Several Boeing 737 Max 8 pilots in U.S. complained about suspected safety flaw

Dallas News ^ | 3-12-2019 | Cary Aspinwall Ariana Giorgi Dom DiFurio

[servo1969]

Pilots repeatedly voiced safety concerns about the Boeing 737 Max 8 to federal authorities, with one captain calling the flight manual "inadequate and almost criminally insufficient" several months before Sunday's Ethiopian Air crash that killed 157 people, an investigation by The Dallas Morning News found.

The News found five complaints about the Boeing model in a federal database where pilots can voluntarily report about aviation incidents without fear of repercussions.

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The disclosures found by The News reference problems with an autopilot system, and they all occurred during the ascent after takeoff. Many mentioned the plane suddenly nosing down. While records show these flights occurred in October and November, the airlines the pilots were flying for is redacted from the database.

Records show that a captain who flies the Max 8 complained in November that it was "unconscionable" that the company and federal authorities allowed pilots to fly the planes without adequate training or fully disclosing information about how its systems were different from those on previous 737 models.

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The complaint from the captain who called into question the 737 Max 8's flight manual ended: "The fact that this airplane requires such jury rigging to fly is a red flag. Now we know the systems employed are error-prone — even if the pilots aren't sure what those systems are, what redundancies are in place and failure modes. I am left to wonder: what else don't I know?"

The Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, was included on the Max 8 model as a safety mechanism that would automatically correct for a plane entering a stall pattern. If the plane loses lift under its wings during takeoff and the nose begins to point far upward, the system kicks in and automatically pushes the nose down.

[servo1969]

[DAC21]

Scapegoats in 3..2..1

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Scapegoats in 3..2..1.

Yes, yes ... it was all my fault.

[beef]

The guy is complaining about documentation. Nobody writes documentation in the 21st century. You go on Stack Exchange and ask the other pilots how it works. Maybe someone who speaks broken english can give you a hint.

[iontheball]

This is shaping up to be a real disaster for Boeing. When you are piloting a plane that fails to respond the way you know an aircraft is supposed to because you have onboard controls that are overriding your best judgment and you do not know enough about the new-fangled system to shut the damn computer off you are flying a suicide aircraft.

[beef]

Training? He wants training? Does he not know how to fly an airplane? Sheesh! He probably wants to be spoon fed everything. In the 21st century we don’t coddle people like that. We find somebody in India who will do the job without complaining.

[MayflowerMadam]

“This is shaping up to be a real disaster for Boeing.”

If so, it will be a disaster for our investments.

Let’s face it, the schools have been successful in their efforts to dumb down the students, so it’s difficuult to find employees who can perform perfectly. Also, it’s difficult to find employees who care enough to perform perfectly.

Getting Participation Trophies throughout school and college for doing the worst in any situation doesn’t help.

And then there’s Mom and Dad praising them for everything, even ridiculous failures, and taking their side when they’ve messed up. It’s sad.

[Clutch Martin]

I know a C-130 pilot who’s man cave (i.e. office) is full of technical publications on that one airframe. Big hurky, pulpy pubs with 4 inch screw posts and durable removable covers. If you have ever seen old NAVAL pubs you know what I’m talking about. He also has digital versions covering everything and travels with a laptop and flash drives as well.

He’s always into the books. He’s almost at the end of this flying career but he still hits the books just out of general interest. So for me to read this article and understand that some Pilots are totally into their craft and the documentation for this particular aircraft does exist but not in quantity or quality, amazes me.

Engineering officers on board vessels have whole libraries at there disposal and subject matter specialists heading up various departments.

[democratsaremyenemy]

I would want the pilot to be trained on any new system especially one that can override The pilot. Boeing and the FAA decided that pilots didn’t need to know about this new system? Why do you have a problem with training pilots? MCAS uses sensors to point the nose of the plane down if it detects it has pitched too high and could be at risk of stalling. By measuring the position of the plane's wings relative to airflow, the system's sensor indicate to pilots if the plane is at risk of stalling from going too slow or flying too steeply into a climb. It's a brand new system on 737 Max planes. However, problems can arise when the MCAS system automatically pushes the plane's nose down, potentially surprising pilots who are unfamiliar with the system and overriding their commands. According to The New York Times, Boeing and the FAA decided pilots did not need to be informed about the change to the flight control system. The Times reported Boeing and regulators decided against informing pilots at least in part to minimize the costs of retraining pilots.

[beef]

“I would want the pilot to be trained”

Of course I was being facetious and I agree with you completely. But this kind of corner cutting on training and documentation has infected industry from top to bottom, and apparently has now seeped into safety critical areas. I hope NASA is keeping a critical eye on SpaceX. Elon Musk would epitomize that mindset.

[neverevergiveup]

Is this a software change on the 737 Max, or a new hardwired ‘feature’? Either way, they should have informed/trained the pilots - even if they thought it wasn’t a big change.

[cuban leaf]

I guess all the Vietnam war vet pilots have retired...

Were left with a different generation.

[_Jim]

Hmmm ... why does the case(s?) of the Toyota unintended acceleration come to mind?

[yldstrk]

‘Investments”. Yeah I should say it’s a disaster for your investments, since it is a dangerous plane that is killing people. How about being a disaster for the families of the dead?

[cuban leaf]

The guy is complaining about documentation.

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Yep. That’s what I noticed. Nowhere did he complain about the quality of the plane or its performance.

It’s possible there are some kinks that need to be worked out of the new tech, but it took hundreds of thousands of takeoffs and landings to get here. They’re not falling out of the sky.

[cuban leaf]

I believe it is software to compensate for hardware changes. I believe the new motors affect the weight balance, front to rear, requiring software to be extra careful about stalling.

But I could be wrong.

[cuban leaf]

Obviously Boeing has crunched the numbers and thinks it is cheaper to keep flying even with the risk of more deaths than to admit the software is focked up

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Then again, It may be that now that everybody is aware of this “possible” flaw, they will watch for it. It’s not like this happens every time the plane takes off.

[livius]

I was thinking last night that it was possible that the two crashes, both from semi-Third World countries, occurred because the planes were either poorly maintained or because the pilots didn’t really understand the manuals.

However, as more information comes out, it looks as if Boeing really has messed up. It’s simply that American pilots are better able to respond to a problem, not that the problem doesn’t exist.

[Freeport]

“Nobody writes documentation in the 21st century.”

Wow. The ignorance of this statement is stupefying.

Have you ever even seen the amount of documentation that come with a commercial aircraft? It numbers in the THOUSANDS of pages.

Did Boeing and the FAA screw up by not including new information on the system in question? Maybe.

I say maybe because the whole POINT was to NOT change the flying qualities to such a degree that the pilots would need to retrain to fly this aircraft. The procedure to disable the system in question is EXACTLY like that of the previous system.

There is ZERO difference between the controls.

In time we hopefully will know what happened in BOTH crashes, but the speculation fairy needs to STOP.

People have died folks. Shooting your mouth off helps no one. And for you speculation fairies, even a cursory reading of the events of this latest crash and with several of the eye witness accounts, while any eye witness account is suspect, stating there was a debris trail PRIOR to ground impact. Let the investigators work. As to the groundings, those in charge of each countries airspace are not incompetent and some have valid fears. They have taken appropriate action as they see fit a has the FAA. Suck it up cupcake.