Pilots have reported issues in US with new Boeing jet

[brooklynite]

Source: AP News

Airline pilots on at least two flights have reported that an automated system seemed to cause their Boeing planes to tilt down suddenly, the same problem suspected of contributing to a deadly crash in Indonesia.

The pilots said that soon after engaging the autopilot on Boeing 737 Max 8 planes, the nose tilted down sharply. In both cases, they recovered quickly after disconnecting the autopilot.

The Max 8 is the same plane at the center of a growing global ban by more than 40 countries following a second fatal crash, this time in Ethiopia, in less than five months. In the U.S., however, the Federal Aviation Administration and airlines continued to permit the planes to fly.

American Airlines and Southwest Airlines operate the 737 Max 8, and United Airlines flies a slightly larger version, the Max 9. All three carriers vouched for the safety of Max aircraft on Wednesda

Read more: https://apnews.com/0cd5389261f34b01a7cbdb1a12421e27

[leftieNanner]

1. Sorry, not gonna get me on one of those

until they figure this out!

My husband did some consulting work at the South Carolina Boeing factory where these things are built. He's in the Safety and Health business, and when I asked him about the facility, he shook his head. They put the factory there so they could get rid of the well paid union workers and hire unskilled, low paid workers.

Problems with that plane? Gee. What a surprise.

[Kablooie]

4. Sounds more like a software problem though.

[DrToast]

6. Agree. Doesn't sound like a manufacturing problems.

[EX500rider]

19. I don't know, they have been having some quality control issues with the new air force refueler:

Not saying the current crash is due to that but they have been having some issues:

March 12, 2019: Two months after finally beginning to receive its new KC-46A tanker aircraft the U.S. Air Force suspended deliveries because of FOD (Foreign Object Debris), including tools and other metal objects, being found in various parts of the aircraft. This indicated a serious lapse in the management of assembly and quality control while producing these aircraft. By March 11th , after nearly a month of effort (to check out aircraft nearly ready for delivery and upgrade procedures), the air force agreed to begin accepting KC-46s once more.

FOD found in newly built aircraft after delivery, or by customer inspectors during final checks at the assembly plant, indicates more serious problems with the work done at the assembly plant and how it is supervised. The KC-46 assembly plant had noted eight incidents of FOD being discovered during assembly, plus at least two that were not found and were instead discovered by air force personnel after delivery of the first six KC-26s. The led to the six KC-46s being grounded for a week while all of them were thoroughly checked for FOD. At the same time, the air force told Boeing, the manufacturer, that further KC-46 deliveries were suspended until a joint Air-Force-Boeing team could investigate work done and work practices at the Boeing plant producing the KC-46s. The air force has already had problems with quality control and key systems on the KC-46 that did not work as specified and had to be fixed. The first KC-46s are being used to train flight crews and maintainers so this delay is added to the two years of other delays the KC-46A has already experienced.

https://strategypage.com/htmw/htmurph/articles/20190312.aspx

[DeminPennswoods]

26. Remember Boeing bought McDonnell-Douglas years ago

Boeing wasn't really in the military aircraft business unitl then. I'd bet these KC-46s are built by the McDonnell-Douglas part of Boeing.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

14. Also makes me wonder if these things can be hacked.

Experts tried to tell us years ago that all sorts of things couldn't be hacked, but we now know better.......

But, as you said it could be a software problem in the plane’s air data reference unit or other computer and/or the two sensors they suspect may be involved.

I don't think they have bottom-lined the cause of that last incident in October with a Lion Air flight that crashed into the sea.

[Jedi Guy]

18. I saw an article earlier today on CNN that referred to the cause of the Lion Air crash.

Apparently it's an automatic system designed to counteract an aerodynamic stall if the angle of attack is wrong. Basically, if the nose of the aircraft goes up, the system automatically makes it go back down to avoid the stall. The problem is that Boeing didn't make it clear (even in the manual for the plane) that the system even exists, so pilots had no idea what was going on.

Sounds to me like they meant well with that system, but didn't think it through well enough to warn operators about it. So I'm guessing that if the nose pitches up, the pilots respond by countering it just as the system does the same, resulting in a nosedive. That's my best guess as a layman, mind you.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

20. Jedi, whether layman or expert, one would think....

the FAA and industry standards would dictate extremely vigorous flight testing of any new computational methods, software or hardware used to automatically control commercial aircraft.

As I understand it (as an amateur), airline pilots cannot simply switch off the automated control systems and fly these huge aircraft seat-of-the-pants under all conditions and particularly at night, in bad weather or at high altitudes where pilots can't see the ground and do not have backup instrumentation.

This brings back memories of Air France Flight 447 in 2009 where loss of air speed indication resulted in pilots flying the plane to a stall and ultimately crashing into the ocean.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447

Perhaps some DUers with expert knowledge on the topic will chime in.

..........

[DeminPennswoods]

25. Reportedly the planes are tested for 12 months before

being certified by Boeing and released for sale. One would think testing would reveal the s/w flaw, but maybe the test pilots don't use autopilot on take-offs.

[Ghost Dog]

27. There seems to be some relevant detail at this site

... The 737 would also get new engines for a more efficient flight and longer range. The new engines on the 737 MAX are bigger and needed to be placed a bit different than on the older version. That again changed the flight characteristics of the plane by giving it a nose up attitude.

The new flight characteristic of the 737 MAX would have require a retraining of the pilots. But Boeing's marketing people had told their customers all along that the 737 MAX would not require extensive new training. Instead of expensive simulator training for the new type experienced 737 pilots would only have to read some documentation about the changes between the old and the new versions.

To make that viable Boeing's engineers had to use a little trick. They added a 'maneuver characteristics augmentation system' (MCAS) that pitches the nose of the plane down if a sensor detects a too high angle of attack (AoA) that might lead to a stall. That made the flight characteristic of the new 737 version similar to the old one.

But the engineers screwed up.

The 737 MAX has two flight control computers. Each is connected to only one of the two angle of attack sensors. During a flight only one of two computer runs the MCAS control. If it detects a too high angle of attack it trims the horizontal stabilizer down for some 10 seconds. It then waits for 5 seconds and reads the sensor again. If the sensor continues to show a too high angle of attack it again trims the stabilizer to pitch the plane's nose done.

MCSA is independent of the autopilot. It is even active in manual flight. There is a procedure to deactivate it but it takes some time...

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/03/boeing-the-faa-and-why-two-737-max-planes-crashed.html

[DeminPennswoods]

24. The fact the plane responded normally once the autopilot

was disengaged is pretty good evidence it's a software problem. Why when Boeing learned of the problems with autopilot on take-off, they didn't issue a bulletin advising pilots not to engage it on take-off is beyond me.

[allgood33]

22. And Trump says we no longer need pilots???? nt

[DrToast]

2. Ground the planes already! We will know so much more in a week!

And yes, I realize I've completely changed my mind over the course of the day.

[groundloop]

3. I sure wish news organizations would find someone vaguely familiar with aviation .....

to report on aviation topics.

Planes don't 'tilt', they either 'pitch', 'roll' , or 'yaw'.

[DrToast]

8. The use of "tilt" is deliberate so the layman can understand it

The article does use "pitch" later in the article and in quotes from the pilots.

[nitpicker]

5. Arthur C. Clarke

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

But what if the pilots can't comprehend the magic?

Cue up Fantasia's "sorcerer's apprentice" segment….

[SkyDaddy7]

11. Yes...So true, huh?

I've read that they try to drive it in pilots heads in training to not get into a careless reliance on auto-pilot & abandon it in certain scenarios...I'm not a pilot & know nothing about piloting aircraft other than remembering reading about & watching shows about several crashes that have taken place due to either errors in pilots interaction with auto-pilot during what should be routine course of events or auto-pilot errors & in both cases had the pilots simply shut off auto pilot they could've easy regained control.

...SAD that something designed to save lives & obviously has but there is no way to measure how many can on occasion take so many lives.

[TryLogic]

7. Same approach in US as with food additives. Profit first.

[SkyDaddy7]

10. YES!

Im thinking the same exact thing! HOWEVER, if these were Airbus planes I bet we would've grounded them at least until the data recorders were recovered & we knew more! Just sayin.

[procon]

9. Wait... they knew there was a problem and no one grounded those planes?

They let the continue to fly and now hundreds of people have died. Was is a profit motivated decision that favors Big Biz over the safety of passengers? This is Trump's NTSB doing the investigations, is he putting his usual imprimatur on their priorities?

[dlk]

12. Profits Before People - It's a Time-Honored American Tradition

[paleotn]

13. compared to the total planes operated by US airlines....

the number of Max 8's and 9's is small. Tiny. Even Southwest only flies 35 out of 700+ aircraft in their fleet. Grounding them all until this situation is resolved won't disrupt US air travel to any extent. This is nothing but a money saving exercise for certain airlines and a PR job for Boeing. Passengers and crew lives are expendable. The spice must flow.

[modrepub]

23. Penny Wise and Pound Foolish

Boeing already is paying as its stock collapses. If this turns out to have been an easily fixable software solution and they ignored it then they are headed for possibly large civil penalties and potential criminal charges (outside the US). Right now it looks like they are trying real hard to treat this as business as usual (no grounding please FAA). In the long run this may have been a foolish pursuit instead of voluntarily asking people to ground their airplanes until they figured out what went wrong and take corrective actions.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

15. I don't think the autopilot is normally engaged at take-off, is it?

[jimmil]

16. A lot of airline pilots

are going to be pissed that they have to hand fly their entire flight. They might even have to clean all the news papers out of the cockpit.

[Mr. Sparkle]

17. All im seeing in the media all day is that the faa see nothing in the data.

So I had a look at the FAA and the current Acting Administrator was appointed by Trump who was previously Senior Advisor on Aviation to Secretary Elaine Chao. He also served served as a legislative fellow for the late Senator Ted Stevens.

I can only imagine when he leaves the faa he will walk right into Boeing, and receive a nice bonus.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

21. Some additional reading here from industry sources...

These are four industry-connected articles I found on this complex situation:

1. This is a thorough overview article from Aviation Week:

Airlines, Regulators Ground Boeing 737-8 Fleets Following Fatal Accident
Mar 12, 2019 Sean Broderick and Adrian Schofield | Aviation Daily

Link: https://aviationweek.com/commercial-aviation/airlines-regulators-ground-boeing-737-8-fleets-following-fatal-accident

(snip)

In the days after the Lion Air accident, Boeing issued messages to operators expanding on MCAS, and reiterating that the procedure for overriding automatic, repeated, nosedown inputs, remained unchanged from previous 737 models. FAA issued an emergency airworthiness directive requiring MAX operators to update their flight manuals with Boeing's MCAS information. Boeing's messages and the mandate did not require any new training or changes to the system.

2. Plus, this announcement from Boeing:

Boeing Anticipates New 737 MAX Software Deployment 'In Coming Weeks'
Mar 12, 2019 Jens Flottau | Aviation Daily

Link: https://aviationweek.com/commercial-aviation/boeing-anticipates-new-737-max-software-deployment-coming-weeks

(snip - registration needed to read entire article)

Boeing says it will deploy a 737 MAX software “enhancement” across the fleet in the coming weeks incorporating feedback “received from our customers.” According to the company, the FAA will also mandate the change in an Airworthiness Directive (AD) “no later than April.” The statement comes in the aftermath of two 737 MAX 8 crashes in less than five months involving Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines.

3. This reflects on all the media spin:

Boeing MAX: the struggle between facts and public opinion – update
March 11, 2019
Link: https://airinsight.com/boeing-max-the-struggle-between-facts-versus-public-opinion/

4. And this on the FAA and U.S. aviation industry reaction:

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reiterates it has seen "no basis" to order a grounding of the Boeing 737 Max, as the USA remains the prominent outlier among a handful of countries that have not suspended operations with the aircraft after the fatal Ethiopian Airlines crash on 10 March.

Link: https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/no-basis-to-ground-737-max-faa-456572/

.............

[Maxheader]

28. Flight software...

Always is subject to scrutiny after a crash..

[Don Quijote]

29. This makes me nervous

I travel sometimes. So do my parents.

[Don Quijote]

30. Elaine Chao knew

But Boeing gave $ to Trump.