[Atomic]

Aircraft have 4 main vectors applying to them in flight:

Horizontal: thrust vs drag

Vertical: lift vs weight (gravity)

If horizontal vectors are equalized at zero you got a hover (helicopter). If the vectors are equalized with some magnitude, you have steady state forward flight.

If vertical vectors are equalized you maintain altitude (don't climb or descend).

All four vectors are always present. Thus if you are the pilot of an aircraft that is losing altitude (vertical vectors imbalanced: weight is greater than lift) and enter a turn you worsen the situation because now you have caused an imbalance in your horizontal vectors. This is not always 100% true, depending on the wind direction, but ultimately if you are in a power limited situation (losing altitude) and you turn, you are going to lose altitude at a greater rate.

That being said, there are several reasons you might want to turn even in a power limited situation. Turning to avoid obstacles being the first, turning towards a more favorable wind direction being the second.

I'll be the last person to second guess pilot actions until a full report is done. But so far all indications point to a high, hot, heavy aircraft experiencing flight control issues. The captain did whatever he thought was going to fix the situation, but sometimes you have no action that will save the aircraft.

Ship captains like to pride themselves with always going with the ship. That is a choice and is not always true. Pilots always go down with their aircraft that is a rule of law (sure....minus the nerds with ejection seats and parachutes...)

edit - just for relevance, this is why the reported "pitch down" on takeoff problems causes problems. Takeoff is the most dangerous situation to be in. You are heavy (full load/full gas) with full power requirements needed to accelerate and gain altitude. If the aircraft pitches down, the vertical lift vector is immediately reduced causing increased power requirements.

A rule is thumb is you have three things working for you as a pilot: airspeed, altitude, or power. You need two of those to survive. When you get down to one, its all over. But at least you will beat the emergency services to the crash site.

[infowarrior1]

(03-13-2019 12:48 PM)Disco_Volante Wrote:  

I wonder how instant your death is when the plane hits the ground. I bet the blunt impact would knock you out before the flames burn you. Or maybe everyone is incinerated while conscious. Yikes. If I'm in a plane crash I might unbuckle my seatbelt in hopes of getting knocked out before the flames come.

This footage was recovered from the plane:

[Spectrumwalker]

(03-14-2019 02:19 AM)infowarrior1 Wrote:  

(03-13-2019 12:48 PM)Disco_Volante Wrote:  

I wonder how instant your death is when the plane hits the ground. I bet the blunt impact would knock you out before the flames burn you. Or maybe everyone is incinerated while conscious. Yikes. If I'm in a plane crash I might unbuckle my seatbelt in hopes of getting knocked out before the flames come.

This footage was recovered from the plane:

Holy fuck. Terrible timing to watch when I have a couple flights in a few days. So sad. Poor people.

*Edit- I don't believe that's real footage. Was convincing for a sec from my phone, but was odd there weren't the pilots voices. But YouTube linked me to a longer video of the same but is computer animated recreation. But still, damn real enough. Fuck that.

[infowarrior1]

(03-14-2019 02:29 AM)Spectrumwalker Wrote:  

(03-14-2019 02:19 AM)infowarrior1 Wrote:  

(03-13-2019 12:48 PM)Disco_Volante Wrote:  

I wonder how instant your death is when the plane hits the ground. I bet the blunt impact would knock you out before the flames burn you. Or maybe everyone is incinerated while conscious. Yikes. If I'm in a plane crash I might unbuckle my seatbelt in hopes of getting knocked out before the flames come.

This footage was recovered from the plane:

Holy fuck. Terrible timing to watch when I have a couple flights in a few days. So sad. Poor people.

*Edit- I don't believe that's real footage. Was convincing for a sec from my phone, but was odd there weren't the pilots voices. But YouTube linked me to a longer video of the same but is computer animated recreation. But still, damn real enough. Fuck that.

Sorry about that. Should I remove the video?

[RIslander]

People don't scream on airplanes. They stiffen up and are silent if they are scared.

[infowarrior1]

(03-14-2019 06:24 AM)RIslander Wrote:  

People don't scream on airplanes. They stiffen up and are silent if they are scared.

Perhaps.

[Atomic]

If you thought that video was real you might also think its cool that gullible looks the same upside down or backwards.

And people absolutely scream when they are experiencing traumatic aircraft ride (crash). Source: multiple cockpit/cabin recordings during accident investigations.

Hearing someone's screaming last words is one of the most haunting things I have experienced.

[RIslander]

(03-12-2019 06:44 PM)void Wrote:  

(03-12-2019 03:45 PM)Jetset Wrote:  

https://www.wsj.com/articles/boeing-to-m...1552413489

From what I'm reading, the MCAS is a single-sensor design that relies on one stream of data to decide whether or not the aircraft is in danger of stalling, and Boeing knew this was the suspected issue from Lion Air but hadn't completed the software update to incorporate multiple sensors yet?

Uh...

Good luck in court, guys.

Single sensor causing potential catastrophe for the whole plane.
That is a systematic design flaw (hope they can fix it with software update), that can only be mitigated by human intervention which they prevented by not disclosing the necessary information.
According to NYT a big selling point of the new design was, that it doesn't require pilot training for the new model if pilots had old 747 experience.

To not disclose all necessary information and keep the selling point of "no pilot re-training required" was a decision of the business unit + project managers + marketing. Congratulations, you may have killed a few 100 people.

Anecdote: I receive similar requests in all my projects: "Make it better, but don't change too much. Especially this feature can't change, because the customers want to have it that way"
Result: A mediocre compromise that will neither achieve the best performance, nor the highest reliability, nor cost.
In case of an aircraft, one shouldn't compromise on reliability and safety.

This shouldn't apply to an aircraft in general, seems like it does to the new model:
The recent accidents can only be traced back to random failures or "infant mortality". I doubt wear is an issue for brand new planes, and they have regular maintenance schedules to ensure reliability.
Infant mortality occurs if the design is flawed in a severe way, or process and quality control for the assembly is so bad that a certain percentage of assembled products are actually a lot less reliable than the rest. Could also be caused by faulty specification limits.

(03-14-2019 09:40 AM)Atomic Wrote:  

If you thought that video was real you might also think its cool that gullible looks the same upside down or backwards.

And people absolutely scream when they are experiencing traumatic aircraft ride (crash). Source: multiple cockpit/cabin recordings during accident investigations.

Hearing someone's screaming last words is one of the most haunting things I have experienced.

You'd be surprised. Warning: this video will haunt you.

[Jetset]

Two articles from small sources on potential impact on Boeing:

An Indian business paper is reporting that multiple Asian and African airlines are starting to float the idea of backing out of their orders for the 737 Max: https://www.business-standard.com/articl...512_1.html

ThePointsGuy declines to speculate on grounding costs, but expectss protracted legal battles with the airlines and compares the money involved to the treasury of a small nation: https://thepointsguy.com/news/boeing-fac...e-737-max/

(03-14-2019 10:13 AM)RIslander Wrote:  

You'd be surprised. Warning: this video will haunt you.

Jeez. That moan at the end.

My gut intuition watching that is they would have been better off taking their chances on the ground plowing into the lights instead of still trying to get into the air. Better a big chance of a small crash than a small chance of a big crash.

That also does not sound like a professional flight crew. Is this one of those "private planes are sketchy" lessons?

EDIT: Found it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Coast_Jets_Flight_81
https://fearoflanding.com/accidents/acci...t-81-2008/

Quote:

First Officer: Doesn’t it figure [weather] pops up right when we get there?
Captain: What do you mean, what are my intentions? Get me around this storm so I can go to the field. I ain’t gonna turn around and go home.

The Captain didn’t bother with an approach briefing.

The flight crew also didn’t bother to check for up-to-date weather information. They must have seen by now that the wind that morning was very variable but they didn’t seem to think it important.

The first officer started the checklist but was almost immediately interrupted by the controller, who cleared them to 3,000 feet and gave them a weather update. The flight crew then discussed the weather radar display which appeared not to be working.

Meanwhile, the sarcastic comments in the cockpit continued.

Then the captain declared that that approach checklist was complete.

This wasn’t his call. The first officer, who was the Pilot Monitoring, was responsible for verifying that the checklist was complete, not the captain. More importantly, the checklist was not complete, as the first officer had been interrupted a few minutes before and had not gone back to it.

What none of these people seemed to know was that Hawker Beechcraft 125-800A has what’s called a ‘committed-to-stop’ point, which is defined as once the lift dump had been deployed. This was not part of the standard approach briefing but to be fair, the captain hadn’t actually conducted the standard approach briefing anyway.

The simulations done after the fact showed that if they’d continued and allowed the aircraft to overrun, it would have been travelling between 23 and 37 knots (26-42 mph or 42-68 k/ph) as it went over the end of the runway. The runway safety area at Owatonna Degner Regional Airport is 1,000 feet of grass, so the Hawker could easily have come to a halt in this area.

Seventeen seconds after touch-down on a thousand foot runway was way too late to be deciding to go around. There was not enough time to configure the aircraft and accelerate. To make matters worse, the captain simply called ‘flaps’, by which he clearly meant to start the go-around sequence.

Now he might have assumed that the first officer would know what he meant. But the first officer didn’t react. The flaps were never extended, they remained at 0°. Neither pilot took responsibility for configuring the aircraft for the go-around, making it even less likely that the aircraft would become airborne.

The truth was, it didn’t matter. The overrun was already inevitable and would have happened whether the flaps were set to 15° or not. The aircraft was not capable of making it off the ground before they ran out of runway. The sound of the engine increased as they spooled up. The aircraft was swiftly approaching the grassy safety area. By increasing the thrust and leaving the flaps at 0°, they simply insured that the overrun would be as bad as possible.

One passenger was found alive, however she died at the hospital less than two hours after the accident. Everyone else died on impact.

Well, that story sucks.

[Cattle Rustler]

Sometimes I want to watch those videos because everyone says it's haunting....but then I don't because I don't want to be haunted.....but I really want to watch them.

Oh well.

[RIslander]

(03-14-2019 12:19 PM)Jetset Wrote:  

Two articles from small sources on potential impact on Boeing:

An Indian business paper is reporting that multiple Asian and African airlines are starting to float the idea of backing out of their orders for the 737 Max: https://www.business-standard.com/articl...512_1.html

ThePointsGuy declines to speculate on grounding costs, but expectss protracted legal battles with the airlines and compares the money involved to the treasury of a small nation: https://thepointsguy.com/news/boeing-fac...e-737-max/

(03-14-2019 10:13 AM)RIslander Wrote:  

You'd be surprised. Warning: this video will haunt you.

Jeez. That moan at the end.

My gut intuition watching that is they would have been better off taking their chances on the ground plowing into the lights instead of still trying to get into the air. Better a big chance of a small crash than a small chance of a big crash.

That also does not sound like a professional flight crew. Is this one of those "private planes are sketchy" lessons?

EDIT: Found it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Coast_Jets_Flight_81
https://fearoflanding.com/accidents/acci...t-81-2008/

Quote:

First Officer: Doesn’t it figure [weather] pops up right when we get there?
Captain: What do you mean, what are my intentions? Get me around this storm so I can go to the field. I ain’t gonna turn around and go home.

The Captain didn’t bother with an approach briefing.

The flight crew also didn’t bother to check for up-to-date weather information. They must have seen by now that the wind that morning was very variable but they didn’t seem to think it important.

The first officer started the checklist but was almost immediately interrupted by the controller, who cleared them to 3,000 feet and gave them a weather update. The flight crew then discussed the weather radar display which appeared not to be working.

Meanwhile, the sarcastic comments in the cockpit continued.

Then the captain declared that that approach checklist was complete.

This wasn’t his call. The first officer, who was the Pilot Monitoring, was responsible for verifying that the checklist was complete, not the captain. More importantly, the checklist was not complete, as the first officer had been interrupted a few minutes before and had not gone back to it.

What none of these people seemed to know was that Hawker Beechcraft 125-800A has what’s called a ‘committed-to-stop’ point, which is defined as once the lift dump had been deployed. This was not part of the standard approach briefing but to be fair, the captain hadn’t actually conducted the standard approach briefing anyway.

The simulations done after the fact showed that if they’d continued and allowed the aircraft to overrun, it would have been travelling between 23 and 37 knots (26-42 mph or 42-68 k/ph) as it went over the end of the runway. The runway safety area at Owatonna Degner Regional Airport is 1,000 feet of grass, so the Hawker could easily have come to a halt in this area.

Seventeen seconds after touch-down on a thousand foot runway was way too late to be deciding to go around. There was not enough time to configure the aircraft and accelerate. To make matters worse, the captain simply called ‘flaps’, by which he clearly meant to start the go-around sequence.

Now he might have assumed that the first officer would know what he meant. But the first officer didn’t react. The flaps were never extended, they remained at 0°. Neither pilot took responsibility for configuring the aircraft for the go-around, making it even less likely that the aircraft would become airborne.

The truth was, it didn’t matter. The overrun was already inevitable and would have happened whether the flaps were set to 15° or not. The aircraft was not capable of making it off the ground before they ran out of runway. The sound of the engine increased as they spooled up. The aircraft was swiftly approaching the grassy safety area. By increasing the thrust and leaving the flaps at 0°, they simply insured that the overrun would be as bad as possible.

One passenger was found alive, however she died at the hospital less than two hours after the accident. Everyone else died on impact.

Well, that story sucks.

That accident is a very textbook case of pilot error. The crew was concentrated on the lift dump system, which helps put more friction on the tires and assist braking, yet due to the distraction forgot to actually apply the brakes which would of saved them.

[jeffreyjerpp]

Pilots have apparently been warning the FAA that the autopilot was engaging during climbs after takeoffs, and nose diving the plane.

The FAA did nothing, and Trump himself had to intervene after two of these things crashed to ground the planes domestically. WTF.

I flew twice in the past few days, despite pretty turbulent conditions both times you could tell the plane was totally in control. It takes something insanely rare/catastrophic to endanger a commercial airliner, hence the 1 in 7 million chance of death statistic. For example there could be turbulence so bad the overhead luggage things open, drinks are spilled, etc, and it's not really that dangerous for the plane, just super unpleasant.

Software bugs happen in everything, though. The fact that something this disturbing didn't immediately trigger an investigation and immediate software update by Boeing is very, very alarming.

[puckerman]

I'm not surprised this has happened. Boeing tells the FAA what is safe and not safe. It's this way in every industry.

Thanks for a lot of great discussion, guys. This reminds me of why I come to this board.

[Off The Reservation]

(03-14-2019 02:19 AM)infowarrior1 Wrote:  

(03-13-2019 12:48 PM)Disco_Volante Wrote:  

I wonder how instant your death is when the plane hits the ground. I bet the blunt impact would knock you out before the flames burn you. Or maybe everyone is incinerated while conscious. Yikes. If I'm in a plane crash I might unbuckle my seatbelt in hopes of getting knocked out before the flames come.

This footage was recovered from the plane:

That is not real footage, it is CG.

[Jetset]

(03-16-2019 09:44 PM)puckerman Wrote:  

I'm not surprised this has happened. Boeing tells the FAA what is safe and not safe. It's this way in every industry.

Thanks for a lot of great discussion, guys. This reminds me of why I come to this board.

The Seattle Times has an article today alleging that Boeing misrepresented the scope of the MCAS behavior to the FAA, that Boeing ignored their usual engineering practices, and that the FAA was pressuring their engineers to defer to Boeing due to the need to get the product out and compete with Airbus.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/bo...air-crash/

Quote:

The safety analysis:

- Understated the power of the new flight control system, which was designed to swivel the horizontal tail to push the nose of the plane down to avert a stall. When the planes later entered service, MCAS was capable of moving the tail more than four times farther than was stated in the initial safety analysis document.

- Failed to account for how the system could reset itself each time a pilot responded, thereby missing the potential impact of the system repeatedly pushing the airplane’s nose downward.

- Assessed a failure of the system as one level below “catastrophic.” But even that “hazardous” danger level should have precluded activation of the system based on input from a single sensor — and yet that’s how it was designed.

The people who spoke to The Seattle Times and shared details of the safety analysis all spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their jobs at the FAA and other aviation organizations.

Both Boeing and the FAA were informed of the specifics of this story and were asked for responses 11 days ago, before the second crash of a 737 MAX last Sunday.

I wonder where all the plane crash lawyers meet to fap to this.

[jeffreyjerpp]

(03-17-2019 11:45 AM)Jetset Wrote:  

The Seattle Times has an article today alleging that Boeing misrepresented the scope of the MCAS behavior to the FAA, that Boeing ignored their usual engineering practices, and that the FAA was pressuring their engineers to defer to Boeing due to the need to get the product out and compete with Airbus.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/bo...air-crash/

Quote:

The safety analysis:

- Understated the power of the new flight control system, which was designed to swivel the horizontal tail to push the nose of the plane down to avert a stall. When the planes later entered service, MCAS was capable of moving the tail more than four times farther than was stated in the initial safety analysis document.

- Failed to account for how the system could reset itself each time a pilot responded, thereby missing the potential impact of the system repeatedly pushing the airplane’s nose downward.

- Assessed a failure of the system as one level below “catastrophic.” But even that “hazardous” danger level should have precluded activation of the system based on input from a single sensor — and yet that’s how it was designed.

The people who spoke to The Seattle Times and shared details of the safety analysis all spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their jobs at the FAA and other aviation organizations.

Both Boeing and the FAA were informed of the specifics of this story and were asked for responses 11 days ago, before the second crash of a 737 MAX last Sunday.

I wonder where all the plane crash lawyers meet to fap to this.

How the hell did this happen. I watched a segment with a Gulf stream pilot who explained that many private jets have this same problem, so as a result they are constantly drilled during the training about how to fix it. Boeing did the opposite- they told everyone there was no possible problem and therefore no necessity for pilot retraining. Take these motherfuckers to the woodshed- lawsuits, jail time, mass resignations, all of it. Send the message that this kind of this gets the harshest possible punishment, or it will just keep happening.

[IveBeenFramed]

This is the best, most concise explanation I've seen...I'll only post the original tweet but the text of the rest (courtesy Zerohedge):

[url=https://twitter.com/trevorsumner/status/1106934362531155974][/url]

Some people are calling the 737MAX tragedies a #software failure. Here's my response: It's not a software problem. It was an

* Economic problem that the 737 engines used too much fuel, so they decided to install more efficient engines with bigger fans and make the 737MAX.

* Airframe problem. They wanted to use the 737 airframe for economic reasons, but needed more ground clearance with bigger engines.The 737 design can't be practically modified to have taller main landing gear. The solution was to mount them higher & more forward.

*Aerodynamic problem. The airframe with the engines mounted differently did not have adequately stable handling at high AoA to be certifiable. Boeing decided to create the MCAS system to electronically correct for the aircraft's handling deficiencies.

During the course of developing the MCAS, there was a:

* Systems engineering problem. Boeing wanted the simplest possible fix that fit their existing systems architecture, so that it required minimal engineering rework, and minimal new training for pilots and maintenance crews.
The easiest way to do this was to add some features to the existing Elevator Feel Shift system. Like the #EFS system, the #MCAS relies on non-redundant sensors to decide how much trim to add. Unlike the EFS system, MCAS can make huge nose down trim changes.

On both ill-fated flights, there was a:

* Sensor problem. The AoA vane on the 737MAX appears to not be very reliable and gave wildly wrong readings. On #LionAir, this was compounded by a

* Maintenance practices problem. The previous crew had experienced the same problem and didn't record the problem in the maintenance logbook. This was compounded by a...

*Pilot training problem. On LionAir, pilots were never even told about the MCAS, and by the time of the Ethiopian flight, there was an emergency AD issued, but no one had done sim training on this failure. This was compounded by an..

* Economic problem. Boeing sells an option package that includes an extra AoA vane, and an AoA disagree light, which lets pilots know that this problem was happening. Both 737MAXes that crashed were delivered without this option. No 737MAX with this option has ever crashed.

All of this was compounded by a:

* Pilot expertise problem. If the pilots had correctly and quickly identified the problem and run the stab trim runaway checklist, they would not have crashed.
Nowhere in here is there a software problem. The computers & software performed their jobs according to spec without error. The specification was just shitty. Now the quickest way for Boeing to solve this mess is to call up the software guys to come up with another band-aid.

I'm a software engineer, and we're sometimes called on to fix the deficiencies of mechanical or aero or electrical engineering, because the metal has already been cut or the molds have already been made or the chip has already been fabed, and so that problem can't be solved.

But the software can always be pushed to the update server or reflashed. When the software band-aid comes off in a 500mph wind, it's tempting to just blame the band-aid.

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

Quote:

* Airframe problem. They wanted to use the 737 airframe for economic reasons, but needed more ground clearance with bigger engines. The 737 design can't be practically modified to have taller main landing gear. The solution was to mount them higher & more forward.

*Aerodynamic problem. The airframe with the engines mounted differently did not have adequately stable handling at high AoA to be certifiable. Boeing decided to create the MCAS system to electronically correct for the aircraft's handling deficiencies.

Even ignoring all the troubling facts regarding training and disclosure, this alone is criminal. Imagine if someone built an inherently unstable bridge to save themselves the expense of manufacturing different beams suited to that bridge's location, then covered it up with some wire mesh to hide the problem. Or if a pharmaceutical company looking to cut costs knowingly made a drug that forces the patient to take other drugs for the rest of their life, but without ever informing the patient.

Fuck you, Boeing. Build a new airframe for your fuel-saving engines or get out of this business. Fuck you!

[balybary]

The more you know

Pilots trained for Boeing’s 737 Max airplane with “an iPad lesson for an hour”

https://qz.com/1574878/pilots-trained-fo...ad-lesson/

Quote:

Dennis Tajer, spokesman for the American Airlines pilot union, told Quartz that the training prior to the Lion Air crash for pilots qualified to fly the 737-800 amounted to “an iPad lesson for an hour.” Since the Lion Air crash, he said, pilots have had training with an instructor, and pilots have also “requested, if not demanded, simulators.”

In a statement, American Airlines said, “Boeing 737-800 pilots were required to receive some additional training on the MAX 8, which included an hour lesson on some differences. Additional training was not required, as the 737-800 and the MAX 8 have same type certification.”

[IveBeenFramed]

An iPad lesson? For an hour? That was the training? Incredible.

[Jetset]

(03-18-2019 03:55 PM)IveBeenFramed Wrote:  

An iPad lesson? For an hour? That was the training? Incredible.

A major competitive selling point was supposed to be that the 737 MAX would not require special retraining for existing 737 crews.

Hence, why they omitted mention of the MCAS.

[IveBeenFramed]

You'd figure MCAS would be an important part of training.

[Jetset]

Boeing's CEO released a video "open letter" overnight making vague statements about their "absolute commitment to everyone". That's when you know it's getting weird internally: nothing to say, but let's say it anyway.

https://www.king5.com/article/tech/scien...7116d747a5

[jeffreyjerpp]

(03-19-2019 07:49 AM)Jetset Wrote:  

Boeing's CEO released a video "open letter" overnight making vague statements about their "absolute commitment to everyone". That's when you know it's getting weird internally: nothing to say, but let's say it anyway.

https://www.king5.com/article/tech/scien...7116d747a5

He is likely also lubing his rear end, praying he isn't fucked to death by the long dick of the law (I hope he is, though):

"A federal prosecutor is reportedly looking into the development of the Boeing (BA) 737 Max as a potential criminal case, while regulators question a safety analysis of the plane's flight control system.

And Canada said late Monday it will re-examine the certification granted to the 737 Max, due to a probe into the FAA's approval process.

The Justice Department is looking into the development of the Boeing 737 Max, a highly unusual probe, involving a prosecutor in the criminal division's fraud section, according to the Wall Street Journal. Typical safety probes are civil cases handled by the Transportation Department's inspector general, according to the report."

investors.com/news/boeing-737-max-criminal-probe-grand-jury/

The great thing about flying is that everyone has skin in the game, especially the wealthy professionals who fly the most. If planes were exclusively full of poor people and minorities, they could crash pretty frequently and I don't know if anyone would really care. But every single government official, Lawyer, congressman, wealthy playboy, international PUA, etc, must fly on planes. Ever wonder why the crashes are probed for years afterwards, at the cost of tens of millions of dollars? Because the people who hold the most power in society fly the most, and they don't want to die in some horrifying plane wreck.

This is the same reason I invest in the stock market, by the way. If the President, Wall Street, and the richest families in the country need it working well, you can sure as shit bet they'll collectively rig the system to make sure it works out for them.

[RIslander]

Conspiracy Theory of the Day: The plane was downed by the Chinese or Russians, or of course, (((them))), to destabilize the American economy. Attacking one of America's largest manufacturers both screws our economy and makes Trump look bad.