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Prosecutors Were Already Investigating Whether Boeing Provided 'Incomplete or Misleading' 737 Information (yahoo.com)
Fox Business News reports:
- "Federal prosecutors are investigating whether Boeing provided incomplete or misleading information about its best-selling 737 Max aircraft to U.S. air safety regulators and customers, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal."
- That investigation began five months ago -- after the first crash that killed 189 people, but before the second one.
Nine days after that November 7 crash, America's Federal Aviation Administration had issued an international emergency order "warning that Boeing had discovered an 'unsafe condition' that is 'likely to exist or develop' in other planes," reports the Washington Post: The FAA directive said if erroneous data is received by the 737 Max jet's flight control system, the plane's nose could be pushed down repeatedly. Failing to address that "could cause the flight crew to have difficulty controlling the airplane," push the nose down and lead to "significant altitude loss, and possible impact with terrain," according to the notice. The notice told pilots that, if bad data causes problems to appear, they should "disengage autopilot" and use other controls and adjust other switches to fly the plane....
Investigators scouring black box data believe an automatic anti-stalling feature was engaged before a Boeing 737 Max jet crashed and killed 157 people in EthiÂoÂpia, an administration official said Friday. The feature, known as MCAS, also was a factor in the October crash in Indonesia, according to investigators. The investigators said inaccurate information from an outside sensor led MCAS to force the nose of the plane down over and over again.
That explanation is also supported by the positioning of equipment on the aircraft's tail "in a way that would push the plane's nose downward, consistent with the black box finding," reports the Washington Post.
Fox Business also reports that Boeing currently has over 4,600 "unfilled" orders for its 737 Max jets.
- "Federal prosecutors are investigating whether Boeing provided incomplete or misleading information about its best-selling 737 Max aircraft to U.S. air safety regulators and customers, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal."
- That investigation began five months ago -- after the first crash that killed 189 people, but before the second one.
Nine days after that November 7 crash, America's Federal Aviation Administration had issued an international emergency order "warning that Boeing had discovered an 'unsafe condition' that is 'likely to exist or develop' in other planes," reports the Washington Post: The FAA directive said if erroneous data is received by the 737 Max jet's flight control system, the plane's nose could be pushed down repeatedly. Failing to address that "could cause the flight crew to have difficulty controlling the airplane," push the nose down and lead to "significant altitude loss, and possible impact with terrain," according to the notice. The notice told pilots that, if bad data causes problems to appear, they should "disengage autopilot" and use other controls and adjust other switches to fly the plane....
Investigators scouring black box data believe an automatic anti-stalling feature was engaged before a Boeing 737 Max jet crashed and killed 157 people in EthiÂoÂpia, an administration official said Friday. The feature, known as MCAS, also was a factor in the October crash in Indonesia, according to investigators. The investigators said inaccurate information from an outside sensor led MCAS to force the nose of the plane down over and over again.
That explanation is also supported by the positioning of equipment on the aircraft's tail "in a way that would push the plane's nose downward, consistent with the black box finding," reports the Washington Post.
Fox Business also reports that Boeing currently has over 4,600 "unfilled" orders for its 737 Max jets.
You don't let them inspect and self-authenticate their designs as safe, you don't have an automatic safety system ever rely on a single sensor under any circumstances, and you don't send people out untrained on the new system.
In this case all three major fails contributed. The FAA failed oversight, Boeing failed systems design and oversight, and Boeing and airliners and the FAA failed to ensure training was adequate for a new system.
The notice told pilots that, if bad data causes problems to appear, they should "disengage autopilot" and use other controls and adjust other switches to fly the plane....
Let's understand that time is a factor in the successful disengagement of this MCAS. Pilots had less than a minute to figure out what was going on.
Imagine a car doing its own thing even as you try to tame its erroneous behavior. You literally run out of time resulting in a catastrophic outcome.
I'm sure they were. And the revolving door if executives running between the FAA and Boeing and probably law firms were in no way impeding the proper scrutiny and oversight of aviation safety.
What a crock of shit. More cya press from the executive caste. First they blamed the pilots, next the software, next the pressure from airbus. The fucking plane was unstable. Probably Boeing is such an MBA'd clusterfuck the planes are literally only just able to fly anymore.
In a just world the entire c suite would be made to fly 10000 hours in these death traps before they were allowed a single press release. Evil fucking cunts.
Except the DC-10 had serious flaws in the mechanical designs, the 737 MAX just doesn't have this kind of thing.
Yes it does does. The 737's landing gear is so stubby that it risks a tail strike on landing and can't flare properly, so is forced to land at higher than optimal speed, requiring more runway length and otherwise reducing safety factors. And the stubby landing gear also caused the crashes, by forcing the large turbofans to be mounted so far forward it makes the plane inherently unstable in near-stall, which unfortunately is the normal condition at takeoff. Instead of naturally dropping the nose in a stall, the 737 max will go even deeper into the stall, which will be followed by a cartwheel or catastrophic dive.
Boeing needs to admit it: the 737 had a glorious run but now in its old age is nothing more than an obsolete old wreck of an airframe that is dangerous to fly. It just can't be stretched safely without design changes so fundamental that it would become an entirely new type. The 737 should now be retired to the junkyard of aviation history instead of shuffling along like the bloodthirsty old zombie it is, and murdering more unsuspecting passengers.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.