
Boeing altered key switches in 737 MAX cockpit limiting ability to shut off MCAS - erentz
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-altered-key-switches-in-737-max-cockpit-limiting-ability-to-shut-off-mcas/
======
djsumdog
What is the endgame now for 737 MAX planes? Every airline using them has had
several weeks to totally reorganize to deal with these huge missing parts of
their fleets.

Boeing keeps talking about fixing them and putting them back in the air, but I
dunno. At this point, it should be agreed the fundamental design flaws are
serious, and Boeing should have simply made a brand new plane, with much more
modern controls and predictable maneuvering. Yes, pilots would have to be
certified for these new plans, but that cost pails to the money lost from
these grounded fleets.

I'd honestly like to see the 737 MAX taken out of service and Boeing simply
ending this line. The old planes should be stripped for parts and as much
recycled as possible. It's going to cost them a lot of money, and it should.
Their mistakes lead to the deaths of two whole planeloads of passengers.
Airbus, Bombardier and others will probably make a lot out of this disaster,
and that's probably a good thing and will help competition in this
small/narrow market.

~~~
erentz
> What is the endgame now for 737 MAX planes?

The bugs will be addressed and they'll still fly. Airlines have no choice,
there's a limited capacity in the world for airplane construction, several
thousands of orders on the books for the 737 and 320 waiting to be filled.
What can an airline do? They can cut back some orders but not all orders.

> I'd honestly like to see the 737 MAX taken out of service and Boeing simply
> ending this line.

I have an alternate history fantasy where instead of going with the MAX and
then trying to kill the C-series as they did, they instead bought into the
C-series. Swapping the cockpit for a Boeing cockpit design. Built the -500
stretch of the C-series, and then used the C-series to replace the 737 line in
the <165 pax market. And moved ahead on the 797/NMA for which they'd have a
shorter version covering the 200-270 pax market as a pure passenger mover as
it's proposed.

~~~
old-gregg
> The bugs will be addressed and they'll still fly.

The engines are mounted incorrectly, so much so that Boeing believed pilots
need the assistance of MCAS on take-off now.

The bug isn't with its algorithms, rather the need for MCAS to begin with.
They can't "address" it. That's why I'll be very careful not to ever book a
flight on a 737 Max, probably easier to simply stick to Airbus-only airlines:
Jetblue, Alaska/Virgin, etc.

~~~
jhayward
> The engines are mounted incorrectly, so much so that Boeing believed pilots
> need the assistance of MCAS on take-off now.

This overstates the issue. The engine mounting changes the flight
characteristics enough that the MAX 8 needs to be flown differently in certain
corners of the flight envelope. The MCAS was added to avoid having to re-train
pilots or trigger a new type certification.

The engine mounting certainly does not make the plane unsafe.

~~~
JudgeWapner
> The engine mounting certainly does not make the plane unsafe.

I don't think this is a very...'precise' statement. what is "safe" in the
context of aviation? If you had no MCAS, then this plane has a very bad
propensity _to stall_. I hope we can both agree that's an _unsafe_ airplane.
You can't just say "don't do that [pull up too much] and then you're fine".
The aircraft "wants" to pitch up too high and stall, which predicated the MCAS
system itself. So to me, yeah the engine mounting (in and of itself) makes
this plane quite unsafe.

Now, with a properly functioning MCAS it may be "safe", but when the MCAS is
itself another point of failure, my opinion is that the aircraft is only safe
on paper, while in practice it's just got too many hacks and kludges for it to
be practically safe for the millions of safe flight hours that these things
are expect to deliver.

~~~
kortilla
No, it did not “have a bad propensity to stall”. That’s a very imprecise
statement in the first place but if you take it to mean, it would try to stall
during normal flight conditions, it’s definitely false.

Airbus aircraft are “safe” despite the fact that dual conflicting pilot input
is averaged without stick feedback (see the Airfrance flight from Brazil). If
electronics being used to fly the aircraft upsets you, you’re going to be in
for a real shocker on any airbus.

~~~
kuzehanka
So much ignorance and misinformation about this issue even on HN.

The parent comment and entire thread is 100% correct. There is nothing
inherently unstable or unsafe about the MAX 8. It has a pitch-up
characteristic that's mild compared to some other commercial jets like the
757.

The only reason MCAS was put on that plane was to allow the MAX 8 to share a
type rating with the rest of the 737 family, to make it so that it handles
like any other 737 despite the pitch-up characteristic.

Go ask any commercial pilot, go watch any of the commercial pilots on youtube
who have commented on this, go look on stackexchange. The notion that the MAX
8 is inherently unstable, or unsound, or dangerous, is a laughable myth to
anyone in the industry. I get that the news cycle is financially rewarded for
fearmongering, but I really expected people who frequent HN to know better and
do some cursory research into the topic rather than posting comments that
perpetuate bullshit.

There are several major issues with what boeing has done, such as the alleged
failure to reclassify MCAS as a critical system after flight testing. But
instead of discussing these legitimate issues, public debate seems to have
been directed towards a bullshit myth about the airframe being inherently
unstable. This has been eye-opening and dispelled my notion that HN had above-
average quality of discussion on technical topics.

~~~
michaelmrose
Nobody who isn't an engineer wants is terribly interested in the argument that
a model of plane that has killed 2 planes full of people recently is in
anyone's opinion safe.

Personally I won't fly on one in my lifetime.

I'll leave the analysis of why to others to figure out why I fly on other
airplanes.

Incidentally I have seen pilots argue that the max is inherently unsafe on
this forum which is probably why people are reiterating it.

What is your area of expertise and what is your opinion?

~~~
manigandham
Actual engineers do care about the "why" since that's what matters. Otherwise
don't bother flying on any aircraft since all models have crashed at some
point.

~~~
bronson
Your second sentence is too glib. By just about any statistic you want to look
at, the MAX-8 has an abysmal safety record. Probably worse than any other
aircraft in revenue flight.

It's perfectly rational to look at the results, regardless of "why", and
decide that the risk is just too great.

------
leetrout
It has been fascinating to watch layer after layer peel back around all of
this.

Bad design decisions forced from chasing the bottom dollar, optional, critical
safety features with the warning indicator and now these switches.

> Boeing declined to detail the specific functionality of the two switches

That's also interesting- I assume they are in CYA mode and wouldn't discuss
anything that could be sensitive to the current investigations in any point. I
wonder how hard the Seattle Times had to work to get manuals for the MAX.

I hope the loss of life is vindicated in the end.

I hope there are lessons learned from this but I fear our culture of quarterly
profits and lack of real punishment for companies and their directors will
result in nothing drastic happening.

~~~
MaxBarraclough
One of the lessons learned is that the FAA is no longer a credible
institution.

~~~
dd36
Gotta love deregulation. How many institutions are left? Any? CFPB, EPA, HUD,
Interior are all run by people that don’t believe in their missions. It’s all
about undermining from inside. Who protects the public when private rights of
collective action are forbidden by arbitration agreements and the government
has been captured by private interests?

~~~
acidburnNSA
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is doing just fine in their function.

~~~
djsumdog
True, but I also doubt we'll see new nuclear facilities in the US any time
soon.

~~~
an_account_name
Some of these applications have been withdrawn, but there are in fact some in
flight.

[https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/col/new-reactor-
ma...](https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/col/new-reactor-map.html)

~~~
davidkuhta
> In flight

Hopefully, their planes don't need MCAS ;)

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I don't know - a lot of those nuclear plant applications seem to stall ;)

------
cletus
So a lot is known at this point:

1\. The A320neo caught Boeing completely off-guard;

2\. The threat of the likes of American Airlines (already a mixed
Airbus/Boeing customer and the largest airline in the world) placing a large
A320neo order for regional aircraft operations scared the bejesus out of
Boeing management;

3\. For airlines like Southwest that are pure 737, the prospect of adding a
plane that didn't share a common type rating with their existing fleet would
complicate their lives and make them vulnerable to a sales pitch from Airbus;
and

4\. The development cycle for a completely new body was too long for many
customers as it would arrive several years after the A320neo.

I don't think any of this is in dispute so the constraints for Boeing were to
design a more fuel-efficient plane that shared a common type rating with the
737. To get there:

\- They added newer, more fuel efficient engines. These changed the flight
characteristics so they had to be moved;

\- These engines moving made the plane more vulnerable to a stall situation.
To counter this, they added MCAS, which would point the nose down when the AoA
sensor told it the nose was too high;

\- Standard configuration had 2 AoA sensors but MCAS only ever read from one;

\- There was a safer configuration as an optional extra purchase;

\- Telling airlines and pilots about this and providing overrides risked the
common type rating.

I don't believe any of this is in dispute. It is widely believed, but not yet
proven, that the primary cause of both fatal crashes was a runaway MCAS that
drove the planes into the ground. It's also believed that with proper training
a pilot may have been able to counter this (as happened the day before the
Lion Air crash with a pilot in the jump seat).

Now what I find interesting is the response people have to all this. Some
claim this is a fundamental design flaw that puts a shadow over the plane.
Others believe it will be corrected and everything will be fine.

I'm firmly in the first camp: the plane CLEARLY flies differently to a 737. An
automatic system, with no triple redundancy, was required to correct the
flight characteristics of the plane.

I'm no expert but it seems to me the plane is fundamentally flawed at this
point.

~~~
Obi_Juan_Kenobi
> These engines moving made the plane more vulnerable to a stall situation.

I don't think this is correct. A lot is being made about the engine move with
regard to aerodynamic behavior, but it doesn't seem at all outside of the
bounds of what is considered standard. Pilots report that a similar 'light
stick feel' at high AoA is already present in aircraft like the 757.

It's not that the aerodynamic change was worse or better, it's simply that it
was a change at all. MCAS was there to satisfy the type rating. MCAS is not
anti-stall.

The crucial mistake appears to be the extreme failure mode of the system; it
is permitted to input high stabilizer trim angles without limit. Without any
kind of restriction, the failure goes from annoying (pull up on flight stick +
fiddle with stab control until you solve it) to the deadly crashes we've seen
where pilots are in extremely tricky situations.

The fix could be as simple as making MCAS cutout in the case of an AoA
disagree (no real hardware changes here) as well as limiting the input of
extreme trim angles.

~~~
Scaevolus
> MCAS was there to satisfy the type rating. MCAS is not anti-stall.

MCAS's _only_ observable intervention is to push the nose down to prevent
stall, which means it is by definition anti-stall.

Boeing says MCAS is an acronym for "Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation
System", but a better name for MCAS is "Machine Controlled Anti Stall".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuvering_Characteristics_Au...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuvering_Characteristics_Augmentation_System)

~~~
mannykannot
While the effect of pushing the nose down is an all-too observable effect,
that its purpose is stall prevention is not directly observable.

According to this article[1], the intended purpose was to restore the back-
force needed to put the airplane in a stall, as the effect of the new engines
was to make the control feel lighter at high AofA. The article also discusses
the certification requirements with regard to acceptable handling
characteristics.

FWIW, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg is quoted in [2] as saying that "When you
take a look at the original design of the MCAS system. I think in some cases,
in the media, it has been reported or described as an anti-stall system, which
it is not. It's a system that's designed to provide handling qualities for the
pilot that meet pilot preferences.

"We want the airplane to behave in the air similar to the previous generation
of 737s. That's the preferred pilot feel for the airplane, and MCAS is
designed to provide those kinds of handling qualities at a high angle of
attack."

Of course, the elephant in the room not being mentioned here is whether
Boeing's primary motive for replicating the handling characteristics of
earlier versions of 737s was an overriding concern with avoiding pilot
training.

[1] [https://leehamnews.com/2019/02/15/bjorns-corner-pitch-
stabil...](https://leehamnews.com/2019/02/15/bjorns-corner-pitch-stability-
part-10-wrap-up/)

[2] [https://www.businessinsider.com/boeings-ceo-on-
why-737-max-p...](https://www.businessinsider.com/boeings-ceo-on-why-737-max-
pilots-not-told-of-mcas-2019-4)

~~~
roelschroeven
One of the requirements for an airplane to receive a certification is that the
pilot needs to put more and more pressure on the stick to achieve higher and
higher angle of attack. If at some point the airplane starts to pitch to
higher AoA without extra pressure from the pilot, that's a big no. Reason:
otherwise it would be all too easy to inadvertently enter a stall condition.

Boeing 737 MAX without MCAS violates that requirement (caused by the lift
generated by large engine nacelles in front of the wings). MCAS is indeed
designed to restore that required back-force. Back-force that is required to
prevent stalls.

I suppose one could debate whether the stall prevention effect of MCAS is
direct or indirect. But I don't think it's debatable that it is designed to
comply with a certification requirement that's intended to help prevent
stalls.

~~~
mannykannot
You have a point, though, from what I have read, I do not think the airplane
would become unstable prior to the stall, merely less statically stable than
its predecessors.

Boeing may be denying that MCAS has a stall prevention purpose only because to
say so might put it in the critical systems category, requiring additional
training. If so, this would apply as much to the fix as it does to the
original version. To acknowledge that it has a stall prevention function might
require an additional AofA sensor as well as additional training.

------
rtempaccount1
One thing that appears concerning in the series of articles being written
about the 737 Max incidents is that they suggest a culture at Boeing of
speed/cost over safety.

Now we can assume that the Max won't re-enter service until this issue is
completely solved (I'm sure regulators will be extra-scrupulous here and
customers will want cast iron re-assurance).

However, is anyone going over all the other safety decisions and changes made
to other Boeing models over the period of the Max development?

It seems unlikely that this was an isolated incident of rushing things for
commercial benefit...

~~~
djsumdog
I'm actually wondering if the 737 MAX will make it back into service. Every
single one of these planes will need to be flow back to one of their
maintenance centers (like the one south of Seattle) and undergo retrofits.

Hopefully it will result in Bowing being required to make this a new plane and
a lot of pilot re-certification. If it does return to the market, I wonder if
they'll be forced to rebrand it. It's obviously not a 737.

~~~
alexis_fr
Bugs tend to appear in Poisson law of probability: 2 big bugs immediately, 2
others a few weeks later, but that means there are hundreds of them to
discover over a period of 5 years (until the D-check).

So, in all probability, we don’t even know the list of fatal flaws even yet!

~~~
WrtCdEvrydy
It's a 737 with lower engines.

The flaw is using software to fix a hardware issue.

------
mcsoft
It strikes me how a seemingly insignificant decision at the time - to position
fuselage slightly higher above the ground - gave Airbus a strategic advantage
50 years later. It forced the competitor into a services of unexplainable and
reckless decisions that break basic principles of reliable engineering. Which
in turn led to a very visible disastrous business consequences: Boeing had to
silently reduce 737 MAX production despite having secured orders for over 5000
planes. A case to be studied in business schools.

~~~
techslave
basic principles? i think that’s a bit far. the plane isn’t inherently
unstable is it? i thought it’s just the black box of MCAS that is the problem
and MCAS is there to avoid a lengthy type certification. it’s completely
explainable.

and it wasn’t seemingly insignificant. it was for fuel efficiency. it was
significant and they knew what they were doing.

~~~
mcsoft
They had to install MCAS _because_ the plane was unstable in high AoA mode,
i.e. during takeoff.

And it was unstable because larger CFM engines could not fit under the wing
anymore so they had to put it further forward and a bit up. This increased the
pitch up moment when a full power is applied.

Also, can't really see how the height of the fuselage above the ground affects
fuel efficiency.

~~~
cesarb
> They had to install MCAS because the plane was unstable in high AoA mode,
> i.e. during takeoff.

Forgive me if I'm missing something, but isn't MCAS disabled while the flaps
are extended, which is the case during takeoff and landing?

~~~
mcsoft
You are right though pilots prefer to retract flaps soon after liftoff since
extended flaps mean more drag and less efficiency. And the danger comes from
the low altitude thus no margin for error.

In the doomed ET302 flight they retracted flaps 62 seconds after liftoff at
only about 1200ft above the ground. MCAS kicked in 5 seconds later. Had
autopilot been engaged it'd also had saved them from MCAS trim down commands.

------
trimbo
I just wanted to note that Dominic Gates and the Seattle Times have been the
gold standard for reporting on the 737 MAX. Really great work by them on
reporting a technical subject so non-experts can understand.

------
breatheoften
Taking a forward view — I think FAA needs a way to defray the impact of
operational costs by incentivizing the uptake of changes that produce safety
improvements.

The ultimate economic reasoning for the 737 MAX was entirely to reduce
operational cost: “give us a plane with better fuel efficiency that we don’t
have to pay to train pilots for!”. This is actually a deeply broken incentive
that, I think this case shows, should not exist. The plane delivered is
objectively far worse than it _could be_ were it not for the need to reduce
operational cost.

Ultimately — some large portion of that operational cost is induced as a
result of the need to comply with safety regulations. That creates downward
pressure on unecessary experimentation but also has created this very perverse
incentive to design planes that are _deliberately_ not as safe as they could
be given application of some approximation to “our best engineering
knowledge”.

Pretty early on in the design process for the 737 MAX — there shouldve been a
meeting with regulators. The regulators should’ve been presented with this
option and the design and economic reasoning for it — and they should’ve also
been presented with another option wherein there was a relaxing of the need to
defuse operational costs. The regulators should be empowered to then say
“don’t build this broken plane, build the safer plane and we will introduce
tax credits sufficient to help offset the airlines retraining costs.”

------
JorgeGT
So they removed a useful, granular functionality (switching off autopilot trim
input while retaining electric-assisted manual trim) and made one switch
simply a redundant backup, merging the previously separated functions without
clear explanation.

A cynical man could be inclined to think that with this change, they casually
removed a possibility of pilots/airlines realizing the existence of MCAS: "we
have thrown off the right switch to unlink the autopilot from the trim motor
and there is still _something_ making automated stabilizer inputs, what could
it be?"

~~~
jsjohnst
> So they removed a useful, granular functionality ... without clear
> explanation

I’m as negative as the next person when it comes to the 737 Max, but this is
just a bit to far. Read the rest of the article and you’ll understand a
logical reason why this was done and how it was communicated.

~~~
peteradio
What was the reasoning?

~~~
jsjohnst
The linked article says why, but to paraphrase, the training has always said
to flip both switches. Previously the only time you’d need to flip the
switches was due to an electric motor being stuck-on. It’s only with the MAX
that there was an actual useful reason to flip one vs the other, but the
training was always to flip both and Boeing decided to simplify it.

My personal guess is that it was internally totally disparate teams inside
Boeing and neither communicated about the change. Is that bad? Certainly. But
how often does that happen in big companies? All the time. Sadly it might have
had a part in causing fatalities in this case, but doesn’t make it any less
common.

Either way, it’s not like the change definitively had any bearing. Turning off
all electronic control was still the training given to pilots and then
reverting to manually turning a wheel that controlled the horizontal
stabilizer via cable. It’s not an easy thing to do (turn the wheel manually),
especially during a nose dive, but it’s been done before in an emergency and
pilots are trained on it.

Ultimately, the FAA had a prestigious record due in part to having excellent
checks and balances. Whoever decided to move away from DERs to ARs ultimately
should get the brunt of this blame, but sadly, that’ll never happen.

~~~
v8engine
Just to spare others from the search:

Before 2004, those Boeing technical employees who worked safety on behalf of
the FAA were called “Designated Engineering Representatives,” or DERs. Though
paid by Boeing, they were appointed by the FAA and reported directly to their
technical counterparts at the FAA.

What changed since 2004 is that safety engineers, now called Authorized
Representatives, are appointed by and report to Boeing managers.

The opaque bureaucratic name for this new structure — Organization Designation
Authorization (ODA) — masks the significant change: Instead of having
individual Boeing employees authorized as FAA reps, Boeing now has an entire
organization within the company so authorized. The individual FAA Authorized
Reps — Boeing engineers — report up the chain to their Boeing managers, not
the FAA.

source: [https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-
aerospace/engin...](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-
aerospace/engineers-say-boeing-pushed-to-limit-safety-testing-in-race-to-
certify-planes-including-737-max/) Interesting read.

~~~
jsjohnst
Thanks! Spot on source and agree, it’s a good read.

------
salawat
>A cynical man could be inclined to think that with this change, they casually
removed a possibility of pilots/airlines realizing the existence of MCAS: "we
have thrown off the right switch to unlink the autopilot from the trim motor
and there is still something making automated stabilizer inputs, what could it
be?"

It's worse actually. They've taken a procedure, and are raising it on a
pedestal as if to say "See, this is how a 737 flies! It's all right there! You
can stop looking now!"

It's as if they don't want anyone to realize that this plane simply does _not_
fly like a 737. Which is what has been getting shouted from the rooftops since
the first disaster.

What I find wickedly ironic was it was exactly Boeing's insistence to "not
inundate" flight pilot's with technical information, and give an accurate
accounting of the vast differences in the minute details of the aircraft that
created the problem.

Someone looked at the checklist item of "both stab trim switches to cutout",
didn't look into what that actually meant, and changed the plane to fit the
procedure. This change _cost_ extra effort. Instead of using the same switches
and wiring they were using before, they actually degraded the granularity of
control of the plane to hide the differences.

I can't imagine the thought process at the time. Be nice to see what the
documentation turns up.

~~~
stingraycharles
It's fair to recognize this is not entirely Boeing's fault either: it was the
airline industries that don't want to re-train their pilots and wanted this
type of plane (American Airlines was specifically keen on getting Boeing to
manufacture this plane [1]), so they were kind of told "we want you to make
exactly $this, otherwise we switch to Airbus".

[1] [https://www.vox.com/2019/4/5/18296646/boeing-737-max-mcas-
so...](https://www.vox.com/2019/4/5/18296646/boeing-737-max-mcas-software-
update)

~~~
salawat
Given. However, in Engineering, it is totally expected that when you start
getting into areas that sketchy, you say "No. The best I can do is this. I'm
sorry."

Instead, Boeing saw dollar signs, and threw caution and people's lives, and
years of good will to the winds.

~~~
ilaksh
The people making the decisions weren't engineers. They were managers. And
they just passed the buck to the engineers who actually had to go along with
it to keep their jobs.

And I know people will try yo claim that it was the engineers fault and they
should have just refused and gotten fired. But engineers have mortgages and
have to work for a living. They can't afford to career suicide just because
their boss is being unreasonable.

The people who made the decisions should be held accountable. That means the
CEO should actually go to prison.

~~~
dredds
There's also a lot more understanding of the corporate and political culture
against whistleblowers, so even engineers or managers with good morals would
not risk the backlash of endless lawsuits or corporate shaming. We should add
this to the list of contributing factors given that a few whistleblowers have
only come forward after-the-fact.

------
oldmantaiter
Off topic, but oh man does that website embody everything that is wrong with
display advertising. Left the site open for 6 minutes: 8000 requests, 100MB
transferred and a memory footprint of 700MB for that tab and climbing.
Absolute garbage.

~~~
chimpburger
This article requires more computational resources than a Cray-2 supercomputer
(1985).

It loads much better in Lynx with a tiny fraction of the resources.

------
cyberferret
Wait, what? Reading this is turns out that flipping both switches on the
centre panel not only deactivates MCAS, but also deactivates the thumb switch
on the control wheel that the pilots routinely use to change the elevator
trim.

So, MCAS trims the plan to a dangerous attitude, then when pilots follow
Boeing's SOP to disable, they lose the ability to re-trim the way they have
done it a million times before? I can see valuable second being eaten up when
pilots flick the thumb switch towards them and sit there wondering why the
back pressure isn't easing up.

And the report also says that the manual trim adjustment wheel would be harder
to move due to the load on the tail when the aircraft is in a nose (death)
dive? This is already on top of the fact that the pilots have to hold around
60Kg back pressure on the control wheel while leaning forward to crank the
manual trim wheel?

Recipe for absolute disaster.

~~~
cjbprime
Yes, exactly. The MAX "stab trim cutout" simply disabled the trim motor
altogether. Everything you describe appears to have happened in the Ethiopian
flight report. A 737 pilot also tried to run the same flight in simulator and
had his arms wrapped around the control column trying to hold level while the
copilot failed to move the trim wheel.

~~~
rasz
>737 pilot also tried to run the same flight in simulator

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19627660#19627755](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19627660#19627755)
That video was removed :(

------
mannykannot
' _The company said the two switches “were retained for commonality of the
crew interface. "_'

...and without that commonality, the FAA might have required additional
training?

~~~
salawat
Got it in one.

------
sabujp
I don't understand why there's not something that just allows the pilots to
completely turn off all autopilot systems without also turning off hydraulic
supports? It seems like if they turn off autopilot it makes the steering
become not powered or something?

------
Jabbles
What changes should be made at the FAA (or international equivalents)? Clearly
they weren't able to do their job of ensuring the aircraft were safe. They
must share some of the responsibility, but how could we improve them?

------
jordache
fack man, this is some crappy vendor releasing un-documented APIs.. Except
this is a machine that is carrying hundreds of lives.

Regulations needs to ensure every little detail about these planes are
articulated to the end-user.

------
exabrial
> As various warnings went off in the cockpit, they never reached the
> conclusion to use the runaway stabilizer procedure.

We continue to put the microscope on Boeing but this is why there is a person
in the cockpit: to oversee the planes automated systems. There were multiple
failures, and while we pick apart Boeing, we have not done the same to the
pilots.

~~~
ricardobeat
Read up on the extensive reporting on both accidents. They never reached that
conclusion because it was absolutely unexpected, as a result of Boeing’s
stealth changes to the aircraft.

There was an article recently where they put very experienced pilots in a
simulator under the same conditions and they all failed.

~~~
rootusrootus
But at least one aircrew in the real world actually succeeded.

~~~
bumby
True, but this seems to sound like, "if we just hire the right people none of
these safety procedures would be necessary". If we only had ethical people we
wouldn't need laws.

Its more important to focus on the processes rather than the individual
people, especially because even great people can have off days.

~~~
rootusrootus
My point was that we should figure out why one aircrew worked it out, and one
did not. If we want to fix the process, we have to consider the humans. I get
the impression from this whole debacle that one significant contributor to the
accidents was that Boeing's idea of what the procedures should be and what
pilots actually do is different enough to be catastrophic. Putting everything
else aside for a moment, this has to be a lesson about how procedures are
designed and documented. It does no good to decree how something should work
if the operators won't, as a practical matter, ever follow those instructions.

Edit: This seems to be unpopular. I am curious how you guys would do it
differently? Just document the controls and provide no procedural
recommendations? Interesting.

~~~
addicted
It’s like seeing someone make a half court shot in basketball at the buzzer
and wondering why other players don’t do the same. You could adjust the
probability to it being a 3 pt shot, dunk, or free throw.

The failures in the Boeing 737 introduced a significant probability of
unrecoverable failure. The fact that a few pilots managed to recover does not
mean that the ones who didn’t recover did something wrong.

On the other hand, the fact that 2 crews with over decades of safely flying
planes were unable to recover from the same plane indicates it had a lot to do
with the issues in the plane.

~~~
rootusrootus
Sorry to confuse, I am not really interested in assigning blame. I am more
interested to see what can be learned from this so flying continues to get
safer. That will include looking at how the pilots responded to the training
material in practice, and figuring out how that plays into designing future
procedures, documentation, and training. I get that nobody here seems to have
much appreciation for human factors, but I fly a lot. I do care :)

~~~
ricardobeat
The entire discussion does revolve around human factors; how decisions were
made, how the changes were designed to avoid the need for retraining, and in
this specific article, designed to hide a change under the guise of preserving
standard procedures for the people flying the plane. I’m not sure what other
angle you’re after.

