re: 737max crashes in Ethiopia. Killing 157

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It hurt me to type it as much as it hurt you to read it

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I think it's inevitable, not sure if I'll see it in my lifetime, certainly not before I retire, one thing helping the good guys is the public's reluctance to get on a pilotless plane, obviously the military has been effectively using UAVs for years, but in a most cases, they are trying to cause death and destruction another thing is that a ton of "unflyable" aircraft have been saved by humans because of skill, experience, and the ability to reason/improvise, many, many, examples, UAL232 is a good example

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is the public's reluctance to get on a pilotless plane,

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WNF

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WNF

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many thanks

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What do you think of a hybrid system? Planes rarely crash from altitude, so what are your thoughts on a system where the autopilot COULD handle every aspect of the flight, but pilots remotely get the plane to altitude and down from altitude, but let the plane fly itself once it's cruising, freeing the pilot to handle the next departure or arrival in the queue?

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I always thought the man and a dog concept was a better idea

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Pilot to fiddle with the plane and a dog to bite him if he tries?

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pilot there to feed the dog, dog there to bite pilot if he touches anuthing

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EXCLUSIVE: Senate committee to hold first hearing on FAA certification of Boeing 737 MAX on March 27 - statement to Reuters

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Reuters

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The pilots of a doomed Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX scrambled through a handbook to understand why the jet was lurching downwards in the final minutes before it hit the water killing all 189 people on board, three people with knowledge of the cockpit voice recorder contents said.

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Just two minutes into the flight, the first officer reported a “flight control problem” to air traffic control and said the pilots intended to maintain an altitude of 5,000 feet, the November report said.

The first officer did not specify the problem, but one source said airspeed was mentioned on the cockpit voice recording, and a second source said an indicator showed a problem on the captain’s display but not the first officer’s. The captain asked the first officer to check the quick reference handbook, which contains checklists for abnormal events, the first source said. The captain fought to climb, but the computer, still incorrectly sensing a stall, continued to push the nose down using the plane’s trim system. Normally, trim adjusts an aircraft’s control surfaces to ensure it flies straight and level.

“They didn’t seem to know the trim was moving down,” the third source said. “They thought only about airspeed and altitude. That was the only thing they talked about.”

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The pilots of JT610 remained calm for most of the flight, the three sources said. Near the end, the captain asked the first officer to fly while he checked the manual for a solution.

About one minute before the plane disappeared from radar, the captain asked air traffic control to clear other traffic below 3,000 feet and requested an altitude of “five thou”, or 5,000 feet, which was approved, the preliminary report said.

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“It is like a test where there are 100 questions and when the time is up you have only answered 75,” the third source said. “So you panic. It is a time-out condition.”

The Indian-born captain was silent at the end, all three sources said, while the Indonesian first officer said “Allahu Akbar”, or “God is greatest”, a common Arabic phrase in the majority-Muslim country that can be used to express excitement, shock, praise or distress.

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think it's inevitable, not sure if I'll see it in my lifetime, certainly not before I retire,

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Technology is great, until it isn’t. How many software updates do you get and each time there are at least a few anomalies that requires pilot intervention. Line of sight for landing with limited wind limitations. I agree, they will push for it, but it will be a while before we see it.

I think the pilot of prior flight not knowing about MCAS pointed out wrong issue - Speed Trim working opposite of the way expected possibly due to speed sensors & couldn’t be overcome usual way without using cut out & going manual. I think sensors were checked but not sure what was done with AOA sensors. Since it wasn’t speed trim but the unknown MCAS I would think even if checked it would have checked out ok (outside of whatever was checked with speed sensors).

The Ethiopian crash is looking like airline and pilot should be held at least partially responsible for any MCAS cause since system known at that point, how to disconnect it, and reportedly pilot had not yet done the training. Even without training you would think dealing with MCAS issues would have been known by this time with as much press as it was getting, but they were going fast while only climbing slowly (low from actual ground as it only got 1000ft above ground) from a high altitude airport seemingly giving an inexperienced pilot little time to act without training.

Lion Air prior flight

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Speed Trim came to affect the Lion JT610 crash. As none of the pilots flying the fatal JT610 flight or the flights before knew about the anti-stall trimming system MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), they thought it was Speed Trim which was active. The Captain on the flight before JT610 wrote in his Pilot log “Airspeed unreliable and ALT disagree shown after takeoff. Speed Trim System also running to the wrong direction, suspected because of speed difference”. He could feel the aircraft was trimming in the background, which he was used to. But it was trimming nose down when the speed increased after takeoff, contrary to what he was used to. He thought the Speed Trim system was confused by the faulty speed and altitude reading the aircraft warned for.

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https://leehamnews.com/2019/02/01/bjorns-corner-pitch-stability-part-7/