The Boeing 737 Max crisis goes way beyond software

[Eugene]

Source: Quartz

The Boeing 737 Max crisis goes way beyond software

By Tim Fernholz 4 hours ago

There is no small complexity in the task of carrying hundreds of people through the sky at hundreds of miles an hour. More than 100,000 airliners take off and land each day, but two deadly air crashes in six months have shocked passengers, regulators, and industry alike.

Crashes of Boeing’s 737 Max in Indonesia and Ethiopia offer a window into all that complexity. Boeing and its CEO Dennis Muilenburg want the story to be simple: a software problem that can be fixed with a quick patch. But that doesn’t capture the mistakes made by Boeing and American aviation regulators in certifying the plane to carry passengers.

By now, you may well have heard of MCAS, software that automatically pitches 737 Maxes downward to avoid stalling in mid-air. It exists only because Boeing wanted to upgrade its 737 without changing it fundamentally—so it added new engines that made the aircraft more likely to stall, rather than starting from scratch. In the emerging picture of the two accidents, the software only failed because the mechanical sensor it depended on also malfunctioned.

But all that pales next to what will likely be the highlight of investigations into the incident: the training and user experience of the people in the cockpits. Pilots did not have sufficient training to understand how MCAS worked, and two vital safety features—a display showing what the sensor detected, and a light warning if other sensors disagreed—were optional extras (paywall).

Minimizing training and cockpit changes was an economic decision: The upgraded plane would be more attractive to potential purchasers if they did not have to spend expensive hours retraining their pilots. The Federal Aviation Administration determined Boeing’s training and safety plans were fine. Now, investigators want to know why. The answers could be costly for Boeing, and for America’s reputation as a leader in the safe deployment of aviation technology.

-snip-

Read more: https://qz.com/1577986/the-boeing-737-max-crisis-goes-way-beyond-software/

[Sherman A1]

1. May Boeing's life

Be filled with lawyers.

[malaise]

2. Very important

Get thee to the greatest page

[MontanaMama]

3. There are other examples of optional software

that Boeing sells as well. For example, GPS software that can ping a plane at any given moment when a flight is traveling out of range of conventional radar over large expanses on water. Remember Malaysia Flight 370, the 777 that went missing? My husband has a boyhood friend that recently retired from Boeing...this guy was THE engineer for the 777 and the Max 8 (I found out just last week). After MH370 went missing, I asked hubs’ friend why they couldn’t ping the plane when it began having issues? Why did no tower know where this plane was when it was over oceans? He told me that that software is available but the the airline did not purchase it when they bought the plane. My blood ran cold because I’d just returned from a round trip to NZ with my then 8 year old son...were we off radar too? We as consumers are not privy to these economic short cut decisions airlines make and we don’t know the risks to our safety as a result.

Fast forward to the present, this engineer acknowledged the nose-down issue with the Max 8 and said there was a software fix in the works that had indeed been slowed down by the gov shutdown but should be up and running by the end of April. He also said that he felt safe flying any Max 8 in the US because pilots were trained at a higher level as a rule. That didn’t make me feel any better as I fly internationally with my child fairly often. Is pilot training is a crap shoot when out of the US?

The engineer had nothing good to say about the current FAA and its lack of a chief...or the acting chief’s cozy relationship with DOT sec Elaine Chao. I could go on and on but one other thing that stuck out to me was the engineer stating that grounding the Max 8 is costing billions...which also made me take pause. When corporate entities are bleeding billions, they’ll do about anything to make it stop. I have no evidence, but with no solid leadership at the FAA, or the DOT could someone be “persuaded” to declare the Max 8 safe? You’d surely hope not but we live in tRump’s America now.

[DFW]

5. If someone at FAA or DOT were to declare the Max 8 safe, and there was another crash

I think there would be some murder indictments coming, and I doubt anyone would risk that just for a bribe.

[MontanaMama]

15. I would like to think so.

And nothing surprises me these days.

[CloudWatcher]

16. Is pilot training is a crap shoot when out of the US?

The odds might be better shooting craps. I was stunned at some of the news stories about pilots not getting additional training immediately after the first crash. E.g. this one about Ethiopian Airlines having the newest simulator, but the pilot hadn't taken the training yet: Ethiopian Airlines Had a Max 8 Simulator, but Pilot on Doomed Flight Didn’t Receive Training On It

I think this is the bigger scandal (from the same NYTimes article):

Boeing said that pilots who had flown earlier models did not need additional simulator training, and even after the October crash in Indonesia, the F.A.A. agreed.

There's a real financial incentive to mischaracterize a new plane as a just a minor upgrade, so that the airlines can save on retraining costs. The system has clearly failed and I'm starting to believe Boeing (at least) should be held criminally liable.

[MontanaMama]

18. Agree. eom.

[jmowreader]

22. Strangely enough...

Ethiopian Airlines is extremely good at training pilots. They own a flight school that is renowned for its quality. People come from all over Europe, Asia and Africa to attend.

[Sgent]

23. Wouldn't have mattered

the entire MCAS system isn't part of the simulator.

Also, neither AA nor Southwest -- the two US Max operators, have access to a simulator at all.

[rickford66]

26. They may not own sims but they can buy time somewhere

I've seen many airlines using the other airline sims. They just use their own instructors. The training is mandatory so they have to train somewhere.

[Johnny2X2X]

4. This was willfully missed

This system was not classified correctly and basically ignored as not critical. The FAA's designated engineering representative for Boeing is in some big trouble.

This is a shoddy workaround, there are 2 AOA sensors on the aircraft, but this system only reads 1 for some reason.

And what you're going to hear about a lot is that they offered a safety option for $80,000 of a disagree light. This would be a light in the cockpit that looked at both sensors and if they disagreed with each other, the system is automatically disabled. Something that seems fundamental to safety to me was something Boeing was trying to squeeze $80K out of to maximize profits. This is a $125 Million aircraft and they're trying to squeeze another $80K out of buyers.

There are a roster full of safety and certification engineers who failed and probably will be held criminally accountable. And beyond that there are engineers who wrote the manual and designed the training that dropped the ball too.

This is going to effect Boeing for a long time and it will change the industry.

[brush]

11. It's not about software or sensor malfunction, it's a design flaw...

of having to reposition the attachment on the wings of physically larger engines on the 737 Max 8 which caused the instability of the new plane as opposed to the original 737 which was quite stable in flight. The repositioning cause the nose of the new plane to pitch upwards.

Boeing did not want to bear the huge expense for a new plane design from scratch so they used software and sensors to correct the pitch instability of the design flaw. Software and sensors can fail however, and lack of training of pilots to override and correct in-flight failures and instability has revealed Boeing's expense saving workaround on what was a stable plane design with its original, smaller engines.

It's going to cost the company billions. We'll see it it survives.

[cstanleytech]

12. Oh, I suspect it will survive though it will be years before the tarnish wears off.

[Johnny2X2X]

17. More powerful engines

The engines are more powerful and positioned slightly differently.

There’s nothing wrong to use sensors and software to adjust the flight, that stuff is happening all the time. In this instance though they didn’t fully take into account what would happen if a sensor failed.

Again, let the box read both sensors and have a disagree that if detected disengages the system. That’s a totally valid way to handle it.

This design was reviewed, and for some reason they decided against making the disagree mandatory. This system engages a screw drive which takes over the trim, how in the world someone looked at this and didn’t see that this could crash the plane is impossible. For something that level of criticality, dual redundancy is needed.

It will all come out, all these technical reviews have artifacts. I suspect that redundancy was in the design and somewhere along the line someone decided it could be optional.

[brush]

20. Didn't Boeing take the cheap route by adapting an existing design...

to bigger, more powerful engines re-positioned differently that affected the stability of a previously stable plane that didn't need the software and sensors in question for flight stability?

[Johnny2X2X]

24. It sure.

They have the Leap engines on them which are really the most technologically advanced, safe, and fuel efficient engine. The 737 has been in service for decades and is the most used airliner. It’s a great plane and they upgraded the engines, but kept the same FMS. I don’t see why you’d want to throw away the proven airframe when you have an opportunity to keep it and add a better engine.

So they were really taking the best designs and combining them. I don’t view it as the cheap way, but probably the best way.

The scandal is that this is a fundamental failure at the design, certification, and business levels. This is something so simple that you can explain it to anyone in 3 minutes and they can know that is not safe. There were really smart people at every level that failed.

As someone involved in design and development of aviation hardware and software, I am relatively certain that this issue was discussed in detail and a group of people had to be convinced it wasn’t a catastrophic hazard. There are people who really care about this stuff that has to be misled to sign off on this IMO. We shall see.

[Sgent]

25. They tried

to bolt a Fly By Wire system onto a 1960's airframe that isn't setup for it. If they tried to actually install a FBW system (say from the 777), then the plane would have lost its grandfathering -- and its not capable of getting an airworthiness cert without it.

[keithbvadu2]

6. Boeing 737 is the new Pinto.

Boeing 737 is the new Pinto.

[cstanleytech]

13. More like the new Ford Focus.

[lostnfound]

27. Not the "737" but the "737 MAX". The 737 new gen is one of the best and safest ever built.

The vast majority (7000) of 737s are NGs (737-700; 737-800: 737-900 and the ER versions tehreof) and they are very safe and well designed. They’ve been flying for as long as 20 years — since 1998 with a stellar safety record.

There are almost 400 of the MAX’s in the world, none older than 2 years.

[keithbvadu2]

28. Valid point - 737 MAX

[Johnny2X2X]

7. Furthermore.

Someone designed this system and knew the implications. They designed a system that will take control of the aircraft independent of the pilots and of the FMS. No way this person or persons didn’t design dual redundancy into this. Yet the final product only read 1 of the AOA sensors.

There’s going to be a pedigree of documentation where someone wanted this to read both sensors and disengage when there was a disagreement between the two. There will be paperwork documenting these discussions.

That’s going to be very interesting. And it will play horribly in the media.

[LiberalArkie]

8. Boeing failed because they did not want the pilots to know about MCAS

If they did, they would have added an alarm to it so that pilots would be alerted. A simple alarm like the rest of the alarms.

[TheOther95Percent]

9. Instead of "job killing regulations" we have no life saving protections.

How many lost jobs will this short-sighted economic decision blessed by regulators cost? Indonesia has already cancelled their latest Boeing order. How many more?

[BlueFlorida]

10. It is utter negligence

and leaving things to hope and prayer.

Usually, when something is that critical, engineers employ multiple sensors using different technologies and ignore the outlier to derive at a correct reading.

If one uses only one sensor and not accounting for its failure in the software is gross negligence.

[yaesu]

14. I'm sure the lawsuits will tie them up in courts for years. I also think this is big stain on what

reputation they had. I have nothing against them but I was hoping they would learn from this mistake, take responsibility & try to move on after seeing nothing like this can happen again, but, we are in the age of tRump unfettered capitalism, profits at any cost so I'm not holding my breath.

[Johnny2X2X]

19. FMS

Being is vertically integrating their own Flight Management System. They want to put it in the 737 Max.

Given that this system that failed was all Boeing, it wasn’t a supplier’s, I doubt the public or their customers will be receptive at all for Boeing to do the Flight Management Computer. They might not have the know how to execute something that complex.

Currently their FMC is purchased from GE and it’s a proven and safe computer. Boeing better think hard about replacing it with something they did themselves.

[Mr. Sparkle]

21. Not only did Boeing fail...

but the FAA failed just as much , imho. From bits and pieces i have read in the media, Boeing managed to deregulate themselves by buying congress, the Republican controlled congress during the Obama years.