[HN Gopher] Boeing wants FAA to exempt MAX 7 from safety rules t...
___________________________________________________________________
Boeing wants FAA to exempt MAX 7 from safety rules to get it in the
air
Author : jmsflknr
Score : 338 points
Date : 2024-01-05 18:08 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.seattletimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.seattletimes.com)
| rpowers wrote:
| This feels like disabling unit tests in order to get tests to
| pass. I've yet to see this strategy not blow up later.
| epmatsw wrote:
| And where the workaround is "have the humans not forget to do
| something" no less...
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| It's truly insane to put a human in the loop for something
| like this... its like saying don't forget to turn the oven
| off after 5 minutes or it might explode (ovens go through
| extensive compliance testing to make sure they don't cause
| fires even in adverse conditions).
| hypothesis wrote:
| It does look insane, but at this point I trust pilots more
| than I trust Boeing-designed automated system not to kill
| humans.
| catchnear4321 wrote:
| if this had anything to do with passing a test, it would look
| significantly different.
|
| the point is to make tests not fail. you can't fail the test
| you don't take.
|
| the logic is completely sound. it's just also removed from
| reality. which might make it seem a bit mad.
| StreetChief wrote:
| the whole point of the exemption they are requesting is to
| avoid "taking a test."
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Sprinkle a few slashes or dashes before some lines, problem
| solved.
| catchnear4321 wrote:
| you know if the test is being skipped... might be cleaner
| to just delete it.
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| "McDonald-Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing's money." Such a
| travesty that a once great engineering company is now a bean-
| counting corner-cutting garbage culture. They just never learn.
| bandyaboot wrote:
| Is the "McDonald-Douglas" misspelling a joke or a mistake?
| Curious if this is an existing joke that I haven't seen until
| now, because it kind of works.
| sufficer wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas
| marcellus23 wrote:
| That doesn't answer GP's question.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| > That doesn't answer GP's question.
|
| No, but it's helpful for people like me, who didn't
| remember the correct spelling.
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| Heh, a mistake, maybe a Freudian slip, but I'll leave it
| uncorrected for the lols.
| morganw wrote:
| Reminder that McDonnell-Douglas, operating as Boeing, owns
| Boeing Defense Space & Security
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Defense,_Space_%26_Secu...
| which consolidates
|
| "Boeing Military Airplane Company; Hughes Satellite Systems;
| Hughes Helicopters minus the civilian helicopter line (which
| was divested as MD Helicopters); Piasecki Helicopter,
| subsequently known as Boeing Vertol and then Boeing
| Helicopters; the St. Louis-based McDonnell division of the
| former McDonnell Douglas Company; and the former North American
| Aviation division of Rockwell International."
|
| making it not just too big to fail, but too important to US and
| allies' defense to fail. I guess defense could be split from
| commercial aviation which could be reduced to producing parts
| to keep fleets in operation until Airbus can replace all planes
| over 30 or 40 years. Some of McD-D's commercial planes have a
| second life as military, though, e.g. the P-8 Poseidon based on
| the 737-800.
|
| I took a couple of cross-USA flights recently, some on 737-800
| and some on 737 MAX 8 and noted that the 800's cruising speed
| is faster (cf. United's Hemispheres magazine). I suppose the
| carbon footprint of the MAX is lower, but whatever happened to
| flying at mach 0.9 ?
| jrockway wrote:
| > whatever happened to flying at mach 0.9
|
| Someone made a website showing which airlines have the most
| delays, so airlines just added an hour of padding to every
| scheduled flight, and then fly slower / burn less fuel when
| there aren't delays. We do the same thing with commuter
| trains. Someone was mad that they were late to work one day
| during a snowstorm or something. Now trains with a top speed
| of 80mph take 80 minutes to go 40 miles. But are on time 99%
| of the time! Look at all the time saved from not being late
| to work!
|
| Personally, I'd rather be 4 hours late to work once a year
| and save 1 hour commuting every day. But the masses have
| spoken and decided the opposite. I work from home, so not my
| problem, I guess.
| groby_b wrote:
| Meanwhile, Japan operates trains at 200mph and operators
| apologize profusely should they actually experience a 25
| second delay.
|
| Maybe the issue isn't that people complain about shitty
| service, but the fact that the service is shitty in the
| first place. At 80mph and at 30mph.
| makestuff wrote:
| Japanese public transportation made me never want to take
| the Amtrak/Subway/US Airlines again. It was astonishing
| how well it works there.
| jrockway wrote:
| Japan is better than the US, but I've definitely been
| standing around in Shinjuku station waiting an extra long
| time for a train, freezing my butt off, while the signs
| scroll "because of heavy snow in Gunma prefecture, trains
| are running with 15-30 minute delays." Weather is
| weather.
|
| My favorite US-ism is when Andrew Cuomo (the governor of
| New York at the time) shut down the NYC subway because of
| a forecast of 24" of snow. The reason the subway was
| built was because of the transport disruptions caused by
| a big snowstorm in 1910. To close it for a snowstorm was
| the ultimate irony. The snowstorm didn't materialize and
| he looked like an idiot. The MTA then developed an actual
| service plan to keep the subway open during snow, and it
| hasn't been a problem since. (Well, not for me. For
| people that live on non-underground lines, they are
| probably annoyed. I think the pre-Cuomo policy was "play
| it by ear and hope for the best". That was rarely ideal
| but probably let a few people get home from work before
| trains started getting stuck. Now nobody gets stuck, but
| they also get stranded when the snowstorm ends up not
| being bad.)
| groby_b wrote:
| I mean, yes, of course, weather is weather. Nobody
| expects perfection in the face of force majeure. US
| railways, however, seem to specialize in delivering the
| minimum possible experience that doesn't result in open
| riots.
| TylerE wrote:
| I guess the issue is that the yards where the trains are
| stabled are all above ground. If you can't get the crews
| to them, inspect, and operate them safely, you can't get
| them in the tunnels. Subway trains are all also 3rd or
| 4th rail powered, so I can see how lots of (effectively)
| standing water makes people nervous.
|
| The mitigation I suppose would be to get them underground
| in advance, and when/if the snow hits you just run with
| what you've got.
| jrockway wrote:
| In NYC we actually have a bunch of yard capacity that is
| completely underground, and then a bunch of other yards
| that are covered (like condos built on top). Typically
| the snow service plans involves stacking as many
| trainsets as possible on the express tracks, while
| service runs on the local tracks. There are a ton of
| extra express tracks on the network (because the IND had
| what appears to be unlimited money when building their
| system), so capacity doesn't suffer a ton.
|
| Honestly, in the 12 years I've lived in NYC, there have
| really only been 2 or 3 nasty snowstorms. Generally
| things ran OK except the one time Cuomo freaked out.
| (Hurricane Sandy was pretty nasty, of course. Rain and
| storm surge are much worse than snow here.)
| nerdponx wrote:
| Has NYC even had a comparably large snowstorm since then?
|
| The reason Cuomo pre-emptively shut down the subway was
| because a few years prior there had been a serious
| snowstorm that did severely disrupt subway service. He
| was trying to avoid a repeat of the same scenario. It
| turned out that the weather forecast was wrong, but if we
| actually did get 2 feet of snow and the subway was up and
| running the next day, with nobody stranded in tunnels or
| on bridges, he would have looked like a genius.
|
| Cuomo did a lot of stupid stuff (e.g. spending millions
| on pointlessly renaming bridges and setting up illegal
| highway signs), but that particular move was not one of
| them.
|
| To this day, the MTA says that over 12" of snow would
| still result in system disruption and service suspension:
| https://pix11.com/news/transit/how-much-snow-will-shut-
| down-... ("Posted: Jan 5, 2024 / 09:24 AM EST")
|
| > The MTA predicts that over 12 inches of snow or
| blizzard conditions could cause "significant service
| suspensions" or a full system shutdown. However, before
| that, there are several contingency plans in place for
| winter weather and extreme snowfall.
| MilStdJunkie wrote:
| I wouldn't be horribly surprised by a Boeing breakup,
| honestly. Even BDS might splinter down into smaller units.
|
| The real question in a Boeing breakup, IMHO, would be what
| happens with BGS, because the org as a whole does an _insane_
| amount of hide-the-salami with repair /return/rebuild.
| worik wrote:
| In a sane world it would be nationalised
|
| In this world, and that country, it won't happen, and if it
| did it would be a cure worse than the disease
| syntheticnature wrote:
| Less about carbon footprint and more about fuel costs, IIRC;
| passengers are generally more cost-sensitive than time-
| sensitive, so if a plane can only hit mach 0.8 (or even
| worse) but has better fuel economy at the relevant speeds,
| that's better for the airline.
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| _> whatever happened to flying at mach 0.9_
|
| Airlines found out that people, in aggregate, care more about
| ticket prices than about speed. Flying a bit slower allows
| planes to be more fuel efficient, and thus allows them to
| offer lower ticket prices.
| chimpanzee wrote:
| Yup. More details:
|
| https://finance.yahoo.com/news/1997-merger-paved-way-boeing-...
| hnthrowaway0328 wrote:
| All large corporations become sort of bean-counting corner-
| cutting company after maybe a couple of decades. It is the game
| of modern Capitalism. They not only learned but learned well
| and early.
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| Guess they're worried the public is already forgetting the
| previous MAX crashes so they're preparing for the next "PR
| campaign".
| geophile wrote:
| They're going to rename the planes to HBO.
| el-dude-arino wrote:
| The devil cult of Jack Welch rears it's ugly head again...
| hn8305823 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Welch
|
| > In 1963, under Welch's management of the facility, an
| explosion at a factory blew off the roof, and he was almost
| fired for that episode.
|
| Checks out
| nytesky wrote:
| Yeah Gelles holds up Boeing as the poster child of Welch's
| legacy. A place where engineers ruled, and then accountants...
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/02/books/review/the-man-who-...
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| Boeing was one of the most innovative companies and took
| major risks to move the state of air travel forward (747
| etc.) and that basically came to a standstill after the
| spreadsheet and finance people took over.
| MilStdJunkie wrote:
| Yeah. Welchian management is garbage from a product perspective
| - that's just about the most obvious thing in the universe -
| but the real crap of this is, over the lifetime of the
| business, _it 's also garbage from a finance perspective_. Go
| ahead and take a tour of the companies that went whole-hog on
| Welchian initiatives. Assuming you can find one that still
| _exists_ , show me one that's unequivocally making money today.
|
| Welchian management is just another spin on the old "restaurant
| fire" mafia scheme: bank up debt on assets before selling the
| plumbing and torching the place. Like the mob, it makes a
| handful of cash for some random top guy, and absolutely wrecks
| everything else, forever.
|
| It's hard to not take stories like this personally, having
| spent time inside the Boeing mothership. The power of this
| organization to destroy value rivals that of a small-ish
| military occupation; the ability of Boeing to do _anything_
| meaningful in an engineering context is pretty obviously at an
| end[1]. It 's a testament to past cleverness - and to the
| knowledge and dedication of line workers, maintenance, and
| aircrew - that any legacy Boeing product ever works, at all,
| ever. And that's why we're now fixing deficiencies like this in
| _goddamn flight checklists_. Because it 's all that's left.
|
| [1] Whatever innovation leaks from the company today is wholly
| from acquisitions, and those always have all cash choked from
| their lifeless corpses within five or ten years. Even DoD
| procurement has put a big red flag on the Boeing RFPs that come
| in, although that's also related to their increasing inability
| to estimate costs better than RANDINT.
| credit_guy wrote:
| This idea is so stupid that I don't really know how I can follow
| the HN guidelines to try to find a charitable interpretation.
|
| Guys from Boeing, here's a free piece of advice: don't. Just
| don't.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Normally when I read a comment like the above on an internet
| forum, it's blowing some issue way out of proportion. In this
| case, I think it's a fair comment.
|
| Today I learned that my refrigerator has a more complex anti-
| icing control that the engine inlet on the 737 Max (by virtue
| of having a $10 snap switch in the circuit).
| bombcar wrote:
| It wasn't clear to me if Boeing was asking for a exception
| such as "allow the planes to fly, but beat the pilots about
| turning the 'melt engine' feature off until we can design and
| build out a fix for this" or a "let's never fix it and
| pretend it won't happen".
|
| The first almost is reasonable, the second is kinda batshit.
| gruez wrote:
| The article suggests the first
|
| >Boeing would have until mid-2026 to design, test and
| certify a permanent fix for the engine anti-ice system
| defect that would then be retrofitted to all MAXs.
| bombcar wrote:
| That's much more reasonable, more like whatever it's
| called when you can mark a system as known inoperational
| but still fly the plane.
| sokoloff wrote:
| "Minimum equipment list" - notably, that's used to allow
| a certified plane to fly with some temporary reductions
| in operable equipment, rather than to allow a design to
| proceed through certification with known defects.
| credit_guy wrote:
| > 737 MAX 7 -- the still-uncertified smallest member of its
| newest jet family
|
| The first would be reasonable if there were hundreds of
| such planes already flying and grounding them would result
| in huge disruptions. But this plane is not yet certified.
| How can you go to the FAA with a half-baked product and
| tell them that you'll get it right eventually? Considering
| the whole MAX history?
| bombcar wrote:
| And how does this not apply to the bigger ones? Or does
| it and they already got that exemption? Many questions,
| few answers.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| The FAA is free to apply different standards to planes
| already in operation than to planes not yet built. To a
| certain extent, that's the only sane way to make forward
| progress on the standards (the other two choices involve
| airlines continuously retrofitting their fleets or the
| standards never changing).
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| As I understand it, the real problem isn't that the pilot
| is expected to turn off the deicing heater after X minutes,
| but that the pilot will then have to remember to turn it
| back _on_ when needed later.
|
| Seems like a valid technical solution but a human-factors
| nightmare. Boeing needs to read the room.
| pixl97 wrote:
| "Boeing: If I can blame it on pilot error it's not my
| fault"
| StreetChief wrote:
| if it's a human factor nightmare, it's not a valid
| solution, because there are humans involved.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| The problem is, if they drill it in their heads too much,
| pilots will err on the side of caution and could ice the
| engine. The system is there for a reason.
| cryptonector wrote:
| "You mean you want us to make this a new type and now
| pilots have to get re-trained and re-certified?!"
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Yeah I'm surprised they are still cowboying around after the
| max scandal. Do they really need to put more lives at risk
| before the message becomes clear that safety trumps profit?
| pi-e-sigma wrote:
| That's happening precisely because Boing didn't suffer any
| consequences after the last scandal.
| tacheiordache wrote:
| Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing's former CEO, left the company
| with $80.7 million in pay and benefits, after being fired
| over two aircraft crashes that killed 346 people in total.
| His compensation dwarfs the $50 million set aside for
| families of the crash victims.
| chx wrote:
| > to break and fall off.
|
| _fall off_ I heard that before.
|
| [Senator Collins:] Well, I'm not saying it wasn't safe, it's just
| perhaps not quite as safe as some of the other ones.
|
| [Interviewer:] Why?
|
| [Senator Collins:] Well, some of them are built so the front
| doesn't fall off at all.
| mjhay wrote:
| > In its petition to the FAA, Boeing argues the breakup of the
| engine nacelle is "extremely improbable" and that an exemption
| will not reduce safety.
|
| Yeah, I'm not sure I'd trust Boeing's judgement on the
| probability of catastrophic events at this point...
| hn8305823 wrote:
| > He said the pilot procedure the FAA approved as an interim
| solution -- urging pilots to make sure to turn off the system
| when icing conditions dissipate to avoid overheating that within
| five minutes could seriously damage the structure of the nacelle
| -- is inadequate given the serious potential danger.
|
| This is _insane_
|
| What are the chances that even a very well trained and
| experienced major US airline crew would forget to turn of the
| engine anti-ice within _5 minutes_ of non-icing conditions?
| Greater than zero for sure.
| StephenSmith wrote:
| How obvious is it that the plane has entered non-icing
| conditions?
| sokoloff wrote:
| It's obvious enough. They have a total-air-temp displayed on
| the FMC and a TAT above 10degC _OR_ not in visible moisture
| _OR_ SAT* below -40degC is a good enough proxy for "not in
| icing conditions".
|
| The problem isn't knowing whether or not you're in possible
| icing conditions if you think to ask the question, but rather
| reliably remembering to evaluate it every single time you
| enter and exit possible icing conditions.
|
| * SAT - static air temp (air temp before the ram rise).
| wkat4242 wrote:
| That's not obvious. Something with critical damage
| potential shouldn't be hidden in a reading in an obscure
| display page where a value has to be evaluated by several
| rules.
|
| It should be a caution light or something at least.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I'm not advocating that Boeing is proposing a sensible
| path here; I think they're not.
|
| But ATPs don't have any trouble evaluating "am I in
| potential icing conditions?" as they've been doing it for
| one to many thousands of hours previously.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| I understand. It's just that most accidents have not just
| one cause but a whole chain of them. Something small
| happens that causes the pilots to be distracted trying to
| fix it, meanwhile ignoring the elephant in the room or
| forgetting a 'routine check'. The flight deck isn't
| always a relaxed place and this is when these things can
| get out of hand so easily.
|
| This kind of mistake has been made so often and lives
| have been paid that I find it crazy that it's still being
| proposed.
| cratermoon wrote:
| In the "swiss cheese model" of accident causation this
| design is more hole than cheese.
| ledauphin wrote:
| based on the article, it doesn't sound like this has
| anything specifically to do with temperature - the issue is
| more about whether there is moisture in the air.
|
| If it were just a temperature thing, you'd think it could
| be automated, but I don't think that's really the main
| thing they're dealing with here.
|
| In theory this means switching the system off when you exit
| the clouds.
|
| This is usually pretty noticeable, but maybe less so at
| night, since you might be breaking out into a pocket or a
| clear layer between other layers, without visibly seeing
| much of anything outside.
|
| I would hesitate to comment on the feasibility of this
| beyond what the interviewed persons have said, precisely
| because they're not clarifying (to the readers in any case)
| what the actual thresholds here are. And the interviewees
| don't seem convinced that this is a reasonable/safe
| requirement.
| ahoka wrote:
| During the last MAX fiasco, I said to someone that if there is
| a button you have to push every five minutes for the plane not
| to explode, then failing to do so would be "pilot error",
| instead of a gross design failure. It turns out this is not a
| joke...
| RangerScience wrote:
| This is literally a joke on the excellent board game "Space
| Alert" - someone has to wiggle a mouse every so often or
| everything on your Sitting Duck Class Explorer turns off.
| zacharycohn wrote:
| Technically the screen saver/lock screen comes on and
| someone has log back in before anyone can take any actions.
| operatingthetan wrote:
| This is a real thing in modern trains:
|
| >The device sounds a warning after 25 seconds of inactivity
| by an engineer. If the engineer fails to respond to the
| warning tone within 15 seconds, the system applies the
| brakes and stops the train.
|
| https://www.newstimes.com/local/article/Alerter-system-
| preve...
| foooorsyth wrote:
| Dead man's (safety) switch
| david422 wrote:
| Ok, I don't know much about trains, but it seems like if
| they can build this kind of system then they could also
| build a system that only allows trains to go as fast as
| track "speed limits".
| TylerE wrote:
| They have. There's only so much you can do. Crew have
| been known to throw breakers to disable systems they find
| "annoying".
| ygra wrote:
| They do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punktf%C3%B6rmige_
| Zugbeeinflus...
| Symbiote wrote:
| That's pretty much standard on European high speed
| trains, and many lines at slower speeds.
| tgv wrote:
| Except that's the complete opposite.
| fsckboy wrote:
| depends whether you consider trains rudimentary sentients
| or not. If the train fails to follow procedure to alert
| the gut bacteria/engineer every so many minutes, the
| train runs a higher risk of running into something
| because the engineer is asleep or incapacitated.
| ranting-moth wrote:
| Back in they day sailors would stick a lit fag between
| their fingers when they were sailing home from day of
| fishing.
| jerf wrote:
| That's still prompt -> response. This is a discussion
| about mandatory responses to no prompt at all.
|
| Although on reflection, that undersells the level of
| stupidity being proposed here. The pilots need to not
| only respond to no prompt, but be actively monitoring a
| condition changing state so that they can _then_ perform
| the unprompted action.
|
| So, in all seriousness... by what algorithm are the
| pilots performing this assessment that is not something a
| computer can perform? How on Earth is it not cheaper and
| faster to add that to the system than petition a
| government agency for an exemption? What are all the
| computers on a plane even _for_ other than monitoring
| state changes and performing actions in response? Even
| high-assurance, safety-critical coding should be able to
| outpace a Federal bureaucracy on something like this
| comfortably.
| operatingthetan wrote:
| Yes it's different, but similar to the comment I replied
| to in the sense that the machine just turns off if the
| user is idle for a time.
| vitiral wrote:
| I agree, but you underestimate the cost of software in
| "safety critical" applications.
|
| I've heard stories of cases where development orgs were
| given the option of changing a line of code or re
| designing the hardware. They of course redesigned the
| hardware.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Boeing is no longer capable of building safe planes.
|
| If you are no longer capable of building safe planes,
| your next best option is to petition the government to
| accept unsafe planes.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| That's only the next best option in the very short term.
| Boeing will suffer significant damage if there's another
| Max fiasco - more than they did from the first one.
| Probably _much_ more.
|
| If your company can't build safe planes, the real "next
| best option" is to _fix your company_.
| gambiting wrote:
| What damage can they actually suffer though? Boeing is a
| strategic asset of the US government, they would never
| allow any harm to come to it. Some heads would roll for
| sure, maybe even the government would step in and assume
| direct control of certain parts of the company, but it's
| not like it would go out of business, or like companies
| would cancel all of their orders and buy Airbuses instead
| - they could, but again, the US government would never
| allow that to happen, either through direct monetary
| action or promises and guarantees that whatever the worry
| is won't ever happen again.
| eastbound wrote:
| > What damage can they actually suffer though?
|
| Loss of market share. As in, customers actively looking
| at the type of aircraft when they book a ticket.
| Airplanes becoming reluctant to ordering Boeing.
|
| At this time, every $1 you invest in making it known what
| Boeing does since 15 years, results in $2 or $3 of loss
| of market share for Boeing. Absolutely the time to buy
| ads to promote articles about Boeing.
|
| I would actually trust Comac more than Boeing, as Comac
| has something to prove, whereas Boeing has been proven to
| crash planes and bribe the FAA.
| tivert wrote:
| > What damage can they actually suffer though? Boeing is
| a strategic asset of the US government, they would never
| allow any harm to come to it.
|
| Boeing's staff and plant are strategic assets, its
| executives and shareholders aren't. The US government
| could totally let harm come the latter group.
| p1esk wrote:
| US government is much more broken than Boeing.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Not sure about that. I suspect that Boeing is considered
| a domestic strategic asset and is not allowed to die. No
| matter the incompetence.
| nostrademons wrote:
| It's usually not possible to fix a company that is
| broken, simply because of Gall's Law. ("A complex system
| that works is invariably found to have evolved from a
| simple system that worked. A complex system designed from
| scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it
| work. You have to start over with a working simple
| system.") Large companies are complex systems; they
| develop their own set of internal incentives,
| communications architectures, org politics, membership
| tests, etc. Over time, these incentives inevitably adapt
| themselves toward _maintaining the organization_ rather
| than _delivering the product or service that is the
| reason why the organization exists_. At that point,
| everyone who actually wants to deliver the product
| leaves, leaving an organization consisting solely of
| people whose full-time job is maintaining their position
| in the organization.
|
| Ask yourself: would _you_ take a position at Boeing
| trying to "fix the company"?
|
| The only way out of this is to poach the few remaining
| employees that still have technical knowledge, setup a
| new company that refuses to employ everyone with a vested
| interest in Boeing, and take their market. This is hard
| for aerospace because of the sheer complexity of the
| product and the baseline quality levels needed to deliver
| a safe experience.
| amputect wrote:
| Fixing the company _sounds_ good, but you have to
| remember that the people who would be fixing it are the
| people who got it to this point in the first place.
|
| I think it's very likely that nobody currently at Boeing
| has the ability and willingness to make the kinds of
| changes they would need to make in order to become a
| functional company again, because Boeing has spent over
| two decades systematically purging senior engineers from
| management and leadership in order to become another
| crappy company full of empty suits with MBAs, who don't
| understand the product they're making, and don't care if
| they're literally killing people and the company is
| rotting out from under them as long as they can monetize
| the rot to make their quarterly numbers.
| kergonath wrote:
| Even in not-so-modern trains. At least here, a dead man
| button or pedal has been mandatory on trains that could
| have a single driver since 1942.
| midasuni wrote:
| If the user fails the train stops.
|
| If the use fails the plane crashes.
|
| Two very different problems.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| This is too ensure that the driver is still there and
| hopefully watching. If they do not react then it means
| they are not fully abled. So the train stops.
|
| This is very good.
|
| The correct analogy would have been: if the driver did
| not press the button then the train accelerates until
| they do. Not good.
| tialaramex wrote:
| And in large ships, the Bridge Navigational Watch Alarm
| System or BNWAS.
|
| Over night most normal operations cease, so it's quiet on
| the bridge. But an officer is on duty to keep watch,
| because the ship is still moving, often relatively fast,
| and it needs a human to obey pre-existing route plan
| decisions, observe changing conditions, stay alert to
| other vessels and so on. However, the bridge (on a modern
| large ship) is warm and dark and at night tired humans in
| warm dark rooms will sleep.
|
| So BNWAS will (if operating correctly) periodically need
| to be "nudged" to show that the officer on watch is awake
| and somewhat paying attention. If they do nothing for a
| while the BNWAS will alert _them_ and if they ignore that
| it will eventually alarm critical crew, often the Master
| ( "Captain") of the ship or other senior officers who are
| asleep in their cabins.
|
| Now of course nobody wants to leave a nice dream to
| discover that instead of your teenage girlfriend agreeing
| to go on that picnic you never got to that sound is their
| boss, very angrily demanding to know what the fuck you're
| doing curled up by the radar console. So unfortunately
| sometimes after a serious incident (e.g. cargo ship has
| "decided" to wait right next to a small island a few
| miles from the usual route from 4am until midday, and
| then when it gets to a dock it seems very smashed up at
| the bottom as though it was grounded and had to wait
| until higher tides lifted it clear...) we find the BNWAS
| has been disabled crudely (it's not as though ship's crew
| tend to be IT experts)...
|
| But this is a completely different scenario. The BNWAS is
| not something which causes a disaster if you forget to
| react, it's an alarm to _prevent_ such disasters which
| would otherwise be commonplace.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_navigational_watch_a
| lar...
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Like the "the button" in the TV series Lost
| Lev1a wrote:
| > if there is a button you have to push every five minutes
| for the plane not to explode
|
| Instantly reminded me of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sifa
| aeturnum wrote:
| There was a great paper[1] I read about the human components
| in complex technical systems which argues that one of the
| roles of the human is to take the blame when the entire
| system fails. This does real valuable work for the companies
| involved and helps them avoid needing to answer the most
| uncomfortable questions.
|
| [1] Moral Crumple Zones: Cautionary Tales in Human-Robot
| Interaction by Madeline Clare Elish
| moffkalast wrote:
| Mfers couldn't splurge for a single fucking thermostat?
| dylan604 wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised to find out it is an optional unit
| like the attack angle sensor for MCAS
| error503 wrote:
| In the MCAS case the 'optional' component was an AoA
| display available to the pilots. Due to a misunderstanding
| about the design intent, planes without this option also
| did not display an AOA DISAGREE alert if the sensors
| disagreed. (I agree that such a simple situational
| awareness aid based on data the plane already has being a
| paid option is pretty absurd)
|
| However all MAXes did/do have two AoA sensors, and prior to
| the fixes, regardless of the AoA display option, MCAS only
| considered one of them.
| eastbound wrote:
| In the MCAS, the 'AoA disagree' sign allowed more freight
| to be carried. The pricing segmentation is based on
| freight, the intent was not segmentation over security
| levels.
|
| Even if it leaded to lowering security so much that 4
| planes crashed in just a few months.
| chem83 wrote:
| Agree with the overall sentiment.
|
| But to pick on this point, from a systems perspective, isn't
| a single thermostat still a single point of failure? So to
| address the issue, they'd need to add multiple (2?)
| thermostats, each linked to a different bus etc.? Asking out
| of curiosity on how these systems work...
| gopher_space wrote:
| Someone in the article comments said a pilot might be dipping
| into and out of icing conditions throughout a flight. You'd
| need to remember each time and if you forget once you'll lose
| _both_ engines.
|
| The latest Tesla features manual window wipers and if you don't
| use them right the car explodes.
| LegitShady wrote:
| What does using them right mean?
| roselan wrote:
| If you turn them on when it's not raining, it explodes.
| bluecalm wrote:
| If you forgot to turn them off when it stops raining is
| more apt comparison except it's easier to detect no rain
| than no frosting conditions.
| ldoughty wrote:
| Simple.
|
| 1. Wait for people to report a problem 2. Inform users that
| they were doing it wrong, it was always intended for you to
| do it the other way
|
| E.g. how to hold your iPhone.
| kergonath wrote:
| Depends on the latest OTA.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Boeing's main argument seems to be that, even if the pilot
| forgets, the overall risk isn't worth the remediation:
|
| _In its petition to the FAA, Boeing argues the breakup of the
| engine nacelle is "extremely improbable" and that an exemption
| will not reduce safety._
|
| _"The 737 MAX has been in service since 2017 and has
| accumulated over 6.5 million flight hours. In that time, there
| have been no reported cases of parts departing aircraft due to
| overheating of the engine nacelle inlet structure," the filing
| states._
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Who forgot to file the reports?
| falserum wrote:
| Mail from pacific ocean floor is slow or it's a separate
| case?
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| > "extremely improbable"
|
| Read: happens at least twice a week
| dtgriscom wrote:
| > no reported cases of parts departing aircraft due to...
|
| Wow, that's a great phrase. "No reported cases" is a serious
| weasel-phrase, and "parts departing aircraft" is much easier
| to take than "things falling off planes."
| LesZedCB wrote:
| well you see the front fell off.
|
| are they supposed to do that?
|
| not usually, no.
|
| https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM
| siva7 wrote:
| I wonder how the families of the 346 victims must feel reading
| years later such a headline like "Boeing wants FAA to exempt
| MAX 7 from safety rules to get it in the air"
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Probably pretty worked up, which is why the headline was
| phrased that way. If they said something like "Boeing seeks
| safety exemption for MAX 7 anti-ice system", it would
| communicate more information about the contents, but readers
| would be less likely to get mad and thus less likely to
| click.
| siva7 wrote:
| I'm not sure that the actual content would ease up the
| situation as a "pilot failure" likely to happen in said
| procedure would end up catastrophic.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Boeing's argument is that it's not likely to happen, as
| it hasn't happened in the 6.5 million flight hours with
| other MAX models for which this procedure is approved.
| worik wrote:
| Good use of headline editing then
| exabrial wrote:
| you should probably not read the rest of an aviation manual
| then. You ought to see what happens if you leave an air valve
| in a certain position too long.
| calamari4065 wrote:
| I can come up with _several_ methods to solve this problem at
| the hardware level.
|
| Slap a temperature sensor on/in/near the heater
|
| Monitor current through the heater for temperature coefficient
| response
|
| Capacitive sensing of ice on the heater
|
| A timer that shuts off the heater after some time and a buzzer
| to alert the crew
|
| You could even have a thermal fuse with a manual time-limited
| override
|
| Honestly there's so many easy ways to prevent thermal runaway
| that creating a situation where _THE ENGINE FALLS OFF_ is
| inexcusably negligent.
|
| My space heater has no less than _three_ independent, redundant
| safeties. As does my clothes iron, my coffee pot, my slow
| cooker. It really is not that complicated.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| And one or more of those is probably going to be the long-
| term fix. However any change like this also needs FAA testing
| and certification, and enough design and review to be sure
| the changes don't introduce other new problems, all of which
| will take some time.
| philip1209 wrote:
| I have mixed feelings about unions overall. But, pilots' unions
| seem to be an important "check and balance" to maintain safety in
| a capitalist aviation world.
|
| Pilots are not machines, and can't be expected to have a 0% error
| rate.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| As a former aviator who is likewise union-agnostic, ALPA is
| absolutely the exception. The pilot in command has absolute
| authority under the Federal Aviation Regulations to take
| whatever actions are needed for safety of flight. He or she
| absolutely needs to have a union standing behind them in order
| to be able to tell non-aviator managers to pound sand when they
| want to compromise flight safety in the name of saving a buck
| or two.
|
| Otherwise stand by for:
|
| - "You don't really NEED that much fuel reserve, it's
| expensive."
|
| - "You can fly with one of those redundant components failed,
| stop whining."
|
| - "You don't NEED those inconvenient crew rest requirements.
| Stop whining, pound some coffee, and fly tired."
|
| - "We don't NEED to do all this expensive maintenance."
|
| - "We don't NEED all these expensive boomer pilots with 10,000
| hours of experience and combat time over
| Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan. Fire them, hire the rookie from the
| regionals, and pay them $50,000 a year. Pilots are just bus
| drivers anyway."
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| >We don't NEED all these expensive boomer pilots with 10,000
| hours of experience and combat time over
| Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan.
|
| Genuinely curious: what aspect of flying an F18 in a hostile
| environment with a goal of destroying things while trying to
| stay alive is useful for flying a 400-passenger airliner? You
| might say "well, the trying-to-stay-alive portion is
| relevant", but that involves things like high-g turns which
| airliners are not so good at, and ultimately ejecting is the
| final option, also not so good with 400 passengers on board.
| "It's a jet engine!" Ok? So? Does that mean I can't drive an
| EV if I qualified on gasoline? Does that mean I _am_
| qualified to drive an 18 wheeler because I 've previously
| driven a Ferrari? (No, it does not).
|
| It seems to me that F18 flight hours contributing towards
| Boeing 787 pilot certification is a jobs program for military
| pilots. Not saying that's not a good idea: we need (for now)
| a strong human air force.
| StreetChief wrote:
| it's not about WHERE they flew, it's about the fact they
| have _experience_ flying large, heavy, mechanical machines
| filled with fuel, in the air! These days, there are
| extremely limited possibilities to get experience flying
| planes because of drone usage. The military barely needs
| pilots anymore, what with all the drone usage.
| philip1209 wrote:
| Military pilots probably have a lot more relative hours
| doing stick flying instead of autopilot, too.
| aaronmdjones wrote:
| They're also far more accustomed to, and better at
| following, procedures, rules and regulations, because
| that's the culture they advanced in.
| xcv123 wrote:
| Military pilots would have superior manual flying skills
| and proven ability to stay calm and make the right
| decisions under highly stressful conditions.
|
| Unlikely that they will panic and become completely
| incompetent when something goes wrong.
|
| https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/extreme-
| fear/201112/...
|
| "In the case of Air France 447, it appears that Bonin, in
| his panic, completely forgot one of the most basic tenets
| of flight training: when at risk of a stall, never pull
| back on the controls. Instead, he held back the controls,
| in a kind of panicked death-grip, all the way down to the
| ocean. Ironically, if he had simply taken his hands away,
| the plane would have regained speed and started flying
| again."
| psunavy03 wrote:
| Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the arrogance and ignorance in
| this post just screams off the page. You claim you're
| "genuinely curious," then go spew a ridiculously uninformed
| rant about how it "seems to you" that Hornet pilots need a
| "jobs program." Based, I assume, on your thousands of hours
| of both military and civilian experience, thousands of
| instrument approaches, and puissant understanding of how to
| operate multi-million-dollar aircraft? Donny, you're out of
| your element.
|
| To correct your analogy, a career professional Formula One,
| IndyCar, or NASCAR driver would absolutely have a MUCH
| greater chance at adapting to driving an 18-wheeler than
| your average Joe, because they understand things like
| friction, turning and braking performances of different
| vehicles, and the visual, tactile, and auditory signs that
| a vehicle is or isn't being pushed to its limits. Sure,
| they would have to learn the finer points of driving such a
| massive vehicle, but they're starting off with advanced
| driving knowledge most don't have.
|
| The average military jet pilot can perform the routine
| tasks of an airline pilot, and also handle inflight
| emergencies, by the time that they're a twentysomething
| flight student who hasn't even earned their wings yet. I
| know because I once was one.
|
| They spend the rest of their career layering skills on top
| of that concerning how to fly in combat and employ their
| weapons system tactically AFTER they've already proven they
| can fly from point A to point B and handle inflight
| emergencies. What airline pilots do for a living is bare-
| minimum table stakes for what tactical aviators do. The
| appeal of the airlines isn't a more challenging job; it's
| not having to deploy away from your family and do dangerous
| things anymore combined with a union paycheck.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| >I have mixed feelings about unions overall.
|
| If you enjoy your weekends and are equally grateful kids don't
| work 12 hour days, and someone didn't die at work today,
| perhaps you could get off the fence.
| StreetChief wrote:
| "this union is absolutely required for preventing death" and
| "i'm on the fence about unions" are two wild takes to see
| together.
|
| Why the triangle shirtwaist factory fire isn't enough to
| encourage people to like unions, I'll never know:
|
| > Because the doors to the stairwells and exits were
| locked[1][8] - a common practice at the time to prevent
| workers from taking unauthorized breaks and to reduce
| theft[9] - many of the workers could not escape from the
| burning building and jumped from the high windows.
|
| link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Facto
| ry_fi...
| janice1999 wrote:
| I hope one day engineering students will study the MAX 7 and
| learn from the Boeing culture that has killed at least 346 people
| so far. So many issues (and related cover-ups) stem from the
| massive compromises made so Boeing could quickly launch a flawed
| modified plane instead of a new design because Airbus scared
| their management.
| pengaru wrote:
| Same, and I wonder if it'll share a chapter with Tesla's
| prematurely shipped autonomous features, related deaths, and
| the dishonest messaging surrounding it.
|
| Considering the MCAS[0] failures were largely software defects
| in an autonomous system, seems plausible to me...
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuvering_Characteristics_Au...
| brandonagr2 wrote:
| What are you talking about, Tesla doesn't ship any autonomous
| features. Driver assist features do not make a car
| autonomous. Tesla has always plainly said you must monitor
| the car at all times autopilot is engaged, the exact same way
| that turning on cruise control in any other car doesn't make
| the car autonomous even though the car is managing the speed.
| pengaru wrote:
| > What are you talking about, Tesla doesn't ship any
| autonomous features. Driver assist features do not make a
| car autonomous. Tesla has always plainly said you must
| monitor the car at all times autopilot is engaged, the
| exact same way that turning on cruise control in any other
| car doesn't make the car autonomous even though the car is
| managing the speed.
|
| What are _you_ talking about?
|
| What Tesla markets and sells falls into SAE Autonomous
| Ground Vehicle classifications, just not level 5.
|
| Nothing I wrote spoke to anything Tesla sells being L5 (or
| any particular level at all).
|
| Edit: On the topic of MCAS, it strikes me as a system akin
| to around an SAE L2/L3, overriding pilot inputs to prevent
| a perceived crash/stall risk. This AIUI is well within the
| autonomy space Teslas operate...
| VintageCool wrote:
| Quite right old chap! Surely no reasonable consumer would
| interpret terms like "Autopilot" or "Full Self Driving" to
| mean that the car autonomously drives itself!
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| > I hope one day engineering students will study the MAX 7 and
| learn from the Boeing culture that has killed at least 346
| people so far.
|
| I fear that wouldn't matter, because they could end up working
| (indirectly) for stockholders that find that dollar-to-lives
| tradeoff desireable.
| consumer451 wrote:
| > I hope one day engineering students will study the MAX 7 and
| learn from the Boeing culture that has killed at least 346
| people so far
|
| I would hope that is also taught in management schools, as they
| appear to be the ones making these decisions.
| hughesjj wrote:
| Which is why we can't let Boeing get away with this anti
| social behavior, lest the lesson they learn be 'oh no one
| cares and there's no consequences '
| kevin_b_er wrote:
| This needs to be in *management* ethics. It was the
| *management* that ignored warnings. The "compromises" were
| demanded by *management*.
|
| Boeing is not an engineering culture, it is an MBA culture.
| This is the result.
|
| It is clear, by deadly example, that Boeing *management* is not
| capable of running a company that produces a safe plane. It is,
| after all, difficult to get a man to understand something, when
| his salary depends on his not understanding it.
|
| All the engineering ethics in the world does nothing against
| the greed of Boeing's management.
| IlikeMadison wrote:
| if it's Boeing, I ain't flying.
| thedrexster wrote:
| You missed the chance at "going" :/
| abadpoli wrote:
| I have to disagree with all of the comments in this thread saying
| this is "insane".
|
| The FAA approved a mitigation for an issue in MAX 8 and 9 planes.
| The MAX 7 has the same issue, so Boeing is asking for the same
| mitigation to be approved.
|
| If the FAA thinks it's acceptable for the 8 and 9, I don't see
| why asking for the same for the 7 is bad.
|
| On the other hand, if the FAA doesn't think this is acceptable
| for the 7, then I don't see why it would be acceptable for the 8
| and 9.
|
| Either it's an acceptable mitigation and all 3 should play by the
| same rules, or it's not and all MAXes should be grounded (FWIW,
| the mitigation seems ridiculous to me and I'm leaning towards the
| latter).
| Zetobal wrote:
| It's insane that you think only the number changes and the
| planes are otherwise the same. Ofc I want different rules for
| different airplanes...
| abadpoli wrote:
| Youre being disingenuous if thats how you interpreted my
| comment. Of course there are changes, and as someone who does
| significant research on plane variants, I know that more than
| most.
|
| But it doesn't take a genius to see that in this particular
| case, there is no evidence (at least none provided in the
| article, nor none that I'm aware of) that the 7 is different
| from the 8 or 9 in regards to how the engine icing system
| works (or doesn't, in this case).
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| Just because 7 is similar to 8 and 9 doesn't mean it has to
| get the same treatment. This isn't algebra or logic. By
| induction, having allowed it for 8 means that the FAA has
| to allow it for _all_ plans from here on out? 1, 2,
| infinity.
|
| Boeing should fix their shit. Not melting the nacelle is a
| simple feedback loop. Humans shouldn't be running that
| loop.
| abadpoli wrote:
| > allowed it for 8 means that the FAA has to allow it for
| all plans from here on out? 1, 2, infinity.
|
| If the plane's issue is the exact same issue and the
| mitigation is the same mitigation that's already been
| approved by the FAA as effective, yes, and this is
| currently how things work. See the MEL. If mitigation X
| is approved for situation Y, then it is approved for all
| situations of Y (within the same context). You don't have
| to go to the FAA to get a new approval to take off every
| time Y happens, you just do X and you're approved.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> the mitigation is the same mitigation that's already
| been approved by the FAA as effective_
|
| That's basically the argument Boeing is making. However,
| there is a counter argument that the FAA could make
| (though I don't know if they are): in order to limit the
| risk exposure now that this issue has been discovered,
| the same mitigation should _not_ be allowed on any new
| variants not already in service, even though it is
| allowed for the ones already in service, because taking
| variants out of service is a much bigger deal than not
| allowing new ones into service.
| abadpoli wrote:
| I could see this being an argument, basically saying
| "we're okay with the size of the problem now but don't
| want to make the problem bigger by allowing more planes
| to fly with this issue".
|
| But if that was the argument, then that would also mean
| that we shouldn't allow any newly built 8s and 9s to
| enter service, and I don't see that happening.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> if that was the argument, then that would also mean
| that we shouldn't allow any newly built 8s and 9s to
| enter service, and I don't see that happening_
|
| Yes, that's a fair point, although doing that would
| require some sort of modification of the existing
| certification of 8s and 9s, and I'm not sure how that
| would work. If those certifications were simply revoked,
| all 8s and 9s already in service would be grounded until
| the issue was fixed. But if they are simply left alone,
| new 8s and 9s can come into service since those variants
| are certified. An Airworthiness Directive, which is what
| is currently issued by the FAA for 8s and 9s, by itself
| doesn't prevent new units from coming into service.
| TylerE wrote:
| I would be ok with that if such a position included a
| mandatory rolling retrofit of the existing fleet the next
| time they come out of service for one of the big every-
| few-years inspections.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> Just because 7 is similar to 8 and 9 doesn 't mean it
| has to get the same treatment._
|
| Why not? As you appear to agree, it's the same problem
| for all of them, and the problem is a simple one that
| should never have reached this point in the first place.
| So all of them should be held to the same standard. If
| that means not certifying the 7, it should also mean
| revoking the certification of the 8 and 9 until the issue
| is fixed.
|
| _> Boeing should fix their shit._
|
| Indeed. And since the same shit is on Max 8 and 9, they
| should fix those too now that the shit has been
| discovered, and be held to the same standard for all. I
| don't understand why you aren't arguing for that.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| > Youre being disingenuous if thats how you interpreted my
| comment.
|
| Or they misunderstood your comment, or they skimmed it
| badly, or you wrote it badly.
| gr1zzlybe4r wrote:
| I think it's because the 8 & 9 variants were approved prior to
| the discovery of the nacelle issue. So the difference is
| approving a mitigation for an unknown issue in the case of the
| 8 & 9 vs. approving an exemption for a known issue with the 7 &
| 10. To me, that is a pretty big difference.
| abadpoli wrote:
| Yes, it sounds to me like that's the issue too, but I
| disagree with it.
|
| Either the mitigation is acceptable to make the plane safe to
| fly, or it's not. "Well this one already existed before we
| knew about the issue, whereas this one is new" doesn't
| actually change the risk calculus nor the effectiveness of
| the mitigation.
| pixl97 wrote:
| So normalization of deviance is acceptable here?
| abadpoli wrote:
| Please explain how this is "normalization of deviance"
| any more than allowing newly-built 8s and 9s to fly is.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Please explain how it's not!
|
| And exception is a deviance that must be tracked and
| taken care of adding mental load to the list of things a
| pilot has to do.
|
| The normalization is pushing this deviance into a new
| system that isn't complete and therefore has no refit
| requirement over a large base of aircraft.
| TylerE wrote:
| The 8s and 9s have the _exact same issue_ and the FAA
| already approved the exact mitigation in those aircraft.
| Having different fixes for the same issue is more
| deviance, not less.
| pixl97 wrote:
| This is exactly how normalization of deviance leads to
| death.
|
| The MAX8 does not have a fix, it has a complicated
| checklist of workarounds for dynamic behaviors that
| should be automated.
|
| Then the next level of failure you're inducing is that '
| 8 = 7 '.
|
| The combined systems of the MAX8 are not and do not equal
| the combined systems of the MAX7. You have re-asses the
| mitigation on every airframe that differs or you end up
| with a field of people splattered everywhere. If Boeing
| actually does the reassessment as they should, it will be
| about as intensive as actually removing the issue and
| reducing the workload of the pilot in the first place.
|
| That's why a lot of people are pissy about this, as
| Boeing is trying to say they did it once and that work
| transfers to a new system perfectly. Didn't work so well
| with the other MAX8's that splattered themselves.
| StreetChief wrote:
| Pretty sure two wrongs don't make a right. The unsafe
| planes should definitely be grounded but that would be
| expensive. Just because we screwed up before, and
| exempted planes, doesn't mean we should knowingly
| continue to ignore danger.
| abadpoli wrote:
| There's no "two wrongs" here, per the FAA. There was one
| wrong (the issue) and then that issue is mitigated by a
| procedure (the issue is righted, at least partially).
|
| Even if you disagree with this mitigation, every time a
| new MAX 8 rolls off the production line and enters
| service, the problem grows larger. Why is this okay, but
| not with the same for a MAX 7?
|
| Again: either the mitigation is effective enough for MAX
| variants, or it's not. I see no reason the two variants
| should be treated differently here.
| StreetChief wrote:
| rolling faulty max 8s is NOT ok, but it's expensive to
| fix, and boeing threatened congress (extortion) and got
| an exemption.
|
| [edit- the fact boeing can extort congress is scary]
| pixl97 wrote:
| >Again: either the mitigation is effective enough for MAX
| variants, or it's not
|
| No it is not. Here, you are doing just the normalization
| of deviance I'm talking about.
|
| An airplane is parts, and an airplane is a system. Just
| because you use part X in system 1 doesn't mean a
| mitigation strategy for part X works the same in system
| 2. For example system 2 (or the MAX 7 in this case) could
| also have an addition dysfunction in cold weather that by
| itself is low risk, but when coupled with this procedure
| now represent a significantly higher risk of loss of
| aircraft event.
|
| This is the the kind of problem that shows up in
| new/changed systems when accepting risk from previous
| systems at their previously measured outcomes.
| cameldrv wrote:
| That's not how the FAA views it. There's no such thing as
| "safe to fly" or "not safe to fly." There are simply
| probabilities of accidents in different conditions. What
| constitutes an acceptable probability of accident is a
| judgment call.
|
| The FAA has many, many safety rules, but which ones apply
| to a particular situation depend on a number of factors.
| For example, if you're flying by yourself in a small
| airplane, you don't even need a pilot's license! (solo
| student)
|
| In the world of aircraft certification, on one end you have
| experimental aircraft that untrained people designed and
| built and may be extremely dangerous. The FAA is relatively
| hands-off on this as long as you put EXPERIMENTAL in big
| letters on the side and don't charge anyone for a ride.
| When you start to get into heavier, faster planes, like
| people who buy MiGs, there are rules about where they can
| operate that are intended to protect the public on the
| ground, but not the pilots/passengers. On the other hand, a
| new Boeing commercial jet is subject to intense scrutiny in
| almost every aspect. Obviously you see an enormous
| difference in accident rates between commercial airliners
| and experimental homebuilts.
|
| One other dimension of this is grandfathering. Once a
| design is set, can be very expensive to change it. You
| might like the 737 to have better redundancy in its
| hydraulic system, and if Boeing ever designs a replacement
| for it, they will have to put that in. However, if every
| regulation the FAA made applied to existing designs, either
| the FAA would have to keep the new regulations to an
| absolute minimum, which would harm safety going forward, or
| Boeing would have to redesign their planes every year, or
| maybe even send all of the old planes to the scrapyard!
|
| This is not economically feasible, so the FAA only grounds
| aircraft for very serious safety issues. Parts are allowed
| to have tolerances in service that they aren't allowed to
| coming off the production line. Similarly, old design
| aircraft are allowed to have features that a new design
| aircraft wouldn't.
|
| What this allows the FAA to do though is to improve safety
| incrementally as new designs are created. Since it's so
| much cheaper to put in a new feature in a new design, it's
| economically feasible to provide safety for progressively
| more unlikely failure scenarios for these aircraft.
| Gradually, the old aircraft are retired, and safety gets
| progressively better.
|
| The 737MAX notwithstanding (and you could make a strong
| argument that Boeing abused the grandfathering rules with
| that aircraft), the progressive and dramatic improvements
| in airline safety over the past 100 years is a testament to
| the wisdom of this approach.
| abadpoli wrote:
| > There's no such thing as "safe to fly" or "not safe to
| fly."
|
| Except the type certificate issued by the FAA for a given
| aircraft is by definition the FAA saying that the type
| meets all applicable standards and is safe to fly. So is
| the granting of exceptions to any applicable
| requirements.
|
| The FAA doesn't say "eh maybe, it's a judgement call" to
| an aircraft manufacturer when telling them whether or not
| the plane can board passengers. They may include various
| factors, probabilities, and judgement calls in their own
| determination of if the type gets certified or not, but
| ultimately there _is_ a determination made: either it can
| fly in a given context, or it cannot.
|
| If the argument is "we learn and get better over time,
| and just because we approved something yesterday doesn't
| mean we approve it today", I fully agree with that, but
| within reason. And while I don't agree with this
| mitigation being an acceptable exception, I also don't
| think it's "insane" or incredulous for Boeing to ask for
| it, given that the FAA already approved the same thing
| previously.
| cameldrv wrote:
| Even whether an aircraft should be issued a type
| certificate is a judgment call. The regulations are not
| perfectly precise, and there is always going going be a
| certain amount of back and forth on interpretation and
| waivers and alternate means of compliance etc.
|
| Even given that a type certificate has been issued,
| whether or not it is legal to fly depends on the
| circumstances of the flight. Just as an example, under
| part 91 (private flying), complying with manufacturer's
| service bulletins is optional, but under part 135
| (charter) or part 121 (airline), it's generally
| mandatory.
|
| Therefore, is the FAA saying it's safe to fly a plane
| that doesn't hasn't completed its manufacturer service
| bulletins? No. They're saying the acceptable level of
| risk under part 91 is higher.
| nradov wrote:
| Should there be an expiration date on grandfathering of
| airliner type certificates? Should manufacturers be
| required to update designs for new production airliners
| after, let's say, 30 years? The original Boeing 737
| entered service in 1968 so even working at a slow pace
| with minimal resources they could have redesigned and
| recertified it multiple times in that period.
| michaelnik wrote:
| No need. That could be done be through the system of
| Airworthiness Directives (ADs) I think.
| TylerE wrote:
| For that matter there are still plenty of DC-3s in active
| service, and those are all over 80 years old at this
| point. Not nearly as big a deal as it might sound - the
| biggest wear item on a commercial plane is actually cabin
| pressurization due to the long term fatigue
| characteristics of aluminum. DC=3s aren't pressurized.
| nradov wrote:
| I'm asking about changing policies for newly manufactured
| airliners, not specific airplanes that have already been
| built. No one has used a DC-3 for FAA Part 121 scheduled
| airline service in decades.
| TylerE wrote:
| There are a number in regular commercial use (including
| passenger flights) in Canada which is a very similar
| regulatory regime. There are multiple US operators of the
| Basler turboprop conversion.
| error503 wrote:
| Personally I think so. Type certifications should expire
| after some reasonable time, and require a full re-
| certification under current rules and with current design
| review practices. I think this would also have other
| benefits, by discouraging improvements to e.g. fuel
| economy or pilot procedures slightly less, since the cost
| of re-certification is inevitable rather than something
| that can be avoided.
|
| Grandfathering aircraft that exist indefinitely makes
| sense to me, but I don't see why _designs_ should be
| grandfathered indefinitely for new builds, when we have
| learned a lot and increased our expectations
| significantly in the intervening years.
| TylerE wrote:
| Excellent post overall, but I'd point out that almost all
| of the imported warbirds are in fact flying as
| experimentals, since obviously they are not FAA
| certified.
| vdqtp3 wrote:
| Correct, but there are additional requirements around a
| warbird that do not exist for an RV-14, for example.
| That's his point.
| tempestn wrote:
| It doesn't change the risk (benefit) side of the
| cost/benefit equation, but it does change the cost side.
|
| To illustrate why this matters, imagine a more extreme
| situation, where it was somehow discovered that a similar
| flaw existed in all Boeing and Airbus jets. If a single new
| jet were being developed that had a similar risk, it could
| be enough to prevent certification, but we wouldn't stop
| all air travel because of it - the cost would be too high.
|
| Grounding just MAX jets obviously wouldn't have that degree
| of impact, but the cost to airlines and to passengers would
| still be significant.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| so you're saying, everyone complaining here about "remembering
| to check the condition every 5 minutes" needs to complain about
| THIS ALREADY HAPPENING ON FLYING PLANES??
| kmeisthax wrote:
| How about "it's an acceptable mitigation, but we want Boeing to
| suffer so we'll delay their new planes while letting the
| existing ones fly?" That seems to be the tact the FAA is taking
| and I think it's reasonable to take actions that deliberately
| punish Boeing and Boeing alone.
|
| That being said, I'm also on the "this mitigation is
| ridiculous" camp. They can't even have a humidity sensor that
| turns the de-icer on and off?
| sdwr wrote:
| The word is "tack", referring to changing directions /
| setting a course on a sailboat.
| wannacboatmovie wrote:
| It makes you wonder if the aviation experts posting here, many
| of whom could not find their own ass without JavaScript
| automation, could understand a world where you have complex
| machinery (such as an airplane) controlled only by a trained
| operator (such as a pilot). It's for the same reason they don't
| allow just anyone to drive forklifts.
|
| It defies how we made it through the first hundred years of
| commercial aviation with pilots having to deal with more
| complex tasks than an "up/down" switch.
| parl_match wrote:
| Hi!
|
| Please refer to this chart that shows the accidents/incident
| rates over time and their incredible trend towards zero!
|
| https://i.imgur.com/PVaPAdX.png
|
| That didn't happen just by itself!
| wannacboatmovie wrote:
| It has more to do with the introduction of Crew Resource
| Management than anything else, many airlines still fly 30
| year old aircraft without fancy automation. Recall AF447
| where the over-reliance on automation caused a tragedy when
| it failed and of course the MCAS debacle where the
| automation was directly implicated. There is room for a
| more nuanced answer here.
| parl_match wrote:
| > many airlines still fly 30 year old aircraft without
| fancy automation
|
| Those planes have been retrofitted over time or are in
| significantly decreasing use for passenger aircraft.
|
| Over reliance on automation is an issue, to be sure, but
| in the macro sense, it is one part of a significant
| downtrend in fatalities.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| are you sure that X years ago airlines didn't fly 30 year
| old aircraft as well? only those planes were 30 y/o *at
| the time*?
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Given the general hostility on HN towards ATC, General
| Aviation, county airports and old planes you can safely
| presume all those future planes will be using autopilots
| only. Because we sure as hell won't have any new humans
| qualified to operate the machinery.
|
| Just imagine that automated future. MCAS everywhere! We
| should start the debate now which language all that
| automation should be written.
| htk wrote:
| Thank you for actually adding information, differently from
| most of the other replies.
| JonChesterfield wrote:
| If "push a button within five minutes of ice disappearing or
| die" is a design feature of the 8 or 9 I wouldn't want to fly
| in those either.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| This plane is a lemon and the US Gov is in cahoots with Boeing to
| keep it flying
| teeray wrote:
| I feel like if you made a plane that has killed anyone recently
| through your fault, your company should enter a period of "time
| out" where you get zero exemptions from anything.
| soumlaut2 wrote:
| Is this why Nikki Haley is getting a push? (:
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| What could go wrong?
|
| "Boeing said..." Why bother asking proven liars anything?
| StreetChief wrote:
| Seriously!!!!!! Their history proves they are unreliable cost
| cutting fools.
| JJMcJ wrote:
| Amazing how Boeing has thrown away a century of good reputation
| in the last five years.
| solarpunk wrote:
| Boeing _really_ wants to cut corners, and it 's gonna take a
| really long time to fully bite them in the ass, because of their
| effective monopoly on US produced jets.
| Podgajski wrote:
| We are literally at the end of American civilization. Now the
| enshitification (Cory Doctow) of the world is reaching airplanes.
|
| At first, they were really good to the users. Now they don't care
| about the users, only care about the shareholders.
| t3rmi wrote:
| Recently my wife has been checking every flight we taking to
| ensure that its not Boeing.
|
| I initially thought she was overreacting but based on what I'm
| seeing from Boeing here I have to thank her for her diligence.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Wait until she hears about the Air France 447 crash, you'll be
| taking buses everywhere.
| tgv wrote:
| They acted on it. Wikipedia writes: "On 12 August 2009,
| Airbus issued three mandatory service bulletins, requiring
| that all A330 and A340 aircraft be fitted with two Goodrich
| 0851HL pitot tubes and one Thales model C16195BA pitot (or,
| alternatively, three of the Goodrich pitot tubes); Thales
| model C16195AA pitot tubes were no longer to be used."
| snowwrestler wrote:
| The pitot tubes were not the root cause of that crash.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| accident statistics:
|
| Boeing 737: 149 accidents
|
| Boeing 747: 49 accidents
|
| Airbus A300: 33 accidents
|
| Airbus A320: 28 accidents
|
| Boeing 737 NG / Max: 27 accidents
|
| Edit for context (thanks /u/janice1999) there are 11,182
| Airbus A320s and ~8400 Boeing 737 NG / Max so even pro rated
| Boeings recent planes are worse and the A320 has been out a
| few years longer too.
| consumer451 wrote:
| Is there data which shows accidents per flight?
|
| edit:
|
| I found some and put it into a Sheet for convenience of
| sort-ability.
|
| As far as raw accident per flight data, only Concorde is
| worse than the Max series. Wow.
|
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FTq3PwQMb83dnNtxwZo
| Y...
|
| http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm
| dpkirchner wrote:
| We'd probably also want to see separate stats for issues
| that occur shortly before landing or after takeoff --
| stuff that may be more likely to come up with every
| flight regardless of duration.
| consumer451 wrote:
| You are correct. Apologies, prior to seeing your response
| I had updated my comment stating that, and also found
| some data.
| metabagel wrote:
| It's not really an apt comparison. There were a lot of
| factors which culminated in that crash.
|
| The 737 MAX was an unsafe design which Boeing was aware of
| and failed to address.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Airbus's human factor engineering was so bad that it led
| experienced pilots to fly a perfectly good aircraft into
| the ocean. They were repeatedly warned about this, and
| still have not fully fixed it.
| ShakataGaNai wrote:
| Boing is working really hard to write that old marketing limerick
| [1] for a new era:
|
| > If it's Boeing, I ain't going.
|
| [1] https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/23039-if-it-aint-
| boeing-i...
| avalys wrote:
| What's not clear from the article is how likely this failure mode
| actually is to occur, even if the pilots happen to forget to
| disable the anti-ice.
|
| The fact that this issue is present in the existing 737 Max
| variants, and none appear to have actually experienced a
| structural failure, suggests the probability is low.
|
| It is easy for a bunch of keyboard warriors here on HN to insist
| that only zero risk is acceptable. In the real world, everything
| is a continuum and without knowing quantifiably where on the risk
| continuum this issue is, any discussion is meaningless.
| troupo wrote:
| In a large enough dataset any edge case will occur with 100%
| certainty.
|
| There are ~100 000 flights per day worldwide. I'd say the
| conditions described occur _all the time_
| avalys wrote:
| This is also a trivially true statement and meaningless for
| real-world decision-making.
|
| In a large enough dataset and given enough time, a meteor
| will eventually hit a plane in-flight and destroy it. Should
| regulation require the airplanes carry anti-meteor armor?
|
| Your qualitative judgement that these conditions described
| occur all the time actually suggests it's not a big deal,
| because the currently-flying Max 8 and Max 9 variants have
| the same issue, and none have experienced a structural
| failure.
|
| The scenario here is that, if the pilots forget to turn off
| anti-ice, the nacelle will eventually overheat, weaken, and
| possibly fail. But clearly that is not guaranteed to happen,
| or happen immediately. What I'm saying is that actual
| decision-making here depends on what the statistics of this
| possible failure actually are, given that the pilots forget
| to turn off the anti-ice.
| pi-e-sigma wrote:
| Your analogy doesn't make sense because there is no
| feasible way to protect a plane from a meteor hit (if it
| ever happens). So it's either take your chances or don't
| fly at all. The failure mode we are discussing absolutely
| can be prevented, it's just a matter of some extra cost.
| StreetChief wrote:
| wait so, because similar planes have not had failures yet, i
| should accept risk of death for airline profitability?
| avalys wrote:
| You are already accepting a risk of death for airline
| profitability. These tradeoffs are made all the time.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > none appear to have actually experienced a structural
| failure, suggests the probability is low.
|
| Low probabilty is much too high for this domain, of course. The
| question is, how low?
|
| In airplane design, almost all catastrophic failures happen
| only the first time.
| baby wrote:
| Can the US just buy airplanes from Airbus at this point?
| panick21_ wrote:
| Not sure if you are joking or not. But since its not funny I
| assume not.
|
| Switching from one airplane to another isn't like switching
| from a Honda to a Toyota car. It requires lots of training and
| thus cost.
|
| Southwest as the prim example has many 100s of pilots trained
| on a 737, they have a huge maintenance network that is trained
| for the 737. They don't fly any Airbus at all, thus they have 0
| experience in their whole operation.
|
| Switching would a monumental task. It was reported that
| Southwest took a serious look at A220 program, but has since
| doubled down on 737 for the next couple decades.
|
| Many airlines have switched to higher amounts of Airbus and
| Airbus has made inroads into the US market. But partly now
| Airbus has so many orders for 737 Max sized planes that if you
| order one, your gone have to wait for a long time. So, maybe
| you still rather get that 737MAX instead.
|
| For a while the market was more like 50/50, now we are trending
| towards a 40/60 market, or potentially even more. And that
| doesn't take into account that Boeing lowering prices quite to
| get some of these contracts.
| jvans wrote:
| Calhoun should conditionally agree to the following for FAA
| approval:
|
| If this event occurs within 10 years of launch he:
|
| * forfeits 10x the compensation he received from boeing including
| capital gains to the families
|
| * spends 3-5 years in prison for wrongful death
|
| Let's see how confident he is when he has skin in the game
| jetrink wrote:
| The Babylonians had similar ideas. Code of Hammurabi, Law 229:
| If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct
| it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills
| its owner, then that builder shall be put to death.
| jvans wrote:
| There has to be some accountability, otherwise capitalism
| just turns into a game of socializing externalities and
| personalizing profits.
|
| Calhoun makes the decision, reaps the profits regardless of
| outcome. If things go wrong boeing pays (maybe) and hundreds
| of people die
| gnulinux wrote:
| How is lawfully prosecuting a private company that makes
| profits off of a vehicle is the same thing as killing
| someone? Would you agree with literally _any_ punishment
| against Boeing for cheaping out on their design?
| jms703 wrote:
| Surely this can't be as simple as automating the icing system
| along with announcements to the pilot to keep them aware?
| thrillgore wrote:
| If anyone from Expedia is reading, please add a filter so I can
| search for "Airbus flights only." Thanks.
| exabrial wrote:
| A lot of armchair commenters need to realize that commercial
| planes accept commands; it's up to the pilot to prevent putting
| the the airplane into an unsafe state. This is actually an
| important safety feature in itself... being able to override all
| systems to prevent a catastrophe has happened many times in
| flight history. For instance, if you need to dodge an incoming
| collision, you could care less if you might exceed the g-load-
| rating of the airframe. You might crack something, but it might
| safe quite a few lives; vs a guaranteed death if you stay on the
| collision course and can't turn fast enough.
|
| Your experience with technology is consumer safety systems. These
| are designed so safety systems can't be overriden: the tech is
| protecting you from yourself.
|
| If you think this is "bad", you really ought to watch the startup
| sequence of a large commercial airliner. There are lots of things
| depend on the crew to do the right thing and it literally happens
| thousands of times a day, every single day, with an accident
| record that is far better than consumer safety systems.
| hughesjj wrote:
| I have no issues with there being manual overrides. I have
| issues with Boeing cheaping out on design and then whining to
| ignore safety rules so they don't have to fix their bad design.
| metabagel wrote:
| I feel like you didn't read the article, since your comment
| doesn't address anything from the article itself.
|
| In this particular case, the engine anti-ice system needs to be
| turned off within 5 minutes of icing conditions going away. The
| pilots union has said they are concerned about this. There
| needs to be a better system than that.
|
| > The problem is there's no alert or indication to the crew
| that the system needs to be turned off. They just have to
| remember to do it.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| >A lot of armchair commenters need to realize that commercial
| planes accept commands; it's up to the pilot to prevent putting
| the the airplane into an unsafe state.
|
| Looks like one more armchair commenter has yet to learn about
| the Airbus flight law system; it's not possible to put the
| aircraft into an unsafe state in Normal Law.
|
| AFAIK, Boeing has nothing comparable.
| Lev1a wrote:
| Title:
|
| > Boeing wants FAA to exempt MAX 7 from safety rules to get it in
| the air
|
| I bet they do and the FAA _should_ rightly tell them to fuck off
| if they 're not willing to go through the formal procedure to get
| their proven-dangerous planes back into commercial aviation.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Boeing should sack all their management and promote engineers to
| any needed management positions. This idea after the last set of
| issues is ridiculous and it'll be the same non-technical people
| who think it's magical thinking that keeps aircraft in the sky.
| iamawacko wrote:
| The McDonnell Douglas merger was the biggest mistake Boeing has
| ever made.
| siva7 wrote:
| It's quite funny how we still teach THERAC-25 to students about
| how deadly engineering issues can get yet Boeing seems to be a
| much better and modern candidate to teach about bad
| engineering/management practices affecting safety (MCAS).
| janice1999 wrote:
| I also nominate the "Toyota Unintended Acceleration" issue. A
| lecturer friend of mine likes to reference these slides from
| the trial: https://www.safetyresearch.net/wp-
| content/uploads/2013/11/Ba...
| jiggawatts wrote:
| Toyota kept going on and on about how their software code
| wasn't faulty, but analysts showed that it was so incredibly
| riddled with bugs that unintended acceleration was not only
| "in there", but was hiding under a layer of literally(!)
| thousands of other critical bugs.
|
| Did Toyota change their safety culture as a result?
|
| Hah... no.
| thumbsup-_- wrote:
| Again the Boeing version of "Sales people running an engineering
| shop".
| refracture wrote:
| I just can't see how anybody would want to give Boeing the
| benefit of the doubt at this point.
| carbine wrote:
| I still do my best to avoid flying on the MAX 8. V low confidence
| in Boeing after that debacle. They introduced MCAS to compensate
| for the fact that they didn't want to spend on redesigning an
| aerodynamically stable plane that could accommodate the new,
| larger engines.
|
| When MCAS led to crashes, they dialled it back, increasing the
| power of the pilot relative to the computer. That's not a solve.
| In either case, the aircraft has an additional point of failure
| that properly designed aeroplanes do not have.
|
| The 788 is great but the 787 MAX, not so much.
|
| Needless to say this new story does not inspire further
| confidence.
| peterlada wrote:
| Boeing cannot make things that fly no more. So now as a lawyer
| run entity will try to redefine the concept of flying to, riffing
| on Douglas Adams line on, constantly falling and mostly missing
| hitting the ground.
| worik wrote:
| Is Elon Musk now running Boeing?
| techie128 wrote:
| What the actual f*ck is wrong with Boeing's management? After the
| MAX fiasco that left several hundreds dead, I would have expected
| the new management to be more cautious about safety issues. As a
| consumer, I feel the need to vote with my wallet and feet. I feel
| it is time to boycott flying on Boeing's unsafe planes.
| Unfortunately, due to consolidation and lack of competition there
| are very few choices left for us.
| johnsanders wrote:
| Anybody who says newspapers and other "legacy media" are obsolete
| isn't aware of journalists like Dominic Gates.
| Havoc wrote:
| Really starting to feel like Boeing have a massive & pervasive
| culture problem rather than a specific technical issues problem.
|
| Which is terrifying...
| sreejithr wrote:
| I'm scared of flying on any Boeing from now on. Jeez, these guys
| are sloppy and looking for shortcuts.
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