true.
Cheers-
dce
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I'm sorry, I'm trying to pick my jaw up off the floor. The 737 has no redundancy in it's rudder control system?? I've had a rudder cable failure- trust me when I say it can end very badly!! Can any (ahem) 737 Driver confirm that this is in fact accurate, that there is either no or a lack of redundancy in the 737's rudder??
If that is true that is the most shocking thing I have read about aviation in a very long time- and that the airplane was granted its STC just three years ago makes this even more shocking.
If it is true.
Cheers-
dce
If that is true that is the most shocking thing I have read about aviation in a very long time- and that the airplane was granted its STC just three years ago makes this even more shocking.
If it is true.
Cheers-
dce
The Rudder System Hope this helps.
EDIT: Oh! I just realized this info is from 1997, but I'd be shocked if they'd since re-designed this to operate by cable and with no redundancies.
Last edited by Organfreak; 5th May 2019 at 23:41.