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Pilot Who Hitched a Ride Saved Lion Air 737 Day Before Deadly Crash (bloomberg.com)
As the Lion Air crew fought to control their diving Boeing 737 Max 8, they got help from an unexpected source: an off-duty pilot who happened to be riding in the cockpit. Bloomberg reports: That extra pilot, who was seated in the cockpit jumpseat, correctly diagnosed the problem and told the crew how to disable a malfunctioning flight-control system and save the plane, according to two people familiar with Indonesia's investigation. The next day, under command of a different crew facing what investigators said was an identical malfunction, the jetliner crashed into the Java Sea killing all 189 aboard.
The previously undisclosed detail on the earlier Lion Air flight represents a new clue in the mystery of how some 737 Max pilots faced with the malfunction have been able to avert disaster while the others lost control of their planes and crashed. The presence of a third pilot in the cockpit wasn't contained in Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee's Nov. 28 report on the crash and hasn't previously been reported. The so-called dead-head pilot on the earlier flight from Bali to Jakarta told the crew to cut power to the motor driving the nose down, according to the people familiar, part of a checklist that all pilots are required to memorize. Further reading: Flawed Analysis, Failed Oversight: How Boeing, FAA Certified the Suspect 737 MAX Flight Control System.
The previously undisclosed detail on the earlier Lion Air flight represents a new clue in the mystery of how some 737 Max pilots faced with the malfunction have been able to avert disaster while the others lost control of their planes and crashed. The presence of a third pilot in the cockpit wasn't contained in Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee's Nov. 28 report on the crash and hasn't previously been reported. The so-called dead-head pilot on the earlier flight from Bali to Jakarta told the crew to cut power to the motor driving the nose down, according to the people familiar, part of a checklist that all pilots are required to memorize. Further reading: Flawed Analysis, Failed Oversight: How Boeing, FAA Certified the Suspect 737 MAX Flight Control System.
Is this a 737 Max 8 problem or a training problem?
We just don't know how to use the search button anymore
https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/lion-air-crash-pilot-on-previous-flight-made-distress-call-before-continuing-to-fly/news-story/7fa1bd3b49f4dbe76444f27cc52bca41
Date: Nov 2, 2018
Abagnale would pose as a pilot to sit in airline jump seats and get a free ride. I don't know why, but the image of the pilot turning to him for help just crossed my mind.
Apparently, "memorize" means something different there.
What's remarkable in the Lion Air flight is that the company didn't ground the plane until the angle-of-attack sensor problem was resolved.
I dunno manually removing power to a motor that a control system is erroneously commanding you and 300 people to die should be something that gets raised for serious review and corrective action. Someone really missed an opportunity to save a lot of lives.
If there was an issue with the aircraft one day, I would do a lot of investigation before I would fly it again. This appears to be caused by a aircraft safety feature being set off by defective hardware and the pilots weren't informed of it or trained to handle it. Still, if something goes wrong one day, why would you fly the aircraft the next day?
It sounds like there were a ton of things that happened. Everything from poor flight control design, single sensor for a stall recovery system, poor oversight, regulatory mistakes, and pilot training that all contributed to the crashes. It doesn't make sense that at some point in the whole process no-one said "you know this is a bad idea to have a single sensor for a safety system that causes the plane to nosedive to avoid a stall." The fact that the FAA approved the plane with that design is appalling.
Not really. You also memorize a whole bunch of things for exams, but that doesn't mean you have actually learned how to put that knowledge to use in a real scenario. It's the whole problem at the core of teaching to the test.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Only difference was the the faulty sensors on the Airbus usually screwed up at altitude.
They still lost one however.
727 had similar pilot training issues losing several right off the bat (two within three days of one another). Difference was that it was a completely new type, not advertised as being the same plane.
https://i.imgur.com/YwuKQkp.png
Still, if something goes wrong one day, why would you fly the aircraft the next day?
Because if you did that, planes would hardly ever be flying.
lots are correcting for all kinds of crap, all the time.
This is just one of the worse cases, where training mattered more than most other times...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So, why didn't the aircrew from the previous day's flight pass that incredibly valuable information along to the next crew? Leave a note in the cockpit? Tape over the auto-trim disable switch in the Off position? Talk with someone responsible for staffing on the ground to pass along the details of the problem and the solution? I'm sure it was discussed with maintenance -- as evidenced by the work done on one of the angle-of-attack sensors overnight before the fatal flight -- but was anyone else made aware of the problem and solution? There seems to have been a distinct lack of forward communication ... and that's very troubling.
licet differant, aequabitur
Investigators listen to 'black box' cockpit recordings of planes that crash - why don't they do that for ANY report of a significant malfunction that looks like it might cause a crash under different circumstances? Hell, it doesn't even have to be "the" black box - they could have secondary recorders whose data are more accessible.
I also wonder why there isn't an 'airline pilots only' social media platform that would spread news of this kind of incident far faster than 'official' channels. If pilots were regularly in touch with their counterparts all over the world, I bet we'd all be a lot safer. And if there happens to be some regulatory or competitive or face-saving reason why it wouldn't be allowed, well, fuck that and do it anyway.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
All memory can end up being lost. Part of the problem is that autopilot has gotten too good. This both lowers the hiring standards for pilots and has also left them out of practice.
Boeing designed an aircraft that is having MCAS failures extremely often.
Pilots were clearly not trained correctly if there is a known method of correction for this situation that they did not apply.
MCAS fails on one sensor. Very bad from Boeing.
Airline did not notify pilots after this issue almost crashed a plane the day before.
As you may begin to hear, if the MCAS needed 2.5 degrees of movement instead of the original 0.5 in the safety analysis review, then the physical design of this airplane may be suspect. Don't be surprised if it never flies again in some countries.
Such a large movement means the effective range of the tail-trim is constricted by this amount, otherwise the plane could suddenly stall at low altitude, high engine power, when the tail is already trimmed down by a significant amount due to the wind conditions or that particular flights weight balance.
The combination of pilot, design, training and now fundamental communication errors mixed with the tragedy, politics and money involved means the investigation(s) become a media heated stew surrounded by various chefs playing hot potato with the liability.
Pilots instead of Computers should fly the damn plane.
I say this because I was Army aircrew in a fixed wing aircraft, and saw this exact thing happen... except it wasn't a pilot that caught the mistake, it was a intel analyst who for two years sat at the SIGINT console directly behind the pilot.
The article is worded poorly. The thing about a piloting checklist is... it's a checklist. As in, a real list on a laminated paper. The important thing is not that the pilotd memorized every item on the list but that they know list X is the one to go down when problem Y occurs. That's the real training failure here.
Having the checklist memorized is one thing. Knowing when to run the checklist is another thing entirely. From what I have read, the checklist was to fix runaway trim. In a runaway trim situation, as soon as control inputs to pull the nose up are removed, the nose will immediately start going down. In the case of MCAS, there was a delay of at least one minute between the control input being removed and MCAS trimming the plane down. This difference likely confused the pilots and they did not realize that there was a problem involving the trim.
Boeing blaming the pilots for not running the runaway trim checklist was pure spin. The plane had a new failure mode that pilots were not trained on. It's completely unreasonable to expect them to divine the operation of a system that they were deliberately not told about.
Unfortunately, despite this being a RTFM issue at its core, a safer design and more robust sensor system needs to be implemented.
Repeated overrides should always lead to automatic disseminating of an automated control system.
One of the bigger long-term consequences of these MAX-8 incidents will be the impact on the FAA's influence in the civil aviation world. One little commented fact is that when the MAX-8s were grounded it was the Chinese civil aviation authorities who led the world in grounding the 737 MAX. This was unprecedented, as most civil aviation authorities have tended to follow the lead certification authority of the manufacturer, the FAA in this case, before issuing a grounding. This was the case in previous grounding - the 787 dreamliner in 2013 and DC-10 groundings in 1979 were both led by the FAA.
Additionally, it now appears both Transport Canada and EASA are no longer willing to accept FAA certification. Other aviation authorities have in the past accepted FAA certification without challenge. if other authorities no longer trust the FAA to do its oversight properly Boeing will be forced to carry out multiple certification assessments for each civil aviation authority, and that will carry with it a considerable delay and financial burden.
I'd love it if people were more willing to be methodical when the situation demands it, but most pilots will not get out a paper checklist while in the middle of a nosedive.
Many of the advanced in automation have made the flight engineer redundant, but in this case, having a subject matter expert in the cockpit helped diagnose an issue and provided a work-around.
These planes have been flying for quite a while, but only recently they've gone full stupid and are nosediving into the ground ?
What's changed recently ?
Is this a 737 Max 8 problem or a training problem?
I'd say neither, the problem seems to another example of something being defective by design, we are told the system is working as intended but it is failing the principle of least astonishment and giving pilots WTF situation. It is doing things the Pilots do not expect and failing to clearly signal the situation.
This harks to early days of these systems, where pilot overload was the decisive factor in a lot of so called 'pilot error' situations.
Follow to https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news-13/ to get the inside track of what the pilots really think
Apparently, "memorize" means something different there.
Check lists ARE memorized and pilots are tested on if they know them often. Pilots know them, it's part of their job to follow them from memory and safely flying *requires* you know them by heart. It's drudgery and boring work to memorize them, but your life depends on it.
NOBODY want's to be experiencing an engine out emergency between V1 and V2 and have the pilots fumbling around for the check lists. No, you need to be marching though the check lists by wrote because there is very little margin for doing the wrong thing and sometimes your instincts are 100% wrong. Check lists keep you on the right track, helps you make sure you don't forget critical things and keeps the crew focused on the critical task of flying.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I'm talkin about that guy, who said "Cut the power" at the right moment.
He didn't really want to sit up front, so he ordered a Bloody Mary while he walked through first class. So he sat down, talked with these friends of his, stood up to go back, but the plane was rockin, you know -- turbulence, he thought at first. He finished his drink, said, Cut the power, and when all was well, got off at the next stop.
This would raise a lot more questions, and add 200 more pages to the report. I don't know who he was exactly, but I knew him from [pilot] school, was all the other pilots had to say.
NOBODY want's to be experiencing an engine out emergency between V1 and V2 and have the pilots fumbling around for the check lists.
There is no checklist for an engine out after V1. You are already committed to takeoff. That's the whole reason that V speed is defined.
Now, once you are climbing out and cleaning up, the PM (or PNF) will start to go through the checklist because not going through the checklist kills more often that not when the situation is survivable.
This system should be using a myriad of sensors to activate, not the least of which is the air speed indicator, backed up by GPS, the altimeter, also backed up by GPS, and the bank indicator. For one thing, the stall angle of attack is completely different at one speed versus another. This is because flight envelopes are not squares. Second of all, if altitude or GPS show the plane about to go below the ground level for the specific location, it shouldn't be driving the nose down.
Pretty sure some people need to go to jail over this. This appears to be several hundred counts of, at a minimum, negligent homicide... and that's being charitable.
#BoycottBoeing
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
Although I haven't been in the aviation arena for some years, I recall that this should have been disseminated in a NOTAMN (notice to airmen) --- why didn't that aircrew spread that correction to others within the airport and airlines????? If they did not, it displays a massive show of irresponsibility on their part!
Does anyone happen to know if the failure mode has been successfully recreated in an simulator?
Every time and article comes up about self driving cars comes up, you here from the zealots how self driving cars will save lives. When a plane takes over the controls and crashes, they seem to clam up.
NOBODY want's to be experiencing an engine out emergency between V1 and V2 and have the pilots fumbling around for the check lists.
There is no checklist for an engine out after V1. You are already committed to takeoff. That's the whole reason that V speed is defined.
Now, once you are climbing out and cleaning up, the PM (or PNF) will start to go through the checklist because not going through the checklist kills more often that not when the situation is survivable.
Um...On the 737 NG checklist for engine out, The FIRST thing on the check list v1 is: establish positive rate of climb, advance throttle to full TO (if desired) and gear up. Once you reach 400' feet you start working the issue...
So, Yes, there IS a check list/procedure for engine out on take off after V1 and you better know what to do by heart.
In case you don't believe me.. Here it is on Page 4 and following: http://www.b737mrg.net/downloa...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I would have thought that this kind of event would have prompted some questions of WTF from Ethiopian Airlines, the Ethiopian authorities and Boeing. Shit at least a Read Before Flight (RBF) warning attached to every plane. I remember when the 737-600s had issues when the flaps were deployed beyond a certain amount above 300kts, it'd cause oscillation issues with the flight path but that was blasted out by all the airlines flying them as soon as it was encountered.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
The co pilot is the one who gets out the checklist. The Pilot In Control is the one on the stick.
Airlines should jist hire enough pilots to form a 40,000' high human pyramid to carry the passengers everywhere in case of spontaneous molecular disintegration of the airframe.
https://www.seattletimes.com/b... They have sensors on BOTH sides of the cockpit, but only sample data from ONE? Plus, some other site I read (no, I don't know if it is credible), say multiple pilots report the sensors on the GROUND didn't show a zero angle. Unless Boeing figures a way out, this will get EXPENSIVE, but, not as expensive if it had been an American based airline. I'm guessing lawsuits can be harder overseas, especially in some of the under developed countries.
C6CumGuzzler proven wrong again..
C6 Said Multiple Times that you can't turn it off, yet a pilot did just that.
Maybe that's why he isn't anywhere in this thread.
Keep blaming those pilots CumGuzzler!
Toyota had a runaway throttle caused by recursive software. People died as a result.
Toyota's response - replace the floormats!
Someone should have gone to prison over this.
The fact that an aircraft that almost crashed because of a fault wasn't immediately grounded and instead was allowed to fly the next day IS ABSOLUTELY UNCONSCIONABLE!
~Any apparent grammatical or typographic errors are caused by defects in your display device.
So they knew about the problem, and instead of fixing it, they created a "procedure,' one that had to be memorized and remembered or you and your crew and every person on the plane would surely die. Sound right to you?
E Proelio Veritas.
I have news for you. That supposed checklist is exactly what you do every time you take off in any plane that has ever flown.
Hundreds of people are dead due toe the reluctance of a lazy company to document what the product they sold did from the beginning.
Yeah.
The question is what is Natural Selection selecting for with the passengers?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Regardless of what many have claimed, many pilots have said they were already trained to deal with this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/t...
I'm smelling another cost-savings opportunity for cheap airlines (like the ones who bought 737-MAX because "no training required"):
"Wanna get to your destination both cheap _and_ safely? Bring your own pilot! Plus get some bonus miles for each flight that you saved from crashing! For 1,000,000 bonus miles, earn an extra free manual to the aircraft, in case you need it!"
After a "near crash" accident like this, how come all the plains were not grounded?
I suppose this "Fight Club" scene may be relevant?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
4wdloop
Interesting post and deserved the mod points, though I'm unsure if either "interesting" or "insightful" really captures it.
I think you should have included the politicians who play political games with the funding of government agencies that have critical functions for public health. In addition, their pro-profit pro-cancer legislation (for the sake of bigger bribes) creates too-big-to-fail situations. I think Boeing itself has earned a corporate death penalty for the second crash, but it will never happen because of the political (and nationalistic) considerations.
My perverse solution approach involves pro-freedom anti-greedom taxation. But that's enough time for Slashdot, so for now I just bid you ADSAuPR, atAJG.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Former avionics troop here. Given a malfunction, tech data directs appropriate troubleshooting and maintenance. If AOA sensor replacement is in the fault/troubleshooting tree, you replace that sensor. When a sensor is replaced follow-on maintenance like self tests and operational checks is required. The replacement sensor may have passed causing the techs to assume the problem was fixed, but they were ON THE GROUND.
What tech data error permitted the aircrew to fly with an AOA or other malfunction? What idiot permitted the aircraft to fly after REPEATED malfunctions and on what grounds?
Not every malfunction grounds an aircraft nor should they, but AOA is important enough for grounding and if in-flight verification of a fix is required or desired, a functional check flight is performed by aircrew, not "aircrew and fucking passengers".
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Welcome to the future.
Its here.
Probably nobody realized this was a "near crash". The messed up Boeing software keeps making things worse until the crash happens. If you catch it early, it will seem like a minor glitch.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Sounds like they were lucky. Crashing the Java Heap is slower and more painful death.
Pointing the plane's nose towards the ground is probably one of the most dangerous things you can do in a lot of situations, I can't believe there aren't multiple methods for the system to realize that it should disable itself. I mean cruise control disables itself after just tapping the breaks, self driving cars give control back with the slightest force on the steering wheel. It's baffling that a system wouldn't be designed disable itself after being overridden by the pilots several times, or that it noticed there were dramatic changes in altitude, or that it was very near the ground, or that its previous attempts to solve whatever problem there was failed. At the very least, some type of obvious indication to the pilot that the plane was overriding his actions and what to do to make it stop. It's one thing to tell pilots to memorize a list of troubleshooting steps, but just having the plane tell them outright what's going on eliminates a lot of wasted time and possibility for error.
How's life in the hypocrite lane?
Boeing is liable for class action suit
Casteism
As I understand it there are paper checklists but for the really critical scenarios there are also "memory items" that the pilots are expected to be able to execute from memory before they go looking for the paper checklists.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register