There is nothing wrong with Boeing, Engineering or Aviation but everything that we learned in the old movie All the President's Men (1976) has being forgotten yet again: "Follow the money". Only then we'll learn what really went wrong and why. Shortcuts and self imposed time constrain for the sake of money can kill safety or worse, people. 

Cheers,

 

 

17 hours ago, IUBrian said:

Another interesting article, not so much on the technical side, but the business side, specifically the arrogance of Boeing management.  

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/23/business/boeing-737-max-crash.html

Thanks for posting this NY Times article. Highly recommended reading. You are right, the article mostly addresses the business side in the story of Boeing's development of the 737 Max, but it certainly sheds a lot of light on how in the rush to get the 737 into service to compete with the fuel efficient Airbus A320neo the technical problems arose resulting in the two catastrophic crashes.

20 hours ago, IUBrian said:

This may have nothing to do with the Max, per se. A story I read said there are some smaller airlines with financial issues that may be looking for an excuse to get out their orders. This provides them a potential excuse that avoids the financial implications of being sued for breach of contract.    

The story also says Garuda are willing to change the order into other Boeing jets, which would the NG.

On 3/22/2019 at 2:10 PM, Jim Young said:

In that case, there's no way Boeing will survive the investigation and countries that have ordered the Max8 and Max9 will immediately cancel any orders so that the countries can instead order similar aircraft from Airbus.  No reason to waste time when we already know Boeing is guilty (or should be even if the investigation exonerates them).  Let Airbus take the billion dollar contracts instead.  Even if this happens, heard the US pilots have no issues with this aircraft so suspect airlines in the USA will continue to buy this aircraft and fly it.

I agree, especially when it is considered a safety feature.

The comment of the warning light still reminds me of the classic lines about the toilet and hammer in the movie Independence Day by Judd Hirsch.

As a former commercial software developer I often wondered why businesses paid our high license costs given what it cost us in man hours to maintain stable code, which our code was, very seldom did our updates have Sev 0 or Sev 1 bugs and if they did, we caught them and fixed them in under five or six hours usually, they were usually caused by deployment vs. code glitches.

And I suspect that holds true to new airliners as well, that it is possible they are perfect when ready for release but somehow deployment glitches sneak in via faults in change management, which is complex and requires many go/no go decision makers in the process, some of which are automated and not human.

My only work in the aviation industry was non aircraft hardware, it was the merger of American and US Airway's crew scheduling software and my role was minimal, just a brief contract to test some business logic, and then I moved on to my next gig which was with a medical software company to help them stabilize and phase out some client server software, my last contract before I had to go out on disability, suffering from a host of minor but work stopping neurological issues.

Minor but work stopping neurological issues seem to creep in to modern aircraft like the MAX given the increasing complexity of technology and aerodynamic design.  I still believe the MAX will continue to fly, look at the 787 which had some battery issues early on, it is still purchased and flown, and those issues could have caused a catastrophic fire bringing one of those birds down.  Even the stalwart Concorde was eventually brought down by something as simple as debris on the runway, as the movie goes, for those of us who have seen it "Fate is the Hunter".

John

On 3/23/2019 at 9:24 PM, threegreen said:

I don't see an issue with the fact that MCAS has been implemented to help with the stall recovery. The design of the software is the issue which is rightfully getting a much needed overhaul.

A couple of points, firstly there seems to be a slightly semantic debate going on about whether "Design flaw" can be applied to software or warning lights. Yes! Software, warning lights, the design not to alert the crew of its operation.. all design features and all design flaws.

So say the plane has no design flaws its just the software that needs to be fixed, that's a semantic jump for me that makes no sense.

The design/software/training is all deeply flawed but probably can be corrected, they can keep MCAS fiddling about with the stabiliser but make it less likely to kill everyone please!

Ah yes this is what happens in aviation, planes have automation crashes people keep saying but the difference here is:

1. its such an awfully bad design for 2019!
2. Boeing charged for an essential safety feature (with FAA complicity)
3. the legal bottom covering going on saying there already is a Checklist for Runaway Trim (er yea ok lets see what the courts say)
4. avoidable, corners cut were a result of trying to reduce training costs to win orders 

Boeing got fat and lazy. I really hope a whistleblower emerges during the trials and we hear what really happened.
 

On 3/23/2019 at 5:43 PM, HighBypass said:

Another flaw, but not a design flaw IMHO was not making it common knowledge to ALL MAX crews that MCAS was installed and how it operated.Was that Boeing's fault? Was that the airline's fault? I do not know and cannot say.

I can help here! It was Boeing's fault and its also a design flaw. The design is:

1. do not alert the crew when the system is active
2. do not alert the crew when AoA Vane inputs disagree and could confuse MCAS
3. do not train the crew about MCAS at all
4. do not add any Checklist to the QRH for disabling MCAS when AoA disagree
5. do not worry that when a crew inadvertently disables MCAS after "runaway trim" checklist they now have a plane that is uncertified (even though they didn't know MCAS was there to save them)
6. do not worry that you changed an AoA Vane failure from the NG to now also produce 3 additional warnings all with QRH that won't disable MCAS but will confuse the crew and delay them (permanently) from getting to the runaway trim checklist.

These are all design decisions, I design software, this is what we do we make decisions about interactions with users,systems etc

Yes perhaps airlines should have picked up this potential failure scenario and pay for the extra warning light and add extra training but that is Boeing's job. 99% blame lies in Seattle.

On 3/23/2019 at 9:07 PM, threegreen said:

Small correction: On stall recovery, you only carefully add thrust once the aircraft is in a nose down attitude to build speed, not immediately as the increase of thrust pitches the nose up which makes things even worse

I agree, I did leave that out, Ethiopia was up to about 380kts! Poor airmanship perhaps but a confusing and frightening situation for a below average crew with inadequate training and misleading warnings.

I think and hope the MAX will fly again and be a safe plane but heads will have to roll, billions will be wiped off share prices and lawsuits will be filed.. the plane will need new hardware including a new AoA input, free warning lights and a rethink of that dumb code.. silent 2.5 degree stab pitch increments every 10 seconds, madness!? Maybe a new name like 737SAFE

Edited March 24, 20197 yr by DellyPilot

6 hours ago, threegreen said:

The story also says Garuda are willing to change the order into other Boeing jets, which would the NG.

Thank you for pointing that out; I missed that. I looked at the price difference, about 15 million a plane. So maybe it is a legitimate complaint about the Max. Or maybe it is a legal ploy. As a lawyer, the argument would be, we are not trying to get out of buying 737’s, just your “faulty” Max planes. The NG’s are back ordered too, so Boeing can’t fulfill their “request” for an NG. As an attorney, it’s all about negotiating leverage. 

I find it very depressing to know all of this. Boeing has screwed up royally, and they may still end up with very little in the way of penalties and lost revenue. I believe it is partly the result of too little competition in airliner manufacturing. We used to have Boeing, Lockheed, Douglas and Convair. Now it's just Boeing and Airbus. (Yes we have Embraer and Bombardier, but they do not compete directly against the two giants.) And it seems Boeing's relationship with the FAA is just to cozy.

1 hour ago, AviatorMan said:

I find it very depressing to know all of this. Boeing has screwed up royally, and they may still end up with very little in the way of penalties and lost revenue. I believe it is partly the result of too little competition in airliner manufacturing. We used to have Boeing, Lockheed, Douglas and Convair. Now it's just Boeing and Airbus. (Yes we have Embraer and Bombardier, but they do not compete directly against the two giants.) And it seems Boeing's relationship with the FAA is just to cozy.

Airbus owns 50% of Bombardier. 

1 hour ago, Bobsk8 said:

Airbus owns 50% of Bombardier. 

Airbus owns 50.01% of the CSeries, now A220, program, not the company.

More trouble for Boeing. From a CNN news item today:

New York (CNN Business) - NASA is expected to announce this week whether it will sideline its long-overdue rocket, Space Launch System, and instead use commercial launch vehicles. The space agency contracted Boeing in 2012 to build SLS's core components.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine made a stunning announcement during a Senate hearing on March 13 that the space agency would weigh buying rockets like those made by SpaceX and United Launch Alliance.

That consideration was necessary, he said, because SLS was facing new hangups that threatened to upend plans to launch its Orion spacecraft on an uncrewed test flight around the Moon in mid-2020.

An oversight report published five months ago blasted "Boeing's poor performance" and said cost overruns are expected to double the company's expenses, to at least $8.9 billion, by 2022. NASA had already spent at least $11.9 billion on SLS.

NASA is also expected to announce that Boeing is falling further behind on another multibillion dollar NASA contract: a spacecraft called Starliner that's designed to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station in low-Earth orbit.

 

 

1 hour ago, goates said:

Airbus owns 50.01% of the CSeries, now A220, program, not the company.

Right you are. And Airbus got the chance to acquire the C-Series because Boeing bullied Bombardier out of a contract with Delta for the C-Series, even though Boeing does not even offer comparable airplanes. Lots of bad decisions by Boeing's management lately.

Peter 

20 hours ago, DellyPilot said:

I really hope a whistleblower emerges during the trials and we hear what really happened.

If you want whistleblowers you already have some. Boeing engineers (in anonymity) are talking about a production double the speed of what's normal with the main motto of the whole process being "go, go, go". They are stressing at the same time, however, they believe(d) in the safety of their product at all times. Trauma counseling has been offered in Renton to workers of the MAX project as well.  FAA engineers are talking about a similar climate of hurry at their workplace with managers signing documents regarding the certification in haste. I can't find the article right now.

5 hours ago, qqwertzde said:

Right you are. And Airbus got the chance to acquire the C-Series because Boeing bullied Bombardier out of a contract with Delta for the C-Series, even though Boeing does not even offer comparable airplanes.

Peter 

Yes, it was a total hit job by the US government (sorry ITC), way over the top protectionism for Boeing again costing jobs everywhere (including the US). Bad for everyone including it seems Boeing.

24 minutes ago, threegreen said:

Trauma counseling has been offered in Renton to workers of the MAX project

Must be an awful thing to go through.

Ironically a Southwest 737 Max had to make an emergency landing in Orlando today during a ferry flight to Victorville. Apparently it was due to engine issues and not related to the other issue being worked on.

1 hour ago, cmpbellsjc said:

Ironically a Southwest 737 Max had to make an emergency landing in Orlando today during a ferry flight to Victorville. Apparently it was due to engine issues and not related to the other issue being worked on.

Why was it being ferried to Victorville?  Storage?  Or do they do maintenance there as well?