737 Max Flight Recorder: 'Pitch Up! Pitch Up!'

[crazytown]

Ethiopian Airlines crash: 'Pitch up, pitch up!'

Details have begun to emerge of the final moments of an Ethiopian Airlines flight which crashed three weeks ago.

An anti-stalling system on the plane, a Boeing 737 Max, has been blamed for the disaster which killed all 157 people on board.

Soon after take-off - and just 450ft (137m) above the ground - the aircraft's nose began to pitch down.

One pilot, according to the Wall Street Journal , said to the other "pitch up, pitch up!" before their radio died.

The plane crashed only six minutes into its flight.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47759966

[Sherman A1]

1. These aircraft (and I use that term loosely)

need to be sent to the scrap yard and recycled.

[PJMcK]

2. It's not the hardware

It's the software. Boeing may have made a huge mistake releasing faulty software for these computer-operated airplanes.

It's certainly not the fault of the flight crew.

This video is a bit wonkish but it details what is happening from a pilot's perspective:

[Sherman A1]

4. My understanding is that the design of the airframe

was changed to add more fuel efficient engines, thereby changing the center of gravity causing it to tend to pitch up and then stall. That change brought about the need for the software fix to hold the nose down.

I may be wrong in my understanding, however if I am correct it is the design of the airframe, changes to the CG and the software is only a patch for a bad design.

[PJMcK]

5. I think you're correct

Mentour Pilot has an earlier video in which he describes the issue you mentioned. The larger and more powerful engines are mounted further forward on the wings than the earlier, smaller engines resulting in a tendency for the thrust to pitch up the plane's nose.

Still, the software will have been the problem and, as you wrote, a patch is not the correct solution. Further, Boeing may be in for a rough legal ride.

[Sherman A1]

6. It comes down to the initial design of the "aircraft"

which is inherently unstable (that can be good in a small fighter jet or alike not so good in an airliner). A design that requires the software to correct this type of defect and/or any software patches to it are putting a bandaid on a poor design. The 737 is a very old design and simply needs to be retired for better ideas.

(personally I would love to see the Lockheed Constellation return, but that is simply nostalgia for a beautiful looking aircraft)

As for Boeing.... Well, May their lives be filled with lawyers.

[Sgent]

8. That's half the problem

the rest of the problem is that unlike all Airbus aircraft and the newer Boeing aircraft (777, 787), the 737 is NOT fly by wire. The software Boeing added to the 737 is a FBW system, and has to be kludged onto an otherwise manually controlled plane.

In addition, to allow existing 737NG pilots to fly the MAX without simulator training, they hid this system from pilots, and marked it only as hazardous rather than catastrophic if it failed. This meant that that they didn't have to put redundant systems, etc. into the plane -- the MCAS system only uses one mechanical sensor relying on the pilots to disable it as if it were a runaway trim. The problem is it doesn't look or act like a runaway trim.

[Sherman A1]

9. Which takes one straight back to

the design of the aircraft. The Max was and is a disaster waiting to happen.

They should all be scrapped in my opinion.

[malaise]

10. You are correct

We will never fly on that aircraft again - they can patch to their heart's content.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

3. Aircraft are actually pretty simple to fly.

You pull back on the controls, the airplane goes up. You pull further back on the controls, the airplane goes down.

It's been that way since the Wright brothers. The principles of lift-gravity-thrust-drag still apply, even to the space shuttle.

Flying may be simple, but it's not easy. The speeds and altitudes have increased, and "fly-by-wire" has replaced cables and push rods in the larger aircraft. High-speed Navy fighters land on postage-stamp sized decks, and for several decades the SR-71 -- an aircraft designed using slide rules and built of titanium acquired from the Soviet Union -- held all of the altitude and speed records, one of which was set on its retirement flight from L.A. to Washington, D.C.

IMO, part of the problem arises when you have people who don't fly the airplanes they design add all kinds of features that they think will make the aircraft safer. This video is from 2006:

"Siri, look out for the trees! Siri!" (sounds of tree-surfing)

Actually, the details of this particular flight make for interesting reading. It was a charter flight making a low pass at an airshow, and when the pilots added power to make the climb at the end of the pass the computer's anti-stall program kicked in and wouldn't let them pull the nose up. (Sound familiar?) Of the 136 people on board there were only three fatalities: a handicapped boy who couldn't move, a little girl who couldn't get her seat belt unlocked, and a woman who had reached the exit door but then turned around to go back and help the girl.

Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect. — Captain A. G. Lamplugh

[Sherman A1]

7. Take off and level flights are generally fairly okay to do

landing is much more "entertaining" having experienced more than a few years ago in a Cessna 150 while taking flying lessons before I ran out of money.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

11. Landing was my biggest challenge, too. My first instructor couldn't teach me how to do it.

Fortunately I moved to another airport and during my first flight with a new instructor he saw what I was doing wrong immediately. I made the correction and after three more uneventful touch-and-goes he got out of the airplane and soloed me.

Like you, my flight experience has also been in light aircraft -- single engine Cessnas and Pipers. I earned my commercial license, instrument rating and was a flight instructor. I also flew as an Air Force and Reserves navigator in large four-engine jet aircraft (C-141 and KC-135), and got to see a lot of good (and not-so-good) pilots land.

During one local flight in a KC-135 (essentially a Boeing 707) after the pilots had finished doing their transition (touch-and-goes) training, the instructor asked me if I wanted to get into the left seat and take a crack at landing the plane. I was ready. Using the power settings and checklist items I was provided, I flew the rectangular pattern. I figured the first mistake the instructor expected me to make was overshooting final, but I rolled out right on center line. Once I was established on the visual final approach, the instructor was ready to take over once the plane started wandering through the sky because of PIOs (pilot induced oscillations). I knew how to avoid them however, which was his second surprise.

Then it got interesting. Landing is the most challenging part of any flight. SAC is happy if you get the KC-135 down anywhere on the runway, but for the C-141 MAC had more precise standards, and that's what I flew. Using all if the techniques I had learned from the best pilots I had observed, I greased the landing right on center line and 500 feet down the runway. "Let's try another one," said the slightly incredulous instructor. So I repeated the performance, and as we rolled out I quietly asked, "This is fun, isn't it?" The instructor was nonplussed. My landings had not only been the best of the day, but also better than most of those I had seen over the past several years. Needless to say, I was very pleased with myself.

Even though he never mentioned my performance to me or any of the pilots, I think his opinion of navigators went up a couple of notches that day.

[Sherman A1]

12. Unfortunately I never got to solo

just ran out of money for it. Wish I could have, but wasn't in the cards for me. I really did enjoy the 150 and maybe if I get the powerball someday I will go back to it, but life moves on.

Still remember doing turns about a point over a tree in a flooded farm field in St. Charles, MO back in the 1970s and compressing the nose wheel strut when I came in too hard.