> It is not a mistake where Boeing is doing nefarious cost cutting and needs to hide it or has made a huge engineering mistake affecting all the aircraft.
Is this sarcasm? If not you really need to read the notes from the MAX 7 crash investigation, starting here [0]. That is exactly what Boeing did. MCAS was a hack to fix a plane badly designed to save costs. They rushed to release, ignored incomplete testing, hide information from the FAA, buried MCAS inside another features notes and forced engineers to say that only computer based training was needed for pilots for the new MAX planes despite big differences, all to save themselves and airlines costs.
> The error was not in the concept of the MAX nor the concept of the MCAS.
The reason MCAS was introduced in the first place was because the platform that Boeing chose to extend (to avoid recertification requirements) was unstable as a result of the introduction of CFM's new LEAP engines.
They insisted on correcting an emergent hardware defect with software in order to reuse an old platform to compete against a surprise threat from Airbus rather than design an inherently safe, novel platform.
> Going through the process to type certify the Max as anything other than a 737 would’ve been far more expensive
Nonsense. Boeing regularly does that.
> They added the MCAS because they didn’t want the Max to be a different type, which meant starting the certification process from scratch.
Also nonsense.
They added the MCAS because they didn’t want the Max to certify as anything but a different type because the entire point of the Max program was for customers who exclusively fly 737s (like Southwest) to be able to fly a more efficient plane without needing to recertify pilots.
Unlike Airbus, Boeing does not have unified profiles and accelerated cross-type training[0], so changing type is close to a full certification for crews, which translates to the crews being grounded for several weeks / a few months.
[0] IIRC they have something along those lines for some planes released close to one another, but Airbus has it across most of the range, with the exception of the older types and the A220 which is not an Airbus plane per-se (it's a rebadging of the Bombardier CSeries)
> A non-Max 737 doesn't need MCAS because it already behaves like a 737.
If I read this correctly you're implying a 737 Max doesn't behave, aerodynamically, as that a non-Max 737 does? And if we follow that line of thinking since non-Max 737 don't require MCAS to behave appropriately then the 737 Max is not a 737 airframe and it should be recertified as something else, no?
I'm in no way "shocked" computers fly and/or help fly airplanes. I am shocked so many comments defend the gross negligence by Boeing, however.
Remember that in all of the needless death the 737 Max is attributed with absolutely zero deaths were because of a flight computer. The real root cause of the 737 Max crashes are Boeing executives and FAA personnel making cognizant choices to allow process to be skipped in the vain of profits and loss avoidance. I believe we'll see this, at some point, no different than the commonly referenced Challenger failure [0].
> The forthcoming software upgrade for MCAS certainly implies that there were improvements to be made.
Not according to Boeing... "Boeing has been developing a flight control software enhancement for the 737 MAX, designed to make an already safe aircraft even safer."[1]
To me an incredibly infuriating statement. The 737-MAX has a fatal crash rate of ~4 per million, when compared to .1 per million for the 737-NG models (40x). There is no currently flying major commercial aircraft which has a higher fatal crash rate than the 737-MAX [2] [3] Of course the MAX has a small sample size, but that's still not evidence of safety.
What data is Boeing looking at to show that their aircraft is considered a safe aircraft?
> They are implying that the fundamental design of the 737 MAX was a mistake due to the engines.
That wasn't the mistake. The mistake is several problems with the implementation of MCAS, all straight-forwardly fixable, along with some minor additional pilot training. I think this will turn out to be a business case study in crisis mismanagement.
I also believe pilot error was a significant factor in the crashes, because during the first instance of MCAS malfunction, the pilots dealt with it and landed safely, despite not knowing about MCAS. The latter two incidents were not handled properly by the pilots, indicating a gap in training.
> The MAX is a bad aeronautical design that Boeing made more "controllable" through additional control system engineering. Problem is, the additional control system engineering was pretty bad.
Yeah, it's really frustrating that the solution was already a band-aid, and they didn't even bother to do that properly so they covered up what was questionably fraud (the lazy way of not getting a new certification) with what was unquestionably fraud (lying about the MCAS system).
What's really sad though is it exposes just how defanged the FAA has become over the years, so now who the hell do we rely on to tell us what's safe for aviation?
> ... proves to a certain degree that they did not believe the change was a major one or worth mentioning
Yes, what Boeing is saying is that MCAS, being designed to force the new plane follow the flight envelope of the old plane
1/ wasn't an anti-stall system
2/ and therefore wasn't a "security" feature (and therefore, it was completely ok to sell upgrades to that system as expensive options)
During a recent interview, Boeing CEO repeatedly said that no specific training was necessary on MCAS because MCAS is part of the whole plane, and when you're flying the MAX you're using MCAS.
This is indeed the problem: they couldn't even consider MCAS failing -- even as a thought experiment, because if MCAS fails, the MAX isn't a 737 anymore!
It looks like they locked themselves up into an alternative reality that they couldn't escape, until planes started crashing into the ground.
> My point is that Boeing will take the flak for what is arguably a pilot error situation with the MAX crashes
It's hard to say if you're trolling or just very misinformed. Boeing was hiding the fact that MAX had additional system to correct the pitch from the pilots.
> and it became clear that the 737 MAX had some serious design problems that they had tried to fix in software.
It could be argued it was an appropriate design.
The critical error was in that 737 MAX has two angle of attack sensors that feed data into the cockpit; however, the MCAS software only used input from one of them. In the Lion air case the one considered sensor had been improperly calibrated after being flagged for maintenance by the crew.
The fix is fairly comprehensive. If an angle of attack disagree occurs between the two sensors the system is inhibited from activation.
> Why are airlines so eager to buy such a compromised model from a company that destroyed its reputation?
They don't see it as compromised. The purchase price was set based on the fact that airlines would _not_ need to retrain existing 737 pilots for the new model, that it was type equivalent.
With the software changes and with additional training there are cost implications but not necessarily safety considerations with the model.
>> What he's probably saying is there is nothing wrong with the plane's design without the MCAS.
That is a common IMHO misconception. Since the new version with "fixed" MCAS requires additional training, it does not follow that MCAS exists simply to avoid retraining and non certifying it the same. In that case, Boeing should have simply dropped MCAS and did the certification and training. Instead they opted for the near financial disaster and disruption to their supply chain AND failure to avoid additional training.
I suspect MCAS is covering for a very bad corner case in the flight dynamics.
>the MAX was a flawed design due to the expectations it placed on pilot training, competency and in particular, instinct in a surprising situation. That's it.
As you eluded to earlier, there are usually multiple causes. One that the above statement seems to overlook is the poor application and adherence to the system safety analysis. According to their own process, even though they misclassified the failure they should not have relied on a single sensor.[1] It seems to me there's engineering, process, and human factor causes involved.
>Then let’s make it obvious and include it in the training.
Which cuts right to the heart of the B737 MAX issue - Boeing substantially changed the design, then added sensors & software to make the changed airframe handle similarly to the old 737 airframe and claimed that this meant the pilots did not need retraining
If Boeing had been upfront about MCAS, and required that pilots were trained in what it did and how to override it then the crashes probably would not have happened.
The 737 Max is not an inherently unstable aircraft and to say so grossly misunderstands the term and what MCAS was doing.
MCAS existed to make an inherently stable aircraft handle in the same was as previous 737 generations. Design changes had forced the addition of this system in order to retain the same type rating because those design changes caused the aircraft to handle differently to previous generations.
MCAS was about keeping the same type rating and the same handling characteristics. It had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with 'inherent instability' - the 737 Max is an inherently stable aircraft without MCAS.
Continuing to spread misinformation about what MCAS is and the 737 Max stability is detrimental to the discussion.
EDIT - There is clearly a lot of misunderstand about the terms 'stable' and 'unstable'. These has a defined meaning in aircraft handling. I encourage you to educate yourselves on the term, on what stability actually is in relation to this discussion.
The 737 Max is a stable aircraft. The 737 Max without MCAS activated is a stable aircraft. It is an inherently stable design.
The 737 Max can and was flown without MCAS activated (even by the same aircraft as crashed, the pilots of the previous flight pulled the stabiliser cut out switches and went to manual trim control).
>But the big issue with the MAX is not that it handles differently, it is that Boeing lied to everyone about that fact. Then they made another semi-unforgivable error by masking the handling with software, ok, but didn't even take the most basic steps available to ensure some redundancy in that software.
Which is exactly what I'm saying and the opposite of what the author and DTAL are saying.
>It is just so very very bad engineering and mindset that it's hard to describe.
I don't think it's even a mindset. It's that sort of "nobody is responsible for a large enough part of the system to be able to stop things and force things to be done right" situation that a lot of big-cos get into that results in them crapping out half baked products.
>Would I fly on a MAX if and when they get clearance again? Maybe after it's been flying for a year or so, and depending on what some trusted people and institutions say about it.
For me the decision would hinge on what training the pilots get.
>> Remember, the issue here wasn't with the flight characteristics per se, it was penny pinching administrators who removed redundancy from a critical system to save (and attempt to mark up) a couple hundred dollars per plane.
This sounds good (blame it on cheapo mgmt) but really is not true. For one, the system never had redundant sensors, so they couldn't have been "removed". Secondly, the systems were designed by engineers -- with the mandate of no retraining necessary, true -- but I don't see where anybody stood up and said this is a failed/doomed system (except outsiders, after the fact). Third, "hundreds of dollars" is a total joke. The point of compatibility with previous 737s was a major selling point, worth billions of dollars in orders from airlines who liked the 737, instead of requiring them to choose between an entirely new Boeing design vs a semi-familiar (for many airlines) Airbus. It also had side effects of getting to market faster and reducing recertification and training expenses, likely totalling billions in additional savings.
> including the information supplied by Boeing to the airlines to explain the function of the MCAS system
So, you're essentially parroting Boeing's narrative IMO. Yes, they want you to think that the system is 'stupid simple' and it's 'no big deal, just one little fix' because obviously that's good for their business.
Maybe, the system required for safe operation is not so simple, and Boeing is no longer competent enough to create a system. Perhaps the 'stupid simple' system was all they were able to muster.
> As part of the update, the company said Max pilots would need to receive an additional 30-minute training program on the software.
But on an iPad! Boeing is still pretending that the training on the new simulator is not needed. In fact there are almost no new simulators at all — the MAX’s selling point was that it’s the same as the old 737.
And that was a very deadly lie.
Still, even after the software patch, with MCAS turned on, the plane pretends to behave as the old one. Once MCAS is switched off, a pilot is left with a new plane. For which he is not trained! And exactly at the moment the plane is already in danger! Because Boeing’s marketing.
The obviousness of the plane not being the same is an exact reason why Boeing tried to hide the existence of MCAS completely.
Now they still think everything is allowed to them.
>There's a million things that went wrong with the MAX 8 debacle, serious things that need to be addressed after the industry takes a hard look at itself. But there being something wrong with the airframe isn't amongst them. That meme has no grounds, isn't supported by anyone at all in the industry, and originated from clickbait spamblogs and late night tv shows that feed off FUD.
Really?
Would you like to supply some names, or provide some whitepaper for that?
Btw, the entire cause for MCAS being implemented is a desperate attempt to comply with FAR 25.173. If the non-certifiable behavior hadn't been there, there would not have been an issue.
So we even have severe concerns over whether Boeing overstepped bounds in the safety process by approving their control line setup in spite of FAA concerns anyway.
Some gems from that.
>F.A.A. managers conceded that the Max “does not meet” agency guidelines “for protecting flight controls,” according to an agency document. But in another document, they added that they had to consider whether any requested changes would interfere with Boeing’s timeline. The managers wrote that it would be “impractical at this late point in the program,” for the company to resolve the issue. Mr. Duven at the F.A.A. also said the decision was based on the safety record of the plane.
>Engineers at the agency were demoralized, the two agency employees said. One engineer submitted an anonymous complaint to an internal F.A.A. safety board, which was reviewed by The Times.
>“During meetings regarding this issue the cost to Boeing to upgrade the design was discussed,” the engineer wrote. “The comment was made that there may be better places for Boeing to spend their safety dollars.”
>An F.A.A. panel investigated the complaint. It found managers siding with Boeing had created “an environment of mistrust that hampers the ability of the agency to work effectively,” the panel said in a 2017 report, which was reviewed by The Times. The panel cautioned against allowing Boeing to handle this kind of approval, saying “the company has a vested interest in minimizing costs and schedule impact.”
>By then, the panel’s findings were moot. Managers at the agency had already given Boeing the right to approve the cables, and they were installed on the Max.
So, forgive me if I question the veracity of "most in the industry have figured it isn't a big deal", and even if they have, I question whether or not that decision comes from some level of just wanting to return to business as usual with minimum interruption or action/further regulation based on the coming to light of the scale of regulatory capture that has been uncovered by this debacle.
The physics and presence of MCAS at all don't lie. The plane could not be certified without it. Personally, I deem an airframe to only encompass the physical structure without automation, and that assumption seems to be well received by those I know who have worked in aviation circles previously.
Given that when I raise concerns with them, I universally get some variation of "what the hell were they thinking?," I'm not terribly willing to accept that a large portion of the active industry is necessarily making the most impartial judgement given that their livelihoods may very well be adversely effected by the fiscal failure of this plane.
My sources include a former safety investigator/tech, and someone who worked with a maintenance squadron. So make of that what you will.
Furthermore, I'm willing to tolerate some leniency with stretching regulations a bit, but not to the extent of normalizing deviance for the sake of expediency. Down that road lies too much catastrophe.
Now I'll admit, I was one of the early central repeaters of the artificial feel system theory; I didn't have access to good technical docs, but apparently someone at the Seattle Times was able to find some corroboration, but I've done my damnedest to keep my reasoning constrained to my enthusiast level understanding of aerospace engineering and aviation, which has been rapidly expanding in my efforts to understand how something like this could happen in an industrial vertical famous for it's capacity to generate some of the safest machines on the planet. Just that reasoning alone is enough to at least get me questioning the sanity of the design decisions that have transpired w.r.t the MAX.
Is this sarcasm? If not you really need to read the notes from the MAX 7 crash investigation, starting here [0]. That is exactly what Boeing did. MCAS was a hack to fix a plane badly designed to save costs. They rushed to release, ignored incomplete testing, hide information from the FAA, buried MCAS inside another features notes and forced engineers to say that only computer based training was needed for pilots for the new MAX planes despite big differences, all to save themselves and airlines costs.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_certification
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