Here's what I think.

The plane has a couple of sensors that can trigger an automated dive response. The system is needed because the plane is inherently prone to stalling because of outdated aerodynamics on an overengineered design.

Most of time these sensors work well and do not trigger the automated dive. Occasionally the sensors malfunction and trigger the automatic dive. The controls the pilots use to manually fly the plane (stick, pedals) cannot fly the plane once this is triggered. The automated dive program must be shut off before this control can be recovered. In the two crashes the pilots did not know about this. One of the planes that crashed had the same problem a day before but they happened to have a pilot as a passenger who knew how to kill the program.

Think about it this way. You have a car that has an automated braking system. You have sensors that will brake for you in the event of the sensors sensing an obstacle in front of you. Well supposed some kicked up mud covers the sensors. The sensors react by suddenly braking with out your input. Your gas and brake pedal don't work to counteract this. You come to a stop for no reason. If you are on a busy highway you hope there is not a Mack truck on your ass.

Now imagine, instead you are in a highway in the sky. No danger of being rear ended but of course you will crash as you have to be moving forward always to fly.

The problem is that once the pilot overrides the sensor the software resets and then reacts to the broken sensor again, and again, and again.

It looks as though the 737 Max had 2 optional safety "extras" that might have helped:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/b...es-charge.html

I get that cars also come with safety features that cost extra, but it seems strange that a purchase of this size and cost, that is used to fly commercial passengers, would not include any available safety features standard.

I am not sure if the disagree light would necessarily have helped because (afaik) we do not yet know if the 2 sensors were disagreeing with each other. It is possible they both had faulty readings due to a software problem.

I guess, also, there could be some degree of pilot error? (In other words pilots were at too steep of a nose angle on takeoff and that triggered a sensor reading of a potential stall?) I am not a pilot so I have zero idea if this could happen...just wondering if it is possible that the MCAS system actually triggered on as it was designed to do (in other words not a sensor error at all), but then a software glitch prevented the nose from going back up as designed?

Justice Department issues subpoenas in criminal investigation of Boeing

And the Senate...

So, I know nothing about flying or the regulation of air travel. But how is it possible for safety features to be some kind of extra add-on expense on a ****ing plane?

something something less regulations something something free market

A safety feature being an upgrade does happen with other products...think driver assist braking in vehicles...but what is bizarre is the fact that the boeing safety feature is to assist trouble shooting a problem that they themselves created.

The analogy would be a vehicle manufacturer knowing that their car randomly accelerates, and the solve is to offer an optional upgraded braking feature.

People are agruing that the safety feature shouldnt be optional. I'd argue that the vehicle shouldn't randomly act outside of safe parameters by intentional design.

Obviously some of it was because the off-duty pilot knew how to switch it off.

Doesn't matter to the customers enough to buy Airbuses instead.

I read an article this week (German Spiegel) that suggests the root cause for this was time-to-market. In short, as Airbus announced the A320neo, Boeing decided to do a renewed 737 instead of an entire new design as originally planned. For the large new fuel efficient engines to fit, they had to place them suboptimally from an aerodynamic perspective, which in turn caused the need for the new anti-stall software in the first place.

The second thing was that they set the Design Assurance Level of the new software module to B instead of A, which basically reduces the complexity of the safety procedures needed to certify the software.



The article also mentioned that some certification activities were done purely by Boeing personnel without FAA involvement, so setting the level to B might be connected to that (see the bolded). Tight deadlines probably didn't help either.

They used to all come with 1 angle of flight sensor. The add-ons that would have helped were 1) second angle sensor and 2) angle sensor mismatch light.

How expensive of an option are we talking?

Let me run it by my manager

IMO Lets stay on track and not go full politatard unless it directly relates to Boeing.


In other news,

Indonesian airline cancels $5 billion order for 49 Boeing 737 Max jets.

Yes lets.

We might see quite a bit of that.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47662967

The competing Airbus A320 is 20 years newer as an airframe, it was always designed for high-bypass turbofans -- the original Boeing 737 was a turbojet -- and it doesn't have the same stability problem with the new lean-burn engines.

Also, once an aircraft is perceived as unsafe, and customers don't want to fly in it -- and they know the manufacturer was offering vital safety systems as extra-cost add-ons just for pricing reasons and to hell with the passengers -- you've got an enormous market-acceptance problem, which in the field of civil aviation you really do not want.

I’m glad I didn’t buy Boeing stock on the drop; we may not yet have seen the bottom

Boeing unveils 737 Max fixes, says planes are safer

Preliminary findings point to MCAS misfire.

This seems to be a good overview in layman's terms about all the shortcuts that went into the 737 Max.

https://www.vox.com/business-and-fin...ndal-explained

in a staggering development, letting an industry self-regulate resulted in decision making based entirely on profit

the article above touched on this

Preliminary report: Ethiopia crew followed Boeing procedures

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — The pilots of a doomed Ethiopian Airlines jet followed all of Boeing's recommended procedures w...

Read the full story on https://apnews.com/fd2ec5543b464084b8642cac82fd6f88

A pretty good summary of the last moments before the crash:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/excess-sp...--finance.html

so on take-off, sensor was hit by bird giving bad data causing computer program to make plane nose down dive?

prison and 9-figure fines are almost too good for these bastards