Congress Slams Boeing and the FAA to the Max

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steingar

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The House Transportation Committee released it's report today concerning the 737 Max crashes. They cite "a disturbing pattern of technical miscalculations and troubling management misjudgments" by Boeing and "numerous oversight lapses and accountability gaps by the FAA". Story here.
 
UngaWunga said:
congress should slam congress for reducing FAA funding and allowing the industry to "regulate" itself.
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The industry doesn't really regulate itself. The ODA programs allowing certain individuals to approve data, has been around over 15 years. The majority of recorded aviation fatalities occurred long before its existence and FAA employees were certifying the products themselves. Its up to other counties and their regulators to accept any FAA certified product. Its up to other counties and their regulators to create and surveillance commercial operations.
 
UngaWunga said:
congress should slam congress for reducing FAA funding and allowing the industry to "regulate" itself.
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lol, you mean pot calling kettle? To the regulatory capture apparatchik, that's not the bug, that's the feature my friend. They're all in on it. That town is a turn-style of grift, and I digress...
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Probably not worth two cents, but: Boeing should move its headquarters back to Seattle and get its technical staff more involved in strategic decision making again. The C suites seem to me to be too far away from the production floor and the engineers that really understand the product and it’s systems.

I used to be a solid - If it’s not Boeing, I’m not going, kind of person. Now, not so much.
 
WillFly4Food said:
Probably not worth two cents, but: Boeing should move its headquarters back to Seattle and get its technical staff more involved in strategic decision making again. The C suites seem to me to be too far away from the production floor and the engineers that really understand the product and it’s systems.

I used to be a solid - If it’s not Boeing, I’m not going, kind of person. Now, not so much.
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What's the saying, McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing's money?

After the 777 and the mid/late 90's they lost their way.. too bad
 
Tantalum said:
What's the saying, McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing's money?
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My personal impression has been that MDC is alive and well in STL. But that is probably what needed to happen. Boeing didn't have any real experience with building fighter aircraft prior to the merger, and MacAir built pretty much all of them (save the Tomcat and Vought products) up until the cancellation of A-12 and the ATF award to LM (though Boeing subcontracted). It is interesting to talk to the 30+ yr guys who have seen it all from MDC through the merger through today. They kept them because they were industry experts in their field and already on the payroll (and didn't want to lose them to LM or NG of course). At the end of the day, investing in their defense business and keeping the SMEs that they inherited through the merger makes a lot of sense in my mind. In hard times like this, this is the only part of the company that is sort of guaranteed to make money still. You can argue if that fact is wrong or right, but it is what it is.
 
Boeing was better when engineers ran the company.

I haven't read Congresses report, but it doesn't sound like they gave much credence to the fact that Lion Air was incompetent to be flying anything more complex than a box kite and Ethiopia's crew forgot to fly the plane which was a significant causal fact there. Boeing certainly screwed up, but to be honest, had these happened to American air carriers, they would not have crashed, and Boeing's fault would have come to light without the body count. Perhaps Boeing's biggest "sin" was not taking Airbus' approach and try to design their planes so any idiot can fly them. Though the Pakistani's are testing that theory.
 
WillFly4Food said:
Boeing should move its headquarters back to Seattle and get its technical staff more involved in strategic decision making again.
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Boeing Commercial headquarters is still in Seattle. Strategic decision making for Boeing happens across all business units, most of which are not located in WA. It would probably make more sense to have Boeing corporate headquarters for strategy in Washington (district of) rather than Washington (state of).

Nauga,
and the bidness of bidness
 
Kind of like the fox watching the hen house. Or the FAA was asleep at the switch.
 
nauga said:
Boeing Commercial headquarters is still in Seattle.
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not much more, gradually changing the company to "Right to work" states

NC is the best example.
 
I slam Boeing for not providing dual AOAs as standard equipment, and when the plane had dual AOA's not using them both at the same time to double check each other, instead of ping-ponging them as they did.
I fault the FAA for not catching that, but it shouldn't have been there to catch!
As far as I know, and it's only something I remember reading on the internet, but the MCAS S/W fiasco was only the tip of the iceberg as far as 737 Max S/W problems went.
 
So big question is what’s it going to take to get those birds in the air again??!!
 
Crashnburn said:
I slam Boeing for not providing dual AOAs as standard equipment
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All 737s have two AoA vanes. Always have. No different from any of the transport jets that I have flown.

The lack of the "AOA DISAGREE" warning on airplanes that didn't have the optional AoA display was a software bug that wasn't discovered until after the accidents. The "AOA DISAGREE" warning wouldn't have made any difference at all on the accident flights.
 
Larry in TN said:
All 737s have two AoA vanes. Always have. No different from any of the transport jets that I have flown.

The lack of the "AOA DISAGREE" warning on airplanes that didn't have the optional AoA display was a software bug that wasn't discovered until after the accidents. The "AOA DISAGREE" warning wouldn't have made any difference at all on the accident flights.
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Right, but having the borg not implement MCAS logic when the damn AOA vanes started spitting out FUBAR data that didn't agree with the other, sure would have made a difference. Of course, this is barely the surface of the extent to which Boeing effed up, with that whole playing I've got a secret stunt, and the at-large corruption of trying to keep Frankensteining the guppy for the convenience of the OEM and airline cost ledgers alike. PLenty of horses to sit on in this grifty regulatory captured merry go round.
 
benyflyguy said:
So big question is what’s it going to take to get those birds in the air again??!!
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I Can't believe Boeing stock is still as high as it is with all the 737 sitting on the ground, when do people stop believing the fix is real close. Only good news the airlines don't need the planes right now.
 
Has anyone in the FAA so much as had their pay docked, or lost a single vacation day over this?

Watching much of the FAAs testimony I keep seeing hazardous attitudes, macho, anti authority and invulnerability mostly

Lest we even get into their medical branch who doesn’t follow modern evidence based medicine, has violated privacy laws with zero repercussions, and doesn’t even follow their own experts on more than a few occasions.

Rules are needed and good,I don’t think anyone doubts that, just wish we had a authority that was a little more worthy of our respect and trust, sadly most politicians don’t speak airplane, and the level of change the FAA needs is extensive, “embrace the suck”
 
"European Union regulators completed Boeing 737 Max recertification flights on Friday [September 11th], an important step for the troubled plane's return to service."

https://www.investors.com/news/boei...o-service-eu-complete-recertifiction-flights/

"Boeing executives defend safety decisions on 737 MAX development"

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-737max-congress-idUSKBN26404A

"American Airlines begins scheduling Boeing 737 MAX pilot training"

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-737max-american-airline-idUSKCN26C22C
 
Palmpilot said:
"European Union regulators completed Boeing 737 Max recertification flights on Friday [September 11th], an important step for the troubled plane's return to service."
"Boeing executives defend safety decisions on 737 MAX development"
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-737max-congress-idUSKBN26404A
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Later in his testimony, Leverkuhn added, “Clearly what was in error was our assumptions regarding the human machine interaction. Because the process relied on the industry standard of pilot reaction to a particular failure. And what was clear post accidents was that assumption was incorrect.”
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What does this statement mean? Did Boeing assume all 737 MAX flight crews would be trained to US standards?
 
Domenick said:
What does this statement mean? Did Boeing assume all 737 MAX flight crews would be trained to US standards?
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I can give you my view of that statement.

I have been flying transport jets since 1996 and am currently qualified on the 737 NG and MAX. All of them have a procedure for dealing with a runaway stabilizer. It is a failure that occurs rarely but the procedure for responding to it was not deemed particularly challenging. Obviously, a prompt response is required but it was not thought to be a failure that seriously threatens the outcome of the flight. The bigger threats to safety were engine failure on takeoff, windshear, automation mismanagement, etc.

When the MAX was originally certificated, an unscheduled MCAS activation was evaluated as another form of runaway stabilizer. It was expected that a crew would respond with the runaway stabilizer procedure and would be able to safely continue the flight to landing using manual trim. The first crew, at Lion Air, who experienced the unscheduled MCAS activation was able to do exactly that.

That is the error in assumptions regarding the human machine interaction. Two of the three crews that encountered an unscheduled MCAS activation did not respond as they had expected.

I think I had an advantage in dealing with a runaway stabilizer in a 737 due to my years flying the Douglas DC9 and DC8. On the Douglas runaway stabilizer procedure, the first step is, "PRIMARY TRIM --- OPPOSE RUNAWAY". This means to use the trim thumb switches on the yoke to oppose the runway. That step is not on the Boeing checklists (though I hear it is going to be added). When I had my runway stabilizer in my initial 737 training, as well as in recurrent training after the MAX accidents, that is exactly what I did as it is what I had been trained to do for many years. The result is that the runaway stops and you never get to the severely out-of-trim situation that both of the accident crews encountered.
 
Local CFI is a 737 captain laid off for 3 months now and trying to build a company as a cfi / air taxi / corporate flight department consultant. He came up through GA as a kid at our airfield, went from washing airplanes to flight instructor to crop dusting to to the feeder lines to the bigs. When I asked about the runaway trim on the MAX crashing the airplane, he just snorted and said, "It's an annoyance not an emergency" and changed the subject.
 
Domenick said:
What does this statement mean? Did Boeing assume all 737 MAX flight crews would be trained to US standards?
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There is an industry standard for reaction time when testing failure modes in aircraft. It's a delay in responding to a failure after detection in the cockpit, and it's a fixed time to make it consistent. MCAS was tested (and certified) using this standard, but as we now know not all crews were able or willing to react within the standard time.

Nauga,
8785, 1797, hike
 
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