I never had the fear of flying in an airplane because I have a positive mindset rooted in my belief in God and had a strong belief in the commercial airline technology that has really matured over years to become safer than road travel. But now I have the fear of flying…with my loved ones!
On October 29, 2018, the Boeing 737 MAX 8 operated by the Lion Air of Indonesia crashed into the Java Sea 12 minutes after takeoff. It killed all the 189 passengers and crew in the accident.
On March 10, 2019, the 4-month-old Boeing 737–8 MAX plane of Ethiopian Airlines crashed six minutes into its flight to Nairobi killing all 157 people on board.
When I think about the final moments of those 346 human souls on those crashed airplanes, I feel sad; it sends chills down my spine and makes me wonder about what might be in their minds on the abrupt end of their lives — closed their eyes; screamed! prayed! cried! hugged each other! or thought about their loved ones, not with them!…
Credits:Avinations YouTube Channel
Two mass killings have occurred in less than 5-month time span and everyone walks free!
This is how organized corporate crimes get treated in our present world!. They are no better than Hitler era crimes except people consider Hitler a mass murderer but not the corporates with a group of people as key decision-makers! Two major airline crashes killing many unlucky human lives and the CEO still keeps the job! Bravo!
The key sequence of events which eventually led to the two air crashes summarized inside a layman’s mind.
Rising Airline fuel costs were always a problem for airline operators especially smaller operators operating the shorter duration trips.
A Franco-American joint venture company developed a new jetliner engine with a 16% lower fuel consumption for the single-aisle jetliner market. These bigger engines were first launched for Airbus 320neo family of jetliners in 2016 which is the prime competitor model for Boeing 737. For Airbus, this new engine installation was straightforward as its airframe is designed higher to the ground. So no design changes!
Boeing had peer pressure to provide fuel-efficient engines at the earliest but the newer bigger engines won’t fit into their 737’s as they had an Airframe problem! Boeing engineers were forced to find a solution and I guess they did it by placing the newer engines higher up the wings but that introduced a new Aerodynamic problem! The airframe with engines mounted differently did not have adequately stable handling at high AoA [Angle of Attack] even allowed for a jetliner! The airliner stall at high AoA and hence to provide a workaround to a fundamental physics problem they introduced a new software problem called MCAS [Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System] Nice word though!!
Take a break! Watch some videos!
This Vox.com video summarizes the events I mentioned above!
Explains the forces on an airplane! Credits ~ http://www.khanacademy.org
What really went wrong with FAA & Boeing on 737 Max?
Everything!
Why Boeing 737 had a lower to ground airframe in the first place?
Boeing launched the first 737 in 1967 and the first models were targeted for smaller, local airports without types of equipment like air bridges and the luggage were meant to be hand loaded. So lower ground clearance was a selling point back then!
Everything about the design and manufacture of the MAX was done to preserve the myth that “it’s just a 737”
Why Boeing did not attempt for a total redesign from scratch for 737 Max?
Regulations and certifications in a commercial jetliner industry take years to get approved for a newer model and Boeing was already late in this game with rival Airbus on bringing fuel-efficient newer single-aisle jetliner models. Hence Boeing Management and Business stuck with the existing 737 models and made some incremental changes to improve fuel efficiency!. Legacy systems are a pain for any huge corporation to get rid of and something similar happened with Boeing here. Instead of reinventing a new model they did incremental changes on 737 to make a great profit margin and keep their stock price ticking green! Definitely, this might not be an Engineer decision but a Management decision!
Normally, “divergent instability”, while common in fighter-type aircraft, is not desirable in larger transport aircraft.
Does Boeing 737 Max had ‘divergent instability’ factor not recommended for a passenger jetliner?
My layman tag won’t allow me to answer this question correctly! But this is what I could understand by reading on the internet. “Aircraft Nacelles — which are the tube-shaped structures around the fans on high bypass jet engines — create aerodynamic lift. On the 737 Max, the engines are further forward than the original 737 design, so this lift tends to push the nose up when the aircraft is flying — causing the angle of attack to increase further. This reinforces itself and results in a pitch-up tendency (high angle of attack) which, if not corrected, can cause a stall. This is called a divergent instability and can be controlled by pilots and/or autopilot. The Angle of Attack indicators is used to warn of impending stalls.” One thing is very clear even for a layman is that even if the divergent instability factor in Boeing 737 Max was above the recommended the system designed to stabilize this called MCAS was very poorly implemented and hidden from pilots. MCAS relied on one sensor reading of AoA and had no redundancy or software logic which could identify a wrong sensor data!!!
A good debate on that topic here!
The principle of aircraft verification and operation is that a plane can be flown with complete control both in Autopilot and total manual mode with ease.
Is it inadequate training for Pilots with the new system or lesser qualified pilots in Indonesia & Ethiopia caused the crash?
Inadequate training on the new MCAS system is definitely one factor criticized and even recorded as complaints by pilots on the ASRS system run by NASA. From what I would have understood Boeing had a point in hiding details about the new system from pilots as their prime aim was the automated system would give the same feel as flying any older 737 models for Max without requiring additional training!. That for me was the most stupid decision by Boeing that it fully trust an automated system without enough redundancy built to it and did not train the pilots well enough they can manually resolve any issue caused by the failure of that automated system in a split second. I cannot comment on whether the pilots who handled Indonesian & Ethiopian airlines were skilled enough but I think the case here is not about pilots but why the jetliner itself demands such higher skills to troubleshoot a complex automated system in a limited time!
I would like to quote President Donald Trump’s tweet on the growing complexities introduced by automated systems.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1105468569800839169
- realDonaldTrump
This is true when building any AI or Automated systems using sensors. Those should be “assist” systems that enable an easier solution for complexities handled by humans and not the other way around! Here the automated MCAS system was not designed as an “assist” system but an automated system to mitigate a design change!
I have a new SUV with a lane assist system and whenever I enable it, I could feel an extra hand on the steering wheel — the hand of an automated system — and it really helps to keep the vehicle in a lane whenever the driver gets distracted!. But this system cannot prevent accidents and will alert me if I keep my hands off the steering wheel for more than a minute! Also, I can deactivate the system if I do not need it!. I believe there is enough redundancy added to the system in case the sensors fail! But the key point here is the automated system is my choice and I can use it or not use it whereas that was not the case with those pilots on the ill-fated Boeing Max 737’s.
So best of luck for people flying on Boeing Max 737 after their software upgrade! I will probably stick to my auto lane assisted SUV and do road-trips instead!