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Lion Air crash families told 737 MAX design flaws linked to deadly crash
Reuters
Published:
October 23, 2019
Updated:
October 23, 2019 8:21 AM EDT
Anton Sahadi, a relative of a victim of crashed Lion Air flight JT610 reacts as he speaks to reporters after Indonesian investigators told victims' families mechanical and design issues contributed to the crash of the 737 MAX jet last year, in Jakarta, Indonesia, October 23, 2019. STRINGER / REUTERS
JAKARTA — Mechanical and design issues contributed to the crash of a Lion Air 737 MAX jet last October, Indonesian investigators told victims’ families in a briefing on Wednesday ahead of the release of a final report.
Contributing factors to the crash of the new Boeing jet, which killed all 189 on board, included incorrect assumptions on how an anti-stall device called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) functioned and how pilots would react, slides in the presentation showed.
The briefing slides showed that a lack of documentation about how systems would behave in a crash scenario, including the activation of a “stick shaker” device that warned pilots of a dangerous loss of lift, also contributed.
“Deficiencies” in the flight crew’s communication and manual control of the aircraft contributed as well, the slides showed, as did alerts and distractions in the cockpit.
The deficiencies had been “identified during training,” the slides said, without elaborating.
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Reliance on a single angle-of-attack sensor made MCAS more vulnerable to failure, while the sensor on the plane that crashed had been miscalibrated during an earlier repair, according to the slides.
The final report will be released on Friday.
Some relatives of the victims at the briefing in Jakarta expressed disappointment that direct responsibility wasn’t assigned.
“Why isn’t the airline heavily sanctioned?” said Anton Sahadi, 30, whose relatives Riyan Aryandi and Muhammad Rafi Andrian were killed in the crash. “This isn’t about one or two lives, it’s about 189 lives.”
The role of the civil investigators is not to assign blame but to draw lessons that will make flying safer. Separate court actions will address who is legally responsible for the crash.
Ony Soerjo Wibowo, an investigator with Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) who delivered the briefing, declined to comment afterward. An agency representative also declined to comment.
Epi Samsul Komar, 52, a relative of a victim of crashed Lion Air flight JT610 reacts as he speaks to reporters after Indonesian investigators told victims’ families mechanical and design issues contributed to the crash of the 737 MAX jet last year, in Jakarta, Indonesia, October 23, 2019. REUTERS/Sekar Nasly NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES ORG XMIT: DEG100 STRINGER / REUTERS
A representative for Lion Air declined to comment.
A Boeing spokeswoman declined to comment on the briefing, saying: “As the report hasn’t been officially released by the authorities, it is premature for us to comment on its contents.”
The 737 MAX was grounded worldwide after a second deadly crash in Ethiopia in March 2019.
Planemaker Boeing is under growing pressure to explain what it knew about 737 MAX problems before the aircraft entered service.
Boeing has already said it would redesign the MCAS anti-stall system to rely on more than a single sensor and to help reduce pilot workload.
The planemaker is set to release third-quarter financial results on Wednesday.
Boeing likely to face new questions after another 737 crash
Lion Air jet voice recorder, human remains found
Boeing promises $100 million to help families affected by deadly crashes
LION AIR FLIGHT
Contact with Lion Air flight 610 was lost 13 minutes after it took off on Oct. 29 from the capital, Jakarta, heading north to the tin-mining town of Pangkal Pinang.
The Boeing 737 MAX airplane had suffered a sequence of problems in cockpit readings since Oct. 26, culminating in a decision to change the angle-of-attack sensor before the penultimate flight from Denpasar to Jakarta.
During the fatal night-time flight, a “stick shaker” was vibrating the captain’s controls, warning of a stall throughout most of the 13 minutes aloft, based on what investigators believe to have been erroneous data on the attitude of the wings relative to the direction of flight, called the angle of attack.
The angle must be controlled so that the aircraft’s wings maintain lift and avoid stalling, a condition in which a plane will begin to fall out of the sky.
The airplane’s anti-stall system repeatedly pushed the nose of the aircraft down, which is how pilots usually get air under the wings.
Boeing was widely criticized for placing emphasis on piloting and maintenance issues in its public response to an earlier report, sparking a furious dispute with Lion Air co-founder Rusdi Kirana.
The planemaker has since acknowledged that MCAS and a faulty angle of attack sensor played a role, and apologized for lives lost without admitting formal responsibility.
Boeing last month settled the first claims stemming from the Lion Air crash, a U.S. plaintiffs’ lawyer said.
Three other sources told Reuters the families of those killed will receive at least $1.2 million each.
The manufacturer faces nearly 100 lawsuits over the Ethiopian Airlines crash on March 10, which killed all 157 people on board the flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi.
The 737 MAX was grounded following the second crash, leaving Boeing and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grappling to contain a crisis that has left 346 people dead, forced airlines to ground more than 300 aircraft, and put Boeing deliveries worth more than $500 billion on hold.
Boeing on Tuesday ousted the top executive of its commercial airplanes division, Kevin McAllister, marking the first high-level departure from the planemaker since two fatal crashes.
http://torontosun.com/news/world/li...d-737-max-design-flaws-linked-to-deadly-crash
Reuters
Published:
October 23, 2019
Updated:
October 23, 2019 8:21 AM EDT
Anton Sahadi, a relative of a victim of crashed Lion Air flight JT610 reacts as he speaks to reporters after Indonesian investigators told victims' families mechanical and design issues contributed to the crash of the 737 MAX jet last year, in Jakarta, Indonesia, October 23, 2019. STRINGER / REUTERS
JAKARTA — Mechanical and design issues contributed to the crash of a Lion Air 737 MAX jet last October, Indonesian investigators told victims’ families in a briefing on Wednesday ahead of the release of a final report.
Contributing factors to the crash of the new Boeing jet, which killed all 189 on board, included incorrect assumptions on how an anti-stall device called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) functioned and how pilots would react, slides in the presentation showed.
The briefing slides showed that a lack of documentation about how systems would behave in a crash scenario, including the activation of a “stick shaker” device that warned pilots of a dangerous loss of lift, also contributed.
“Deficiencies” in the flight crew’s communication and manual control of the aircraft contributed as well, the slides showed, as did alerts and distractions in the cockpit.
The deficiencies had been “identified during training,” the slides said, without elaborating.
Story continues below
This advertisement has not loaded yet,
but your article continues below.
Reliance on a single angle-of-attack sensor made MCAS more vulnerable to failure, while the sensor on the plane that crashed had been miscalibrated during an earlier repair, according to the slides.
The final report will be released on Friday.
Some relatives of the victims at the briefing in Jakarta expressed disappointment that direct responsibility wasn’t assigned.
“Why isn’t the airline heavily sanctioned?” said Anton Sahadi, 30, whose relatives Riyan Aryandi and Muhammad Rafi Andrian were killed in the crash. “This isn’t about one or two lives, it’s about 189 lives.”
The role of the civil investigators is not to assign blame but to draw lessons that will make flying safer. Separate court actions will address who is legally responsible for the crash.
Ony Soerjo Wibowo, an investigator with Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) who delivered the briefing, declined to comment afterward. An agency representative also declined to comment.
Epi Samsul Komar, 52, a relative of a victim of crashed Lion Air flight JT610 reacts as he speaks to reporters after Indonesian investigators told victims’ families mechanical and design issues contributed to the crash of the 737 MAX jet last year, in Jakarta, Indonesia, October 23, 2019. REUTERS/Sekar Nasly NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES ORG XMIT: DEG100 STRINGER / REUTERS
A representative for Lion Air declined to comment.
A Boeing spokeswoman declined to comment on the briefing, saying: “As the report hasn’t been officially released by the authorities, it is premature for us to comment on its contents.”
The 737 MAX was grounded worldwide after a second deadly crash in Ethiopia in March 2019.
Planemaker Boeing is under growing pressure to explain what it knew about 737 MAX problems before the aircraft entered service.
Boeing has already said it would redesign the MCAS anti-stall system to rely on more than a single sensor and to help reduce pilot workload.
The planemaker is set to release third-quarter financial results on Wednesday.
Boeing likely to face new questions after another 737 crash
Lion Air jet voice recorder, human remains found
Boeing promises $100 million to help families affected by deadly crashes
LION AIR FLIGHT
Contact with Lion Air flight 610 was lost 13 minutes after it took off on Oct. 29 from the capital, Jakarta, heading north to the tin-mining town of Pangkal Pinang.
The Boeing 737 MAX airplane had suffered a sequence of problems in cockpit readings since Oct. 26, culminating in a decision to change the angle-of-attack sensor before the penultimate flight from Denpasar to Jakarta.
During the fatal night-time flight, a “stick shaker” was vibrating the captain’s controls, warning of a stall throughout most of the 13 minutes aloft, based on what investigators believe to have been erroneous data on the attitude of the wings relative to the direction of flight, called the angle of attack.
The angle must be controlled so that the aircraft’s wings maintain lift and avoid stalling, a condition in which a plane will begin to fall out of the sky.
The airplane’s anti-stall system repeatedly pushed the nose of the aircraft down, which is how pilots usually get air under the wings.
Boeing was widely criticized for placing emphasis on piloting and maintenance issues in its public response to an earlier report, sparking a furious dispute with Lion Air co-founder Rusdi Kirana.
The planemaker has since acknowledged that MCAS and a faulty angle of attack sensor played a role, and apologized for lives lost without admitting formal responsibility.
Boeing last month settled the first claims stemming from the Lion Air crash, a U.S. plaintiffs’ lawyer said.
Three other sources told Reuters the families of those killed will receive at least $1.2 million each.
The manufacturer faces nearly 100 lawsuits over the Ethiopian Airlines crash on March 10, which killed all 157 people on board the flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi.
The 737 MAX was grounded following the second crash, leaving Boeing and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grappling to contain a crisis that has left 346 people dead, forced airlines to ground more than 300 aircraft, and put Boeing deliveries worth more than $500 billion on hold.
Boeing on Tuesday ousted the top executive of its commercial airplanes division, Kevin McAllister, marking the first high-level departure from the planemaker since two fatal crashes.
Indonesia's report on 737 MAX crash faults Boeing design, says Lion Air made mistakes
Reuters
Published:
October 25, 2019
Updated:
October 25, 2019 7:51 AM EDT
Lion Air's Boeing 737 Max 8 airplane is parked on the tarmac of Soekarno Hatta International airport near Jakarta, Indonesia, March 15, 2019. (REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan/File Photo)
JAKARTA — Boeing, acting without adequate oversight from U.S. regulators, failed to grasp risks in the design of cockpit software on its 737 MAX airliner, sowing the seeds for a Lion Air crash that also involved errors by airline workers and crew, Indonesian investigators found.
The fatal crash, followed less than five months by another at Ethiopian Airlines, led to a global grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX and a crisis for the world’s biggest planemaker, which this week ousted its commercial airplanes chief.
In its final report into the Oct. 29, 2018, Lion Air crash that killed all 189 people on board, Indonesia made recommendations to Boeing, the airline, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and other agencies.
A copy was seen by Reuters and it is due to be released publicly later on Friday or on Saturday, an investigator said.
Indonesian regulators criticized the design of the anti-stall system known as MCAS, which automatically pushed the plane’s nose down, leaving pilots fighting for control.
“The design and certification of the MCAS did not adequately consider the likelihood of loss of control of the aircraft,” the report said.
Lion Air crash families told 737 MAX design flaws linked to deadly crash
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Boeing internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX
Boeing has been working on a redesign of MCAS although it has yet to certified by the FAA.
The report also said “deficiencies” in the flight crew’s communication and manual control of the aircraft contributed to the crash, as did alerts and distractions in the cockpit.
The accident had been caused by a complex chain of events, Indonesian air accident investigator Nurcahyo Utomo told reporters at a news conference, repeatedly declining to be drawn on providing a single dominant cause.
“From what we know, there are nine things that contributed to this accident,” he said. “If one of the nine hadn’t occurred, maybe the accident wouldn’t have occurred.”
During the flight, the first officer was unable to quickly identify a checklist in a handbook or perform tasks he should have had memorized, it said, adding that he had also performed poorly in training exercises.
The captain did not properly brief the first officer when handing over control just before the plane entered a fatal dive, it also said.
The report noted that according to the cockpit voice recorder, the first officer told the captain the flight was not in his initial schedule and he had been called at 4 a.m. to be informed of the revision, while the captain said he had the flu.
A critical angle of attack (AOA) sensor providing data to the MCAS anti-stall system had been miscalibrated by a company in Florida and that there were strong indications that it was not tested during installation by Lion Air maintenance staff, the report said.
Lion Air should have grounded the jet following faults on earlier flights, it said, and added that 31 pages were missing from the airline’s October maintenance logs.
A Lion Air spokesman said the crash was an “unthinkable tragedy” and it was essential to take immediate corrective actions to ensure a similar accident never occurred again.
Boeing said in a statement that it was addressing Indonesia’s safety recommendations and taking actions to enhance the safety of the 737 MAX.
The FAA said it welcomed the report’s recommendations and would carefully consider them and all others as it continued to review Boeing’s proposed changes to the 737 MAX.
Indonesia may require pilots receive simulator training before the plane returns to service as earlier computer-based training covering differences between the 737 MAX and prior 737 NG model was insufficient, Director General of Civil Aviation Polana Pramesti said on Friday.
INVESTIGATIONS
Boeing faces a slew of investigations by regulators, U.S. Congress, and the Department of Justice over its development of the 737 MAX, its previously best-selling workhorse for short-haul travel.
Boeing last month settled the first claims stemming from the Lion Air crash, a U.S. plaintiffs’ lawyer said.
Three other sources told Reuters that families of those killed would receive at least $1.2 million each.
The manufacturer is facing nearly 100 lawsuits over the Ethiopian Airlines crash on March 10 which killed all 157 people on board the flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi.
Indonesia has offered to aid Ethiopian authorities in their investigation into that crash but to date there has been no response, said Soerjanto, the head of Indonesia’s accident investigator.
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said this week the company was making “daily” progress on testing the final software fix for the 737 MAX and developing related training materials. The FAA has said it would need at least several more weeks for review.
The Indonesia report said that Boeing’s safety assessment assumed pilots would respond within three seconds of a system malfunction but on the accident flight and one that experienced the same problem the previous evening, it took both crews about eight seconds to respond.
It called for the systems to be designed not just for highly skilled test pilots but also for regular commercial airline pilots.
The FAA had delegated increasing authority to Boeing to certify the safety of its own aircraft, Indonesian investigators said in the report, recommending that all certification processes received adequate oversight.
http://torontosun.com/news/world/in...ash-recommends-redesign-better-training-paper
Reuters
Published:
October 25, 2019
Updated:
October 25, 2019 7:51 AM EDT
Lion Air's Boeing 737 Max 8 airplane is parked on the tarmac of Soekarno Hatta International airport near Jakarta, Indonesia, March 15, 2019. (REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan/File Photo)
JAKARTA — Boeing, acting without adequate oversight from U.S. regulators, failed to grasp risks in the design of cockpit software on its 737 MAX airliner, sowing the seeds for a Lion Air crash that also involved errors by airline workers and crew, Indonesian investigators found.
The fatal crash, followed less than five months by another at Ethiopian Airlines, led to a global grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX and a crisis for the world’s biggest planemaker, which this week ousted its commercial airplanes chief.
In its final report into the Oct. 29, 2018, Lion Air crash that killed all 189 people on board, Indonesia made recommendations to Boeing, the airline, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and other agencies.
A copy was seen by Reuters and it is due to be released publicly later on Friday or on Saturday, an investigator said.
Indonesian regulators criticized the design of the anti-stall system known as MCAS, which automatically pushed the plane’s nose down, leaving pilots fighting for control.
“The design and certification of the MCAS did not adequately consider the likelihood of loss of control of the aircraft,” the report said.
Lion Air crash families told 737 MAX design flaws linked to deadly crash
Remains of 7 Canadians who died in Ethiopian Airlines crash return home
Boeing internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX
Boeing has been working on a redesign of MCAS although it has yet to certified by the FAA.
The report also said “deficiencies” in the flight crew’s communication and manual control of the aircraft contributed to the crash, as did alerts and distractions in the cockpit.
The accident had been caused by a complex chain of events, Indonesian air accident investigator Nurcahyo Utomo told reporters at a news conference, repeatedly declining to be drawn on providing a single dominant cause.
“From what we know, there are nine things that contributed to this accident,” he said. “If one of the nine hadn’t occurred, maybe the accident wouldn’t have occurred.”
During the flight, the first officer was unable to quickly identify a checklist in a handbook or perform tasks he should have had memorized, it said, adding that he had also performed poorly in training exercises.
The captain did not properly brief the first officer when handing over control just before the plane entered a fatal dive, it also said.
The report noted that according to the cockpit voice recorder, the first officer told the captain the flight was not in his initial schedule and he had been called at 4 a.m. to be informed of the revision, while the captain said he had the flu.
A critical angle of attack (AOA) sensor providing data to the MCAS anti-stall system had been miscalibrated by a company in Florida and that there were strong indications that it was not tested during installation by Lion Air maintenance staff, the report said.
Lion Air should have grounded the jet following faults on earlier flights, it said, and added that 31 pages were missing from the airline’s October maintenance logs.
A Lion Air spokesman said the crash was an “unthinkable tragedy” and it was essential to take immediate corrective actions to ensure a similar accident never occurred again.
Boeing said in a statement that it was addressing Indonesia’s safety recommendations and taking actions to enhance the safety of the 737 MAX.
The FAA said it welcomed the report’s recommendations and would carefully consider them and all others as it continued to review Boeing’s proposed changes to the 737 MAX.
Indonesia may require pilots receive simulator training before the plane returns to service as earlier computer-based training covering differences between the 737 MAX and prior 737 NG model was insufficient, Director General of Civil Aviation Polana Pramesti said on Friday.
INVESTIGATIONS
Boeing faces a slew of investigations by regulators, U.S. Congress, and the Department of Justice over its development of the 737 MAX, its previously best-selling workhorse for short-haul travel.
Boeing last month settled the first claims stemming from the Lion Air crash, a U.S. plaintiffs’ lawyer said.
Three other sources told Reuters that families of those killed would receive at least $1.2 million each.
The manufacturer is facing nearly 100 lawsuits over the Ethiopian Airlines crash on March 10 which killed all 157 people on board the flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi.
Indonesia has offered to aid Ethiopian authorities in their investigation into that crash but to date there has been no response, said Soerjanto, the head of Indonesia’s accident investigator.
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said this week the company was making “daily” progress on testing the final software fix for the 737 MAX and developing related training materials. The FAA has said it would need at least several more weeks for review.
The Indonesia report said that Boeing’s safety assessment assumed pilots would respond within three seconds of a system malfunction but on the accident flight and one that experienced the same problem the previous evening, it took both crews about eight seconds to respond.
It called for the systems to be designed not just for highly skilled test pilots but also for regular commercial airline pilots.
The FAA had delegated increasing authority to Boeing to certify the safety of its own aircraft, Indonesian investigators said in the report, recommending that all certification processes received adequate oversight.
http://torontosun.com/news/world/in...ash-recommends-redesign-better-training-paper
LION AIR FINAL MOMENTS: Recording details stress, confusion in cockpit
Reuters
Published:
October 25, 2019
Updated:
October 25, 2019 12:42 PM EDT
A forensic investigator looks through the remains of Lion Air flight JT 610 at the Tanjung Priok port on October 29, 2018 in Jakarta, Indonesia. Lion Air Flight JT 610 crashed shortly after take-off with no sign so far of survivors among the 189 people on board the plane. (Photo by Ed Wray/Getty Images)
JAKARTA — A final Indonesian report on the fatal crash of Lion Air flight 610 published on Friday details stress and confusion in the cockpit as the Boeing 737 MAX’s MCAS software, misled by faulty sensor readings, repeatedly lowered the plane’s nose.
Investigators pinpoint multiple flaws in the design and approval of the software while noting the captain was sick and the co-pilot was unfamiliar with emergency cockpit procedures.
Following are excerpts of a summary from the cockpit voice recording from the Oct 29, 2018, crash recovered by navy divers in January.
Oct 29, 5:18 a.m.
While still on the ground, the co-pilot informs the captain that this is not his usual schedule and that he was called at 4 a.m. that morning and told he would be on the flight.
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The captain says he is suffering from the flu and is recorded coughing about 15 times during the pre-flight.
A Lion Air engineer comes to the cockpit and tells the captain he will be on board, but has not been trained for the Boeing 737 MAX 8.
The 181 passengers and seven crew are now all on board and the aircraft is ready to taxi.
Lion Air’s Boeing 737 Max 8 airplane is parked on the tarmac of Soekarno Hatta International airport near Jakarta, Indonesia, March 15, 2019. (REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan/File Photo)
The captain is at the controls and the co-pilot is handling the radio and speaking to ground control. Jakarta tower issues takeoff clearance and the plane leaves the runway at 6:20:33 a.m.
Two seconds later, the stick shaker or stall alarm starts vibrating on the left side where the captain sits. A faulty Angle of Attack (AOA) sensor is feeding false data to a flight computer, which thinks the plane is in danger of losing lift.
The captain is recorded as “exclaiming about what happened to the aircraft,” while the co-pilot tells him there is also a problem of inconsistent airspeed readings.
The co-pilot makes a similar exclamation and asks the captain, who does not respond, if he wants to return.
An air traffic controller clears the pilots to climb to 27,000 feet. Now the cockpit’s altitude readings are described as inconsistent.
The co-pilot asks air traffic control for the reading on the radar display and is told they’re at 900 feet as the aircraft was climbing.
The co-pilot is asked by the captain to run a memory checklist, the most urgent type of problem-solving procedure which pilots must know by heart, for unreliable airspeed values. There is no record in the transcript of him doing this.
Unsure what altitude to request from controllers, he is told by the captain to “request uuh..proceed.”
Asked by air traffic control to describe the problem, the co-pilot replies they’re experiencing “flight control problems.”
The captain briefly hands control to the co-pilot, while air control warns the flight has descended to “ONE SEVEN HUNDRED” (1,700 feet) and asks for the intended altitude.
The captain requests 5,000 feet, which the co-pilot radios to control.
The controller instructs the pilots to climb and turn northeast. An automated cockpit voice alert warns the crew to watch the bank, or turning angle.
The captain again calls for a “memory item,” but does not say which mental checklist he is referring to. Asked to explain, he replies, “check.”
Seventeen seconds later the co-pilot warns “flight control,” to which the captain responds “yeah.”
Families of the victims of Lion Air flight JT 610, visit an operations centre to look for personal items of their relatives, at the Tanjung Priok port on October 31, 2018 in Jakarta. (Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images)
Just after three minutes into the fight, and again later, the sound of pages being turned is picked up on the cockpit recording followed by the sound of the trim wheel – a manual override linked to the trim system controlled by MCAS.
The transcript suggests growing stress and more fragmented communications, coupled with confusion about which checklist to use.
The co-pilot searches increasingly frantically for an unreliable airspeed checklist – “Where is the?….no airspeed,” and moments later, “Airspeed, airspeed” followed by more pages.
The captain asks a flight attendant to call the off-duty engineer who is traveling on the plane. The microphone picks up repeated chimes signaling calls between flight attendants.
The door opens and the captain is heard asking someone to look at what is happening with the computer, whose MCAS software – which the report confirms was not included in the manuals -continues to push the nose down using the plane’s trim system.
“OK, we are already gear up 5,000,” advises the co-pilot. A sound similar to an altitude alert rings out. “Fly up,” the co-pilot urges the captain.
Controllers ask the pilots whether the aircraft is descending, and the captain says “we have some problem.” It is not clear whether he says this on the radio or to his colleague.
The co-pilot tells controllers they are flying manually due to the flight control problem.
Indonesia's report on 737 MAX crash faults Boeing design, Lion Air mistakes
Lion Air crash families told 737 MAX design flaws linked to deadly crash
Boeing internal messages suggest employees may have misled FAA on 737 MAX
Air traffic control instructs the pilots to prepare for landing at one of the runways.
The captain hands control of the plane to the co-pilot and contacts air control using the wrong flight number in a further sign of the gathering stress in the cockpit.
He warns air control that the altitude cannot be determined due to all the instruments showing different readings.
Controllers ask what altitude the pilots want, as the first officer is heard exclaiming that the aircraft is flying down.
The captain responds “FIVE THOU” (5,000 feet) and replies “It’s OK” as the co-pilot again exclaims the jet is descending.
An excess speed warning sounds.
The co-pilot says “fly up.”
Two computerized voice alerts – “TERRAIN, TERRAIN” followed by “SINK RATE” – blare out.
They are the final sounds included in the transcript before the 737 MAX hits the water at high speed, killing all 189 people on board.
Eleven minutes and 22 seconds after take-off, the recording stops.
http://torontosun.com/news/world/li...recording-details-stress-confusion-in-cockpit
Reuters
Published:
October 25, 2019
Updated:
October 25, 2019 12:42 PM EDT
A forensic investigator looks through the remains of Lion Air flight JT 610 at the Tanjung Priok port on October 29, 2018 in Jakarta, Indonesia. Lion Air Flight JT 610 crashed shortly after take-off with no sign so far of survivors among the 189 people on board the plane. (Photo by Ed Wray/Getty Images)
JAKARTA — A final Indonesian report on the fatal crash of Lion Air flight 610 published on Friday details stress and confusion in the cockpit as the Boeing 737 MAX’s MCAS software, misled by faulty sensor readings, repeatedly lowered the plane’s nose.
Investigators pinpoint multiple flaws in the design and approval of the software while noting the captain was sick and the co-pilot was unfamiliar with emergency cockpit procedures.
Following are excerpts of a summary from the cockpit voice recording from the Oct 29, 2018, crash recovered by navy divers in January.
Oct 29, 5:18 a.m.
While still on the ground, the co-pilot informs the captain that this is not his usual schedule and that he was called at 4 a.m. that morning and told he would be on the flight.
Story continues below
This advertisement has not loaded yet,
but your article continues below.
The captain says he is suffering from the flu and is recorded coughing about 15 times during the pre-flight.
A Lion Air engineer comes to the cockpit and tells the captain he will be on board, but has not been trained for the Boeing 737 MAX 8.
The 181 passengers and seven crew are now all on board and the aircraft is ready to taxi.
Lion Air’s Boeing 737 Max 8 airplane is parked on the tarmac of Soekarno Hatta International airport near Jakarta, Indonesia, March 15, 2019. (REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan/File Photo)
The captain is at the controls and the co-pilot is handling the radio and speaking to ground control. Jakarta tower issues takeoff clearance and the plane leaves the runway at 6:20:33 a.m.
Two seconds later, the stick shaker or stall alarm starts vibrating on the left side where the captain sits. A faulty Angle of Attack (AOA) sensor is feeding false data to a flight computer, which thinks the plane is in danger of losing lift.
The captain is recorded as “exclaiming about what happened to the aircraft,” while the co-pilot tells him there is also a problem of inconsistent airspeed readings.
The co-pilot makes a similar exclamation and asks the captain, who does not respond, if he wants to return.
An air traffic controller clears the pilots to climb to 27,000 feet. Now the cockpit’s altitude readings are described as inconsistent.
The co-pilot asks air traffic control for the reading on the radar display and is told they’re at 900 feet as the aircraft was climbing.
The co-pilot is asked by the captain to run a memory checklist, the most urgent type of problem-solving procedure which pilots must know by heart, for unreliable airspeed values. There is no record in the transcript of him doing this.
Unsure what altitude to request from controllers, he is told by the captain to “request uuh..proceed.”
Asked by air traffic control to describe the problem, the co-pilot replies they’re experiencing “flight control problems.”
The captain briefly hands control to the co-pilot, while air control warns the flight has descended to “ONE SEVEN HUNDRED” (1,700 feet) and asks for the intended altitude.
The captain requests 5,000 feet, which the co-pilot radios to control.
The controller instructs the pilots to climb and turn northeast. An automated cockpit voice alert warns the crew to watch the bank, or turning angle.
The captain again calls for a “memory item,” but does not say which mental checklist he is referring to. Asked to explain, he replies, “check.”
Seventeen seconds later the co-pilot warns “flight control,” to which the captain responds “yeah.”
Families of the victims of Lion Air flight JT 610, visit an operations centre to look for personal items of their relatives, at the Tanjung Priok port on October 31, 2018 in Jakarta. (Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images)
Just after three minutes into the fight, and again later, the sound of pages being turned is picked up on the cockpit recording followed by the sound of the trim wheel – a manual override linked to the trim system controlled by MCAS.
The transcript suggests growing stress and more fragmented communications, coupled with confusion about which checklist to use.
The co-pilot searches increasingly frantically for an unreliable airspeed checklist – “Where is the?….no airspeed,” and moments later, “Airspeed, airspeed” followed by more pages.
The captain asks a flight attendant to call the off-duty engineer who is traveling on the plane. The microphone picks up repeated chimes signaling calls between flight attendants.
The door opens and the captain is heard asking someone to look at what is happening with the computer, whose MCAS software – which the report confirms was not included in the manuals -continues to push the nose down using the plane’s trim system.
“OK, we are already gear up 5,000,” advises the co-pilot. A sound similar to an altitude alert rings out. “Fly up,” the co-pilot urges the captain.
Controllers ask the pilots whether the aircraft is descending, and the captain says “we have some problem.” It is not clear whether he says this on the radio or to his colleague.
The co-pilot tells controllers they are flying manually due to the flight control problem.
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Air traffic control instructs the pilots to prepare for landing at one of the runways.
The captain hands control of the plane to the co-pilot and contacts air control using the wrong flight number in a further sign of the gathering stress in the cockpit.
He warns air control that the altitude cannot be determined due to all the instruments showing different readings.
Controllers ask what altitude the pilots want, as the first officer is heard exclaiming that the aircraft is flying down.
The captain responds “FIVE THOU” (5,000 feet) and replies “It’s OK” as the co-pilot again exclaims the jet is descending.
An excess speed warning sounds.
The co-pilot says “fly up.”
Two computerized voice alerts – “TERRAIN, TERRAIN” followed by “SINK RATE” – blare out.
They are the final sounds included in the transcript before the 737 MAX hits the water at high speed, killing all 189 people on board.
Eleven minutes and 22 seconds after take-off, the recording stops.
Boeing gives pilot new job after firestorm over leaked messages: Sources
Reuters
Published:
November 13, 2019
Updated:
November 13, 2019 12:25 AM EST
The tails of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft are seen parked at Boeing facilities at the Grant County International Airport in Moses Lake, Wash., Sept. 16, 2019. LINDSEY WASSON / REUTERS
SEATTLE — One of two Boeing Co technical pilots who described flaws in a crucial flight control system in leaked 2016 instant messages has been transferred to a new job at the U.S. planemaker, two people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
Boeing shares tumbled after the conversation between the employee, Patrik Gustavsson, and then-chief technical pilot Mark Forkner became public on Oct. 18.
The comments by Forkner, who has since left Boeing, were among those pinpointed by U.S. lawmakers in hearings in Washington as evidence Boeing knew about problems with flight control software well before two crashes of its 737 MAX aircraft in October 2018 and March 2019 killed 346 people.
Boeing to invest US$1 billion in global safety drive: Sources
Gustavsson was a technical pilot for the 737 program at the time Forkner told him the jetliner’s so-called MCAS stall-prevention system was “running rampant” in a flight simulator. Gustavsson later replied that other pilots had kept them “out of the loop” on changes to MCAS.
Gustavsson has been transferred in the last two weeks to Boeing’s Test & Evaluation group, a source familiar with the matter said. A second source confirmed that he was recently moved to a new job but had no details.
Story continues below
The Test & Evaluation group includes pilots who put the actual 737 MAX aircraft through hundreds of hours of test flights before the jetliner entered service.
If Gustavsson was made a test pilot in the group, he would have likely received a 15%-20% raise, the first source said.
It was unclear why he changed jobs.
A Boeing spokesman declined to comment.
Before the change, Gustavsson was a 737 technical pilot for roughly 5 years, according to his LinkedIn profile. He was named 737 Chief Technical Pilot in 2018, his profile says.
Gustavsson and Forkner were part of a team that worked on the flight manuals airlines have used since the 737 MAX entered service in 2017, and fielded operations and systems questions from dozens of global airlines operating thousands of 737 aircraft globally, former employees told Reuters in late October.
Forkner also worked to identify and fix glitches on the 737 MAX simulator. He left Boeing in 2018 and is now a First Officer at Southwest Airlines, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Before Boeing, Gustavsson spent 11 years in various roles such as simulator instructor at Ryanair Holdings PLC, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Separately, Boeing said on Tuesday that Conrad Chun was named vice president of communications for its commercial airplanes division, taking over from Linda Mills, who is leaving the company.
http://torontosun.com/business/mone...-after-firestorm-over-leaked-messages-sources
Reuters
Published:
November 13, 2019
Updated:
November 13, 2019 12:25 AM EST
The tails of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft are seen parked at Boeing facilities at the Grant County International Airport in Moses Lake, Wash., Sept. 16, 2019. LINDSEY WASSON / REUTERS
SEATTLE — One of two Boeing Co technical pilots who described flaws in a crucial flight control system in leaked 2016 instant messages has been transferred to a new job at the U.S. planemaker, two people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
Boeing shares tumbled after the conversation between the employee, Patrik Gustavsson, and then-chief technical pilot Mark Forkner became public on Oct. 18.
The comments by Forkner, who has since left Boeing, were among those pinpointed by U.S. lawmakers in hearings in Washington as evidence Boeing knew about problems with flight control software well before two crashes of its 737 MAX aircraft in October 2018 and March 2019 killed 346 people.
Boeing to invest US$1 billion in global safety drive: Sources
Gustavsson was a technical pilot for the 737 program at the time Forkner told him the jetliner’s so-called MCAS stall-prevention system was “running rampant” in a flight simulator. Gustavsson later replied that other pilots had kept them “out of the loop” on changes to MCAS.
Gustavsson has been transferred in the last two weeks to Boeing’s Test & Evaluation group, a source familiar with the matter said. A second source confirmed that he was recently moved to a new job but had no details.
Story continues below
The Test & Evaluation group includes pilots who put the actual 737 MAX aircraft through hundreds of hours of test flights before the jetliner entered service.
If Gustavsson was made a test pilot in the group, he would have likely received a 15%-20% raise, the first source said.
It was unclear why he changed jobs.
A Boeing spokesman declined to comment.
Before the change, Gustavsson was a 737 technical pilot for roughly 5 years, according to his LinkedIn profile. He was named 737 Chief Technical Pilot in 2018, his profile says.
Gustavsson and Forkner were part of a team that worked on the flight manuals airlines have used since the 737 MAX entered service in 2017, and fielded operations and systems questions from dozens of global airlines operating thousands of 737 aircraft globally, former employees told Reuters in late October.
Forkner also worked to identify and fix glitches on the 737 MAX simulator. He left Boeing in 2018 and is now a First Officer at Southwest Airlines, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Before Boeing, Gustavsson spent 11 years in various roles such as simulator instructor at Ryanair Holdings PLC, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Separately, Boeing said on Tuesday that Conrad Chun was named vice president of communications for its commercial airplanes division, taking over from Linda Mills, who is leaving the company.
http://torontosun.com/business/mone...-after-firestorm-over-leaked-messages-sources
lol Yeah those Austin Allegros, Vauxhall Vivas, Yugos, etc. were really something huh? And how bout those Renault Dauphines? Or Triumph Stag? Or Maserati Biturbo? And that's just a few lemons pretending to be cars. Then there's the British-built Comet airliner and so on. lol
Transport Canada official says 737 MAX software 'has to go'
Reuters
Published:
November 22, 2019
Updated:
November 22, 2019 6:48 PM EST
In this file photo taken on October 22, 2019 the Boeing logo is seen during the the 70th annual International Astronautical Congress at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC. MANDEL NGAN / AFP via Getty Images
MONTREAL/WASHINGTON — An email sent by a Transport Canada official urging Boeing to remove an anti-stall system involved in two 737 MAX crashes reflects “working-level discussions” and were not reviewed by the Canadian regulator, the agency said on Friday.
The New York Times reported that an engineering manager in aircraft integration and safety assessment at Transport Canada emailed international regulators on Tuesday saying: “The only way I see moving forward at this point” is that Boeing’s MCAS system “has to go.”
The email was sent to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and Brazil’s National Civil Aviation Agency, the New York Times said.
A person briefed on the matter confirmed the content of the email, but Reuters had not viewed a copy.
The anti-stall MCAS system was linked to MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that together killed 346 people. The MAX has been grounded since March.
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The MCAS system was designed to counteract the effect on handling of the new, larger engines on the 737 MAX, which had to be placed farther forward and higher on the wings because the 50-year-old 737 design sits relatively low to the ground.
Boeing is working to win regulatory approvals for proposed fixes to MCAS and associated pilot training so the 737 MAX can fly again.
“The email reflects working-level discussions between highly trained aircraft certification experts of key aviation authorities who have been given wide latitude for assessing all issues and looking at all alternatives for the safe return to service of the aircraft,” Transport Canada said in a statement.
“The views are at the working level and have not been subject to systematic review by Transport Canada.”
A senior industry source who spoke on condition of anonymity said removing MCAS from the 737 MAX would present only a “minor” risk, but doing so would not be tolerated under the strict rules regulating the aviation industry.
Without MCAS, the plane was unlikely to comply with the regulations due to the handling characteristics the system was designed to address, a regulatory official said.
The FAA said in a statement that its international partners have “engaged in robust discussions at various stages in this process as part of the thorough scrutiny of Boeing’s work. This email is an example of those exchanges.”
In a statement, Boeing said on Friday it “continues to work with the FAA and global regulators.”
http://nytimes.com/2019/11/22/business/boeing-canada-737-max.html
http://torontosun.com/news/national/transport-canada-official-says-737-max-software-has-to-go
Reuters
Published:
November 22, 2019
Updated:
November 22, 2019 6:48 PM EST
In this file photo taken on October 22, 2019 the Boeing logo is seen during the the 70th annual International Astronautical Congress at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC. MANDEL NGAN / AFP via Getty Images
MONTREAL/WASHINGTON — An email sent by a Transport Canada official urging Boeing to remove an anti-stall system involved in two 737 MAX crashes reflects “working-level discussions” and were not reviewed by the Canadian regulator, the agency said on Friday.
The New York Times reported that an engineering manager in aircraft integration and safety assessment at Transport Canada emailed international regulators on Tuesday saying: “The only way I see moving forward at this point” is that Boeing’s MCAS system “has to go.”
The email was sent to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and Brazil’s National Civil Aviation Agency, the New York Times said.
A person briefed on the matter confirmed the content of the email, but Reuters had not viewed a copy.
The anti-stall MCAS system was linked to MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that together killed 346 people. The MAX has been grounded since March.
Story continues below
This advertisement has not loaded yet,
but your article continues below.
The MCAS system was designed to counteract the effect on handling of the new, larger engines on the 737 MAX, which had to be placed farther forward and higher on the wings because the 50-year-old 737 design sits relatively low to the ground.
Boeing is working to win regulatory approvals for proposed fixes to MCAS and associated pilot training so the 737 MAX can fly again.
“The email reflects working-level discussions between highly trained aircraft certification experts of key aviation authorities who have been given wide latitude for assessing all issues and looking at all alternatives for the safe return to service of the aircraft,” Transport Canada said in a statement.
“The views are at the working level and have not been subject to systematic review by Transport Canada.”
A senior industry source who spoke on condition of anonymity said removing MCAS from the 737 MAX would present only a “minor” risk, but doing so would not be tolerated under the strict rules regulating the aviation industry.
Without MCAS, the plane was unlikely to comply with the regulations due to the handling characteristics the system was designed to address, a regulatory official said.
The FAA said in a statement that its international partners have “engaged in robust discussions at various stages in this process as part of the thorough scrutiny of Boeing’s work. This email is an example of those exchanges.”
In a statement, Boeing said on Friday it “continues to work with the FAA and global regulators.”
http://nytimes.com/2019/11/22/business/boeing-canada-737-max.html
http://torontosun.com/news/national/transport-canada-official-says-737-max-software-has-to-go
The Comet ... now there's a death machine.
Oh, look! We even have one at the bottom of Lake Ontario!
DH Comet, the world's first commercial jet airliner (1950s). Two aircraft broke up in flight because of a previously unsuspected issue - metal fatigue due to pressurization cycles. Aircraft type grounded and failure zone identified by pressure testing a complete aircraft, literally to destruction (a first?). Problem eliminated with modified fuselage design. Type never again used commercially but - renamed Nimrod - then served with the RAF for almost 40 years. Ceremonial retirement flight in 2010.
This Nimrod crash was at an air display in 1995. "The Inquiry determined that the captain made an error of judgement in modifying one of the display manoeuvres to the extent that he stalled the aircraft at a height and attitude from which recovery was impossible."
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Or maybe "made an error of judgement in modifying one of the display manoeuvres to the extent that he stalled the aircraft at a height and attitude from which recovery was impossible."
That's a rumor I hadn't heard, but I suspect he could probably speak.
Of course not; why would it and how could it be?
Quoting my own post of Mar 14: ...".here's what I think I get from reading online: The stall-avoidance software is needed on the Max 8 & 9 aircraft because in climbing to altitude they are liable to push the nose too high without pilot (or autopilot) input, potentially resulting in a stall. This did not happen on previous 737s. It arises from the fact that the Max series have different engines mounted differently.
So there's - what? - a new weight distribution or thrust angle that pushes the nose too high in some conditions? Wouldn't we call that a design error, and the new software a clumsy workaround?"
Yeah, they tend to live on taxpayer hand-outs on a frequent basis - too large to fail??? Huh!