Ethiopian Airlines plane's black box recovered after deadly crash, but is reportedly damaged

[Dashinka 23,247]

18 minutes ago, Steeleballz said:

 

   They did ground the 787's in 2013. The approach either of those cases was knowing what the problem was and making a decision. In this case it's not knowing for certain what is causing the problem. The choice is then whether to err on the side of caution or not. Unlike many other countries, the FAA seems not to be going that route. Hopefully they know what they are doing.

Back in the 90's the NTSB actually closed an investigation of a 737 crash in CO without a root cause.  I think it was 12-16 months later that a similar incident also occurred, and then finally another instance where the plane and crew actually survived and they could find a more definitive root cause (rudder control issues).  I don't believe 737s were grounded at all during that period by anyone.  I realize many airlines and state aviation authorities are doing this out of an abundance of caution, but to me there are just too many unknowns into the reasons for this crash.  I have been involved in a lot of auto investigations and sometimes the reason two vehicles stall and crash are the same and sometimes they are not, so many articles are equating these two events and I don't think we can do that yet.  Heck, before long they will be saying that MH370 was due to the same issue since it was also a Boeing plane. 

[Nature Boy 2.0 8,315]

Mitt Romney had a dog and pony show and called for grounding. Anything that clown calls for makes me suspicious right away

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

4 hours ago, Unidentified said:

And this is not about the US having better pilots. This about the FAA not having the guts to say lets ground a boeing plane. Former FAA safety director said it needs to be grounded. A former FAA employe just told my husband today that every FAA administration she's worked with since 1986 would have grounded them until "there was a review, diagnosis, and pilot training written. This is not normal". 

The FAA has just as many incompetent people as any other government entity.  Heck, if you as 5 FSDOs a question, you'll get between 4 & 6 different answers.

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

6 hours ago, Unidentified said:

Icelandair, FlyDubai and some Canadian airline have grounded their fleet. 

 

This was a barely 4-month-old airplane (in comparison to at least AA that has a fleet of MAX that is almost a year old by now) could be the MCAS flipping out again. Just doesn't feel safe to have an automated system preventing the airplane to stall because it wants to pitch up the nose due to the fact that they put bigger engines on a narrow body airplane and therefore where forced to put it slightly forward and up on the wing as well as raise the landing gear by 8 inches. Plus it's a system that Boeing didn't bother telling the pilots about until the Lion Air crash, not even telling them that in order for them to disengage the MCAS they need to manually pitch the aircraft. Good job Boeing. Don't want to overwhelm those "average pilots" with too much info. 

Airbus has has an automated stall prevention system as well.  Nothing wrong with the concept; there MIGHT be an issue with the software or flight controls actually performing the maneuver.

 

At any rate, simply disconnecting the auto pilot should allow the pilots to fly the aircraft out of any problem, if altitude is sufficient.  But these crashes happening so soon after takeoff mean that the margin for error, either pitching down too far during recovery, or delaying recovery even a couple of seconds too long, is very small.

 

ETA:  Canada just decided to ground theirs today, a couple of hours ago I believe.

Edited March 13, 2019 by ALFKAD

[Unidentified 2,930]

9 minutes ago, ALFKAD said:

Airbus has has an automated stall prevention system as well.  Nothing wrong with the concept; there MIGHT be an issue with the software or flight controls actually performing the maneuver.

 

At any rate, simply disconnecting the auto pilot should allow the pilots to fly the aircraft out of any problem, if altitude is sufficient.  But these crashes happening so soon after takeoff mean that the margin for error, either pitching down too far during recovery, or delaying recovery even a couple of seconds too long, is very small.

 

ETA:  Canada just decided to ground theirs today, a couple of hours ago I believe.

MCAS works when the autopilot is off. 

 

I don't think automation in itself. I just think that there might be something wrong with the mcas system on this particular aircraft considering how it's designed with the placement of the engines. It needs more tweaking to become better before they put a bunch of peoples life at risk. 

[Steeleballz 7,550]

1 hour ago, Bill & Katya said:

Back in the 90's the NTSB actually closed an investigation of a 737 crash in CO without a root cause.  I think it was 12-16 months later that a similar incident also occurred, and then finally another instance where the plane and crew actually survived and they could find a more definitive root cause (rudder control issues).  I don't believe 737s were grounded at all during that period by anyone.  I realize many airlines and state aviation authorities are doing this out of an abundance of caution, but to me there are just too many unknowns into the reasons for this crash.  I have been involved in a lot of auto investigations and sometimes the reason two vehicles stall and crash are the same and sometimes they are not, so many articles are equating these two events and I don't think we can do that yet.  Heck, before long they will be saying that MH370 was due to the same issue since it was also a Boeing plane. 

 

  All I can say is hopefully it's not something inherent with the aircraft, because more than half of them still in service currently are in North America. 

 

  It's hard to understand how they assess risk in these situations. My car model has a recall for a potential power steering pump failure. Looking at the data, so far it's happened to 3 vehicles, all driven in extremely cold climates. The only problem is one of the vehicles had already had the recall service done and then had a failure, so they don't seem to know what the problem is. So I agree, it's kind of hard to fix something if you don't know what the problem is. All I can do is drive my car or not.

 

  With the aircraft, it appears part of the risk assessment is perhaps being weighed against how many aircraft each airline has in service. Four of the five airlines that haven't grounded these aircraft have large numbers of them in service, in the range of 20%+ of their total fleet. It would be logistically difficult to stop using them voluntarily. 

 

 

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

33 minutes ago, Unidentified said:

MCAS works when the autopilot is off. 

 

I don't think automation in itself. I just think that there might be something wrong with the mcas system on this particular aircraft considering how it's designed with the placement of the engines. It needs more tweaking to become better before they put a bunch of peoples life at risk. 

This plane has been in the air for over 3 years now.  Why all of a sudden are we seeing crashes, and all outside the US?  Either something has changed recently, or it’s pilot error (history would lend credence to the latter).

[Nature Boy 2.0 8,315]

7 minutes ago, ALFKAD said:

This plane has been in the air for over 3 years now.  Why all of a sudden are we seeing crashes, and all outside the US?  Either something has changed recently, or it’s pilot error (history would lend credence to the latter).

I like my PIC to have a few gray hairs on his head. 29 sounds awful young to be the PIC. I know he had 8k hours

[Unidentified 2,930]

2 minutes ago, ALFKAD said:

This plane has been in the air for over 3 years now.  Why all of a sudden are we seeing crashes, and all outside the US?  Either something has changed recently, or it’s pilot error (history would lend credence to the latter).

All airplanes come in different variants. There's several different 737's. This one, the 737-800 MAX, made its first commercial flight in May 2017 and the first accident happened in October 2018. It has a longer fuselage and as I explained on the first-page: Boeing wanted to put more fuel-efficient engines on the long narrow body airplane, they are bigger and has a unique shape. They couldn't fit them underneath the wings so they moved them forward and up on the wing as well as raised the landing gear by 8 inches. This made the plane want to pitch up and if an airplane pitch up too much it will stall. So, therefore, they installed the MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) which kicks in is supposed to get the nose down and prevent a stall. They've been doing software updates for it since the crash so we'll see what the report will say on this. 

 

[Nature Boy 2.0 8,315]

Trump says he’s ordering the grounding of Boeing 737 Max fleet in US

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/13/boeing-shares-fall-after-report-says-us-expected-to-ground-737-max-fleet.html

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

5 minutes ago, Unidentified said:

All airplanes come in different variants. There's several different 737's. This one, the 737-800 MAX, made its first commercial flight in May 2017 and the first accident happened in October 2018. It has a longer fuselage and as I explained on the first-page: Boeing wanted to put more fuel-efficient engines on the long narrow body airplane, they are bigger and has a unique shape. They couldn't fit them underneath the wings so they moved them forward and up on the wing as well as raised the landing gear by 8 inches. This made the plane want to pitch up and if an airplane pitch up too much it will stall. So, therefore, they installed the MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) which kicks in is supposed to get the nose down and prevent a stall. They've been doing software updates for it since the crash so we'll see what the report will say on this. 

 

I’m well aware.  The first test flight was in Jan 2016.  Too early to tell, especially if the FDRs were damaged.  It seems obvious that there was no conclusive data from the Lion Air crash either.

[Unidentified 2,930]

3 hours ago, Bill & Katya said:

Did the FAA ground every 737 when they had the rudder control issues?

Just to confirm, the issues back in the '90s? 

[Unidentified 2,930]

3 minutes ago, Nature Boy 2.0 said:

Trump says he’s ordering the grounding of Boeing 737 Max fleet in US

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/13/boeing-shares-fall-after-report-says-us-expected-to-ground-737-max-fleet.html

Good call. 

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

7 minutes ago, Nature Boy 2.0 said:

I like my PIC to have a few gray hairs on his head. 29 sounds awful young to be the PIC. I know he had 8k hours

What you like, and what you get, are two different things.  8K hours is a lot.  The minimum to be a CA in the US airlines is 2500 hours.  I once knew a CA who had over 3000 hours, but he had to wait until his 23rd birthday to fly in the left seat.

[Unidentified 2,930]

11 minutes ago, Nature Boy 2.0 said:

I like my PIC to have a few gray hairs on his head. 29 sounds awful young to be the PIC. I know he had 8k hours

With the current pilot shortage, I think it will be more and more common to have very young pilots. Just look at American Airlines and their pilot academy. They just take whoever has a high school degree and 0 flight experience and put them through the training. I think it's pretty similar in Europe as well.