In addition to the victims of the two crashes and their loved ones and families, the other people who might suffer due to the bad decisions made by Boeing's executives are the rank-and-file workers in Boeing's Renton plant, who now face potential work shortages and possibly layoffs if this crisis deepens.
As for Boeing the company: I don't expect any truthful official statement from them, their legal department, aware of the potential billion dollar lawsuits to come, has undoubtedly issued a gag order by now.
Fundamentally, the question is: Did Boeing know of the potential danger of a wrong correction by MCAS due to, for example, faulty readings from the single sensor without backup? If not, why wasn't it considered, and if yes, why weren't the airlines and their pilots not informed of that danger? I don't see any scenario here in which Boeing will get away with this. They failed their customers, their employees, and most of all, the over 300 victims of the two crashes!
19
We used to say: 'If there's Artificial Intelligence there must be Artificial Stupidity as well.'
With the wide promotion of 'AI' as a panacea, I'm surprised that Boeing didn't market the 737 Max series as an AI solution to the vexing problems of keeping an airplane from hitting the ground a little too fast. But they seem to have incorporated their own brand of Artificial Stupidity into the Max series and succeeded in building airplanes that hit the ground at high velocity. I'm impressed.
Software and the people who design it are not omniscient but should not be omnipotent in any situation where life is at stake. This point has been lost in the rush to 'AI' the world - and is at the root of the loss of rational pilot control in the Lion and Ethiopian crashes. I can't imagine the anguish of the pilots fighting an insane airplane determined to kill them and their passengers - and losing.
Of course, there is really no Artificial Intelligence - but there is Machine Learning and it works well. Except when it comes to what we call 'corner cases.' Ask Uber, who ran their Science Fair project around Tempe until it killed someone any sane driver would have missed.
Now we have a Science Fair aircraft management system certified as airworthy by the manufacturer.
Lots of blame but not much responsibility here.
6
Wait for the black box reports. According to the NHTSA (Nat'l Highway Traffic Safety Administration) in 2016, just in the USA alone, 37,461 people died in car accidents. Average 102 people a day, and that's just the USA stats. Imagine what it is worldwide: if the USA represents 4.4% of the world's population, then multiply the 102 average by 22.7 to get a rough world figure of daily auto fatalities. That's 2315.4 people killed every day, roughly, in auto accidents around the world.
So why does Boeing get a rap for 300 killed over a five month period when in that same period about 300,000 died in auto accidents..and yet no car companies are getting any grief anywhere on any front pages? I guarantee if you pick any one auto manufacturer's vehicle type, you will find it was involved in more deaths in the same time period than the 737MAX.
And cars have no black boxes.
4
Perhaps it is time to view heavily automated hardware releases just like initial software releases (1.0, 2.0, 3.0, etc). Folks who purchase initial software releases, which have lots of new features, are beta users. Only after the initial bug fixes are in (1.1, 2.1, 3.1, etc) can the software be reasonably trusted.
Expect more of the same as AI becomes embedded in hardware.
Is it time for software developers to adhere to Asimov's three laws of robotics? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics)
So, the real question is whether MCAS is even needed? I believe the engineers have little faith that the pilots can properly manage their “sports-car” airliner. These disasters expose the limitations of so-called artificial intelligence, which is no so smart after all. What the press and the world needs to ask Boeing is this: how often did MCAS activate among the hundreds of thousands of successful 737 MAX flights? Could it be that since release the MCAS has activated exactly twice—to the demise of the craft and crew?
2
So the F.A.A. decided to let Boeing basically certify itself. Words escape me.
7
From today's WP article on this topic.
"...telling advisers that grounding planes would cause panic and could hurt the stock market,"
The stock market! Oh migod, almost forgot about that! Thanks for reminding us, Mr. President..
6
This is NOT a software problem. It's a design problem with the airplane.
Opinion piece appearing today (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/opinion/business-economics/boeing-737-max.html) says: "Because the 737 Max had been outfitted with larger new engines that could cause its nose to pitch dangerously skyward Boeing had added a Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or M.C.A.S., that would kick in and push the nose down if necessary.
Boeing implemented an engineering kludge instead of doing an appropriate redesign. This was done to cut costs. The result is a lot of deaths. I won't fly in an airplane outfitted with such a kludge.
5
Trump should announce the ban is a lewd joke. His 757 failed to get a timely FAA inspection during his 2016 campaign; that could have been the responsibility of his personal pilot, who he later wanted to head the FAA.
The Trump "administration"--a wannabe Third Reich crossed with the Keystone Kops.
3
I couldn’t find my earlier comment to append this to, but for anyone curious the software fix would look something like this:
// Could use #define for these 3 if memory size is an issue
unsigned long int error_threshold = [experimentally found value];
long int reasonable_change_positive = [some known value];
long int reasonable_change_negative = [other known value];
unsigned long int possible_fault = 0;
long int difference = 0;
long int current_sensor_value = 0;
long int previous_sensor_value = read_sensor();
while(condition) // control loop, will run a lot of times in 1 sec
{
current_sensor_value = read_sensor();
difference = previous_sensor_value - current_sensor_value;
if(difference > reasonable_change_positive)
{
possible_fault 1;
// reject value
}
else if(difference < reasonable_change_negative)
{
possible_fault 1;
// reject value
}
else // difference is usable
{
possible_fault = 0; // reset fault check
adjust_nose(difference); // autopilot control here
}
if(possible_fault > error_threshold)
{
// sensor’s probably busted
disable_autopilot_and_notify_humans();
break; // exit loop and go to permanent manual control
// could make condition evaluate to false instead of using break
}
previous_sensor_value = current_sensor_value;
}
Free of charge, though this should be improved: I don’t have enough space here to add calibration with sensor failure detection or bounds checks on the value returned from read_sensor(), but both are easy enough to add.
1
With Trump’s grounding, he may inadvertently have done something as significant as that other mid-crisis triangulating GOP tyrant...
Who freed some of the slaves, all of the time, as a crass weapon of war...
Of all the corruption that’s steadily engulfed the culture of US business, none more shameful or fatal than the willful institutional ignorance of our global-scale enterprises – as legal safe harbor...
Too many industries just don’t want to know if their products could be made – or tested to be – better or safer than what’s currently offered...
And when a gov’t agency aids and abets by saying we don’t know the cause – or correlating cause – of some fiasco for months or for ever, it’s downright embarrassing...
Do realize that if someone in a window seat on one of these flights were sending a selfie as the plane was going down, the reflection in their designer sunglasses of the chaos ensuing out on the wing might better and more quickly inform than do current black boxes...
PS
For clarity, until someone runs full simulations of both the aerodynamics and control systems of this plane – with models that can unequivocally reproduce the failure onset and safe recovery – this is fighting smoke with mirrors...
Here’s what “digital twin-based” simulation could do – if someone really wanted to know...
Make the engines and nacelles even bigger, till lift is disrupted – even in level flight – at some speed...
Then back off, and increase attack angle...
3
Boeing's management redefines "Amateur Night in Dixie".
Is it possible that the design of these planes is causing these crashes, and that no amount of software tweaking will fix what are fundamental flaws in the planes' design? Perhaps it's time for Boeing to go back to the drawing board on the Max. Oh wait, that would way more expensive (and highly detrimental to Boeing's bottom line) than trying to gin up some quick software fixes ...
5
This is another example of government outsourcing it's core regulatory responsibilities.
The certification process essentially privatizes government regulation -
Another example of the costs of anti-regulatory ideology, were government treats regulated industries as "clients".
This is FAR beyond the traditional academic notion of "regulatory capture": it's the fox designing, financing, building and monitoring the hen house.
3
While I agree the response to these crashes has been lacking, it is easy to forget just how safe air travel is today when compared to other modes of transportation. In 2008, there was a calculation that showed your odds of dying in a motor vehicle accident to be 1 in 98 for a lifetime, while air travel had odds that were 1 in 7,178 for a lifetime. So for all the outrage here, think about how much safer air travel is compared to driving and refocus a good chunk of your energy to demand safer cars, roads, and drivers. Or maybe just put down your phones and pay attention when you drive. That would have a much higher likelihood of extending your lifespan than getting mad at Boeing.
2
Very reminiscent of the De Havilland Comet fiasco of the early 1950's. In that case, it took three fatal accidents to ground the aircraft. The structural causes were eventually fixed, but that record and the subsequent introduction of the Boeing 707 pretty much finished the Comet. Meanwhile, Boeing has a deeper bench of aircraft models to fall back on, so they'll probably experience a better outcome than De Havilland.
3
I'm glad to see the reaction from everyday people. Perhaps it is because a lot of people are already nervous of flying, we can all relate. However, so much death and suffering goes unnoticed everyday, with words like casualty or collateral damage rendering human experience into cold statistics. I wonder, if every time we heard of someone's untimely passing we appreciated that what that meant is that their participation as a living being in our universe in this wonderful thing we call life was finished, in all likelihood for all of time, perhaps then we would finally be able to understand what is important and our financial and political decisions would reflect it.
1
these problems are clearly on Boeing. The fact that they didn't voluntarily ground their planes when their "fix" is not due until April is astonishing. People have died and Boeing executives should be tried for murder. They know what the problem is and have not yet fixed it and continue to fly and sell their planes.
2
Ironically, grounding the 737 MAX fleet will probably save Boeing money. Mr. Kjos of Norwegian Air has high hopes of sending Boeing the bill for their idled fleet. He should be reminded that Boeing didn't cause their aircraft to be idled; the regulators at the European Union did. Norwegian Air can't sue the regulators either. The decision to omit contingency plans in their own company, or to purchase insurance, is the fault of their own Management. In Norwegian Air's case, the Boeing Company will only be liable for repairing or replacing a problem in Norwegian Air's fleet.
According to the article: "“It’s quite obvious that we will not take the cost related to the new aircraft that we have to park temporarily,” said Bjorn Kjos, the chief executive of Norwegian Air, which had to take 18 of the planes out of service after an order from European regulators on Tuesday. “We will send this bill to those who produce this aircraft.”"
An Airline that makes these sorts of claims only demonstrates their own incompetence.
Jeff Wise, in todays' NY Times, writing that Boeing sold a plane with a fundamental aeronautical issue is dead on target
How it come to this : To keep up with newer Airbus 320, Boeing, to save money, chose not to develop a new airframe, but to "upgrade" the decades old 737 as the Max by substituting a larger engines (1.80 m diameter) for which the airframe was not designed for. (The more modern Airbus 320 was from the start designed to take larger engines) This required to extend the 737 landing gear by 20 cm , for sufficient ground clearance, and to mount the engines further ahead of the wings than what the airframe was designed for. The result was a plane with a built in aeronautical deficiency to pitch up unlike the previous 737
To correct this, Boeing added a software patch patch to correct for tendency to pitch up. Without fully informing the pilots. Because it wished to sell the plane as one that would be a continuous development of the 737 - never mind its different flight characteristic
The design should never have been certified. A passenger plane needs to have stable flight characteristics build in without any software patches.
11
Boeing has always been a huge part of our identity here in the Pacific Northwest. I've always thought that they were a good company. The people that work for them are well paid and unionized here. I recognize no corporation has clean hands but some are better than others.
But how disappointing that they've become a soulless bureaucracy who's only concern is the bottom line. I felt their reaction to the Lion Air tragedy was badly handled and when the Ethiopian airplane crashed I was certain they would get ahead of it in the very best way. How wrong I was.
They deserve way more than the huge financial hit they're going to take. As always corporations are people until crimes are committed.
1
Nothing is going to happen, all parties are at fault, the manufacturer, the operators, the regulator. Boeing, come worst simply re-badges the Max call it something else. The flying public has little to no choice but pray.
1
Things could be worse. Microsoft could be helping with the software update.
1
New management with the traditional philosophy is called for. The CEO and PR person who caused this should be fired. And the reputation restored by the coming record of mileage and service that this model Airliner will produce.
1
Comac is working overtime in propaganda mode today. That third world regulators were the first to jump indicates that money traded hands. Adults look for facts, Trumpites jump at the first accusation.
1
It's an ill-designed plane. Period. And they tried to fix the design flaw with software. And the cozy relationship with the FAA allowed them to slide that through. Shame on both, may your collective hubris cause you to never see another full nights sleep for this abject travesty of trust and well being. As I'm doubtful any real penalty will be laid, the Boeing CEO may leave his job but he will surely leave with a multi-million dollar package - more than what the families could ever hope to realize through a lawsuit.
1
No penalty will be enough unless every Boeing employee responsible is publicly named and shamed. As for the engineers, they can find jobs designing flimsy battery compartment covers for children's toys and cheap flashlights.
So, allow me to summarize:
They designed a clunky piece of hardware that requires software interference, because it is a stupidly designed fix to an old plane, and first they hid that from the actual pilots, and now they admit that the software might have a little bug or two to be worked out, and why do the pilots have to fight so hard to save their planes in the first place?
How was that ever a good idea?
Yeah, that's about it.
2
According to US pilots and experts, this aircraft is 'safe to fly'.
Except when its not:
Pilots don't compensate for built-in automatic 'corrections' that are wrong.
Pilots don't know how to over-ride auto-pilot.
Pilots panic when the plane noses down and try to gain too much altitude too quickly which further triggers the 'anti-stall' programming.
Circuit boards over-heat, malfunction.
2
Boeing will correct the design of the plane only if every potential member of the flying public refuses to get onboard.
2
My thoughts & prayers go out to all who perished in the recent Indonesian Air and Ethiopian Air flights.
Sad as this is, I am also very angry that Boeing did not immediately notify airlines around the world to ground jets fitted with this software after the first accident last October. And if Boeing wasn't going to do it themselves, the FAA certainly should have led the way and demanded the flights be curtailed here in the U.S. The rest of the world's flight authorities may have followed.
In case readers missed it, this February 3rd NYT article details the what flight crews aboard these ill-fated Boeing planes might have faced:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/03/world/asia/lion-air-plane-crash-pilots.html
I also have to wonder why a key point and/or headline of some articles seem to be about the well-being of Boeing's image and stock value and how it might affect their investors. Unfortunately it speaks loudly about what is truly valued.
1
Is it true that inquiry of the 737 Max 8 in relation to the Lion Air crash was delayed by the government shutdown?
NYTimes please find out. A well researched article is the fast track to a congressional investigation.
1
We’re at a watershed moment: Stanley Kubrik’s vision, in 2001: A Space Odysee, has been realized. A semi-autonomous digital system – like the HAL-9000 – had “perceptions” (compared incoming data against existing, pre-programmed models), made “decisions” (directed mechanisms to take actions), wrested control from human pilots, and caused human deaths.
Boeing’s planes don’t speak in the finely modulated baritone of HAL. But in one unfortunate sense we’re beyond Kubrick. Aboard the Discovery, only one astronaut was flung off into space, spinning and lifeless. The death toll in the 737 Max 8 crashes was 347x worse.
Who can we blame this time? The aviation industry is benign compared with the programmers of the HAL-9000, who had ulterior motives – ones that Dave only learned about too late, as he listened to HAL's sleepy-time “Daisy Bell.” Aircraft makers are keenly aware that their success -- their profits -- are tied to near-perfect safety, or at least the perception of it. They've given birth to digital offspring and, before they’re quite ready, put them in the driver’s seat. But, alas, they’re young and inexperieneced drivers, just teenagers, still learning, and sometimes they screw up bad. How can we be mad at our kids?
On the other hand, if I think my plane might go down because of a flukey digital assistant pilot, I’d prefer to drive -- get into my old fashioned, slow-moving, dangerous car, with my hands firmly on the wheel. I’m not ready to hand over the keys.
Boeing would have done better for itself by voluntarily grounding all its MAX planes as a precautionary measure to study any possible defect in the aircraft's software. By doing so it would have retained customer trust; in that it actually cared for the safety of its passengers and crew.
But that's not what people saw. People instead witnessed deny, deny, deny. Exactly the protectionist approach that has become exceedingly tiresome to the general public over a vast swath of business from Facebook to the White House and now to Boeing.
Without any available satellite data - for which Boeing was apparently waiting - the world saw two identical aircraft crash in identical portions of flight within months of each other. That alone should be enough to ground a specific type of aircraft. Such coincidences need to be investigated thoroughly immediately, and not put on hold for business reasons or for the spurious reason of waiting for more scientific data. That is absolutely without conscience and willfully ignores all fundamental common sense.
Without remedy, this will happen again. The 'when' it will happen is the question. That it didn't happen last week is only by chance. And chance is what the FAA and Boeing were betting on. They were betting on lives. How cheap they must think lives are. As someone recently said in these comments: "Even cattle have value."
It is that decision-making process that needs investigating and fixing every bit as much as this plane's software.
4
The 737 Max 8 air frame will always have the instability of a poor design no matter what software fix is implemented. The proper remedy is a modification of the air frame and if too costly then a new design and the air fame with the fault removed from service permanently. Costly but correct.
6
Does anyone doubt that it is possible for Boeing to redesign the main landing gear so the aircraft stands taller on the ground, allowing for the engines to be put in a safe place, obviating the need for a software fix?
Yes it would be very expensive but it could be done. Concorde had very tall landing gear and little space to stow it on take-off but a way was found.
Boeing has suffered serious reputational damage here and the long term loss of sales could easily be several hundred or more. A cheap work around will be seen for what it is.
2
@Michael Gover@boji3 I suspect that that fix would add a lot of weight and thus negate the whole purpose, fuel efficiency, of the new engines. They need a new airframe.
Based on the article by Jeff Wise today and some comments here, technology and artificial intelligence (AI) have taken over our lives to such an extent that we are becoming their servants instead of the other way around. Actually Trump was spot on with his tweet two days ago when he said airplanes have become so complicated few can fly them safely. Software engineers, working in airlines or in our personal computers, fall in love with their designs, make changes, confusing and stifling the rest of us, either putting us in danger or frustrating our lives for no reason, whatsoever. Change should be done for a reason; not simply because someone decides they wish to create something novel or innovative.
1
Why am I not hearing any questions about possible sabotage? Has everyone really forgotten Stuxnet? Think the bad actors have been sitting on their laurels all this time? Sabotage via software hacking is still not on the public's radar when it really should be.
2
What I’d like to know is how they thought it was ok to sell an airplane that could be brought down almost immediately after takeoff by the failure of a single sensor. If I was on the jury, they wouldn’t be getting a lot of sympathy from me.
4
@Douglas Evans The theory was that the pilots would turn off the auto-trim and fly the plane manually, but for some reason that's not happening.
1
With the new 737 MAX, Boeing decided to stretch the regular 737 to add more seats in the rear section. In doing so, it had to change the position of the engines as well, moving them more forward towards the nose, and thus the overall balance of the plane was significantly affected. Pilots apparently did not receive adequate notice or training to adapt to this new design, and passengers had no idea that the plane they were on was a new design. If only Boeing would have stuck to the original design, which has be tried and true for decades, these tragedies would never have happened. However, Boeing changed the design to add more capacity and increase profitability at the expense of overall safety.
3
@Maverick
Not quite.
They made bigger but more efficient engines that had to be moved forward on the wings to clear the ground properly. The stretched versions are the Max 9 and 10.
I hope I got that right, but think I did.
@Maverick The old design cannot be made as fuel efficient as the Max with engine technology available today. So the old design is obsolete, even if tried and true. Though years ago, several 737s crashed due to a problem with the vertical stabilizer that was difficult to figure out. In that case the planes just dropped out of the sky while cruising.
Modern aircraft are complex but luckily the fix is simple.
More corporate tax cuts and less regulation.
3
From the information available already, Boeing appears to be culpable for the deaths of all those people due to their own decision to cut-costs and not re-train all the MAX pilots. This was not pilot error.
Boeing will be sued for huge money, but they will likely settle for hundreds of millions, which they can probably absorb through strategic funds set aside for emergencies.
Democrats: subpoena the transcript from the phone call Trump had with the Boeing CEO.
7
"With all of the Max planes now grounded around the world, Boeing’s first priority is developing a fix."
Why wasn't that 'fix' developed IMMEDIATELY after the Indonesian crash 6 months ago? Why weren't the planes grounded immediately? What was Boeing waiting for? Another crash?
I remember clearly the GM fiasco a few years back when instead of installing a $10 part in the ignition switch, the company eggheads did a cost/benefit analysis and determined that even with the potential of payouts and even law suits, it was cheaper to bet on the low probability of another accident happening.
Was this principle at play here as well, I wonder?
An unconscionable act of criminal negligence in my opinion.
What the article should have screamed for is not how poor little Boeing and FAA will survive this lamentable intermezzo, but to demand the FBI to step in.
4
I'm curious what the cost will be if they have to scrap the plane entirely. People aren't as tolerant of crashes as they used to be and this design is inherently less stable than other aircraft. I suppose Boeing could go back to building the older, less fuel efficient 737 design while they work on a complete redesign, which would take several years. Airbus would be raking in cash with the Neo in the meantime.
2
A lot of assumptions about Boeing. I was on a school board once and every parent coming in to the public monthly meetings was an educational expert having once attended public school. The same goes for some us who have flown on a jet.
Boeing has a remarkable record for creating safe planes and US airlines for operating them. "Almost 100 million U.S.-operated airline flights, carrying several billion people, had taken off and landed safely in this country over a nine-year span since the last time a passenger died in an accident." April 2018. So NINE years without a fatality before an engine on a Southwest flight exploded and killed one passenger. Google the same period of time for car fatalities, or bus or train for that matter.
However I think that once the pilot and crew unions stepped in to ask the airlines to ground the MAX it made sense to do so. They are the most familiar with the plane in question.
I have flown as a passenger since '67, all over the world and on too many routes and airlines to recall, occasionally though dangerous storms, landing in small airports in the boondocks, as well as at some of the world's largest. Mostly on Boeing planes. But that doesn't make me an expert. I am looking forward to hearing the facts when they are available. I am confident that they will get to the bottom of these two tragic crashes...
5
We need better trained pilots. Yes the automated system failed, and should be fixed, but the pilots have the ability to disconnect it. The out of control pitching of the airplane is controlled by the elevators and/or trim tabs at the back of the plane. There are switches located at the center console located between the pilots that will disconnect the computer from the elevators/trim and the pilots can now control it manually.
The question is why they didn't do that at Lion Air and now perhaps Ethiopian.
4
My thoughts are with the people who died and their families.
It appears strange to me that the 737 MAX with a major change to engine position got through certifications like it would still be the same as the 737 NG. It must have been clear to experienced pilots that the new engine position has different dynamics like pitch stability compared to the proven position. Apparently everybody relied on Boeing handling this in the auto-pilot software. This seems not to be the case subject to the analysis of the flight-recorder data. What puzzles me is that there seems to be only one angle-of-attack sensor on the plane. I always thought that on a plane all systems exist twice or better three times to eliminate a single point of failure.
It would be interesting to see if this has impact on people's trust in other (alleged) "auto-pilot" software systems of companies like Tesla or its competitors. Are death tolls more acceptable if caused by human error or computer error?
VW got fined for a hypothetical number of deaths due to the emissions of its cars. If the failure of the 737 MAX will be tied to inadequate design or certification, will Boeing get fined for actual deaths too?
3
If you demand lower taxes from the Federal Government, then you will get less services, including FAA self-certification. You cannot have low taxes and lots of government services.
6
Having recently flown Norwegian, to a destination where I practiced a technical sport with non-native-English speakers - and had technical lost-in-translation difficulties - I wonder if there is a language issue - in other words are the planes meant to be understood by primary speakers of English? I can tell you that while I can look at a boat and water the same way as a Frenchman, we can't necessarily have a clear conversation about them. So, if American pilots or clear primary English speaking pilots have no problem with the 737 Max, maybe there is something about the education that gets lost in translation.
@Brooklyn: Since English is the standard language in aviation. To obtain a CPL Commercial Pilot license some of the requirements are:
* be able to read, speak, write, and understand English
* Pass a 100-question aeronautical knowledge written test
* Pass an oral test and flight test administered by an FAA inspector, FAA-designated examiner, or authorized check instructor
The 737 MAX pilots must have the ATP Airline Transport Pilot license, which is the highest level of certification.
You can rely to 100% that every pilot of the carriers master English well enough. In the end the carriers entrust a plane worth $90 million (list) to a captain and first officer. There is no way they would take chances on basic skills like English language.
1
@bnc. To continue the analogy, the headless chicken of the FAA...
It’s like letting every builder do their own inspections. Only far more dangerous.
1
As an airline costumer, I intend to avoid any which uses this MAX thing.
Considering the handling of the business by Boeing until now (as well as the blind eyes of “regulators”) what guarantees will I have that nothing is wrong in the future?
3
You'd think a plane's radar and ground proximity warning system would be engaged to override a system that pushed the plane's nose down. Why would a system be designed to drive the plane into the earth in order to avoid a stall? Why would correcting this issue be left to the pilots, when it would be an obvious safety mechanism? Boeing - please answer.
5
Left largely unsaid is that Airbus planes have the same type of flight control response as the newer Boeing planes. So the fundamental flight characteristic design is well established.
It does sound like Boeing has fallen into the trap of making changes and not having a "revert to the old style of operation that I am familiar with" (figurative) button for a system that is supposed to be "nearly the same as" the previous system. Easy for newbies to run into mental trap, a bit surprising for Boeing. Maybe they should stop laying off their most valuable assets: experienced personnel.
Secretary Chao flew from Texas to DC this week on a 737-8 MAX. It’s a safe aircraft when flown by trained pilots. Also, look at who is trying to benefit from the result of these two accidents. China is exploiting it to the max...for market share.
2
I am sure Boeing will be able to manage the costs no matter what they are. After all, they pay one person, their CEO, millions of dollars to show up to work everyday.
6
Please forgive me for being so skeptical and cynical, but, it is the Hard Working U.S. Taxpayer that will pay for any corporate losses.
7
In all the discussion of MCAS and software updates, there’s a key question that remains unanswered.
MCAS only operates in manual flight mode (autopilot off) to counteract the pitch-up effect caused by the placement and weight of the new engines.
Does this mean that without MCAS the aircraft would be unsafe to fly manually given inherent aerodynamic instability?
If so, the only real fix is to start over and redesign the aircraft completely. Basic aerodynamic stability should not require automation at all.
8
@Daylight
Agree 100%
If the plane isn’t viable on its own or without computers, it amounts to a betrayal of the public trust.
6
My father was both a military and commercial pilot and then a check airman on Boeing 727s, 757s, and 767s. He would often turn off the autopilot on a check ride and have the co-pilot hand fly the aircraft. He felt pilots were becoming too dependent on automation and that was way back in the 80s and 90s; Imagine today?
The MCAS anti-stall system needs to be removed from this aircraft...immediately. Avoiding stalls and what to do when you stall is what I was taught the first time I flew with my father at age 10. All pilots know that you push the yoke forward and, if necessary, apply more throttle to increase airspeed. I can not imagine the fear of pulling back on the yoke and having the plane want to do the opposite. It must have been sheer terror and a bit like pushing the brake pedal only to have your car accelerate.
I’m a big Boeing fan and there’s an old saying, “If it ain’t a Boeing, I ain’t going.” Unfortunately, I’m starting to rethink that. Remove all of this software and let the pilots fly the planes on approach and climb out below 10,000 feet. The passengers will be safer for it and it’s a whole lot of fun.
5
When the Chinese introduce a new airliner that is safer, more comfortable, and more reliable, Boeing workers and shareholders will need all the Trumps they can find to try to gloss over a predictable end to a sorry state of affairs.
2
@Dave
Obviously you haven’t paid attention to the Chinese products you buy.
1
@So Sorry
I remember the same thing said about Honda and Toyota. How did that work out?
2
I am not an expert, but I always thought airliners were designed for stability (as opposed to military fighters with designed instability that permits extreme maneuvers but also requires substantial computer assistance/input to fly normally). In my mind, airliners should be designed for stability and safely first and everything else second. There is something very concerning that Boeing designed (some would argue slapped together to answer the A320neo) an airliner whose inherent design makes flight so dangerous it requires extensive software compensation - for now obvious reasons.
8
@H. KANT
Airliners are designed and tested in wind tunnels for stability and interactions with weather conditions, failures of engines, wing loads…etc. The planes are instrumented and tested when initially flown to verify all the designs. In the case of this 737, something was missed…and will be difficult to determine.
Military fighters are also designed for flight stability, but the jets can “outperform” the pilots and can withstand much more forces. The flight controls will limit the g-forces so the pilot doesn’t pass out or die due to maneuvering.
3
This is the predictable result of the slashing of government oversight, and total faith placed in "free" market capitalism. "Free" market believers assert that the market will ensure that things are done right, because, the theory goes, that not doing them right costs more and reduces profit. Perhaps, in a world where all actors played by the rules, this belief might be supported, but in reality the actors - the capitalists and corporations - don't play by the rules. In fact, they do everything in their power to bend, break, subvert, and thwart the rules to gain a competitive advantage. This behavior was the reason that government oversight was finally implemented.
But then along came the Republicans and their zeal to "shrink the government small enough to drown in a bathtub", and their agenda of slashing government oversight, and eliminating it where it could. In addition to that, they placed "foxes in charge of the hen houses" by putting industry hacks at the head of agencies, to make sure they had the least amount of impact on industry behavior, the very antithesis of what they were created for!
Here's a message to all Republican voters that hearkens back to what Reagan once said: When you have someone knock on your door and say "Hi. I'm from the Private Sector and I'm here to help you", slam the door in their face and run. You've entrusted your livelihood and life to people who care more about money than they do you. Think about that the next time you get on a plane.
21
Americans seem afraid of the third world because they have a literally collapsing infrastructure and we can’t use their products because they’re dangerous and will blow up. But we just had a huge bridge collapse in Atlanta, and our products are unsafe. Now the third world is afraid of us.
13
The irony is that after spending billions to find and patch the computer glitch, pilot training seminars and PR, a flock of geese out for a spin can throw all that to the wind. Trains.
4
There are two themes intertwined: 1) the rush to market of untested and unsafe computer/hardware systems in airlines and in self-driving vehicles, both of which have resulted in tragic deaths. Like the HAL9000 and the Ultimate Computer episode in the original startrek, the temptation of new technology is just too tempting for greedy corporations to resist - even if they tried.
This leads to the second theme, that of lax regulation. Ever since Jimmy Carter's ill-fated relaxation of the S&Ls, so-called regulators have become captives of the industries they regulate, or worse, the industry representatives have become the regulators. This phenomenon has operated in many industries: telecommunications, energy utilities, entertainment, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment, insurance, and in the tour-de-force of the 20th century, the banking 2008 meltdown.
This rush to deregulation and trust in the 'free-market' has led to a series of disasters, with more to come under the Trump administration.
Has not this lesson been learned?
2
So automation does not make air-travel accident-proof and pilots may lose certain skills as a result of automation. But the bottom line is that air travel with automation is much safer than air travel without it. So the appropriate response is to keep improving safety, not scale back automation.
4
@Jay Orchard, my mom worked on the Boeing B17 factory floor during the War so maybe I’m biased, but they’re an integral part of this country and should be allowed to do what they do, fix any problems right and continue to get us where we want to go safely as has been the case for years, rather than be pummeled by Wall Street traders out to make a quick buck off of a panic and pillored by an angry public sick of two-faced politicians and huge unscrupulous corporations.
1
It seems like Boeing designed the 737 MAX series for emerging aviation markets and/or airlines hiring pilots with limited experience - no costly simulator training was deemed necessary. Ethiopia Airlines said much about the alleged Boeing FAA relationship when it chose to send the flight recorders to France.
5
I can’t believe what I just learned. It is unconscionable that the FAA would have handed oversight responsibilities to Boeing in any capacity. And because of “limited resources”? Use the funds set aside for the long narcissistic border monument to fund responses to real crises. Is this all just a joke? Why are we giving these idiots our money?
15
An update from the BBC reports that the black box has been sent to Paris for its analysis.
Good call to have it as far away from
Boeing and the “regulators” under its payroll.
The world has finally woken up that it is for the best to follow “America last.”
21
Let us not forget that Airbus too has had at least one fatal crash due to software issues that were known ahead of time, although nobody seems to remember it, perhaps because it was a military cargo plane : "Airbus knew of software vulnerability before A400M crash" see
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-airbus-a400m/airbus-knew-of-software-vulnerability-before-a400m-crash-idUSKBN1D819P
2
@SF
Actually, it's worse. In 1988, Air France's chief testing pilot racked up an Airbus A320-111 in front of horrified spectators at the Habsheim Airshow in Eastern France. It simply flew lower and lower into the trees of a wood and exploded into a fireball. Incredibly, all but three people survived. The flight was a demonstration of the world's first 'fly-by-wire' large passenger plane. It's all on YouTube - if you can bear to watch.
Officially Air France 296 crashed as a result of pilot error. The flight crew are adamant that the accident resulted from faulty computer control which they were unable to overcome - somewhat like the Indonesian B737 incident. Officially denied, there have been persistent allegations that data from the flight recorders was falsified to conceal software failings. Both pilot and first officer were highly experience flyers with more than 10,000 hours of flight time each.
I'm wondering if the bigger question isn't whether the airlines will lose faith in the newer models but whether the general flying public will ;then make more educated decisions on the type of plane scheduled for their travels.I'm sure to question the choices I'll make in the very near future ,my kids will insist on it.
2
With thousands of cycles of 737 Max 8 and millions of passenger miles flown in its first two years of operation in the US, China, and Europe without incident, it would seem that what both of these accidents have in common is pilot training--which is the airline's responsibility. It seems, at least in the US, this has made all the difference.
6
“Unknown Costs”
In addition to the direct costs, Boeing is going to be tied up in court with many Lawsuits.
Families of the Dead from both planes.
People who could not change tickets during the days it took till Boeing & the FAA finally grounded US planes.
Pain and Suffering of those who flew in them, but feared the worst.
I’m no Economist. But as a retired Clinical Psychologist, I foresee a huge, huge cost to Boeing’s reputation, its bottom line, its Share Price. Etc.
This nation has to get its priorities straight! Because putting business profits over lives - whether lost or at risk - is being “penny wise and pound foolish” at the very least. Because it’s not just Boeing. It’s the Trump administration. And it’s voters who are hoodwinked into allowing all this.
18
Boeing may be able to “fix” the plane.. but the flying public.. that’s a different question!
5
There are two great losses here, foremost, the lives of these innocent passengers who entrusted their travel safety to the fitness of the basic structure of the planes and the crews who were supposedly trained to handle these aircrafts. This loss is irreplaceable.
Secondly, the loss of trust into the FAA, and Boeing altogether. If Ethiopian Airlines feels it is more trustworthy to send the black box to France, than to us, the FAA and all its related "officials" (Elaine Chow: where art thou?) have failed on a spectacular basis.
It is appearent now that after Lion Air send its black box to the FAA, that in hindsight Boeing and the FAA tweaked, dodged and slimed their way out to a simple "software" upgrade, deflecting blame along the way by denouncing Lion Air's technical staff, and its pilots instead.
After this second tragedy the world plainly sees the depths of this selfserving swamp. The world sees who we have become: un utterly untrustworthy renegade, bereft of any morals and any dignity -even towards the victims of the first flight. Their deaths were not enough for Boeing to come clean. Boeing knew why they died, so did the FAA.
Both minimized, showed no regard or urgency to a quite possible second desaster, and, until yesterday, continued to show no regard for an even possible third desaster by keeping these planes in the air....
The FAA and US being the very last worldwide to ground the planes is a proper metaphor....
265
@svenbi
Boeing and the FAA have a Black Eye.
And being the last to ground the plane will factor into the multiple Class Action Lawsuits that probably already being written, as families of the deceased sign on.
There will likely to other lawsuits by those who purchased tickets, but refused to use them - with Boeing and the FAA dithered.
And then you’ve got those who did fly but claim they’ve been psychologically harmed due to anxiety during an entire trip.
Boeing has short-term problems and many long term ones. But they have sympathy from me!
9
@svenbi
Very thoughtful response, far more so than the shallow financial examination in this article.
27
@TheraP Good to know that Boeing has friend in you, calling 346 deaths in the past 4 months only "short term problems." Other commenters are not so friendly: some are mentioning already "negligent homocide" by Boeing/FAA. If a maintenance worker was charged with it for the crash of Aero Peru Fl. 603 in 1996 for leaving accidentally duct tape on a vital intake part of a 757, I am not sure what the verdict will be for somebody who lets a known deficiant plane, -after a deadly crash- in the air.
13
Boeing only sees dollar signs not safety. They do not care about lives or they would have grounded the Max planes when pilots told them there were problems.
5
NYT editors: please cover how this is going to affect a major trans-Atlantic discount airline, Norwegian Airline, which is heavily invested in such aircraft?
And what is happening to people, who booked their travel on that discount carrier?
As for me, I will remain loyal to ultra safety conscious Delta..
Donald Trump has a cabinet full of rich people (not one expert on anything) and takes advice from corporations protecting their profits
Now people are dead.
Unforgivable
23
This will be a difficult problem to fix as the needed data for such a problem is a bit fuzzy—it may not seem that way, but the problem is not obvious. Finding the root cause of the problem with subsequent engineering fixes could take a significant amount of time—likely over a year. Boeing will have to attempt to duplicate the situations using a test plane and simulations while monitoring instrumentation and plane reactions. The test program will take months to develop and implement. There could be a temporary fix to get the planes airborne again, but the public will certainly be wary of anything that seems too hasty.
Fundamental engineering failure, with complex new system introduced that had input limited to single sensor, limited understanding of failure modes, and inadequate training. Cause? Putting dollars before safety, similar to Macondo tragedy. Consequences to BP were $60 billion; Boeing’s costs may be similar.
5
As a professional accident investigator (in an unrelated industry), what I see is poor Systems Management. Aircraft are incredibly complex machines and working out every the snugness of every nut and bolt is difficult enough. But the computer controls and the the human-machine interface are infinitely more difficult to manage. Nevertheless they must be done and quality control - testing procedures implemented at every step. Post-manufacture the airlines simply did not listen to the reports pilots were making.
In retrospect, Boeing should have grounded the entire fleet after the LionAir crash in Indonesia. There was enough circumstantial evidence at that time to indicate a very real problem.
LionAir is has a not-so-good maintenance reputation, including pilot training. Lion Air knew from the previous flight that the aircraft was not air-worthy but it took off anyway.
Now we have a second loss of life from similar problems and what those those problems are will not known since even the LionAir investigation has not been released.
Boeing (and the engine manufacturer Rolls Royce) should have known better from a business point of view. The international public was way ahead of the Boeing and RR in wanting the 'nightmare liner' grounded.
The fact that Boeing did not ground the fleet immediately after the Ethiopia crash was a classic business mistake that will be written about for a long time.
8
@Svirchev All Max aircraft use the same General Electric "Leap" engines. Rolls-Royce engines are not options on this aircraft.
4
@Jim
Thank you, appreciate the clarification. Perhaps you have inside knowledge but every source I consulted says both Rolls Royce and GE. In any case, the point I'm trying to make is that the major manufacturers appear to have systems management problems. Engineers work hard to make sure the components do the job correctly and reach as close as possible the fail-safe level. But senior managers make the decisions when to withdraw a craft from service.
2
An incestuous relationship between Boeing and the FAA that seems to corrupt the certification of the planes, that's interesting.
Now put this next to the college admission scandal, as well as all the conflicts of interests that are being unveiled, on a daily basis, within the Trump administration...
Looks to me like the "Greatest Country on the Face of the Earth" is rotten to the core.
17
The bigger long-term cost will be training pilots how to fly the way the Weight Brothers did.
Dear NYT, Does Boeing contribute to campaign of Mitch McConnell, et al? How independent is FAA Chief?
10
What a disgrace and failure on the part of Boeing and the FAA. Even if pilots were trained to perform MCAS overrides, how on Earth could they perform the procedure with the aircraft pitching up and down at such a rate? Look at the vertical velocity profiles and timescale and imagine the extreme accelerations which must have occurred. Incredible, but sadly true.
146
@Trevor. Worse, manual, yoke switch, electrical operation of the stabilizer is over-ridden by the MCAS after a few seconds, which resets itself and continues it’s deadly mission, and if you shut the MCAS off, it appears the pilot is forced to use the hand wheel, which is a vastly geared-down cable thing, taking presumably many, many turns to move the stabilizer. Meanwhile, the elevators (yoke controlled) can’t possibly compensate. Guaranteed porpoising and death if you happen to be close to the ground. Other problems, like non-redundant sensors, but the basic error of the design should have been obvious. A couple of lines of code to cancel the auto-reset probably would have ‘fixed’ it.
14
@Marat1784. You are absolutely correct regarding all of your observations. For example, after the LionAir crash, I remember that Boeing mentioned the trim wheel as a possible solution. As far as I know (I am not a pilot or aeronautical engineer), the trim wheel is used for making slight trim corrections for pitch, not for rescuing an airliner from a steep descent. And, as you mention, there are all of the other manual procedures, the MCAS re-engagement issue, lack of redundant sensors, and the basic design, namely the heavy forward cantilevered engines which move the COG forward and may require some form of MCAS to maintain stable flight.
7
Then how did two US crews and one UK crew do just that? It takes literally 8 seconds, the whole process is 4 steps (and in the case of the two US crews, the second step was all that was needed):
Grasp yoke
Disconnect autopilot
Hit Stab Trim Cutout switches,
Grab trim wheel
There’s a reason the US crews were just fine and the third world crews crashed.
You wanna talk about criminal - the copilot of the Ethiopian plane shouldn’t have been allowed on board without a ticket. Allowing someone with 200 hours’ flying experience anywhere near a passenger aircraft cockpit is absolutely insane.
9
It would be more cool if their first priority were figuring out what happened, and developing a fix were second.
2
The FAA let the Fox in the henhouse by letting Boeing make its own safety appraisals.
19
Boeing already decided that additional Pilot training was too costly. I can forgive them, but cannot feel sorry for them. #bigly #sad they made bad decisions, using the wrong metrics, and now hundreds of people are dead.
Is this, in part, due to reduced FAA budget and influence due to Republican tax cuts and 'no more big gobement' regulations, thus turning oversight over to the corporations themselves? Maybe those 'get gobement out of our lives' people don't fly . . .
6
They'll be fine. The payouts to the families and carriers are a rounding error for this company....
My father worked for Boeing as an engineer for over 3 decades, and this tragic story is symbolic of the shift that occurred within Boeing over the course of his career. When he started working at Boeing in the 1970's, Boeing was run by "airplane people" who put the engineering and quality of the planes above all else, and it remained this way through the mid-late 1990's.
Then, in 1997, Boeing bought its former primary domestic competitor McDonnell Douglas. One of the conditions of the buyout was that many McDonnell Douglas executives took positions within Boeing (leading many Boeing employees to remark that the deal actually consisted of McDonnell Douglas buying Boeing with Boeing's money). The corporate and management culture changed. Business came first, the airplanes and the engineering came second.
In the quest to automate as much as possible and bypass the costs of additional training for a completely new model (for both Boeing and their airline customers), it appears as though something has gone awry. All parties involved (Boeing, airlines, government regulators) can't change the past, but they can put the airplanes and engineering first (which, by extension, puts passenger safety first) and make sure it is done right in the future.
22
Boeing and the FAA blundered during this crisis. (They denied there was a problem when everyone else saw it clearly.) Why, for example, should we trust them ever again when they tried such a bald-faced lie?
Managing the PR part of the problem is crisis management 101. The first principle of which is to be totally open and honest to the flying public about the jet.
And, Boeing will have to do a root cause analysis of the problem, and not try some schlock like blaming it all on the pilot. Clearly, the automated system is at fault, compounded by incomplete pilot training.
As for the FAA's issues, they have the same problem with trust. Obviously, allowing manufacturers to self-certify aircraft doesn't work. They further need to examine why they were so slow to ground the plane.
3
The way that our government is being run at this time, it is unclear if these decisions were being made by the FAA or by Elaine Chao and President Trump.
Trump announced the decision to ground the planes, Chao spoke about waiting to ground them until safety concerns were apparent. Neither of them are pilots or safety experts.
This is not the way our government should be working.
18
These disasters are criminal. The plane should have been grounded after the Lion air crash when the instability problem was discovered. Concern for the bottom line exceeded the moral compass. I rarely comment (who cares what I say), but the EA crash was really involuntary manslaughter. Unless we forget, that is a major part of Boeing's overall business, so why should I be surprised.
7
Live matter less to Boeing than profits. Unforgivable
12
Deregulated capitalism is never superior to regulated capitalism.
51
Favorable treatment for Boeing? Indeed, I expect that. In a previous instance, Boeing exerted influence to get the tanker contract--originally given to Airbus with my city of Mobile Alabama to be one of the construction sites. The government rescinded that contract, in favor of Boeing. The Boeing technology was over 40 years old, a weak link in military aircraft supply lines. I don't think General George Marshall would have tolerated that handicap.
Preferential treatment or favorable treatment, whatever you wish to call it, the US government, from the FAA to Congress, basically give Boeing a free pass.
10
Let's summarize. The black box was sent to France, home of Boeing's competitor Airbus, so that’s reason for concern.
It was damaged so the end result is unknown and may have to be “interpreted” (sic) by Boeing's competitor.
There is also discussion that the implementation of Boeing's changes after the LION crash was delayed due to Trump's 35 day shutdown which crippled the FAA.
Consider the timeline. The LION disaster occurred on 10/29/2018. Assuming Boeing submitted changes to FAA for review shortly thereafter, Trump's shutdown started on 12/22/2018 and continued thru 1/25/2019. FAA was shut down and is still digging out of the huge backlog caused by the shutdown.
Until there is definitive evidence from the Black Box investigation, these 737s won't be back in the air and given that Boeing's competitor is performing the post mortem, France has no reason to hurry.
Conclusion? It will not surprise me if this turns out to be another unintended consequence caused by the worst pres in US history.
12
@Kelly M
So, to summarize, your primary concern is lost revenue?
Boeing, when it was obvious the shut down was going to delay the roll out of its fix, should have grounded the planes and waited. Actually after the Lion Air crash they were working on a fix hoping another crash wouldn't happen in the meantime. So they were late to call for a grounding before the shut down.
3
@Marie, what I get from Kelly M is the short sightedness of this administration. It is harming both safety AND American business interests as a side effect of his ridiculous wall fight. Five weeks of a government shutdown affected those furloughed employees, contractors and also the important business they were doing. Among the work that was interrupted was researching the Boeing problem.
The bigger point is what else was affected that we do not even know yet. Airbus examining the black box is just icing on the cake, because it indicates other countries don’t put trust in the United States anymore.
2
@Jane K U r exactly right. What else languished while we were messing around with an idiotic shut down?
There is no substitute for research before making decisions. Gut feel produces results exactly like we're seeing.
1
Even if they implement a fix and declare the plane totally safe, who will be the first passengers to board it? Not my family, that's for sure, not until they've flown safely for a year or more. And who do we trust at this point? Boeing's CEO? The FAA?
14
This issue is much bigger than 737 and Boeing. I’m apalled that FAA certified these planes and then dragged their feet in grounding them despite 2 air crashes and many lives lost. It has not only brought out the greed of corporate America in placing profits over everything else, but also exposed the failure of the regulator. As a consumer, whom do you trust if the regulator is not doing its job? Where else has the rot set in? Is the food that I’m buying safe? Is it really organic? What about my money in the bank? The medicines that I take everyday? The train that I hop onto to commute? The lift I take to the top of a skyscraper countless times a day? Whom do you trust when the regulator does not do its job?
33
The Ethiopian's flight recorders have been sent to Paris for analysis. France's air accident investigation board (the BEA) has a first rate reputation for high tech work.
Bearing in mind this is an American made plane, two inferences are possible.
1) The data recorders are not badly damaged. Basic device analysis is within the competence of practically all national accident investigators (and presumably the Ethiopian team). Where data recovery is hampered by severe damage, it's customary to send the recorder to the manufacturers who generally have greater expertise. Almost all large passenger aircraft are fitted with black boxes made by Honeywell, a giant American instrument and control systems maker. The recorders haven't gone to the US.
2) Why France? The B737 Max 8 uses jet engines made by CFM International, a partnership between General Electric and France's Safran. That's not much of a reason for the critical data recorders to end up in Paris. More likely, France is seen as a neutral expert here - which rather suggests some sensitivity about the impartiality of the FAA and the NTSB. Sad.
49
I'm certainly not a pilot but my family and myself are all varying types of engineering and medical professionals.
But it has to be stated, that It is a very sad day when a corporation as large and as financially fruitful as Boeing is takes the low road when they are confronted as they are now with a potentially lethal product design. It's one thing to put out a press statement stating they "value safety" over all else.
It is quite another when their real-time non-action fails to match the seriousness of the reality: that in no less than six months apart, two of their brand new high tech airplanes have managed to kill more than 300 people, leaving the families of those killed, fatherless, motherless, and devastated.
Those defending Boeing's inaction can only be perceived to either be employed by Boeing, or own stock. That's also a big part of the problem. Conflict of interest by those with too much financial stake to encourage the correct behavior by a publicly traded corp like Boeing. This must change but sadly, I doubt it will.
6
Thank heavens the voices of reason have taken back OUR U.S. Congress. Some reporters have been questioning Mr. Blumenthan about whether his House committee was concerned about the effect of the grounding on Boeing's bottom line.
He was quick to point out that their concern is SAFETY for 99.9% of us - not further enriching the 0.01% who control/own all global stocks.
Good Job, Democrats! Thank YOU.
17
Did the pilots know exactly what was happening but left helpless to override the software? Automation is such an urgent ethical question that even Trump’s seemingly absurd initial tweets on the state of aviation now appear to contain some glimmer of naive but insightful and practical humanism...
@KevinSheaAdams
1
Murder charges for Boeing executives if found they new about it and in corporate greed decided to do little to nothing.
Hundreds of innocent people died. Why would we continue to accept this as corporations say it's just part of doing "business."
Of course I know the "too big to fail" companies like Boeing would never face murder charges or any criminal punishment.
I think that needs to change. These tiny financial slaps on the wrists don't work.
3
Typical hot headed AMERICAN answer.
Shoot then aim......
How about we get the facts first huh?
1
@There
Typical hot headed response without even reading my post.
I said "IF Found".
Please do a search under Boeing lawsuits and see the list of GUILTY CONVICTIONS" over the decades for very similar cases.
I increasingly wonder how these decision makers at Boeing sleep at night. If I was at the head of a company and hundreds of people died as a result of my faulty product, I would be totally devastated. How do these Boeing people live with themselves and what happened? What do they tell themselves? Any remorse? I suppose the same goes for those who had the means to do so, did nothing to immediately fix the problem after the Lion Air crash. I hope the lawsuits start flowing from the affected families.
Is this the cost of these giant corporations that have little competition and make billions of dollars? The greed and accumulation of wealth I've seen grow exponentially during my lifetime is sad and I fear will bring us all down one way or another.
As others have stated, the automation of our planes and cars scares the heck out of me.
7
They should have kept corporate HQ in Seattle, a city with a strong aero engineering background, instead of moving to Chicago, which has none.
2
The Boeing CEO is chummy with our morally bankrupt president. The president praises the company in public, but trashes them in private. Wow, what a team!
5
One cost of the Trump "Lie About Everything" policy: the world no longer trusts the NTSB or FAA to reach fact-based, unbiased conclusions.
23
Based on careful reading of all the articles written in several papers I'd say the plane has to be completely scraped and eliminated from production. The software "glitch" was in fact an attempt to compensate for a fundamental design flaw — the fact that the engines were moved higher up on the wingspan. Software can work miracles but it can't change laws of aerodynamics, every couple thousand flights and one of these planes is going to hit the wrong combination of airspeed and lift in idiosyncratic conditions. If it had been just software they would have tweaked it transparently, if it had just been pilot training they would have done that, but they didn't do either — there was obviously a coverup because this will cost them enough to push the stock price way down, paying the families of the Indonesian flight would have been the least of their worries in terms of costs.
This plane is shaped wrong. It doesn't walk like a duck, it doesn't fly like a duck — it's not a duck.
16
@Arthur Maybe the control law implemented is wrong. I don't understand how people go from: this sw had problems to "no sw will ever work". These people were cutting corners to stop Airbus taking over the single aisle like there is no tomorrow. Nothing of quality ever came from such an attitude, nor sw or hw. It seems sw was reliant on a single sensor (AoA) not to fail, from the Lion Air accident. Well, planes have been flown without an AoA sensor for decades. Or you can install three for redundancy. Maybe it's not sw that's bad, it's sloppy sw written under deadlines and business pressure.
1
If it was already known that software updates and training guidelines were needed to improve safety and avoid disaster, why, pray tell, were they allowed to continue to fly without these things in place?
8
The funny part of the story is that our increasing dependence and over use of fossil fuels is killing us all anyway. Air travel is way up and subsidized by our future generations.
But the very thought of taking jets out of the sky is ludicrous but if we actually did care about human life we’d ground them all.
I don’t fly, commute or eat beef but if I won the lottery I would buy my own private jet and fly from country to country sampling hamberders.
4
@R. Koreman It's true, but it is about 3.5% of our carbon footprint. The consequences of eliminating air travel on the economy would be massive, I am not sure there is an estimate. There are gentler approaches to cleaning up air travel, from using synthetic fuels to carbon offsets. The cost of flying would increase by a small factor -- big deal for sure, but no stoppage. The harder we make it sound, the harder it is to summon the political will to do anything. In fact air travel is the hardest nut to crack, and even that one is not impossible.
In 1973 the Ford Motor Company issued a cost/benefit analysis entitled "Fatalities Associated with Crash Induced Fuel Leakage and Fires" for the Ford Pinto. The memo was widely --- and erroneously --- accepted as proof that Ford was calculating the trade-off between redesign costs and human lives. Regardless of what Ford's intentions were, the Pinto Memo laid the cornerstone for consumer belief that major corporations are in it for the money, and human lives are little more than a part of the profit equation.
Since then corporate America has done little to dispel this notion, other than brag in front of Congress that customer safety is paramount. Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, Big Ag, PG&E and a long list of other corporate bad actors have all been shown to cut regulatory corners, lie outright, and go to great lengths to shave costs at the expense of lives. For their part, regulatory agencies have been shown to be, at best, ignorant of what was happening or, at worst, complicit.
The Trump administration makes a point of bragging about regulatory rollbacks. There is no permanent FAA Administrator, and a transparently conflicted relationship between the FAA and manufacturers like Boeing.
Business interests have always, and will continue to claim that regulation strangles them and hurts the economy. It's past the time to rebut this by insisting that human lives cannot be part of the cost/benefit equation, and that regulation is an essential part of the government's mandate.
17
And why is there no permanent head of the FAA? The acting administrator is Daniel Ellwell. He has been a pilot, retired from the Airforce, with a history of working as a safety specialist in the airline industry.
If he is good enough to “act” as director, why has he not been confirmed?
What is going on in Trump’s administration that he doesn’t have confirmed directors at the helm of every agency?
3
Human lives come pretty cheap these days. Boeing chose, rather than to design the 737Max correctly, just slap on bigger engines, having to re-orient the engine to the wing upward and forward, without applying the structural engineering and avionic effects of such a move. They did understand the jet had a tendency to reach a "stall" pitch during take off climb, so added 2 lines of code to an existing program to somehow compensate for this tendency on automatic pilot. To save money, Boeing called the 737 Max a fix rather than a new design to avoid the cost of retraining pilots on the new plane. Boeing employees, acting on behalf of the FAA, certify the aircraft and determine pilots do not need retraining on the new aircraft. The fox says the chickens are just fine.
Well, something is obviously amiss when a pilot with over flight 8000 hrs. cannot control the aircraft and it crashes vertical into the ground at high speed. The pilots are clearly not in control. The automatic pilot is receiving erroneous signals from the attitude indicator on the nose and/or overrides the pilots attempts to visually right the aircraft.
2 lines of code.
Over 300 dead.
But think of the money you saved Boeing!
Everyone who made the decisions to streamline the production and rollout the 737Max without the accompanying safety requirements is responsible.
How do you folks sleep at night?
Over 300 innocent people who just wanted to get somewhere are dead.
56
Anyone who has used a computer or a computerized device knows ....
They do quirky things that no one can predict.
They fail and are not reliable.
The Human interface is often "crazy-making" and is not intuitive like an on-off light switch.
A plane with a mechanical design that is not air worthy (tends to stall) should not be propped up with computer systems.
23
Surprised there's not more talk about possible hacking of these planes. How hard could it be get into these systems and take control?
@Jack
They are probably quietly talking about it, for the usual reasons in such situations, to avoid a panic. They always say that.
It's a well known adage that if bridges and buildings had as many design flaws as software has bugs, they would be collapsing on a regular basis.
We figured out jumbo jets decades ago - why do we need to screw it up with software?
6
It beggars the imagination that Boeing, a storied and clearly the most successful aviation company in history, would respond to the threat of a Canadian narrow bodied jet (Bombardier's C series) by bolting bigger fan engines onto more or less unmodified 737s, upsetting the plane's balance and dynamics but also evading new flightworthy testing because it was a mere modification to an approved aircraft, then addressed the lack of flight worthiness by installing software that supposedly corrects for the bad dynamics of the modified plane, software pilots don't and can't understand & could and did lead to catastrophic results. (And I guess it rather goes without saying the FAA is in Boeing's pocket or none of this would have been possible).
23
Just to put these costs in perspective: in December 2018, Boeing announced a *new* stock buyback worth $20 BILLION, plus increased its dividend by 20%. All that is on top of the billions in share buybacks the company already did in the past several years. Maybe some of this capital should have been reserved for a crisis like this?
6
@Steve
or maybe they could have prevented the crisis by making the slightly more expensive engineering and training decisions. Shareholder value, baby.
9
Once again an American corporation puts profits and "shareholder value" above product quality and safety and, in this case tragically, above human lives. How much would pilot training cost have cost? Clearly, it was not only necessary, but morally, and ethically the right thing to do. Oh, but the effect on the bottom line. Compounding this entire disaster is that another "cost saving" decision was made on the Max. It was decided to send data from only one of the pair of "angle of attack" (AoA) sensors to the (redundant) flight control computer on the same side of the plane. Reason given - it would have been too complex and costly to connect both sensors to both computers. Most likely a single faulty sensor brought down the Lion Air flight. The right fix should not only include a "software update," but also rewiring the AoA sensors so that the computer gets redundant information.
1
So,Boeing truly believes a " software fix " and a new training manual will overcome their credibility problem and the public's confidence in the 747 Max 8?
Dream on. I,for one, am never setting foot on another one. And I'm a very frequent flyer.
3
If this were a manually controlled aircraft the problem described by the flight recorder data would not have happened. This sort of thing, pitch control of the nose, trim, airspeed, stall speed, etc. is very basic piloting. It doesn't even have a manual emergency backup system. It's controlled by electronic switches and computer signals to servo motors. The B-52, still in service, doesn't have such complex computer control. Maybe they have been modernized but manual control is still there.
You can't put a value on human life. I predict two things. First, a veritable cascade of lawsuits and, second, a batch of cancellations and new orders for Airbus.
Whoever approved this plan of action in the past had better have their career at Boeing over.
7
@JWMathews Eventually, Boeing will go into bankruptcy and the American taxpayer will bail them out. No Boeing executive will be punished for any of this. This is modern American capitalism in a nutshell.
2
At last the decision was made to ground the airplanes rather than trouble shoot the problem with a planeload of passengers.
2
But what are the moral costs ? Is that important anymore?
If this design was known that it might cause fatalities ,Is this not
criminal manslaughter?
2
The question of whether airlines will lose confidence in Boeings 737 begs the even bigger question of whether Americans will continue to have confidence in the FAA.
18
As bad as this is for Boeing, far worse would be a grounding of the entire 737 NG fleet. That's been the ultimate Boeing nightmare since the 787 fleet was grounded due to the Lithium battery design. They'll probably weather this, but Max customers are going to be scrambling to line up substitute equipment while the Max fleet is grounded and that may be an expensive proposition, depending on availability. Count on operators demanding to be compensated by Boeing for that as well as for their lost revenue in addition to the tsunami of lawsuits coming.
The costs (of lawsuits) would have been a lot less if Boeing had been more honest in the first place.
1
Automation software or bots that can be replicated at zero cost and can be updated frequently has no self preservation priority. They do not make our lives safer because they can reboot and back up themselves and they don't care if their cargos live or die.
Boeing should never allow their autonomous software to overide or fight pilots when the pilots want to take back control. Boeing should have a bot to protect pilots from rogue bots that can be launch in microseconds.
1
Have any of the Boeing C-suite criminals been on the phone to the victims' families?
Of course not - that will not help the size of their bonuses this year.
Jail all of them.
15
I think a redesign of the wing and engine placement is in order. Boeing with its size will be able to absorb the costs. Wing redesign will fix the issue with the center of gravity problem and they can put whatever software fixes on top of it.
I hope they make the right call.
Boeing was once an engineering company that prided itself in safe, innovative and reliable aircraft. Their last and most beautiful example is the 777. Then the merger with McDonnell Douglas and their maximize shareholder value approach took over the company. The 787 production became a disaster and the airplane was temporarily grounded for design issues. Now the Max. What a sad direction greed has taken a once proud company.
40
Boeing didn't want to roll out a "new" kind of plane because that would require pilots to have much more training (i.e. an expense). So, rather than do things right the first time, it takes the deaths of hundreds of people for Boeing to come to the realization that quick and dirty doesn't work. They need to take complete responsibility for these tragic deaths and stop worrying so much about the bottom line. No amount of money will bring back one single soul who perished on those planes.
259
@BA
Wow. You'd think that a company in the business of flying folks would know that there is no such thing as a profit from quick and dirty. Boeing did not become the company that it is (was) by such a sloppy credo.
Does Boeing have anybody in leadership who has moral authority?
9
@NotKidding The American capitalist system demands that morals stand down in the face of the drive for profits.
#1) Profits. #2) Everything else.
18
@BA You are conflating the choice of upgrading the 737 once more and skimping on training for the 737 MAX. Completely separate issues.
3
Have we become overly dependent on technology as a fix or as a tool to "improve" our life. In the case of Max 8, Boeing made a decision to redesign the aircraft at minimum cost, but, then, started to employ technologies to compensate for design changes that introduced instability in the plane's structures---not realizing/or predicting that the compensating technologies would set off another set of problems in the handling of the plane. The same could be said about Facebook--designed to facilitate communication, but, now turning out to be an effective tool or all kinds of bad behavior--again, with Facebook, Zuckerberg is pledging to "fix" the problem---but, will the fix, like the Boeing fix, only set of another chain of bad outcomes.
77
@Amanda Jones In many technologies sw is taking over for hw, see digital cameras, music reproduction and what not. It's a much bigger trend than the 737 MAX. I am afraid we are letting Boeing off the hook if we conflate this with FB. If they had said
1) This new plane needs the MCAS to fly like a 737
2) If pilots notice excessive nose down input, they can turn it off
3) This is how to do it and how to fly the plane without.
we may still have some 300 people alive, and Boeing's reputation.
1
It may be useful to recall how B737 Max was launched. Boeing kept insisting that it would not offer an updated B737, but a new clean-sheet design as replacement for its popular, but rather antiquated (60’s design, with low ground clearance and no FBW) 737 series. That is, until Airbus came up with the re-engined A320-neo and it started selling like hot cakes. Only when one of its loyal customers ordered the A320-neo did Boeing realize the magnitude of the disaster they were facing. If they had continued on the clean-sheet approach, Airbus would have monopolized the single-aisle market. So they had to also reluctantly and hurriedly take the re-engined approach, even though hanging an even larger engine underneath the wing created huge problems with ground clearance and as it now appears clear, the basic pitch stability.
Granted, they had to do what they had to do, namely introduce MCAS. But the way they did it is what has caused all the problems. If they had been upfront about MCAS, instead of “hiding” it to make the MAX look the same as NG to prevent recertification, retraining etc., they would have been fine.
So the fault lies with the management. If they had owned up to the MCAS “flaws” after the Lion Air disaster, and had grounded the fleet until they had come up with a fool-proof fix, Boeing would have retained its credibility. Instead, they tried to blame the dead pilots and maintenance people and played for time, until the EA disaster. Now they are in real trouble.
315
Agreed! After the Lion Air crash Boeing knew it was most likely caused be the MCAS software but failed to include the information about this in the manual nor did they require pilots be retrained. It's a tragedy that it took the deaths of hundreds of people to make Boeing rectify a problem that they knew about but failed to do anything about.
46
@kant
That is assuming the MCAS software is flawed and can be fixed. I would not rule out the smaller possibility just yet that the 737 is just not safely suited for those big engines and the current MCAS is the best they can do.
42
@kant Hopefully regulators will now be taking a harder look at the entire Max development and certification program. MCAS isn't the only new software that was added that customers probably weren't told about. The engine control software was all new also and a complete clean sheet of paper compared to that used for the previous NG models. That became a major headache since much of the institutional knowledge from the NG development had been lost to retirements and attrition.
20
Do we really need computer-controlled planes when trained pilots should have the final say of where the plane is going? Who wants to die in a plane crash because of a software glitch or because someone hacked into the system? I know it's too early to say but part of driving and flying is taking the wheel and making decisions. I hope the problem is soon fixed. Condolences to the aggrieved.
62
@Jill O
Computer-assisted planes are fine as long as the manufacturer informs pilots exactly what they're dealing with. Incredibly, Boeing failed to do that in this case.
8
@Jill O
For the instability introduced in the MAX model, the really do need software to stabilize it. If left entirely up to the pilot, they would be overly burdened and fatigued by the required attention and actions. Kind of like driving a car that wants to wander out of the lane for long distances. Seems though, that the software augmentation was insufficiently robust to handle some real-world conditions.
6
@Jill O Without computer-assisted control, the workload in the cockpit becomes overbearing.
4
$550 billion in back orders and $1 billion to make the short-term fix. That's a no-brainer.
Make the short-term fix. Then clean up the mess. Compensate all for their losses. Convince the world your moral compass is in the right spot. Work on regaining our trust.
When you make more than $100 billion in revenue every year there is no excuse to not take care of business the right way.
154
@Howard Levine But, maximimizing shareholder value is the credo of corporations, not any ethical or moral responsibility. This is where we are with American capitalism nowadays.
25
Trust? Robbing the bank then oferring to return the money does not earn my trust.
10
@Howard Levine Unfortunately, it's short term thinking that led to this. Do you think the plane will be safe after a hastily added patch? I don't.
11
This isn't just a crisis for Boeing. It's a crisis for our country. It's yet another sign of the decline of the United States in the world. The rapidly increasing corporate influence in government--in this case the influence of aircraft industry over the FAA--is part of the problem. Elizabeth Warren may not have a chance at the Democratic nomination, but she gets it.
59
Most aviation accidents are not due to a single factor and these two 737 Max8 events are no different.
Older designs, ie 737-100, had airframes that were intrinsically stable. Wing dihedral stabilizes along the roll axis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihedral_(aeronautics)
Putting the Center of Gravity well ahead of the center of lift provides stability along the pitch axis and will pitch the nose down during wing stall, allowing the airframe to gain speed and recover from the stall. If the nose does not pitch down, in stall, the plane will enter an unrecoverable flat spin.
The stabilizing forces also generate drag and higher fuel use and in response to financial pressures, these stabilizing but fuel draining forces have been engineered out of the airframe. Newer passenger jets have the stability of an acrobatic plane or fighter jet. Fly-by-wire systems compensate with a computer system between the pilot and the control surfaces (MCAS).
In summary:
1. Intrinsically, unstable airframes that are computer dependent for stability 2. A glitch in the computer software/hardware and/or sensors. 3. Pilots who have no ability to directly move the control surfaces through cables or hydraulics. 4. Pilots complained of inadequate training and flight system documentation. 5. Pilots whose raw flying skills are now filtered through a computer.
18
@JSH Nice theory but it seems moving the weight of the engine forward would move the center of gravity forward, increasing stall resilience according to your analysis. It seems to me newer airplanes are as safe as old ones (airsafe.com). It's just the 737 MAX that's the problem. I'd wait to jump to conclusions. The first passenger jet, the de Havilland Comet, experienced several deadly airframe losses in its first year of operation. I am sure people back then wrote that jet engines were not appropriate for civilian transportation. In the end, it was the window shape.
1
@Atm oht
One engineering obstacle was the newer 737 Max8 engines had larder diameter and were heavier. Engineers moved them outboard the swept back wings and the dihedral provided more clearance. Heavier weight further back moves the center of gravity back.
It is also evident in the MCAS system. This system was not needed in the older 737s which would intrinsically pitch nose down. The newer 737 Max 8 intrinsically pitches nose up and the MCAS counter acts by moving the horizontal stabilizer pitching the nose down.
Look closely at the photo in the article. There are 2 parallel slots at the leading edge of the horizontal stabilizer. You can seen the range of motion, down in the nearby plane and up the second, background plane. Imagine if a software glitch rotated the horizontal stabilize resulting in a nose down.
2
@JSH
I need to make a slight correction. The 737 Max 8 uses a stabilator, the whole control surface moves. The trailing surfaces are massive (compared with traditional elevator) trim tabs. The concern remains, the stabilator trim tabs are under MCAS control and can point the nose down and overrides the pilots judgement that that the nose needs to be up.
Is it just me - or is the writer being a bit inhuman? The bottom line is that hundreds of peoples have lost their lives, possibly because of an issue in those planes.
So if the lives of people sharing this planet with us now are not “incentive” enough - how can he so planely talk of money and grounded airplanes as the incentive.
It is ok for a US based newspaper to look at news events from a US oriented perspective. I wouldn’t expect any other view. And I can comprehend the effect on the US economy.
But I am enforced to take on the writer’s agenda that I should look at sums and figures as the bottom line. I accept that those sums and figures are connected to jobs and families. But we are not discussing a possible saftey design flaw on a milk carton... And we mustn’t treat it that way.
5
It's interesting to note that Delta has no interest in the Max series. This is probably related to when Boeing filed a trade dispute over the new Bonbardier CS series regional aircraft. Boeing eventually lost the dispute and the CS series design was acquired by Airbus. But Delta's CEO never forgot about the delays in receiving the CS aircraft that were caused by the dispute.
2
The 737 MAX 8/9's:
Boeing's penurious shortchanging of pilot education/training, seems awfully shortsighted.
They failed to ask: "What is the worst that could happen?"
Well, the MACS system could relentlessly commandeer the aircraft, thereby causing a death-spiral while tryng to prevent a non-existent stall, based on one computer ingesting less-than-half of the available data.
Seems more than a bit sinister, not unlike HAL in "2001 A Space Odyssey."
To wit:
HAL 9000: I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.
"
1
@Arnie Tracey
Don't quote movie scripts. They aren't real.
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
Movies are allegories for life. A line from Wall Street or another movie about greed might have been equally appropriate.
1
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
verisimilar adjective
veri·sim·i·lar | \ ˌver-ə-ˈsi-mə-lər , -ˈsim-lər\
Definition of verisimilar
1 : having the appearance of truth : PROBABLE
2 : depicting realism (as in art or literature)
Boeing is a monopoly. They'll get through this just fine.
The last paragraph is the most frightening and damning. THERE IS NO SIMULATOR for the Max! How is that possible? I was under the impression that pilots train for EVERY aircraft built on a sim. That should be mandatory.
32
@Steve Cohen
The core of the matter seems to be that that MCAS system emulates the flight behavior of the older 737s, so no simulator is needed. The MCAS basically IS the simulator - or, rather, emulator.
The problem now is that if that MCAS system malfunctions and needs to be switched off and the pilot resumes manual control, the MAX planes now suddenly behave like a completely different and inherently instable aircraft, one the pilots have never flown before. Trying to handle that in a moment of crisis while distracted with an emergency is basically impossible.
To train for that, the pilots would literally have to spend hundreds of hours in a simulator that reflects the handling characteristics of the MAX planes WITHOUT the MCAS system engaged. I.e. the pilots literally would have to constantly train to fly two radically different airplanes: The stable 737 (i.e. the MAX with the MCAS engaged) and the highly unstable MAX version without the MCAS.
That, in a nutshell, will kill the MAX versions.
2
Last country to ground them; we'll be the first to put them back up.
3
@pendragn52
Undisputed reports of fire coming from the Ethiopian plane before it crashed mean nothing to you I guess? The Co-pilot having 200 hours of experience had no role right? But when, after the facts are known, the planes are put back in service you will find fault with the United States if we are the first? Who has the largest number of these planes in use right now? Is it harder or easier to keep these planes grounded when the number of them is multiples of what are being used in other Countries? All facts but they don't matter do they?
@GregP
How much are you losing Greg?
Undisputed?
Co-pilot's experience to blame?
For someone saying we don't know the cause you seem very certain of what the cause wasn't.
@Marie
If you imply I am invested in Boeing Stock that is sadly not the case. I am one of the working poor and do not own any stocks.
Hubris. This is what happens when engineers believe tech can solve all problems. Software algorithms by design are already accepted to be superior to human analysis.
There has to be a line instruction in the code to inform the pilot that MCAS has engaged and another to disengage itself when the pilot repeats an action counter to MCAS's.
1
Maybe the software has been hacked, or the communication with the automated control systems of the plane hacked. Maybe these crashes were deliberately caused. It's actually possible. There have been issues with hacking vulnerabilities of aircraft communication systems.
Boeing 'designed' a computer-assisted flying death trap with an unstable center of gravity....and the FAA sleepwalked through a 'self-regulating free-market' rubber stamp approval process of the plane.
There's just no excuse for that kind of recklessness.
Boeing failed at aerodynamics and humanity.
They need to start over.
Corporate self-regulation is fatal.
129
@Socrates
Who was the President when that happened? Was it Mr. Obama? How come no blame for him today?
It happened in 2005, during the GW Bush administration. Another exercise in regulatory capture, brought to you by your friends in the Republican Party...
28
@Socrates, you forgot B-52s and agent orange.
1
Perhaps Boeing would have been better off if they had made the decision to never put a jet into service with a known flight problem? How will Boeing manage this self-caused crisis? Who knows and who cares? They made this decision, they own it.
1
I care. Along with millions of Americans who fly frequently and tens of millions more who just have an interest in the safety of passengers and the success of a premier American company. A hit to Boeing affects the economic and military success of our entire country.
3
The pilot of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 told controllers he was having "flight control problems" before the Boeing 737 Max 8 jet crashed. There’s a great deal of focus on the software - is it at all possible these planes were hacked ?
@Ms. Kitroeff (NYTimes) : you wrote that Boeing's orders are probably safe, as they usually require a 20 % down payment. Could you please try to find out if that is really true for all, or at least the majority of current orders for the 737 Max? Thanks!
The SEC filings by Boeing might be a good place to start - 20% down for each of those planes equals many millions of dollars, so that revenue stream would show up in Boeing's SEC earning statements and filings.
In addition, those purchase orders are usually written by small armies of lawyers and contain many, many pages of clauses and subclauses that regulate if, how and when an order might be canceled with a full or partial refund of the 20% down, if it was actually paid. Lastly, manufacturers might tread easy here if some of their best customers changes their mind, as future orders and sales are at stake.
1
@Pete in Downtown I have heard a third on order, a third when it goes into paint and a third on delivery. But all of these are closely guarded secrets and vary widely from customer to customer. Purchase agreements can be found in airlines' SEC filings, however, all the juicy stuff (pricing and terms) is redacted and viewed as company confidential.
Airbus managed to mount the new generation engines under its A320 without any problems, the A320neo.
Boeing was taken by surprise by the A320neo and had to scramble for an answer. Even Boeing's loyal customers Delta and AA have already ordered the new Airbus for this crucial segment of the market so Boeing was under extreme time pressure to come up with the Max.
How much the engineers at Boeing had to compromise the inherent flight stability of the old 737 to fit the new engines is the question. Were the software corrections to unwanted tendencies (like stalling in certain scenarios) a bridge too far?
Or was the software rushed because of time pressure and can they produce a reliable updated 737 jet with upcoming fixes after all?
Given the expertise of Boeing (after the merger with MD) in making very difficult military stealth plane designs flyable for pilots through software, I'm inclined to believe the latter.
The former would be a disaster for Boeing, being at least 10 years away from a completely new design.
1
An Airbus aircraft had an automation-related problem, which resulted in the crash of Air France flight 447 in 2009: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/death-in-the-atlantic-the-last-four-minutes-of-air-france-flight-447-a-679980-5.html So Boeing is not alone in having had such problems.
@Bill 765 That was a sensor failure combined with pilot error. Very different. Autopilot disengaged and returned control to the pilots. Pilots flew the airplane into a stall and did not recover. Apples and oranges.
@Atm oht This was likely a sensor error (AoA)....followed by pilot error (not disabling the MCAS). Apples to apples.
So easy to vilify Boeing with superficial journalism. Please inform us what exactly was the company doing after the first crash. And just out of curiosity, did the FAA being shut down for those critical 5 weeks play into this??
1
@Pete Please inform us why the government (and the FAA) needed to be shut down for those critical five weeks?
Cause and effect.
@Pete
I am really, really tired of the shifting blame excuse.
There is absolutely no difference between what Boeing did and you saying "Yes honey, there was a large bubble on the sidewall of the tire on the car that the kids drove. Yes, the same tire that killed another family but the tire shop was closed, so I couldn't get it fixed, so I let them drive the car figuring it wouldn't blow out while they were driving it. It's the tire shop's fault that our kids died in that crash. If the shop wasn't closed it wouldn't have happened. It's not my fault. You know that."
What ever happened to being responsible for one's own actions? (Hint: Don't ask the party that preached taking personal responsibility for years, until they didn't).
You shouldn't have let them drive the car while the shop was closed. The same for Boeing.
@Pete It'a new airframe, after the Lion Air accident there was no sign of foul play, bad weather, suicide notes, whatever, you assume it's an airplane issue. And you ground them until you figure it out. As simple as that. Total airframe losses are not that common and unheard of in the first six months of operation of a new airplane. That accident alone makes the 737 MAX the least safe of all airplane types in operation, by a good margin. Would you ground the least safe of all of your products? I would.
1
It is a clear rebuke to the US NTSB and FAA that the principal investigator of the Ethiopian Air crash will be the French aviation authorities.
There was a time when the world trusted the US authorities to be impartial. No more under Elaine Chao’s Department of Transportation.
The US was so irresponsibly slow in grounding the 737 Max that the rest of the world rightly no longer trusts us. Our current administration has proved itself merely to be a toady for whichever corporation or foreign government bids the highest.
103
Boeing clearly has work to do.
So does The New York Times.
For the Times to effectively be going beyond reporting, to cheering on failure for Boeing and its 150,000 workers is nothing short of disgusting.
Boeing pursued short-term profits over safety and human lives. They behaved like opportunists and gambling addicts, taking advantage of a corrupt system and ignorant corrupt president for personal profits for their executives and shareholders. Corporations have proven time and again that they are incapable of self-regulation and ethical behavior. This situation is exactly why we need regulations and oversight.
30
346 people are deceased who innocently depended on Boeing to be honest and safe. The US F.A.A. is being led by an “Acting” Administrator. Not one person has been appointed or attempted to be appointed as F.A.A. Administrator by Donald Trump since January, 2018 when Mr. Huerta, previous Administrator, resigned. Perhaps instead of schmoozing with and traveling to visit the Saudis, North Koreans, and Putin, Trump should get his feet on the ground, pun intended, and tend to the United States.
And flight crews, passengers, airline employees, and the public were just suppose to blindly accept all this?
Amen to all the public who paid condolences to all victims and their loved ones, and also demanded more from the United States - Boeing, F.A.A., our government. (by the way where has Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation, been?)
As a family member of airline employees, I say “let this not rest.” We need the truth - everyone needs the truth.
190
@MIMA
Apparently, Elaine Chao is as useless as her obstructionist husband, Mitch McConnell.
72
@MIMA That's rich, given that the Democrats have been consistently assassinating the character of every single Trump appointee and stonewalling as many as possible.
@MIMA
Let's not forget to make sure we follow the trail between Boeing, the FAA and the government shutdown. Boeing was prepared to roll out their software fix at the end of January before the Ethiopian Air crash. But the 5 week shutdown prevented Boeing from getting the FAA to sign off on it because they were home on "vacation."
7
Not bad guys at BOEING for this innovation in creeppy corporate behavior.
'Software that can in some rare, but dangerous situations, override pilot control inputs unless it is switched off'.
Pilot's awareness that the software was active, was less relevant to BOEING than their next dollar.
In a few years we will be told that, an ex-Hueway Technology employee hired by a sourcing asian agent at BOEING, planted 'some kind of malware'. Not our fault, they'll repeat in total denial.
1
While no engineer, is there something amiss in the basic design where the pitch must be adjusted in such a manner. Do other aircraft have similar issues shortly after take off?
2
A basic tenet of any engineering design is that it should be compatible with the least skilled people who may operate the device, not the aces. Also, in critical systems like an aircraft or a rocket, one never builds a single-point failure into any subsystem. That is inviting a disaster down the road. How could Boeing engineers allow for elevator authority critical to flying the aircraft to be overridden by trim control? Does not make any sense whatsoever. As such, Boeing engineers have to share some of the blame.
As for the FAA, our Congress has to share some of the blame. Crucial agencies like FAA must be adequately funded. If not, they cannot do their job in-house and have to outsource at least parts of it. This is probably what happened here. They had to rely partly on the OEMS for the certification process. The outcome was inevitable. So let us not put the blame solely on the FAA. It has a tough job: Regulating AND protecting the interests of Aviation in the US. Our Congress should NOT have put FAA in that untenable position.
It is time to break up FAA into two parts and fund them both adequately so that the public confidence in the FAA can be restored.
33
@kant It is time to get all Republican "government is the problem" types out of government!
@kant Try to design a car under your "least skilled operator" assumption. Maybe a rubber sphere with not controls? Agree on all your other points
Does nobody think this is an overreaction?
2 planes went down in 4 months. Together, the 737 MAX planes make 8600 flights a week, so in the 4 months between both crashes, they made ~140k flights. Grounding the planes means disrupting flights for about a million people per week. Seems like an absolute panic over a minute danger. And a very expensive panic at that.
1
@Tom
You fly on a max 8, or better yet, put your family on one.
17
@Tom
Tom you are just saying the commerce and profit are more important than the risk to human life. That's it. Just own it. Profit is profit. People are just people after all.
2
@Tom We already know enough about this problem to know that there is a significant chance that it will happen again. Aviation can't gamble. That's the mistake Boeing made; they gambled and they lost.
You don't have to deal with the finantial impact of a crisis if you put enough money in engineering in the first place. But when you want to redesign at minimum cost and cut on safety nets, you have to face the consequences. How typical of the way industries are governed by business people nowadays.
56
Oh, a sortware fix... Boeing must have been aware there was a bug. Many pilots reported difficulty with the plane without crashing it, In the end, lazy Boeing killed 350 people.
53
Not lazy, Joe. Insatiably greedy.
2
@Joe
When I first came to this town 40 years ago Boeing was known as The Lazy B.
Budget cuts the Whitehouse slated for the FAA make inspection of ever increasing sophisticated aircraft an increasing danger to the flying public. It's no wonder the FAA may rely on self policing. How can you pay the salaries of highly competent engineers when your budget is cut.
37
@Tc
A few years ago a friend of mine commenting on some CEO moaning about a shortage of engineers said "What he means is there's a shortage of cheap engineers"
2
@Tc But Dotard says they're too complicated for anyone to fly, but budget cuts please his owners and he's not flying commercial, and regulation is bad, and profits are good, and Dennis Boeing is his Mar-a-Lardo buddy, so...
Que sera, sera.
1
I, for one, will never board a 737 Max8. The fact that Boeing continued to attest to the safety of the plane, even after two horrific crashes, and even as they were still working to correct the faulty software, bespeaks a company which cares much more about its bottom line than about passengers.
It remains to be seen whether or not Congress, which has received millions of dollars from Boeing lobbyists, will muster the courage to demand significant changes to the way planes are certified as airworthy and whether or not they are allowed to fly. I'm not optimistic. One thing is sure: Trump and Chao who "love" Boeing will never do it. PASSENGERS' LIVES MATTER!
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So what is the alternative to a plane that probably everyone in the world has flown in and not crashed? Chicken Little would be as steady as a rock by today's standards.
@John Doe Wrong. 737s are fine. Everyone, as you point out, has flown on one. The specific issue is the 737 MAX 8 and 9. Not everyone has flown on one. Clarified?
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@John Doe. For most airlines, they will use other planes in their fleet. The main beneficiary of this (self-inflicted) damage to confidence in Boeing will be Airbus; their 350 jet is the 737Max's main competitor. Unlike Boeing's approach, Airbus designated the 350 as a new plane, i.e. pilots need to be fully trained on it. That requirement was seen as a cost disadvantage until the 737Max started to show the problems of that shortcut.
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Go ahead. Book your family on a 737.
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I will never fly on one of these 737 Max 8 planes. Ever. I will not allow my family to fly on this plane.
It’s beyond obvious that Boeing fudged on the design. Instead of creating a new design the used a Rube Goldberg system of software tweaks to hide the fact that the wing and engine designs did not match Witt the structures characteristics. Insanity.
Boeing self approved the plane - not the FAA.
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@B Barry, I remember years ago there was the same sort of panic over rear engine jets and everyone swore the same. But after the hassle of buying tickets, getting strip searched, standing at the airport window with noses pressed to glass to see what airplane pulled up at your gate, climbing over each other to get to a seat, buckling up, hurling back into the seat going up, when the attendant finally came the big question was what kind drink to order.
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@John Doe It is easy to look up the type of aircraft for a given flight number ahead of time. Seatguru, Flightstats, and other sites are indispensable travel tools for more than this reason.
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@Father Damien Karras, guess what, beggars can’t be choosy. Airlines will soon catch on and only offer low priced tickets to the masses on these suspect aircraft. All others will be like flying Ivy League.
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The MCAS system that caused the Lion Air crash is apparently not integrated with the rest of the airplane--it is considered to be infallible. When it received incorrect signals it caused the plane to dive into the ground in spite of contrary efforts from the pilots and in spite of all the other information that the plane itself knows about its altitude and attitude. The planes should have been grounded after that crash and the MCAS system should have been fixed.
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@Tim Lewis This infallible aspect is precisely what gives me pause. Many readers seem to think a quick fix can mend the MCAS software.
But why is this anti-stall correction implemented in such a way to make it difficult for pilots to disable it?
I suspect software covers a far larger space between what the pilots think they are doing and what the plane is actually doing than Boeing is willing to admit, due to design issues.
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@Liz It seems to me there wasn't a way to override the MCAS directly. You had to turn off servo control of the tail trim and use a manual wheel or some such. It's like saying to turn off cruise control you'd have to accelerate with a wheel instead of the pedal instead of just disabling the cruise control. I suspect that if you could disable the MCAS, then you'd have to train pilots on how to do it, which was exactly what Boeing wanted to avoid. But if you only allowed to turn off the tail trim, that counts like a different type of failure, like a servo control failure, and that's already possible in any 737.