
Boeing Pilot Warned of ‘Egregious’ Issue with 737 Max in 2016 - jgwil2
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/18/business/boeing-flight-simulator-text-message.html
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mzs
Reuters broke this story: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-
airplane-boeing-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-airplane-
boeing-exclusive/exclusive-boeing-2016-internal-messages-suggest-employees-
may-have-misled-faa-on-737-max-sources-idUSKBN1WX25G)

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habnds
> “Granted, I suck at flying, but even this was egregious,” he went on to say,
> according to a transcript of the exchange reviewed by The New York Times.

> “I basically lied to the regulators (unknowingly),” Mr. Forkner says in the
> messages.

~~~
magashna
There's some positions that I'm not sure that I want the candid honesty, or if
I'd rather have the bliss of ignorance.

No one wants to hear their surgeon on the record saying "I'm just an OK
surgeon"

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
I'd take it with a grain of (self-deprecating) salt. No one who truly "sucks
at flying" makes it to the level of Airline Transport Pilot.

~~~
bdamm
Seriously. An Airline Transport Pilot must: * Have demonstrated precision
flying, including precision power off landings, from a variety of altitudes
and preconditions. * Multiple demonstrations of a wide range of flying
capabilities, including recovery from loss of navigation, systems failures,
and unusual attitudes. * Attained a 1st class medical certificate, which is
actually quite challenging. Annual re-certification, and sometimes more
frequently than that for pilots that have anything at all quirky going on in
their body. This includes extensive health records (such as EKGs) sent to the
FAA for analysis and includes relevant dental work. (Yes, pressure bubbles
inside teeth can cause pilots to lose the ability to control an airplane.) Got
a DUI? Pretty much eliminates flying for life. * Attained a flight
instructor's certificate. Almost all airline pilots were flight instructors
before becoming airline pilots. * 1500 hours flight experience, enough to all
but guarantee in-flight emergency or systems failure will have occurred. *
1000 hours jet experience. * Attained instrument ratings, multi-engine
ratings, etc. * And that's just to get past the interview. Then the real
training begins.

In all, that's a lot of training, and pilots pay about as much as a doctor to
get that training. Since attaining a Private Pilot's license myself (which I
found challenging and which ATPs consider kindergarten) I've realized that
actual airline pilots are in general remarkably good pilots. Even if you,
sitting in the back cabin, think the landing is rough, it's probably a really
good firm precision landing considering the conditions.

~~~
ryanlol
>Got a DUI? Pretty much eliminates flying for life.

Not true at all, most of the ATPLs in my class were foreign and as such would
be well beyond the reach of such rules.

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bdamm
I'm only talking about American pilots flying in America, which any chief ATP
@ Boeing most certainly would be.

~~~
ryanlol
Well sure, this particular guy almost certainly doesn't have any DUIs.

It's only the statement about DUIs preventing flying for life I was objecting
to, if someone really wants to become a pilot a DUI isn't going to stop them.

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wycy
I'm curious how an issue he experienced in the simulator relates to the
problems that occur with MCAS. The known problems with MCAS occur when the
active angle of attack sensor fails. Perhaps the simulation was simulating AoA
sensor failure?

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zarro
Whenever I hear the word "Egregious" I always think here come the lawyers.

~~~
OnlineGladiator
What's really sad is you need the lawyers to let the public know something
went wrong. If people had listened to the engineers (admittedly internal vs
external communication are completely different) then we never would have had
this problem in the first place.

Lawyers often profit from the misery of others (I know many lawyers that do
great things and are proud of their work, but almost nobody gets into law
because they "want to make the world a better place"), but sometimes that
misery can prevent other's misery in the future.

Sadly the profits aren't in putting anyone in jail, but in civil suits. I
would love to be wrong, but nobody is going to jail over this because nobody
will profit from it.

~~~
jsight
To be fair, engineering dialogue brings out concerns like this on many major
programs. The lawsuits happen on the ones where the concerns turn out to have
disastrous consequences.

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stanski
I take it to mean he think there's an issue with the sim, not the real
aircraft. There's absolutely no information in what manner MCAS was
misbehaving.

It's very possible this is being completely blown out of proportion.

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Donald
> "I suck at flying"

Ironically, after leaving Boeing, this same pilot is currently a first officer
(co-pilot) at Southwest Airlines, which exclusively flies Boeing 737s.

~~~
kojeovo
Sounds like impostor syndrome and/or self-deprecating humor more than anything
tbh

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amildie
> the chief technical pilot for the plane

> "I suck at flying"

~~~
varjag
it is almost as if he wasn't entirely serious

~~~
catalogia
Sarcasm/irony in text form can be difficult to figure out sometimes, but some
people are better at it than others. This community as a whole seems to suck
at it.

~~~
OnlineGladiator
I think it's easy to understand sarcasm when you know who you're talking to,
such as a group of friends or coworkers. But when you're part of a huge online
community like hn that discourages humor, it's pretty easy to understand why
people fail to recognize it - this community punishes sarcasm more often than
it rewards it. And most of us are not talented enough at writing that we can
make it easily understandable to a broad audience.

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Havoc
Obviously the warnings weren't loud enough

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gist
We have no data on the following:

a) How many warnings were not ignored by this pilot or others.

b) Whether this particular pilot was prone to being the 'pilot who called
wolf'.

~~~
cmiles74
Even if they were prone to "crying wolf", I think it still would need follow
up. I have customers that often complain about "bugs" that turn out to be as
yet unimplemented features but I still have to track down the issue and verify
it.

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romaaeterna
\-->WRONG It seems that he retracted his statements. Was it even MCAS related
at all? WRONG<\-- Also, it's impossible that the simulator was simulating the
sensor failure that caused the the MCAS problems which lead to the two
crashes.

EDIT: Wait, there was no retraction. It's hard to tell from the NYT reporting,
but the "lie" statement seems to be in reference to his sign-off on the
removal of MCAS from pilot's manuals.

~~~
jonny_eh
There doesn't need to be a sensor failure for MCAS to kick in or be overly
aggressive.

