Some nations ground 737 Max 8 planes after second catastrophic crash in five months (1 Viewer)

[DaveXA]

I would have guessed ORD, but that's for Chicago O'Hare, sometimes the call signs are weird. Heh.

 

[buzd]

That's Fox News for you.

That's the thing - it's a local Orlando channel.

 

[DaveXA]

That's the thing - it's a local Orlando channel.

Maybe they were lazy and went with the airport name initials, I dunno. Shoddy journalism if that's the case.

 

[superchuck500]

That's the thing - it's a local Orlando channel.

And?

 

[DaveXA]

And?

If it's an Orlando station, you'd think they'd get it right, but...it's still Fox, heh.

 

[MLU]

If it's an Orlando station, you'd think they'd get it right, but...it's still Fox, heh.

99% of the things you hear about from news sources is wrong, so none of this is surprising in the least.

AviationHerald already has something up for the event.

A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-8 MAX, registration N8712L performing positioning flight WN-8701 from Orlando,FL to Victorville,CA (USA) with 2 crew on board, was in the initial climb out of Orlando's runway 36R when the crew reported they had just lost their right hand engine (LEAP), stopped the climb at 2000 feet and returned to Orlando for a safe landing on runway 36L about 11 minutes after departure. The aircraft taxied to the apron.

It's a non-event, event.

 

[MLU]

Mike Sinnett was put in charge of the B777 project after the battery issue they had a few years ago. They recently shuffled some people around and made Sinnett the face of this project now. He came forward with a list of Boeing's changes to MCAS in response to the recent events.

• The jet’s flight control system will collect data from two Angle of Attack sensors, instead of just one.
• The once-optional "AoA Disagree" alert will be added to the primary flight display (PFD) and the Angle of Attack (AoA) indication will be available at no cost if customers want it.
• In the event of a sensor failure (when the flaps are up) and the data from each sensor disagrees by more than 5.5 degrees, MCAS won’t activate. The AoA disagree indicator will alert pilots if this occurs.
• MCAS will only activate a single time for each indication of the jet’s angle of attack being too high.
• The movement of the horizontal stabilizer under MCAS will never exceed a pilot’s ability to override it by pulling back the yoke control “with sufficient maneuvering capability [so] that the airplane can still climb,” said Sinnett.

A new training module has been developed that will take pilots about 30 minutes to complete. Airlines and regulators are still left to decide whether or not simulator training and/or testing will be required before permitting pilots to operate the aircraft again. None of this has been approved and/or certified by the FAA yet.

 

[Bill]

Mike Sinnett was put in charge of the B777 project after the battery issue they had a few years ago. They recently shuffled some people around and made Sinnett the face of this project now. He came forward with a list of Boeing's changes to MCAS in response to the recent events.

• The jet’s flight control system will collect data from two Angle of Attack sensors, instead of just one.
• The once-optional "AoA Disagree" alert will be added to the primary flight display (PFD) and the Angle of Attack (AoA) indication will be available at no cost if customers want it.
• In the event of a sensor failure (when the flaps are up) and the data from each sensor disagrees by more than 5.5 degrees, MCAS won’t activate. The AoA disagree indicator will alert pilots if this occurs.
• MCAS will only activate a single time for each indication of the jet’s angle of attack being too high.
• The movement of the horizontal stabilizer under MCAS will never exceed a pilot’s ability to override it by pulling back the yoke control “with sufficient maneuvering capability [so] that the airplane can still climb,” said Sinnett.

A new training module has been developed that will take pilots about 30 minutes to complete. Airlines and regulators are still left to decide whether or not simulator training and/or testing will be required before permitting pilots to operate the aircraft again. None of this has been approved and/or certified by the FAA yet.

Even if this isn't the final decision on how Boeing and the FAA will proceed, this is certainly some good initiatives in assuring the control issues will be eliminated... or at the very least not catch an unsuspecting flight crew off guard. I like the ideas proposed.

 

[MLU]

There are no control issues that I am aware of. The MCAS performed as designed as far as we know. No evidence to the contrary has been presented this far.

So far there are "pilots don't know what they're doing" issues. Everything Boeing proposed just seems to change the way the pilots are alerted plus more training. Frankly, if they were not vigilant after the Lion Air accident and the Boeing Emergency AD, I don't trust them with a new warning label and a few more pages in the AFM. They need to add this scenario to sim training at a minimum and drill pilots on the checklist until they wake up in the morning looking for a warning indication on the PFD instead of an alarm clock.

 

[Super44]

That's Fox News for you.

What is your specific point?

 

[superchuck500]

What is your specific point?

That was last Tuesday, the statute of limitations has passed.

(I was mostly just kidding anyway - it’s a local news channel).

 

[MLU]

I already listed the changes, but here they are direct from Boeing. If you like numerical bullet points:

1. Flight control system will now compare inputs from both AOA sensors. If the sensors disagree by 5.5 degrees or more with the flaps retracted, MCAS will not activate.
2. An indicator on the flight deck display will alert the pilots to AoA Disagree.
3. If MCAS is activated in non-normal conditions, it will only provide one input for each elevated AOA event.
4. There are no known or envisioned failure conditions where MCAS will provide multiple inputs.
5. MCAS can never command more stabilizer input than can be counteracted by the flight crew pulling back on the column.
6. The pilots will continue to always have the ability to override MCAS and manually control the airplane.

Explanation of each item and it's impact from Satcom.guru Aviation Blog.

1) MCAS will be inhibited if AoA sensors disagree is the feature missing from the very beginning.

2) The AoA Disagree Alert will ensure maintenance is directed to AoA sensor. I hope it will also correlate to Airspeed Disagree and Altitude Disagree.

3) MCAS will have one trim command, reset only after AoA shows a recovery.

4) No known or envisioned failure modes is a grandiose statement. Of course there are failure modes, the point is managing the failure rates by design features.

5) This is a bit of a misleading statement, but the point is that with at most a 2.5 degree nose down trim command, there is sufficient elevator to offset the pitch command. This assumes the airplane was roughly in trim when MCAS applies its trim, not for example if the stab/elevator start from a mistrim position.

6) Boeing is touting the ability to hit the cutout switch to stop MCAS.

And in case you wondred what the warning looked like on the PFD:

 

[DaveXA]

I already listed the changes, but here they are direct from Boeing. If you like numerical bullet points:

1. Flight control system will now compare inputs from both AOA sensors. If the sensors disagree by 5.5 degrees or more with the flaps retracted, MCAS will not activate.
2. An indicator on the flight deck display will alert the pilots to AoA Disagree.
3. If MCAS is activated in non-normal conditions, it will only provide one input for each elevated AOA event.
4. There are no known or envisioned failure conditions where MCAS will provide multiple inputs.
5. MCAS can never command more stabilizer input than can be counteracted by the flight crew pulling back on the column.
6. The pilots will continue to always have the ability to override MCAS and manually control the airplane.

Explanation of each item and it's impact from Satcom.guru Aviation Blog.


And in case you wondred what the warning looked like on the PFD:

Does all of this have to go through the FAA approval process before being implemented and the planes being given to go ahead to fly again? They're still grounded currently, correct?

 

[MLU]

Does all of this have to go through the FAA approval process before being implemented and the planes being given to go ahead to fly again? They're still grounded currently, correct?

Correct. Regulatory bodies in other countries must accept these changes as well. Where this differs is that previously they would rubber-stamp the FAA's acceptance. Some countries (like Canada) have indicated that this might not be the case this time.

 

[Bill]

The news is out now that the AoA sensor on the Ethiopian Airlines incident may have been damaged during the flight by a bird or foreign object of some sort. My first thought after learning of the pitching problem is that there must have been some false/faulty data coming from that sensor. It was reported yesterday that the pilots initially turned off the power to the trim motors, which would have been the correct procedure according to the emergency checklist. But then they inexplicably turned them back on when they were unable to regain control of the aircraft.

It seems they were at a loss to understand the issue at hand as they struggled to keep the nose of the airplane pointed skyward. It appears that the new software is going to have to provide for a simple and immediate override of these automatic systems which will allow pilots to quickly restore the aircraft to the proper flight attitude.