Author Topic: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'  (Read 178274 times)

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Offline djacobow

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #475 on: March 20, 2019, 02:46:02 pm »
Quote
...
The next day, under command of a different crew facing what investigators said was an identical malfunction, the jetliner crashed into the Java Sea killing all 189 aboard.
I can hardly imagine why the crew N1 with such an issues during the flight had not informed the crew N2 on it.
Just watching CNN on new developments on Lion Air case - the pilots were searching in the flight manuals during the dive (from CVR).

It's very interesting that the Indonesian investigators left out the part about the dead head pilot who knew what he was doing from their report.

Stab runaway is a memory item. That means pilots are supposed to know the procedure, cold.

Evidence is mounting that this system has a design flaw, but the evidence has always been obvious that these crews screwed up.
 

Offline BravoV

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #476 on: March 20, 2019, 03:10:51 pm »
Quotes :

“As the 31-year-old captain tried in vain to find the right procedure in the handbook, the 41-year-old first officer was unable to control the plane, two of the sources said.


It is like a test where there are 100 questions and when the time is up you have only answered 75,” the third source said. “So you panic. It is a time-out condition.”


The Indian-born captain was silent at the end, all three sources said, while the Indonesian first officer said “Allahu Akbar”, or “God is greatest”, a common Arabic phrase in the majority-Muslim country that can be used to express excitement, shock, praise or distress. "
  :'(


Reuters : Exclusive: Cockpit voice recorder of doomed Lion Air jet depicts pilots' frantic search for fix - sources

Offline djacobow

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #477 on: March 20, 2019, 03:23:17 pm »
There was a frantic search to find out how to disable the trim system because the pilots did not know how to fly the airplane. Stab trim runaway is a memory item. And in the case of lionair, this frantic search was unsuccessful for nearly ten minutes. They were not looking through encyclopedia brittanica here. They would have been looking through a QRH: a laminated, spiral bound book with thumb tabs for common emergencies.

I'm not saying this aircraft did not cause this accident, but this crew's poor performance also caused the accident. Accident chains in aviation almost always have many links.

Reporting on this whole saga has been awful.
 

Offline PartialDischarge

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #478 on: March 20, 2019, 03:35:30 pm »
There was a frantic search to find out how to disable the trim system because the pilots did not know how to fly the airplane.

Blaming the pilots for *any* of these is mean. Blame Boeing, the FAA, revolving doors, complacency, kickbacks, crony capitalism in the US... take your pick
 

Online SiliconWizard

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #479 on: March 20, 2019, 03:45:01 pm »
Quote
...
The next day, under command of a different crew facing what investigators said was an identical malfunction, the jetliner crashed into the Java Sea killing all 189 aboard.
I can hardly imagine why the crew N1 with such an issues during the flight had not informed the crew N2 on it.

Although that behavior sounds completely irresponsible to us, I've heard a couple pilots knowing this company saying that it could likely be explained by cultural factors. N1 had a technical problem and managed to solve it on its own. People there tend to suck it up and move on. Reporting a problem they were not 100% sure was a real problem and not something they themselves caused is kinda against they cultural habits.

As to the 737 MAX, frankly it looks like Boeing went one step too far to extend the 737 line. No clue yet whether they are going to get away with it.

 

Offline GeorgeOfTheJungle

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #480 on: March 20, 2019, 04:16:24 pm »
Blaming the pilots for *any* of these is mean. Blame Boeing, the FAA, revolving doors, complacency, kickbacks, crony capitalism in the US... take your pick

Perhaps not the pilots of the 610 flight, but ET 302 they should have known already and disable the damn thing in a sec at the first sign.
The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.
 

Offline iMo

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #481 on: March 20, 2019, 04:38:29 pm »
It's very interesting that the Indonesian investigators left out the part about the dead head pilot who knew what he was doing from their report..
Most probably because a) they had not included the entire 24h long CVR transcript into the report.. [the modern CVRs do 24h recording afaik], or b) they listened to the crew N2 talk only..
« Last Edit: March 20, 2019, 04:52:26 pm by imo »
 

Offline djacobow

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #482 on: March 20, 2019, 05:25:04 pm »
Blaming the pilots for *any* of these is mean. Blame Boeing, the FAA, revolving doors, complacency, kickbacks, crony capitalism in the US... take your pick

Perhaps not the pilots of the 610 flight, but ET 302 they should have known already and disable the damn thing in a sec at the first sign.

I think this post was made with the tongue firmly in cheek. At least I hope it was!
 

Offline GeorgeOfTheJungle

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #483 on: March 20, 2019, 05:44:21 pm »
Blaming the pilots for *any* of these is mean. Blame Boeing, the FAA, revolving doors, complacency, kickbacks, crony capitalism in the US... take your pick
Perhaps not the pilots of the 610 flight, but ET 302 they should have known already and disable the damn thing in a sec at the first sign.
I think this post was made with the tongue firmly in cheek. At least I hope it was!

Mine or his?
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Offline PartialDischarge

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #484 on: March 20, 2019, 05:59:27 pm »
Blaming the pilots for *any* of these is mean. Blame Boeing, the FAA, revolving doors, complacency, kickbacks, crony capitalism in the US... take your pick
Perhaps not the pilots of the 610 flight, but ET 302 they should have known already and disable the damn thing in a sec at the first sign.
I think this post was made with the tongue firmly in cheek. At least I hope it was!

Mine or his?

LOL, he means your post. Meaning that you can't be serious saying that the ET302 pilots are to blame, in a sarcastic way
 

Offline djacobow

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #485 on: March 20, 2019, 06:33:43 pm »
Blaming the pilots for *any* of these is mean. Blame Boeing, the FAA, revolving doors, complacency, kickbacks, crony capitalism in the US... take your pick
Perhaps not the pilots of the 610 flight, but ET 302 they should have known already and disable the damn thing in a sec at the first sign.
I think this post was made with the tongue firmly in cheek. At least I hope it was!

Mine or his?

LOL, he means your post. Meaning that you can't be serious saying that the ET302 pilots are to blame, in a sarcastic way

I mean that the ET302 pilots certainly are to blame. The aircraft was flyable. They are not the only ones to blame. There's plenty of blame to go around. I don't care if it is "mean" -- I want pilots who can act decisively in an abnormal situation.
 
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Offline Kjelt

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #486 on: March 20, 2019, 07:07:47 pm »
I want pilots who can act decisively in an abnormal situation.
Without prior information and instructions, without proper manual, without proper training ?
So how do you want a pilot to act since something that should not happen, happened and they have no clue that some faulty POS hardware has taken over the plane ?
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #487 on: March 20, 2019, 07:39:10 pm »
When the MCAS system activates, does it result in the trim wheels spinning or does it occur completely silently? Will a nose up trim command override It or does MCAS have the final say? My understanding is that both trim and MCAS act on the same jackscrew that moves the tailplane.
 

Offline GeorgeOfTheJungle

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #488 on: March 20, 2019, 08:18:01 pm »
When the MCAS system activates, does it result in the trim wheels spinning or does it occur completely silently?

Yes the wheels spin and make noise, and can be stopped by hand, just have to grab them.

Will a nose up trim command override It or does MCAS have the final say?

Yes a nose up trim command overrides, but as soon as you let the button go MCAS starts trimming again in the other direction, nose down. That's why you have to disable MCAS.

My understanding is that both trim and MCAS act on the same jackscrew that moves the tailplane.

Yes, that's right.
The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.
 

Offline chickenHeadKnob

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #489 on: March 20, 2019, 08:23:08 pm »
Both planes crashed in presumably hot climate. Could that have to do with the angle of attack sensors failing?

It is not self evident why misreads from angle of attack sensors are happening. There is something called density altitude that pilots are very conscious of, it effects take off run distance. Addis Ababa Bole airport is at exceptionally high elevation for a main airport -  2334 meters/ 7625 ft. and is in an equatorial climate zone leading to "hot and high"  conditions and long take off runs. This probably was only a minor factor, the pilots would for sure keep maximum power in climb for some time after lift-off. At other Airports climb power is dialled back for noise abatement  reasons over populated areas.
 

Offline jmelson

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #490 on: March 20, 2019, 08:26:35 pm »
When the MCAS system activates, does it result in the trim wheels spinning or does it occur completely silently? Will a nose up trim command override It or does MCAS have the final say? My understanding is that both trim and MCAS act on the same jackscrew that moves the tailplane.
The trim wheel spins, and it has a "clacker" to make a distinct noise to inform the crew that it is spinning.  One way to stop trim changes is to GRAB the wheel and hold it, the override clutches are set such that this doesn't take a lot of force.

There are several systems that use the same trim motor in the center console to adjust the stabilizer.  This drives the wheels through a clutch.  the wheels then pull a cable loop that operates the jackscrew in the tail.

Jon
 
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Offline djacobow

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #491 on: March 20, 2019, 08:32:00 pm »
I want pilots who can act decisively in an abnormal situation.
Without prior information and instructions, without proper manual, without proper training ?
So how do you want a pilot to act since something that should not happen, happened and they have no clue that some faulty POS hardware has taken over the plane ?

In short: yes. I want the pilot to understand "this machine is doing something I do not want, I must stop it." That is how the the QRH is written, that is how the pilots are (supposed to be) trained: turn of automation and get control of the airplane, figure out why that was necessary later. It's just not a huge mental leap to see that the plane is being trimmed hard down against your wishes, and then to stop that. It really doesn't matter the why and or what "should" happen -- things happen on airplanes. MCAS is not the only reason a plane could have runaway trim, and in fact, the section of the emergency checklist isn't called "MCAS doing crazy stuff" it is called "runaway stabilizer trim." You take action and stop it, just as the dead header the other day did.

I have sympathy for this crew, but they screwed up. It happens.

I actually will have more sympathy for them if they were confused about the true state of the aircraft ("maybe it is stalling and Otto is right to want to go down") because of sensor indications than if they knew the plane was malfunctioning and simply failed to stop it. The former is potentially trickier. But we know from the ET302 flight that this went on for like 10 minutes and through several oscillations. We also know this happened in good VMC so there would be plenty of easy visual indications that the plane was at a reasonable attitude, and, barring any major turbulence or acceleration, that means the AOA would not be high, either. That makes the former less likely and the latter much more.
« Last Edit: March 20, 2019, 08:42:41 pm by djacobow »
 
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Offline langwadt

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #492 on: March 20, 2019, 09:11:07 pm »
When the MCAS system activates, does it result in the trim wheels spinning or does it occur completely silently? Will a nose up trim command override It or does MCAS have the final say? My understanding is that both trim and MCAS act on the same jackscrew that moves the tailplane.

https://youtu.be/AgkmJ1U2M_Q?t=3m26s
 

Offline Marco

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #493 on: March 20, 2019, 09:23:15 pm »
"runaway stabilizer trim."

More like a hobble away in this case.
 

Offline Kjelt

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #494 on: March 20, 2019, 10:40:38 pm »
In short: yes. I want the pilot to understand "this machine is doing something I do not want, I must stop it."
That is what they did as far as they knew the plane BUT

Quote from: eetimes
After the two recent crashes, public outrage focused on this particular Boeing decision, and on regulatory agencies in the United States and the European Union who agreed that pilots need not be trained or even alerted to the new software, including the new MCAS override controls.

In other words, as far as pilots knew, the MCAS did not exist.

They were not told the main details about their plane, they had no notion of the mcas so they were in a major disadvantage.

You now sound like that board of inquiry from the movie Sully, why did you not directly go to the nearby airport, simulations have proven you could have made it.
Yeah right if you knew right away what was wrong , how much time you had left and made the right decision in a split second.

I find it harsh to blame a dead crew when they had no information about the cause of the problem in the first place. Add the complete confusion because the plane responds totally different than expected.

Quote
That is how the the QRH is written, that is how the pilots are (supposed to be) trained: turn of automation and get control of the airplane, figure out why that was necessary later.
How do you turn something off if no one told you it existed and also not told you how to turn it off, if it can be turned off at all ?
 

Offline GeorgeOfTheJungle

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #495 on: March 20, 2019, 10:51:45 pm »
How do you turn something off if no one told you it existed and also not told you how to turn it off, if it can be turned off at all ?

They should have known, I mean the pilots of ET 302, because the FAA put out this alert (see the pdf attached) in November 2018 after the Lion flight 610 crash.
« Last Edit: March 20, 2019, 10:59:19 pm by GeorgeOfTheJungle »
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Offline Kjelt

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #496 on: March 20, 2019, 11:08:32 pm »
 Lets see what the investigation reveals.
Did they have this AD? They should, but did they?
Which actions did they take and what was the effect?

 

Offline djacobow

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #497 on: March 20, 2019, 11:09:35 pm »
They were not told the main details about their plane, they had no notion of the mcas so they were in a major disadvantage.

Yes, you and others and the media have said this repeatedly. I'm saying something different, as a pilot: it is not relevant. Airplanes at their core, are simple machines. They are objects that are pushed or pulled through the air by engines, and which can change their shape in certain ways to control where they go. That's it. The whole ball of wax. There is a lot of automation in modern aircraft, and pilots, to various degrees, know how it works, or don't. Generally, they know how to use it. They don't know what decisions were made when the software was written, what hidden conditions and failure modes are buried in it. They just don't.

In this case, literally one of the SIMPLEST aspects of the aircraft was out of control: the stabilizer trim. This is controlled, physically, by a prominent and loud wheel in the cockpit, and such wheels are present on just about every aircraft (some trim the elevator, some trim the stabilizer itself). There is nothing mysterious about this.

Better pilots would have stopped this cold.

And as I have said many many times in this thread, that doesn't mean that MCAS is not forked up, or that Boeing didn't screw up. But the pilots still screwed up, and in an obvious way.

You now sound like that board of inquiry from the movie Sully, why did you not directly go to the nearby airport, simulations have proven you could have made it.
Yeah right if you knew right away what was wrong , how much time you had left and made the right decision in a split second.

What is this 10 second nonsense? This plane oscillated more than 20 times over 10 minutes. This is nothing like the Sully movie.

And by the way, I would love to know what Sullenberger would think of this accident. I have a strong suspicion that in pilot's lounges around the world, 737 drivers are mad at Boeing, but also wondering how those crews could have screwed the pooch so badly.

I find it harsh to blame a dead crew when they had no information about the cause of the problem in the first place. Add the complete confusion because the plane responds totally different than expected.

It is harsh. Airplanes are dangerous and judge mistakes harshly. That is the nature of aviation.

How do you turn something off if no one told you it existed and also not told you how to turn it off, if it can be turned off at all ?

Jumpin' Jesus on a pogo stick! They didn't have to turn off the MCAS! They had to turn off the trim system, which of course, they knew about. It's a motor that drives one the basic flight control surfaces of the machine.


« Last Edit: March 20, 2019, 11:11:49 pm by djacobow »
 

Online chris_leyson

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #498 on: March 20, 2019, 11:11:07 pm »
If the FAA put out an alert then does it become the pilots responsibility to track FAA alerts or is it the airlines responsibilty to inform the pilots of FAA alerts and provide additional training. Ultimately it is the manufacturers responsibility to inform the airlines and the pilots. Looks like a lack of due diligence on someones part and I don't think it's down to the pilots.
« Last Edit: March 20, 2019, 11:45:40 pm by chris_leyson »
 

Offline Nusa

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Re: Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'
« Reply #499 on: March 20, 2019, 11:22:02 pm »
Lets see what the investigation reveals.
Did they have this AD? They should, but did they?
Which actions did they take and what was the effect?

If they didn't, it really is the pilots fault (both of them) for not reading required material to maintain their certifications.

Additionally, it would be the Ethiopian airlines fault, as they claimed all their 737 Max pilots received additional training on the MCAS, even before the black boxes were found.

Never mind that this was such current news so much that the general public was aware of it. Airline pilots even more so!
 


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