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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?
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.
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.
https://i.imgur.com/YwuKQkp.png
Someone really missed an opportunity to save a lot of lives.
Another way is to say that someone seized the opportunity to lose a lot of them.
The smoking gun for this incident isn't going to be what the final report says. It'll be on some notes by some engineer when this project started saying everything above. There isn't a way that this project made it this far without some intelligent engineers speaking up and getting over ruled by management.
I lasted exactly 45 days in Aerospace and it was terrifying, they picked a "COTS" architecture that hasn't been "COTS" since the Macintosh moved away from 68k. I was told to 'deal with it'. Other people quipped that "this wasn't the worst design decision he's seen". The schedule was everything because customers had already bought what we were working on.
But everything HAD to move forward according to THIS timeline because someone already bought it. In those 45 days I had to work on trial versions of everything, they couldn't figure out how to get us licensed in to their network. Everyone else on the project had always been in aerospace, so this was 'par for the course'. I came from automotive where we actually did put safety first (at least where I worked).
I want to see the MIL/SIL/HIL reports. This should have been caught in the plant model long before it came to market. There should be a high-fidelity model that shows this exact scenario and how it plays out. It was buried for some reason or another. If there isn't then they didn't test as comprehensively as they should have (because of rushing to market).
There are a lot of people, that have been coming to similar conclusions about the MAX8. It's an 'unstable pendulum' that they thought they could just 'fix it in software'. Good hardware design is crucial to a good controllable system.
Someone spoke up, either they have an e-mail in a safe (like Audi's Dieselgate) or they're no longer with Boeing (or one of their subcontractors like GE, or GE's subcontractors) because they did speak up and were told they were 'toxic to the project'.
This is the boring un-sexy parts of engineering. But 'Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA)s' are important. We literally sit down and go "What happens if this fails" and then write out a full plan in software. Plus a full test plan.
dSpace makes aerospace hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test benches. They make them for automotive and off highway too. We literally 'drive' around a vehicle for thousands of hours for software releases.
I don't have a doubt this was caught by someone somewhere. Management got involved and now this is going to be another Challenger O-Ring example for freshmen engineers.
Is ignoring a plugged sensor a bad idea? Absolutely. Should the failure mode be plowing into the ground an full tilt after fighting the pilots? No.
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.
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!