United Airlines, I hate you deeply.

The forum for ranting, raving, complaining and praising
User avatar
Joe Shlabotnik
Hall Of Famer
Posts: 23104
Joined: October 12 06, 2:21 pm
Location: Baseball Ref Bullpen
Contact:

Re: United Airlines, I hate you deeply.

Post by Joe Shlabotnik »

Swirls wrote:
Arthur Dent wrote:It doesn't sound like the MCAS is an optional nice to have system that can be switched off without consequences. It's apparently there because the MAX designs are inherently more prone to stall than prior 737s. Turning it off may replace MCAS malfunction crashes with stall crashes.
Yeah, from what I understand it isn't optional and sounds like the pilots were fighting it trying to keep the plane's nose pointed upward.
I think there is a related ssue here that might be just as big a deal here. Boeing's guidance that 737 pilots didn't need extra training before flying the MAX. This was a big selling point and cost saver. Turns out it was wrong. Did Boeing stretch the truth to make the cost benefit analysis look better?

AWvsCBsteeeerike3
"I could totally eat a pig butt, if smoked correctly!"
Posts: 27273
Joined: August 5 08, 11:24 am
Location: Thinking of the Children

Re: United Airlines, I hate you deeply.

Post by AWvsCBsteeeerike3 »

Is there an article that discusses that further. From everything I’ve seen, it’s optional and easy to switch off. There are multiple instances of mcas not working correctly with no repercussions. Including the previous flights of the lion air plane that crashed.

Arthur Dent
Hall Of Famer
Posts: 12317
Joined: April 25 06, 6:43 pm
Location: Austin

Re: United Airlines, I hate you deeply.

Post by Arthur Dent »

Switching it off because it has failed and switching it off because it could fail are two very different risks. And Joe’s point on the sales pitch that you don’t need new training for the MAX because these electronic systems compensate for the different dynamics seems clearly wrong. If that is a major selling point, I can see why Boeing would want to hide from that reality.

User avatar
Swirls
gone fission
Posts: 8308
Joined: December 11 07, 4:15 pm
Location: South Korea

Re: United Airlines, I hate you deeply.

Post by Swirls »

AWvsCBsteeeerike3 wrote:Is there an article that discusses that further. From everything I’ve seen, it’s optional and easy to switch off. There are multiple instances of mcas not working correctly with no repercussions. Including the previous flights of the lion air plane that crashed.
This article kinda discusses it. It's entirely possible that they had attempted to turn it off and it didn't, or that they couldn't figure out how to, but if that was the case I'd expect to have heard about it since ATC communications are recorded. But it definitely sounds like it was still engaged at the time of the crash.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/lion-air- ... -findings/
Since the Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX 8 plummeted into the Java Sea in October, killing all 189 people on board, little new information has come to light about the cause of the crash. The incident has remained under investigation by Indonesian and international authorities. But as of Tuesday, the latest discovery shows how hard the pilots fought in their futile struggle to save the doomed aircraft from almost the moment it took off.

According to information gathered from the aircraft’s flight data recorder, or so-called black box, the plane’s nose was pushed down by an automated system more than 24 times during the 13-minute flight. The two pilots managed to pull the nose of the aircraft back upward before finally losing control, sending the plane into the ocean at 450 mph.
The black box data has been prepared by Indonesian crash investigators for release in an official report on Wednesday, but it was reviewed early by the New York Times.

Prior to this latest information, we knew that in the moments preceding the crash, the 2-month-old Boeing jet underwent erratic changes in speed and altitude before plunging into the Java Sea at such a high speed that some parts of the plane disintegrated into powder upon impact.

The system, which is thought to have caused the crash from the beginning of the investigation, is meant to stop pilots from angling the aircraft nose too high (which can affect the plane’s speed and lift and cause a stall) by automatically pushing the nose of the plane downward if it senses a stall is possible. But, as Boeing said in a memo after the crash, the system can suddenly push the nose so far down that pilots cannot lift it back up. The system would kick in even if cockpit crews are flying a plane manually and wouldn’t be anticipating a computerized system to take over.

It’s known as the maneuvering characteristics augmentation system, or MCAS. The anti-stall system has been a controversial topic in the wake of the crash because airlines and pilots who operate the 737 MAX have expressed that they weren’t fully informed about the system, and it was not listed in the cockpit crew manual for the aircraft. Boeing has denied withholding relevant information about the system following the crash.


In a statement to TPG, the plane manufacturer said it couldn’t discuss the matter due to the ongoing crash investigation, but “the appropriate flight crew response to uncommanded trim, regardless of cause, is contained in existing procedures.”

“The pilots fought continuously until the end of the flight,” said Capt. Nurcahyo Utomo, the head of the air accident subcommittee of the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee.

Nurcahyo said that in the case of Lion Air Flight 610, the stall-prevention system had been activated and is a central focus of the investigation, according to the Times.

While the findings detailed by the Indonesian Parliament is more than what was known before, there’s still plenty to be found out about Lion Air Flight 610’s final moments and why the aircraft, which had issues prior to the final flight, was permitted to fly.

AWvsCBsteeeerike3
"I could totally eat a pig butt, if smoked correctly!"
Posts: 27273
Joined: August 5 08, 11:24 am
Location: Thinking of the Children

Re: United Airlines, I hate you deeply.

Post by AWvsCBsteeeerike3 »

interesting stuff guys. Here’s a link to a guy I follow on YouTube that talks about a lot of the stuff we’re talking about.

It sounds like as soon as the gas had proof the plane was being pushed nose down by the mcas system they grounded the plane.

https://youtu.be/AgkmJ1U2M_Q

User avatar
lukethedrifter
darjeeling sipping elite
Posts: 37434
Joined: October 17 06, 11:19 am
Location: Huis Clos

Re: United Airlines, I hate you deeply.

Post by lukethedrifter »

The 737 Max is a product of that environment where short-term decision-making can drive big and often painful pushes for product improvement. It’s one that I’ve written about extensively over the years, and born from the work of academics like Dr. Theodore Piepenbrock and his work on the Evolution of Business Ecosystems.

Every airplane development is a series of compromises, but to deliver the 737 Max with its promised fuel efficiency, Boeing had to fit 12 gallons into a 10 gallon jug. Its bigger engines made for creative solutions as it found a way to mount the larger CFM International turbines under the notoriously low-slung jetliner. It lengthened the nose landing gear by eight inches, cleaned up the aerodynamics of the tail cone, added new winglets, fly-by-wire spoilers and big displays for the next generation of pilots. It pushed technology, as it had done time and time again with ever-increasing costs, to deliver a product that made its jets more-efficient and less-costly to fly.

In the case of the 737 Max, with its nose pointed high in the air, the larger engines – generating their own lift – nudged it even higher. The risk Boeing found through analysis and later flight testing was that under certain high-speed conditions both in wind-up turns and wings-level flight, that upward nudge created a greater risk of stalling. Its solution was MCAS, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System control law that would allow for both generations of 737 to behave the same way. MCAS would automatically trim the horizontal stabilizer to bring the nose down, activated with Angle of Attack data. It’s now at the center of the Lion Air investigation and stalking the periphery of the Ethiopian crash.

Freed Roger
Seeking a Zubaz seamstress
Posts: 26227
Joined: September 4 07, 1:48 pm
Location: St. Louis

Re: United Airlines, I hate you deeply.

Post by Freed Roger »

made a new thread. Not in politics because everything touched by orange is inevitably political.

tlombard
tl;dr
Posts: 5053
Joined: May 21 09, 12:41 pm

Re: United Airlines, I hate you deeply.

Post by tlombard »

United actually did something right by me and I'm still shocked! Originally my flight home was scheduled to leave Boston a little after 7pm on Friday but with the threat of storms causing issues in the Midwest around the times I'd be flying, I changed my flight first thing on Friday morning to leave at 2:30pm and connect through Dulles. I got to Logan a little after noon (wanted to make sure I had plenty of time for traffic troubles, etc... and I was just ready to get out of the office and wanted to get some lunch as well) and immediately got a text that due to delays on a previous leg, my flight would be delayed and scheduled to leave at 3pm. I thought that was fine because I'd still have 30 minutes to make my connection. Then I got a text saying it would leave at 3:15pm. That would leave me about 15 minutes as a best case scenario so I was starting to get nervous.

Then about the time the flight was due to start boarding, I got called up to the desk at the gate and told that they switched my flights and I needed to get to a different gate on the other side of the terminal to catch a flight to O'Hare instead of Dulles. I ended up landing at Lambert an hour later than I was hoping but at least I got home. I don't think there were any later flights to STL out of Dulles so if I had missed that connection, I'd really have been in trouble.

And I appreciated having enough time at O'Hare to take care of some business before I caught my connection. Yep, I took a dump in O'Hare before flying the last leg home. It felt appropriate. Thanks for the hospitality Chicago!

But seriously, United did me right and I was really surprised that they were looking ahead like that for once instead of leaving me stranded and both flights were full with people on Standby to Chicago that I got on ahead of which really added to my surprise.

User avatar
Joe Shlabotnik
Hall Of Famer
Posts: 23104
Joined: October 12 06, 2:21 pm
Location: Baseball Ref Bullpen
Contact:

Re: United Airlines, I hate you deeply.

Post by Joe Shlabotnik »

Good for you T. Wish I could say the same. Hasn't happened yet.

User avatar
lukethedrifter
darjeeling sipping elite
Posts: 37434
Joined: October 17 06, 11:19 am
Location: Huis Clos

Re: United Airlines, I hate you deeply.

Post by lukethedrifter »

Joe Shlabotnik wrote:Good for you T. Wish I could say the same. Hasn't happened yet.
You have never pooped at O’Hare?

Post Reply