METO Guido

According to released data, the throttles didn't move from their takeoff setting until buried in a crater 10 meters deep. One of obstacles communicating on an open bulletin board like this is never knowing who to address. Basic aviation 101. Fair enough. All late model Boeing aircraft use thrust management systems with moving autothrottles. Autothrottles are used in each phase of flight and operate with or without an autopilot. Sometimes pilots disengage the autothrottle but almost never while climbing. The autothrottle wasn't working for these guys along with everything else that went wrong. In addition, the captain's airspeed indicator and altimeter were affected. The stick shaker. This is a tactile, control column mounted warning of impending loss of lift. It's designed to replicate the shuttering which occurs during onset of aerodynamic stall. The device is loud and feels similar to a hammer drill. Never intended to remain active more than a few seconds, ET302 got it for the duration. Human factors. Despite what you may believe about multitasking, task saturation is a known risk which airlines train crews to recognize on a recurrent basis. Everyone has their limits. We know this because highly experienced & qualified crews worldwide have found theirs dealing with a lot less.

Mesabah

I'm not saying the 737 Max is safe, I'm simply saying two things are true at once, the plane has massive problems, and the crew did not do a good job handling the situation.

I don't know the motivations of the executives at Boeing, but I can surmise they didn't expect there to be crashes before they fixed the software. However, flying a 737 requires more competence from the pilots, than say an A220.

Firefighter

Okay so after doing a ton of research to better understand this entire fiasco, I’m gonna say this was caused by a bird strike on takeoff? Although the media and many people are in denial about it, apparently they don’t think it’s possible or something, but I can very well see how this could have played a role.

Below is a piece I took from the Flight Data Recorder. At time 05:38:45 Zulu, the accelerometers recorded an impact event (the red and blue lines?) that exact same time the left Angle Of Attack sensor went from 11.1 degrees to 74.5 degrees (an impossible high value?) in less than 1 second. I’m gonna assume you can see what the real AOA was by looking at the right AOA sensor.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the only explanation of the data is that the left AOA vane was sheared off by the bird strike. I read that the AOA sensors have a counter-balance weight. So If the vane was sheared off, the counter weight would drop down causing a high AOA output such as what is seen in the Flight Data? Again correct me if I’m wrong. But I take it when this happened, it triggered the pilot side stick shaker (but not the co-pilot’s stick shaker).

Since MCAS relied solely on only one of the 2 AOA sensors, the AOA sensor failure caused MCAS to activate. Can Boeing be faulted for this? The pilots did realize that they should complete the runaway trim emergency procedure, which disabled MCAS.

The sad part of this tragedy was how close the pilots came to saving the aircraft and they would have simply returned to the airport and we would never have heard that they even had any problems. Based off some of the training I researched on the 737, I think they should have retarded the throttles, to reduce airspeed, seeing the throttles were set to a climb thrust, but they weren’t climbing, rather dealing with control issues. And then use the manual trim to correct the mistrimmed horizontal stabilizer. As of now, I think they could have made a normal return to the airport and all would have been fine. But then again I’m not a pilot so what do I know, I can imagine this is a stressful situation. My question is, if this is correct, and a bird strike did occur, then there is no lemon law that applies here? Again, going off what I read in articles. A lot of sources suggests this applies and Boeing should be forced to buy back the aircrafts, I’m not sure if that’s an actual thing for this industry but I’m curious.

galleycafe

Squirrel!

Plane Coffee

Mesabah

The crashes don't matter, Boeing got shipped a faulty piece of software from an outsourced vendor. Instead of grounding the aircraft, they decided to fix the issue covertly. This is a felony. The aircraft are grounded because of the software regulatory issue, not the crashes.

Firefighter

I mean, I think a bird strike is totally plausible, if it was faulty wouldn’t it have acted out before and not just instantly? But what matters most, is that if the aircrafts were flyable. Then this was preventable. And poor training led to the event of crashing. Considering Boeing did lay out procedures and highlighted caution against doing what they did. I don’t think we can totally ignore the bigger picture here. Technology will always have failing points in my opinion, meaning a likewise situation will occur again someday, and if crews cannot handle the situations correctly then it needs to be addressed.

Xjrstreetcar

Sounds like the accusation is that the software was supposed to consider both vanes. The delivered software did not and the planes were still delivered planning to update at a later date. If true, that's a huge legal problem, but does offer an explanation to a single source system that most engineers couldn't fathom even being proposed, much less implemented.

F4E Mx

The FAA signed off on the stabilizer being moved by the MCAS system one small increment. The airplanes were delivered with the capability to go to full nose down trim incrementally. So none of the MAX8 airplanes delivered met FAA specifications and the entire fleet was unairworthy as delivered. That is not a real good point from which to start blaming the pilots.

WutFace

Here's another log for the fire: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/27/b...7-max-faa.html

METO Guido

In exchange for all their largesse and authority, top corporate decision makers are assumed to accept the boundaries of their expertise. Which means in part, they can defer to and protect resolutions of those beneath who opt NO, when deemed necessary. After the 1st crash, Boeing Aircraft, under its chairman, pushed hard to keep Max flying, broken. This same leadership stepped forward Monday to say about 500 test flights have now been logged. A software fix will be submitted next month and previously announced projections for return to service by early 4th quarter are still good. He, personally, flew twice. Other employees are eager to join in. They are working hard to re-earn your trust. Also presumably, to re-earn their previous earnings.

According to one account, some of those in attendance at a global business travel conference made point of leaving the room. Meet the new, transparent boss. Same as the old boss.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/05/boei...ore-trust.html