MAX’s Return Delayed by FAA Reevaluation of 737 Safety Procedures

[WHBM]

The FAA is reassessing some of its key assumptions. The agency said certification procedures are “well-established and have consistently produced safe aircraft designs,” but it is rethinking reliance on average U.S. pilot reaction times as a design benchmark for planes that are sold in parts of the world with different experience levels and training standards

The other consideration here is that if design benchmarks are based on the "average U.S. pilot", 50% of those U.S. pilots will fall below this.

[FlightlessParrot]

Originally Posted by WHBM

The other consideration here is that if design benchmarks are based on the "average U.S. pilot", 50% of those U.S. pilots will fall below this.

Which is why certification should be indexed to the minimum acceptable pilot performance for licencing.

[Bend alot]

Yes Boeing and the FAA still seem intent on passing the can.

Then this will be a very long grounding - it is clear both have faults, the first stage of rectification is admitting them.

Neither FAA or Boeing has done that to date, nor seems they intend to do so.

[krismiler]

After the Asiana crash at San Francisco, the FAA banned foreign Pilots from making visual approaches at that airport. The precedent is in place for blaming any screw up on the fact that the pilot involved is licensed by a different authority and not by the FAA.

[Tomaski]

As I've said before, despite changes along the way the 737 is rooted in a 50-year old design. Baked into that design are some assumptions regarding pilot training, experience and proficiency that are probably no longer valid. Boeing, the FAA, and the airlines all tried to pretend that this wasn't the case as they evolved training according to very mechanical and procedure heavy philosophy and found creative ways to put lower experience pilots in the cockpit. It worked fine until it didn't.

[Bend alot]

Maybe all MAX sim and flight tests should be done with USA 737 co- pilots with less than 1700/1900 TT hours, but only a few hundred on a 737 NG type.

Not test pilots.

Results would be interesting.

[gardenshed]

This program about the 787 also doesn't paint Boeing in a good light either.
https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...23BrokenDreams

[OldnGrounded]

Originally Posted by krismiler

After the Asiana crash at San Francisco, the FAA banned foreign Pilots from making visual approaches at that airport. The precedent is in place for blaming any screw up on the fact that the pilot involved is licensed by a different authority and not by the FAA.

IIRC, it was an advisory (use GPS) and not an outright ban. And I believe it was temporary, while the glideslope indicator was not working.

[esscee]

Regarding the Asiana B777 at San Francisco, the report also stated that the Autopilot controls had too many options and the FAA called on Boeing to design simpler Flight Control Units in the future.

However back to this thread, Boeing has "got away with it" ever since the FAA allowed self inspection of assembly etc. With the FAA just turning up and going through their "checklist" to ensure all was in accordance with the Regs.The best way forward in order to try to prevent this happening again would be for the FAA to be properly funded and manned accordingly to do the proper job it is meant to be doing!

[etudiant]

Originally Posted by Tomaski

As I've said before, despite changes along the way the 737 is rooted in a 50-year old design. Baked into that design are some assumptions regarding pilot training, experience and proficiency that are probably no longer valid. Boeing, the FAA, and the airlines all tried to pretend that this wasn't the case as they evolved training according to very mechanical and procedure heavy philosophy and found creative ways to put lower experience pilots in the cockpit. It worked fine until it didn't.

Not convinced that a more experienced pilot would not have been equally overwhelmed by the vagaries of the MAX setup, with switches that no longer work the way they used to and an unknown control actuator inserting itself forcibly into the piloting space.

[Speed of Sound]

Originally Posted by esscee

The best way forward in order to try to prevent this happening again would be for the FAA to be properly funded and manned accordingly to do the proper job it is meant to be doing!

One thing that would help this is to ban federal employees from taking up paid employment with any company subject to FAA regulation. The number of senior FAA managers who now work for Boeing is frightening. If you are a couple of years from retirement and have a nice, well-paid job with an aircraft manufacturer lined up, are you really going to rock the boat?

This situation is now so bad that Congress really needs to investigate the whole wasps nest, including statutory protection for anyone giving sworn evidence.

[Dave Therhino]

There are already significant limits on post-employment work by government employees in 18 USC 207, and these limits are enforced. It's a misdemeanor to violate those restrictions, and a felony to do it willfully. Employees are trained on this statute every year, and prior to separating or retiring from employment they are specifically counseled about this by government ethics attorneys.

It's the industry people being hired directly into FAA leadership positions that concerns me more.

[73qanda]

Which is why certification should be indexed to the minimum acceptable pilot performance for licencing.

I agree. The best way of achieving that IMO is to return training standards to where they were before we started degrading the system with constant cuts to sim time and classroom time. It’s a rare occasion now days where a group of pilots receive high quality classroom training on topics such as UPRT, high altitude flight, runway performance, systems knowledge, meteorology etc etc.
in addition, where I am from, the sim time for type ratings and upgrades has been reduced over the last two decades and normal sim details have many more systems to cover in the same allocated time (PBN, OPT’s, etc)..
It is tempting for Airline Executives to make incremental savings year on year to training budgets but if none of them can fly, they can’t be expected to understand the cumulative effect in a trade they don’t understand.
Edited to say “Tomaski has it”

[GlobalNav]

Originally Posted by etudiant

Not convinced that a more experienced pilot would not have been equally overwhelmed by the vagaries of the MAX setup, with switches that no longer work the way they used to and an unknown control actuator inserting itself forcibly into the piloting space.

The FAA may not do things perfectly well, but they certainly DO NOT certify a system based on pilot task performance that half of the qualified pilot population cannot be expected to achieve. In any case, I suspect that well more than 50% of the American pilot population could not be counted on to have successfully handled the accident scenarios. And I don’t blame the pilots. The system just was not designed well enough.

[boofhead]

Here's a novel idea. I doubt it has been considered by too many people, including pilots on this forum:

If you experience low oil pressure you should follow the QRH procedures for low oil pressure. If you experience an engine failure at or after V1, you should follow the QRH procedures for engine failure after V1. If you experience a runway stab trim you should follow the QRH procedures for a runaway stab trim. And so on.

Pretty radical, isn't it?

Note that the MCAS failure presents itself as a runway stab trim so that would mean that, wait for it! You should follow the QRH procedures for runway stab trim! Amazing, yes?

[Bend alot]

Originally Posted by boofhead

Here's a novel idea. I doubt it has been considered by too many people, including pilots on this forum:

If you experience low oil pressure you should follow the QRH procedures for low oil pressure. If you experience an engine failure at or after V1, you should follow the QRH procedures for engine failure after V1. If you experience a runway stab trim you should follow the QRH procedures for a runaway stab trim. And so on.

Pretty radical, isn't it?

Note that the MCAS failure presents itself as a runway stab trim so that would mean that, wait for it! You should follow the QRH procedures for runway stab trim! Amazing, yes?

With a few other bells and whistles and pauses and speed.

Not I used the thumb trim stab switch and it continued to rotate after I took my thumb off.

If you recall the first event, the crew (3) entered the defect as Speed Trim operating in the wrong direction - Not a runaway trim.

Given the continued grounding and the work still being carried out on the "fix", it seems it does not present as simply a runaway trim but a little more confusing than that.

[Fly Aiprt]

Originally Posted by boofhead

Note that the MCAS failure presents itself as a runway stab trim so that would mean that, wait for it! You should follow the QRH procedures for runway stab trim! Amazing, yes?

If the said MCAS failure presented itself as a runaway stab trim, things would be as simple as you seem to imagine.
It's just that it's not the case...

[IcePack]

Many on here do not appreciate all the Warnings & associated noise a modern airliner can throw at you. The systems are not really designed for multiple failures. Trying to see a trim wheel stop starting whilst un-reliable airspeed with all the minor failures that are being caused by the primary cause takes great airmanship. Just demonstrating a MCAS failure on its own is imho irrelevant. Hopefully Boeing will take multiple failures into consideration when re-certifying the Max, but I will not be holding my breath.

[Peter H]

Originally Posted by IcePack

Hopefully Boeing will take multiple failures into consideration when re-certifying the Max, but I will not be holding my breath.

Me neither. But it does seem indefensible that the safety analysis of the inappropriately activation of a function (MCAS) should be able to ignore the presence of the
failure that triggered the activation (AoA vane).

[LowObservable]

Originally Posted by boofhead

Note that the MCAS failure presents itself as a runway stab trim so that would mean that, wait for it! You should follow the QRH procedures for runway stab trim! Amazing, yes?

Here's a really novel idea. Since no two-member crew has survived an MCAS failure, which doesn't look at all like a continuous-by-definition, unresponsive-to-yoke-switches runaway stab trim, let's stop uttering cheap snark at the expense of those who will never be able to defend themselves.