Ethiopian 737 MAX 8 crash
 

An Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 heading to the Kenyan capital Nairobi has crashed near Addis Ababa, the airline said on Sunday morning.

The plane, a Boeing 737-800MAX with flight number ET 302, lost contact soon after taking off at 08:38 am local time from Bole International Airport in the Ethiopian capital, the airline said in a statement.

Ethiopian 737 Max Crash
 

Not again... 157 lost.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-47513508

Every single one of those people was once a baby, learning to take their first steps, under the watchful eyes of a proud parent.

A lot of peoples’ stories got snuffed out unexpectedly this morning. Tragic.

RIP

Another 737-8MAX. Hope it isn’t the same issue as before.
Boeing is gonna have a serious problem to wrangle.
Article states unstable and excessive vertical speeds.

Sad day indeed.

FlightRadar says: "vertical speed was unstable after take off."

Well, designing a system which relies on only one input, and then hiding its functionality was kind of a big problem.

Boeing has been messed up ever since it relocated the HQ

Not that this is the reason but it’s being reported that the FO had 200 hours. IMO no one with 200 hours should be in a control seat of a transport jet.

Not defending Boeing’s lack of comm on whatever changed on the max in relation to previous models. But there is a proven, Boeing recommended solution to a runaway trim or stab issue that really hasn’t changed for any of the Boeing models currently flying. Turn off the stab cutout switches. If pilots fail to accomplish that step in their corrective process, then isn’t whether Boeing did a poor job communicating about a system change kind of a red herring?

You don't think these guys new about the system at this point? To further your analogy Airbus didn't need to fix their pitot system; they just needed to better educate the pilots on handling the situation.

How do you get into the right seat of a airliner with 200 hrs?
As a pax I would want to know if my F/O had a 200 hrs TT.

There was a time in the 60's when airlines were hiring off the street with 0 flight time. I've known a few guys (now retired) that were hired, trained by the airline right into aircraft. One guy started flying dc-9s for NorthEast.

While your at it... how about time on type, Night, IFR, number of landings, emergencies. Better yet, maybe a PRIA if a U.S. carrier.....

Anyway back to reality.... it’s a normal progression for pilots with many airlines overseas.

135 operators hire pilots with minimal time too... essentially CFI time.

Could be totally unrelated to Lion Air, but the elevator not being able to overpower the stab has always been a problem for Boeing on the 737. Having to trim, per manual, to recover from a stall as the elevator doesn't have enough authority is crazy.

Then on the MAX, first, the MCAS drives nose down stabilizer trim automatically based on the AOA, second, the stabilizer trim commands are NOT interrupted even when the control column is displaced in the opposite direction. A faulty AOA sensor then is all it takes. That leaves fiddling with switches to fix the problem.

Out of curiosity, do you know if MCAS would drive the nose down even if there's a positive rate of climb?

It’s based on AOA and nothing else, as long as the flaps are up.

Boeing tried to fix a problem that wasn’t there, and now they have blood on their hands. The FAA should ground all MAXs until MCAS is either fixed or disabled if there is no way to eliminate errant AOA input.

Not a Boeing guy. Serious question...what does MCAS stand for. I can gather what it does from the conversation thread.

Maneuvering Characteristic Augmentation System. Because of the shape of the Max motors and the fact they extend further forward ahead of the CG than other 737s, at high angles of attack the engine nacelle itself starts to produce lift which causes an additional pitch up moment. So they had to design a system to drive the nose down...


MCAS is supposed to be disabled with the flaps extended...will be curious to know the configuration of ET302 when they started to encounter issues.

Ethiopia is not Europe, I know..
However in Europa-Land it’s very common to go right seat transport category Jet right out of flightschool with a CPL-ME/IR and a “frozen ATPL” aka 14 written exams passed.
Wasn’t but a couple of years ago that the regionals hired with 250hrs and 25ME.

Don’t know where Air Ethiopia does their training but I’d expect they send their cadets to an Airline academy.

From Pprune:

777 crew behind ET302 at holding point report observing normal takeoff followed shortly by declaration of emergency. They heard ET302 on tower frequency transmitting “Wrong airspeed indications and difficulty controlling aircraft.”

Where do you guys get this stuff? When you want to push the nose down you don’t use trim, you use the yoke. MCAS trims off the increased pressures, the pilot still has to push the nose over. In the Lion Air case the AOA malfunction cause the trim to continue to run increasing nose down pressure. That was a malfunction, not the design of the system.

It was the FAA that said pilots should not be told about the system, not Boeing. Boeing didn’t want MCAS, the FAA did. The FAA said not to tell pilots because they would think it is an anti stall system that pushes the nose over and pilots would not properly recover from a stall. They were right, as evidenced in all the articles talking about the “stick pusher” and the new anti stall system, neither of which exist. Where they were wrong was not being able to see into the future where a damaged/malfunctioning AOA vane could cause that condition.

As far as the MCAS

https://leehamnews.com/2018/11/14/boeings-automatic-trim-for-the-737-max-was-not-disclosed-to-the-pilots/

https://leehamnews.com/2018/11/07/boeing-issues-737-operations-manual-bulletin-after-lion-air-accident/

Interesting read.

The max is unrecoverable from a stall in certain conditions, MCAS was required (another band aid) for certification. You disable MCAS the airplane is no longer certified.

It is not unrecoverable! The force required to push the nose down exceeded certification limits and not by much. FAA wanted the forces to be the same. Plane is still recoverable or the flight test airplanes would have crashed.

Until not that long ago, the typical regional new hire had a wet commercial and just enough hours to be trained how to open the door.

That is interesting. Thank you!

Whoa
Despite your last statement most guys hired with little to no time went to the panel and flew sideways for thousands of hours. Am I wrong?

No more panel now.


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That was never typical. Mesa did it, and a couple others would hire well under 1500.

Instead of trying to stretch the 737 to the seating capacity of the original 757why not just update the 757? Seems like there would be far fewer aerodynamic problems.

It is recoverable, as has been stated above. Boeing designed a system to adjust flight controls that they deemed wasn't necessary to inform "average pilots" about because they didn't want them to be "inundated with information" - their exact words, not mine. How arrogant and insulting is that? Information which potentially could've saved lives. We won't know though, because they're all dead.

Ask yourself this - How many 737s have crashed because of the problem MCAS was supposed to fix, versus how many have crashed because of MCAS?

:confused: So, there is definitely an accident or accidents that are confirmed to have been caused by MCAS?

Not good for Boeing. CNN banner headline pointing out the similarities to lionair. Pretty much saying fatal flaw in the MAX.

Not insulting at all. You actually proved their point with your own ignorance.

And as of today zero aircraft have crashed where the investigation found MCAS to be causal.

CNN is pretty much calling it two. Right or wrong, it's out there now.

To be fair, there is no definitive accident report that has been published confirming MCAS is to blame or was a contributing factor, but the Malaysian MAX-8 that crashed had been written up multiple times for trim issues and crashed 13 minutes after takeoff following radical pitch and altitude changes. The Ethiopian jet crashed 6 minutes after takeoff following similar deviations. Of course it's too early to say what happened, but the similarities in equipment type and flight path leading up to the accident are enough to question if MCAS is creating more problems than it is solving.

So CNN is an aircraft accident investigation authority?

That's not what I said. I said Boeing has a big problem now.

Most of the public has never heard of the NTSB. But they'll believe CNN...

Congressional or other political pressure will come to bear on the FAA before the NTSB team lands in Africa.

Of course not, because the investigations are ongoing. That doesn't mean it's too early to raise suspicions. If it really takes an accident report (two accident reports now) for you to doubt the safety of MCAS or be extra cautious the next time you fly a MAX, then it's your own ignorance that should be concerning.

Most kids out of flight school were screaming bloody murder if they had to actually instruct or lift a finger to help themselves, for quite some time. Now they're screaming like their throats are cut because they need 1,500 hours.

It was very typical for a number of years. Regionals were THE entry level job.

No, of course not, because speculation and guesswork is always far more professional.

So... not screaming very loud?

The last 4 flights of the Lion Air jet had AOA issues. That isn't speculation or guesswork, but hey, glib jabs on the internet that ignore facts are the mark of a true professional, right?