Jump to content
MalaysianWings - Malaysia's Premier Aviation Portal
Sign in to follow this  
Nabiel Haniff

Ethopian Airlines Crashed - Another 737Max

Recommended Posts

MCAS was originally designed to activate based on data from a single angle-of-attack sensor, which measures the level of the jets nose relative to oncoming air. Air-safety experts, as well as former employees at Boeing and the supplier that made the sensor, have expressed concern that system had this single point of failure, a rarity in aviation.

 

Such sensors are highly reliable and have been used on passenger jets for years, but like any aircraft component, they can fail, the engineers said. Because the sensor is fallible, it is surprising that Boeing enabled it alone to activate a system that automatically pushes the aircraft toward the ground, said one former engineer who helped build the sensors at Rosemount Aerospace, a subsidiary of the industrial giant United Technologies based in Burnsville, Minn.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/business/boeing-737-max-crash.html

 

Boeing was either complacent, ignorant or challenging probability/likelihood.

Edited by KK Lee

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It gives the impression that Boeing is arrogant - it knows best and to hell with the customer, pilots, and passengers.

 

Not disclosing the existence of MCAS to customers and pilots is ample proof of this arrogance.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

MCAS was originally designed to activate based on data from a single angle-of-attack sensor, which measures the level of the jets nose relative to oncoming air. Air-safety experts, as well as former employees at Boeing and the supplier that made the sensor, have expressed concern that system had this single point of failure, a rarity in aviation.

 

Such sensors are highly reliable and have been used on passenger jets for years, but like any aircraft component, they can fail, the engineers said. Because the sensor is fallible, it is surprising that Boeing enabled it alone to activate a system that automatically pushes the aircraft toward the ground, said one former engineer who helped build the sensors at Rosemount Aerospace, a subsidiary of the industrial giant United Technologies based in Burnsville, Minn.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/business/boeing-737-max-crash.html

 

Boeing was either complacent, ignorant or challenging probability/likelihood.

 

If the 737Max was designed correctly with correct weight distribution from the beginning, then there wouldn't be a need for the MCAS.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Last year, inspectors with the Federal Aviation Administration discovered Boeing deactivated a signal designed to advise the cockpit crew of a malfunctioning of the MCAS system, the source said.


The inspectors were in charge of monitoring Southwest Airlines, the biggest user of 737 MAX planes, with a fleet of 34 of them at the time, the source said.


Before the Lion Air crash, which killed all 189 people on board, signals “were depicted as operable by Boeing on all MAX aircraft” regardless of whether the cockpit crew thought they had them turned on or off, said a Southwest spokeswoman.

She said after the accident, Boeing told Southwest the signals were “turned off unless they were specifically designated as being turned on” – prompting the airline to choose that option for all its aircraft.


It was at that point inspectors learned Boeing decided to make the malfunction alert an optional extra costing more money – and deactivated the signal on all 737 MAX delivered to Southwest without telling the airline.


They considered recommending grounding the planes as they explored whether pilots flying the aircraft needed additional training about the alerts, said the source.


They decided against that – but never passed details of the discussions to higher-ranking officials in the FAA, the source said, confirming a story in The Wall Street Journal.




Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
With 737 Max, Boeing Wants to Win Back Trust. Many Are Skeptical.

By Natalie Kitroeff and David Gelles

May 8, 2019


A charm offensive by Boeing to persuade airlines, crews and passengers to rally behind its 737 Max plane is already running into resistance.


The effort, which includes daily calls with carriers as well as meetings with pilots and flight attendants, is being hampered by a problem of the company’s own making. After a bungled response to two deadly crashes involving the jet, Boeing is facing credibility problems.


....



In part, the reluctance stems from Boeing’s mixed messaging. Despite having said “we own it,” Mr. Muilenburg has not acknowledged that anything was wrong with the design of the 737 Max, saying that the design process followed standard procedures.


“We clearly have areas where we need to improve, including transparency,” Mr. Johndroe, the Boeing spokesman, said in a statement.


During the meeting last month, the flight attendants pushed Mr. Moloney to explain why the company didn’t inform pilots about the software that contributed to both crashes. He acknowledged that Boeing should have told them, but kept reiterating that pilots were expected to be able to handle the conditions on both doomed flights.



Passenger groups have demanded that Boeing take more responsibility for the Max debacle. “If they really wanted to fix the problem you would think they would admit that it’s their fault,” said Paul Hudson, the president of Flyers Rights, a nonprofit group advocating for passengers. “You can’t say ‘oh we own it, but we didn’t do anything wrong and it’s someone else’s fault.’”


Pilots and airlines say that Boeing has also struggled to communicate with them about how basic systems on the Max work. After the first crash in Indonesia, pilots criticized Boeing for not informing them about the new software, which automatically pushes down the nose of the plane when the system deems it necessary. They have also been concerned by revelations that Boeing provided incomplete information about features in the cockpit.


This week, Boeing said that it believed a key cockpit warning light was standard on all Max jets, but learned several months after beginning deliveries in 2017 that the light worked only if airlines had bought a separate feature, known as the angle of attack indicator. Southwest bought the plane without the indicator, on the assumption that the warning light was activated. It was only after the Lion Air accident that Boeing told regulators and some pilots that the light wasn’t functional.



Edited by KK Lee

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Sign in to follow this  

×
×
  • Create New...