Boeing 737 Max8 Aircraft Crashes and Investigations [Part 2] 44

[Alistair_Heaton]

This thread is a continuation of:

thread815-445840


****************************
Another 737 max has crashed during departure in Ethiopia.

To note the data in the picture is intally ground 0 then when airborne is GPS altitude above MSL. The airport is extremely high.

The debris is extremely compact and the fuel burned, they reckon it was 400knts plus when it hit the ground.

Here is the radar24 data pulled from there local site.

It's already being discussed if was another AoA issue with the MCAS system for stall protection.

I will let you make your own conclusions.

 

[thebard3]

HotRod10-
These planes are north of $100 million each.

Brad Waybright

It's all okay as long as it's okay.

 

[itsmoked]

$120 Million each

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[RVAmeche]

No, I totally get that while the cost of training is small, it is a cost and the accountants and sales people would prefer to say "this plane is so great, there's even minimal additional training".

The issue of course is that the FAA appears to have been negligent or incompetent and essentially let Boeing do whatever they wanted. They appear to have "hid" a new control system and didn't provide training on how to fight it should anything happen. Possible more concerning is they didn't appear to have even identified the risk/possibility that MCAS could nose dive the plane. How?

 

[LionelHutz]

Hindsight is still 20-20...

To me, it appears the analysis was done based on the MCAS having a smaller movement and only operating once per stall approaching event. The breakdown was likely between that analysis and what was really done in production. Somehow, the changes made didn't get the proper re-analysis.

 

[BridgeSmith]

If Boeing was going to try to skirt the certification requirements, they should have thoroughly tested (or at least simulated) the failure of every one the components of the MCAS system. Now they have $42 Billion in merchandise grounded, and damage to everyone's trust in their planes that will likely prove more costly than that.

 

[WKTaylor]

Add a few points to this discussion...

Relaxed stability aircraft of all types, not just high performance fighters, are coming... are here.

Fly-by-wire-and-computers aircraft are here [many AirBus]

'Single pilot' and 'pilotless aircraft'... with remote back-up crews... not just high performance fighters and military drones, are coming soon. This makes my flight attendant friends VERY anxious.

The reason for the 'MAX' reconfiguration was multifold... primarily performance/payload, grossly improved fuel efficiency and to maintain [extension of] existing type certificate due to 'similarity'. I am sure confidence and enthusiasm were in high gear...

Boeing being Boeing, I am dead certain will work with hard/grim resolve to ensure the 737 MAX’s are as safe, or safer, relative to any similar aircraft on the market into the future. After-all they [Boeing people] and their families and their friends... and many unknown strangers for years to come... will fly on this aircraft... and that is a VERY PERSONAL responsibility

My best guess is that, even though Boeing [the company] will take full responsibility for these errors and their catastrophic results... the design and test folks actually responsible for various aspects of the MAX flight certifications will likely carry intimate/personal/heavy burden of shared responsibility for these fatalities... and will second-guess everything they do... from now to the day they die. SOME may actually quit engineering for good or move/escape to other jobs. I also believe that over the next few years some may even take their own lives... by suicide or by overwhelming guilt thru stress or pills or booze. PTSD from these events has a long-reach into the psyche.

NOTE.
EVERY military acft I have worked on that experienced any serious mishap... was very shocking and personal and caused sleepless nights... even when I realized my work likely had had no [zero] contribution to the mishap. HOWEVER... I have had engineering acquaintances that did in-fact contribute directly to loss of aircraft and life... civil and military... and that fact was a very heavy burden on their soul's... which a few will discuss... others will clam-up.

NOTE. Many years ago...
Certain models of the Beechcraft V-tail Bonanza experienced a high rate of inflight break-up due to loss of one-or-both stabilizer(s) due to overload. When wind tunnel testing was [very reluctantly] done on all models to ‘prove-them-safe’ it was finally understood that the opposite was actually true... certain evolutionary versions of the aircraft... slightly stretched, higher weight, higher-power, faster, etc... which had evolved from reliable/safe/tested configurations... actually had overly-simplified/faulty assumptions made for the stabs and their control surfaces/tabs loads/loading. This faulty simplified design logic regarding effects of 'small' configuration mods, failed to account for effects of increased stab/control-surface loads [and other aero factors] during higher-speed maneuvering and rough air. Many of these ‘in-between-model’ aircraft have had-to-have significant [tailored] 'mandatory inspections and beef-up mods' just to continue flying safely. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that many V-Tails are no-longer flying today...

NOTE. The back-story as I heard it... when the wind tunnel results were validated and the truth was laid bare and incontrovertible on the engineers involved... everyone that had participated in the design and certification of these ‘incremented in-between V-Tail Bonanza models’ were horrified that these aircraft were in-deed death-traps. There were LOTS of tears shed spontaneously for months/years afterwards... and many [now retired] engineers and managers carry a heavy burden of guilt and sadness.. probably to the ends of their lives.


Regards, Wil Taylor

o Trust - But Verify!
o We believe to be true what we prefer to be true. [Unknown]
o For those who believe, no proof is required; for those who cannot believe, no proof is possible. [variation,Stuart Chase]
o Unfortunately, in science what You 'believe' is irrelevant. ["Orion", Homebuiltairplanes.com forum]

 

[RVAmeche]

Hopefully nothing Boeing/management did was intentionally shady or disingenuous and it was just a matter of the potential failures/impacts not being fully understood. That's certainly a major issue given their apparent design/self-certification freedom, but it would be an honest mistake. I really hope there's not a poor engineer somewhere who feels responsible because he tried to raise the flag and management or whoever didn't listen (like NASA with the space shuttle).

 

[saikee119]

I really hope there's not a poor engineer somewhere who feels responsible because he tried to raise the flag and management or whoever didn't listen (like NASA with the space shuttle).

In an earlier thread it has been pointed out Seattle Times has already reported FAA own engineer had highlighted the danger of relying on a single sensor in the risk analysis. The management did not want to rock the boat of minimizing pilot train time and gave the certification to Boeing. I hope the FBI and the Justice Department do their job to catch whoever responsible. The certification and party to original MCAS arrangement is deadly as the two crashes were so sudden and quick upon the take off. The 189 on board of the first doomed 737 Max never had a chance because MCAS was not communicated to the pilots.

 

[waross]

Thank you for sharing your experiences and feelings in regards to personals experiences as a result of failed aircraft.
I am sure that a lot of people in both Boeing and the FAA felt those feelings, even if not everyone did so.
Then the second plane crashed.


Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

 

[RolMec]

It's a question of culture, of the companys real work environment. That's an "iceberg dilemma".

5 min googling

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ntagon-over-quality-concerns-going-back-years

https://www.seattletimes.com/busine...x-test-planes-over-quality-issue-with-engine/

http://www.live5news.com/2019/03/22...suit-alleging-problems-n-charleston-facility/

one "technical" fix is not enough, will not be enough.

Roland Heilmann

 

[thebard3]

Now ABC News is reporting that Singapore has grounded it's '787 MAX' planes, like the ones discussed here. Gotta love that superb reporting.

https://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/wi...52?cid=clicksource_4380645_null_headlines_hed

Brad Waybright

It's all okay as long as it's okay.

 

[IRstuff]

I'm not seeing the connection. The 787 is a different plane and the reported blade problem is attributed to its Rolls Royce engines.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

 

[TenPenny]

"Like many other places, Singapore has grounded Boeing 787 Max aircraft following two fatal crashes of Max 8 planes, in Indonesia in October and in Ethiopia last month."

That's funny. I suppose you could argue that an 8 looks kinda like a 3, if you squint a bit and drink a lot.

 

[pre_engineer]

Bad engineering + bad management + lobbying/bribing politicians to get contracts = profit... Any good bean counter knows that profit comes first.

 

[LionelHutz]

Big deal, the writer just mistakenly typed 8 instead of 3.

 

[charliealphabravo]

From that ABC story...

This story has been corrected to show that the Boeing aircraft grounded by Singapore and other countries is the 737 Max, not the 787 Max.

 

[davidbeach]

Singapore has also grounded their 787-10s for reasons unrelated to the 737 Max issues.

 

[Sparweb]

An interesting development, on the technical side. Ominously published on 1 April. Take that for what it's worth.

Transport Canada Master MEL, Boeing 737 Max, Revision 6

This is a revision to the Minimum Equipment List. This, literally, is the list of equipment that has to be functioning for the aircraft to fly safely. Every aircraft has a list like this, unless it's a relic from the 1940's.
This MEL is applicable only to the 737 Max 8, not any other 737 model (they have separate MEL's).
It also lists when you can fly with something not working, with the conditions to keep the flight safe.
For instance, if you can't pressurize, you can fly, but only below 10,000 feet altitude. And if the cargo bays don't have working fire extinguishers, then you can't carry cargo. It's meant to help deal with abnormal equipment problems that don't endanger the aircraft while you fly it to a repair base, etc.

You will probably not be surprised that the only change in this document (highlighted and underlined on page 18) is the SPEED TRIM functions, which must all be operative at all times.

The previous MEL statement, which you can still see on the FAA's MEL goes like this:

Speed Trim Function (2 systems installed, 1 required for dispatch)
One speed trim function may be inoperative provided:
a) Associated speed trim function is deactivated,
b) Remaining speed trim function is verified to operate normally, and
c) SPEED TRIM FAIL light operates normally.

SPEED TRIM FAIL Light (1 light installed, 0 required for dispatch)
The speed trim fail light may be inoperative, provided speed trim system is verified to operate normally.

So operators had quite a bit of latitude to deal with glitches in the trim system, here referred to as "speed trim".

I should also point out that Transport Canada publishes only the changes, while the FAA publishes the entire MEL, which consists of 160 pages. For their part the FAA has not yet updated their MEL. This allows us to compare the original MEL from the FAA with the direction that Transport Canada is going. Maybe in a few days the FAA will do the same.


No one believes the theory except the one who developed it. Everyone believes the experiment except the one who ran it.
STF

 

[waross]

Thanks for sharing that, SparWeb.
Very timely, only two days after its release by Transport Canada.
Does speed trim include MCAS?

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

 

[Pete_K]

The Justice Department has subpoenaed Peter Lemme

Also, WSJ is saying that apparently the pilots had cut off the electric trim system but couldn't recover.

As I understand it, the hypothesis is that with the stab trimmed for nose down, and the elevator deflected upward to counter the trim, the stab jackscrew could have a high enough load on it to make it difficult to manipulate the manual trim function.

Scary.