Top Letters And Comments, March 22, 2019

Seeing the rapidity of Boeing's claim to have a fix indicates that someone already knew of the potential of the problem but somewhere in the certification process got "voted off the island" when saying it needed to be fixed and tested. This is the classic development story of unclear requirements, time and budget dictating system release, and insufficient testing. Systems are tested during certification for operationally passing requirements, they are not sufficiently tested for operation when they fail. Also, I can on one hand count the number of times when, (other than me), a qualified pilot was actively involved in pre-release, non-flight test, certification testing. People have now died due to these deficiencies.

Homer Landreth

In the Spirit of "developing and maintaining multiple narratives"...

It's a given that computer code along with parts and sub-assemblies are developed and produced around the world for aircraft. The sub-sub-contractors that wrote the code for control systems could have been sitting at a high table at Starbucks on a Saturday afternoon anywhere in the world. We also know that cutting and pasting sub-routines into code is common practice and leaves an opening for a mistake. This opening could also be exploited to insert a bit of "sleeper" code that is woke under specific conditions.

That the two crashes of 737 MAX are so similar increases the "sabotage" narrative significantly.

Thinking about the great desire of terrorists to bring down airliners there certainly is intent to commit such a crime.

Frank Kalinski

It's a small point, but in the interest of accuracy (which is king in the aviation world after all), the French aviation authority examining the Ethiopian black boxes is the Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses pour la Securite de l'Aviation Civil (BEA), which is responsible for French civil aviation accident investigation and is overseen by the French government. Wiki translates it as Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety. Whatever, it's usually referred to simply as the BEA. The overarching French civil aviation authority is the DGAC (Direction Generale de l'Aviation Civil). I think we both need a rest after that long-winded comment... Keep up the good work!

David Pearson

There's been a lot of talk about the copilot's low flight time, but how does a 28-year-old captain have 8,000 hours? Even if he maxed each year with the 900-hour limit for a typically regulated air carrier, that would mean he started that rate of flying at 19 years of age. Is anyone looking at the "captain's" flight experience and logbook?

Steve J. Ottaviano

No one with any stature has yet publicly expressed any concern that French authorities may well be conflicted with respect to any findings derived from their investigation. Why? The obvious fact is that in effect they also 'represent' the commercial interests of Airbus, and its directly competitive interests. Maybe I'm being something of a paranoid, but I'm a lawyer (yes, I know all of the lawyer jokes, etc.) but I'm paid to be a skeptic. I think the possibility of conflict on the part of French investigators should be spoken of openly discussed and considered as a sort of recognition to them that we're aware of the possibility. That public recognition may be enough by itself to head off any 'darker' instincts or temptations on their part. Remember, everyone's lives - and the economic future of a significant American company - depend on an independent, accurate analysis, leading to an effective, swift, dependable resolution.

Archie Hovanesian

Of course there are close similarities. Both had the same failure: Pilot's angle of attack sensor. I don't know why this isn't appearing in the media as a partial cause of the incidents. But even this may not be the root cause, as I saw a report that neither American nor Southwest has ever had an AoA failure on a Max 8 aircraft. Did something happen to that sensor system on the ground in both aircraft? It seems that both took off in an un-airworthy condition with that sensor failed. IMO Boeing's installation not requiring agreement between the two AoA's and neither crew properly handling the failure were the other contributing causes of the accidents. I read where the previous Lion crew on their accident aircraft properly handled a MCAS failure, and possibly 3 other times before that.

Boeing made a huge, costly decision to concur in grounding the US fleet.

Dick Madding

Both MAX accidents, while rooted in something mechanical, serve to highlight the importance of well-trained and qualified crew. MCAS would be disabled with both Stab Trim switches to CUTOUT. But, furthering what Sully said...I also question a 28 yr old Captain with 8,000 hours flying time...that's pretty ambitious...

Jim McIrvin

I'm surprised and a little dismayed by your comments regarding the grounding of the 737 MAX: In a typically American comment, you seem to have an aversion to government intervention, especially Federal. As an Australian private pilot and One World Emerald frequent flyer, I decided to avoid any 737 MAX flights immediately following details of the circumstances of Ethiopian crash.

That governments globally have grounded the troubled airliner is good: To my knowledge nobody has ever died due to an aircraft being refused permission to fly. Like most people in the civilised world I'm no supporter of Trump - nor his unhelpful comments on aircraft being too complex to fly - but if it took a Presidential order to ground them then so be it.

The bottom line is Boeing seems to have come up with another 737 lemon. It's a pity the same 24-hour news cycle and social media platforms weren't available when the 737's rudder deflection 'glitch' was happening. Perhaps many people would still be alive, even if it meant aviation publications, manufactures and insiders were bemoaning the influence of the 'ignorant' and the meddling of The Feds.

Richard Robertson

As a pilot with a major airline, having flown the 737, not the Max, Airbus pilot, instructor, as well as many others, I find Paul Bertorelli's statement both uninformed and borderline offensive:

"Knowing that, is it possible that because U.S. pilots are trained to use the automation routinely--including the autopilot--they simply never remotely got near the MCAS threshold? It's fashionable to complain about automation eroding piloting skills and the magenta line kids now have kids of their own, but we didn't drive the accident rate to near zero by practicing hand flying."

I was hired in 2000, so have over 7 years of airline experience (furloughed for 11) and many, many more as a Gold Seal CFI. We have never been trained to simply turn the autopilot on as a crutch. True, some turn it on as low as 100' after takeoff, but many, if not most, hand fly through clean up, 10k', transition, or even higher. It is less common to fly the opposite coming in, but often from 1,000' to landing is hand flown. We are being encouraged even more over the past 10 years to practice our hand flying skills and even required to fly a full approach and landing from downwind in the sim, and manual SIDs, as well as single endings ILSs, which have been required for longer. The US accident rate reflects the skill and training that we do constantly. The accident rate reflects our unwavering dedication to safety, communication, and experience, not automation nor the reliance thereof.

Thomas A. Hill

In your write up of the MAX 8 grounding you talk about politicizing the decision to ground the plane as if any of those decisions are wrong. The airline industry is a very politically controlled business all over the world and governments have rightly intervened when aviation authorities have dropped the ball.

Are you suggesting that the ability of the MAX 8 to make money is more important then the up to 220 passengers' and crew's right to life basically? Are you suggesting this was pilot error or lack of pilot training? That is an awful risk no matter what the safety record says.

I can say that the worker's right to not go into a potentially dangerous situation was something unions were very proud of achieving in the forest industry in Canada. Evidently Air Canada was not going to give those that wanted to not fly in a MAX 8 a free change until the government grounded the plane.

Nobody can say for sure what happened on either the Lion Air plane or the Ethiopian plane. So, the plane was grounded until the appropriate bodies find out. It's a shame that Boeing or more aviation authorities didn't make that happen first.

They now know the elevator trim jackscrews were in the full down position in both planes. I wonder where the elevator jackscrew was in either. I also wonder where the controls for the four jackscrews where at the time of the crash. Did they concur with the jackscrew positions indicating possible jamming or not? Until that is known the planes should stay grounded.

I think Boeing's attitude has been downright dangerous. They have said the planes are safe without knowing the cause of the crashes but are updating the software on the planes, hopefully to stop them crashing. If they are safe then why do they need this update at all?

I thought stick shakers and the like were to warn a pilot when he gets a plane outside of its normal flight envelope. I understand that MCAS is to correct a situation because the plane has an out of normal flight envelope balance point, i.e. the balance point that is at a specific point of the aerodynamic chord of the wing, built in during manufacture because the engines, being bigger, had to lifted and moved forward on the airframe. What should have been done is to move the wing to put the static balance point back where it belongs if the engines could not be moved vertically.

One of the worst parts about automation is the user's reliance on it, a system that can fail. New operators, and I am talking paper mill production operators, that learn their job once automation is in place have no idea how to run the operation if the automation doesn't work and even worse, cannot diagnose a problem when it occurs because they don't know how the automation works.

In this case the pilots need to know exactly how MCAS works to be able to tell what's happening when it doesn't. If they just shut it off, which has been suggested, they are now flying an aerodynamically unbalanced aircraft, something that is pounded into pilots should never happen. I can understand that with military aircraft, the pilots know what the situation is and have an ejection seat if they run into trouble. Doing that in a civilian aircraft, I don't understand how the FAA can let that pass.

I hope this shakes up the FAA and Boeing and something good comes out of it. Over 350 people have died as a result of it. Boeing certainly needs to work on fail-safes if it turns out to be a problem with faults on fault tolerant instrumentation. I was an Instrument Technician in my working life and fault tolerance is a boon but a very large problem at the same time. If you have two reading the same that's great but if not which one is right? You now need software that can determine, based on other inputs which is correct or make a decision on what to do when you don't know which is correct. That is critical.

I fly Boeing 777s and others 2 or 3 times a year between Canada and the UK. I understand a new 777x is out and Air Canada will likely use them as they are supposed to be more efficient than the older ones. I wouldn't be comfortable flying is a plane with an automation-based correction of a basic flying balance problem. I think that is a step too far for a passenger aircraft.

Peter Bowen