a plane that doesn't kill you is "extra". very very bad headline for this great american company. heads should roll at every level. Boeing, FAA, etc ...
95
safety shouldn't be treated like a blanket or a pillow and cost extra. What a disgrace.
80
They should replace ALL of Boeing's upper management.
57
2d submission:
It appears Boeing has been taking its cue from our Big Three Automakers which charge you extra for car floor mats; Except here Dennis Muilenburg, the beffudled CEO of Boeing decided that safety equipped features of a 737 Max plane (adding less than $16,000 to the purchase price of a 117 Million) should be offered like floor mats, strictly extra.
Can you imagine that oxygen masks for the crew were also offered as an option rather than as a mandatory crucial safety feature? Can you imagine?
68
Commodifying safety is never justifiable.
35
The extras definitely did not include more leg room
17
I wonder what the position of the Pilots Unions will be on this?
19
Single point of failure and a sensor too. This is gross incompetence.
31
Disgusting. I get that Boeing needs to make a profit, but there must be some other way than making companies pay extra for SAFETY features! How do they sleep at night?
30
The coming lawsuits should be enough to kill Boeing, if there’s any justice in the world. But there isn’t.
28
Extra bathrooms and plusher seats are "optional" - comm, nav, and extra safety backup systems are not. Shame on Boeing for tacking on "extra" for features that might have prevented these horrific accidents.
41
"Never go to sea with two chronometers. Take three or one."That old advice from the sea is applicable here. If the angle of attack sensor is important enough to require a backup, which it certainly is, the pilots should have a positive way of knowing at a glance which one is malfunctioning and should be disregarded.
19
America's reputation diminishes further every day, it seems.
43
This would be like General Motors selling cars with optional brakes.
27
I sounds as if absolute safety was a paid extra!
9
Data from malfunctioning sensors, whether they be angle of attack sensors or pitot tubes that relay critical information to computer interfaces, have been responsible for or contributed to fatal accidents as well as numerous emergency landings in both Airbus and Boeing aircraft. The first such notable incident was Air France Flight 447 (Airbus 330) crash in 2009 where pitot tubes blocked by ice caused the autopilot to disconnect, reportedly resulting in pilot error. Less well known in the U.S. is Qantas Flight 72 (2008) where one of the A330 air data units sent incorrect information to the flight control system, twice commanding the nose to suddenly pitch downward, precipitously losing altitude. The experienced Captain, a former Navy fighter pilot fought the computer system to override it both times, preventing the plane from crashing. The sudden loss of altitude resulted in significant injuries to both passengers and crew alike. The ongoing investigations into the Lion Air and Ethiopian crashes have much to examine, not limited to: the absence of critical safety features in the aircraft, potential malfunctioning sensors, maintenance records and clear procedures/ training to successfully override automated systems that may behave unpredictably.
21
Seems like Boeing has been taking its cue from GMC which charges you extra for car floor mats; Except here Dennis Muilenburg, the sorry excuse of Boeing's CEO decided that safety equipped features of a 737 Max plane (adding less than $16,000 to a purchase of a 117Million) should be offered like floor mats, strictly extra. Can you imagine that oxygen masks for the crew were also offered as an option rather than as mandatory crucial features? Can you imagine?
10
To charge extra for a feature that essentially enables the successful operation of the plane is ludicrous.
15
Profit above people for Boeing and the airlines. The FAA must not be far behind. Nothing is sacred anymore.
14
The criminal absurdity of this is beyond belief. It is like selling someone a car without brakes and failing to tell him/her that brakes are also available at extra charge. And the FAA, obviously deep in Boeing’s pockets, will do exactly nothing.
19
Funny how everyone defending Boeing is from Washington state. It's not just their safety "options" policy and FAA's captured regulatory regime that looks bad around the world now...
8
What next? The bargain option without wings?
12
These planes and their passengers were doomed the moment computers were programmed to override the pilots. There were warnings from a number of Airbus crashes where computer malfunctions caught out pilots. Most of these were written off as 'pilot error' because the pilots were dead.
Other crashes have resulted from pilots placing excessive reliance on "computer infallibility".
Now there are airline executives discussing pilot-less aircraft as safety measures - read 'money saving'.
13
This is the "free market", "no regulations" in real life that Republicans and conservatives love, and cram down our throats, every day.
36
In this case and likely others the Boeing company is a bunch of avaricious, greedy criminals.
15
You should update this story to include the fact that the Justice Department AND the FBI have initiated a criminal investigation into this issue. I tried to make this comment earlier but it apparently was not accepted. Why not?
11
Boeing should be dissolved for this.
6
Boeing’s chief executive, said the company was working to make the 737 Max safer.
Heard of a well known saying closing the stable door after the horse has bolted?
8
Cutting costs and saving money is important and Boeing understands this.
1
Pure greed. Boeing should be forced to provide all safety related upgrades free of charge.
12
Too much at stake here. The corporate damage control is at work. No mea culpa from Wall Greed owned pocket lining ceo's or faa folk.
5
Apparently, new reports say that the pilot was not trained on the Max 8 or didn't get the updated training for it.
2
Back in the early spaceflight era, many critical components such as fuel valves were/are designed as "quad-redundant" systems so that at least two valves would have to fail before the fuel supply malfunctions. Although modern components may seem more reliable, it's inconceivable to me why Boeing would allow this newly-inserted control influencer to continue to interfere with a pilot when the ONE sensor driving the whole thing goes haywire.
Looks to me like this critical, poorly-executed "add-on" was a concession to the Boeing sales department, and Boeing just simply assured the FAA not to worry their pretty little heads about it.
8
I wonder who at American Airlines decided that both safety features others thought were not required, were worth the extra cost? Good for them or is it a corporate ethos embedded in the culture that they will gladly pay for any and all safety features. Either way I say thanks as a major customer of AA.
7
I am completely appalled at the number of commenters who believe safety “options” should be optional. This is not a car; if something goes wrong in a car, the computer system is not fighting the driver nor is a crash likely resulting in mass casualties. A plane crash results in mass casualties, all of which are most definitely fatal. At least with a car crash you have a fighting chance to get to a hospital.
Part of the reason it’s safer to fly than drive is safety wasn’t optional on planes. That will quickly change if airplane manufacturers charge for safety. And let’s be real here: safety “options” on cars are nice-to-haves but you don’t need a rear camera to backup—turn your head! Planes having computer systems that actively fight against them? That’s a whole ‘nother ballgame. And safety features to stop that should never, ever, ever be optional or cost additional.
12
Boeing has become the poster corporation for American Corporations, a fitting example of who we are, a country in the world that elected Donald Trump as our representative on the world stage. The foreign leaders who count Trump as their peer amongst friends are Russia, Saudi Arabia, Israel, North Korea and the Philipines. But for them, it’s just a business relationship. Judge Trump by the company he keeps, both foreign and domestic.
13
I understand that airplane safety was the driven cause of the company's success for over eighty years. Boeing used to be redundant is safety systems to ensure its planes safety record, ease anxiety of passengers and provide certainty to pilots that the plane would be safe to flight and to land. Now the onus is on the passengers, the airline, and the crew to inquiry if the plane is fitted with safety equipment and its safe to fly.
I believe that safety should never be an option for public transportation and that all Boeing planes in America should be grounded until the FAA has determined that they have all safety options available and provided free by Boeing.
The CEO and the board should be held criminally accountable for selling a sub-par product that needs additional safety options to fly safely.
7
Cars have safety options. So do planes. You want a lane keep assistance warning on your car, you can have it at a cost. You choose not to get it and crash your car, no one blames GM.
Same with a red light angle of attack disagreement indicator on a plane. It’s a non-essential option. You don’t want it, don’t buy it. You want it, you pay for it.
Planes are going to crash, epecially as more developing nations’ airlines grow. Their pilots are less capable on average than pilots have been historically, especially in the US where so many of them were military trained.
1
Recall the DC 10 and the incident where the catastrophic failure of an engine severed all hydraulics for the entire airplane because of the routing of all hydraulic lines through a single are?
I thought the avoidance single point of failure had become a key design feature in all airliners. But, here, where it’s standard, requiring an upgrade, Boeing allows some skinflint airline executives to make a decision on an apparently key safety feature.
Besides the huge damages that Boeing should and will fork over because of the terrifying deaths this caused, it should immediately retrofit every airplane with the dual vanes cross check, the disparity light and the angle of attack instrument. When a passenger feels great about boarding an American made Boeing airliner, it should be because it actually is a well made airplane with uniform safety features regardless of airline, be it American, Southwest or the national airline of a developing country.
5
I find it odd that the majority on here believe that Boeing should provide options for free. Airlines have a choice. They too are profit motivated and don’t want to pay for the same reason Boeing doesn’t want to build stuff for free. Why didn’t they pay for the option? Likely to save a few thousand dollars but also because a well trained pilot should be able to diagnose the problem and turn MCAS off. In fact on a prior Lion Air flight an off duty pilot did just that.
2
All available safety features should be mandatory. Offering them as options to purchase should be criminal.
10
Blood on their hands, so all along Boeing executives knew the cause of the recent plane crashes but kept quiet. It is a shame and another reason not to trust Americans and American products. Our government reneges on contracts our corporations sell semi quality products to other countries even when they know that loss of lives is at stake. Something is definitely wrong in America, and every time I read stories like this my mind goes to the Roman Empire at its peak and decline, but I do not believe our country should end like the Roman Empire did, we have history to teach us.
5
Why isn’t Boeing making all safety upgrades? They’re only springing for one of the two? Safety shouldn’t be for sale.
8
I’m not sure how much planes cost, but I have to ask why a plane is sold without all safety nets available? Seems like holding hostage for more money to solve a known or expected problem.
5
The world’s airlines need to wake up and stop buying Boeing planes. Whether they are guilty or not, they were quite happy to squander their reputation on a marketing strategy of selling optional safety equipment. When you build airplanes, what on earth is optional safety equipment?
Boeing is sleeping with the Federal Government, and the GOP’s stated goal is to shink the Federal Government so small that they can drown it in the bathtub. That’s their platform, we all heard it. Ask your doctor if that is right for you. The FDA is next. Ask your doctor about that, too.
9
Do I read this right? Does profit greed even in aviation - for manufacturer as well as airline - really overrule safety aspects? No fancy cabin illumination or non-reclining seats on shorthaul flights (Ryan Air), ok, but not skimping on these possibly lifesaving devices, such as warning light or extra fire distinguisher, available at peanut prices.
And partly shifting product control from independent external authorities like FAA to manufacturer‘s employees completes the picture.
7
Safety and navigation features are part of the optional Explorer Pack.
3
All profit, no responsibility.
That’s what the leader of New Zealand said about social media platforms shortly after banning all military style guns.
An international hero and her people’s champion.
13
I had no idea we were flying on planes where essential safety features were optional. The angle of attack indicator and disagree light are features I've never heard of, but it's astonishing that Boeing hasn't built redundancy into their sensors. What really floored me is that Boeing charges extra for a backup fire extinguisher in the hold--and the FAA allows this! How much does a fire extinguisher cost Boeing?
13
I recommend that all readers outraged about the (questionable) conclusions in this article go read about the safety and training cultures at Lion Air and Ethiopian Airways. Hint: check out the article at the Washington Post.
There probably are many factors that contributed to these crashes, and my bet is that the lack of the warning light mentioned in this article is relatively insignificant.
For example, is it even true that the problem was caused by a single bad AoA sensor? It very possibly was not, in which case the entire premise of this article is irrelevant.
And there are other possibilities: why were the the AoA sensors were sending bad data? Or maybe they weren’t? Are those sensors less reliable on this new plane? Why didn’t the Ethiopian pilots know to disable the electric trim even though they were supposed to be trained for this scenario? Why are American pilots surprised that the pilots weren’t able to quickly fix the issue by flipping a single switch?
Boeing did not design MCAS well, and there is no doubt they have culpability in these crashes. But it’s premature to think we fully understand what went wrong and to point fingers based on speculation of what MIGHT have been a factor.
3
Not sure your naysaying will convince many readers. What will happen is fewer passengers will blindly board Boeing's Max 8 around the world. Consequently Boeing's current and future order stream for Max 8 will dry up, until such point it seriously addresses the troubling safety "options" packages. That's bad for Boeing and no one else, regardless of the spin you're attempting to put on the story.
7
This is beyond shocking that safety features for an airplane can be sold as extras. Does Boeing not value human life above money?
15
Do airlines who purchased the barebones planes? If customers didn’t want to trim costs by eliminating safety features they had/have that option.
1
@Rachel You should express your shock toward the NYT for leading you to believe that the options in question are considered vital safety features.
1
The writers' purpose seems to portray greedy evil Boeing overcharging 3rd world airlines for vital options. That makes no sense; Boeing's purpose is to have a customer buy their airplanes for decades to come and always operate them SAFELY . Boeing and the customer both come out ahead.
(Ethiopian has been a Boeing customer since 1962)
The story shows the writers' (perhaps willful) ignorance of how airliners are configured in general, how they are operated, and how Angle of Attack could be used in service.
Once a customer has accepted a proposal for a new airplane type, Boeing's practice to have teams of engineers meet with the customer to review ALL the available options and assist with option selection.
AOA indication is just one of the hundreds of options contained in the nearly 400-page 737 options catalog. Some options are expensive, especially increased gross weight or thrust rating. These options are restively cheap - around $20,000 in a $2,000,000 option package for an airplane priced at more than $100,000,000.
Is AOA a safety option? Strange as that may seem, apparently not. They are customer-preference options because there is no standard procedure for using AOA in flight.
Airplanes are flown by airspeed and attitude not AOA. I am not a pilot - I will leave it to a 737 pilot to comment on the need for AOA instead of airspeed or Mach during normal and non-normal flight procedures.
3
@Mitch Thank you for a well-informed, thoughtful post! You provide great context.
1
Boeing will probably have to declare bankruptcy because there are so many planes already sold or ordered, and so many individuals prepared to sue. Boeing cannot pay the price and cannot explain their fault.
1
Worked, for years, for a reputable company, furnishing full automated solutions . Extra expensive options were quoted to clients to get a better end product for 'baby diapers and cosmetics' . Boeing , these are human lives , safety is not an option , it's mandatory!
The entire top management is in doubt .
6
Who would think that a fundamental concept like redundancy in a critical aircraft system on a passenger aircraft would not be standard? Apparently Boeing did.
And who would think to certify an aircraft with such a system? Apparently the FAA did.
15
That fact that "safety" is now considered an "option" to be purchased from an aircraft manufacturer like Boeing may have come at the expense of 347 lives. What is even more disturbing is that Boeing is still planning to install only one of the safety features and keep the second angle of attack indicator as an "option" available for purchase. How many more lives is it going to cost in order for Boeing to figure out that safety is not an option? Boeing should be retrofitting two angle of attack indicators on all existing aircraft and making all critical safety equipment now standard. Additionally, legislation should be passed to make it illegal for aircraft manufacturers to sell critical safety equipment as "options." Clearly, profit is still being prioritized over safety.
9
Do you think it costs manufacturers anything to add new safety features? Should they give every conceivable feature away for free?
Should the US DOT require car companies to include all available safety features in every car? Will you as a consumer be willing to pay several thousands of dollars more for all of those safety features, regardless of whether you think they’re worth it?
4
This is not a car; if something goes wrong in a car, the computer system is not fighting the driver nor is a crash likely resulting in mass casualties. A plane crash results in mass casualties, all of which are most definitely fatal. At least with a car crash you have a fighting chance to get to a hospital.
Part of the reason it’s safer to fly than drive is safety wasn’t optional on planes. That will quickly change if airplane manufacturers continue to charge for safety. And let’s be real here: safety “options” on cars are nice-to-haves but you don’t need a rear camera to backup—turn your head! Planes having computer systems that actively fight against them? That’s a whole ‘nother ballgame. And safety features to stop that should never, ever, ever be optional or cost additional.
4
The truism about government regulators is that they become enthralled to their given industry. Safety systems that are an 'extra' option?
4
I don't fly.
Flying, as everyone knows, is carbon intensive.
It's best to avoid it as a means of transportation in
deference to the health of the planet and our children.
A reason for not flying almost as grave as environmental
concerns is flying
supports these bloodless
things called corporations. What do corporations
protect above all else? Profits not us..
People and their deaths are a line item on the
corporate ledger.
The government we pay for and tithe once a year has
a primary obligation which has historically been to
protect corporate profits.
It's all legal. It's been made legal by the law makers who
make laws in service to corporations and their profits.
How it came to this? In short, the American people have been
lied to everyday since well before Vietnam. Lies are the new truth. These days politicians and especially the POTUS can lie openly because such a huge segment of the public has been so beaten and dumbed down that they've come to assume the truth
is 'Fake News.' Boeing, living off billions in tax subsidies, is guilty of premeditated murder and those murders hardly began with those two crashed 737 Max jetliners.
6
So let me get this straight...
I pay for a ticket and get charged extra for in flight snacks and extra to take any amount of luggage with me.
Airlines are making record profits in the process.
And a critical piece of equipment to get me to my destination alive is optional...and airlines didn't pay for it out of their record profits?
I'm staying on the ground until there is conflict of interest free oversight.
4
This sounds a bit like those paywalls you encounter on the internet once you get lured into the content, or those add-ons offered on free video games after you've gotten hooked.
Is the add-on something that's already built into the software but locked until purchased? Can the pilot, mid-flight, enter his credit card information for the upgrade? If so, would the service activate in time to avoid a crash if the software has already started the crash sequence?
I will be very upset if Boeing is operating its flight safety system this way. It looks very suspicious: the software starts violently pointing the plane up and down, and if the pilot pays extra it will stop? Is it like on Spirit, where the charge goes up to longer you wait? Does the price go up at lower altitudes?
Is it just a one-time purchase, or do you have to subscribe? Can a pilot subscribe individually? If he has a subscription, but his card is declined at renewal, is tgere a grace period, or will service stop immediately?
On planes that don't have the upgrade, can some premium seats ($15 extra) be equipped with parachutes instead of flotation?
Complex.
3
And why did ony United in the u.s.not obtain either? Without passengers knowledge Another reason never to fly United.
8
China will be happy to include all safety options as vase equipment when it rolls out its commercial planes in the next few years. Those budget airlines won’t have to make those choices anymore. The only choice they will make is to dump Boeing.
America just doesn’t learn...
4
Unsafe at any altitude.
7
When Boeing, with all that name signifies in the annals of man's perfecting the technology of moving millions of souls across the planet at 600mph at an altitude of 32.000 feet , would sooner risk losing one, and then two of its new series of planes, full of human lives, to make a few hundred bucks on a SAFETY feature that costs a few dollars...well, then you know we are truly in the Age of Trump. We know that the Trump Shutdown crippled vital functions of the FAA for over a month; was there "collusion" between the MCAS gremlins, and the evil imps that sit on Trump's shoulder, whispering in his ear in the early morning hours as he tweets out bizarre polemics and sullen confrontations that too often take the form of national policies?
3
Think about the first sentence of your comment, as well as this rhetorical question: do you actually believe that?
Although I was an airline analyst, it is my common sense that tells me that Boeing should not have relied on one sensor to analyze a critical plane position. Sensors can be affected by ice, wind, dirt, cleaning the plane, etc. And to not actively communicate this siI am both disappointed and disgusted at Boeing.
11
And I can't wait to ride around in a car that "thinks" for itself. What a wonderful, brave new world.
7
There will always be tradeoffs involved in every decision you make. That’s life. Or death. Yes automated systems may sometimes err or fail. But what about the times they work and save you from a crash?
1
Since United Airlines was fine without the additional safety features it appears that not purchasing them because they were not needed had merit. If that is the case Boeing should have informed purchasers and may in fact have done so. There can be two sides to every story and I find it difficult to believe that Boeing would intentionally hold back on essential safety equipment. It is beginning to look like some countries do not require the same level of training as others and that is becoming a major concern when I fly.
5
this is what car companies do. if you want the latest safety features, you must not only pay more, you have to buy a lot of other stuff that you do not want to buy. it is all about money. it is not about making passengers safer.
i wonder if American Airlines paid for the safety features?
4
Do you think it costs manufacturers anything to add new safety features? Should they give every conceivable feature away for free?
Should the US DOT require car companies to include all available safety features in every car? Will you as a consumer be willing to pay several thousands of dollars more for every safety feature? Even if every one of those features—wait for it—requires software that may not be perfect?
2
So, what the budget airlines started, separate fees to check bags/get food or drink(s)/have a particular type of seat in economy, has made its way to Boeing: oh, did you want to be able to know when an instrument reading might be faulty or have it check two instruments for precise readings; well, that's an additional charge. I expect the next thing will be airlines saying to passengers, if you want to use a seatbelt, that'll be an extra charge; if not, we'll have these hanging subway straps you can hold onto!
14
Having a single point of failure is unacceptable in an aircraft where there are supposed to be three failures required for the plane to crash.
The first point of failure was failed from the start: they didn’t give pilots the info needed to know what to do then the sensor failed.
Having a single disagree light is also a single point of failure; lights and their software drivers fail.
It seems pretty obvious that having the two optional indicators, and pilot training, is the minimum solution for three levels of redundancy.
17
What is next? Bring your own seat-belt? MAX profits for MIN safety. Capitalism at its best. Indeed, when they say Safety is always paramount, but is an optional extra - a highly profitable extra - it is really the stock holder who comes first - just like it does in the health care industrial complex.
I can’t think of more important indicators than angle of attack and air speed for flying. Without it, they may as well have saved more money and not supplied seat belts.
If cars are supposed to be supplied with airbags, ABS brakes and stability control to make everyone safe, why not air plane manufacturers?
So on top of a cheaper cut rate design engineering using software to coverup a poor design - moving the larger engines forward and up - creating unstable flight characteristics, they all wanted to profit by making safety equipment optional!!!
16
As Stephen Covey explains in his book The Speed of Trust, the way that a company handles a breach of trust tells you a lot about whether they will recover their reputation in the eyes of society.
While they had the opportunity (and knowledge!) to immediately ground these planes and work to repair this disaster, they instead made the corporate minded decision to call the president to persuade him to not ground the planes. Good luck getting the public to EVER trust Boeing again. Trust was lost, but then further obliterated by denial.
To make it worse, the fallout from Boeing's corporate greed washes over onto other companies that rely on society's trust as well--auto manufacturers, nuclear power plants, pharmacological companies, other airlines, just to name a few.
25
Is making safety optional a sort of modern, random population control method while getting ahead financially? And, hate to say it, but it's the poor countries that might not purchase the "add-ons".
10
There is an elephant in the room that no-one seems to talk about. There are just two angle of attack (AOA) sensors. Some poor programmer has to decide what to do if one of them fails. This is not a problem when the pilot is control, because the pilot is the one who makes the decision. However, when a system like MCAS gets between the pilot and the aircraft, we need more information should the output from each of the two AOA sensors differ. The aircraft need to have at least on other AOA sensor before it can be considered safe.
10
@Russell: already identified and addressed in the article, and potentially in the fix that Boeing will issue... If a disagreement is identified the MCAS system is shut down (presumably with an alarm warning to the crew).
This is why the FAA dragged its feet on grounding US flights. They knew that the planes in the US had these features and the planes in other locations did not.
11
United Airlines, shame on you for being cheap.
20
Sue them !!!
9
“Oh, you want the safe plane? That’s extra”. What the heck! How crazy can the world become! Even crazy POTUS once said about. Boeing plane “it was junk”. EVERY POSSIBLE SAFETY FEATURE SHOULD BE ON EVERY PLANE” . FAA? FBI ?
Anyone want to put the family on a plane knowing the Airline went with the less safe version. Do they say it when we book our tickets. We don’t need any analytic explanation about standard vs exception safety. That would be idiotic.
21
Shame on Boeing!
16
"In the software update that Boeing says is coming soon, MCAS will be modified to take readings from both sensors. If there is a meaningful disagreement between the readings, MCAS will be disabled."
The Indonesia crash happened in October 2018. It is mind boggling and shameful that this update did not come much much earlier. It is just a few codes of software that can be done and tested in a day. Something like this in a pseudo programming language:
if difference_between_sensors >= MAX_LIMIT
{
turn off MCAS
sound alarm
require manual control
}
Done. It is also mind boggling why this was not implemented and tested from the beginning. Especially knowing that Boeing knew that this is a possible problem and offered a PAID option for a warning indicator when the 2 sensors were showing inconsistent data. The software team who designed MCAS is quite incompetent. It would have cost nothing the above check to be thought of if the engineers were any good.
Silicon Valley's VCs are sucking most engineering talent and companies like Boeing does not offer good enough salaries to compete. Software engineers are looked upon as a commodity but with everything dependent on software nowadays, they are as critical as the mechanical and electronic engineers. Incompetent people should not be hired for such critical designs.
6
Boeing treated this safety feature as if it was an upholstery upgrade on a car.
18
"Open the pod bay door, HAL!".
12
One day it will be illegal to make a profit, unless you're one of the chosen few(like in China).....sigh, Boeing has an astounding safety record.
Did I hear that Boeing moved 7 Billion people without an accident? but let's pounce on Boeing anyway.
Granted it is more difficult to disable the auto-pilot on the MAX than previous versions. But the procedure is there, and its printed for the pilots that care to read it.
1
@golf pork: please provide evidence for your grand generalizations. Good oversight was the reason for the excellent safety record. This has been disabled. The FAA needs to get back in the game for all our sakes.
3
@golf pork
Boeing cut corners to get an Airbus 320neo killer out of the door. In the aerospace industry one bad plane can destroy your reputation. Douglas never recovered from the DC10. Ironically, it ended up being bought out by Boeing.
1
The top brass of Boeing should be indicted and, if convicted, thrown in jail. Also, surviving family members should be paid hundreds of millions of dollars by Boeing in restitution for the wholesale slaughter of their loved ones. Greed over safety? My God!
8
I think the following lines write by another commenter earlier today describe how Boeing and all U.S. corporations make decisions according to their religion, Capitalism:
... "Deep in the bowels of the Boeing server is an email thread between engineers, coders, and upper management discussing the merits of a whole redesign versus a software patch. The same email will also show a computation of the probability of crashing set against litigation costs." ...
12
@Alberto
Shades of the decision making behind the disastrous Ford Pinto cost-benefit analysis.
1
If anyone needs an example of why capitalism does not, will not, and cannot regulate itself, this is it. Couple this with the recent article about how the FAA allows the industry to have their own employees do mandated inspections, and you have to ask who is watching the shop? A Bannonesque dream--excuse me, nightmare--come true.
12
Will this be yet another example of a corporation and its execs not being held accountable for something absolutely terrible that they're directly responsible for? How many of Boeing's execs knew of this? Will they go to jail? Or, will they simply lose their jobs? Or, will they merely lose their bonus for the year? Or, more than likely, given how things seem to work now in the US, none of the above.
9
Brilliant, Boeing!! If airlines don't buy the 2 extra parts, their plane will crash!! Did you bother to tell them?
You should be ashamed of yourselves for the hundreds of lives lost because of corporate arrogance and indifference.
15
reports.aviation-safety.net/...
The "Runaway Stabilizer" memory item procedure (in force for all B737) means the pilots know it by heart and don't reach for the Quick Reference Handbook (QRH). When the situation is in control, they then read the QRH.
This procedure (mainly cutting out the Stab Trim Switches and trimming manually the Stab Trim Wheel) worked well for the flight preceding the Lionair crash. That crew seemed cognizant of the situation. The following not. See:
reports.aviation-safety.net/...
When I heard of the Ethiopian crash I thought: "Oh!no, not the same reason! All pilots must be aware of the emergency procedure by now". Were they? A copilot with 250 hrs?
Let's say they were. If they couldn't control the plane, was there other compounding discrepancies? As far as I understand the Center of Gravity (C of G) enveloppe might be smaller than before due to different positioning of the engines and other modifications. Would it be possible that the load sheet provided to the pilots was incorrect? Cargo is money. An exceeding aft C.G. would trigger right away a stall warning at rotation...and activate the MCAS? So close to the ground, you need to know what you're doing and stay cool.
I feel awfully sorry for all those guys, pax and pilots, but man...if you needed just to cut out these blxxxx trim switches...long sigh. I hope we'll know very soon.
4
Gotta find some way to pay for the CEO’s pool i guess.
5
I was in pre-employment training session once, when a fellow hireling blurted out, “All of these regulations are so stupid!” This was promptly followed by an eloquent but simple rebuttal by the meeting facilitator, who said that every law or regulation originated with a person or persons who had their rights violated or were harmed. Though I am fearful of an overly powerful government, this is how it all begins. Individual corporations cannot be expected to act for the good of humanity when profits are at stake.
9
This is like being able to buy a car without seatbelts because it saves money. Boeing and the airline operators are going to wish they had not nickeled and dimed this one. Talking about being pennywise and billion-dollar lawsuits foolish.
7
I thought NYT readers were smarter. I thought the reporters were better. After reading these articles, I realize I couldn't be more wrong.
I can't believe all the ignorant comments; i.e. Boeing executives should go to jail, don't let the 737 Max fly til every conceivable safety feature know to man is installed, corporate greed run amok, sure the pants off the Boeing & the FAA & on & on. I mean really folks, this is a terrible tragedy but let the investigative process play out before the lynching. Read some of the posts made by pilots, i.e., ability to manually fly the plane.
I'm especially disappointed in NYT. It's really poor reporting. I don't recall any articles discussing the complexity of modern aircraft. How many 737 max flights have been completed in this country without incident? Any discussions with aerospace engineers to discuss stall characteristic of this plane? How about discussions with current pilots discussing flight characteristics and emergency procedures on this type m
I think a great big NO. All they seem to have done is whip everyone in a frenzy. The reporting of late is like the cheap weekly National Enquirer. I hope everyone reading & posting gets their news from other sources. If not, you're missing the real picture.
9
@tom wilson Couldn't agree more.
Also, no discussion of the density altitude or poor climb performance (compared to Lion Air e.g.). No questioning about weight and balance.
1
@tom wilson Trying not to rush to judgment here. There has been some discussion of the imbalance issue associated with the engine size and location on the Max. Are we now saying that the Max is more sensitive to the weight distribution of the cargo loading as well? Was the post-Lion Air description in the press of the complexity of the manual disengagement of the robotic attitude control system wrong? Is Boeing putting decisions material to the safety of the ship in the hands of the accountants who fill in the options sheet in the purchase order? Or the guys who load the baggage?
I get that the picture is complex but just at the threshold I have a hard time with the concept that redundant AOA sensors are not standard, or that the disengagement of an autopilot gone beserk is not a one-step push a red button issue. Was not a similar failure with computerized attitude control implicated in the Airbus crash out of Brazil that went down in the South Atlantic a few years ago? This is not a new genie escaping from the bottle: it seems to be a pretty basic man versus machine deal, and a keeping the plane in the air deal.
The long and admirable history of airline safety was compiled in an era of a non-comatose FAA, and is not a sufficient excuse to ignore or explain away the short and unadmirable history of the safety of the MAX.
2
The foreigners weren’t informed. That’s the whole point of the article. Did you read it?
Thousands of feet in the air and safety is an option???????
6
Why are Boeing 737 videos suddenly appearing on YouTube? They are sooo feel good!
In the rush to compete with Airbus Americans sold a death trap with a cheap and dangerous MCAS and failed to properly train the flight crews!
Wonder what the wrongful death law suits for all the people their planes killed are going to cost them?
3
Stomach churning article Gives a whole new meaning to upgrades and add ons.
4
That's capitalism dear Americans, that's what you wanted and what you got.
4
OPTIONAL SAFETY FEATURES???!
4
The 800-pound mystery still not accounted for in public reports is: What made it impossible for the pilots to disable the automatic system and fly the planes manually? That should be the first thing fixed as a mandatory emergency device—before the Maxes are allowed in the air again.
2
People at Boeing and the FAA should be headed to jail; this is not a slap-on-the-hand situation. And so-called small government conservatives who insist that "government is the problem" need to look in the mirror and have a personal reckoning. Congratulations; decades of starve-the-beast policies and corruption between industry and government agencies has meant we've made our government so small that the FAA isn't even doing its job, and corporations like Boeing are "regulating" themselves. What's the result? Hundreds of innocent people have died for an entirely preventable reason. Thousands of their family members' and friends' are traumatized and their lives forever changed. You can be a good capitalist and still believe in strong regulatory bodies to ensure public safety and fair competition.
6
Everyone should examine the safety features on their cars. Did you buy all the optional extra safety features? Do you demand that car manufacturers put all possible safety features on all cars. What if those features are expensive? All cars would cost a lot more and many people wouldn’t be able to afford cars.
Poor countries like Ethiopia face a similar problem. No airplanes are completely safe and sometimes a cheaper option is in the best interest of the passengers when the alternative is fewer aircraft.
There is a lot of learning here in the way these aircraft were rolled out and what everyone knew. But we can’t demand things we aren’t willing to pay for.
@Brett Stewart ~
Re: "No airplanes are completely safe and sometimes a cheaper option is in the best interest of the passengers when the alternative is fewer aircraft."
How in the world is a cheaper less safe plane in the best interest of the passengers. I think those dead passengers on the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines flights would have preferred less flight frequency and still be alive rather than have more flights to fly.
5
the “extra” makes the aircraft “airworthy” by international ( not FAA ) standards.
1
So finally planes have started to fall out of the sky in the course of this administration and they're not holding the manufacturer or it's executives responsible for it.
Boeing sold a product which has the capability to act as a transport as well as a coffin ; it was flawed because there is a higher chance of it being a coffin than a transport. This is not like cars before seat belts because the capability to prevent killing of the product users has already been invented. So Boeing knew that these planes can kill and they still sold them, I think that this is clear criminal intent and the executives of this company should be arrested on criminal charges.
4
This is one of the true evils of uncontrolled capitalism. Safety features should not be expensive extras just as life saving drugs should not be priced for outlandish profit. There are plenty of truly elective things companies can make money on but profits off lives and safety should be regulated and capped!
2
Trump and Republicans have turned regulatory agencies into shells with ironic names. Consumer protection — forget it. Environmental protection — seriously? We now have the Fake Aeronautics Administration.
6
This is outrageous , to make safety features optional! Boeing has followed the corporate greed as other businesses have , charging extra for what used to be part of the service and in this case a safety feature . A single extinguishing system in the cargo hold ??? Fire is a serious matter on an aircraft ; I lost a friend ( a pilot ) flying a cargo plane and a fire developed in the hold , they crashed and burned , and were killed . He left behind his bride and a newborn . What's next ? Making airlines and their customers sign mediation clauses ? Ceos of airlines should demand those features be part of the package when purchasing aircraft or leasing them . Very shameful Boeing ; when once you excelled and made the 747 possible , along with other innovative and beautiful aircraft in the past that became iconic .
2
Does anything better encapsulate the ethos of 2019 America than a company charging extra to keep people safe from a lethal threat?
7
1 of 2. Sorry for the length.
Do I have this correct? A new software system meant to enhance safety, was configured to take a reading from 1 of 2 “vane-like” structures, and one reading can put the plane in a nose dive. ONE spurious signal from a single piece of equipment, takes control out of the pilots’ hands and sends the plane into the ground.
If you’re going to allow such a configuration, (1 out of 2 YES, automatically manipulates vital control equipment), you better be darn well sure that should the indicator fail, the automatic response is to most conservative, the safest configuration. AND, you better make sure your operator, a pilot in this example, knows immediately what the heck happened to change the control configuration. Basic. Design. Engineering.
I know nothing about aircraft controls, but I do understand that what is the best fail-safe response may not be the same for all conditions—descending altitude may be exactly what is called for at 50,000 ft with a cross cutting wind shear and a powerful thunderstorm ahead. If you don’t want to rely on equipment that may also be compromised to determine the fail-safe autopilot response, and I wouldn’t, my gut tells me that the option that gives you the best chance to recover across all possible scenarios is to override the autopilot software, alert the pilots that they are in complete MANUAL CONTROL, and be confident that you’ve trained them to fly that bird in all imaginable emergency scenarios.
5
@Lisa Stiles Part 2 of 2
Without the optional equipment, the pilots wouldn’t know what caused the attitude change. Even if they had a means to disable the signal—and that isn’t obvious from this article—and the software, could they have figured it out quickly enough to recover?
The fault tree and risk analyses aren’t complicated here. I’m an engineer and have several friends and family that work or have worked at Boeing. I have a hard time imagining that teams of engineers would have made such analytic mistakes and failed to correct them during design reviews. For this part of the accidents, and there may be more significant contributors, my guess is we’ll find root causes related to those associated with Columbia and Challenger space shuttle disasters; the weight and obfuscation of bureaucracy, with the dimension of “profit” replacing “funding.”
1
This sort of profit over people mentality seems borderline criminal. Certainly Boeing (and perhaps the airlines that cheaped out and didn't buy the safety 'option') should be sued into submission by the crash victims families.
3
This is outrageous. This sin of greed and obfuscation is akin to Ford, Chevy, Dodge selling their vehicles without the brakes, or a poorly functioning steering linkage, where a retro part was available to make it work properly...but only available as an extra sale and cost. That was ignored by the salesperson.
Imagine if a car dealer was to tell you as you slid into your new vehicle - "By the way, your kids are at great risk every day when you shuttle them to school and such...because your vehicle lacks a critical part..."
This is outrageous. Pure greed and government incompetence, all the result of the too cozy relationship between Boeing and the FAA. Compounded by the recent trend in our Govt to go back to the old Buyer Beware days.
2
Safety options as extras??? Are these extras available when I book my flight? If they are, I’ll give up the bucket seats, for peace of mind. 🙏🏻
2
With the possible exception of a passenger side air bag in the early days of this now standard feature, I don't think even GM ever charged extra for a safety feature. I lay awake some nights worrying about some stupid mistake I may have made at work--how do the people at Boeing sleep at night?
3
You buy a computer. There are updates. But you didn’t pay for it and you don’t get the updates.
That is exactly what happened at Boeing. It needed updates and they had to pay for it! They did not! And deaths! something here needs to be changed, quickly. This never should have ever happened.
3
Boeing says that the coming soon software upgrade will read from both sensors and disable the MCAS system if the 2 sensors differ by a big amount.
The Indonesia crash happened in October. It is unbelievable that this software update did not come sooner to prevent the Ethiopian crash. It is just a few lines of code - a code that Boeing already had for the offered PAID warning light option when the 2 sensors differ. This speaks of an utter incompetence and disarray of the software engineering team. This would have cost nothing to do it right, it was not done to save cost - it was just incompetence. Boeing should get higher paid and better software engineers. Apparently they are too stingy to compete for talent with Amazon, Microsoft and other tech companies in Seattle and the Silicon Valley. Software engineers are looked on as a commodity but they are as important as mechanical and electronic engineers. Everything is software nowadays, for critical systems you need the best of the best - incompetence should not be tolerated.
The simple code would look something like this in a pseudo programming language:
if ( sensors_difference > MAX_ALLOWED_VALUE )
{
disable_MCAS_system
display_warning_to_pilots
enforce_manual_flight_mode
}
2
'We'll sell you the plane but if you want to live that'll cost extra.' Capitalism at its best.
5
"But regulations kill jobs!" No honey, lack of regulations kill people.
4
Safety features should never be optional! Period!
4
If there is anything at all to this, the only remedy is for Boeing's entire C-suite to resign. With two high-profile tragedies in such a short period possibly caused by nickel-diming, there must be accountability at the very top.
1
Unfettered Capitalism destroys economies and souls. The souls go first
2
Boeing needs to do whatever it takes to restore the public confidence that it has lost, and this pay for safety surely come across as showing that commitment. Not. Dumb decisions that cost lives of people keep rolling off this shop. Perhaps it's time to demand that they do everything they failed to do without thinking of their profits.
1
This is so sickening. Safety features should be standard. At this point, Boeing and its top executives should probably face criminal charges. And the FAA clearly needs to be overhauled -- it is not doing its job and protecting the public.
2
So I guess if you don't buy all of the fancy safety/accident prevention electronics for your car and then get into an accident that makes you a criminal?
"Of course, brakes will be extra."
1
Greedy greedy Boeing. Clearly safety comes after profit.
One broken sensor from disaster, standard feature. I though they were supposed to do better than that.
5
All the more reason for a safe alternate mode of travel.
We voted for Obama and his vision of wanting to bring us High speed rail, as in "First World" transportation. Republican's quashed it in every way they could.
How many years have gone by since "We The People" voted for Obama and high speed rail ? The rest of the world has it, or is in the process of building it.
5
Boston to Denver, Tallahassee to Minneapolis, San Diego to Baltimore. Just some of the trips that the train will never replace, even at 200 mph.
As I understand it the investigation of these crashes is not complete and their official cause determined. Based on this it may be premature to be blaming Boeing, the FAA or American capitalism in general. The investigation should be thorough and the report made public. If the cause is a faulty MCAS as suspected then Boeing should be ordered to install at no cost these 2 safety options in all existing and to be built 737 Max planes. Boeing should also be required to provide training program on the MCAS for pilots. Finally, the FAA should end the manufacturer self certification program no matter what is determined to be the cause of these crashes.
5
Yesterday was the first time in my life that I looked at the "make" of an airplane before I bought a ticket. I made sure it wasn't Boeing.
5
The bad design of the MCAS system was not done on purpose or to safe cost, it was just incompetence. There were just a few lines of code needed in the software to check the 2 sensors and shut down the automatic correction system if the sensors were showing inconsistent data. A code that Boeing already had for the offered PAID warning light option when the 2 sensor values differ.
This speaks of an utter incompetence and disarray of the software engineering team. Boeing should get higher paid and better software engineers. Apparently they are too stingy to compete for talent with Amazon, Microsoft and other tech companies in Seattle and the Silicon Valley. Software engineers are looked on as a commodity but they are as important as mechanical and electronic engineers. Everything is software nowadays, for critical systems you need the best of the best - incompetence should not be tolerated.
Boeing now says that the coming soon software upgrade will read from both sensors and disable the MCAS system if the 2 sensors differ by a big amount.
The Indonesia crash happened in October. It is unbelievable that this software update did not come sooner to prevent the Ethiopian crash.
4
Once upon a time, car safety harnesses were optional extras in the US until they weren't. Obviously the companies haven't learned anything from that and they will continue making these mistakes again and again.
9
They are not mistakes. They are knowing gambles made to save money.
8
@Arthur Y Chan ~
"Once upon a time, car safety harnesses were optional extras in the US until they weren't."
Doesn't this beg the question of the current safety shortfalls? Were seat belts ever a safety option on commercial airlines? No, every passenger had to have their seat belt fastened for taxi, takeoff, landing and during in-flight turbulence.
At what point in time were safety features add-ons/options rather than standard equipment? It appears to be a recent business plan to maximize profits at the cost of lessening safety. Something is really wrong with this version of capitalism.
2
I would think every member of the flying public world wide would want to know reasoning behind Boeing's decision to sell safety features as extras. Given typical selling price of the 737 MAX ($100 to 135M/aircraft) and financing of such purchases, exactly how much was the advertised price for enhanced MCAS software, additional pilot raining, and thorough maintenance instructions to address potential in-flight scenarios which could create nose-down acceleration?
Based on Gol Airlines comments, for sake of argument, let's say enhanced MCAS system & more pilot training cost $250K to $500K. (Adds 0.25 to 0.5% to cost per plane.)
Boeing stockholders would probably argue making 737-MAX a robust flying machine - extremely pilot friendly and capable of error proofing situations of competing software inputs - by baking in $250-500K to the sales price achieve a sterling safety record would be worth the investment. (Boeing stockholders now have the opposite risk: prolonged litigation in courts and loss of customer goodwill that damages the reputation of the aircraft and Boeing brand.)
Boeing's sales/marketing decision was short-sighted in the extreme, and frankly, reprehensible from a perspective of NOT building in redundant layers of flight safety. The flying public ASSUMES robust safety systems and pilots are trained/certified to handle a wide range of situations. Better to err on the side of total safety versus:
"Add-on features can be big moneymakers for plane manufacturers."
10
Sounds like the airlines involved tried to save money so did not pay for the 2 safety features offered by Boeing. Don't pin the blame solely on Boeing.
1
@Qcell Absolutely right...if the features (plus installation) were available on a timely basis at a reasonable cost.
2
I pin the blame on Boeing for making safety features "optional." That's heinous. Safety should never be optional for air travel.
9
@Patricia There are many optional features and services that might make your own home more secure, but you might not be able to afford them all. That's why we have to make choices in life...and about life. (And how often do you go to the hospital for your "6-month checkup"?)
The real issue here is not that those jets lacked two "safety features."
The real problem is that MCAS sounds like a really badly designed system. It only takes input from an angle of attack sensor and ignores everything else that could be going on at the same time. If the plane is rapidly losing altitude, if it is diving towards a rapidly approaching ground or ocean surface, if the pilots are pulling back on the yoke as hard as they can, the MCAS still insists on pushing the nose down, oblivious to all these other essential pieces of information that's readily available! This is an insanely bad design. That someone approved it, first at Boeing, then at FAA, is criminal. I sure hope the federal prosecutors will bring some serious charges against a whole lot of people, from engineers to managers to bureaucrats!
7
It seems to me that optional safety features on a airplane that is flying public citizens around is absurd. Optimal not optional safety should be the requirement for sales. If the features are not needed then why are they being offered? I suppose the features are offered because they maybe needed and if they may be needed obviously they should be mandatory. I can’t see how this kind of deadly profiteering can go unpunished.
16
Max Efficiency. Max Reliabilty.
But not Max Safety apparently.
4
@Victor Is there such a thing? Check your own home, for example.
I moved here from Arizona in 1982. At that time I felt Boeing was a sense of pride for the great Northwest. Now I feel, like so many others, that prison time is appropriate for the "leaders" at Boeing. Appalling, really.
10
If the plane is not fully equipped with every, so called "Optional", safety device, it should not be allowed in our airspace.
One of these Boeing "Accidents Waiting to Happen" could plow into your children's school or church, full of highly flammable petrol.
Other parts of the world should be informed of the danger also.
Those who allowed this to be certified need to be charged with murder.
12
Boeing makes a wide range of products for a wide range of customers. It is only providing its customers options.
The failure is on regulators that could demand those systems be installed on any airplane carrying the flying public. The passive relationship government has adopted with massive corporations that carry outsized influence over elected officials is very worrying.
11
This is so scary. Does it mean we are taking our lives in our hands when flying or going on vacation? Most of us trust the airlines - and airplane manufacturers - should we?
7
You’re far more likely to be injured or killed on the drive to or from the airport then on any US airline.
@jn wolf Honest answer? We take our lives in our hands the minute we walk out our own front doors. It's called living.
I'm so glad the NYTimes looked into this. I started suspecting there were "optional" safety features last week when I was researching the two crashes. It seemed weird to me that there wouldn't have been more stalls and nose-downs in planes owned by Western carriers like Southwest and Air Canada. Now it all makes sense.
Boeing left it to the air carriers knowing fully well the planes were pretty much crash craft without those "optional" features. Of course the air carriers, having built a trust relationship with Boeing, likely did not realise what they were getting themselves into without said features.
Shame on Boeing. All the lives lost and for what?
15
Pilots from other airlines have also complained. it appears that, even with these safety features these planes are rather tricky to fly.
4
Does Airbus take the same approach - here is the basic model, safety features are optional or is limited to Boeing.
It's like being offered a basic car, with seat belts, brakes and mirrors extra.
7
@B G I gather you're too young to remember the Fifties and Sixties.
1
@B G Bad analogy. All those items are required on a car by the government. Other safety equipment, such as lane-change warning, may be (and often is) optional. Did you buy all of the extra safety equipment available for your car? If not, shame on you for being holy about it and choosing to be an added risk to your passengers and other drivers.
1
It's OK to charge for TV, movies, coffee and T.P., but when I get on a plane I don't want to worry if the airline tried to cut cost by not buying all of the available safety.
15
Kudos to Hiroko Tabuchi and David Gelles for writing such a cogent article about the 737 Max situation, and to the New York Times for publishing it. It is very disturbing to read that the FAA does not make these relatively inexpensive optional safety measures mandatory. In the same vein, as a pilot, it astonishes me that the FAA has not made angle of attack indicators mandatory for all airplanes, small as well as large.
14
the disagree light (vane disagree indicator) and angle of attack indicator should be required by law. safety should not be optional. this should be mandated by law. im normally against regulations but this penny pinching has killed 338 people. far more than the new zealand thing to put it in perspective.
9
I wonder if this plane is airworthy without the software and servo system to stabilize flight. This plane design needs to be tested in a wind tunnel with no electrical or engine out to see if something like the Miracle on the Hudson is even possible.
5
Quite a few life saving features are optional in both residential homes and automobiles, then why not in airplanes?
A better question is, why are they still optional in homes and cars?
6
@PaulN One homeowner is responsible for the safety of 2,3,4 family members. An airplane manufacturer is responsible for the lives of 200, 300, 400 or more passengers on each flight throughout the day all across the globe. Greater responsibility means greater obligation -- or, at least, it should
5
@Alexandra Hamilton You and I both know the answer to that. More features mean more cost, and no manufacturer wants a sticker price too high to appeal to potential buyers.
What if flight readiness certificate was conditional on safety features being installed. What If FAA authority - and standards - needs to be reviewed? What if executives are held personally accountable? The future of Boeing depends on confidence from the flying public. What will it take to get us there?
10
@wait-a-second Agreed. But accountable to whom...and held BY whom? When was the last time you tried to get a bill like that thru Parliament?
Certain safety features on Boeing commercial aircraft are optional items for purchase. In particular, one that would inform a pilot that a key senor is malfunctioning. How could this be?
11
Boeing should be required by law to make all available safety mechanisms available standard equipment. Period. No domestic sales and no export license otherwise.
Carpeting, upholstery and entertainment systems can be options. Safety is not optional.
19
@S. B. I might agree, but. . . . How would you and your neighbors react if Congress mandated that you must add all available safety features to your automobile, regardless of cost?
You want same products? Make all executives use their own products.
5
Make no mistake, these crashes and deaths indicate a profound failure of leadership at Boeing. Allowing the sale of safety features, including pilot training and adequate software testing, to be a profit center can only happen in a company that at the top either doesn't understand the business they are in, or has cynically decided to 'make safety second'.
24
I want to see an automaker decide that brakes are optional.
20
@BWCA And I’d like to meet the people that buy the cars, anyway.
1
Perhaps someone has already commented on this. The cost, according to CBS, of the "optional" features is $80,000. That's on a $120,000,000 plane. What????
What will it cost the airline or Boeing to pay the relatives when they sue?
Corporate greed is alive and well and always will be.
39
@suzanne
Silly me. It's probably tax deductible.
Where can we find a list of airlines that purchase aircraft on the cheap like this? I have flown Lion many times and will not do so for awhile, but what about the others?
16
@Bob T
I agree--I want to know who is cutting corners. Also, how can Boeing refuse to show a list of safety features? I'm considering boycotting any airline that "redact" what safety features they pay for, or have installed.
16
Considering that Lion has grounded all those planes, they are probably one of the safest to fly on now.
1
Additional safety features are great, but don't really get to the heart of the issue: the need for transparency instead of hiding issues that could limit sales of aircraft.
The article doesn't explain that because Boeing and FAA failed to document and require training on the MCAS system for pilots, in the Lion Air and Ethiopian Air cases, even with an angle of attack (AOA) disagreement indicator, the pilots would not have known to connect that disagreement to the control issue they were wrestling with.
If the behavior of the MCAS had been published when the 787 MAX was introduced, pilots and others would likely have noticed these deficiencies up front, rather than after one or more fatal crashes.
10
@Jon W
Your assumptions are incorrect.
At least one Lion Air pilot, on the preceding flight, did in fact know how to recognize and deal with the MCAS induced runaway pitch trim. That was without the benefit of the disagreement indicator. That is because the corrective action for runaway pitch trim is the same regardless of cause (i.e., faulty AOA or otherwise), was known to pilots, and was part of standard 737 training.
There is no data available that indicates that the MCAS triggered in the Ethiopian Air crash.
5
@Piper Driver As reported, the deadheading LionAir pilot reactively turned off the motor adjusting the elevator trim because of runaway trim (per Boeing protocols for runaway trim), not because the undesired adjustment. The implication of the present article is that somehow the display of more data from the AOA sensors could have possibly avoided one or more of these accidents, when it is unlikely to have done so because Boeing and FAA did not publish the connection between those sensors and MCAS functionality.
6
@Jon W
I agree that an AOA disagree warning would not have avoided the Lion Air crash, but not because Boeing and the FAA didn't publish the connection between those sensors and MCAS.
A description of MCAS functionality would have made the pilots aware of one of the many ways you could have a runaway pitch trim. They knew they had a runaway pitch trim situation. They didn't need to know why it was happening, they just needed to shut it off. Knowing why there is a runaway pitch trim doesn't help you if you don't know how to shut it off.
3
So when the airlines charge us for soda and chips, they are just following the business plan of their plane suppliers. That makes sense.
4
It is sad that Boeing offers safety features as an option. It is akin to cars having air bags as an option. Government has made it compulsory to have airbags in all cars, in order to reduce deaths due to accidents. It should do the same with airplanes too by having all the safety features in place. It would be interesting to see if Airbus has all the safety features installed as stock.
11
@SM There are a lot more safety features available that the government could mandated. A car that could prevent, say, 95% of vehicular deaths, via known safety features, can be manufactured today. But most people couldn’t afford to buy one. I don’t pretend to know what the “right” level of government regulation is when it comes to what safety features should be mandatory. I do know that we could reduce the death toll on our roads in the US immensely if we eliminated driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs, and distracted driving due to smartphones.
Also, adding safety feature over safety feature, can actually make a complex technology LESS safe. I’m beginning to that is a contributor here. The new software was supposed to enhance safety. But it made the pilots’ jobs more complicated.
2
@Lisa Stiles what safety features could prevent 5%of our 30,000 deaths per year from car accidents???
Boeing to it’s customers:
If you want seatbelts and a speedometer it’ll cost you extra.
8
How much liability insurance is Boeing-the-compnay carrying? and who are the underwriters?
6
Another reprehensible feature of this, recently become standard practice, is nickel-and-diming the customer to maximise profits. It's bad enough for the airlines to charge extra for checked bags (by what logic is luggage for a trip an "optional extra"?); but to classify some of an aircraft's safety devices as optional, and pass the cost-cutting/life-risking choice along to the airline, is doubly criminal.
12
This is a metaphor for a bigger problem. When everyone relies on computers, we panic when one fails. The pilots should have known the instant a computer went wrong and responded to correct it. They didn’t. That is closer to the basic problem.
4
"The alert, especially, would bring attention to a sensor malfunction, and warn pilots they should prepare to shut down the MCAS if it activated erroneously."
But if the MCAS is deactivated, don't we get back to the first problem, the reason why MCAS was installed in the first place? That is, the plane will be at risk of getting into in a stall condition without the pilot being able to push the nose down enough because of the weight of the new motors and their location on the wings.
6
@Marc Pelletier I'm not an airline pilot, but this is my understanding.
The different engines and engine placement changed the amount of back force on the yoke necessary to achieve a certain amount of pitch up. E.g., 10 lbs. of force resulted in 10 degrees of pitch up on previous 737's and results in 15 degrees of pitch up on the 737 Max. If you are paying attention to the attitude indicator, you would apply the correct amount of force to achieve a t/o attitude of 8-10 degrees. But if you were new to the Max, and weren't paying attention, muscle memory might cause you to pull back a little too hard and pitch up too much. The MCAS system watches for this and nudges the nose down if necessary. But the pilot can achieve the correct pitch without MCAS.
With the new software, an AOA disagree condition will turn off MCAS. That might or might not be the right thing to do, depending on whether the plane was actually approaching a stall. I guess the point is that the AOA disagree warning might alert the pilot that the plane MIGHT be in an incipient (or actual) stall, but that the pilot has to resolve the conflict (perhaps by reference to visual references, and attitude and airspeed indicators) to determine how to hand fly appropriately. But s/he will be able to hand fly.
1
Isn't capitalism great! Safety is extra!
20
@Lisa
As well as the vulture capitalist "Your Money or Your life" quadruple cost, health racket.
1
Deep in the bowels of the Boeing server is an email thread between engineers, coders, and upper management discussing the merits of a whole redesign versus a software patch. The same email will also show a computation of the probability of crashing set against litigation costs. The same email will also show the single signature that signed off that the Max 8 is fit to fly.
The question now is, will this thread ever see the light of day?
Remember that on the day of the latest crash, the CEO of Boeing successfully reduced Trump from being the POTUS to his personal sock puppet.
18
a massive failure of capitalism
11
The unacceptable face of capitalism.. hand in hand with the regulators. There you go.. Made in USA..
12
So UNITED pilots seem to have secret data which allows to fly this plane without these additional safety features. Can we please learn how UNITED pilots manage? And is this safe? And is this recommended by Boeing?
8
Will the families of the dead be able to sue Boeing? I sure hope so.
10
Shame on Boeing for putting profits over lives.
Shame on the airlines for doing the same.
10
I have no words. I am exhausted from outrage and disgust.
Greed is destroying human decency.
Since these people (Boeing executives, Sackler family) have no shame or conscience, they must be shown that this is unacceptable - they need to be criminally charged.
16
@SYJ criminally charged definitely......starting with Boeing's CEO and the head of the FAA.
2
Safety systems sold as extras???
10
I believe a criminal investigation is in order .
13
FAA has conflicting dual role providing oversight and promoting safety. This was pointed out by Maria Shiavo pub. 2/97 NYT best seller list then ignored it seems. I read a synopsis and critiques.
Spent 18 years in FAA culture as employee until 06. Thought the author had valid criticisms of the agency.
4
Way to go USA...nothing more important than money.
8
Who's in charge of the DOT? Why that would be Mitch McConnell's wife, who preaches white supremacy indirectly but couldn't be bothered himself to marry a white woman. Elaine Chao has held multiple government roles in several GOP administrations. She's a board member of "conservative" think-tanks the Heritage Foundation and the Hudson Institute.
Anyone that thinks the investigation by the DOT will completely honest and transparent, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. Or a coal mine in Kentucky. Or some stock in Trump University, Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, Trump casinos, or anything connected to the unconstitutional denizen of the White House. Or how about some Deutsche Bank bonds? (I'd love to see Merkel's government to an audit and investigation into their shenanigans . . .)
6
Once again in the US, profits over people.
6
Only one of the safety features?
7
And to think that the President of our country put lives at risk by taking the word of the CEO
4
There is nothing to make light of here & I hope Boeing, FAA authorities, and acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan (who oversaw production of the 737 Max) are thoroughly grilled. Odd, though, for the Times to tease an article about the needlessness of taking a train to cross the United States further down the web page…
3
So we use safety devices to add to the cost of an airplane. What else is new. We already....
Killed 400,000 with opioids.
Separate kids from their parents.
Rank 35th in the list of the worlds healthiest countries.
Give twice as many vaccines as the other advanced countries.
Have an obesity epidemic with absolutely no mention of it by the government.
Totally ignore lyme disease that affects 100% of the population of many towns and villages.
Have seen huge increases in childhood cancer.
Have more guns than people.
Multiplied our prison population eightfold.
Have a president that causes most people to vomit.
etc,
I write this from a small town in Mexico where many many Americans more seek refuge from a society bent on destroying itself.
Al
San Miguel de Allende, GTO, Mexico
10
Then the airline charges you for bag check, seats with reclining backs, early boarding, leg room and pre packaged food.
7
Why, according to Boeing's Gospel, aren't wing flaps optional too?
7
Good job Boeing! Leave out key safety measures for the 737 Max unless the airline purchases them as an “extra” for many multiples of the actual cost to install them. Boeing is an apex example of how the USA has put corporate profits ahead of everything else, including human life. Boeing and Trump clearly share the same amoral egocentric world outlook. Shame on you!
CC Boeing
6
My God, a safety feature that may have prevented these deaths was OPTIONAL? Th callous disregard for human life is astounding.
11
I was disappointed that this very disturbing article did not mention the nexus between Boeing and the Department of Defense.
The current Acting Secretary of Defense, Patrick Shanahan, is a former Boeing executive and has been recently heard to boast of Boeing's equipment and to disparage that of Boeing's competitors (specifically Lockheed Martin).
http://time.com/5555186/patrick-shanahan-defense-ethics-probe/
Further, it is known that current Boeing CEO, Dennis Muilenburg, is a donor to the GOP and - more alarmingly - Boeing gave $1Million to Donald Trump's Inaugural Committee.(*)
Donald Trump was the last world leader to order the planes grounded - this, after three days' phone conversations with CEO Muilenburg.
The American people deserve better than a 'leader' [sic] who would gladly put their safety last after kowtowing to his donor and financial benefactor.
A disgrace.
NOT my president
________________________________________________
(*) Boeing gave $1Million to President Obama's Inaugural, as well.
10
This greed, which puts airline passengers at risk, is why capitalism is losing ground to a great deal of socialistic nonsense.
5
Two sensors? How do you know if one is malfunctioning if there are not THREE of them where 2 have to agree in order to get a valid reading.
5
It is beyond disturbing that some safety features onn Boeing planes cost extra and are optional. A fine example of corporate greed out of control.
3
The addition of another 'safety' feature to an already very safe aircraft, the 737, demands a responsible answer to the question, "What incremental measurable safety improvement did MCAS contribute?". Measurable in the sense that it contributes to a well known and acknowledged problem encountered when flying the 737. How often does each event occur? How potentially dangerous was each event? Was it manageable by pilots in the normal course of flying the 737? What are the FULL stats on what MCAS was supposed to address? In the end was it simply a software engineer's sly way to grab a few more dollars from selling an unnecessary optional extra?
Boeing needs to explain why MCAS was added to address an insignificant problem. It offered MCAS as optional extra and chargeable. Not buying it put the plane in potential jeopardy. Not training the pilots on its use compounded the potential risks and it was NOT 100% safe as it did NOT work properly. And for an additional minimal profit for Boeing. This is the worst example of gross oversight negligence.
2 planes crashed and nearly 400 people killed, 1000's more suffered from unspeakable grief while many others were traumatized by gruesome recovery work.
Deep within the bowels of the Boeing organisation, I suspect enough people already know and have the answers. I also think that much money will eventually change hands because of these catastrophes.
3
There is almost never a single cause for a crash. There are systems issues, hardware/software issues, human issues, and sometimes weather that create a chain of events. In this case it looks like there is a new and flawed technology on an otherwise familiar aircraft and disparate degrees of training and familiarity among pilots from even the same airline with how to fix it when it functions incorrectly. It is not six sigma in terms of reliability and these safety systems are needed as a standard feature.
3
Government regulation and oversight are the only solutions.
5
You need an operation.
Options include at extra cost:
1. Monitor for your heart
2. Intravenous for medications during your operation
3. If you have a heart attack during the operation, defibrillator will be available
4. Update for surgical team about your operation available on i-pad
5. Etc etc
5
I can't help thinking this is all predictable as a result of a very large-picture phenomenon.
In today's big-money markets, shareholder is king and expectations for high and short term reward is high. CEO's are very highly rewarded to meet those expectations, and quickly fired if they do not. Of course, high rewards have always been expected - that is what business is about - but the expected levels are now higher than ever. This is no doubt an underlying cause for the degree of income and wealth inequality that we have. And why, for example, CEO's make 100's of times what an average worker makes, as opposed to the 10's of times they used to make.
Boeing, of course, cannot be successful without providing safety in their aircraft. But, in our modern world where safety records are remarkably high, and a very complex matter, it is certainly easy to see a decision bias weighing to favor profits over subtle safety matters when one is clear and immediate, and the other is uncertain technically and only vaguely predictable. And this bias can affect decisions about manufacturing costs of safety features, and also the reduction of development times to get products earlier to market.
A profit dollar can be immediate, a safety loss can be well in the future. And investors know all about dollars, and next to nothing about safety.
5
I want to ask a simple question: How can safety features on a commercial airline - made in the USA - be treated as "extras" ? Since when did airline safety become like a car with window tinting or unique pinstriping?
11
The combination of effectively outsourcing its fundamental oversight responsibilities to the companies it is required to regulate and its willingness to allow those companies to designate critical safety features as being optional add-ons to its products when marketing them to augment their profits s a shocking example of the depths to which we've plunged in our blind charge to increase profits at the risk of human lives.
These deadly practices create accidents waiting to happen, and two of those tragedies have occurred within the past five months with Boeing's 737 MAX. Why would the airlines feel the need to redact the details of these extra safety options and conceal them in required filings of all features on new aircraft that they purchase? Taken together, this is indicative of a massive collusion between Boeing, the FAA, and the airlines to override the intent of mandatory regulatory processes.
All three participants should be targets of a comprehensive and public investigation by appropriate Congressional oversight committees. Such crass disregard for the expectation of safety by the public is precisely the reason why government oversight and regulation is crucial to the effective functioning of an economy based on capitalism. It also is a basic reason why the appeal of pure socialism, which has proven to have many drawbacks, again is beginning to gain traction in America. The downside of pure capitalism again has glaringly revealed itself in this inexcusable case.
5
As a frequent flyer, I have long felt safe flying because I thought the FAA was there. But a succession of Presidents have underfunded this and other safety agencies. Ultimately the responsibility for unsafe planes sold abroad falls on Presidents and Congresses that failed to fully fund the FAA and provide support and oversight required to assure safe aircraft sold here or abroad.
5
A nice cover up! - Safety is not an option, it is the primary part of each design.
4
Don’t blame capitalism. If only because it is no more. Capitalism is about capitalists, owners of the means of production that make decisions concerning their own money and answering to nobody but themselves (and God, for believers). They might be ethical (many were) and do the proverbial right thing sacrificing profits for the thy neighbor. But there is no such thing as an ethical CEO. Just couldn’t be. Let’s imagine he made an ethical decision that nosedived... no, not a plane, your presious 401(k). What would you do, applaud him as a wonderful human being? Unlikely. You’d initiate some indirect actions aimed at replacing him with somebody that takes your safety seriously. Your financial safety, I mean. And better yet, not just safety but prosperity. So don’t blame capitalism, blame yourself.
This is just totally incompetence on Boeing's part. No wonder the FBI is now investigating. I predict the law suits will be starting soon.
3
Recall that Sully who saved everyone when landing in the Hudson River was crucified by the corporation who made/operated the plane, believing the plane's computers and not the experienced captain. And wasn't it Stephen Hawking who said AI should be our biggest fear?
6
A good friend of mine has been flying the max 8 for American Airlines for years here on domestic routes. When I asked him yesterday about this issue he laughed and said these foreign pilots are crazy inexperienced. He said there is nothing wrong with the plane and all these features including what has caused these crashes can be turned off with the push of a button. I asked him how could a plane crash and they not shut the system off....he said....exactly my point....they are not sure what all the buttons even do!!!
5
Safety features sold as extras? Now more than 300 people have needlessly perished because of corporate greed. How unethical is that?
5
If this is an example of Capitalism, I will take Socialism any time.
4
@Robert Pryor, better move to France then because it ain’t coming anywhere soon to a theater near you.
Socialism: a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
Good luck first organizing fragmented, self-identified, self-centered, multi-everything, disparate us into a community as a whole. Iceland, maybe.
1
Heads will have to roll at Boeing. This is criminal negligence.
Maybe the cheapest solution for Boeing is to just add a "Bail-Out" indicator light in the passenger cabin?
I think that Boeing execs who put the safety of crew and passengers second to corporate profitability should spend some time in prison, as a lesson to corporate America.
3
Money speaks, its voice a siren song.
It seduces managers and regulators.
Over four hundred hapless persons killed by two brand new airplanes.
For money.
Those four hundred paid an unbelievably high price for their tickets.
So, Boeing and United States FAA, can you even fathom the measure of compensation they are due?
3
Good grief, what a terrible mistake. Boeing is going to need every nickle they can get when the lawsuits start rolling in that could blast them out of the sky.
1
This is shocking! Safety features are optional upgrades but I bet no executive ever goes without a bonus, no matter how poorly they perform. The financial info of Boeing and airline companies should be made more transparent. They nickle & dime the public as air travel becomes evermore necessary and evermore disgusting/unreliable/unsafe. How does the FAA help the "consumer"? They seem to be an agency to protect the airlines, not the public. This isn't capitalism, it's a monopolistic scam.
2
Many/most of you are driving cars that you purchased, electing to forego many safety options, from winter/snow tires that perform better at low temps, to automatic braking before collision and auto lane sensing/correction. Are you negligent/liable for not purchasing maximum safety features if your vehicle is in an accident?
Greed. Plain and simple.
If I made reserve parachute that didn't come with a ripcord in case the main chute didn't open up, I would be charged with murder.
I wouldn't be able to say, "Well the ripcord was an extra cost that wasn't included in the entire package."
This is corporate greed that puts profits above human lives.
I hope they get sued for billions of dollars, and all those involved tried for criminal negligence.
2
Judging from the comments and the general sense of public betrayal on Boeing’s part, I’m reminded of Jesus’ query of Judas. Was it really worth the twenty pieces of silver?
Boeing troubleshooted and the engineers new the problem. But Trump shutdown the GOVERNMENT curtailing scheduled repairs on those sensors that were supposed to start in January. Boeing had an moral obligation to go public and/or override the edict of Trump and make the repairs anyway. At the very least , release an emergency memo telling all pilots around the world.............. - Trumps cronie side partnership with Boeing resulted in heartache around the world.
1
The system broke down when it was decided that MCAS have a single point of failure, and it broke down down again when the system was certified with a single point of failure.
2
I am no conspiracy theorist but I knew there was something fishy as soon as I heard that an airline companies and countries were grounding part of their fleets willingly/preemptively until further investigation because they had a “hunch”. We, the consumer, are the pawns. I knew that they knew way more than they were letting out.
2
The victims need to file a massive class action lawsuit - nothing brings back the dead. The gross human greed, depravity and ignorance knows no bounds except of course at Mar-A-Lago. Imagine the last minutes of those doomed lives? I am teacher traveling abroad with 16 high school students in a month. Hopefully Korean Airlines has protected their fleets and fully trained their pilots.
Do planes purchased by people in poor countries buy fewer of the "optional" safety features?
Why is this legal in America?
Why is it legal in the world at large outside of America?
What kind of plane was the one which just disappeared from Malasia a few ears ago - and crashed somewhere in the south Indian Ocean. Was it a Boeing?
Let's coin the word "Boeing" to mean stupid, short-sighted, greedy, deliberately designed to make money rather than maximizing desirable features such as safety. I think there are a lot of boeings in the world today.
Hey, fellow readers. Absent our government's meaningful response to the first horrible Lion plane crash, let's give Boeing the company and any planes by Boeing out of circulation by creating a new word: "boeing" with a little b. A boeing is any thing created by a big dumb decision which creates a big dangerous situation for no reason except making money, and then tries to conceal the fact. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao is a boeing appointment - all about making money for big corporations; having nothing to do with monitoring the safety and reliability of our transportation systems and components. Kushners and Ivanka Trump are boeings - about making money on the sidelines or setting themselves up for future profits after Trump leaves office, no-nothings about actually running the government or national security. Senators Mitch McConnand Lindsay Graham have become big boeings.
Are Republicans more boeing than Democrats?
2
"Boeing’s optional safety features could have helped the pilots detect erroneous readings that experts believe may have been involved in the planes’ failures,"
So, Boeing knew these planes were flawed and for an extra $$$$ would add the features to compensate for the flaws?
Who would ever get on one of Boeing's planes every again if safety features are extra?
Why would safety be an extra?
1
Blame shareholders. They want their quarterly profits, no exceptions, no excuses. That’s why workers have become expendable commodities in corporate America. If the company misses its unrealistic quarterly earnings projections, thousands are thrown overboard to cut costs and make the company seem more profitable. Then six months later when the seeds planted in Q1 flower in Q3, they’re hired back as contractors at 2/3 the pay with no benefits. And the beat goes on.
Meanwhile, CEOs make in one day what some make in a year. It’s obscene.
Shareholders should be employees, not greedy people looking to make a killing (literally).
5
Oh great. Jets - practically the only hi-tech product we export to China, and that makes a dent in the trade deficit. Now the Chinese will redouble their efforts to develop their own commercial jet, and then all we'll have left to export to china is soy beans and fish.
3
As a retired Captain and 25 year pilot of the 737, I am greatly disappointed in the media coverage of these horrible events, the alleged causation and total lack of fault on the part of the pilots.
People, people, airplanes are a collection of systems and systems fail. Pilots in the west are trained constantly on those system failures and we bring safely back to earth many, many planes which would have ended up in a similar scenario to these tragic crashes.
There were two switches by the First Officer's left thigh which, if turned off as per the POM, would have stopped the fault and allowed the aircraft to land safely with no lives lost.
Pilots in the US and Europe who have flown the 737, the 727, and the 767 know this and we are all aghast at the idea that Boeing is to blame for the deaths.
Boeing made mistakes to be sure. But it is the pilots who are responsible for the hull loss and the loss of life.
8
Thanks for your expert insights!
1
Federal prosecutors and the FBI are involved in the investigation. Translation: If the NTSB determines that the angle of attack indicator and disagree light were critically essential to flight safety given the software changes Boeing made specifically for the 737 max design, Boeing’s fine will be $6.27 rather than $3.14 and barred from bidding on any new federal contracts for five days. The company will still be granted the standard corporate boiler plate privilege of not having to admit any guilt or wrongdoing.
Flying is environmentally unfriendly and this has always me pause - a twine of guilt - before booking a flight. Now that I know that there’s a chance that, if I fly, I will die in a psychologically horrifying way because safety features on my plane were optional...
I think I’ll travel locally. Trains can be so enjoyable...
This quote in the article is interesting:
"“They’re critical, and cost almost nothing for the airlines to install,” said Bjorn Fehrm, an analyst at the aviation consultancy Leeham. “Boeing charges for them because it can. But they’re vital for safety.”"
It shows once again that corporate greed trumps common decency. So, we understand that companies will opt for the highest possible profit, but what about the government agencies that are supposed to oversee them and protect the consumer?
Isn't the FAA wrong in being in-bed with Boeing?
2
The AoA indicator is a gimmick. In certain flight situations (climbing while turning) it might confuse the pilots. The disagreement light might be useful if set up with a decent margin to avoid false alarms (again: climbing while turning).
But one has to ask: why only two AoA sensors?
The Airbus family has four, two on each side, even going so far as to have two different ones at each side so that certain physical effects can't affect both.
Then again the Airbus was designed to be flown by a computer.
The Boeing 737 is a direct descendant of the B-37 "Flying Fortress" from World War Two. It was never designed to be used with advanced electronics. It's very primitive in that the MCAS (silently) changes the trim to prevent a stall.
There is some old movie (50's) I remember seeing as a kid, can't recall the title, where a defective, slipping trim-mechanism lead to a series of airplane crashes. I am reminded of that movie here.
It's unfathomable that the plane intervenes with the controls without informing the pilots. An Airbus at least tells you when it takes the stick from your hands...
3
This does not change the fact that the pilots of both doomed aircraft didn’t know how to respond to a malfunction. Another light warning of a imminent stall would have been another distraction. The stick shaker was surely activated.
How much a person life worth before it is no long optional?
2
Given all the health and safety regulations that this Administration has squashed, and considering all the workers that Trump has stiffed on his building sites, I’m looking forward to reading about what
the State of New York digs up about the safety standards incorporated into Trump highrise
buildings. He probably had a lot of practice before he launched his Signature Program coast to coast.
5
Boeing developed a new feature to prevent the 737 Max from stalling. I cannot find a single report of a Boeing 737 stalling, on take off or otherwise. Was this really a problem that needed a software automation solution?
And if stalling was such an issue, why did Boeing roll out the new "safety" feature with so little fanfare that most pilots were completely unaware of it until it caused a plane to crash and kill all souls aboard?
For Boeing to deliberately include the new automation, but charge extra for the features that allow pilots to override it before it crashes the plane, is corporate murder in pursuit of profits, much like tobacco companies continuing to lie and suppress evidence about the addictive and carcinogenic affects of cigarettes for decades as their customers died.
5
@Karen The press reports (and comments on these articles) are full of explanations of the pitch trim cut-off switch, which is standard equipment. I'm not sure how you missed that and went straight to "corporate murder."
The use of that switch to disable runaway pitch trim, whether caused by MCAS or other issues, is a standard part of pilot training.
In case you missed other reporting, Lion Air had a continuing maintenance problem with the AOA sensor, including triggering of the MCAS system on the previous flight. A dead heading pilot knew how to disable the system and told the flying pilots to place the pitch control switch in the cut-off position. The pilots of the crashed plane did not execute the correct procedure.
There is no evidence that the Ethiopian Air crash had the same cause (malfunctioning AOA sensor), and Ethiopian Air insists that its pilots were trained on how to deal with that if it did occur. As I have posted elsewhere, there are indications that the Ethiopian Air aircraft climbed slowly from the get-go, which could have been caused by an overloaded or mis-loaded airplane, and not by a malfunctioning AOA sensor or by MCAS.
So try taking a deep breath before you scream corporate murder.
3
Why would any passenger want to board a plane without BOTH features?
6
There must be a stampede of lawyers filing class action suits on every possible entity/supplier , person who flew , built , designed , bought , thought about flying on the plane , etc.
The cost of a blinking light and a single day of training in a flight simulator that Boeing managed to save it`s customers is going to be enormous not to mention the cost of grounding 350 of these planes for months while they are fixed and recertified.
2
Instead of forcing Airlines to pay for higher quality planes why not establish an institution that scores airlines or single flights based on their safety features, pilots training etc. Beer, smoking and soft drinks kill people too yet many people decide to pay for and enjoy these products knowing they are harmful and dangerous.
If costumers were made more aware by a simple yet very noticeable score of a flight’s safety (like the ingredients on the back of groceries) they would more likely buy safer flights motivating airlines to compete in safety in a free market.
1
Dear Boeing:
Do the ethical, safe, humane thing. This is not airlines charging for meal packets and blankets and an extra bag. Deeply disturbing decision-making. A boycott would be a healthy response. The airlines have only each other as competitors. The average person can't replace air travel with something else if they really need to get where they are going. BUT, we can choose safer, more ethical companies.
“They’re critical, and cost almost nothing for the airlines to install,” said Bjorn Fehrm, an analyst at the aviation consultancy Leeham. “Boeing charges for them because it can. But they’re vital for safety.”
6
The MCAS software should be removed completely. A 'safety feature' that makes the plane patently unsafe. The pilots struggle to read a technical manual to regain control as the plane nosedives into the ground. How about some 'anti-nosedive' software to combat the MCAS software?
3
The FAA, Boeing, and the airlines let people down. if "safety is our priority", EVERY plane should be fully equipped with all available safety features. If it costs a bit more to fly, then so be it. Additionally, this information should be available to consumers. If not required by the FAA, airlines that do include all safety features should use that in their marketing. It never ceases to amaze me how companies can rationalize cutting corners while at the same time putting public safety at risk. The lack of training offered and required was also a cost factor. Hey Boeing, your reputation is in shreds, and FFA you are not far behind.
6
The angle of attack sensors are unnecessary. The pilot feels it, especially during takeoff and landing. That is why Boeing made it an option without compromising the safety. In any case, a situation should not arise where a pilot need to read the emergency manual during emergency. Too many sensors add unnecessary complexity and cost to airlines. Same in automobiles, I bought a new Mercedes 25 years ago for which 'check engine' light is use to come so often, I was tired and kept driving with 'check engine' light on for over two decades. No problems and less cost!
1
Mercedes are the epitome of an over-engineered product...Sensors galore! Two spark plugs per cylinder...
No doubt you can safely drive 100,000 miles with the Check Engine light on...
This is why I prefer to fly American carriers. They have better equipment, better maintenance and better trained pilots.
Yay for capitalist greed. Putting profit before human lives since the dawn of time.
5
If only they'd ordered the Max 8 Deluxe.
3
THREE-HUNDRED AND FIFTY PEOPLE DIED in part because Boeing thought safety alert features were "extras" that the airlines should need to pay a premium for, and the FAA agreed.
THREE-HUNDRED AND FIFTY PEOPLE.
In a just world, their names and faces would be all Muilenburg and his corporate lackeys see when they close their eyes to sleep at night. In our sad excuse for a real world, I'm sure they mostly just see balance sheets.
6
@gmg22
IF they were 350 Americans, mostly white, crashing in a field in the midwest, Boeing would be done.
This story is incredible. The RV9A kit airplane I built in my garage has an AOA. They're dirt cheap.
A new low for big companies
1
When you think that you have already seen the worst of American capitalism, along comes this story.
5
Are we surprised, when it looks like Boeing put profit over safety? Just like Mr. Trump, Boeing apparently don't want regulations and we don't know where this is going? Boeing's likely going to be losing markets to the Chinese and Russians if this keeps up and their penny wise and pound foolish modus operandi will be just more jobs leaving American shores!
Boeing shouldn't charge extra to make their planes airworthy.
1
For no charge for the materials and labor Boeing ought to upgrade ALL planes already sold (and new ones yet to sell) with these "options" which should be standard equipment. Customers can deliver their planes (at their expense) to Boeing.
This would be a good start for Boeing to begin making amends for what is obviously negligent behavior if not criminal at worst or plain greedy and stupid at the least.
2
Read the headline, "Doomed Boeing Jets Lacked 2 Safety Features That Company Sold Only as Extras" dont blame boeing, blame the company that decided your safety wasnt worth the extras.
Safety features for a jet that will likely carry hundreds of thousands of people during its lifetime cost extra??? Like leather interior for a car??? The is naked capitalism gone mad.
2
is anyone else sick of unbridled capitalism being held in higher regard than humanity and the general welfare of the only planet we have? just me?
3
So a Boeing Implant is going to be running the Defence Department?
Having had training for single engine private pilot certificate, every pilot should have the ability to fly the aircraft manually. Just ask Captain Sully Sullenberger and the passengers entrusted to his experience.
2
@HANK
Captain Sullenberger did not have to fight a defective Automated System he had not been trained to deal with.
1
Maybe the solution is Airbus.
3
This is criminal on do many fronts that the people complicit in letting this happen should be chargef, tried and convicted of criminally negligent manslaghter. This goes all the way from chief of design, head of commercial pricing, test pilots, safety engineer to FAA approver. Regulation and correction is necessary but not sufficient. Boeing is a great company and some people just dealt the company a body blow to its reputation, profitability and future business. Guaranteed China is rubbing their hands in joy. Boeing just let them in the business.
1
LOL. "To find out what our aircraft is doing, you must pay us!" This is material for late night comics.
1
Oh my Gawd, airplane manufacturers charge for extras. Who would have thought?
I remember a time when cars did not have dual master brake cylinders. And a time when Anti Locking Braking Systems were not standard. I can even remember when seat belts were optional. Over time the market demands these features and the auto makers comply. I'm guessing it is little different in the aircraft business.
What is annoying is the tone of this article. The nytimes writer is apparently trying to infer that Boeing is maliciously risking people's lives. Odd since I'm pretty Boeing managers and their children also fly on these planes... Hmm.
And that's where we are. Charging for features that improve the safety of the plane. Bootlickers will say it's a business and they have to think about profits. That's a disgusting attitude and much too prevalent.
It’s like DLC to cheat death.
Boeing sells safety features as "EXTRAS'???? THIS IS ALLOWED??
1
It is very sad that several 100s grownup healthy adults died due to oversight by FAA and Boeing. But with the same token a woman ‘s abortion rights are constantly disagreed upon and PlannedParenthood Clinics are penalized due to life conceived even before birth!!
Physicians were killed by insane people simply because abortions are performed . So where are the human rights activists.
Locherbie, Scotland terrorism = 254 deaths
Boeing capitalism = 354 deaths
Time to put this in perspective and hold all those responsible accountable.
4
In Jewellery sector we are using Pyridia,Canada make furnace and it has single temperature control unit with single temperature sensor
One fine day the single temperature controller cannot control temperature we settled 600 degree celsius and reached maximum 950 degree celsius and because of that all the diamonds worth 12,000 USD was burnt to dust.After immediately we install another Indian make temperature controller with temperature sensor parallel to original temperature keeping difference 50 degree celsius and last 15 years this system works fine.
And in this Boeing crash, single sensor controlling airline with humans are with in is completely criminal case..i say Boeing company is killed people with their grideness for money.
3
Pfffftt why should Boeing spend money on safety when its only a bunch of loser peons flying. I mean its like they're RICH people
1
What is the diffwerence? I buy a new car and, upon delivery, find out if I wanted brakes they were extra.
1
Those comments blaming corporate greed,capitalism and such for these crashes seem unaware of the safety record of Aeroflot and planes built in socialist/communist USSR. They sometimes copied Boeing planes and still couldn't get it right.
61
Whataboutery isn't a valid form of argument. The fact that one class of failures appears to have been caused by some other factors does *not* constitute an argument that another class wasn't caused by the factors under discussion.
128
@Lane
What has failures of Aerofloat and communist nations got to do with anything? The point of the article is that Boeing was trying to cash in on safety features by making airlines pay more to get them. Safety should never be tied to profits. Manufacturer must provide an equipment that's completely safe to fly without having to pay extra to get 100% safety.
119
@Lane Aeroflot had a lousy record, true, but it was no more a "socialist" airline than Lufthansa, BOAC and Alitalia which are all or in part government owned but had much better safety records. Aeroflot still has a lousy record today even though it's now a "capitalist" airline in private hands.
It's funny how neoliberals like to point to countries like Venezuela as examples of (failed) "socialist" nations. They never point to countries like Sweden or Norway. And they never point to Honduras, Guatemala or El Salvador as examples of "successful" capitalist states either.
78
So, do any of the other planes that Boeing makes have this same software problem?
MASS transportation vehicles, like large buildings, OUGHT TO MEET THE HIGHEST STANDARDS OF AVAILABE SAFETY FEATURES, NOT to be allowed to get away with "optional safety features."
5
Like car companies offering us a steering wheel and brakes as optional equipment. Greed is absolutely the poison that kills more than any other poison man has devised in the laboratory.
6
The plane's out of control, and now pilots hve to think to look at the "disagree light"? And that's an option that costs extra. Something's broken in the system that allows that kind of crazy. Avionics are supposed to help pilots, not make flying more complicated. I was involved in their design for years. It used to be that we tried to give the pilot all the most relevant information simply and in one area. Sounds to me like they ruined the aerodynamics, which is a sin- then tried to put the onus on the pilots by complicating the flight controls- a much worse sin. It's unforgiving and unforgivable.
9
Boeing: Where safety is an option not a requirement.
Perhaps the Boeing executives responsible for the “safety can be purchased as an option” approach to aviation manufacturing can meet one-on-one with the families and friends of the passengers they effectively killed.
9
"Optional" safety devices. Since when is safety "optional"at 35 thousand feet? So sad that our FAA is reduced to groveling and begging for its very existence,afraid of airplane manufacturing titans. The rest of us stumble on blindly believing that safety and our very lives aren't "optional" surprise..
5
So . . . build an aircraft with what you know are unsafe modifications; then charge for the modifications to ameliorate the unsafe modifications. Do I have this right?!!
8
Having surgery in a few weeks. Doctor asked me if I wanted to pay extra for a couple safety features not included in the surgery routine or anesthesiology process. Yeah, that's how crazy this being an "option" sounds. Shame on everyone.
6
Lots of focus on the single AOA sensor and erroneous MCAS function, but given that Boeing identified the criticality as Hazardous (and obviously events have show this misbehavior to be Catastrophic), I wonder how they were able to demonstrate compliance to FAR 25.1309?
One can only imagine that they were relying on the HSTAB disable switches, but with no CAS message and associated AFM/ QRH action, this was never going to work.
3
@Figs I did work. On the flight prior to the Lion Air crash, on the same airplane. From a regulatory point of view, why is this any different from any other failure resulting in runaway pitch trim?
1
@Piper Driver
On the face of it, I am not sure that it would have been and maybe this is what Boeing had in mind?
If a (non-MCAS) runaway pitch trim has a Hazardous criticality (an assumption on my part), then OR’ing in MCAS logic into the pitch trim drive with a single AOA would increase the failure rate from < 1 x 10-7 to ~ 1 x 10-5 ( AOA vane reliability ~ 20,000 fh based on a quick internet search and assuming I got the math right). In other words, every time you have an AOA vane failure, you have the equivalent of a runaway pitch trim. Had the second AOA been ANDed into the control logic, it’s unlikely anyone would be discussing this right now.
What seems to have compounded the issue, and perhaps confused the crews, is that the MCAS acted repeatedly. This is not typical of a runaway pitch trim in my understanding.
What about giving a pilot the opportunity to fly the airplane the way that it’s been done for many-many years. A well trained man or woman should be able to control the aircraft better than any “automaton” when the chips are down until a problem can be sorted out.
I realize then a modern airliner needs to be able to deal with all kinds of unforeseen weather, etc., but the laws of physics are not changeable and any pilot should be able to fly any airplane with the controls installed and not be forced to rely on a computer that may be flying down a dead end. If the aircraft manufacturer does not provide this "feature" then we do have a problem.
@Pat there is an off switch that disables the MCAS stabilizer trimming. Training is about drilling into the pilot procedures for dealing with situations like one where the automated systems are going haywire. There is a switch with a backup for disabling the stabilizer trim. It's just below the throttles. The day before the Lion Air crash a dead heading pilot riding the jump seat knew to disable the stabilizer trim and save the day when the the MCAS system failed. Unfortunately, Lion Air didn't choose to investigate and fix the system. Beyond that, do Lion Air pilots receive adequate training so that they are prepared when things go haywire?
For everyone who comments that many auto safety features are not required, and cost extra -- you're missing the point.
For these planes, the issue is that a •built-in• "safety" feature is lethally defective. Boeing is charging extra to fix a flaw that should never have been allowed into production.
An auto company whose standard ABS brakes fail in certain weather conditions has recall and repair it at no cost to the customer. They're not allowed to charge extra to fix a faulty safety feature.
Why should Boeing be allowed to do that with vehicles carrying hundreds of people per trip, thousands per day, millions per year?
9
When two U.S. airlines said they were not concerned about the safety of the 737 Max despite mounting evidence there was some kind of engineering problem, I kind of figured they knew something that other airlines did not. Now we see, they knew they had purchased extras for safety. But how as an industry do they not see that if any of the aircraft crashed due to a malfunction, the flying public would question the safety of their aircraft as well. The airlines are complicit as well as the regulators for not making this an issue.
5
Maybe the safety division of the FAA should be contracted out to New Zealand. Seems like they’re more committed to action when their citizens are at risk.
11
The oddest and scariest thing about this?
Days after the second crash the experts at Boeing kept insisting that they had no evidence that anything about its airplane was at fault. Like they weren't in trouble with 300 people dead but would get in trouble for understanding and admitting what went wrong.
5
@Billy The pilots on Lion Air failed to perform the runaway trim procedure (which should have been committed to memory). That was caused by a faulty AOA sensor, which the airline apparently failed to fix. There is no evidence that Eithiopian Air experienced an AOA failure, or that MCAS was triggered.
There is evidence that the Ethiopian Air plane's climb was shallow (consistent with an overloaded airplane at high density altitude). If you assume that the first dive was due to MCAS, then you also have to assume they retracted flaps at around 800', and may have placed the plane in an incipient or actual stall, requiring nose down pitch to recover. MCAS may have actually saved the plane in that initial dive. We don't know what happened after that.
1
@Piper Driver
Put any kind of speculative spin on it you want.
One fact is indisputable though- the public at large has lost faith in this airplane.
3
@Vinnie Szabo
Lost faith in the airplane. The company behind it. The FAA for subcontracting what is supposed to be 3rd party oversight, certification and compliance back to the manufacturer. And a government that prioritizes corporate interests over people's lives and safety.
I'm not a pilot, but wouldn't it make sense for the computer to look at angle of attach and altitude? If the altitude is too low, then it probably doesn't make sense to automatically push the nose down no matter what.
Also, airlines likely don't charge extra so that they can make more money on extras, they charge more for the safety features so that airlines that can't (or won't) afford the plane and all of the safety features can still buy airplanes from them. If they made everything mandatory, they would sell fewer planes and possibly lose to airbus.
1
If the CEO's had to serve time for Lives lost...there would be a major change in the way companies would work.
11
Mass transportation vehicles, like large buildings, have to be required to built using the highest standards of available safety features, not with "optional safety features."
4
Making safety features optional to make extra money sounds reasonable to me.
2
This is what Boeing publishes in their magazine Aero No. 12 on AOA:
"Since the early days of flight, angle of attack (AOA) has been a key aeronautical-engineering parameter and is fundamental to understanding many aspects of airplane performance, stability, and control. Virtually any book on these subjects, as well as basic texts and instructional material written for flight crews, defines AOA and discusses its many attributes....
Recent accidents and incidents have resulted in new flight crew training programs for upset recovery and terrain avoidance, and these in turn have heightened industry interest in AOA as a useful flight parameter for commercial aviation.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has recommended visual indication of AOA in commercial airplanes. This indication may take the form of a dedicated AOA indicator or other implementation, such as the PLI.
A dedicated AOA indicator shown on the primary flight display (PFD) recently has been developed in cooperation with airline customers. The new indicator is offered as an option on the 737-600/-700/-800/-900, 767-400, and 777 at this time."
Boeing carefully describes the the reason this critical item is so important and so will happily provide it as an extra cost option.
Imagine if they were building cars?
2
The 737-800 is not the 737-MAX 8 though, right? I’m going to be flying on the first one, so I hope not.
@BBB
I believe so.
In any event you can be assured that every commercial pilot is aware of all this.
"Boeing charges for them because it can. But they’re vital for safety..." and "“There are so many things that should not be optional..."
What an incredible (and tragic) state of affairs! We are not speaking about upgrades such as say, 'leather seats' or 'wood trimmings' here. It boggles the mind that systems "critical" for the safety of the aircraft are classified as 'upgrades' just so the company generates more profit through this "profit center". Nothing can be worth the lives of the hundreds of people who have perished as a result--I can't imagine a strategy as short sighted as this. How much Boeing will end up paying (to gain a paltry few million) will be a measure of that.
4
This is how US Corporations operate, with short term vision.
3
I just read the headline and I was astonished. That's like buying a new car and after you crash, finding out the brakes were sold as extras!!!
4
The only bright source of light in all of this penny pinching idiocy, death and destruction is that Boeing will now learn just how expensive cheapening out on their product to increase their bottom line has just cost them. I hope there will be a lot of other companies learning from this very very painful lesson.
3
@Tony Francis can you say wrongful death lawsuit? Boeing, you deserve everything you get.
Somebody should sue the Boeing.
4
In my opinion, Boeing is 100% responsible for every death in the two recent crashes. They need to make huge reparations and be put out of business.
3
The billionaire class has proven time and again that they are sociopathic -- ie, incapable of ethical and moral behaviors. They are motivated by profits and self-serving interests. Period.
Get the billionaire money out of our politics and out of our government! Stop the monopolies. Start regulating corpirations again. You don't let 4-yr-olds run a household. Why are we letting people with the moral center of toddlers control our government?!?
5
Customer Service Agent: ... and that will be a new 736-Max-7 flying you today!
me: does that have the AOA sensors?
CSA: don't know
me: does that have the disagree light?
CSA: don't know
me: does the flight crew have the optional O2?
CSA: don't know
me: can a cargo hold fire be extinguished with equipment installed? CSA: don't know.
me: What do you know?
CSA: your bag is overweight by two pounds, you have a three hour layover at someplace, peanuts at $2 per bag, the movie is 10 years old and the headsets are $5 cash only. Oh yes, the American Sumo Team is flying on your flight and you have the middle seat. Thank you for flying ScrewU Airlines, the most profitable airline in America! Ya-all don't crash on us now!
Shame on the FAA for allowing the safety features to be optional on what appears to be a critical update. Shame for NOT disconnecting MCAS in the same manner as other auto-control features and requiring a special switch. Shame on (who?) for allowing manufacturer self-certification since 1950-something!
7
I don’t work for Boeing. It feels good to bash big companies- they deserve it for a myriad of reasons. But the Egypt air pilot had only 200 hours of flight time. The airlines who buy these planes don’t have simulators. Thats the criminal part of all this. Kinda feels like this paper keeps going after the wrong culprit.
1
@Dr R, I somewhat agree with you but please note it's Ethiopian Airlines. Also, the pilot had 8000 hrs, the second pilot 200. Regardless of everyone's opinion, pilot error will play a large part in the end.
2
The other pilot - the Captain - has 8,000 & so it would seem that in lieu of of a SIM, junior pilots would fly with very experienced pilots for ongoing learning. Less than ideal if true but 8,000 hours is more than adequate to be in command of that plane.
Had the first officer had to land it if the captain had become incapacitated it might have been dodgy, emergencies always are & yet, barring any mechanical issues (in other words NOT this tragedy) I believe the first officer would have the skill to fly/land the plane. Obviously not Sully type skill but enough to safely handle things.
Finally, the F.A.A. doesn’t permit international pilots to ever fly into USA airports unless they have trained in Phoenix & have a minimum of 1,500 hours which in most cases they absolutely would because most international flights by default are on larger planes which already typically require much more experience/hours to fly.
Bottom line...these pilots, & the Lion Air pilots, didn’t seem to have equipment functioning properly that would enable them to do what they were trained to do in that aircraft.
Emergencies are managed with a particularly choreographed set of procedures on checklists by the two pilots but again, if the airplane isn’t functioning correctly than the pilots doing EVERY RIGHT THING wouldn’t make one bit of difference.
You’ve heard of scenarios where companies knew something was broke but letting on they already KNEW it was broke might cause liability? Here we are.
2
@Colleen The Lion Air pilots failed to execute the runaway pitch trim procedure, which they should have committed to memory (and not required a search of the manual). There has been no reporting that inidicates that the cut-off switch wasn't operating properly. In fact, it apparently did operate properly on the immediately preceding flight.
There is as yet no indication that the same problem occurred on the Ethiopian Air flight. My bet is on an overloaded airplane.
Well, now we know how much Boeing really values safety. You pay, you can be safer. Don't pay extra and you are on your own with an under-equipped plane.
2
Safety features are extras! Boeing should be charged with homicide.
4
Geez, United Airlines, Boeing and the FAA. Really?
3
Do you want wheels with that plane?
5
Who is our Secretary of Transportation again? The one appointed by Trump? Mitch McConnell's wife?
5
"Business is business! And business must grow, regardless of crummies in tummies, you know."
Or plane crashes... you know.
1
Shame on Boeing. They put a gun to the heads of airlines when they buy their planes, and make them pay for upgraded security features, and when they don't, Boeing lets innocent people - children - die...all for profit. The people at Boeing who make these specific decisions should be forced to experience the terror that those poor innocent people did in the planes that crashed. I'm disgusted. Don't these people at Boeing have families? What is WRONG with them?
1
Without regulations greedism takes over. Profit over people's lives. The winners with greedism are big businesses and congress lobby $ coffer.
1
Boeing : the banality of evil.
3
@AE, really, do you have any idea what you're talking about?
@tom wilson
Moral bankruptcy is apparent when safety is considered to be a mere option for modes of transportation. We are not talking about a cool racing stripe that could be added to a Ford Mustang, at the buyer's expense...
Do they charge extra for wings?
3
Let’s defund the FAA and put someone unqualified to run the agency. What could go wrong? MAGA.
5
It sounds like Boeing is like so many companies today - it's all about profits. They'll cut corners and skip things that nobody will see so they can 'earn' a bonus.
The government needs to investigate this disgusting practice at Boening that caused so many deaths. This situation is absolutely shameful and needs to be stopped NOW! Those participating in helping these disasters happen need to face some serious consequences for their actions.
Oh, you wanted a plane that doesn't crash? That's the deluxe package.
4
Money talks, and planes crash. The corporate bottom line again erroneously egregiously rules!
1
Here's an idea:
The Boeing CEO along with Donald Trump need to go waaaaay up high in one of these new, beautiful jets,open the door, and jump out.
No one tell them that parachutes will cost them extra.
Let me know when they plan to do this so I'll have my shovel ready.
"Who. Needs. Regulations.?" brayed the
Worst.President.Ever.
6
Another American institution down the drain.
4
Unconscionable.
1
A decade ago the New York Times ran many articles about the worlds most reliable automaker (Toyota) building vehicles that were prone to unintended acceleration. No evidence of these incidents were ever recorded on the multiple redundant moduals. Allegations included drive by wire and cable operated throttles models. It was highly unlikely to have occurred. Readers who were not familiar with modern auto electronics and CANBUS had no idea the authors of these articles had absolutely no idea what they were writing about. Do consider yourself an expert because you read the New York Times
1
It should surprise no one that Boeing held the investors in high esteem and the people who fly in their airplanes as collateral damage.
It is always the all mighty $$$.
Face it people, the United States of America is not by, of, and for the people. Just the board room and $$$$.
It isn't just Boeing . It is "the American way".
1
Don’t fly United....it’s profits over human life.
In my opinion, the CEO OF Boeing and his enablers belong in jail for murder.
2
In China the CEO would be hanged. Here he'll be given a golden parachute.
What happens with Wall Street is all that's impt.
I hope Boeing stock falls to 2$ would be nice... and 20 years in Jail for the Boeing CEO and a few of the other top executive
s who devised this heinous scheme to get a few more bucks.
(And perhaps the FAA officials who went along with the lobbyists for Boeing. Let them lose their jobs and their pensions.)
Criminal behavior -- deserves punishment.
3
The ad copy writes itself; "At Boeing, safety is an extra."
2
"Oh, you wanted to model that flies . . . that's an extra."
1
Um....since when is safety an OPTION?
Shameful, shameful decisions by Boeing.
2
Money money money money money
-America
2
"Optional features" What? Those features seem like a critical part of the planes operation. Just guessing that if the airline was current on their maintenance contract these "features" should have been included.
We have long since passed the point where we pay added fees for anti-lock brakes and airbags in cars... yet angle of attack indicators which you would imagine are essential for flying in cloud are an added cost on 737/8 Max, almost unbelievable.
1
Yet another example of how "the free market" can't be counted on to self-regulate or self-correct its own problems. This is why governmental regulations are important, despite what Republicans and Libertarians are always screeching about. Given these tragedies, and the fecklessness and greed of Boeing, it looks like new regulations are needed. Criminal prosecutions as well, if warranted.
8
Regardless of how ill-advised both the engine swap and the MCAS patch were, somewhere a programmer had to very deliberately write in the feature that restarts the fatal mechanism after a programmed delay. This is not an oversight, or misunderstanding of how the aircraft might function, but is an almost certain reason pilots and passengers were doomed. And yes, doomed is precisely the correct term. No accident, these.
5
How many car drivers are killed because the cars they bought didn't have AutoBraking standard or Adaptive Cruise Control standard? Why is safety technology a costly add on in every industry bar none? How many lives have to be lost before congress or the insurers push for this?
3
@Sam, to answer your question, not very many. Most are lost due speed or drunk driving.
Safety features on an airplane are optional! I hope Boeing doesn't make "landing gear" for future airplanes optional as well!
3
So, the free upgraded safety feature is the disagree light.
But, it will still cost extra to see the readings from the two sensors?
And, this is after two crashes in which these sensors may have been involved?
Some have suggested that other manufacturers have also charged extra for safety features. Maybe that's not surprising. But after two crashes?
5
I wonder what the “too many regulations” Republicans have to say about this? As a former CIH, I have experience in many safety cultures, good and bad (I worked for the bankrupt Manville Corporation, for an example of both good and bad). Based on my professional opinion, the safety culture of the Republican Party is a danger to the world.
7
According to the article: "...Gol Airlines, a Brazilian carrier, paid $6,700 extra for oxygen masks for its crew..."
This suggests that the alternative is that the crew would not have oxygen masks. The sentence should probably be changed to inform the reader that, under this policy, the airline has the option of buying the oxygen masks from Boeing, or from another (third party/aftermarket) supplier of their own choosing.
It has been reported elsewhere that the software fix was delayed by the government shutdown at a time when the FAA was impacted.
4
Government Shutdowns. I think that’s a GOP listing. Please hold while I connect you!
1
Kaptialism kills, and holds human progress back. Putting natural monopolies like air travel, oil industry, or automanufacturers into private hands only makes a few people very rich while defrauding the rest of the country of safety, convenience, and value. We're pretty much driving the same cars and riding the same airplanes we were 40 years ago, because privatized R&D never works in the best interest of human progress...and often against it. These companies should have been nationalized decades ago.
This article lacks an understanding of how aircraft work and does a disservice to the public, who I certainly don’t expect to all have pilots licenses. The more details emerge, the more these crashes were clearly the result of pilot error. This article is, therefore, disingenuous for the blame it is placing on Boeing instead of on the poor performance of the pilots, whose job it is to appropriately and immediately assess the situation before properly responding.
I would like to address the error that is the major premise of this article. An AOA indicator is not a necessary piece of equipment, because the aircraft will still have a warning system for an impending stall (usually a horn that you absolutely cannot miss). That is the only reason why anyone who is not a Navy tailhook pilot would use an AOA indicator. Naval aviators making carrier landings conduct AOA approaches, thus they need to know the actual number. Commercial airlines do not fly the kinds of aggressive maneuvers that would make this gauge essential.
It is unacceptable to crash a perfectly good aircraft, ie. one that still has all its engines running and isn’t on fire, especially in VFR (clear sky) conditions. There are any number of ways the pilots could have responded to mitigate this issue and save not only their own lives, but that of everyone on board. It isn’t easy to say these things about fellow pilots, but that equipment wouldn’t have changed a thing. Ultimately, the pilots failed at their job.
2
@Elle Waner Please don't make statements that these pilots 'failed at their job' and that both crashes were a result of pilot error. Until the final report comes out, no one knows. As a pilot, I want to give the benefit of the doubt to the pilots who lost their lives, until there is evidence supporting pilot error, and pilot error alone, was the cause of these 2 crashes . Just like everyone else who lost loved ones in those crashes, the families of those pilots are also suffering, and having to deal with the added burden of their loved ones being accused of causing the death of hundreds of passengers, with no proof at this point
2
That the company considered a safety measure an option, at additional cost to the purchaser, rather than standard equipment supports the position of those who believe the government can't regulate corporations enough.
If, as our Supreme Court has ruled, a corporation is a "person" under the Constitution, the "person" who decided that safety is an option, not an essential, should be prosecuted.
5
@gary abramson, some cars have side radar that indicates when cars are passing in a blind spot. It's extra,
What do you think about that?
Boeing appears to be guilty of negligent homicide. The company should be "sent to jail" where sent to jail means loss of autonomy. A federal monitor should be appointed to oversee Boeing for several years, and would have ultimate responsibility for all Boeing business decisions. The monitor's goal would be to make sure Boeing builds safe products and adheres to the most stringent safety standards. The monitor should be insensitive to sales, profits and stock price. Under such a regime Boeing would likely lose income and its stock value, but it would be a valuable lesson to other large corporations who are committed only to higher profits.
3
Good idea, but unfortunately this administration can not be trusted to find a trust worthy administrator....for anything.
An optional angle of attack indicator may cost almost nothing to install, but may have cost millions to develop and test. Thus, by charging for these options the financial burden for developing it is passed onto the buyers that actually want and use it. According to the article: "They’re critical, and cost almost nothing for the airlines to install,” said Bjorn Fehrm, an analyst at the aviation consultancy Leeham. “Boeing charges for them because it can. But they’re vital for safety.”
Merely adding an indicator also implies that pilots are trained to interpret it. Like the 'check engine light' in a car, not knowing what it means may actually confuse, rather than inform, drivers.
In engineering language these are known as annunciators: something that informs the pilot. The 'stick shaker' is an annunciator that really gets the pilot's attention, and they cannot ignore it. But the pilot would need to search for and interpret a small angle of attack indicator, located on a video display among many other annunciators. During a stall condition the pilot would need to do this while the stick is shaking. It would probably serve no purpose if the pilots were trained to disable MCAS anyway.
1
Boeing is making one fix standard to get the planes back in the air again? Really? “The suits” are worried about loss of money?
If that’s the only reason they’re making the change, we’re all in yet more trouble.
1
Why is this article written to imply that Boeing did something wrong by charging for a feature, and not that the airline did something wrong by not choosing to buy it? If a car manufacturer offers "run flat" tyres and the customer chooses to not purchase them, is it the manufacturer's fault? If the regulatory authority deems a feature required, they should require it (like seat belts in a car) so all compete on a common standard minimum.
2
@Thomas
Because in the case of mass transportation the consumers do not chose the features of the vehicles as they could do if they had bought them for their individual use. That's why.
Alberto, you're confusing standard equipment with optional equipment.
It should be noted that the F.A.A. lacks jurisdiction in both Indonesia and Ethiopia. They cannot dictate what options are specified by the aviation regulator in any country other than the United States. According to the article: "The angle of attack indicator will remain an option that airlines can buy. Neither feature was mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration."
Shouldn’t safety features be standard not paid optional extras?
3
Shocking and sad how little regulators do to protect people and how much they allow airline corporations to exploit people for profit at the expense of safety. Both the airline corporation as well as the regulators deserve a class action lawsuit!
2
It is unfathomable that Boeing would install such a system without any monitoring capacity, with no apparent obvious “off” switch, not tell the pilots the system was even present and not train the pilots. To say that it is profits over people would be putting it mildly. This is the epitome of negligence aided and abetted by administration officials who lobbied the FAA to abandon their mission, principles and mandate. No society can function without ethics. Boeing must be held accountable. Unfortunately this is most probably the tip of the iceberg of the failure to maintain standards and we will probably see much more damage as this administration has clearly put the Fox in charge of the henhouse.
2
After this display of monstrous callousness, I think nobody should knowingly step into a 737 Max again. Boeing should be sued to kingdom come and the airlines that didn't pay extra for a safety feature should be forced to mothball their expensive flying coffins. If the consequences aren't this drastic, the airlines and boeing will do it again. Executives apparently have no trouble sleeping at night unless their bottom line is affected.
4
@S North, within 2 months, no one will be thinking about 737s. I hope every pilot that pilots 737s knows how to disengage the system.
Since AoA is so critical to stall prevention, I don't understand why these indicators and alarms should be considered "optional". I mean, if Boeing thought that AoA was such an important thing that they chose to add the (flawed) MCAS to the plane's systems, then the indicators should be standard and mandatory.
Also, If you have 2 AoA sensors available on the plane, what engineer signed off on a piece of software that only reads one of them?
Speaking from the perspective of someone trained as an engineer in undergrad (though not practicing), these decisions are just plainly puzzling. I can't believe that any competent engineer would sign off on them.
4
Please, stop waiting for government to protect you from your own decision to go on planes with a safety record insufficient for your personal sense of safety. Refuse to fly on planes that don't have a long record if that matters to you; don't volunteer to be a guinea pig and then complain later when it ends in disaster. Safety is always a judgement call, a trade-off, which involves money, time, convenience, status, uncertainty, etc. Different people will judge risk differently at any moment in time, and the same person will judge it differently depending on time (e.g., development of safety tech). To brush it all on the FAA and manufacturers presumes the vast oversimplification that true safety exists a discrete, objective category and relinquishes the necessary subjective judgement to a committee. Please let's stop putting our heads in the sand collectively and embrace the individual choices we all face.
2
This fiasco is emblematic of America—and now the world, as a corporatocracy. Facebook has had free reign to eviscerate the public’s level of awareness. The auto industry has had years of decisions weighing the cost/benefit effects of safety considerations and environmental impact. Food safety oversight is being gutted. The list goes on, and the problem is only getting worse with a White House zealously fighting regulatory effectiveness every way possible.
3
If I want to get a safer car I have to pay extra for better brakes; but I assume the standard brakes will work and not fail ; if they do, the car will be recalled and I get to sue the manufacturer.
Someone decided that Boeing's equipment was good enough without the safety "extras". But without them the plane crashed. Find whoever is responsible, fine them, fire them and charge them with homicide.
5
This article is written with the subtle indication that the 737 Max is expected to be back in the air after Boeing makes these “fixes” to the planes. That is not only scary but unacceptable. Going forward, I’m going to be much more scrupulous in my research when I book my flights and will do my best to avoid Boeing and would suggest that airlines do the same.
7
Now we can expect the last item on the à la carte plane ticket menu to list the safety features at an extra charge.
Flying in the US needs more options and one of those is High Speed Rail. California needs to get their act together and build the new North South rail system as it was intended. It’s going to be a wildly popular alternative.
Flying is no longer fun, but now it’s downright frightening to find out that the plane’s safety features are optional.
10
Pity the pilots, who are fighting a computer like HAL (2001 Space Odyssey). Thus is the grim reality of man vs computer. Artificial intelligence wins and we lose. As in chess games against computers like IBM’s WATSON. It has a ready challenge to the pilot’s every move and “knows best.”
Putting complete trust in machines is a high risk deal. Pity the poor pilot, trying to find an answer in the handbook as the plane falls from the sky, with the rest of the passengers and crew.
I am in my 80’s and can’t believe man has created so much bad stuff that defies common sense.
379
@Richard There's an off switch for the automatic trim feature that pushes the Max's nose down. A lot easier that turning off HAL 9000.
17
@AB More than a decade, millions of people fly every day with onboard advanced avionics and they are doing it now as we speak. You shouldn't be disturbed by the Hal 9000, but for the lack of an R2 unit that enables the aircraft to fly safely. What is disturbing is that Boeing lacked the moral compass to make a sale of safety features,
35
@Richard It's possible that customers might prefer to buy their own AOA, but it's not credible for anyone to fly any airplane w/o an AOA.
That would be idiotic.
8
Predatory capitalism on full display here, only the innocent prey are the poor souls in the cabin, completely unaware of the lurking, potential dangers of their flight. How many of the flying public, on their next trip, will be gripped in the future with the anxious thought whether the airline they entrusted with their lives bothered to pay for an "optional " safety feature? The F.A.A. has some explaining to do to Congress and the citizenry.
5
Thank you for finding, investigating and publishing this sorry piece of information we otherwise would not have known that, in regard to maximizing the experience, Boeing treats its airplanes like iPhones. How incredible is the gall they have when lives are at stake. But you know Trump and his base would say it ought to continue to be allowed, because corporations need to make a profit. Boeing: it’s not the same with aircraft!!
3
Coming in 3... 2... 1...
Every passenger aircraft manufacturer and passenger airline will announce that all planes will be upgraded with all available safety features.
Yup and we will pay for what should have been
@Steve, and those features are what exactly?
I took a break from reading about people who are bankrupted by healthcare costs, and read this article about people who were killed in a plane crash because the FAA pledged allegiance to Boeing's bottom line. I think the US is the world's richest third-world country.
13
The article doesn't answer the question: Would having those features have made a difference when the software malfunctioned?
1
@John For Lion Air, the answer is no. The weather was clear and the pilots knew they didn't have excessive angle of attack. They had a runaway pitch trim and they didn't know the procedure for turning it off. It should have been a memory item, not requiring a search through the manual. Adding a disagree light would have done nothing other than add confusion.
For Ethiopian Air, the answer is probably no. You'd have to assume that the AOA failed, an unlikely event. More likely, the plane was overloaded or mis-loaded. Density altitude was 9,600', back of the envelop calculations put the plane's weight at around 145,000 lbs., requiring around 8,000' plus for t/o, more if they were carrying add'l fuel or any cargo. The radar track shows a shallow climb, consistent with a heavy plane. Speculating, it looks like they retracted flaps at around 800' and immediately lost altitude. That could have been due to an incipient stall, corrected by a pitch down, either by the pilot or MCAS. They recovered from the resulting dive, and we don't know what happened after that.
1
@John
The software was only reading from one of the sensors by design, so I'm not sure it was technically malfunctioning.
My understanding is Boeing needs to modifies it to read both sensors, turn it off when they disagree, and set off an alert, etc.
@Piper Driver, great comment.
Boeing is unable to properly design safe systems. The following quote demonstrates that even their new modifications to MCAS, intended to make it better, will introduce a new failure mode:
"Boeing says [...], MCAS will be modified to take readings from both sensors. If there is a meaningful disagreement between the readings, MCAS will be disabled."
So if the software simply disables MCAS when the two sensors disagree, that would reintroduce the major risk (from the original problem that MCAS was designed to fix. ... that during takeoff (and other maneuvers), the airplane is difficult or unstable to fly).
The correct solution is to ALERT THE PILOTS using visual "red" messages on the instrumentation panel -- whenever any safety-issue arises. Simply turning On/Off software, without alerting the Pilots is foolish and will confuse pilots even more (they won't know if MCAS is on or off).
I have lost confidence that Boeing can design safe airplanes.
3
Safety features that are optional, so Boeing can charge for them, to insure their profits are meet, and that the safety of passengers are SECOND after their first goal which is profits. Pitiful. Boeing has reinforced the requirement for me to first select an airplane not manufactured by Boeing when I need to fly. And I mean it. Safety features are just that, safety. If they are not needed then why have them. I hope the victims' beneficiaries of the two 737-8 crashes each receive $50 million, that is how upset I am with Boeing. They are a greedy company, and they will hopefully pay for their atrocities. They put money ahead of peoples' lives. Pitiful.
6
Boeing’s lawyers will pull out all the stops and whittle down the payouts to match the local economy. In fact, the lawyers are all over it in Indonesia. Families of the victims have been forced to sign papers in exchange for $91,000 saying that they won’t sue Boeing. This is the top legal amount in Indonesia and
LION AIR made them sign it. Boeing’s legal team must have got there before the FAA.
1
Every safety feature should be standard.
5
Good to know the FAA opted out of safety equipment and that some carriers did too.
And Trump thought so little of FAA he never appointed a leader and Mrs Mitch McConnell , his Sec Trans, didn't care either.
Makes me feel really confident. Just switched two of DC flights to Amtrak
4
It is like selling a car without breaks. Unbelievable
6
My good friend J’s dad called her from Beijing asking her to look for a kind of iron/minimal sand ink for jet engine. (Sorry, I am no expert of aircraft mechanics.) This is for assembling Boeing aircraft in China. J’s dad is a high-ranking former Communist party member of the court of engineer who has all "party" connections. It turns out US small business (like J) supplies parts to assemble Boeing aircraft in China. Those manufactures in China are desperate for parts from the States because business is booming in China. J googles online and finds one or two supplier in the State. She places orders from that guy. She tells me she has no idea what she has ordered, what the authenticity, or the quality is. (She is a professional accountant.) The American supplier fedexes the part to J and she ships to China. She say she is in great demand and makes big money so easily.
1
I'm relieved that my #1 airline of choice, JetBlue, flies Airbus planes on the routes I use. Unfortunately my #2 airline of choice, Southwest, flies mainly Boeing 737's. I most likely will be avoiding Southwest for now and travel only on JetBlue.
2
My long-deceased father used to tell me that an economics professor of his taught that the free-market model was the best, AS LONG AS IT DIDN’T LOSE ITS SOUL.
Centuries earlier, Jesus taught, “What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?”
Well, Boeing, we await your answer.
3
Amazing betrayal of passengers.
A total tragedy and a disgrace.
Now it’s the old “too big to fail” that will keep Boeing from collapse for the most egregious corporate actions that cost lives and air travel trust. Coupled with rampant airline maintenance neglect and deceit such as Southwestern’s flyers are waking up to safety concerns from Boeing to general maintenance. Now Boeing will be hit with class action suits and who will pay? We will. Yup
The stock will be bolstered by increased manufacturing price hikes.
5
In aviation, they cannot make safety as optional, when they have so many redundant systems in airplanes.
5
Did Boeing "sell" safety as an add-on feature?
Once again Trump puts his feet in his mouth promoting Boeing without doing his homework.
4
Isn't it reasonable for the F.A.A to order airlines to post a notice below on each airline ticket of a traveler who flies Boeing 737 Max: WARNING: THIS AIRCRAFT IS NOT EQUIPPED WITH ADDITIONAL SAFETY ADD-ONs?
4
This is so wrong. What prompted Boeing to say they needed MCAS? Was it needed because of the aircraft design or lack of trained pilots? This appears to be a brand new system…unproven but installed. If you want a “fail safe” system with warnings…that is extra. You have redundancies throughout the cockpit but this system uses information from one sensor. How can you not say this is criminal? Oh, I keep forgetting…money or profits are paramount.
2
In most countries including, I expect, the US, and employer who knowingly or negligently operates an unsafe workspace can face criminal fines (example: improper procedures to prevent mine collapses). Why is there not criminal liability for negligently, recklessly, or intentionally selling dangerous goods? The idea of marketing a plane that has a tendency to stall on take-off, corrected only by software, is bad enough. But when the company does not include all the corrective measures in the final product, that should be criminal.
Imagine the conversation between Boeing and purchasing airlines. B: Why don't you buy this extra? P: Is it necessary? B: Yes, if you don't buy it, your planes might crash. P: WHAT!?? You mean this plane is not stable? B: Well, ah, well, er, sure its stable. So, is that a NO?
4
I’ve always wanted to see a small plane flying across America carrying a large banner for all to read: “ free markets do not self regulate.”
1
Is this a case of willful neglect at least resulting in a manslaughter charge for the death of 350 people? I must insist that it is. There is no excuse this will should go unpunished or unchecked.
Then again, our government really doesn't care.
2
From Jack below:
"This is capitalism in a nutshell. Corporations have no moral or ethical codes"
But they are people right?
There is a disparity in what I'm reading on technical pilot and aviation internet forums and in the mass media.
The pilot forums point out that MCAS is itself a safety system designed to block pilot inputs that could lead to a stall. And MCAS was implemented because of a new engine design.
And further if a pilot believes the MCAS system is working incorrectly, there are a multi-step series of manual override procedures--the normal method doesn't work (and it was designed that way because the whole point was to override erroneous pilot inputs). It seems from available information the pilots were not trained how to operate or not aware of the manual override. At least back in late 2018 in the Lion Air crash.
But it may be the case that there was sufficient disclosure since then such that the Ethiopia air pilots should have been trained in the right procedure.
This is a good summary from late 2018:
https://leehamnews.com/2018/11/14/boeings-automatic-trim-for-the-737-max-was-not-disclosed-to-the-pilots/
1
If I were to bet my money, it would be on Boeing getting a "slap on the wrist", because as we've seen over the years, congress members care more big corporations than human lives (especially during the corrupt Trump administration). The FAA will get a pass, maybe they'll throw in a few additional conflict of interest prevention measures, and that will be it.
Both the general public, and the government will forget about this incident and hundreds of people who died in the avoidable incidents will remain in their loved ones' memory forever.
2
Thank you NY Times for making the investment in actual reporting and investigating. Stories like this will be parroted all over the web through apps and web pages. But they need to start with actual reporters digging for the truth when others don't want it to be found.
Now its 10 mg of Valium for me any time I fly. Even the food tastes good then!
2
here is the perfect support for AOC's GND. not only is air travel a climate disaster, it's totally unsafe. and then we can look at school buses which are climate bad and also unsafe. how many kids have been killed or hurt in school bus accidents.
Why in the world would Boeing make safety enhancements an 'extra'? That simply makes no sense?! Boeing, I believe (hope) you learned your lesson.
Why are any safety features allowed to be "extra"?
Seriously how much does one of these cost? Boeing is nickle and diming on the safety features?
1
What kind of a sleazy company SELLS safety electronics to airlines instead of installing them as part of the price of the plane? Why give an airline the option?
Good god, we live in deceitful times.
1
“Boeing charges for them because it can. But they’re vital for safety.” No optional add-on should ever be categorized “vital” to the safety of the operation. We’re not talking about warming seats, sunroofs and luxury tire rims. This story exposes capitalism at its worst.
1
The 'extra' pilot who flew the day before the doomed plane and corrected the issue, saved all the people on his flight; but I imagine he must be feeling a bit of a git right now for not insisting that the fault be repaired...
I cannot believe that this story is true! Yet I have no doubt that it is.
Finally a just resolution to a horrible tragedy. Boeing and the FAA need new leadership. If we can get safe air travel we can get safe gun laws. Look at how New Zealand reacts to mass murder in their country – they band all assault weapons. That is what Americans should demand. The difference is the NRA's ability to kidnap the constitution and the moral judgement of elected officials.
3
For the failure of an inexpensive "O ring" we lost Challenger, its crew and payload of scientific instruments. It was the fault of the management (decision makers) against the objections of the engineers to launch in unusually cold conditions. For the failure of an inexpensive "setting cement" we had the gulf oil explosion. The management (decision makers) did not give enough time for the cement to set. Boeing is trying to squeeze minuscule fraction of a penny to the dollar (compared to the cost of the plane) and the buyers (airlines) are saving the same minuscule fraction of a penny to the dollar and both the seller and buyer are compromising the lives of the flight crew and passengers and causing grief to their families. Put Boeing executives and airline executives in jail and throw the keys to the jail cells into the drain. Bring the fear of God on all future penny wise and pound foolish decision makers!
2
Ah! the vaunted free market and capitalism at work. Oh you want your passenger and crew to survive their flight? Well that is an extra and will cost you more money. And the FAA is has subcontracted safety and oversight to us (for a price of course).
Capitalism, Deregulation and Republican government at its finest!
Yes sir! We can sell you a brand new plane. Oh? You want SAFETY features? Well, THAT will cost you EXTRA. They wouldn't need the safety extra in this case, had the PILOT been TRAINED on the MCAS system. The airline or their nation's "control agency" (like the FAA), should have NOT allowed anyone to operate that airplane, without the simulator training.
Incredible. Boing charged extra for what should be a standard safety feature and ones critical to the safe flying of their jets.
It's not job-killing regulations. It's people-killing lack of regulations.
300+ people dead so Boeing could make a bigger profit. That's American business.
Industry can not regulate itself. All who have said (and continue to say) otherwise are liars.
Restore justice. Throw the Boeing CEO and anyone else who made these cost-cutting decisions into jail for the maximum sentence for manslaughter. Because that's exactly what they need to be charged with and convicted of. They killed those innocent people just as certainly as if they had run over them with a car while drunk.
charging extra for safety is obscene
1
I think we have the American Dialect Society's Word of the Year for 2019: "Optional". Congratulations, Boeing.
1
You can’t get a permit to live in a home unless it has smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Why is aviation any different?
1
Great finding.. some one can sell safety feature as addon and at lucrative pricing is really disgusting to know.
Some one needs to be answering why safety features are "add-ons"
Gives me really chills to know it comes from my country which supposedly valued human life more than the "Saudis" and "Iran" or Putin's Russia.
Just sad, I am not flying this version of Boeing Max ever in my life again!
So human safety is only for sale by Boeing as an extra? Wow.
1
The government's primary purpose includes the general welfare and domestic tranquility of We the People. When corporate organizations betray the public trust—such as the evident likelihood of criminal negligence in this case, costing the lives of hundreds of innocent human beings—action needs to be taken.
Three actions come to mind:
1.) Create a national charter requirement for any corporation engaging in interstate commercial activities with built-in requirements to mandate they benefit, not harm, the public.
2.) A company like Boeing, or any other company, engaging in death profiteering, can be nationalized.
3.) A government in service of We the People can take steps within the Green New Deal #GND policy framework to create public options in manufacturing as public utilities, to enhance quality, through public sector/non-public sector competition.
What has prevented this sort of policy, in contrast to the modern constitutional design of New Zealand, in its recent response to mass murder, is our constitutional design created block the public will, as the American system was designed, in secret, to do.
Madison praised the Senate's purpose in secret when he said it was there to "...protect the minority of the opulent against the majority." (Notes Robert Yates 06-26-1787)
We the People can change this directly by the democratic majority invoking the obvious popular sovereignty of We the People as Akhil Reed Amar argues in his seminal book titled "For the People."
1
So just as we are nickeled and dimed for our luggage, seat location, etc, the airlines are being nickeled and dimed for safety features that help people not die? Where is the FAA's accountability in all this?
1
"Not Crashing" as an indicator option. Love those add ons.
1
Many others have expressed outrage as well they should. I just want to add my voice and say that Boeing needs to be punished for their reckless disregard of human life. Hopefully this will come through litigation and criminal proceedings. We all can do our part by shunning Boeing stock and avoiding any mutual funds that own it. This behavior is beyond criminal! Punish them!
3
A "safety feature" OPTIONAL"??!!
And even after two crashes.
Why not safety belts, or one engine, or oxigen masks, or steward also copilot.
The list of such savings should be carefully reviewed by Boing so they can make more money.
Unless people refuse to fly their planes.
I know I will.
Fly Airbus. Europe is better.
Wait a minute. Do you have that choice in the US?
1
This is what happens when you allow companies to do their own safety evaluation. Just too much pressure to sell jets and nickeling and dimeing the customer just so they can make additional profits for executives and shareholders. Self regulation will lead to this when unscrupulous executives secretly suppress the truth. Grrrrrrrrrrr
2
There should never be a need for the phrase "optional safety equipment"!!
2
Regulations don’t make up for incompetent pilots. These are 3rd world airlines in third world countries in which pilots get jobs more from their connections than their competencies. If the plane is fatally flawed how come no crashes here? Oh I forgot, everybody is the same and all for-profit companies are evil.
@Steven Williams Do you have any proof for the claim that pilots were hired for connections? Or is this just bigotry?
Optional safety features...what could possibly go wrong...
2
This plane is finished. It doesn't matter what Boing is including as standard,because people are not going to want to fly in one. I would not board if I found out my scheduled plane was swapped out for one.
3
Boeing sales executive: 'Oh, you want the kind that doesn't crash? Great. But it'll cost extra.'
1
This is one of the most outrageous failures of a company to operate responsibly that I have ever heard of. Boeing put profit over safety, and safety should never be an add-on. What kind of craven, greedy people run this company?
3
Safety is not optional.
3
So, not only are the airlines nickle and diming us for everything (luggage, seat choice, seat room, etc. etc), but now we discover that the airline manufacturer is nickle and diming the airlines for safety features which should be basic, NOT optional. Enough already! We need far stricter FAA regulation of Boeing...and that starts by funding the FAA so it is truly independent and not just a Boeing lap dog.
2
Interesting to see that United did not buy either of the additional safety features, while the other two airlines bought both of them. Yet another reason to avoid flying United.
2
If this is the way the airplane manufacturers sell aircraft, then the airlines that purchase them and ultimately decide what safety features they are adding, should PUBLISH the that list of add-ons.
At least then, the ultimate consumer that is buying a ticket can decide for themselves which plane they would rather fly on.
I can guarantee you that all the airlines would then be loading up on all those "extra" safety features..
1
The CEO of Boeing, the head of the FAA, and the Secretary of Transportation should be hauled into Congress immediately and made to answer questions about the appalling lack of safety and "oversight" by all involved.
This is a tragedy, a transportation crisis, and the public (air-traveling and in general) is entitled to full and complete answers.
3
No one forced either airline to cheap out on safety features. Heaping blame on Boeing alone is shortsighted. The real questions are whether or not the pilots were trained correctly, whether or not they knew about the absence of these features on the planes, and whether or not they were maintained properly by the ground crew. People in the comments seem to forget that airlines have a profit motive as well, and the global response of grounding all of the MAX planes smacks of hysteria–especially considering how generally safe the 737 platform is.
1
Boeing makes airlines pay extra for some of its planes' safety features? Boeing has blood on its hands.
1
Boing is doing what every other corporation in a capialist system is intended to do, i.e. maximize profits while providing an "acceptable", not necessiarily "perfect" product. The auto makers did hte same with seat belts, ABS braking, back-up cameras and sensors, etc. They started as options and only became part of the "acceptable" product when governments mandated their inclusion in the product.
It is why there is a role for a strong central government in capitalist systems.
The Airbus 320 I fly has 3 AOA vanes: mine, his/hers and a tie breaker. I guess better engineering minds thought 2 AOA's sensors, with only one (possibly faulty) sensor talking to a system that was designed to prevent high angle of attacks was an acceptable design. I respectfully disagree. But then again, what do I know? I just fly Buses.
2
Parts on Airplanes can be bought as extras? So, if the plane needs 2 engines but, you only want to pay for 1, you can? No vehicle (air, sea, ocean, train, auto) used for commercial /public use should have an extra / a la cart option. The race to the bottom is in full speed ahead. Is there no integrity, values and common sense left in the world? Shocking and downright scary times we are in.
1
From my experience as a government scientist who worked with the FAA, airlines, pilots, and equipment manufacturers, a few points:
The FAA wants others to make risk decisions. For example, the FAA will not close airspace due to volcanic-ash hazards. It’s up to the airlines to have a “risk management plan” and make the call about where they fly. Germany will close airspace but not the US.
Airlines and aircraft manufacturers look for every way they can to avoid adding weight to planes in the goal of fuel efficiency.
The group that has passengers’ interest most in mind is pilots. They go down with us. Listen to them.
I still believe the aviation industry has a culture of safety, but this MCAS issue is a devastating blow.
2
In her interview with David Leonhardt, Elizabeth Warren made the observation that government oversight isn’t necessary because everyone cheats in business. It’s necessary because if even one person or business cheats, cuts corners, sells a substandard product, the otherwise honorable and ethical players feel compelled to follow suit or they will be out of business. It becomes a raise to the bottom for slipshod but profitable products, and all of us pay the price. This is what we need to constantly emphasize when businesses and politicians maintain that regulations and oversight need to be reduced.
1
Safety should not be optional in airplanes any more than in automobiles. Both should have all possible safety features standard.
3
There are 2 reasons that these planes lacked notable safety features. One may me that Boeing charged for them but the 2nd reason is that both airlines involved in the tragic crashes said "no", we don't want to pay for these features.
1
I am a 30 year veteran airline pilot. The blame here lies somewhere between the FAA, Boeing and passengers. Every significant safety feature on today's airlines were developed and installed only because of loss of life. TCAS-Traffic collision avoidance system. Cargo fire warning systems. EGPWS ‐ Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning Stystem. Wind shear alert systems all came about AFTER crashes killed hundreds. It seems to be the ONLY thing driving and enhancing safety.
How many passengers would accept higher airfares for more safety options? What equipment is nice to have vs. must have? Most airlines have flown safely for decades without Angle of Attack indicators and only now everyone is shocked that they aren't automatically installed! Can we fly the airplane safely without them? Yes. Would they be nice to have? Yes.
When you buy a car you make economic choices for safety. Antilock brakes used to be optional. What about reactive braking? Car sensors? Can you drive safely without them? Yes. Would they be nice to have? Yes.
The same decision making process for airlines occurs buying a plane as you make when buying a car.
The bigger problem is that the flying public is CHEAP and despite what they say they want, they aren't willing to PAY FOR IT!
1
@ZootO Well stated and the reason why government regulation is required to hold hands to do unpopular but necessary things. Since business now elects the government, you end up with regulations enacted by corporate fiat.
@ZootO, I don't know about others, but I am certainly willing to pay whatever I must for safety. No safety feature should be optional; we need to be as safe as we can possibly be. I don't fly often as many others do, but I would hope they'd pay up for themselves and all of us.
@ZootO There is one giant flaw in your argument about the flying public being to blame because they are cheap. The flying public does not choose to fly airlines without safety equipment because they are cheaper. We don't even know what equipment the planes have. What about pilots stepping up? Your unions could insist during collective bargaining that your employers purchase all the best safety equipment -- or would that get in the way of your arguments for more pay?
3
It sounds like Boeing is selling airplanes the way car dealers sell cars--all the stuff really worth having is an add-on extra. Really big of them to offer one of those extras as a standard item. If these extra safety items are that important, federal law should require that they be standard, with open books required if they are not.
2
If I pay to take sky diving lessons, I would not consider the parachute to be optional equipment.
Just saying...
2
I'm supposed to believe these planes could have been sold without oxygen masks for the pilots.
this is one step above tabloid.
other pilots faced with the same problem simply turned off the automated systems and took manual control.
why that didn't happen here I don't know.
1
The so-called "upgrade" that requires both angle-of-attack sensors to agree would then be susceptible to a failure to prevent stalls when either sensor malfunctions.
It's critical that an "upgrade" reduce the probability that a failure of any part of the aircraft causes a crash and/or fatality. Boeing is failing to provide any assurance that these changes will do that.
We need to be careful about piling on to the "single-sensor fail" story.
There are obvious problems with the MCAS system.
1. It's existence was not disclosed at the time of purchase to the airlines. Neither was its existence and how it worked or could fail or could be bypassed included in the crew training.
a. purchasing companies could not make a rational judgement about the usefulness of the optional indicator lights or displays at time of purchase.
b. no competent training or simulators were provided (or available) from Boeing. Only US Pilots Union pressure got disclosure to (some) US pilots.
2. Even with two sensors, when there is a significant discrepancy, there needs to be a tie-break. (Angle of attack can be inferred from other instruments, for example.) The design implied this control was essential for safe aircraft operation, yet no verification the sensor in use was working was, or will, be included in the MCAS system.
3. While evidence seems overwhelming that a failure of the MCAS compounded by a failure to provide crew training caused the crash, we do not know if the sensor itself actually failed--or why it did so. The specific reason for the MCAS failure does not seem to be certain yet. The angle of attack sensors should be both highly reliable and critical, such that a failure of one should ground the aircraft until repaired. This did not happen at least in the Lion Air crash. The sensors appear to be unreliable. Why?
My father used to say one of the most brilliant marking minds came up with the phrase "Optional Equipment Extra".
1
Who knew? Boeing and the FAA have stumbled on a way to help address climate change! If folks fly less, fearing unsafe planes, there will be less carbon in our air. If they "off" some people, there will be fewer of us to contribute to climate change.
This GOP Administration and Senate are also responsible. They clearly place greed above all else regardless of the consequences for the public. The Administration allows the FAA to ignore its job of protecting public safety, and has removed or undermined all sorts of regulations across government agencies which were meant to protect our safety via air, water, food, healthcare, consumer products, farm products, etc etc. And meanwhile they keep trying to restrict our ability to vote so that we can't choose better government. Mention this when your family member or neighbor says all government is bad. Government that hurts you, hides the truth, and tries to prevent you from changing it is not "of the people, by the people, for the people."
4
I find myself in the grocery store perusing labels on the jar for
“Made in China”. Then I don’t buy that one. It started with the melamine in the dog food, just to name one reason. After what the Trump Administration is doing to deregulate health, safety, and envionmental regulations, my suspicions about the “Made in the USA” label on food products have been heightened, too.
1
It's simply inconceivable to me that Boeing would implement an active flight control system driven by two sensors, and not give pilots feedback about the status of those sensors, when failure of either could sureptitously activate a pilot-input-override system.
Of course the *right* thing to do would have been a 3rd AOA indicator and software that ignored an errand reading from one of them. But it's understandable that adding the hardware for the 3rd sensor would have been expensive so they didn't do it. But not evaluating thoroughly possible failure scenarios for two sensors?
What can the individuals responsible for the evaluation of that system during certification have possibly been thinking!!!
5
No surprise United would pick the cheapest option if you’ve flown them recently. They also push for among the smallest legroom on some of their craft. I flew a miserable flight to the other side of world of around 35 hours that started with a United 28 inch seat and my knees bumping all night and would never fly United again.
The only solution to chase the lowest cost seat is for legislation or regulation to enforced minimum levels of safety or comfort on these companies because they don’t care about brand that much. It will be a long ride if we don’t.
5
I'd think a plane's price should include everything needed to actually make the plane takeoff, fly, and land safely, plus any passenger needs like seats, lavatories, storage, galley, crew seating, lighting.
This reminds me of a time my dad was looking at new cars, and the engine was priced out separately. Optional?
2
Safety should NEVER be an option. Corporate greed is destroying us, I wish the United States would stop worshipping money.
8
Most of the time I'm not surprised when perfectly legal rackets that pass for business as usual are unmasked. But this one shocked me. Thank you for revealing an infuriating, cut and dried case of regulatory capture.
5
@Theo Stop participating in the outrage machine. this article is full of qualifiers.
It is beyond imagination that is it not legally mandated that all commercial airline manufacturers must include all safety features available at the time of purchase in every single plane sold. So many lives are at stake it seems impossibly mercenary to consider these advances as "extras", as though they were another set of stereo speakers or leather seating.
7
As usual we are reading this article only after a senseless and unnecessary tragedy or in this case, two. In a matter of mere days the NYT and other news have got down to the apparent nub of the issue. Boeing has been charging extra on critical features to make a profit at the expense of passenger safety. Some airlines decide to spend extra on safety and some do not. The passenger is in the dark about all of it which is right where the plane manufacturers and the airlines want us to be. What I wonder is are these things so hard to discover before an accident? I don't blame news outlets for covering bad news and investigating causes after the fact. I'm very glad they do. I just wish there were more oversight everywhere, including investigative journalism, before bad things happen.
6
Don’t purchase any flight which will be flown on a Boing Airplane.
We, as customers, are God and the company will change in a blink its policy regarding the security of the product it makes and making a profit center out up-selling security options to carriers.
4
"A United spokesman said the airline does not include the features because its pilots use other data to fly the plane."
Airplanes are almost completely custom, as a rule. Each customer gets exactly what they want. Even the lavatories are optional. You don't have to buy them from Boeing. It's advisable that you have them, but you are free to purchase them elsewhere, and many of them do.
According to the article, Southwest Airlines installed their own sensors, probably because it was less expensive for them. Shouldn't they have that right?
If we needed proof that capitalism, as an economic model, is evil, we have all we need now. The decision to skimp on safety for the sake of a few hundred or thousand dollars on a one-hundred-twenty-million-dollar flying machine is a decision that only capitalist businessmen would make.
For those who think Socialism is akin to a four-letter word, I hope they're rethinking their attitudes about it now. Socialism is the antithesis of Capitalism. It preferences people over money. It has nothing to do with democracy, which is a model of governance.
A nation lacking a degree of socialist-leanings wouldn’t have airports or a government-funded highway system or free public libraries or tuition-free public schools—not to mention Medicare and Medicaid and other "entitlements" that so many who are opposed to socialism love to hate.
A rigid capitalist mind-set would return us to medieval times with castles and kingdoms and rule of the wealthy and fences and moats and the have-nots without safety nets with their health and safety at the mercy of the haves . . . looks like where we're headed, doesn’t it?
8
Capitalism literally kills, yet again.
11
Made in America? No thanks!
5
@harassed woman
I have been avoiding ALL US carriers when travelling to the US for many years. Surly and unmotivated flight attendants, horrendous food and amenities… only blind greed can explain the mediocrity which is less prevalent on European airlines.
2
Robber Baron bots have taken over the NY Times comment section. They are tracking every key stoke I make right now and blocking and/or delaying my comments and those of other dependable, well-liked commenters.
The Con Don and his Robber Baron brethren must be very scared. They are already trying to throw the 2020 elections. It will not work.
However, the NY Times must figure out a way to control comments or they will be called fake news by more than The Con Don and WE do not want that.
I need only one word: criminal.
3
It is not Boeing fault. It is the airlines not properly training there pilots on the planes they are flying. I good pilot or trained pilot don't need the extra sensors or idiot lights to tell them if the plane is going into a nose dive or the computer is malfunctioning.
It wasn't our fault. It was the " MCAS software"
We are as blameless as Manafort.
Hmmm,.. we just need a republican judge to confirm how blameless we are..
3
How does the CEO of Boeing still have a job? “To further improve safety”? My God, man, you have sold your soul.
3
Headline writer needs to check a dictionary for the meaning of "doomed" which is "likely to have an unfortunate and inescapable outcome". The outcome of the MCAS issue, if in fact that's the problem, is possible but note necessarily likely and it was most certainly NOT inescapable as other pilots had no problem correctly handling the pitch nose down issue correctly.
This is disturbingly beyond insane.
3
Deregulation in action. Thanks Trump. Ray Sipe
3
Is money more important than people’s lives to Boing? Apparently so!
3
I have no dog in the fight, but this article looks like a hit job on Boeing by the NYT. I'll wait for the official investigation to be completed.
How long will we allow these sociopath pirates to rule our world? Boeing making money on safety features? Obscene, and yet everyday. People of the world, Unite!
4
It appears that Boeing has more than its fair share of Dilbert's pointy haired managers
2
Time to truly Regulate and Truly Fund, the FAA. Ever since Ronnie,with a list of 60 Demands from the Koch Boys, de-regulated the airlines and removed the "Fairness Doctrine" from the FCC (which allows moronic stations like fox fake news and AM hate radio with fake preachers & fake journalists} our Democracy has been shredded;ridiculous price locks by all airlines is unfair pricing, flying is torture for everyone not in Business or First "Class";but that is nothing compared with Boeing's negligent liable behavior;Boeing's outrageous lies that these planes did not necessitate pilot training & simply gave pilots iPads with training modules to be completed without any time date, all to save Boeing money criminal;Even more Outrageous is Boeing's sale of 2 Safety Features, ONLY SOLD AS EXTRAS;THIS IS CRIMINAL, A SAFETY FEATURE IS NEVER AN EXTRA;the cushy relationship with FAA personnel with Boeing's guarantees there is NO OVERSIGHT FOR BOEING SAFETY; The Regulatory Agencies Must be Funded despite the trump policies which kill people;this is an affront to Democracy, Humanity, Decency;Boeing makes $23Billion annually from our Govt., our tax dollars, it is clearly an airlines responsibility to put safety first, not the interminable greed of Capitalists like Boeing & Koch Boys who want "unfettered capitalism where profit is primary and no taxes are paid" No taxes is defunding federal government's regulatory agencies which every trump appointee has as their main focus. REGULATE NOW
3
So, Boeing is greedy (not surprising) and airlines like the low-cost Lion Air and the high-cost United are negligent (surprising that there were so few disasters).
None can be faulted of doing anything criminal :
1) Boeing sells planes for 50-100 million $ each but they did not want to throw for free an angle of attack indicator and a sensor disagree light for ... how much would they cost Boeing ? ... $50-100 each ? ... to the already existing angle of attack sensors. I hope that all the overpaid bosses at Boeing sleep better at night, on top of their million $ bonuses, knowing that for a few tens of thousand $ they could have saved hundreds of lives. Dear Boeing bosses: have you heard about the Japanese engineer who killed himself after he learnt that his failure to put two rows of bolts somewhere on the tail led that tail to detach and kill hundreds of people ? I know, you are guilty of much less ... but I just wanted to illustrate a cultural difference: American greed vs Japanese ethics.
2) Hey United ! Would it really hurt if your pilots had that angle of attack sensor and disagree light available while they
use other flight data, like sticking their wet fingers out the window, to determine where is the plane going ? You are not a low-cost airline ! What is your excuse for being negligent ?
2
"Boeing. Boeing. Gone."
6
Who pays for these crashed planes and the lives lost?
Dear NYTimes Reporters, please follow the money.
Who destroyed the expertise and power of the FAA which was once omnipotent?
Please follow the political votes/approvals/responsibility.
I want to know as a concerned citizen how this should affect how I vote in the 2020 Presidential election. Whs it Bush 2's fault for reducing the budget of the FAA? Was it Obama's fault for not restoring the budget of the FAA and for not appointing a scientist/engineer as Seccretary of Transportation?
Was it Trump's fault for appointing Elaine Chao (Mitch Mueller's wife) as Secretary of Transportation when her background is in finance and administration?
Where did government fail in this tragedy? These repeated human "uncaused errors" (as they say in baseaball) are unacceptable. To solve the problem as taxpayers and voters, we readers MUSt know when, where, and how this terrible design and approval process got so screwed up that it would kill hundreds of innocent persons!
Please reduce the insults and finger pointing and ascribe the responsibility/stupidity to actual human beings and political parties so we can learn from these tragedies!
2
My response to this headline isn't publishable in the comments. It doesn't meet the Times standard for clean language and contains some version of a 4 letter word.
4
I would rather not believe this loss of conscience in America's Capitalist System. There is no object to trust with our lives other than more and more money to feed the appetite of profiteers.
Doesn't anyone feel a guilty conscious to guide human conduct any longer? We have lost our humanity because it doesn't count numbers.
4
The government long has allowed this sort of thing. The Reagan administration postponed mandatory air bags in cars on the silly notion that mandatory seat belt laws were good enough. Lord knows how many people were killed or maimed as a result.
At least with airbags, you knew, getting into a vehicle, whether it had them. With airliners, we don't know. And so here's a modest proposal for addressing the issue: transparency. Require airlines to tell passengers, every optional safety feature the scheduled plane doesn't have before they buy tickets so that prospective passengers can make informed decisions about boarding an aircraft that isn't as safe as possible. My guess is, if we did that, airlines like United would start buying planes with every available safety feature.
6
The safety features, according to an aviation consultant quoted in this article, are critical and cost almost nothing for the airline to install. So Boeing apparently used safety features as a profit center, “because it could.” That is shameful corporate behavior, and must be severely punished if the flying public is to be safe. The only thing that Boeing will understand is prohibitive financial penalties. The market and courts will likely punish them as well, but unfortunately, many Boeing workers will suffer for the decisions of a few.
5
Two safety features sold as 'extras' : in other words, optional but possible for more money. Wow. Buyers of the 737 Max 8 had to pay a premium to really ensure their new Boeing aircraft were safe.
2
Congratulations to the capitalist "giants" at Boeing, who in just a matter of years, have wiped out 70 years of experienced, disciplined and masterful airliner manufacturing.
5
Boeing is a great American Company with an impeccable safety record.
What has happened is that controls and safety are more than ever becoming secondary issues.
Think of what is in your food, your meds - how about the endless 24 hour electromagnetic fields
from cell phones and cell towers
bombarding your body.
There are many Hells out there and demanding more safety, more controls is up to the voter.
128
I'll believe that when the politicians I vote for actually do even some of the things they said they would. Still waiting on Obama to pass less strict cannabis legislation. Oh what's that? Despite that being part of his platform he and Leonhart are raising dispensaries in legal states.
Voting should change things but unless politicians become better people I won't hold my breath
7
The voter already decided by electing individuals to form and maintain the FAA. It's not the voters fault that Boeing and the FAA decided it was a good idea to make vital safety features optional and at extra expense to the purchaser. Did you also blame the folks in Flint for the lead in their water supply?
42
@JBT,
Seriously? Do you really think voters have any control at all. We've been lied to by both parties. Now, we have Trump who's spent a lifetime perfecting lying.
If the pilots couldn't stop Boeing then what makes you think Donald will?
28
Just when you thought this story could not get any worse, it does, and to a degree that renders the FAA’s reckless indifference to passenger safety nothing short of criminal. So Boeing deliberately designs an updated 737 airframe that is knowingly aerodynamically unstable in a desperate attempt to retain market-share from Airbus, and expects pilots in third-world airlines to rely upon an essentially undisclosed software fix to prevent the flaw from exposing hundreds of passengers on each flight to a higher possibility of being pulverized into smithereens, and then, as the icing on the cake, requires each airline to decide whether features of a more trustworthy fix should be purchased as an option. We’ve always assumed a Boeing jet is a Boeing jet. But apparently some are Volvo’s and some are Pinto’s.
It goes without saying that the hitherto popular perception of Boeing as having a sterling reputation and representing the best of American technology has itself deservedly taken a nose dive.
But then consider the FAA.
The over 300 lost souls who were husbands, wives, parents, children, friends and colleagues and living the one life that they had been allotted will not rest until those who abetted this obscenity through incompetence, indifference and greed are brought to justice as the result of what should be unflinching, spare no expense investigations by the U.S Department of Justice and the U. S. Congress. Our reputation as a nation demands it.
10
There is such outrage coming out about Boeing and airlines, profit-making and nickel-and-diming. But no one nickels-and-dimes like passengers buying the cheapest conceivable seats to be found. We also play a part in raising the pressure on this low-profit-margin business. Let’s pay more.
5
Will the 737 Max ever fly again? Probably yes, eventually. But before it does, these "optional" safety features must be retrofitted on the entire existing fleet and all new deliveries. And the FAA's relationship with the manufacturers must be made adversarial, not cozy as it is now. There is now such distrust around the world, that Ethiopia sent its black boxes to France, not the US. The 737 Max grounding should last quite a while, as these things are sorted out, before anyone will feel safe flying on one. The question has now been reframed: Should the 737 Max be allowed to fly again, or it is fatally flawed by poor engineering and a compromised approval process?
6
Capitalists have adopted the a la carte profit model. This needs to be regulated. It's our if control. All of these extras and add-ons. That's okay if I want extra croutons on my salad. It's not okay if an airplane carrying hundreds of innocent souls requires a safety feature.
8
@Misplaced Modifier
The only adjective I have heard applied to the word 'regulation' by the current administration is 'job-killing'. I do not know who first uttered the term but it sure seems to be a Republican favourite.
It was the cost-analysis folks within Boeing management who were stingy enough to bypass proper training and a proper, thorough and patient certification process.
Extra fees for the needed safety indicators? Really? Were they inspired by airlines' add-on fees for baggage and stale sandwiches?
And a reluctance to develop and distribute the proper flight simulators? Yes, that's an extremely pricey training tool and, yes, it would have pushed back the launch of the Max, at significant cost to Boeing's bottom line.
But here's the point: As it stands now, Boeing is teetering on the edge of financial ruin from the inevitable landslide of lawsuits. I will be amazed if the company avoids bankruptcy, let along surviving in its current incarnation by the time the legal mess all unwinds.
So .... many, many billions in legal settlements and loss of future sales will certainly offset the wonderful savings that Boeing management thought they so creatively whipped up.
Not really good corporate and shareholder oversight, when you look at it this way. And it was all predicable by any knowledgeable engineer.
And certainly, at the time of the Lion Air disaster, it was a crisis that needed to be addressed without a day's delay.
7
Respectfully, and to those claiming Capitalism and Boeing are to blame here, I would say you are naive to the purchaser-supplier relationship across the globe. Boeing competes for business everyday. New, upstart companies around the globe are fighting for their piece of the international market. To compete, Boeing needs to provide low-cost and minimally featured plane configurations or else they run the risk of losing business. There are MANY low-cost airlines around the globe that choose not to select the “best” (safest, most comfortable, easiest to use, etc) planes in the fleet - some of these are run by socialist governments as well as capitalist governments. If Boeing included all the “best” features in every plane, they would lose to other manufacturers that do not have these feature sets to offer.
Boeing did not become one of the largest and oldest manufacturers in it’s business by lying to it’s customers or intentionally placing passenger lives at risk. Of course Boeing proposed these safety features to every airline looking to buy these planes. So, at the end of the day - The airlines involved in these crashes chose NOT to buy these additional features - it is that simple.
This has nothing to do with capitalism or Boeing and everything to do with people making decisions based on calculated risk. And, calculated risk is a part of every system (capitalism, socialism, etc.)
3
@JB a few lines of code, already written, don't add to the cost of the aircraft.
Safety should never be an option. There's really nothing else that needs to be said.
15
The more I read of Boeing's actions regarding the design and deployment of this software, the uncharging for necessary features and the perfidy of seeking to shield themselves from lawsuits foist upon poor and greieing families at the point of there greatest vulnerability, the more I find myself saying I don't care how much this costs them or whether they stay in business. They are becoming the poster child for capitalism gone wrong.
12
No mention in the article of the off switch. If the plane trims wrong on autopilot, turn off the auto-trim, and trim the plane manually. A lot of these planes are flying a lot of miles. No problems in the United States or most other countries. Pilot training in third world countries is the real problem.
3
Crashes like this continue to alert the world and especially the US to the heartless callousness of corporations and are behind Americans' loss of faith and confidence in corporations. Republicans wonder why citizens want more regulation of corporations and why they find Socialism so attractive.
Boeing brought this on themselfs for allowing their main product to be delivered without adequate safety majors.
There is a law that allows corporate executives to be tried personally as well as corporately for knowingly endangering lives of people who use their products. I say throw the book at them.
8
The FAA is incapable of assessing whether Boeing’s input is based upon money or engineering. Inadequate budget, equipment, manpower, and expertise make the FAA a rubber stamp. As the sending of black boxes to France indicates, the FAA no longer will have international standing.
Boeing will take a bath on this one too, but will it reform? Allowing marketing to take precedence over engineering in matters of safety (not by accident, it seems, but deliberately) indicates corporate rot hard to root out.
Boeing teeters upon losing its reputation altogether.
8
No wonder they tried to make families sign agreements to not sue.
This was Boeing's fault and they should be sued. I have no sympathy for them.
8
The assumption behind all the outrage is that an AOA disagree light would have increase situational awareness and helped the pilots take appropriate corrective action. I'm not sure that's so clear. There are human factors to consider. I'm not sure what other warnings were going off, but sometimes adding another horn or flashing light doesn't make things better.
In Lion Air, the weather was clear and the crew could presumably tell that they did not have excessive pitch. Alerting them to a suspect AOA might have added nothing but confusion while they tried to deal with the runaway pitch trim. The fundamental issue was that they didn't know or perform the runaway pitch trim procedure. Another flashing light wouldn't have changed that.
As for Ethiopian Air, there really is no evidence that MCAS was a contributing cause, and you'd have to assume another faulty AOA (seems unlikely) for it to be. Another possible explanation is that the plane was overloaded or mis-loaded for the high (9,600 foot) density altitude. Back of the envelop calculations suggest t/o weight of at least 145,000 lbs., maybe more if there was cargo or extra fuel. T/O distance may have been 8,000 feet or more (out of 12,500 available), which is pretty long. The climb profile from radar looks very shallow, suggesting they may have been overweight. Perhaps they retracted flaps around 800', and then dropped. MCAS might have actually saved the plane from that incipient stall.
3
FAA should have forced Boeing to have all safety features mandatory. An optional safety feature should be an oxymoron for aircraft. It is like offering a driverless car with stop at red light as an optional safety feature.
9
I agree with the many comments concerning redundant AOA sensors and a disagreement indicator. However, the bigger issue in these crashes may be whether the pilots could successfully disengage the MCAS anti-stall system. It's one thing to have a stall warning (e.g. klaxon or flashing red light), but it's a much bigger step to give control of the airplane to a software algorithm in a dynamic situation. I noted one comment in coverage (unverified) that the MCAS could reset itself upon every action taken by the pilots. If true, that could lock the pilots into an unrecoverable loop. Some focus should be given to the plane's system requirements and concept of operation.
7
@Joel Sanders There is a little "STAB TRIM" panel with a disable switch and a backup disable switch just below the throttles towards the right.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/flightblogger/30210901282/sizes/k/
“Disagree light”? Are they trying to make it even more complex for pilots? Here’s an idea: How about testing and selling planes that work?
4
As a controls and instrumentation engineer for over 25 years in power generation and a frequent flyer I'm both mystified and appalled by the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airline incidents. I cannot understand how pilots could not even be allowed near control systems that they had no understanding of how they operated. Frankly I consider the Lion Air crash unforgivable but the Ethiopian crash if caused by the same control error, is criminal. The cause and remedy (two switch manipulations) for the Lion Air crash was plastered all over the news for weeks. How could any pilot not be familiar with this? How could any air carrier fail to send an email to employees alerting or reminding them of the device?
Regarding the safety function of redundant angle of attack indicators, an alarm indication on deviation or mismatch takes less than a few minutes to implement via software and in any power or process industry I've been around is standard engineering procedure. I'm not so sure that this would have prevented either of the accidents if the pilots were ignorant of the attendant auto malfunction or reluctant to fly the plane manually.
Every time I've ever boarded a airplane as I've passed through the door I've wondered if the manufacturers or engineers in the airline business made similar mistakes or misinformed judgments as I've sometimes seen (but typically corrected through layers of code and regulatory/testing procedures) in my business. Frightening.
6
@Michael do we know that the Ethiopean Airlines crash has the same MCAS related cause as the Lion Air crash?
Boeing has become the Apple of Airplanes... except the extras have dire consequences.
3
I am outraged just after reading this headline that any safety feature available to a commercial aircraft would be sold as an "option" to an airline. So wrong on many levels. When most flying passengers are traveling abroad on commercial flights some of us may be lucky enough to have some basic knowledge about the type of aircraft we are flying but not much beyond what it may look like. Furthermore when we purchase a ticket to fly we have the option to pay more if we want to travel in luxury. We should NEVER have to pay more to fly in a safer aircraft. Flying passengers are in the dark about the level of safety an aircraft has and airfare costs are not based on safety equipment in an aircraft nor should they ever be. This is so irresponsible of Boeing and there ought to be a law against such behavior. I'm appalled!
16
Can we go back to when American companies weren't evil? or is that always been the case?
10
@John Sullivan
Corporations have largely been evil since the invention of the corporations. The laws creating corporations enables them to consider only the bottom line. There are laws restricting them from endangering human lives, but clearly the government doesn't have the means or the will to stop them.
What we need is a lot more regulation, not less as the business community crays for all the time. We as a nation, need to regulate corporations far more than we do now.
3
Features that ensure the safety of passengers and crew should be standard, not available only as a costly upgrade Shame on Boeing for optimizing their bottom line at the expense of the flying public. And shame on the FAA for allow the fox to guard the hen house.
8
“They’re critical, and cost almost nothing for the airlines to install,” said Bjorn Fehrm, an analyst at the aviation consultancy Leeham. “Boeing charges for them because it can. But they’re vital for safety.”
350 people are dead, perhaps in significant part, because Boeing and the FAA made the incredibly poor and perhaps criminal decision to make a significant safety device an "add-on" option. Whether criminal charges are filed against Boeing remain to be seen; certainly there will be many civil actions.
It is beyond time for our government regulators to act as regulators and not be in the manufacturers' pockets.
7
@Peter K. Schaffer
In this case, criminal actions are definitely in order, along with the civil ones.
Just to be on the safe side, I’m not flying United Airlines until they upgrade so I can feel safe.
6
I'm used to auto companies reserving safety features for the wealthy, but never thought that aircraft manufacturers would do the same.
5
Anti-stall software should never fight the pilot.
It looks like people need to be reminded of Asimov's laws of robotics:
1st: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2nd: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3rd: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
Boeing's anti-stall software killed people by acting in violation of the 2nd law.
9
@Stephen Peters
Very well said. Those laws should be applied to corporations as well as the products they produce.
Boeing and Airbus have every right to charge extra for fancy lighting, luxury restrooms and better seats. Safety features however should never be part of up-gradable options.
I agree that all types of Manufacturers float upgrade packages as a way to customize its product and drive business. Giving a lot of upgrade packages is also a marketing strategy allowing the buyers to have a sense of satisfaction due to choice overload.
Car manufacturers have their lane departure warnings, driver assist steering alerts etc only in their higher trim levels in-spite of these being helpful safety features. But they do that because of a simpler explanation - these features are not standard and are costly with respect to the price of a single car.
This is where Airplane manufacturers differ. Including Angle of attack reading indicators and disagree lights probably cost 0.1% of an aircraft value and charging extra for it seems unethical.
The even bigger flaw here is the faulty MCAS software that doesn't take into account both the sensors' readings. This is a breaking design error and has zero fail safe mechanism. Boeing as well as Regulators should have caught this well ahead.
8
As a non expert, my understanding about what happens with this aircraft is that because the engines had to be placed forward, the nose tends to rise, and therefore the computer software is necessary to correct for this.
Is my impression wrong, that we see a new aircraft which is inherently unstable, with a patch to make it functional?
5
You are correct. Instead of spending $$$ to design a new body. The decided to create software to correct a problem that shouldn't occur on a plane body that was designed 50 years ago.
5
@James Currie That was my impression as well. The physically natural place for the engine is below the wing. For clearance, they couldn't put it there, so moved it forward, making the plane unstable. The software is fighting the natural tendency of the airplane to go where gravity suggests it go, in such a way as to be transparent to the pilots. To do that, the software has to be 'aware' of the planes position in all situations, putting increased reliance on the sensors that determine that awareness. If they malfunction...
@James Currie I believe that's correct. If you want the plane to be stable, it will cost you extra.
From now on, I will research the type of equipment my air ticket is booked on. It takes a few extra clicks, but it's worth the peace of mind.
It's unconscionable that any aircraft manufacturer would charge extra for basic equipment.
4
@Carole
Point well taken. Unfortunately aircraft substitutes at the last minute are not unusual.
1
"Both Boeing and its airline customers have taken pains to keep these options, and prices, out of the public eye. Airlines frequently redact details of the features they opt to pay for — or exclude — from their filings with financial regulators. Boeing declined to disclose the full menu of safety features it offers as options on the 737 Max, or how much they cost."
This is frightening that airline and Boeing was allowed to have this happen. Where was the FAA? Obviously this information needs to be made transparent to the public. Any feature having to do with safety should be included in the basic airplane price.
It seems there should be a leadership change at both Boeing and the air carriers which effectively took the shortcut of not purchasing an options package which impacted safety.
Moreover it seems to be a mistake to relocate Boeing headquarters from Seattle where the planes are designed and assembled 2000 miles away to Chicago. The Boeing HQ should be moved back to Seattle where leadership can be certain to be more engaged with engineers designing and constructing the planes.
The FAA has had leadership issues and remains having funding issues. Trump has just nominated a new leader of the FAA but a structural issue with lack of appropriate funding of the FAA remains from when in 2005 much of the FAA functions were delegated to airplane makers (e.g. Boeing).
1. Change Boeing leadership, move HQ back to Seattle.
2. Adequately fund the FAA.
4
The FAA and aircraft manufactures need to decide on which 'optional features' are related to aircraft safety.
In semi-autonomous aircraft operating in complex and unpredictable environments automated systems have to be regarded as fallible. Computers can operate almost any system safely in predictable circumstances. However, nobody would have expected a computer to land Flight 1549 (an Airbus A320) on the Hudson River after multiple bird strikes.
Both Boeing and the FAA are complicit in these tragedies. The offer of an 'option' to know a problem, and the manufacturer's failure to notify pilots of procedures to override a system intent on killing people should be a legal issue. Boeing is culpable of chiseling on safety issues, the FAA is guilty of complacency. The drive to automate the cockpit hopefully has been set back decades.
4
Safety comes at a premium despite it being a fundamentally basic necessity...just like healthcare and education. Where is the compassion, respect and civic duty to the public that is subject to the whims of big cooperations and the governments who subsidize them.
2
If the computers were destroyed on both planes (even the protected black boxes were mangled) how can they check to see if the MCAS software was sabotaged? Why is this possibility not high on the list? Do people not understand how easy it would be to put a tool like Stuxnet, or worse, into a computer?
1
All of the planes sensors and data are sycronously downloaded to the black boxes, hence why it takes a full day to download the entire data set from the boxes.
The next gen Boeing Jets will have seat belts, optional, for a minor charge. Keep those credit cards handy when boarding, folks..........
3
When, in the end, capitalism blows itself up, this will be an instructive chapter.
6
I couldn't help but think that this isn't much different from what the insurance and pharmaceutical industries do on a regular basis: put profits well above the basic preservation of human life.
7
I am sure many more than me are voicing the same opinion and concern. But I wish to include my in chorus with all others: "Passenger safety in aviation must not be an extra, which there is a charge for! Safety shall and must be inherently included in the overall design philosophy without exclusion!" I have always enjoyed Boeing aircrafts above Airbus and felt that Boeing's safety ranks higher. My opinion is about to change. I flew 2017 with an Airbus 350 to my daughter's wedding in Chicago and returned with a Boeing 787. Both flights were pleasant experiences and the 787 cabin felt just slightly nicer. The regular seat was good enough for my 6'. The 787 display was notably better than in Finnair's Airbus. But all that aside it is safety, which ranks as absolute priority! Boeing has a major priority in regaining the confidence and trust of their customers.
4
These life saving safety features should be installed as part of the the base pay. I can do without other comfort and entertainment features (to save airlines money) but I want to know that the manufacturer and the airline has done everything possible to ensure my life is their utmost priority. Greed... it all boils down to greed. First shame on Boeing second shame on the airlines. I do think Boeing should be held accountable (and the airlines that had no option but to purchase these safety features and did not). I think they need to put our safety before the almighty dollar!
5
Two sensor disagree light? Standards call for 3 sensors and 2 of 3 voting. Safety features should not be optional. Period. While no one celebrates loss of life, I was a small business supplier to Boeing. Trouble like this could not happen to a more deserving group.
4
How nice. The airline nickel and dime the passengers with all sorts of "fees": bag check, overhead bin usage fees, functional size seat (also known as "premium" seating), ad nauseum. Why? Because they can.
Now we find the manufacturers are nickel and diming the airlines over reasonable safety features, including fire systems in cargo. Why? Because they can.
Another commenter suggested Congress open an investigation into Boeing and the FAA before the planes are permitted to fly again. I suggest they add all the other airline manufacturers to the list, not just Boeing. And not just the FAA but the Transportation Department as a whole (Mitchie's espousa's department, afterall) should be included. The taxpaying public's safety is at risk. We should demand action now before another big silver bird falls from the sky, here, in Europe, Asia, or wherever.
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@Alice
This is the same industry that charges you for a packet of stale peanuts, mam.
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Shocked to hear MCAS only used input from a single angle of attack sensor when there were already two on the plane (standard!). Boeing and the FAA have a policy that every flight-critical system cannot rely on a single sensor or otherwise have a single point of failure. They are hardcore about this. For some reason the MCAS system was not categorized as such.
Only thing I can think of is the many people in the approval chain must have felt that a) the sensor failing, b) the MCAS system activating, and c) the pilots not knowing how to disable it all happening at the same time was an impossibly unlikely edge case.
Obviously they were mistaken.
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After reading this, I won't be flying any Boeing aircraft.
Anything that involves the safety of the plane, no matter how "small" it may be, must be standard features on all planes.
Optional features are for the interior, such as seat size, seat material, i.e., cloth or leather, etc.
I haven't flown in 4 years but I had always used one particular airline that use Airbus A-320's, A-321's.
I suppose there should also be an investigation of all other aircraft manufacturers by the US Senate and Congress in order to insure the absolute safety of Americans and all other country's people flying on every brand of aircraft no matter how small the airplane is.
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