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Prosecutors Were Already Investigating Whether Boeing Provided 'Incomplete or Misleading' 737 Information (yahoo.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the hindsight dept.

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.

43 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. Bad handling all around. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Bad handling all around. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'll avoid flying on US made aircraft from now on if I can help it. Regulators there have zero powers.

    2. Re:Bad handling all around. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      You don't put out flawed airplane designs. A software system is not enough to make up for the engines being in the wrong place.

    3. Re:Bad handling all around. by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The problem with self-certification being "bad" is that its an extremely intensive process, involving a significant investment in time and personnel to achieve, and it happens relatively *rarely*.

      So for the FAA to independently certificate an aircraft manufacturers changes, they would have to maintain a significant number of employees or contractors through relatively short periods of intensive work (certification of a new aircraft or a new model) and relatively long periods of little work (small upgrades to existing aircraft parts, no new aircraft or models in progress).

      The real problem is not self certification.

      No, the real problem is grandfathering.

      Grandfathering is the ability for an aircraft manufacturer to take an existing design, one which on its own would not meet *current* safety requirements, and significantly refresh it. So long as the changes to the aircraft stay within a certain set of parameters, the aircraft manufacturer doesn't have to certify the entire aircraft, meaning they can incorporate some changes extremely cheaply while working around issues such as those on the MAX where changes introduced handling issues.

      Take, for example, the Boeing 747 - under safety requirements dating back decades, the Boeing 747 would not be certified to carry passengers forward of its front passenger doors, as it violates current evacuation requirements. And yet it is still sold as a passenger model in the 747-800i. Because its grandfathered in and not required to meet current safety requirements as a result.

      The handling issues on the MAX are a similar issue - Boeing attempted to manage handling differences by introducing a system to attempt to bring the handling characteristics back in line with those of the 737NG, so they could get away with certifying the aircraft under the grandfathering rules. They could have not introduced that system and instead detailed the changes, but that would have meant they could no longer have grandfathered in the handling characteristics of the MAX, meaning pilots would have been required to undergo specific conversion training to the MAX from the 737NG.

      So yeah, get rid of grandfathering - it will drastically hurt aircraft manufacturers, but at the same time it will stop those same manufacturers from being allowed to introduce new models of aircraft that do not meet current standards.

    4. Re:Bad handling all around. by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      Ok - you make the justification for increasing the FAAs budget by several orders of magnitude just to put enough engineers on the payroll to handle all the certification testing and validation in-house then....

    5. Re:Bad handling all around. by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 2

      Using your simple example of no passengers forward of the exit door on the 747, does the safety record of the 747, over its millions of flight hours, suggest that this is unsafe? If not, why should it not be allowed to be certified?

      “Grandfathering” just avoids certification to current standards of elements that have not changed and the regulator does not feel would have an adverse impact on safety.

      There are real things on the 737 that should have been upgraded to current standards, like the exit doors. MCAS was a miserably implemented system which should have never been certified as designed, but the next logical step is almost a fly by wire flight envelope protection, where things start to look a lot less like a 737.

    6. Re:Bad handling all around. by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      They did not just fail, they did not try to do it properly and failed at it, they conspired to cheat the system because of greed and lots of people died or more accurately to US law, were murdered because Boeing and US government officials conspired to maximise Boeing profits killing people and then tried to cover up that conspiracy killing more people and then they got busted. An American corporation murdered people out of pure greed, corrupted the system to facilitate it and then conspired to cover it up and more people died.

      Not three major failures, an actual criminal conspiracy to maximise profits, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people and leading to Boeing and the FAA no longer being trusted in the rest of the world. It could not be much worse, other than a bunch more jets falling out of the sky but the rest of the world taking action forced a corrupt FAA to eventually corruptly take action LAST and ohh look the puppet Canada second to last, completely taken over by the US deep state.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    7. Re:Bad handling all around. by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 1

      No FBW needed -- a stick pusher (as implemented in many non-FBW aircraft) would have worked fine. It would have to have been documented and would have required pilot re-certification for the MAX vs the 737-800. Barring that, redesign the wing and/or tail to prevent a deep stall with the new engine configuration.

    8. Re:Bad handling all around. by Luckyo · · Score: 2

      The training part was intentional. Certification for piloting a new aircraft type ("type rating" in lingvo of this field) is prohibitively expensive. Therefore Boeing made a great effort to make 737 MAX to only require "same aircraft, different model" kind of training for adapting it for other 737 certified pilots. The new anti-stall system is in fact one of the key parts of this effort, it's there to make aircraft behave more like other 737 models in spite of the fact that it had very different aerodynamic characteristics due to engines sitting in a different position.

      Example of this shows on flight school sites, such as this one:

      https://panamacademy.com/boein...

      This is for NG, the previous variant of 737 but it makes a solid example. It takes 21 days to get the certification, but only 4 days to get differences training. And flight and simulator times are a small fraction as well. So this wasn't some kind of an anomaly. This was a conscious effort, and the problem appears to be the fact that this effort lead to the situation where pilots were insufficiently trained in some of the new systems and how to disengage them specifically because Boeing made those systems to be transparent to the pilot to make it easier to retrain from other 737 types. Which in turn lead to critical omissions from training programs entirely, as they were likely judged unnecessary, "since this is the aircraft designed to fly like the older 737s".

      Good intention, good effort, one small miss and two crashes. Welcome to the world of aerospace, where best intentions can sometimes lead to worst outcomes.

    9. Re:Bad handling all around. by mvdwege · · Score: 2

      But it gets worse. If the MCAS is there to make the MAX behave like an NG, so that pilots can fly it with just variant retraining, what is the implication if the plane reaches a flight regime where the MCAS is a hindrance or a danger and has to be turned off?

      I'll tell you: you now have two pilots with only variant training flying an aircraft that they actually need a type rating for, that they don't have because the MCAS was there to obviate it.

      Who ever thought this was a good idea in safety terms?

      --
      "I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
    10. Re:Bad handling all around. by Xylantiel · · Score: 1

      I think the bigger sticky question for the 737 MAX is whether, in the end, it genuinely needs to be a separate type. The MCAS, as originally designed, was supposed to be a minor adjustment at the edge of the flight envelope. But it really appears that, in testing, it had to be made much stronger than originally designed. The issue that caused the crashes is that it should have then required multiple sensors. Boeing is fixing that. However, it brings up the larger question: are the flight characteristics too different for it to be the same type?

    11. Re:Bad handling all around. by Jfetjunky · · Score: 1

      You don't let them inspect and self-authenticate their designs as safe

      I see a lot of people harping on this. Irrespective of how true the other points may be, the truth is this happens in all sorts of industries, even where safety is involved. Even UL allows it, if you are a big enough company. You are essentially just submitting your results and analysis to them. They give it the okay, and there you go, UL approved.

      We can argue if it's the right way to do things, but acting like it's a unique instance doesn't align with reality.

    12. Re:Bad handling all around. by Obfuscant · · Score: 1, Interesting

      what is the implication if the plane reaches a flight regime where the MCAS is a hindrance or a danger and has to be turned off?

      If you ever manage to reach a "flight regime" where the MCAS is a danger, then you follow the emergency checklist for the demonstrated problem. You are only hypothesizing that there is some "flight regime" where a properly functioning MCAS is a danger, however. The problem at hand is when a faulty sensor gave MCAS faulty data and the pilots failed to follow the emergency procedures to stop MCAS from being a problem.

      As TFS and TFA point out, the FAA issued an emergency AD last November covering the MCAS system and how to disable its effects. And Boeing disseminated a message to every customer with the same info. Last November. Explain why the pilots of the March crash were not properly trained, again?

      I'll tell you: you now have two pilots with only variant training

      Describe for us specifically what the difference in resolving a runaway stabilizer problem is between the non-MAX and MAX variants, please. Answer: there is none.

    13. Re: Bad handling all around. by Shotgun · · Score: 1

      Not "to make things work".

      That added the MCAS to make it FEEL like flying the older 737. It would work just fine, but with a different feel. If you join a flying club, you'll have to get checked out in the Cherokee, even if you've been flying that Cessna for decades. The Cherokee will have a different feel when you abruptly apply power.

      Boeing's reason for adding the MCAS was *stupider* than, because the airplane wouldn't work without it. It was because they didn't want to have to say that the pilots would need a little extra training.

      --
      Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
      Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
    14. Re: Bad handling all around. by Shotgun · · Score: 1

      The mindset and assumptions of engineers working on life-critical systems are what makes the engineers. That's why they are paid. The evidence supports the notions that Boeing engineers are NOT ok.

      --
      Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
      Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
    15. Re:Bad handling all around. by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      This is a bullshit argument being repeated by the uninformed or illiterate. Engine placement did not cause the planes to crash.

      Yes it did, asshole. The 737 Max is dynamically unstable in near stall, because of the unwanted lift generated by the engine nacelles in that particular placement. Everybody knows this but you.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    16. Re: Bad handling all around. by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Boeing employees and surrogates are pumping out spin on social networking sites because they are trying desperately to deflect liability, and they desperately want to keep selling zombie 737 airframes to grab business from Airbus.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    17. Re: Bad handling all around. by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Let's try some word association: 737 + deathtrap. Google that.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    18. Re: Bad handling all around. by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Boeing's reason for adding the MCAS was not stupid, it was nefarious. Boeing intended to avoid the expense and delay of certifying a new type, that is the entire story. So sorry about killing hundreds of people, it's just business.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    19. Re:Bad handling all around. by mvdwege · · Score: 1

      You are only hypothesizing that there is some "flight regime" where a properly functioning MCAS is a danger, however.

      I actually have empirical data: two crashed planes and Boeing doing massive damage control.

      You really live up to your nick. I'm not going to discuss an idiot like you. Goodbye.

      --
      "I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
    20. Re:Bad handling all around. by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      I actually have empirical data: two crashed planes and Boeing doing massive damage control.

      You lie. You have two instances of where a failed sensor led to incorrect MCAS operation and pilots who could not diagnose a problem that they face on every simulator checkride. That's not proving what you claim.

      I'm not going to discuss an idiot like you. Goodbye.

      When the facts elude you, ad hominem to the rescue.

    21. Re:Bad handling all around. by mvdwege · · Score: 1

      I'm not going to discuss an idiot like you. Goodbye.

      When the facts elude you, ad hominem[sic] to the rescue.

      You know, when you get called an idiot, it is usually not a good idea to prove the point. Of course, you being an idiot wouldn't recognise a good idea when it hit you on the head.

      --
      "I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
  2. Now, before we blame anyone... by bogaboga · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Now, before we blame anyone... by Brandano · · Score: 1

      I hope they meant "disengage autotrim". MCAS is not active if the autopilot is engaged, so engaging autopilot would probably bring the plane under control. However, if the plane is already upset it is probably impossible to engage the autopilot at all.

    2. Re:Now, before we blame anyone... by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      Pilots had less than a minute to figure out what was going on.

      Really? The pilot of the Indonesia flight had, according to the story, time to try resolving the issue 21 times by pulling back on the yoke, retrimming, and letting go. Twenty one times. And then he had time to hand the problem to the co-pilot who gave it a couple more shots.

      And neither of them correctly identified the basic problem and applied the standard emergency checklist proecdure to resolve it.

      You literally run out of time resulting in a catastrophic outcome.

      Here's how much time it would take to keep from crashing into the ground: pull back on the yoke. MCAS, according to the stories of how it works, stops trimming the airplane if you do that. You've stopped MCAS from killing you.

      The PROBLEM is that the pilots retrimmed the aircraft so they could let go of the yoke again. And MCAS took over. The pilot pulled back on the yoke again. MCAS stopped. The pilot trimmed the aircraft back to normal and let go. MCAS started again. ...

      You know, about the second time the aircraft starts showing a runaway stabilizer, smart pilots do the immediate action of pulling back on the yoke and then NOT LETTING the electric trim system get control again, because there is obviously something wrong. If the electric trim has control taken away from it, MCAS cannot kill you.

    3. Re:Now, before we blame anyone... by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      However, if the plane is already upset it is probably impossible to engage the autopilot at all.

      The emergency procedure for runaway stabilizer is to DISengage the autopilot (if engaged), not engage it. And then you pull the circuit breakers for the electric trim motors, which prevents anything from changing the trim without the pilot's direct action.

      If you have a trim system that is out of control for some reason when the autopilot is not on, then you must assume there is something outside the autopilot that is broken. Turning on the autopilot will not fix that.

    4. Re:Now, before we blame anyone... by Shotgun · · Score: 1

      A design factor of any flight intervention system is that it be able to be overpowered by a human with his hands on the controls. I've flown badly trimmed planes more than once. It isn't that difficult to keep them from nosing into the ground.

      --
      Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
      Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
    5. Re:Now, before we blame anyone... by Shotgun · · Score: 1

      Ever flown a flight simulator? Recording a record time in a Red Bull race with an unfamiliar plane might be hard. All these trained pilots, who had flown MANY different planes to get to where they were in their careers, had to do was not hit the ground. I tell you with all confidence that *I* could do that with ease. . . AS LONG AS. . . the MCAS doesn't intervene.

      There is/was/and will not be anything wrong with Boeing's physical design. They had a problem with their marketing design. Boeing wanted to market it as an airplane that didn't require new training for the pilots, so that added a dangerous augmentation system to the controls.

      --
      Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
      Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
  3. Revolving door by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Revolving door by Richard_at_work · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Add to the mix the fact that Boeing has railed against Airbuses flight envelope protection software since it was launched in 1988 with the A320, insisting that Boeing pilots have final say at all times under Boeings ethos. And then they go and add this, without telling pilots....

      Now thats indicative of something endemic in Boeing.

    2. Re: Revolving door by Type44Q · · Score: 2

      Now thats indicative of something endemic in Boeing.

      It certainly is; they're called "MBA's."

    3. Re:Revolving door by Ambient+Sheep · · Score: 1

      Add to the mix the fact that Boeing has railed against Airbuses flight envelope protection software since it was launched in 1988 with the A320, insisting that Boeing pilots have final say at all times under Boeings ethos. And then they go and add this, without telling pilots....

      Yes, this to me is the biggest surprise and irony about the whole thing. Having spent years lurking on the PPRuNe pilots' forum, watching smug Boeing lovers loudly proclaiming how they'd never fly an Airbus because Boeing doesn't have all that automated protection stuff (that to be fair, can catch you out in incredibly rare circumstances, much rarer than two fatals in five months though)... well if it weren't for the several hundred dead people the schadenfreude would be glorious.

  4. Re:Already losing orders... by bobbied · · Score: 1

    Except the DC-10 had serious flaws in the mechanical designs, the 737 MAX just doesn't have this kind of thing. The DC-10 had issues with the cargo doors, all three hydraulic systems routed too close to to an engine without the means of isolating them and ill advised maintenance short cuts breaking things.

    Even then, it was fixable... But the economics of it's operation and the loss of reputation did the aircraft in.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  5. Re:Already losing orders... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The 737 Max has a design flaw that is not fixable. It has engines placed in a different position than what the airframe is designed for, so it is easy to stall the plane when you pull the nose up. To "fix" that flaw they have a system pushing the nose down automatically when it is too high. Does that sound like an actual fix?

  6. Re:Already losing orders... by Travelsonic · · Score: 2

    and ill advised maintenance short cuts breaking things.

    You cannot reasonably blame the DC-10, or McDonnell-Douglas for crashes caused by maintenance shortcuts airlines performed despite their (MDD's) disapproval (such as the shortcut that caused the metal fatigue that brought down American 191), that'd be quite absurd.

    --
    If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
  7. MCAS and autopilot by Brett+Buck · · Score: 1

    There is something wrong with both the summary and TFA. MCAS only works when the airplane is being hand-flown, it does not operate when the autopilot is on (because the autopilot already controls the angle).

    1. Re:MCAS and autopilot by etudiant · · Score: 1

      Not sure that matters.
      The Ethiopian flight never got up high enough to engage the auto pilot, they were in trouble essentially from the time the wheels left the runway.
      Separately, the autopilot is only as good as its inputs. If there is a sensor problem, as was the case with both these accidents, the autopilot is equally misled.

  8. Re:Already losing orders... by Tough+Love · · Score: 1, Insightful

    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.
  9. Very unlike training for driving a car by gotan · · Score: 1

    ... pilots trained to fly one of these planes with hundreds of passengers are also trained how to handle all kinds of emergency situations. Additionally they have some kind of emergency manual (Quick Reference Handbook = QRH) at hand detailing procedures for all kind of in flight emergencies.

    "Less than a minute" (*) is still sufficient time to switch off a system if you're trained to identify the problem and do that in such a situation, it might even be enough time to find the instructions in the QRH and implement them.

    AFAIK pilots accused Boeing of being not properly informed about the characteristics of the MCAS-System, that probably means they weren't informed how to identify failure modes and/or how to react to them (i.e. switch the thing off).

    (*)
    According to this it's less than 40 seconds:
    https://interestingengineering...

    --
    "By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
  10. Re: Already losing orders... by Tough+Love · · Score: 2

    You did not. You found the guy who knows why the 737 is obsolete junk and would advise friends to avoid flying in them.

    But I guess, we found the Boeing stockholder.

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  11. Re:Criminally Complacent? by Ambient+Sheep · · Score: 1

    Add on top of this Vanilla Sunday...

    I prefer BDSM Saturdays myself...

    (Good post otherwise, though.)

  12. The switches are jammed! by Latent+Heat · · Score: 1

    If a crew member has the presence of mind to reach for the correct switches -- which it is claimed someone did on a prior flight of the Indonesian plane -- I don't think the direction that the switches operate is that significant a human-factors problem.

    I doubt we will get a recording on the Cockpit Voice Recording of the First Officer yelling in terror, "Captain, I am pulling on the disconnect switches, but they are jammed!"

    There is strong evidence that the stabilizer was pushing the nose down of both ill-fated planes. At this point, however, we really need to wait for more results from the accident investigation as to the particular hardware fault (The vane sensor? The electronics reading vane position? The flight-control computer? Whether other sensors were also giving bad readings?) and a more complete picture regarding conditions the crew were facing (Did they receive proper training -- part of what we expect from the crew of such a craft is the ability to recover from expected and unexpected fault conditions? Were they overwhelmed by multiple alarms?)

    The accusations of criminal complacency, the desire that the executives of Boeing along with the thousands of people working for their company be somehow punished, along with the formal criminal investigation, all of these seem premature until the accident investigators get a better picture.

  13. Re:Bullshit, the engines did not cause the crash. by toddestan · · Score: 1

    Grandfathering didn't cause the planes to crash, but if there wasn't grandfathering, there wouldn't even be a 737 MAX. The whole reason that Boeing still makes 737's after 50 years is grandfathering - they'd much rather tweak an old design so they can still sell planes under the old rules. If they couldn't grandfather this stuff there would be little advantage to trying to make a 50-year old airframe do things it was never intended to do versus just designing an entirely new airplane. If it wasn't for grandfathering we wouldn't have Boeing trying to mount engines under a wing where they don't physically fit, creating a plane that's unstable in some situations, with a software hack to try to correct for it. And we wouldn't have people killed when the system goes haywire.