FAA Says Boeing 737 MAX Planes Are Still Airworthy (cnbc.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: The Boeing 737 MAX, the type of plane involved in a deadly crash in Ethiopia over the weekend, is still airworthy and the Federal Aviation Administration plans to issue a notice to the international aviation community later Monday, a person familiar with the matter said. "The FAA continuously assesses and oversees the safety performance of U.S. commercial aircraft," the FAA said in a statement. "If we identify an issue that affects safety, the FAA will take immediate and appropriate action."

Aviation officials in China and Indonesia ordered domestic airlines to ground their fleets of the popular Boeing single-aisle planes after the deadly crash of one operated by Ethiopian Airlines on Sunday. The 149 passengers and eight crew members on board were killed when the plane crashed shortly after takeoff. The incident was the second deadly crash of the new Boeing planes in less than five months. A Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX 8 plunged into the Java Sea shortly after taking off from Jakarta in October, killing all 189 people on board.

Comments

Southwest still uses 'em

[SuperKendall]

Southwest, and I think American have both said they don't think anything is fundamentally wrong with the plane. Possibly this is some kind of training issue.

Given there have been no issues here, I don't think it's unreasonable for other carriers to keep flying them even while they figure out what happened.

Re: Southwest still uses 'em

[c6gunner]

If pilots who have had all of the currently required training per Boeing are flying these jets into the ground, well it doesn't fucking matter if additional training might solve the fucking problem now does it?

Right, because fully trained pilots never ever crash any other plane.

What are you, 12?

Re:Southwest still uses 'em

[ceoyoyo]

The Indonesian flight seems to have been due to a training issue: Boeing elected not to include the required procedures for disabling a failing anti-stall system into the variant difference training course because they didn't want to confuse the average pilot.

So hopefully all 737 max pilots have gotten the message now, and will respond quickly and appropriately when their aircraft exhibit a determined effort to dive into the ground.

Re: Southwest still uses 'em

[c6gunner]

System interactions are complex, there is a way to do it but it may not be obvious.

Pulling back on the stick is pretty fucking obvious. Adjusting your trim is slightly less obvious; you would first have to look at the trim indication and realize that it's out of whack. Still well within the abilities of any decent pilot though. Manual trim override is even less obvious, but is the default action once you determine that the trim system is faulty; something all pilots are trained in.

You don't know what happened and are guessing based on having zero information

Zero information other than reading up on how the Boeing MCAS functions, and having experience maintaining and operating multi-engine aircraft, yes.

Re:Southwest still uses 'em

[amorsen]

So hopefully all 737 max pilots have gotten the message now, and will respond quickly and appropriately when their aircraft exhibit a determined effort to dive into the ground.

A better option would seem to be to fix the aircraft so that it does not exhibit a determined effort to dive into the ground.

Modern aircraft are a UI disaster.

Re: Southwest still uses 'em

[crgrace]

You seem to be misinformed:

1. Even with trim maxed out, pulling back on the yoke/stick will still bring the nose back up.

However, according to the New York Times:

Older 737s had another way of addressing certain problems with the stabilizers: Pulling back on the yoke, or control column, one of which sits immediately in front of both the captain and the first officer, would cut off electronic control of the stabilizers, allowing the pilots to control them manually.

That feature was disabled on the Max when M.C.A.S. was activated â" another change that pilots were unlikely to have been aware of. After the crash, Boeing told airlines that when M.C.A.S. is activated, as it appeared to have been on the Lion Air flight, pulling back on the control column will not stop so-called stabilizer runaway.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/03/world/asia/lion-air-plane-crash-pilots.html/

Re: Southwest still uses 'em

[ceoyoyo]

There have been some discussions by actual Boeing 737 pilots. Yes, given time you might realize that the plane is screwing with your trim. But consider:

1) You don't know that it can do that because Boeing elected not to tell you
2) The autopilot is off
3) You've just taken off, are low, and in one of the most dangerous phases of flight
4) The cockpit is full of alarms that are telling you you're stalling, and other alarms telling you your angle of attack, air speed and stall warnings are unreliable
5) You keep pulling back, but every ten seconds the computer dials in more trim and you have to pull back more, and the haptic feedback system dials in more opposing force, so you have to pull even harder

Pilots in emergency situations are human. They rely on memorized safety procedures to follow in situations like that. Apparently "turn off the MCAS" is now one of those procedural items. It wasn't before.

It's curious that the pilots on the *previous* Indonesian flight didn't notice the trim acting up, since it sounds like they probably flew most of the flight with it doing so. Or maybe they did notice, and the disengage wasn't working properly.

Re:Southwest still uses 'em

[ceoyoyo]

Not so small if the sensor design is faulty. The sensor may not have actually been at fault, or maybe the Ethiopian crash was caused by something completely different. It would seem like a good idea to make the MCAS give a warning and disengage if the two AOA sensors don't agree though. And maybe cross check against some other flight data as a backup. Having the MCAS aware of the altitude and not initiate a dive when the plane was near the ground might be a good idea.

Re: Southwest still uses 'em

[Hognoxious]

The pilots on the plane which crashed DID pull the nose up numerous times, but they - for whatever reason - never turned off automatic trim.

Because they expected that to happen automatically when they pulled the nose up, as it had done on previous versions of the aircraft.

It's right there in the article that crgrace ( 220738 ) posted.

So they pull the nose up, go "phew, that was close!" but the Mad Crazy Ass Suicide mechanism is still active and pitches forward again...

Re: Southwest still uses 'em

[CRC'99]

What I found strange, climb, level out, climb, level out, climb, level out, rapid descent, then recovery, profile climb.

At the first identification of levelling out, the crew should cut off all automatic control and take manual actions to rectify the flight path. You first action should never be "Oh, the autopilot is going something funny, how can we fix it?"

There's a great video that's over 20 years old that is still as relevant today as it was then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Flight aerodynamics hasn't changed in that time - but how we train / respond in both training and procedures have.

Re:Southwest still uses 'em

[Joce640k]

The fleet should be grounded, but money talks

If it was Airbus the FAA would have grounded them after the first/i> incident.

Re:Southwest still uses 'em

[ceoyoyo]

when their aircraft exhibit a determined effort to dive into the ground

Just in case you missed it.

At least on on the Indonesian flight, it appears that a hardware sensor failed, causing the software system to act inappropriately and a backup manual override procedure wasn't part of the training course. There's lots of failure to go around, at the hardware, software, and training levels.

Breaking news...

[bosef1]

Today, [company], the only one that manufactures [thing], says that in spite of [recent deaths / maulings / spontaneous combustions (strike unneeded)] attributed to [thing], [thing] is still suitable for general use, and the public should feel safe continuing to use [thing], preferably [in / at (strike unneeded)] a greater [quantity / rate (strike unneeded)] than before.

In other news, experts are still baffled as reports of [missing / de-limbed / immolated (strike unneeded)] personnel continue to come in. The [chief of police / head zookeeper / fire marshal] (strike unneeded)] advises the citizenry to remain calm as the reports are investigated by [his / her (strike unneeded)] top people.

The FAA is known to avoid change

[jd]

They do nothing without clear and compelling evidence. And even then have been known to delay.

There were cases in an earlier Boeing aircraft of metallic particles in hydraulic fluid causing crashes, but the FAA and NTSB held off on action because they couldn't prove that was the cause of the accidents in the lab.

Turned out their lab tests were faulty.

Once upon a time, they were too proactive, demanding changes without proper testing or evaluation. That also caused crashes, which is why they prefer to do nothing over doing too much.

The second aircraft was in flames prior to the flight terminating abruptly on the ground. It has been suggested that overworked controls fighting with an overly aggressive antistall device may have caused that.

Moreover, we must remember the 777. It suffered multiple near-disasters with battery packs in flames in the first few flights. This would suggest poor testing procedures.

Conditions for both crashes are very, very different from those in America, so if it's an environmental factor that triggered the fault, the FAA are likely correct.

If it's a design flaw triggered, as with the 777, by unusual system loads, then it could happen at any time.

If the accident reports are indeterminate and crashes remain in one part of the world, it's environmental.

Remember, unsafe designs don't explode on first use. The DC9 and original 737 were incredibly bad designs. But they only failed occasionally. Even the Comet completed more flights than not.

Re:The FAA is known to avoid change

[chispito]

Moreover, we must remember the 777. It suffered multiple near-disasters with battery packs in flames in the first few flights. This would suggest poor testing procedures.

Your post is insightful, but I believe here you are thinking of the 787.

Re: The FAA is known to avoid change

[Solandri]

Probably not in this case. Right now, the likely culprit seems to be pilots being inadequately trained on the automated flight control systems. Airbus has had similar systems in their planes for decades (which can override pilot inputs, and require the pilots to turn them off if they decide it's malfunctioning). The FAA had no problem approving those, so this isn't a resistance to change on the part of the FAA.

Boeing stuck to the "pilot should always be in control" philosophy, and is only now adding automated safety systems which can override the pilots' inputs. It would appear they're going through some of the same early teething problems Airbus went through with such automated systems in the 1980s and 1990s. Where pilots don't know or don't understand why the plane won't do what they're trying to make it do, resulting in a crash.

Re:The FAA is known to avoid change

[hcs_$reboot]

The question you might ask is: what would do the FAA if the "problem" was affecting the Airbus fleet?

Re: not enough data yet

[bobbied]

I would assume the FAA, in the absence of clear evidence that there was an airworthyness issue with an Airbus aircraft, would let them fly just the same.

I would also assume that the FAA wouldn't be making this decision anyway, but the EU analog of the FAA, EASA would. Airbus is in the EU, certify their aircraft under EU rules and Airbus operates under EU's oversight.

Eyewitnesses on ground report flames before crash

[caseih]

Several eyewitnesses reported seeing flames before the plane crashed, but it's not clear whether those were coming from the engines or from somewhere else on the aircraft. It's possible that witnesses are mistaken about the flames before the crash. It could be that the excitement and trauma of seeing the crash happen, and the subsequent fireball, caused them to incorrectly remember seeing flames before the crash.

According to the news article I read, however witnesses did say that the plane was pitching up and down and eventually nose-dived into the ground and caused a fireball. If it weren't for the reports of earlier fire, I could believe this was an MCAS problem and pilots were, perhaps in a panic, fighting the MCAS without remembering to disable the trim motors (there are switches right behind the trim wheels to deactivate the motors). You can bet that 737 MAX pilots from today on will keep those switches in the back of their minds. And Boeing will no doubt be making some changes if MCAS is implicated in any way.

In the meantime, I think with heightened awareness on the part of pilots after these two tragedies, the MAX 8 is still safe to fly on.

Re: Right. A more accurate statement

[Hognoxious]

1965 is quite some time ago. It's closer to WW2 than it is to now.

Heck, it's closer to WW1 than it is to now. I'd hope the state-of-the art might have progressed somewhat since then.