全部
← Back to Squawk list
Regulators knew before crashes that 737 MAX trim control was confusing in some conditions
U.S. and European regulators knew at least two years before a Lion Air crash that the usual method for controlling the Boeing 737 MAX’s nose angle might not work in conditions similar to those in two recent disasters, a document shows. (www.reuters.com) 更多...
Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
There has to be a big red button that says "Cut out all computer control, let me hand fly it" as a last ditch alternative before certain death. It's only fair that the pilots have that last chance.
Basic design criteria sidelined it seems. In far too many cases NEW = BIF (Built In Failure). The corporate quest for profit at any cost is, unfortunately, well established.
That is nothing short of criminal negligence by the software component fabricators and the airlines failure to execute due diligence on a new (sic) jet airliner and the millions of its parts. This was a case of crank them out, we're Boeing. They will come to us because we never have problems, we are Boeing.
The idea that Boeing never has problems is lacking in evidence. Look at the challenges they had with the 787 series rollout. Battery issues and many others. I worked in New Product Introduction, and the issues that bite you in the rear are not the ones that you expect or anticipate. Financial pressures are huge and growing. Both Airbus and Boeing build excellent aircraft but it is not difficult to see how this issue may have happened. We should not judge until the facts are known, and aviation has a stellar record of safety and finding the root cause (or causes) of accidents.
What’s really criminal here is putting poorly trained, underqualified pilots in these aircraft to start with? Let’s face it, flight schoos don’t churn out pilots by the hundress like they did 20 or 30 years ago and the airlines have gotten a free ride on the backs of those same flight schools with little or no cost to themselves. Now these Fast track academy’s get your license from private to CMEL and you graduate with 200 - 250 hours......all that great experience packed into 2 years or less! It all works until it doesn’t?
The extent of Boeing's training was a video on an iPad. It would have been more transparent if they just said that the pilot no longer has full authority of the control surfaces.
The pilot on a -MAX8 or -MAX9 do still have full authority....as long as they know how to turn off the MCAS system
So the pilot has to know that his authority is being overriden by some system yet this system doesn't inform the pilot that it is being activated and if this system is using inconsistent data the notification was optional equipment. It's stunning to me how the FAA allowed this.
Actually he pilot knows exactly what is going on because they are hand flying the aircraft at the time and can feel the trim forcing the nose down. They may not know why but they sure should know how to turn off the system.
But a pilot who believes that while hand-flying they have full authority while a hidden system is actually modifying their inputs would not automatically think of the stab trim. Their minds could easily gravitate towards a jack-screw issue. If my hands are off the trim buttons and MCAS has never been mentioned to me and it's not behaving like a runaway trim then the defense that some optional training would have been needed to backup a critical (and hidden) flight system is plain wrong. MCAS never shows in Flight Manual except in the glossary - wow.
Right on, and if a jack screw issue that means the stab is moving on it’s own and get those trim switches off. As stated by another poster, if the stab gets to a full nose down trim and the speed builds up the pilot may not have enough elevator authority to raise the nose.
