Considering AOA indicators as "optional" based on your prior experience with AOA sensor/indicators is irrelevant when it comes to the 737-MAX because the critical MCAS system as (fatally) designed depended on those AOA sensors.
true, but a bad aoa sensor mcas can be turned off. You can easily still fly manually and trim yourself without any MCAS. Maybe boeing put too much faith in pilots diagnosing and handling bad sensors. Its not really a design flaw, but humans getting confused is a tough thing to design for.
@Wild West that is not really the situation. There is no "just turn off the MCAS and continue as usual"! You can cut out the trim motors but that does not disable only MCAS, it disables ALL automatic and power-assisted trim. (ok there are 2 switches, but not a separate one for MCAS only) So there is no "easily still fly manually". You will have to turn the wheels by hand and you can see in the other video that that is not easy. Remember you not only have to revert the change made by MCAS but also have to perform all other trimming up to the landing.
@@wildwest1832 Worse than a design flaw, Boeing likely committed a criminal act when for commercial reasons they wanted the new 737 version to handle like the old ones. But changes in the new version required an additional system to handle certain flight situations. The development of that system and the safety analysis of its implications were rushed through. Pilots were not informed of it and not trained to counter its failure.
As an avionics engineer for 31 years, I am absolutely appalled that the MCAS system depended upon a single Alpha Vane sensor. All flight critical systems must be dual redundant in function. In a 21st Century designed aircraft this is inexcusable. There are NO EXCEPTIONS TO THIS RULE.
Chances1957 - I am also appalled that the design doesn't provide for a feedback loop from the current stabilizer position to the MCAS so that this bit about repeated and cumulative movement of the horizontal stabilizer can be better controlled. That is, if the stabilizer is already moved to a 3 degree nose-down correction due to the first MCAS activation, the MCAS should be aware of that before any attempt to move the stabilizer further, especially if there are signs that the crew is fighting the MCAS.
WakeUpAmerican000s I absolutely agree with your comment. Certainly as a design engineer I would have implemented your suggestion otherwise you will arrive at the situation we have witnessed. Thanks!
Dmitri Kozlowsky MCAS May be dependent upon TWO sensors after the recent modifications, but it was only dependent on one sensor at the time of the two crashes!
Mentour: I am a big fan of your YT channel, but I have to say that in this video, you really sounded like a Boeing apologist. I understand everyone has biases and you realy love flying your 'Baby' the 737, but I think even you could admit that Boeing made a mistake. Anyway, keep up the good work.
Yes, that‘s my opinion, too. - Boeing knew how to do MCAS correctly, but they did not in the 737MAX - They used 1 sensor for a flight critical system which is not allowed in civil aircrafts - Boeing did not include MCAS in the iPad training, although it changed the behaviour of the plane like NEVER before - Boeing did inform the FAA in a wrong way about how much the MCAS can interfere So overall, the reason for all this seems to be to avoid that the authorities order a simulator training. Which would have made buying this plane more expensive. And Boeing would have lost more orders to the better A320. Overall Boeing deliberately (!) cut short on quality. There is NO excuse for this. It is always possible for engineers to make an mistake. This was no mistake. It was deliberate action to only use 1 sensor and not mention the all new system in the training. Mentour: I find it strange that in the video that fact that 2 planes crashed is not taken into consideration when talking about if Boeing did well and if that plane is safe to fly. One could think you talk about the theoretical case that something with MCAS could go wrong. It went terribly wrong. Boeing will have to pay for this in several ways. Because it was no a „fault“, it was a „fraud“.
No, I don‘t. I‘m an engineer in healthcare. If our company would know about a SW error that could kill or just even hurt hundreds of patients again (!) anytime, we would stop our systems to be used by customers immediately. If we wouldn‘t our company would be closed by the FDA and the EU authorities and someone would end up in jail. Safety critical sub-systems/interfaces/... need to be made error prone TWICE in our business according to regulations. That‘s exactly what Boeing didn‘t do, although this is done for life critical systems in planes, too - normally ;-)
@@drock5407 He is a realist. I fully agree with him. Boeing screwed it utterly and completely, and I am very confident that criminal charges can and will be brought against them, and it will be succesful, unless they can evade it due to jurisdictional issues. The only unfortunate thing I see here that Boeing did not crash in the USA... Prosecuting them would be much easier.
You are absolutely right, Mentour sounded like PR person for Boeing. He said plane would be thoroughly tested by FAA and other agencies to make sure it is completely safe for you and me! Yeah, wasn't it 'thoroughly tested' to be licensed and yet we are here. They certainly knew this is flawed plane and they didn't even tell the pilots about MCAS, which was also flawed, but they still sold and delivered it, and now 350 people are dead. If this is not a shady business, to avoid using stronger but more realistic word, I don't know what is.
So, instead of copying the MCAS from the military version that works well (uses two sensors, turns itself off if the sensors disagree, turns itself off if the pilot tries to move the nose up), Boeing made a civilian version of the system with one sensor and more difficult to turn off. Even though the aircraft had two sensors anyway, so it's not like Boeing saved money by not installing one of the sensors. This looks to me like the software job was given to an intern or a new employee as a first assignment and it was made very simple - if sensor says AoA is too high (and flaps up, thrust high, autopilot off), trim the nose down, unless the pilot disconnects the trim motors. But yea, the 737MAX is probably going to be the safest airplane after this. If there is another crash due to a design problem (problem with the fix or an unrelated problem), that would be really bad for Boeing, so I think that the whole design will be checked.
I really get the bad design part of the story (reading how the MCAS works made me ask myself “isn't this a rookie mistake?”). What I don't get is how was it possible that the pilots of the second crash didn't know. I mean, you pilot an aircraft and you know there was a crash of the same model and some speculation on the reasons of the crash was already out there and the MCAS is mentioned and explained. How come they didn't think of the stab trim cutoff?
@@WilliamJones-Halibut-vq1fs From what I read about the "new math" crap (where 3*5 is not the same as 5*3) and forcing the students to strictly follow procedure instead of thinking, then I'd say at least that part is not so great.
@@WilliamJones-Halibut-vq1fs. American baseball teams are all best in the World Series though. Can we assume this study was carried out by alt right Americans.
*> They are paying a price that they well deserve to pay.* No, 384 souls paid the price. The rich execs don't pay ANY price unless their wives and kids die screaming and crying when their airplane falls out of the sky.
I see the lack of AOA sensor redundancy as a severe design flaw, especially since the second AOA sensor was installed, anyway. To keep knowledge of the MCAS system from the pilots just to reduce conversion training costs, however, verges on being criminal negligence.
The criticality of the system was high enough that it should have required redundancy by FAA policy per the Seattle Times report. How it does not have redundancy and still got approved is apparently not yet available. I suspect the FAA and DoJ are looking at that pretty hard.
Boeing provided data from NG flights that demonstrated the required performance for prevention of engine-driven pitch up. Since the FAA had no responsible representatives present at Boeing they accepted the data as proof of performance for the augmentation required for the new engines. Only Boeing and the FAA know why Boeing's proposal to use only one AoA sensor for what was to become MCAS was accepted as sufficient. We know why Boeing did it. It was all about the "less than an hour train for the new certification" sales pitch. It takes a very strong CEO to face the facts and say NO.
@@henrydelana9317 Speaking of CEOs, the one from Ethiopia Airlines ought to have his tail set on fire. He allowed a 200-hour pilot to sit in the right seat. That's no better than having a single pilot in the left seat and one of the passengers from the back sitting in the right seat who just got his private pilot's license. As Capt. Sully said: "It's abhorrent" to have a 200-hour pilot as a crew member. The CEO was trying to save money by getting young eager guys to build hours at the expense of the 180 people who died due to lack of education. The fact that the prior evening flight crew experienced the same problem but didn't advise the following crew really burns me up. Luckily, the crew the night before had a pilot sitting in the jump seat who knew about the two trim cutoff switches. Otherwise, the disaster would have happened a day earlier.
@@daffidavit, you are confusing the Ethiopian and the Lion Air crashes. The Lion Air aircraft had the same problem on the previous flight, spotted and solved by the jump seat pilot. The problem WAS written up and the AOA sensor replaced before the fatal flight, so the failure was most likely in either the wiring or the computer input channel. At this stage in the B737 Max saga, few pilots knew about the MCAS system as it was not included in the conversion training. The Ethiopian 200hr pilot: In the past, it has not been uncommon during pilot shortages to hire pilots with the ink on their CPL licences still wet. This may be rare among major carriers, but this is simply a matter of company policy, which is usually changed to suit the new pilot supply situation, and has been true around the world. There is no indication that this low aexperience had any bearing on the accident, in fact this pilot must have just come out of the rather intensive initial type training on a regular B737 flight simulator, so he was most likely quite competent.
@@Halli50 Thank you. I did confuse the Lion Air flight, so I have to take it back about the failure to advise the next crew on the Ethiopian flight. But I still agree with Capt. Sully, it was "abhorrent" to put a pilot with only 200 hours of flight experience in the right seat. I don't blame the pilot. Any young guy would jump at the chance to be a first officer in a 737 MAX. But the CEO should be held accountable for not training the Captain on the MCAS system, especially since it was known from the Lion Air incident and other NASA voluntary pilot reports that the trim could go into a runaway situation. Finally, the Colgan air disaster near Boston taught us that flight experience can mean the difference between life and death. When there are many people sitting in the back seats, they expect and deserve the best. After the Colgan disaster, Congress made the FAA change its regulations to require all major airline pilots to have at least 1,500 hours. The Captain must have an ATP rating. And if the captain is over a certain age, the pilot in the right seat must also have an ATP. I respectfully disagree with you about a 200-hour pilot coming out of 737 sim training being competent. As Capt. Sully said the crew must act as one. They have to be able to almost read each other's minds and act accordingly when there is an emergency. No 200-hour pilot is that good. The passengers deserved the best pilots not, as Sully said, one pilot and an apprentice. Thank you for correcting me..
Mentour, your videos make everything much clearer. Your approach to whatever the subject matter is never feels like you are forcing your personal opinion down everyone’s throats. You give factual and very straightforward information based on what has been documented by the various aviation authorities. Some other YT aviation gurus feel that they need to use brute force to drill the subject matters into our heads. I’ve personally found that you teach very well and I hope that you will be recognized for doing a video in the correct manner. As an aside, we can also get to see your hairy kids as well showing that you are human and don’t consider yourself to be at a level above your audience. Great job as always.
@@ericbedenbaugh7085 - the Ethiopian crew did follow procedures after three cycles of incremental (and un-wanted) stabilizer movements initiated by the MCAS. The crew turned off both switches to remove power from the horiz stabilizer motor, then attempted to manually change the stabilizer position by using the control wheel in the cockpit, as documented in Boeing's procedures following the Lyon Air crash. Current hypothesis is that because they were also honking back on the stick in an attempt to raise the nose of the aircraft, the limited mechanical advantage of the small stabilizer control wheel in the cockpit used to move the stabilizer was not enough to overcome the extreme forces on the stabilizer of the aircraft which was now exceeding the design limit of airspeed as it dove toward the ground. The crew realized that the frozen control wheel meant a certain crash, so they re-powered the stabilizer control motors, and attempted to use the thumb switches to correct the horizontal stabilizer position, but by then, it was too late. Boeing is in deep doo-doo with this woefully poor design because: 1) dependent on a single point of failure (one AOA sensor) for a critical response (nose-down correction, even at low altitudes) 2) no diagnostic checking of AOA sensor function visible to pilots on aircraft without the optional package to do so (which clearly says that Boeing realized this was necessary, but decided for some really strange reason to charge extra for it) 3) No feedback loop between Horizontal Stabilizer and MCAS - so no matter how 'smart' the MCAS software is, it couldn't tell that the Horizontal Stabilizer was already moved to a dangerous nose-down position before moving it further 4) inadequate manual backup for pilots to move the horizontal stabilizer under several flight conditions (something well known since the 70's - pilots used to be trained for this, but for some reason are no longer trained for it) 5) the "emergency" cut-off switches should provide the option to just turn off MCAS, and not the entire power to horizontal stabilizer motor, so that the pilot can make corrections to the stabilizer position using the thumb-switches provided for that purpose. Older models of the 737 had this - one of the two switches would disable auto-control functions but leave the power to the stabilizer motors "on". Why that option was removed on the MAX will no-doubt be discussed at some length in upcoming lawsuits.
Great answers with solid explanations. Unfortunately we live in a sound byte era and anything as complicated as aviation can’t be reduced to one sentence. If you want to understand, you must be willing to listen. I found this video to be very helpful to my understanding 👍
@@sssri1122 the powered trim System can go faulty witch puts the plane into a nose up or nose down it's why you have to remember off by memory when you have a runaway trim situation, outside of native English speaking seems to be where this issue comes from where they are failing to follow basic runaway trim situation and letting the powered trim crash the plane which is what happened with the Estonia flight and Lion Air they failed to cut trim and was actively fighting the trim system (witch you should never be doing) by pushing trim back up when the system was trimming back down I Believe When Boeing are saying that airlines pilots did not have the correct training they may have been referring to runaway trim situation training which these pilots were failing on (not specifically relating to the MCAS system this is just the runaway trim situation which they should be trained for the last 40 years)
ss sri it is due to the design of the aircraft and engine position. It is described better in another video, the engine thrust has a greater tendency to force the nose up in the max variant, thus this system is in place to counteract this in a specific extreme scenario
As a MAX driver myself, what about the stab cutout switches and fly the plane first. There’s been no mention in the press that Lion air had the same problem the day before and they used trim cutout switches, manual trim. Easy to say since I do have the advantage to Monday morning quarter the situation.
Dane ... Holy crap. Like you're the only person so far today & most days lately that I've come across that seems to be aware of the MAGA / free press Juicy Smellitt schwindle being perpetrated against Boeing. Not a single member of the bloodthirsty Boeing carve-up mob that I've challenged knows about the PAN-PAN call the day before the doomed Lyin' Air 737 MAX took a swim ... not to mention the unchanged since Day 1 in 1967 and likely to remain unchanged till 2067 process for a 737 pilot to actually start flying their plane. _
I believe that Mentour explained what needed to be said and understood by the flying public and those that are interested in aviation... I believe that those in the media were not capable of explaining in layman's terms what Mentor said very clearly and jumped to conclusions without understanding how planes fly and how pilots fly them.!!!
My question, can such conditions exist that no matter what happens aircraft will stall and crash because of high AOA and not enough speed alone, regardless if MCAS is there or not? These days companies will do anything to save money, including making pilots climb at max rate to get higher and increase fuel efficiency. And also pilots reliant on software/systems too much making them too bold. And it's not like one can practice stalling a commercial aircraft other than in simulator.
@@couldyourewindplease3653 Meh - few false assumptions there. First, airplanes can easily outclimb the limits that ATC sets for them. They actually have to *reduce* thrust to keep from level-busting or over-speeding during a climb. I also think it's mostly a myth that airlines will skimp by encouraging practices that directly flirt with safety. ("I need you at level 340 in *minutes* skipper! You Hear Me? You better be climbing like a Bat Out of Hell!") More realistic/less sexy ways airlines try to save are *slowing down* a flight once it's at cruise, in order to optimize fuel burn, and by contracting with code share partners with very low margins who pressure their pilots to fly lots of circuits back-to-back like the Colgan Air pilots. Or by lengthening the time between maintenance as Southwest is reported to have done. But if you tried to climb a 7-3 fast enough to stall it during a commercial flight, you'd have a level bust from ATC and a visit from the chief pilot way before you risked a stall.
The answer is the one you might guess first. They saved some money, and booked orders based on a risk. Would you want to fly on a plane that was sold this way? My guess is that Dennis Muileburg wishes he had silenced Sales and told Engineering to embed the dual AoA system and make it fail-safe. He could have done it as CEO. He chose to take the more risky approach. NASA did too when it chose to launch the Challenger. Flying is risky. Some risks can be managed, some cannot. Good companies excel in managing risks. If profit ever becomes the driver risk will rise.
I might be dating myself but I thought the main difference between Airbus and Boeing commercial planes was the fact that Boeing pilots, at anytime could take full authority of the aircraft, negating any automatic systems. The MCAS system seems to invalidate what I was told some 20 years ago. Are pilots, both Airbus & Boeing, getting too comfortable with software?
There are always detail differences between the philosophy of manual control, and the actual safety and stability systems implemented. The B737 has long had something called speed trim, which operates in part of the flight regime (fast speeds), opposite to MCAS (slow speeds). Whether both systems were operating simultaneously during the MAX crashes is a disturbing possibility, with faulty AOA data and not anywhere near stall.
It is a very common opinion in the industry that automation has had a negative effect on stick-and-rudder flying skills. I would go further and say that I think it has probably been causal or contributing in a number of tragedies. However, so far as what you were told about pilots being able to take control as necessary, we have still not seen anything that demonstrates otherwise from these MAX accidents. Boeing has generally maintained more mechanical control connections and backups than Airbus, even within their FBW systems. I have never been rated on the 737 but I still know how to stop a stab trim runaway event on that airplane, whatever the cause of it may be (whether a bad servo motor switch or MCAS, presumably), as it has been common to the model for decades. Other crews who experienced this malfunction, including other Lion Air crews, did not crash the airplane as a result. As for misinformation, the media make fantastic sums of money from sensationalism and public panic due to the ratings and ad dollars which result, so speculating and suggesting the worst even in their ignorance is highly incentivized. It is best to listen only to the evidence put forward by the NTSB and their counterparts as well as discussions among those who actually fly the airplane.
Have you watched the news? They ran wild because they took the story and started talking about how unsafe the MAX was. Instead of talking with real pilots who fly the plane they just used talking points that were not the whole truth it were flat out false. The new has been reporting how Boeing charged extra for safety equipment. That is not the whole truth. That is how the news ran wild. We need all the facts in a story, not just part of the story.
Reporting on two plane crashes within five months on the same aircraft is not going wild. The plane was extremely unsafe, the way MCAS could cause the plane to crash. It has now been documented that MCAS relied on a single input.
It's nice compared to hearing various aviation experts on the news with more relevant expertise and detailed knowledge of the MAX 8 than pilots who've never even been trained to fly them have? It's not going wild to report the fact that experts are able to foresee situations in which having the AoA disagree light would indeed be helpful to MAX 8 pilots both without this software update and after it. MAX 8 and 9 pilots should have this light so that they know when MCAS is no longer available to help prevent a stall, because in emergencies knowledge that they're more prone to stalling than usual could influence their decisions. Most pilots haven't received the updated MCAS training as most airlines don't have the planes anyway.
@@jacklabloom635 Not especially, at least based on what we know so far. The software did need correction, as items often do in newer models, but when the malfunction occurred, nothing we have seen so far indicates that it needed to be a fatal event. The crews needed to respond to a runaway stab trim event, whatever the cause. That has been standard training on 737s for decades. Other airplanes have similar risks and similar procedures. That is why Mentour Pilot indicated that he had no doubts about the safety of flying the MAX in the future. The media relies on drama and sensationalism and that often means doing less than cautious, accurate, or knowledgeable analysis, not to mention the breathless tones of panic and fear. Spikes in viewership and ad revenue are strong incentives.
Look, what you said at 7:05 is Huge! Boeing had only to add that one feature in with no redundant AOA sensors and two crashes would have been prevented. That to me is an oversight of the highest degree and you can just throw away the iPad training as a reason of concern. The plane/MCAS did not disengage when contra input was detected from pilot. Even autopilot releases doesnt it when the stick is used manually?
If the 737 max is a very stable AC ,as you are stating , then why did they have to install a MCAS function on this version of 737 ? I can imagine this scenario in 2011, when Airbus was launching a new AC that would take some major market out of Boeing. Boeing had to react super fast to keep their market share, so management probably put huge pressure on their advance design team to come up with a quick solution. A complete new AC would of taken to much time so they decided to tweak this low landing gear AC design, with the biggest engine bypass ratio , in order to compete with the Airbus Neo fuel economy. To keep the engine ground clearance they had to move the engine forward and raise the forward landing gear (it was not possible to raise the main landing gear without a major redesign of wing that would of require a new AC certification which would of taken more time to market ) . This and the much larger engine nacelle create a condition at high AOA were the nacelle provide unwanted lift that can tiger a positive feedback looping and stall the aircraft in the most critical part of their flight plan. I am not a pilot but I dont think that with a max loaded aircraft in climb it is possible to recover from a stall. The failure of the FAA to scrutanise Boeing and prevent them from taking shortcut to beat their competition , is IMHO the cause of these two AC catastrophe . The US corperations controled the governement into eroding the authority and understaffing the FAA so they can have a clear path to profits. They also control the MSM and I can't help to wonder if , with all the money which is at staked here , that you are not being compromised in your evaluation of the safety this 737 max. I am very pessimistic about the future ,because other goverment watch dog agencies like the EPA and FDA and Atomic energy may be in the same situation as the FAA and could result in much bigger catastrophe the those two crash.
There are three broad types of (in)stability: 1. Positive stability where every disturbance returns to the previous (normal) position. 2. Neutral stability where a disturbance remains in the last position. 3. Instability where a small disturbance rapidly accelerates into a runaway condition. The B737 (along with all passenger aircraft) stays within positive stability in all phases of flight. MCAS is only designed to deal with a small deviation from the acceptable rate at which the aircraft returns to the previous (normal) condition. This is a certification requirement regarding the feel of the pilot controls in manual flight, and was never related to (in)stability. The answer you describe is melodramatic journalistic shorthand for a much more subtle concept. The rest of your comments are incorrect.
Your answers are not convincing to the controversy of Max8. The MCAS and MAX handling turned out to be an engineering disaster of Boeing and a big shame of FAA certifications. But from your comments, it seems that nothing is serious.
Henry Delana the audience would like to understand what caused the two accidents from a technical perspective. Unfortunately from the video I could not find much reasonable doubt for potential flaws from the point view of aerodynamics, S&C, flight control or fly-by-wire.
Questions I'm hoping the FAA will be asking in addition to the standard ones. 1) Why did those sensors fail? Is there a flaw in the design or manufacture? How often do these sensors fail? 2) Are there any other systems on this aircraft that rely on a single input - critical or not? 3) Is MCAS integrated into the flight control computers or a separate system - if it is separate is it possible for the pilot or first officer to disable or reset MCAS?
I would add 4) Are there any other systems, functions and or alarms that would have activated or de-activated as a result of that sensor fault that would have contributed to these accidents, apart from MCAS?
Again a very well done video about airliners. Amazing the press could ever get anything wrong in reporting on aviation. :) We also do not navigate with iPads but the iPad might have the digital chart on it. Yes pilots use iPads for learning about the aircraft, and before iPads we used paper books, large pictures, movie projectors and overhead projectors to learn about the aircraft. But we still use real aircraft or simulators to learn how the fly the aircraft. I think it is accurate to say that all jet airliners have AOA vanes and AOA is used by the aircraft systems, but pilots who fly the aircraft do not need to have an AOA indicator to fly the aircraft safely. We had the AOA vanes on the 757 and 767 that I flew for 20 years and never had the ability to read actual AOA in the cockpit. We could indirectly have an idea of AOA with some of the indications but could not know what AOA was at any given time.
You appear to accept what Ethiopian is saying. If this came from the NTSB, or the BEA, or the AAIB you should consider it as well thought out. It may not be fact (many air accidents are never truly understood, M370 being a classic example). Do not assume that an airline operating a plane that suffers an accident that claims the lives of all souls on board can be trusted to tell the truth about what happened. Ethiopian will have to demonstrate that it's pilots were properly briefed on the MCAS after the FAA directive went out in 2018. There are good sources of information about what is going on. You should seek them out.
That was HAL9000 taking action on it's own lol xD JK, yes the preliminary report are out, and the investigators said that the pilot already followed Boeing AD procedures, but still can't help them out of dangerous situation leading to the doomed flight, this should put to rest Pilot lacks of training as well, since they were aware of the MCAS after Lion Air, they also have been noticed about how to deal with it by following the trim cutoff procedures involving MCAS runaway. Idk about others..but if the Pilot did knew about what caused the nose down then followed by the correct procedures on how to dealing with it based on the manufacturer checklist but still can't save them out of the dangerous situation, to me the blame isn't on the pilots..it's something else...
Gordon Richardson -According to reports the pilots switched off the “Anti -Stall”system 4 times in 6 min.but the system turned on every single time.Here:”Ethiopian authorities, in a press conference Thursday disclosing findings from their preliminary crash probe, stopped short of drawing any firm conclusions about the causes of the crash. But they confirmed a flight-control system triggered repetitively during the six-minute flight, pushing the nose down. They recommended Boeing review the system, and said regulators should then test it before lifting a global grounding of the MAX fleet.”
As far as I understand the MCAS is not just a security system that kicks in when stall happens, it also compensates like 5% since the engine positions have changed the planes characteristics
I have so much respect for you Mentour. Pilots like you make commercial air travel the safest way to travel in the world. Having said that, I do have an issue with something you said. At 1:40 in the video you make the statement that “when Boeing builds aircraft, they want to make sure that it is Fully safe to fly”. I think even you would be forced to admit, that if this statement was “Fully” true then Boeing would have been sure to equip the 737 with the same safety features regarding MCAS as the KC-46 Tanker sold to the military. It is dubious, at best that Boeing would think it necessary to create the redundancy’s necessary in the KC-46, but not the revenue version of the 737. A really good way of thinking about this issue is to start with the fact that somewhere deep in the basement of Boeing’s engineering department, a really thoughtful engineer, imagined a very similar scenario that the Ethiopian Airlines flight crew faced when they were trying to wrestle the airplane away from the evil MCAS. These people paid for it with their lives sadly. I guess what I’m trying to say is Boeing had the solution for the problem, before people died. Only the deaths resulting from these accidents, has prompted Boeing to implement the solution. One could argue that Boeing was influenced by an analysis of the probability that MCAS would cause these issues returned an extremely remote chance of this occurring. However, reality dictates that some folks at Boeing thought it prudent to add those safety features for the KC-46. So based on all of this in my humble opinion, Boeing takes very carefully planned risk assessments when they design and build an aircraft, but they definitely don’t always build an aircraft that has every safety feature in their arsenal to make it Fully safe to fly. I guess the real question is why is this so? Usually the answer comes down to money and profit. I believe wholeheartedly in capitalism. It is the engine that runs the world, and has given us this beautiful technology. This is one area where the government needs to be heavily involved in forcing companies to make flying as safe as humanly possible.
Hey Mentour, quick question. If the alpha vanes are situated along the longitudinal axis of the aircraft but on opposite sides of the fuselage, wouldn't the readouts on the AOA indicator disagree in an ascending or descending turn, or at any pitch attitude other than zero with a given amount of bank angle established (e.g. maintaining a heading in a crosswind)? Love your Channel, would be thrilled if you answered this question in a video! Keep up the good work!!
Chris Odom just my non-expert guess: The difference would be slight and predictable. I would assume the program has parameters to distinguish between normal and unwanted maneuvering.
Chris - Although the alpha vanes are on opposite sides of the airplane, they're on the fuselage not the wings. Even in a turn the air on both sides of the fuselage should be the same (assuming the airplane is in a "coordinated turn" and is not "skidding" or "slipping" sideways). Realistically, there is going to be some margin for error programmed into the system, so it won't show a "disagree" unless the two vanes mismatch by a certain value or greater (perhaps something like 2 degrees' difference). That would allow for minor variations in calibration, airflow over the fuselage, and things like turbulence to cause momentary discrepancies that won't be so large as to cause a "false alarm" that one of the vanes is reading incorrectly.
I get the feeling that two forces counter-acting each other in the way the mcas intervenes is gonna be a structural problem for the 737 max in that if you have a force at the engine point pushing upwards and the horizontal stabiliser at the back pushing downwards, at some point, something in-between the engine point and tail could snap, especially if mcas is gonna kick-in for nearly all the takeoffs since that's when you most often have high engine output. These forces need to compliment each other as opposed to fighting each other so the strain on the structure of the plane are as minimal as possible!
Look like very oriented answers. As we know now that MCAS was activated during the flight of Ethiopian Air too, there is no time to argue. You says: "737Max is the most scrutinized". Well, this is irreconcilable with reality. What is the reality: - some software designer write a critical code with multiple flaw: use of only one sensor where the is two availlable, repeatedly trim down, take over the pilot, and change of directed sensor each flight making error detection harder. - some other / same software designer create an optional warning system for AoA discrepancy without notifying the risk of MCAS. - some boeing reviewer did not catch the issue. - some FAA security scrutinizer did not catch the issue. And i do not even account for questions like: why MCAS is in the glossary of the 737 max pilot manual without being described in the text? Why north american cie got the AoA discrepancy warning installed and non-american ones not? etc etc... To have such a series of failures in a process clearly indicate that the process itself is failing. It is not an isolated event. So the question is : what are the others hidden 'features' ready to kill people in this company planes?
I understand that they put this extra MCAS on the plane to counteract the centre of gravity shift owing to the larger (more fuel efficient) engines on the MAX
Just like the DC-10, it took many crashes to work all the bugs out. The 737 Max may have been inappropriately certified, the FBI is investigating that. So there are higher than normal chance that there are other bugs that have gone unoticed. I'm not going to fly in a 737 Max until at least 5 years later (if they have no additional crashes).
I avoid flying when I can, but for international flights I have to fly. Usually they are on 777, 787 or A380. Which all have pretty good safety records.
On the last question, I think you could fly the MAX even without the fix. Since the crash you now know how to relieve the pressure on the stabilizer trim wheel in the cockpit
Seeing this late after the findings have come out about Boeing's MCAs system screw up. I didn't know about your site back then, only been watching for about a year now. I admit to nerdiness and the Need To Know. I began my research on the Boeing Max failures shortly after the 2 crashes, primarily because my brother had been an engineer at Boeing for over 40 years and I Wanted To Know, and he wouldn't discuss it. Well, he was a fuel engineer not a design engineer, so it's possible he may not have known anything about the design of the 737 Max. But he certainly knew a lot about the Boeing culture. I admire that you know so much and explain it so well. But as I look at these early vids you made about the Max crashes, it's even more clear to me that Boeing had a tragic failure in design and they managed to keep that from public knowledge for longer than acceptable.
2 interesting questions though. 1. The Angle of attack sensors are in use on many planes and do not feed false readings. Why do we suddenly get false readings on the 737max? 2. Is the design of the 737max fundamentally flawed with its large engines positioned forward and higher? That is in the panic to compete with the Airbus A320neo Boeing patched up the 737 in an unstable way that will always require high input from MCAS ? Love your videos by the way.
Many of you understand what our friend Mentour Pilot is trying to convey. Some of appreciate his candor when discussing what has to be the worst airplane manufacturer PR disaster since the Hindenburg. A few of you understand the knowledge that, as a pilot, he is trying to convey. Ask yourself, is this the kind of person I want on the flight deck when my life depends upon their experience? Or would I prefer an inexperienced person in command, one who was trained but may not have learned what they need to know when things go bad (and on the flight deck things can go bad quickly if you don't know how to assess your situation, and then respond according to learned procedures). Panic is your enemy. Mentour knows how to handle stabilizer runaway (checkout the video) so he could have handled the Lion Air and Ethiopian accidents. Sadly the four pilots on the two aircraft did not know what to do. And their flight manuals did not tell them how to handle the situation they were faced with. Blame Boeing first. Then blame the US FAA second. Then blame the US Dept of Transportation third. And, because the safety of the flying public was of no concern to him, Donald Trump, who shut down the FAA when Boeing was ready to move forward for a fix to the problem. Oh, and just remember, Donald Trump's former Head of the FAA left service over a year ago. For over a year the agency has been headed by an acting head, as are many positions in the US Govt under Trump. After the Ethiopian accident, and the embarrassment to the FAA Trump has nominated a new Head of the FAA. There are many facets of the US Government that are functioning in a management void created by the current President. Please factor that into you analyses of what is going in the air safety realm right now.
I might be wrong but you already know the pitch and the angular attack is a function of the condition of safe flight within a limit of thrust. When you design the 737 with the reactors too much forward you create a unsafe speed flow stability to the airplane. For when the angular attack and the pitch overpass the frontier of the limit of the cx air flow in the head of the airplane in high pitch or vertical attack, the airplane looses its lift and the airplane start to nose dive. So the lift of the airplane is a function of the design of the head of the airplane and its correlation of the position of the reactors. These 2 factors regulate the safe lift of the airplane when the airplane start to over pitch vertically. The dynamic of the safe flow of its continuous flow enveloppe had shifted outside the design of the nose of the plane and the airplane start to nose dive.. For the rims of the high pressure in high rise vertical lift had been inverse implementing to a forceful nose dive.All these assumptions are submitted to the professionals engineers and test pilots to test fly the airplane to determine the limit of angle of attack in correlation with the speed air flow for safety concerns of the flight.
It is also important to point out that there is no such thing as a "standard" Boeing 737 Max. Every airline specifies a unique configuration and gets a unique model. It is not like a car with standard features and options.
The angle of attack at 6 degrees input per correction every 10 seconds should not be activated at low altitude but rather 2 degrees , especially when max thrust is being applied .You would of thought this override would be redundant until altitude and thrust were at respected values . if the M Cass. System is constantly working to stabilise the aircraft with less input from the pilots at normal operating procedures, surley this is going to cause excessive wear on the worm gear component thus shortened lifespan there of .also the excessive fatigue on the tail section compared to similar aircraft , has extra strength for longevity been applied to these parts , as stability changed due to moving the engines forward as to use the existing fuselage keeping costs down and time in competing with air bus.
Excellent video! To those throwing shade that he sounds like he's covering for Boeing, I disagree. He's separating the hype from the facts. Boeing not putting a redundant sensor and not making sure that pilots understood this system was indeed inexcusable but he's not addressing that aspect of things in this. What I gather from this is that with a redundant sensor and full pilot knowledge of the system, there is nothing particularly unique or risky about this plane or this type of system. The media and the regulators should be going after Boeing for their behavior as two very avoidable crashes are on their hands. But Mentour is not addressing that. He is just separately saying that where we are now this plane is as safe as other airliners. If he didn't he wouldn't want the risk for himself or fellow pilots. I appreciate hearing this sort of info from him versus a journalist or politician.
I enjoyed flying the -200 for Western Airlines in 1969- for many years! We had just got them and I was actually an S/O for a time before they agreed to a two pilot crew !!
I'm not a pilot, but for anyone who has worked with machinery for decades...the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know. Ryanair decided to only have 737's for safety's sake. Damn good idea! Those pilots only fly this model so it gets to feel like part of them. Any slight variation to a new model will NOT go unnoticed! ...And then rapidly assimilated into their minds. It's just one new thing to remember. Their confidence in memory items is at the highest level already with just one aircraft. Now all they have to do is learn some new thing that is going to stick out in their minds. Done. Another thing i've noticed that doesn't get mentioned is the ESL (English as a Second Language) thing. While every pilot needs to know English, some struggle with it. Memorized navigation protocol is different than reading something and having it become second nature because you grok it. So ESL pilots reading the material about something to do differently will have different retention rates. Anyone who has dealt with second language students of any kind will know what i'm talking about. I noticed this when I, an anglophone, would listen to my German relatives. It took concentration i didn't always have for that. I'd think I understood a word but didn't and it changed the meaning. Retention was inconsistent. This is not something that Boeing can change. It is something the carriers have to acknowledge and then preferably teach the concept, no matter how simple, in the mother tongue of the pilot. I've noticed that Europeans in general learn English at a very early age and have excellent English comprehension skills. Often, you can ask them a nuanced question and get a nuanced answer. Asians struggle more. I totally admire them for what they do know but the compliment doesn't solve that language comprehension barrier. Ryanair has a pretty good safety culture. At the top of the world's safest airlines list, I'm guessing it's at the top of bringing pilots into the loop. (and teaches how to get out of it;) And the chances of conversing about your aircraft in your mother tongue is high. And on top of that, if you're only talking about one bloody machine all the time, any difference is going to be pounced upon in conversation just to make it less monotonous.
Boeing does no wrong as far as you are concerned, even in the face of them clearing erring in developing an MCAS that depends on data from only one AoA sensor. Unbelievable!
Kwame Boadu Kissi he is simply looking at it with a clear view that is not company biased Both airbus and Boeing have made fatal flaws in the development of their aircraft. For instance with stall susts such and Air France 447, an a330 that killed everyone onboard- airbus quietly pushed a software update after that flight as well that corrected some things they got wrong
He's not arguing that Boeing does no wrong. He's just arguing that he believes they (possibly incorrectly) did not consider AoA disagree light to be a vital safety feature that they charged money for out of greed.
"some might say a redundancy that should have been there in the first place". Rather an understatement I would have thought. A system that automatically intervenes to alter the flying characteristics of an aircraft on one sensor without even indicating that there's a disagreement is surely flawed. That's even more so when, of the reports are correct, the system automatically re-engages after having been disabled.
Great Answers. To address stall, from basic training, an aircraft can stall at any airspeed any attitude. I s this still true? If so the media, has pit-bulled a phrase, and if not careful can panic the public. Sad that a little knowledge can cause problems
I think it is possible that the Alpha vanes are the real culprit here. Why are they malfunctioning? Yes, MCAS should have been reliant on both, not just one. But with these aircraft being fairly new, having multiple failures of one sensor is a bit strange.
Not being a pilot myself, Boeing’s pitch recovery has always seemed insufficient. From other videos on 737s, I understand it would 4-5 seconds of full attention to unfold the handles of the trim wheel, then several more to trim in optimal conditions (without MCAS trying to make inputs.) So if the computer lost situational awareness, even if prepared pilots reacted immediately, they would be unlikely to recover the aircraft before it lost thousands of feet! Am I missing something? Peter always said you should slap a pilot and take controls if they are taking chances, why allow planes to exist with computers that can do so much damage? This is not an issue that will only affect Boeing, it is an issue of low airworthiness standards all around. Grow a pair and tell the industry if they have a problem!
Mentour Pilot Thanks for your clear, precise videos! I'm looking forward to the reports. The chain of failures needs to be found and understood. I'm tired of everyone bashing Boeing and the MAX with only speculation as an excuse. If only those bashing computers in airplanes understood the benefits they bring preventing pilot mistakes IN GENERAL instead of pointing at two disasters! I'm tempted to tell them every airplane accident is caused by humans trying to fly while not being birds... Again, thanks!
Yup, how people dare to bash poor company that only oh, killed 400 people (and would have killed 1200+ if other pilots weren't more lucky)? They should be praised instead, eh? Also, people do understand the benefits of computers, the issue is absolutely insane and idiotic implementation in MAX just to save a few dollars...
KuK137 How do you know Boeing killed them? All we know for sure is that SOMETHING caused the crashes, and it is NEVER just one thing. The proof is that many other pilots had an issue with MCAS, ran the Runaway stabilizer trim checklist and survived. I'm not saying Boeing is perfect, nor that MCAS cannot be improved, but saying Boeing killed people is exaggerated. Do you have proof Boeing is guilty of Gross negligence? If so, tell the Authorities. Following that line of thought, every plane maker, car makers and train maker would be criminals because people died in them? Wait for the reports.
I would have called this the top 5 questions I don't want to be asked about the max in any public forum are.........so thanks god your around to take it on and I think its fair to say you do an excellent job.
The take-off at 00:50 seems almost vertical. I guess the commercial jets can't do that and that's just the camera angle. Am I right? If yes, how do they get that kind of footage?
Not to be a hind site 20/20 person, but I've always maintained that if there is a button for something in an aircraft, the pilot should know about it. (referring to the 2 existing MCAS disable buttons in the centre).
I agree that it may be so Mentour but it does not negate the responsibilities of a professional and competent pilot to take the initiative to know and fully understand the aircraft they are operating. The MCAS over ride buttons were added to the max series Why are they there? What are the systems involved? What sensors are relied upon? I'm not even a pilot and if I saw new buttons like these, I would be asking these questions.
Here's what I don't get....... Why don't they just have a separate switch that turns off MCAS and leaves motorized trim working. As I programmer I have encountered numerous times that I thought I fixed some bug, only to have it pop up later under slightly different conditions. Having a switch means if anything goes wrong you simply turn it off, but then you can still use the little rocker switch and not have to be frantically spinning wheels during some emergency situation.
Its all about certification of flight controls. You can't have systems that you turn off at any time. Clearly there was a major error here, but it is not simple to fix.
@@gordonrichardson2972 As far as I can tell there are lots of systems you can turn off at any time. In fact you can turn of MCAS now, but you also turn off the trim tab motors. All I'm saying is put them on different switches.
That could have been done, but it would have required additional wiring circuits, further certification and testing, and further training. No easy solutions in aerospace...
@@gordonrichardson2972 IMO even if the planned fixes are adequate, Boeing has a bigger problem: public perception. It could be some significant percentage of the public will refuse to fly on 737 Max aircraft. That hits the bottom line of the airlines and Boeing too. Anything that convinces the public that these planes are safe is going to be a good thing for them. Also I don't know why this wasn't done in the first place. I mean when I saw the demo video on this channel, my instantaneous response was "why isn't this on a separate switch". It literally came to me in about 5 seconds. It seems obvious, but then I'm not a pilot and maybe I'm missing something.
Maybe because the media's tales to generate that reaction from you aren't entirely true...? Ever thought of that? Ever heard of the Toyota unintended-acceleration scandal? It cost Toyota billions, they had to make a few changes, but what did later analysis show was the biggest factor? Engineering or media hype? Ever heard of the media trying to demonstrate the danger of GM truck's side-saddle gas tanks? Were they honest then, either? When someone makes money from your reaction, they are going to tell you a whopper of a story every time they can. You would take their tales over all the pilots and engineers involved in these aircraft? Why would any of them have to be paid by Boeing to tell you the truth when their own lives are the ones that will often be at stake flying them far more often than any passenger's life is at stake riding in them?
Mentour Pilot, you gave an excellent briefing. I’ve seen that Airbus has had its own AOA sensors failure in a couple of incidents. Their system (fly by wire) is linked to a “FLIGHT AUGMENTATION SYSTEM”, “ALPHA PROTECTION”. Could you expound upon the comparison of the systems please. On 5 November 2014, Lufthansa Flight 1829, an Airbus A321 was flying from Bilbao to Munich when the aircraft, while on autopilot, lowered the nose into a descent reaching 4000 fpm. The uncommanded pitch-down was caused by two angle of attack sensors that were jammed in their positions, causing the fly by wire protection to believe the aircraft entered a stall while it climbed through FL310. The Alpha Protection activated, forcing the aircraft to pitch down, which could not be corrected even by full stick input. The crew disconnected the related Air Data Units and were able to recover the aircraft.[41] The event was also reported in the German press several days before the Germanwings crash.[42] The German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation (BFU) reported on the incident on 17 March 2015 in a Bulletin publishing the flight data recorder and pitch control data in English and German. As a result of this incident an Airworthiness Directive made mandatory the Aircraft Flight Manual amended by the procedure the manufacturer had described in the FOT and the OEB and a subsequent information of flight crews prior to the next flight. EASA issued a similar Airworthiness Directive for the aircraft types A330/340.[43][44]
I'm really happy you are doing this series. I pass my time answering people the same... just a remark, the 737NG (only SOME versions) also has a similar system controlled by the EFS. (FCOM chapter 9.20.11). Inhibit conditions are practically the same as well. Such systems are not new, Airbus has also their own version of stall protection management systems.
Yes, elevator feel system is an old design on the B737. It is ironic that MCAS was designed because the EFS hydraulics could not cope with the changes in the aerodynamics of the MAX engine nacelles. It is a kludge on top of a kludge, presented as a shiny new aircraft. P.S. A few too many abbreviations...
In my opinion the root cause of the decision to include MCAS is ultimately to blame here. Boeing should not be incentivized to keep hacking on a 50+ year old airframe to meet modern requirements. The fact is the 737 airframe is not fit for the purpose Boeing is trying to use it for, and they should've bit the bullet and designed a new type. Maybe the software update can at least not make it a deathtrap, but it is still not as safe as a more aerodynamically favourable airframe with the proper alpha protection offered by modern flight controls, which this plane most definitely should have had. The main thing I would like to see come out of this is some regulation to remove this incentive. I suggest a validity timeframe for a type rating - say 25 years - under which differences are allowed, but past that time, a new type rating must be created and pilots must be fully retrained whether the design is clean-sheet or not.
@Quack Quark I could be convinced otherwise, but presently my thinking is that, no, you could no longer produce the older type at all once the certification lapses. You could recertify the exact same design under current rules and with a new type certification (requiring full type training for pilots) if you wanted, but the idea is to get rid of the incentive to keep things 'the same' (but with substantial changes from the original design goals) to avoid retraining Forcing the retraining anyway is a blunt way to do that, but I don't have other ideas to put pressure on manufacturers to design aircraft based on good engineering principles, not the business need to avoid retraining. Open to them, though. What you're suggesting is basically the status today. The incentive to hack on old airframes rather than design new ones that are fit for purpose, or even just do things like FBW the 737, is strong.
We've all read about MCAS software being fixed, but how about repairing the catalyst that started the event(s) - the angle of attack sensors? I used to repair electronics during my working career, and if I learnt anything, it's that curing the symptom is NOT a final solution to the problem.
AoA indicators are becoming popular among GA pilots in North America. Since you became a great pilot without one, you won't really ever need it, but some recreational pilots seem to find it easier to use than normal indications. It also sounds important to people who don't fly.
After reading the preliminary findings in the Ethiopian crash, it seems to me that Boeing could design a simple fix to the problem with pilots losing control after MCAS erroneously taking control of the stabilizer in the 737 MAX. I'm not an engineer, but I have an electronics background. I would offer the suggestion that they replace the STAB CUTOUT 2-position switches with a 3-position switch designated NORMAL, MCAS BYPASS, and CUTOUT, wherein the Bypass selection would disable MCAS stabilizer trim commands while still allowing for yolk trim electric control. Such a solution should require very little pilot training and the cost of a 3-position switch upgrade would likely be small when compared to the cost of the number of lives lost. What do you think?
I love the part about the press getting everything wrong! Spot on. However your definition of AOA is completely misinformed. AOA is the difference between the trajectory of the aircraft and the pitch at the wing chord. Nothing to do with speed. It is a subset of the total pitch and the angle difference with wing experiences to the oncoming airstream. Also nothing to do with horizontal flight and going slow.
I believe the point he was trying to make (maybe unclearly) was that the angle of attack when you're in horizontal flight and going slow would be higher than it would be if you were in horizontal flight and flying faster. I used to fly little Cessnas and never thought about angle of attack while flying. It's almost like worrying about how many revolutions your tires make while driving. Except in very specific cases, it's not meaningful information.
@@fixpacifica Again speed has nothing to do with it. I never knew anything about AOA until I flew T-38 where most of the lift is created by AOA not the airfoil. This is why you don't worry about it in your Cessna. I trained in Piper but the same thing when I started flying semi-symmetrical airfoil all the rules change and knowing AOA was the only way you were going to land in one piece.
You may be right, but it is very hard to explain complex technical terms for a general audience in the space of a few minutes. There are other videos specifically about AOA and airflow over the wings, this is not one of them.
@@MrRexquando A 737 is not a T-38. The latter is meant to be an aerobatic aircraft where symmetrical airfoils make sense. A 737 is not meant to do aerobatics, so it has a classic, non-symmetric airfoil. For both types of planes, if you want to maintain level flight at a slow speed, you need a higher angle of attack than if you were flying at a fast speed.
If that’s true, I would like to know why? It is obviously was/is a single point of failure mode. Using both AOA vanes and averaging them unless there is greater than a 5 degree difference is still wrong. 5 degrees is a huge difference if you are at all close to the critical AOA. The reason for the Airbus accident off the coast of Brazil from a stall all of way down from ~30k ft. to the water. Was because the PIC diagnosed the stall and was pushing the side stick for hard nose down to recover. The Co-Pilot didn’t recognize or listen to the PIC and was pulling for hard nose up deepening the stall. The computer software “averaged” their inputs. Averaging inputs seems to me like a really bad idea. They should put on 3 AOA vanes and if one is in error. Cut it off and go with the 2 that agree
I was a passenger on a couple a few weeks ago. I found them more comfortable and much more powerful than the NG. I had a 2.5 hour flight from KGRR to KDEN on a 737-700 then a 2.5 hour flight from KDEN to KLAX on a MAX8, the MAX was a much better experience even though there was quite a bit of turbulence. I love this explanation though. I always thought Boeing was a bit unfairly villainized, though I also always thought that a human control contrary to a computer control should always be superior. I'm especially glad they made that update, seems to be the most important.
Been that we are now 2 years plus from the original Lion Air crash maybe we can do an update video to this on the MCAS system/failures as well as maybe do a Video on the Crash of Lion Air?
The AOA (Angle of attack) sensor is prone to malfunction from a variety of causes, e.g., - Ice formation. The heating system does not act fast enough to defrost. - Damage from getting knocked up by passenger walkways. - Heat and dust. The protection is not 100% foolproof. Boeing made serious questionable decisions by making the MCAS system operational based on a single AOA. Good engineering calls for redundant systems. All these flaws do not even come close to the following facts that we have learned: 1. Boeing and FAA entered into cozy relationship for years that allowed Boeing personnel to fully self-certify planes. 2. FAA continuously denied and continues to deny that the MCAS + single AOA design is seriously flawed. 3. FAA sought to protect U.S. and Boeing's private commercial profits at expense of good design and safety. 4. Boeing hired U.S. administration politicians to lobby on its behalf. It also sent its own executives to work for Trump administration. 5. Boeing hid the problems with the MCAS from flight and training manuals. It deemphasized the MCAS even though it was a serious new addition. The software fix that Boeing plans to roll out now after two serious disasters was slow in making and not given importance by Boeing. This software fix is insufficient correction for what is bad engineering. Boeing has a lot riding on its 4,500+ orders of the Max. Therefore, it cannot be trusted to act in the public's interests. It has compromised values for private American profits.
Having flown a couple of Boeing types I can cay that that Boeing were never much good with automated systems, or explaining them to pilots. Look how sketchy the training manuals are about go arounds and the crashes that has caused. And then there is a the “speed off” function in the 737 auto throttle that Boeing itself recommend you don’t use. Now MCAS has proved that being vague about such systems is a recipe for disaster.
Philip ... Having Boeing flight experience, perhaps you're the one who can confirm what others are saying: that the in-flight process for a pilot to actually start flying their 737 has not changed one bit since 1967? _
The FAA is at fault here, for letting Boeing self regulate. As always in commercial aviation, these problems are fixed after there has been fatalities. The costs are weighed up against how many died. I for one will be avoiding the 737 Max.
You realize that after decades of sabotage by dumb right wingers and their "drown government in teaspoon" ideology FAA has no money to check anything (plus the insane 'private good, government bad' espoused by the same people) leaving them as toothless rubber stamping club? It's not FAA, it's the republicans...
These issues are worth discussing, but miss what is far and away the most important point. The pilots *KNEW* the airplanes were not in the correct attitude, but *THE AUTOMATION FOUGHT and OVERRULED THEIR ACTIONS.* That is what must never happen, but increasingly is happening as large commercial aircraft manufacturers are giving automated flight control systems priority over pilots. *THIS IS CRIMINAL MALFEASANCE.* Their reason is... they are working towards aircraft that have no pilots and are therefore cheaper to operate. But automation systems that can take into account *EVERYTHING* and make prudent decisions are still 20, 30, 50 years away. BTW, for instruments and automation systems to report "issues" and "abnormalities" and "irregular flying" with sounds & verbal warnings *IS VERY DESIRABLE* ... but they do not fight or overrule pilot actions... they only *INFORM* pilots.
This is so obvious that I wonder why some people here make comments like: "Should be pilot error. How many flights of 737 MAX were in the USA and never had a crash". As if any of them has experienced the same AOA failure! I hope these guys are not Boeing's trolls...
That's what I thought. Looks like captain is not the highest rank in the airplane anymore. There is a major who commands it. I'd call him Major Failure.
Well said. According to another very credible expert (and 737 pilot - Juan blancolirio on YT ) the root of the evil was that in both 737 crashes, the pilots FAILED to PROMPTLY perform the "Runaway stabilizer trim" procedure in the manual which according Boeing, is so important it must be committed to memory. There have been several reported cases in the USA of uncommanded down stab trim - where the (well trained) pilots cured the problem in seconds by using the specified procedure - and not waiting until the plane is so far out of trim that manual control becomes very difficult. 737 pilots would be incompetent not to pay close attention to reported failures of their type aircraft. Obviously nobody wants electrical assistants to fail, but Boeing knows it is possible - that's why this is a MEMORY ITEM.
Dear Mentour, Many people explain that "The new Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System mitigates the pitch-up tendency of the new flight geometry due to the heavier engines being located further forward and higher than the previous ones." (See e.g. the Boeing 737 Max wikipedia page for this quote). But... shouldn't havier engines, mounted (further) forward of and vertically closer to the center of gravity reduce the pitch-up tendency rather than increase it?
Sad to hear that your "Pilots did right and it went MAX wrong - MCAS" video got taken down. Some saying your employer objected to it, others suspect it was damaging to Boeing? Whatever the case, I presume it contained your objective and well-informed take on the most important issue facing aviation today. Please restore it with an explanation of why you removed it. Thanks
@WhyDoesCSharpExistInGodot? Well you can read about it in the news. It was an simulator video with the conclusion, that the pilots werent able to trim the MAX manually because the forces were to strong due to speed and dense air. Would also like to see it.
@WhyDoesCSharpExistInGodot? it was in collaboration with leeham news (just google leeham et302 used the cut out trim switch) i too am curious about this since it'll most likely reanimate what those ET pilots would've been dealing with, the confusion and all (not to mention a new Mentour video T.T) But like the OP was too late to know about it and it's already taken down..
Thanks for this. You have that rare talent for explaining complex ideas in a way that is relevant for industry pros and non-industry enthusiasts (like me) alike. And no doggo this time, so I was able concentrate on you for once (don't get me wrong - you need your sidekick).
Humans should never entrust their faith and lives to computers, ever. The button should be always in humans' hands. One who thinks differently is a traitor and Boeing administrators betrayed humankind
Vladimir Mesherin You might want to look into crash statistics. Humans fail way more often than computers. That is the thinking behind Airbus planes, and they are very safe. Computers can fix issues faster than humans can think, and correct excessive inputs by the pilots to keep the plane in its flight enveloppe. Just check the Airbus that ditched on the Hudson river besides New York. The plane helped the pilots fly as long as possible, correcting the inputs to prevent a stall. NOBODY WAS HURT and... The plane is a flying computer! What is the reaction time of a human compared to a computer? A computer can analyse and react in milliseconds, a human takes many seconds. If there is a flaw in MCAS, it will be mentioned in the crash reports. Until then, everything is pure, useless speculation.
So to reset the worm drive in the back to a more neutral setting, it's shirt off and start start winding that handle... Oh! you've got about 10 seconds, so you'll need a towel. Good luck.
how long will the max 8 be grounded? I'm flying to Prague the 12th of July and I'm scared i have to fly with the max 8... also...scared to death of the thoughts on flying, i can feel my heart raise just by watching youtube videos of people flying!
