He doesn’t really get anything, does he? It’s too hard to understand so let’s just oversimplify and thus mislead.
He doesn’t really get anything, does he? It’s too hard to understand so let’s just oversimplify and thus mislead.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/03/12/trump-says-planes-too-complex-after-crash-of-boeing-jet-in-ethiopia.html
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/03/12/trump-says-planes-too-complex-after-crash-of-boeing-jet-in-ethiopia.html
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/03/12/trump-says-planes-too-complex-after-crash-of-boeing-jet-in-ethiopia.html
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/03/12/trump-says-planes-too-complex-after-crash-of-boeing-jet-in-ethiopia.html
"We're going back to goddamned coal steam."
ReplyDelete(This is, genuinely, a nasty case to try and analyze in several ways. My surface reading of the news articles tell me that this was an attempt to upgrade 50+ year old air frames-- themselves very safe-- with more modern and fuel efficient parts which then required more modern fly-by-wire and AI assist techniques.
ReplyDelete(But my understanding is that there was never going to be an ungraded Boeing jet in this market that did not have fly-by-wire and AI. The realities of fuel efficiency, fuel prices, and competition in the market were going to push in that direction no matter what. It was a question of trying to upgrade an existing air frame vs the hugely expensive proposition of starting from a blank sheet of paper. How expensive? On the order of four 2020 Budgetary Wall Expenditure Requests.)
(Good luck to Boeing on this one. I have immense respect for the deep well of their engineering talent. But two incidents like this, with attendant loss of life, is both damning and damaging.)
Yeah, this is unlikely to be simple in almost any sense of the word. For example, it could ‘simply’ be that there needs to be a different approach to training pilots on this plane with this software. Or, a few test pilots later, it could ‘simply’ be that there needs to be a software fix.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest question I have is if the problem is the attempt to supersede experienced pilots on the basic concept of a stall on takeoff with software, why? There hadn’t been a problem like this in a long time, so it was arguably fixing a problem that didn’t exist. Unless something about the physical design of the new plane created the potential for a new and unusual stall issue in takeoff? In which case shouldn’t that have been fixed some other way?
Or is the problem that Boeing sold this as a plane that could be flown with less training and either, oops, nope, still need training or oops, yeah, but if you’re experienced it does stupid things that now create problems because it can’t work with trained humans?
Or it could be something else entirely. Maybe it’s a chafing on instrumentation wiring. Or not.
My understanding is that they did, indeed, change the flight characteristics of the aircraft with the new modifications-- new engines have different mass, and I think they were positioned differently, all of which obviously changes the handling. That was done for fuel efficiency reasons, but rippled through the rest of the upgrade into the sensors and the software because apparently it makes the plane do weird things that confuse pilots, hence the override.
ReplyDeleteI'm also hearing that the override was... perhaps less than well-advertised to the pilots and in combination with one sensor error (the first crash) led to a catastrophe.
If the same thing happened here, that's clearly partly on Boeing for faulty sensors and/or software. Maybe all on Boeing for underselling the required training. But maybe partly on the carriers for not arranging the necessary training.
Or maybe it's two completely unrelated things, because statistics are an uncaring bastard and human brains are wired to see cause behind coincidence.
No, it looks like Boeing screwed this pooch:
ReplyDeleteThe Dallas Morning News reported on Tuesday that pilots have brought multiple complaints about the safety of the Boeing 737 Max 8 to federal authorities, with one captain saying in November that it was “unconscionable” for pilots to fly the plane without training or explicit information about how its systems worked.
vox.com - The Boeing 737 Max 8 crashes and controversy, explained
This is going to be one interesting report when it comes out. It’ll help if Trump shuts up and somebody decides to run the FAA. I can dream.
ReplyDeleteThis would be a good moment to note that GOP Pres. Trump hasn't actually nominated anyone to head the FAA until about a week ago - the top post in the FAA has been held by acting officials since the post went vacant over a year ago. In part, because GOP Pres. Trump kept wanting to nominate his own fucking private pilot. [1]
ReplyDeleteAnd not only has the chief administrator been acting, the deputy administrator of the FAA is also acting, and the number three at the department, the Chief of Staff is also acting [2]. JFC.
[1] politico.com - Former Delta executive expected to get FAA administrator nod soon - POLITICO
[2] https://www.faa.gov/about/key_officials/