Lion Air crash: Jakarta Boeing 737 'had prior instrument error'

[SilverSolder]

USA probably hasn't "suddenly woken up" to the trade deficit,  it is more likely that (especially in the wake of the financial crisis of '07) the powers that be have given up on the previous model that economic growth would solve this problem, so a change of strategy was called for.  That which cannot possibly keep going on, won't...  eventually.

Most countries / trading blocs use tariffs to manage financial flows, the USA is a laggard here and is only really beginning to do what everyone else does (probably for pretty much the same reasons).

[Rick Law]

In terms of keeping 737Max in the air, or not...

One significant factor that had not been mentioned is pilot certification.  A pilot certified to fly on a certain variant needs to stay certified and to do so the pilot needs fly-time on the plane.  Not so long ago, there was a news item titled something like "737 Max flies again, but...".  It was an FAA authorized flight for pilot certification or to retain the pilot certification.  I don't recall exactly, but there were other special circumstances.  (If I recalled correctly) They needed to have at least some pilots capable of moving the grounded MAX around.

With 737-Max grounded for so long, I suspect many more pilots may need to fly a bit again to remain certified.  Whether there is an increasing pilot certification flights granted may be the indicator if 737-MAX is staying alive or heading to the grave yard.

I am in the school of thinking 737-MAX will stay alive rather than left dead.

[KL27x]

Seems like if the plane is stable and perfectly safe (just different) without MCAS, then the worst case would be remove MCAS and recertify as a new airframe?

I think it costs less than 8 billion dollars, but maybe I'm wrong. With all the grounded planes and customer recompensation accumulating, you would think recert would be peanuts. Unless MCAS is necessary to make the plane safe.

[Rick Law]

USA probably hasn't "suddenly woken up" to the trade deficit,  it is more likely that (especially in the wake of the financial crisis of '07) the powers that be have given up on the previous model that economic growth would solve this problem, so a change of strategy was called for.  That which cannot possibly keep going on, won't...  eventually.

Most countries / trading blocs use tariffs to manage financial flows, the USA is a laggard here and is only really beginning to do what everyone else does (probably for pretty much the same reasons).

In my view, "Suddenly woken up" is an appropriate description.  Bush II was preoccupied with 9/11 and the military actions after.  Obama was preoccupied with "fundamentally changing America".  So no one was caring about the trade deficit or the resulting joblessness.  Most in the political world or journalism world did not expect a Trump victory.  The pressure that was building up was missed by folks.   So it appears sudden to many or even most.

Frankly, it is not surprising that those with a job would not see the trade deficit and the resulting joblessness being an issue.  They go on with their lives thinking all is well, and I am sure it was for them.  The ones in affected occupations would be largely invisible to the job-holders.  Exception is the mail-delivery guys.  About mid-way into Obama's second term, I was friendly with my former mail-delivery guy who is also former US Marine.  He told me one in four households (on his route) were receiving unemployment benefit checks.

[sokoloff]

Seems like if the plane is stable and perfectly safe (just different) without MCAS, then the worst case would be remove MCAS and recertify as a new airframe?

I think it costs less than 8 billion dollars, but maybe I'm wrong. With all the grounded planes and customer recompensation accumulating, you would think recert would be peanuts. Unless MCAS is necessary to make the plane safe.

MCAS is necessary to meet the certification requirements under Part 25. I provided the link to the specific law above.

I don't think it's "perfectly safe" without MCAS; I do think that MCAS is an appropriate fix to ensure compliance with Part 25 rules.

[SilverSolder]

USA probably hasn't "suddenly woken up" to the trade deficit,  it is more likely that (especially in the wake of the financial crisis of '07) the powers that be have given up on the previous model that economic growth would solve this problem, so a change of strategy was called for.  That which cannot possibly keep going on, won't...  eventually.

Most countries / trading blocs use tariffs to manage financial flows, the USA is a laggard here and is only really beginning to do what everyone else does (probably for pretty much the same reasons).

In my view, "Suddenly woken up" is an appropriate description.  Bush II was preoccupied with 9/11 and the military actions after.  Obama was preoccupied with "fundamentally changing America".  So no one was caring about the trade deficit or the resulting joblessness.  Most in the political world or journalism world did not expect a Trump victory.  The pressure that was building up was missed by folks.   So it appears sudden to many or even most.

Frankly, it is not surprising that those with a job would not see the trade deficit and the resulting joblessness being an issue.  They go on with their lives thinking all is well, and I am sure it was for them.  The ones in affected occupations would be largely invisible to the job-holders.  Exception is the mail-delivery guys.  About mid-way into Obama's second term, I was friendly with my former mail-delivery guy who is also former US Marine.  He told me one in four households (on his route) were receiving unemployment benefit checks.

Before the 2007 financial crisis, the growth model in the USA (and to a significant extent, also the UK) was based on selling houses to each other at ever increasing prices, while taking out loans based on property valuations to spend on consumption / import.  That whole house of cards collapsed, as we know, and there is much less money to go round today as a result.  This gave us Trump in the USA, and Brexit in the UK.

Getting Boeing "fixed" is a part of the cure, in my view.  Getting back to a strong focus on "making real things" and "making them good" is a time honoured principle that beats financial voodoo in the long run.  (See Japan/Germany today, and US/UK in the past)

[KL27x]

Sokoloff:
So the Boeing is aerodynamically stable, but it does not demonstrate longitudinal stability?

And it is allowed to be fixed through electronic chicanery? Maybe if they put some rubber bands on the stick in just the right spots, it would also pass?

14 CFR § 25.175 - Demonstration of static longitudinal stability.
CFR

Everything I had read, prior, suggested that the Beoing needed MCAS ONLY so it would be "grandfathered in" under the original 737 cert. This sounds like it might be way more serious (which is what I suspect?).

[sokoloff]

  It is aerodynamically stable (which, when unqualified, typically means "longitudinally stable", being one of three axes of stability and roll and yaw stability are rarely the concern), in the sense that it exhibits positive stability (as contrasted with the alternative adjectives: neutral or negative).

It does not demonstrate longitudinal stability consistent with that required by that certification part, which requires specific performance in order to demonstrate safe, predictable control forces. The fix is electronic control of a (slow-moving) mechanical control surface to meet certification requirements.

I'm not sure what's confusing. The airplane is stable. It's not stable "enough" for certification. Properly implemented MCAS is a perfectly good fix.

[sokoloff]

The identically designed Max would have required MCAS (or another fix) to meet certification requirements.

MCAS may have been designed the precise way that it was in order to qualify on the existing A16WE type certificate, but some fix (almost surely an aerodynamic one, whether MCAS or other) would be required to be certified under part 25 in any event.

[KL27x]

^Thanks, really. Your post is covering concepts that are hard to convey in the readers digest or popular news.

So the MAX, even if it were certified as a new plane not connected to the 737-100, would not pass (without MCAS).

So as long as a plane is slightly positively stable, the airframe is ok? We can then use electronics to make it feel/behave MORE stable, longitudinally or otherwise, to the pilot, in order to meet the more stringent stability requirements. But we can't (with passenger planes) cross into neutral or negative  aerodynamic stability and go fixing that with computers?

BTW, I edited my previous post while you were posting yours. I'll go back and put it back to how it was. Just added a few words.

[Kleinstein]

Seems like if the plane is stable and perfectly safe (just different) without MCAS, then the worst case would be remove MCAS and recertify as a new airframe?

I think it costs less than 8 billion dollars, but maybe I'm wrong. With all the grounded planes and customer recompensation accumulating, you would think recert would be peanuts. Unless MCAS is necessary to make the plane safe.

Besides the MCAS problem, they found other problems with the control software. So they will have to do a fix if the system anyway. Fixing MCAS may very well be the easier part.  Getting a complete new certification would need it to meat newer standards and also a lot of time. It is the delays that make the process expensive. Not the maybe 10 man-years for the specialists to rewrite the code - that is peanuts.

The usual planes are stable only for a limited AOA range. The changes to the airframe reduced the stable range - not sure if too much, but at least too much to get the same flight certificate. 

If turning off MCAS would be the remedy to handle a single faulty sensor - the plane should be safe without and the pilots must be able to fly it without MCAS.  So I can't follow the argument that an unreliable MCAS could bring the plane to the same type class.  It is more like making the system more complicated needing extra training.

[sokoloff]

^Thanks, really. Your post is covering concepts that are hard to convey in the readers digest or popular news.

Thanks; that line means a lot. I have to admit I was getting a little frustrated at times during our exchange, but I tried to keep it civil and factual, because there's an awful lot of misinformation out there and decoding aviation speak isn't always easy (especially if the goal of many journalists is fomenting outrages and harvesting clicks). Boeing's not blameless here for sure, but neither do I think they acted like total idiots.

So the MAX, even if it were certified as a new plane not connected to the 737-100, would not pass (without MCAS).

100% right if they are constrained to keep the landing gear and wing of the 737.
But, if you look at it differently, if they were willing to go for a from-scratch certification, they would likely have created taller landing gear, providing for more underwing space to hang the larger engines farther back, moving the center of thrust rearward and center of pressure slightly rearward. It's possible that they might have managed to get the pilot type rating to crossover even without the airplane being built on the same type certificate. (The 757 and 767 are built on A2NM and A1NM TCDS, respectively, but share a common type rating: "B-757, B-767".)
All of that is fairly academic though as the 757 and 767 are the only airplanes to share a common type rating, it's not very likely that Southwest and the like would buy a 737-Max class airplane that wasn't on the A16WE TCDS, and such a 737 would probably look an awful lot like the 757, which Boeing already has...

So as long as a plane is slightly positively stable, the airframe is ok? We can then use electronics to make it feel/behave MORE stable, longitudinally or otherwise, to the pilot, in order to meet the more stringent stability requirements. But we can't (with passenger planes) cross into neutral or negative  aerodynamic stability and go fixing that with computers?

I don't think there's anything to directly prevent the certification of an inherently unstable airplane with sufficient fly-by-wire mods to make it behave stably. Such fly-by-wire mods (and the associated power sources) would then become subject to mitigation against Catastrophic event severity, meaning you'd have to reduce the projected frequency of occurrence of such a failure to lower than 1 in 10⁹ (1 [US] billion) flight hours. In practice, because there's no great advantage to making a passenger airliner unstable, airliners are stable inherently and have minor mods here and there to tweak performance and handling. Military aircraft which are inherently unstable rely on electronic controls and ejection seats as the ultimate backstop. They're also accepting of some amount of fatalities if that prevents greater fatalities in usage.

The airplane is certified as a system. That system must pass all certification requirements while everything is working as designed.

It must also have analysis done to consider the effects of degraded operation as various systems are inoperative. The effect of an MCAS system failure was judged (IMO reasonably) to be "hazardous", one level lower than catastrophic. This requires failure modes to exhibit themselves fewer than 1 in 10,000,000 flight hours (1 in 10⁷ hours). Hazardous is characterized by a "Large reduction in safety margin or functional capability."

Boeing is going to wear a lot of this. It turns out that their analysis of frequency of failure was very likely wrong. It turns out that crews didn't react quickly and appropriately to the presentation of the MCAS fault. (NB: the guidance document provides a reminder: "Crew physical distress/excessive workload such that operators cannot be relied upon to perform required tasks accurately or completely") It turns out that the system was delivered with a higher control authority than originally contemplated (however that would still likely only result in a "hazardous" categorization). It turns out that crews could trigger multiple cyclic activations of MCAS, further increasing the authority of the stabilizer.

I have a certain amount of sympathy for Boeing engineers here. They screwed up, but I'm not nearly as convinced it was part of a diabolical scheme to separate airlines from their money and ship an unsafe product, but rather a drive to push a longer-range, more economical aircraft into a crowded market.

Ref - https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/risk_management/ss_handbook/media/chap3_1200.pdf

[SilverSolder]

[the Max fail was the result of...] a drive to push a longer-range, more economical aircraft into a crowded market.

It seems plausible that this is the reason, when all is said and done.   But it is not a good reason...  are there ever any commercial projects that are not under time pressure?

[sokoloff]

They're under economic pressure to compete. It's not like stretching type certificates for derivative models is a novel thing or Boeing-specific.
The 737-900 is leagues different from the 737-100.
The Airbus A318, A319, A320, and A321 are all built on a common type certificate (EASA.A.064) and I count 47 individual models/variants of airplanes built on that type certificate.

[BravoV]

Ref - https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/risk_management/ss_handbook/media/chap3_1200.pdf

Everything related to FAA is pointless, as its now considered no better than those easy to lobby, getting cozy ... to be bribed government regulatory/safety related institutions like in those piss poor developing countries.

Even Boeing managed to survive this event, the cost of selling any US made airplanes, not only from Boeing, will be sky high as now every developed countries need to re-certify it, as FAA's certification considered a junk now.

A bold move from gov. or politicians are desperately needed now than ever, especially for international markets.

[SilverSolder]

They're under economic pressure to compete. It's not like stretching type certificates for derivative models is a novel thing or Boeing-specific.
The 737-900 is leagues different from the 737-100.
The Airbus A318, A319, A320, and A321 are all built on a common type certificate (EASA.A.064) and I count 47 individual models/variants of airplanes built on that type certificate.

Absolutely - and if the job had been done properly, nobody would have had a problem with it.

When all is said and done, Boeing and the FAA released a product that was - overall - flawed enough to be a real problem.  They somehow failed to strike the right balance between financial interests and engineering realities.  This can only be fixed by raising the level of play substantially to regain trust.

[Gyro]

A BBC news report - it looks as if heads have started rolling at Boeing, prior to their Q3 results publication later today...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50151573

The Indonesian investigators final report on the Lion Air crash is expected to be published on Friday.


EDIT: The story and content have since been updated from the previous title and is now saying that Boeing expect the 737MAX to be flying again by the end of the year.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

The FAA is going to say they need more taxpayers $ to do their job right... That's how the public sector works!

[StillTrying]

EDIT: The story and content have since been updated from the previous title and is now saying that Boeing expect the 737MAX to be flying again by the end of the year.

It's the only practical way to get them there.  https://www.airplaneboneyards.com

[sokoloff]

Boeing is flying 737-Max under ferry permits or experimental flight test protocols now and has been for a while. They’re still building them and relocating them to other fields.

When the financial news media says “will be flying”, they mean in revenue service not merely leaving the ground.

[SiliconWizard]

They're under economic pressure to compete. It's not like stretching type certificates for derivative models is a novel thing or Boeing-specific.
The 737-900 is leagues different from the 737-100.
The Airbus A318, A319, A320, and A321 are all built on a common type certificate (EASA.A.064) and I count 47 individual models/variants of airplanes built on that type certificate.

Oh of course, this is common practice, and there's nothing fundamentally wrong with it.

I (along with many others) just think Boeing has gone a step too far with the 737MAX.

There's something to also consider here. Yes the 737 essentially competes with the A320 family. But the 737 was released in 1968. The A320 (first of the family AFAIK) in 1988, 20 years later. Sure both lines have evolved significantly, but still.

Impressive longevity, but I guess at some point it becomes unreasonable to keep milking the cow.

[MT]

Boing flies into darker weather!

Spirit Florida orders 100 planes from AirBus
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/boeing-backlash-begins-spirt-airlines-orders-100-new-airbus-planes

India orders 300 planes from Airbus!
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/boeing-backlash-indias-indigo-order-300-jets-airbus

Blancoliro says it 737Max will be certified and out fly soon, Senate hearing.

[bw2341]

http://knkt.dephub.go.id/knkt/ntsc_aviation/baru/2018%20-%20035%20-%20PK-LQP%20Final%20Report.pdf

The final report is out. It makes for a sobering read.

[sokoloff]

Indeed. Crew fights with electric trim from 23:25:27 through 23:31:46 activating nose up manual trim 32 times for 143 seconds (of the 379 elapsed seconds, or 38% of the time).
That's absolutely abnormal and yet the crew never recalls the runaway stabilizer trim memory items nor calls for the runaway stabilizer checklist.

They were dealt a confusing situation with the IAS DISAGREE and angle of attack difference. That may have contributed to their failure to identify the appropriate response.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

That may have contributed to their failure to identify the appropriate response.

At least the captain (somehow, inadvertently) sensed that trim was being a problem, because he kept correcting it good enough, obeying the #1 rule fly the plane, but the FO...

At 23:30:48 UTC, the Captain asked the FO to take over control of the aircraft

...failed big time to fly the plane!

I too wonder why the captain didn't flip the stab trim cutout switch after all that fighting against auto trim, or put the flaps back to pos 1. He should have known to do that. I wouldn't expect the FO to grasp or infer any of that, much less in a sec, because there's a reason why they're still FOs and not captains: lack of experience.