Tuesday, October 25, 2022

GOOD

I followed this at the outset. It was egregious.


https://reason.com/volokh/2022/10/24/decision-on-boeing-737-max-case/

2 comments:

Dave said...

Defiant, the pilots should have prevented the crashes. MCAS was poorly designed and poorly annunciated to the crew. This was not like a wing falling off or some other unsolvable problem, but an easy one to fix. The news wanted to scare everyone.

It was a simple fly the plane problem. If you remember the inbound crew of the Lion Air accident aircraft had MCAS problems but successfully completed the flight. The outbound crew did not. In both accidents, airspeed was not controlled, basic aircraft control was ignored and the basics of aircraft knowledge not exercised. On the B737, the trim wheel is right next to the pilot's inboard leg. When it moves you can see it, hear it and feel it if you are not wearing skinny trousers. (The trim wheel can hit your trouser leg) Speed intervene to maintain a safe speed; maintain a safe altitude; with any unscheduled trim inputs, disengage the automatic trim system and manually trim.

I have not seen the total number of US carriers having problems with MCAS difficulties, but not a single one of the US carriers crashed after experiencing MCAS difficulty.

This is just going for Boeing bucks and not examining the airline maintenance, operational oversight, training and the general inexperience of the flight crews.

O'Connor ruled the FAA would have demanded simulator training and that foreign carriers would have followed that directive. That is simply not true. As incidents are analyzed by airline reports, a directive would be published showing where the problems were and corrective maintenance and operational action taken.

Anonymous said...

I remember the primary rule of flying. It's a simple rule. Whatever else is going on, "keep aviating." These guys lost sight of it. Doesn't absolve Boeing. I watched expo of the disaster and felt sorrow for Boeing's chief test pilot who was dragged into court because the party line was that it was just an upgrade and didn't require any new pilot training. Those few lines of code broke the company. They broke the trust. And to the sorrow, some people read the NOTAMS but too may simply strap in and count on the plane. That was never my approach.
I do remember though when hanging about at SFO waiting for my plane, watching the pilot do his walk around. I always did but it was the very first and only time I ever saw a pilot/co preflight the bird before embarking passengers and taking off. One single time. I remember it so well because he went over and grabbed a crew and then came back to underneath the plane and pointed vigorously at something that wasn't right.