Posted on 03/15/2019 11:04:17 AM PDT by Red Badger
A screw-like device found in the wreckage of the Boeing 737 Max that crashed last Sunday in Ethiopia indicates the plane was configured to dive. ==============================================================
A screw-like device found in the wreckage of the Boeing 737 Max that crashed last Sunday in Ethiopia indicates the plane was configured to dive, a piece of evidence that helped convince U.S. regulators to ground the model, a person familiar with the investigation said late Thursday night.
Federal Aviation Administration chief Daniel Elwell on Wednesday cited unspecified evidence found at the crash scene as part of the justification for the agency to reverse course and temporarily halt flights of Boeing's largest selling aircraft. Up until then, American regulators had held off as nation after nation had grounded the plane, Boeing's best-selling jet model.
The piece of evidence was a so-called jackscrew, used to set the trim that raises and lowers the plane's nose, according to the person, who requested anonymity to discuss the inquiry.
A preliminary review of the device and how it was configured at the time of the crash indicated that it was set to push down the nose, according to the person, who wasn't authorized to speak publicly about the investigation.
The jackscrew, combined with a newly obtained satellite flight track of the plane, convinced the FAA that there were similarities to the Oct. 29 crash of the same Max model off the coast of Indonesia. In the earlier accident, a safety feature on the Boeing aircraft was repeatedly trying to put the plane into a dive as a result of a malfunction.
All 157 people aboard Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 died early Sunday shortly after the plane took off. The pilot reported an unspecified problem and was trying to return to the airport. The plane crashed near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital. The plane's crash-proof recorders have been sent to France to be analyzed.
The discovery of the jackscrew was earlier reported by NBC News. 3 COMMENTS
Separately, the New York Times reported that doomed Ethiopian Airlines plane was in trouble almost immediately after takeoff as it lurched up and down by hundreds of feet at a time. The captain of the Boeing Co. 737 Max 8 asked in a panicky voice to turn back only three minutes into the flight as the plane accelerated to abnormal speeds, the newspaper reported, citing a person who reviewed the jet's air traffic communications.
Based on what pilots are saying, this is not the case.
The one chart I saw indicated a porpoising—up and down, and this indicates a battle between the flight control systems and the pilots.
In the US they tend to be. Elsewhere? I don’t know. I have several pilot friends in the US and they are constantly going into the simulator.
Did you see those papers, including photographs they were supposedly salvaging from the crash site?
Safety sand you can turn everything off
You have it
Better question: Does a Chinese-born engineer work in the department that wrote the code for the MCAS software?
I cannot for a second believe that this aircraft passed flight testing prior to certification for a software bug which governs hands-on manual flight without any incidents whatsoever.
If it did experience problems during flight testing, I hope a thorough investigation is brought to an effective conclusion and not just ‘passed over’...
It couldn’t have been the MCAS. Eye-witnesses saw the plane in flames, and “shuddering.”
Terrorism?..................possibly....................
No. There are two black boxes.
Uh, what was in all the body bags?
If it is required for flight safety, I wouldn't think there would be a way to disable the system.
Since a description of the MCAS problems have been online since last year ...
If the plane dove into the ground, wouldn't you expect to find the screw like device to be in that position.
Whether it was computer generated or pilot generated is another matter. - Tom
An experienced US military trained pilot would have rolled the aircraft inverted where nose down inputs become nose up. Might have given them more time to troubleshoot or unpower the MCAS. Problem is Boeing didn’t even put this system in the pilot’s aircraft systems Manuel and seems there was no training for spurious inputs that might require disabling it.
We pretty well train for everything one being “Runaway Trim” an uncommanded up or nose down, with a good coordinated crew you can deal with this pretty fast. Simply one guy flies the plane and the other pulls the circuit breakers. Prob Solved.
Since anything can fail on an A/C you have to have a way to turn it off
The prob here is that Boeing put out “Differances” training documentation not new manuals for the MAX, they published “Addendums” sheets of paper to be reviewed and placed in current manuals.
The plane doesn’t have a problem, it’s doing what it was designed for.. the problem is some airliines which aren’t strictly regulated as the US are slight on training.
These poor bastards were fighting them all the way to the ground simply because they were not aware the override, turn the A/P on and Disable the MCAS.
Boeing ‘s got troubles
An experienced US military trained pilot would have rolled the aircraft inverted where nose down inputs become nose up
Only in the movies
The screw-like device was probably the jackscrew that controls horizontal stabilizer trim position. If the MCAS could affect the stabilizer trim, it would be difficult to overcome with elevator input. If so, you would think the aero engineers would have limited the potential range of input from MCAS. (Maneuver Charactistics Augementation System was installed to compensate for pitch up tendency due to bigger more forward installed jet engines)
No...it was done in the Alaska MD-80 crash AS261 when the jackscrew failed. Capt was an exNavy F-14 pilot. The horizontal stabilizer eventually departed the aircraft and the plane crashed into the ocean off Santa Barbara. But it did buy some time.
What Denzel W did in the movie was not in the relm of possibility.
But it didn’t work.. did it or there wouldn’t be a hole in the ground...or ocean, not trying to be pi$$yy but civil aircraft aren’t built for the stresses aerobatics place on airplanes, demonstrated by the failure of the control surfaces in your example
Flying an airplane inverted creates 1 negative “g” on the airframe in level flight. You should read the story of the FedEx crew who fought off a disgruntled s employee who tried to commit suicide by causing a DC 10 to crash. There were aileron rolls, hard pull-ups +g and push overs -g. I don’t think that airplane ever flew in service again, but it held together.
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