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Crashed Boeing Planes Lacked Safety Features That Company Sold Only As Extras (apnews.com)
The recent Boeing 737 MAX crashes involving an Ethiopian Airlines flight and a Lion Air flight may have been a result of two missing safety features that Boeing charged airlines extra for (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source). The New York Times reports that many low-cost carriers like Indonesia's Lion Air opted not to buy them so they could save money, even though some of these systems are fundamental to the plane's operations. "Now, in the wake of the two deadly crashes involving the same jet model, Boeing will make one of those safety features standard as part of a fix to get the planes in the air again," the report says. From the report: It is not yet known what caused the crashes of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10 and Lion Air Flight 610 five months earlier, both after erratic takeoffs. But investigators are looking at whether a new software system added to avoid stalls in Boeing's 737 Max series may have been partly to blame. Faulty data from sensors on the Lion Air plane may have caused the system, known as MCAS, to malfunction, authorities investigating that crash suspect.
The jet's software system takes readings from one of two vanelike devices called angle of attack sensors that determine how much the plane's nose is pointing up or down relative to oncoming air. When MCAS detects that the plane is pointing up at a dangerous angle, it can automatically push down the nose of the plane in an effort to prevent the plane from stalling. Boeing's optional safety features, in part, could have helped the pilots detect any erroneous readings. One of the optional upgrades, the angle of attack indicator, displays the readings of the two sensors. The other, called a disagree light, is activated if those sensors are at odds with one another. The angle of attack indicator will remain an option that airlines can buy. Neither feature was mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration. All 737 Max jets have been grounded. "Boeing will soon update the MCAS software, and will also make the disagree light standard on all new 737 Max planes," the report adds, citing a person familiar with the changes. "Boeing started moving on the software fix and the equipment change before the crash in Ethiopia."
Slashdot reader Futurepower(R) adds to the story: The FBI has joined the criminal investigation into the certification of the Boeing 737 MAX, lending its considerable resources to an inquiry already being conducted by U.S. Department of Transportation agents, according to people familiar with the matter. "The federal grand jury investigation, based in Washington, D.C., is looking into the certification process that approved the safety of the new Boeing plane, two of which have crashed since October.
The jet's software system takes readings from one of two vanelike devices called angle of attack sensors that determine how much the plane's nose is pointing up or down relative to oncoming air. When MCAS detects that the plane is pointing up at a dangerous angle, it can automatically push down the nose of the plane in an effort to prevent the plane from stalling. Boeing's optional safety features, in part, could have helped the pilots detect any erroneous readings. One of the optional upgrades, the angle of attack indicator, displays the readings of the two sensors. The other, called a disagree light, is activated if those sensors are at odds with one another. The angle of attack indicator will remain an option that airlines can buy. Neither feature was mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration. All 737 Max jets have been grounded. "Boeing will soon update the MCAS software, and will also make the disagree light standard on all new 737 Max planes," the report adds, citing a person familiar with the changes. "Boeing started moving on the software fix and the equipment change before the crash in Ethiopia."
Slashdot reader Futurepower(R) adds to the story: The FBI has joined the criminal investigation into the certification of the Boeing 737 MAX, lending its considerable resources to an inquiry already being conducted by U.S. Department of Transportation agents, according to people familiar with the matter. "The federal grand jury investigation, based in Washington, D.C., is looking into the certification process that approved the safety of the new Boeing plane, two of which have crashed since October.
... on plane manufacturing safety and design... say it isn't so.
Could you tell me in advance when booking a flight if the plane in question is missing any optional safety features that should obviously be standard so I can choose a provider that does not save money on no-brainer stuff like like this?
I mean right now I have whole Boeing lineup set as "this plane may be missing obviously useful redundancies in safety systems that might mean it can crash, so I will not book a flight on this plane" and I know that is probably unfair to most of those planes. But without available information, that is the only option available to me.
That concept is a pile of brown goopy stinky material such as emanates from the South end of a North facing fertile male bovine!
{O.O}
Unless some additional paid options are bought. Was it in the brochure that hundreds would automatically die at some point without these options? It seems like just a matter of time before it happens to every 737-Max. I think Boeing lost some feathers in this whole debacle...
nt
Amateur could be a reason, but Muslim? Anyway, the pilots were not amateurs.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
[1] We now know that the Lion Air 787 had the same issue on an earlier flight, but it was saved from disaster by the presence of a third pilot aboard who knew what to do, and then the airline chose not to fix the sensor before the fatal flight. Translation: the problem was avoidable if either of two things happened: the presence of a competent pilot, or the aircraft being properly maintained. People should prepare themselves for the very possible scenario that in perhaps a year when the NTSB finishes investigating (They're extremely diligent and objective) it will be determined that there's nothing wrong with the 787Max and that a combination of maintenance and pilot training and skill were the core issues (and I say that as a Boeing critic).
[2] The over-regulation of aviation in the US by the FAA makes the development and deployment of things like avionics and engines particularly expensive. [stay with me for a moment for the payoff...] It's not enough to develop a new flight instrument and get it approved - you must get a "Type Certificate" to allow the instrument to be installed into each make and model of plane. As a result, if you are only going to have a few customers for your new instrument in a particular sort of aircraft, then there's no way you'll ever recover the regulatory costs of getting a TypeCert for it, so you won't bother, and that means owners of that type of plane cannot get your new instrument for their plane. It's THIS aspect of FAA regulation that has made it so that most private planes in the US do not have (and indeed cannot get) an Angle-of-Attack instrument - the very thing this article complains about being optional on these 787s!!!!! Many private aviation incidents in the USA occur on departure, and on approach, and that's where an AOA indicator would save lives, but where many private pilots are only served by a squawking stall indicator.
The funny thing about this is that nobody responsible for this will actually suffer any real consequences.
I'm getting better and better at spotting you
How is an indicator that vital sensors are malfunctioning a safety feature? The pilots may have known a little earlier that they were doomed, but a 737 with short legs and big engines won't fly safe without these sensors (the exact place of the engines is dictated by the ground, not by aerodynamics, but we'll fix it in software)
I don't care what it is -- car, plane, console, scales, humidity sensor or whatever ..... make all software upgrades mandatorily available to all customers.
My car has visual and LiDAR images, yet it can't dodge pedestrians or give me adaptive cruise control. Later models, with the exact same sensors, can.
Stop believing that SW is a distinguishing feature. SW is ubiquity -- everyone should get the upgrades.
And so bad things happen. Boeing will likely make the extra equipment mandatory, and increase minimum training requirements, but third world airlines with the cheap out on something else and still not send all the appropriate pilots to the training. Eventually they'll be flying with red lights on all the time and think they are getting away with something. Until the next time.
I wonder how much extra it would cost for the option of not installing 'HAL'?
While it's not explicitly stated...
Lion Air captain: probably Hindu
Ethiopian Airlines captain: probably Christian
Seriously, there is a huge brand impact for Boeing.
It looks like a design problem from 737 MAX design. It will make difficult for people to trust this plane in the near future.
It might have a second chance, but it will be under scrutiny and if anything odd happens, it will be delisted as active on a long term basis which would impact the order book and could mean a deep impact to the group earnings.
Boeing handling of the case is not letting people think everything is under control.
The thing is, if you have only two AOA detectors and they disagree, there is no way for the computer to know which one is wrong. The 737 Max is really weird in that, with bigger engines posed forward, the airplane has different handling characteristics from the rest of the 737 family. But, instead of opting for the more expensive and slow option of retraining pilots to fly the new model, they wrote the software augmentation system that supposedly makes the airplane behave exactly like the classic 737. When the computer has good air data, that is.
i.e. Make a product, with added 'upgrade' safety features that could keep my product from killing the purchaser...I would be fucking thrown in jail Quicker.Than.Shit. when my customers began getting killed for lack of the 'safety upgrades'. Fuck. Why is that?
Rhetorical question...I know the fucking answer already.
I don't recall any time before this that the entire rest of the world had grounded a plane that the United States still was saying is safe. Allowing Boeing to certify its own planes is like having the fox guard the hen house. Certifications, like code reviews, should always be done by people who are not connected to and who have no conflict of interest with the creators of the product. Beoing's CEO, the FAA chief, and others need to be fired.
so i guess
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your dream of retiring on your incredible writing is dead
What is this? The 60s, where we need a separate indicator for any given failure?
Last time I looked, there are some big screens in there. If two of my most crucial sensors would disagree, I would expect a message on those screens, accompanied with a sound effect, making abundantly clear that something is wrong. No need for a pricey indicator in some corner, that can be easily overseen...
I have to second your response - religion has nothing to do with this and the pilot had a lot of experience.
Training skipping important things, and Boeing rushing to market seem to be the issue here. The FAA also (apparently because of cost cutting) delegating safety signoffs to a manufacturer also is a big issue.
So lets point the finger in the right direction, and this would be American *business* screwing people over for more money. Again.
- from a brit.
Well what do you expect. That is just pure capitalism at work.
Really, if they want to make something optional, how about a low-security airline for people who are sick and tired of all that anti-terrorist BS? Only catch is your clothes travel separately.
I just can't get over the sheer gall of it. Boeing was worried about it to the point that they developed two safety mechanisms. And then didn't enable them? How about making the safety features mandatory with an option to pay more to turn them off? You know, for the pilots and passengers who want the extra thrills.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
They literally nickel and dimed hundreds of people to death.
I agree this is appalling but I'm struggling with whom I should be most appalled by: Boeing for their willingness to sell planes without all the safety features or the airlines that refused to pay for the safety features.
Actually they were amateurs. If they had known what they where doing the plane would not have crashed.
Do you have a car? Is it safe? Would it be safer if you paid more? Are there safety features available on the premium or luxury version of your car?
This is the equivalent of putting a price on the value your family's safety. Safety costs extra. Pay up or die.
If any car brands can be found to have more safety for a premium price, there will be lawsuits now that this concept of corporate greed has been made apparent to us by Boeing.
Boeing: New Intercontinental Plane only $5 ...
Customer: There are no wings
B: They are extra, it is like with your fees for essentials, like luggage, meals and seating.
C: Oh [pause] And wheels?
B: Extra
C: Seats?
B: Extra
C: How much is it with all these extras?
B: $ 121.6 for the basic configuration
C: Huh?
B: There is also a do not crash feature and avoid mountains features
C: Too expensive. For that price we could by an Airbus
Your translation of [1] is wrong.
That flight was saved by the third pilot (non-flying) who was in a jump seat and could afford the luxury of observation from the side. The two flying pilots were busy with instruments and plane systems. It has nothing to do with experience.
Ethiopian and Lion air didn't buy the "No Crashie DLC"
Captcha: terror (wtf)
Could I get one that puts more emphasis on physics than metaphysics?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Bottom line, the plane has some really terrible design issues much like in the past with the DC 10. I think Boeing tried to solve the issues with electronics thinking we have the technology to be able to overcome the issues. Apparently the only thing it did was create new ones. If you really wanted a good plane you had to pay for that "special" package. In other words, don't be cheap, or you'll risk a crash.
I doubt you'll get many upvotes, but that is a fairly accurate description.
If an aircraft needs an automatic anti-stall system is because it has a bad project and needs computerized system to avoid stall.
A good project never put in risc an airplane and needs to enforce such kind of system.
Boing probably developed this aircraft to increase its range capacity based in a previous project.
How about being honest? There wasn't a single 737 Max delivered with the additional angle of attack sensor, low cost or not.
Fucking media just lies lies lies.
Don't give me a "disagree" light, which may as well be a "you're about to die" light.
Give me a disagree BUTTON... one that when I press it, all of this automatic bullshit is immediately powered down (not just disconnected) giving me complete control over the airplane.
I have 10,000+ hours in a 737 and they practically fly themselves. You have to be a complete imbecile or criminally incompetent to crash one.
But there's the problem. Airlines are constantly replacing seasoned, well-trained pilots with products of the borderline-criminal pilot factories overseas and making them captains with the bare minimum of hours.
Boeing is selling airplanes where safety is optional?
Yep, lets deregulate until we are another lawless failed anarchist state were the Trumps, Bloombergs and other rich asses are the only ones who can afford safety, security and happiness in their walled off gated communities and bunkers.
Didn't you get the memo on where to find cdreimer's newest content?
I wonder if they have some testing procedures for new features. Plane upgrade likely involves significant modifications to multiple systems, but MCAS specifically could take independent actions with plane controls.
It seems natural to check what happens with MCAS when AoA sensor fails. The sensor supposed to be very reliable, so it almost never happens. When something unexpected happens pilots need time to react. So, at very least proper documentation and specific training for this new possible failure would be necessary.
Another thing to check is what happens if pilot doesn't disable MCAS. It seems that MCAS ability to reset itself and keep increasing the trim when pilot makes corrections was unexpected.
Hindsight is 20/20 but shouldn't there be some formal procedure for approving flight system changes which actively interfere with flight controls?
They should not be optional. Are seatbelts optional in cars? No. If a feature is sold as optional, you assume you can easily do without it. And by "do", I mean "won't crash because the plane wants to fly into the ground".
It's Boeing's fault. An optional thing is not a thing to do with safety, unless you want to nickel and dime your customers, and don't care about deaths.
When your aircraft design precludes the option to turn off the auto pilot and fly the damn plane, you’ve got a bad aircraft design.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
The Seattle Times has a good article on this although it should be taken as preliminary data subject to change.
To summarise
Due to airframe changes from previous models Boeing introduced MCAS which automatically lowers the nose when approaching a stall.
The MCAS was introduced to allow pilots with 737 experience to fly the 737 MAX with a minimal amount of conversion training thus saving airlines a lot of cost and making the MAX even more attractive to them.
As initially designed a failure of MCAS was classed as a "Major" hazard in that it could cause passenger discomfort but not death. This was because MCAS was limited to a very small change to the flight control surfaces. For this category the use of a single sensor is allowed assuming the sensor reliability is sufficient.
During the flight test phase the ability for MCAS was extended to unlimited repeat operations. These repeat operations have a cumulative effect on the flight control surfaces. The MCAS can now lead to a catastrophic failure.
At this point the category of hazard should have been changed. This should have lead to a design change but because the category remained at "Major" and not "Catastrophic" no further changes were made.
There could be any number of reasons why this categorisation change was missed, hopefully any future investigations will get to the root cause.
If you're part of the operational loop, you are busy being part of that operational loop. A bystander isn't so has more attention spare. What a fucking dumbass you and the OP are... And all to blame someone other than Boeing for their larcenous greed.
No, this is like fitting antilock brakes to EVERY CAR then, so that people don't notice and feel like the other cars are more what they're comfortable with, so go with that purchase, then fuck with the antilock brakes so it behaves as if it doesn't, then put as optional "Braking Assistance View" on each car without explaining why it is needed (in case the wheels stop turning and decide it is because you stopped, so cancel the braking).
This is what you get when you allow journalists to spin a story any way they want. Which will always be whichever way generates the most outrage.
Dual redundancy has always been accepted as sufficient when human pilots are directly involved. Triple redundancy is only ever used for autonomous operations (eg FBW, or in the 737 autoland). The third AoA sensor is not sold as a safety feature - it is sold as part of the autoland package. Even if it does create a minor improvement in safety, it would not have affected the outcome of these accidents if it was fitted.
I'm pretty sure neither Wilbur nor Orville Wright had either system and it didn't stop them from taking off and landing in a (for the time) safe manner.
The airline knew these options existed. They knew they were "extras", in the same manner someone looking to buy a new Subaru knows the Eyesight system is an extra (or was when I bought my 2019 Legacy) yet they had meetings, debated the cost benefits, and ultimately chose NOT to buy the otpions which could have prevented the accident.
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
The keyword is optional, not safety feature. There is probably a huge catalogue of them, but from the sound of it this should never EVER has been made optional. This is an essential crashing-and-die feature and as such should not be OPTIONAL. And that does not even start on how it was presented to the airline : possibly as "do not matter much here is an optional feature" or was it "very important optional feature" my bet is on the first.
ultimately only Boeing can know if a feature is essential or not. By making it optional they made it non essential. Do you really think from the crash that assessment is correct ? IMO not therefore boeing has the full responsibility.
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Because Boeing charges a pretty penny for those options, same as car manufacturers do for higher trims. And the failures have been a bit more catastrophic than buying a Forrester without Eyesight. More like if Ford had offered a safer gas tank in the Pinto - if you bought what would be the Platinum trim today for an extra $8000.
Working as intended.
These Boeing failures have been a bit more catastrophic than buying a car that doesn't have lane departure warnings. More like if Ford had sold the Pinto with a better gas tank that wouldn't explode in low speed collisions - for a hefty premium. But the Pinto never should have shipped with a bad gas tank, and Boeing never should have sold critical safety features as expensive add-ons.
So if one should pick one instrument to be critical for operating your plane, this would be it, ESPECIALLY if the plane is going to override human input based upon it...
...$100,000, we'll add this red button to the plane that says "Don't Crash".
The soon to be dead is who. Are who? You who?
I mean, now airplanes are like modern games with paid DLC where the content is already on disc?
To give a little more perspective, automakers do the same thing!
Does your car come *standard* with safety features such as "blind spot monitoring" or "brake assist"? They love to display those features in ads, but are typically available as *additional* safety packages and/or bundled in higher trim levels.
IIRC there was a similar forced dive caused by a sensor/software issue with the AoA sensor(s).
Who modded that comment to 5? It is all crap.
The US has the biggest freest market in the world. It has cars from manufacturers all over the world. When you fly on a plane in the US there is a 50/50 chance that it is Boeing or Airbus.
When I fly European airlines, what kind of planes are there? Airbus, Airbus, and Airbus. When I go to any other country the variety of autos is much smaller.
I don't know who modded that up, but they have not been in the US.
Seems like boeing has learned a thing or two from EA.
Soon there will be microtransactions.
"pay 100 coins to lower the landing gear or wait 5 minutes"
"pay 1000 coins to use redundant sensors for more reliable readings"
Well, you have a choice. You can fly somewhere for $50, or you can be reasonably sure to arrive alive.
Air travel has become cheap, but so much more crappy in every aspect, from the nickel-and-diming where you pay extra for the smallest service (such as picking your own seat during check-in, I mean seriously?) to saving on safety.
As long as price is the dominating reason for decisions, it will continue to go this way.
When we stop being cheap assholes and ready to pay the price that things cost, it will change.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Fuck you millenial and your shitty lcd screens and pop up notifications. Your probably want to control it that way too with no tactile buttons.
Yes, but that'll cost you extra.
Boeing to Palpatine: "Sure, we can sell you a Death Star. Would you like the optional safety rails for only fifty million more credits?"
"Boeing should just scrap the design."
. (Mar. 20, 2019)
The 2 comments above this one disagreed. I think you are correct. I've done electronic design and computer programming. The entire 737 MAX-8 new system components need re-consideration.
Others agree. For example: Boeing 737 MAX-8 Scandal Grows: Doomed Lion Air Flight Should Never Have Flown. (Yesterday, Mar. 21, 2019)
FBI joining criminal investigation into certification of Boeing 737 MAX
Pentagon to probe if Shanahan used office to help Boeing. (Mar. 20, 2019) "Shanahan, 56, joined Boeing in 1986, rose through its ranks and is credited with rescuing the troubled Dreamliner 787 program."
Boeing has a history of flawed management: A flawed missile defense system generates $2 billion in bonuses for Boeing (Sept. 2, 2016)
I'm going to start selling cars which brakes and headlights are "add on"s you have to pay extra for.
A few planes had to crash to sell the 'essential' features to the many. I'm curious why the crashes were in 3rd world countries and not in developed ones? Maybe the poor are disposable?
My base line Subaru doesn't have a backup video in it. For some big bucks more I could have it, but I chose not to . One could easily argue that it is a safety item--I choose not to get. (I personally think they are more unsafe because the force the driver's to lose his normal "turn around and look" peripheral vision, because he has decided to focus on the dash while backing.
Systems engineering has shown that if you give accurate relevant information to the pilot and design controls that allow the pilot to carry out her intentions, those "pilot error" crashes largely go away.
Boeing created a trap for the pilots. If there was a way to escape the trap and the pilots didn't take it, I'm not going to place the blame on the pilots.
Computer overrode pilot inputs.
It is as simple as that.
It was a logic bug.
This is just Boeing shifting the blame.
even the cheapest car on the market right now has a raft of safety features. Once you get to the level of a Nissan Sentra or Toyota Corolla there's not much difference between that and a BMW. The advanced features of the BMW can easily be compensated for with more careful driving.
In this case it's more like if a Tesla's auto pilot engaged and sent you careening off a cliff.
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No.
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if I paid more my car wouldn't be any safer. More of the fancy safety features are things like lane assist and automatic breaking. I can do both of those things without a computer telling me, and having them is likely to lull me into a false sense of security.
One of the most maddeningly dangerous drivers I've ever met drives modern Lexuses with all the bells and whistles. Gets a new one about every 3-5 years after he wrecks the old one. He's not any better off in the crashes because of the Lexus (even my 2014 Sentra has airbags up the wazoo) and he crashes just as often as he did before he had those features.
Finally, Airlines != Car Companies. The Airlines and plane manufactures are quasi-public companies. They have to be. If you're letting several tons of metal fly over cities 365 days a year you can't leave that up to private citizens. We just tried actually, and this is the result.
We're just lucky this didn't happen over a populated area. Keep this up and it will.
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"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled."
Richard Feynman's famous conclusion to his report on the shuttle Challenger accident, similar management issues occurring again in the Columbia accident.
And now, I think, in the MAX 8 preventable tragedies.
As with most software engineering failures, it's necessary to look a few levels "upstream" for the root cause.
There is a natural tendency among technical people (such as the denizens of Slashdot) to assume all the blame (y2k is another clear example).
However, in this case, I want to point the finger directly at Boeing Management and Marketing, plus the FAA, which is where I think most of the blame for these tragic deaths belong. Shame on you!
As I understand it, Boeing had to introduce changes to handle Max 8's new flight characteristics - fair enough...
Sales and Marketing wanted to avoid forcing pilot re-training, to remove it as a cost barrier to sales...
So they hid complex and risky details in obscure automation, with minimal documentation, while implementing a massive and fatal design failure.
Then convinced the FAA to let them do the testing certification, a clear due-diligence failure by the FAA...
Then they half-assed the actual testing, because no-one is looking, and it the system will only ever get called to do a trim adjustment once, right?!... it would never be cumulative right... Naive clueless dumbasses... stupid does not even begin to cover it...
Then when nature is not fooled, and the crashes kill hundreds of innocents, move into full-on PR cover-up mode... effectively preventing the first set of deaths, being used to diagnose the issues and thus prevent the second crash...
IMHO, we need to look even further upstream, past the small-minded, and tragically predictable failures of Boeing and FAA management.
The core issue that falls on the software engineering profession is that we have collectively failed to insist that Software Engineering must become a real Engineering discipline, as say Civil Engineering, with unavoidable legal and regulated sign-off authority.
Safety-critical software designs are done in secret by businesses and do not require the signature of a registered Software Engineer, as for example buildings and bridges do...
We can all see the tragic result of that short-sighted, profit-seeking policy failure.
Sadly, I think that issue is at least partly on us, not stating the problem clearly enough, and loudly enough, and repeatedly.
It's a failure that falls on computer science, and software engineers, all of us.
Plus of course, the government policymakers that prevented the obvious from being recognized, twisted by the usual industry lobbyists.
Makes me sad, I wish I had personally pushed much harder for this in the past...
Hence this post... Too little for sure, way too late to help the MAX 8 victims, but together perhaps we can help others...
Call to action: It's time for the government to enforce a proper software engineering design review of all human safety-critical software,
by qualified and registered Software Engineers, this needs to be forced against any and all opposition of big tech and business, it is a public safety issue, plain and simple.
Otherwise, this tragedy will inevitably repeat itself again, in a few months or years,
whenever this current tragedy gets forgotten, and the same lethal and degraded management practices and processes re-surface.
We have the best government money can buy! so bribe your congress critters and senators, maybe we can prevent this from happening again?
There is no god; get over it already! Never exchange a walk on part in the war, for a lead role in a cage.
The market wanted to cut corners and they got it, now you blame the provider?
They can't say which one is faulty, there's now twice as many TO go faulty, so your chances of failure are doubled, but your options are still the same: bugger all. Two sensors is not redundancy, it's a design flaw built in by cheapskates.
VToL craft have only one engine because it can't stay in the air on one, so a second just causes it to be twice as likely to have an engine failure. Twin engined normal planes can stay in the air with one engine, so that IS redundancy.
And even with two, it should have turned itself off if there was a discrepancy, this just compounded the problem.
They changed the aircraft so that it needed this feature and this feature CAUSED THEM TO CRASH. Another feature they wanted to have paid for before turning it on could have stopped it. THEY NICKLED AND DIMED THE AIRFLEET.
Nowadays seatbelts are considered safety because so many high power cars can allow high speed collisions and loss of control. When they were not mandated, cars were a LOT less powerful. The standard test for a new car would be "doing a ton" (100mph). Many cars for sale could not manage it. Nowadays you can hardly find any car unable to do so. 0.9l "smart cars" are maybe all there is.
LOL. You are the biggest faggot I've ever seen. Holy shit, no one gives a fuck about what you have to say. You have 188 videos but only 18 subscribers. Something is wrong. Obviously people do like your content or else you would have way more views. Even on your most clickbaited video the views aren't even in the 5 digits. It's quite sad.
Wow. The gull of this guy. I hope your family doesn't have a tragedy happen like this to them. It only happens to the good guys never assholes like yourself. Your day is coming. Beware.
Capitalism, fuck yeah!
I have to presume you're trolling. Go look at AF 477 for challenges with CRITICAL sensors. In this case their AOA sensor system was a) required based up new design b) acting up.
I've been reading the actual pilots over on pprune.org, and the ux of the AOA solution is so horrid. That ux that drove the elevator to its limits was likely not even seen by the pilots who had a stick shaker going like crazy, as they're running through their checklists, and their aircraft is pointing to the ground.
It's a real shame, those lives lost over a trim system running rogue, which as best as I can understand is a flight optimization thing.
we all know it was a 787 Max8 and yes I (the poster you criticize) certainly know it. I did not wish to bring it up but I have a past association with Boeing and I do avionics work. I just did not want ot write a novel and in my haste, and not being a typist, I let my fingers get ahead of my brain and typed 787 instead of 737. I suppose you might also criticize me for not adding the "Max 8" in that previous sentence, but I presume we all know what the plane was.
I could tell you stories about how the 777 was approved to cross oceans on two engines, and that too might freak some of you out.... I am both a Boeing critic and very critical of how the FAA regulates and the conflicts of interest involved. The truth is, however, that as much as I consider myself better informed on these particular matters than 99% of the folks on Slashdot, Boeing designs good planes. The aerodynamics are very well understood, as are all of the systems involved, and I'd have absolutely no qualms about boarding ANY Boeing product with two major provisions: [1] Operated by a first-world airline, and [2] Flown by a sober and experienced flight crew preferably with military aviation experience (My preference is for veteran US Naval Aviators. No offence to the USAF, but pilots who have logged a bunch of traps have a temperment second-to-none when it matters).
Incidentally, I do think Boeing will probably get (and probably deserve) a bunch of criticism for its training and marketing and documentation on the Max. I have had no contact with Boeing in the Max era, but I get the impression that they tried to get the Max series slipped under the rug past the FAA as just another variant of the 737 and part of that may have been not drawing attention to MCAS, which was clearly intended to help less-competant pilots avoid stall on approaches and departures (the system does not even engage with the autopilot, so it's there for hand-flying and a good pilot hand-flying would not need it). That does not mean I think Boeing is fully liable, since as I pointed out, a reasonably good pilot would never encounter the problem (I'd ride a Max8 TODAY flown by, for example, Southwest).
[1] The MCAS system is designed to engage and do its thing when the plane is in danger of stalling. A competant pilot should never be placing an airliner full of civilian passengers into such a situation in the first place. In the case of the Lion Air flight, it appears MCAS might have been tripped due to a failed stall sensor (sorry, but I have not heard the specifics and am not as familiar with the Max family as with other Boeing products). That's a problem to me as a system design matter, but it should never have lead to tradgedy - the PIC should have cut the system out with a switch flip and then simply flown the plane. ANY airline pilot ought to be instrument rated, and any instrument rated pilot should be capable of constantly cross-checking his instruments and immediately recognizing when one instrument is reflecting a sensor failure and properly hand-flying the plane with the remaining instruments - that's the whole point of having such a rating!
[2] When an aircraft stalls, there is insufficient airflow over the control surfaces for proper control and bad things can happen - which bad things depends on the design of the aircraft, but they're generally all bad and usually end with the plane falling from the sky. The proper action, therefore, is nearly always to push the nose forward (down), sometimes increasing the throttles (see the manual for the specific plane) in order to increase the airflow and re-attach the airflow to the lift and control surfaces, restoring control and enabling further recovery. The whole "push the nose down" thing is right and proper and necessary first step, not some insane Boeing "nose dive" thing.
[3] The Boeing MCAS system can be simply switched off with the throw of a switch located, if I recall properly, right by the right leg of the left seat (where the Pilot in Command is traditionally seated).
If you are the Pilot in Command of an airliner and you have the lives of over a hundred paying passengers in your hands, you owe it to everyone involved to do your damned job and get familiar with the plane you will be flying - that's what you're there for! That basic competence is the difference between a Captain Sully successfully ditching in the Hudson, and a Lion Air pilot frantically leafing through the flight manual and praying "Allah Akbar" as his plane falls into the sea (I'm NOT alleging any Jihad anything here, but he was apparently praying as he desperately tried to figure out what to do), Captain Sully, in complete contrast, was a veteran USAF pilot who had thorougly acquainted himself with the A320 and upon losing both engines to a bird strike instinctively started the plane's APU which gave him the certainty that he would have the power he needed to run all his systems for the remainder of the time he had even though neither engine was generating any electricity (a lesser pilot may have not started the APU and may then have been in a panic trying to restart his engines while trying to read the flight manual...)
The aircraft still has the most basic sensors that have been in use for most of the history of powered flight. This includes the trusty (unless it's an improperly heated Airbus version being operated in icing condtions (Air France, anybody?)) Pitot tube, which has no moving parts, and accompanied by some math courtesy of Mr Bernoulli and data on the performance of the OML of the airframe (generated at design time with the assistance of a few runs of an accurate model in a wind tunnel) will provide anything a decent programmer needs to avoid a stall. The wind tunnel data is generally updated with data from flight-tests of the full-scale airframe once that's available, but the model and tunnel data is usually adequate.
Been there, done that.
AOA detectors are a nice-to-have and I'd love to see them on all planes for better and safer flight, but the truth is that there should NEVER be a crash caused by an avionics system that is deprived of ALL angle-of-attack sensors.
You Marxist fools always rage against the free market, where people voluntarily trade products and services in a competative marketplace and good stuff succeeds and bad stuff fails.
You never take responsibility for the insanity of the top-down government control of anti-capitalism in which politicians and technocrats dictate what will be in the market, how many units will be available, what the characteristics of those units are, and so forth. In the Marxist model, there's no true competition and that means the good stuff does not succeed and the bad stuff does not fail.
Do you drive a Lada?
Of course, NO corruption ir incompetence would ever occur under anti-capitalism, right?
Let me guess: The Soviet Union failed because "the wrong people tried it" and "they didn't do it the right way"? [facepalm] To hate capitalism, you must first have a brainectomy.
The screen flashed "Please upgrade to Microsoft Windows 10"...beep beep....
Ask any pilot of a Cessna, Piper, Beechcraft, or most antique or home-builts to show you his/her Angle of Attack sensor.
He or she will be unable to because 99% of these pilots do not have one and yet they fly safely all the time. All those flying heroes of WWII did just fine, even in combat, without one. Modern private pilots would gain extra safety with them, but they fly mostly safely without them.
AoA sensors and instruments became popular on big, expensive jets (military and civilian airliners) in the jet age where the aircraft itself was so expensive that the additional cost of adding one was a small fraction of the pricetag. Early in the jet age the AoA instrument became important because you had many pilots transitioning from prop planes to jets. Jets have a big lag time between changes in throttle settings and changes in resulting thrust (it's called "spool-up" and "spool-down" time) and that lag was quite pronounced in the 1950s through the 1970s, so it was very helpful to that era of jet pilots to have as much flight info as possible - they had to think about and make throttle changes well before the changes in thrust were needed. AoA instruments were absolutely vital to the US Navy in the early era of jets landing on carriers.
This is 100% bs.
1) AOA gauges are rarely found on civilian aircraft unless an engineer has installed one after manufacture.
2) Any AOA disagree would show up in yellow on the EFIS.
Training is the issue here...