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Post by ironhammer on Apr 4, 2019 20:17:28 GMT -5
Ever see the movie Fearless? Fantastic movie. The main character survives a plane crash, then starts acting like he's immortal (ie. fearless). His behavior has profound effects (both good and bad) on himself and those around him. Great movie. Saw it on DVD in 1998-ish. I loved the scene where the Jeff Bridges character tries to help the Rosie Perez character by simulating the plane crash with a car as she held on to her baby (actually a doll or a box, wrapped up in a blanket). If my memory is correct, they drove full speed and purposely crashed into a pole as the baby slipped through Perez's grasp and through the windshield. Powerful moment. Hmmmm...might be better in the movie section perhaps.
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Post by Wolfgang on Apr 4, 2019 20:37:03 GMT -5
Great movie. Saw it on DVD in 1998-ish. I loved the scene where the Jeff Bridges character tries to help the Rosie Perez character by simulating the plane crash with a car as she held on to her baby (actually a doll or a box, wrapped up in a blanket). If my memory is correct, they drove full speed and purposely crashed into a pole as the baby slipped through Perez's grasp and through the windshield. Powerful moment. Hmmmm...might be better in the movie section perhaps. So, I’m gonna throw mikegarrison under the bus. He started it.
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Post by ironhammer on Apr 6, 2019 10:27:58 GMT -5
Boeing sounds noticeably contrite and more willing to admit fault with their latest statement from CEO Dennis Mulienburg: www.boeing.com/commercial/737max/737-max-update.pageMaybe Boeing realized their prior statements just wasn't doing much to salvage their reputation, reeking more of lawyer or corporate speak than an expression of real concern, despite the restrictions on what they can say. Maybe they have examined the preliminary data and concluded they can't escape some degree of liability, so it's better to admit some responsibility now than have their faults be exposed in a damaging trial that would further damage their image. I suppose it's easy to criticize Boeing's response from the outside without realizing the amount of pressure that is facing Dennis and his team or the regulatory restrictions that may have tied his hand. I certainly don't envy being in his position now. Still, as the CEO, the buck stops with him. The MAX program may have been pushed by his predecessor and not him personally. But as the CEO, he is now ultimately responsible for it.
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Post by ironhammer on Apr 30, 2019 22:02:28 GMT -5
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Post by mikegarrison on Apr 30, 2019 22:37:29 GMT -5
Meanwhile, Southwest said Boeing did not informed them that the a warning indicating AOA malfunction was not activated for their fleet According to what I just read in the Wall Street Journal, that was a bug that no one caught. Apparently Boeing believed that the AOA sensor mismatch warning was active on all airplanes, but it was actually only activated when an optional software package was purchased. Technically, an AOA mismatch is not considered to be a safety of flight issue, although obviously when in conjunction with other factors it has contributed to the two crashes.
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Post by ironhammer on Apr 30, 2019 22:46:16 GMT -5
Meanwhile, Southwest said Boeing did not informed them that the a warning indicating AOA malfunction was not activated for their fleet Technically, an AOA mismatch is not considered to be a safety of flight issue, although obviously when in conjunction with other factors it has contributed to the two crashes. Agreed, but since that MCAS relies on data from the AOA sensor, it becomes a crucial link to flight safety in the case of the MAX.
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Post by mikegarrison on Apr 30, 2019 23:27:08 GMT -5
OK, just watched that press conference. I saw a clash of several cultures that contributed to a profound lack of communication.
The first problem is that there is a clash between the legal system, which exists to find blame, and the air safety system, which exists to find ways to improve safety. Muilenburg is, to some extent, hamstrung in openly discussing the situation because he HAS to protect the company legally. It's his job as a corporate exec. But as a member of the aviation profession, it's also his job to be as open as possible about what happened so it can be avoided in the future. This is a bind that is squeezing him into not being able to satisfy anyone.
The next problem is that journalists suck at things like this. I used to be one, and I know that they NEED good quote material that they can use to tell simple stories. But this just isn't a simple story. A bunch of them kept asking him to basically say "the MCAS system caused the crash", but it isn't that simple. As he said, both crashes were a chain of events. ANY LINK IN THE CHAIN could have been broken, and the crash would not have happened. So yeah, no MCAS probably means no crash. But no AOA sensor failure means no crash. Correct response by the pilots means no crash. Pure luck (MCAS feeding from the working sensor rather than the failed sensor) means no crash. So trying to get him to blame the crashes on MCAS is trying to fit a simple journalistic perspective onto a complex system engineering perspective. What's he supposed to say as an answer?
The press, the public, the business school professors -- they all want the CEO to take the blame. But Muilenburg is an engineer, and he's trying to answer the question like an engineer. An engineer isn't focused on finding the blame. Engineers are focused on finding the "root causes" and then fixing them, which is a different mindset. Frankly, it's usually a better mindset. Aviation did not get to be as safe as it is today because we ran around finding people to blame for everything. It has become safe because we identified the root causes of problems and systematically protected against them. But that's not the story the journalists want to hear.
In the end, Muilenburg felt like he explained everything over and over again, and there was no point continuing to keep explaining it. The journalists, however, mostly felt like he hadn't explained anything. So when he walked out, they were pissed off and he was pissed off.
And that was pure @$$%*!* when one guy called out something about how many people died. I can tell you there is nobody at Boeing who isn't aware those people died. That was incredibly insulting. But I also understand (as much as I can do so, anyway), from the point of view of the people who lost people they cared for that a discussion of root causes and claims that "we followed the process" seem insulting to them. They don't care what the process was -- they care that their people are dead.
This is the ugly reality behind pithy statements like "the safety of air travel is built on the blood of past failures".
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Post by mikegarrison on Apr 30, 2019 23:33:56 GMT -5
Technically, an AOA mismatch is not considered to be a safety of flight issue, although obviously when in conjunction with other factors it has contributed to the two crashes. Agreed, but since that MCAS relies on data from the AOA sensor, it becomes a crucial link to flight safety in the case of the MAX. It was not supposed to be. No one forsaw this. MCAS itself is supposed to be not a safety of flight system. It's just a system to make the airplane handling qualities feel like earlier 737s. Nobody understood that there was a pathway to crashes like this happening that included the AOA sensor or MCAS. Now people do understand this, but they didn't when it was designed. You are asking why it was designed the way it was designed, and the answer is that nobody knew it was safety of flight issue. The fact we NOW know it is doesn't retroactively make us understand it several years ago.
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Post by ironhammer on May 1, 2019 0:20:25 GMT -5
Agreed, but since that MCAS relies on data from the AOA sensor, it becomes a crucial link to flight safety in the case of the MAX. It was not supposed to be. No one forsaw this. MCAS itself is supposed to be not a safety of flight system. It's just a system to make the airplane handling qualities feel like earlier 737s. Nobody understood that there was a pathway to crashes like this happening that included the AOA sensor or MCAS. Now people do understand this, but they didn't when it was designed. You are asking why it was designed the way it was designed, and the answer is that nobody knew it was safety of flight issue. The fact we NOW know it is doesn't retroactively make us understand it several years ago. I don't know, that does not sound entirely convincing to me. Boeing wanted the MAX to have the same handling characteristics as previous 737s, and shifting the engine forward would have changed that. So they implemented the MCAS system. But MCAS affects the aerodynamics of the aircraft, that sounds pretty safety critical to me.
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Post by ironhammer on May 1, 2019 0:33:02 GMT -5
OK, just watched that press conference. I saw a clash of several cultures that contributed to a profound lack of communication. The first problem is that there is a clash between the legal system, which exists to find blame, and the air safety system, which exists to find ways to improve safety. Muilenburg is, to some extent, hamstrung in openly discussing the situation because he HAS to protect the company legally. It's his job as a corporate exec. But as a member of the aviation profession, it's also his job to be as open as possible about what happened so it can be avoided in the future. This is a bind that is squeezing him into not being able to satisfy anyone. The next problem is that journalists suck at things like this. I used to be one, and I know that they NEED good quote material that they can use to tell simple stories. But this just isn't a simple story. A bunch of them kept asking him to basically say "the MCAS system caused the crash", but it isn't that simple. As he said, both crashes were a chain of events. ANY LINK IN THE CHAIN could have been broken, and the crash would not have happened. So yeah, no MCAS probably means no crash. But no AOA sensor failure means no crash. Correct response by the pilots means no crash. Pure luck (MCAS feeding from the working sensor rather than the failed sensor) means no crash. So trying to get him to blame the crashes on MCAS is trying to fit a simple journalistic perspective onto a complex system engineering perspective. What's he supposed to say as an answer? The press, the public, the business school professors -- they all want the CEO to take the blame. But Muilenburg is an engineer, and he's trying to answer the question like an engineer. An engineer isn't focused on finding the blame. Engineers are focused on finding the "root causes" and then fixing them, which is a different mindset. Frankly, it's usually a better mindset. Aviation did not get to be as safe as it is today because we ran around finding people to blame for everything. It has become safe because we identified the root causes of problems and systematically protected against them. But that's not the story the journalists want to hear. In the end, Muilenburg felt like he explained everything over and over again, and there was no point continuing to keep explaining it. The journalists, however, mostly felt like he hadn't explained anything. So when he walked out, they were pissed off and he was pissed off. And that was pure @$$%*!* when one guy called out something about how many people died. I can tell you there is nobody at Boeing who isn't aware those people died. That was incredibly insulting. But I also understand (as much as I can do so, anyway), from the point of view of the people who lost people they cared for that a discussion of root causes and claims that "we followed the process" seem insulting to them. They don't care what the process was -- they care that their people are dead. This is the ugly reality behind pithy statements like "the safety of air travel is built on the blood of past failures". True, it is a clash of different cultures. And I have no doubt Boeing are fully aware of the gravity of the situation. But the way they handle the situation seems to suggest they are still struggling with these competing needs. Not a satisfactory situation for anyone involved. At the end of the day, regardless of whether he was approaching this as an engineer, as the CEO, he has to deal with the public whether he likes it or not. The journalists, it is their job to probe and ask questions. You may hate them, but they do have a direct bearing on public confidence in flying the MAX. Yes, that last question about deaths was insulting and uncalled for, but the other questions they are within their rights to ask.
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Post by Phaedrus on May 14, 2019 18:47:36 GMT -5
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Post by ironhammer on May 14, 2019 20:31:12 GMT -5
There are still many unanswered and worrying questions here, like: 1. Why did Boeing designed MCAS to rely only one AOA sensor? An airliner like the 737 usually have two of these things. 2. Has cost-cutting come at the expense of safety? Sure, Boeing, like any other business, is interested in the bottom line, generating maximum profit at minimal cost. But the company always had a strong tradition in prioritizing safety in their engineering and design. That made long-term business sense, because a safe airplane usually means a reliable airplane that airlines will have trust to buy. But has short-term profit-taking, even at the expense of safety, now taken root at the company? So has making a quick buck prioritize over safety with the 737 MAX, as some retired and ex-Boeing engineers alleged? 3. Did the FAA not do their job in proper certification? Sure, in practice the FAA does delegate most of the certification work to Boeing itself, and that system has worked well in the past. But with the MAX, has FAA delegated too much of the work it was supposed to do to Boeing? Was there a dereliction of duty on the part of the FAA to oversee proper certification? 4. The DOJ is now investigating Boeing and the FAA, is there possibly something criminal in the relations between FAA and Boeing? 5. Has the Boeing-Airbus duoply made Boeing complacent? Since taking over McDonnell Douglas by Boeing, there are only these two planemakers in the large commerical airliner market. Maybe Boeing, thinking they are "too big to fail" has forgotten that it has a responsibility to make a safe product? 6. As a primarily "b-to-b" company (i.e. business (Boeing) to business (airlines)), rather than directly dealing with public consumers in most cases, Boeing can be forgiven for being a little less adept at handling PR. And there are also the regulatory and legal restrictions preventing what Boeing can actually say. Even so, could it's PR been handle better? It didn't really send a convincing message until a long time after both crashes. Could Boeing have done it better? There is certainly room for improvement.
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Post by ironhammer on May 15, 2019 11:04:59 GMT -5
Well we might get an idea why MCAS was built to rely on one only AOA sensor. According to a Boeing whistleblower, they did it avoid Level D flight sim training, a cost factor that Boeing want to avoid:
You can watch the whole investigation report if you have the time, but key part discussing the MCAS is from 34:26 to 37:00.
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Post by Phaedrus on Jun 1, 2019 17:40:04 GMT -5
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Post by ironhammer on Jun 1, 2019 19:15:57 GMT -5
So the test pilot and engineers themselves didn't know about the change to the MCAS to rely on one single sensor? That's worrying. Now it's reassuring in the sense that it confirms Boeing pilots and engineers' reputation of being safety-conscious, since I would have hard time believing they were intentionally being so risky in making the MCAS. But it is very worrying they themselves didn't know about the change to MCAS during the design and development of the MAX. This points to management being the core issue. They seem to have concealed things from engineers. A breakdown in communication or intentional concealment? Project management seems to be a problem here, maybe even doing unethical things to hide change from their own engineers.
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