Boeing admits flaws in 737 MAX simulator software after crashes

From al-Jazeera
(with similar from The Financial Times, Voice of America, The Daily Mail, and Africa News)


Boeing has acknowledged it had to correct flaws in its 737 MAX flight simulator software used to train pilots, after two deadly crashes involving the aircraft that killed 346 people within six months.

The US-based aerospace company said its simulators were incapable of replicating certain flight conditions that contributed to the Ethiopian Airlines crash in March, or the Lion Air accident off Indonesia last October.

"Boeing has made corrections to the 737 MAX simulator software and has provided additional information to device operators to ensure that the simulator experience is representative across different flight conditions," Boeing said in a statement on Saturday.

The company did not indicate when it first became aware of the problem, and whether it informed regulators.

Its statement marked the first time Boeing admitted there was a design flaw in software linked to the 737 MAX, whose MCAS anti-stall software has been blamed in large part for the Ethiopian Airlines tragedy.

COMMENT:-

TU Curmudgeon said:

From al-Jazeera
(with similar from The Financial Times, Voice of America, The Daily Mail, and Africa News)

Boeing admits flaws in 737 MAX simulator software after crashes
​

Boeing has acknowledged it had to correct flaws in its 737 MAX flight simulator software used to train pilots, after two deadly crashes involving the aircraft that killed 346 people within six months.

The US-based aerospace company said its simulators were incapable of replicating certain flight conditions that contributed to the Ethiopian Airlines crash in March, or the Lion Air accident off Indonesia last October.

"Boeing has made corrections to the 737 MAX simulator software and has provided additional information to device operators to ensure that the simulator experience is representative across different flight conditions," Boeing said in a statement on Saturday.

The company did not indicate when it first became aware of the problem, and whether it informed regulators.

Its statement marked the first time Boeing admitted there was a design flaw in software linked to the 737 MAX, whose MCAS anti-stall software has been blamed in large part for the Ethiopian Airlines tragedy.

COMMENT:-

At last report Boeing shares were still worth more than B.C.R.I.C. shares.
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What's amazing is Boeing put out a defective product, two planes crashed killing everyone on board, and if you bought the stock a year ago, you're basically flat, +-0%. If you've held it 2 years, you've roughly doubled your money!

When it happened it amazed me a major corporation like Boeing could be so incompetent as to put out an unsafe product that insiders knew or suspected was being rushed, and potentially deadly, and now I know why I'm not a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Killing a few hundred people is just an acceptable cost of doing business, brushed aside by investors. They saved a lot of money and secured several contracts early with the rushed release, and those poor people who died were the the equivalent of beta testers of the new system, and helpfully revealed the problems! WIN for Boeing!

JasperL said:

What's amazing is Boeing put out a defective product, two planes crashed killing everyone on board, and if you bought the stock a year ago, you're basically flat, +-0%. If you've held it 2 years, you've roughly doubled your money!

When it happened it amazed me a major corporation like Boeing could be so incompetent as to put out an unsafe product that insiders knew or suspected was being rushed, and potentially deadly, and now I know why I'm not a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Killing a few hundred people is just an acceptable cost of doing business, brushed aside by investors. They saved a lot of money and secured several contracts early with the rushed release, and those poor people who died were the the equivalent of beta testers of the new system, and helpfully revealed the problems! WIN for Boeing!

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Boeing did nothing incompetent. This was a very minor flaw, the accidents were pure pilot error borne out of failure to apply proper procedures

JasperL said:

What's amazing is Boeing put out a defective product, two planes crashed killing everyone on board, and if you bought the stock a year ago, you're basically flat, +-0%. If you've held it 2 years, you've roughly doubled your money!

When it happened it amazed me a major corporation like Boeing could be so incompetent as to put out an unsafe product that insiders knew or suspected was being rushed, and potentially deadly, and now I know why I'm not a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Killing a few hundred people is just an acceptable cost of doing business, brushed aside by investors. They saved a lot of money and secured several contracts early with the rushed release, and those poor people who died were the the equivalent of beta testers of the new system, and helpfully revealed the problems! WIN for Boeing!

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Two things. We don't know what the final cost is going to be or how it will impact their stock price as well as their reputation with airlines and people who fly. Second, not sure it is fair to paint such a broad brush when it comes to CEOs.

EMNofSeattle said:

Boeing did nothing incompetent. This was a very minor flaw, the accidents were pure pilot error borne out of failure to apply proper procedures

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Boeing is 100% at fault. The plane's design was bad from the beginning, the 737 was not deigned to have engines that big but they shoehorned them in anyways. Then their software to correct for that was very flawed, the senor was optional, and has resulted in deaths of several hundred people. Then there is the fact that Boeing said there was no or minimal training needed to fly the new planes as they were virtually the same as the old ones and told no one about this this new flaw and the software to correct for it.

That is like saying that the Ford Pinto's problem was that people kept ramming into them, not the deign of the car itself.

JasperL said:

What's amazing is Boeing put out a defective product, two planes crashed killing everyone on board, and if you bought the stock a year ago, you're basically flat, +-0%. If you've held it 2 years, you've roughly doubled your money!

When it happened it amazed me a major corporation like Boeing could be so incompetent as to put out an unsafe product that insiders knew or suspected was being rushed, and potentially deadly, and now I know why I'm not a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Killing a few hundred people is just an acceptable cost of doing business, brushed aside by investors. They saved a lot of money and secured several contracts early with the rushed release, and those poor people who died were the the equivalent of beta testers of the new system, and helpfully revealed the problems! WIN for Boeing!

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Win for boeing, win for corporate america, again. We are fodder for profit but god forbid we have actual government oversight of corporate america.

JasperL said:

What's amazing is Boeing put out a defective product, two planes crashed killing everyone on board, and if you bought the stock a year ago, you're basically flat, +-0%. If you've held it 2 years, you've roughly doubled your money!

When it happened it amazed me a major corporation like Boeing could be so incompetent as to put out an unsafe product that insiders knew or suspected was being rushed, and potentially deadly, and now I know why I'm not a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Killing a few hundred people is just an acceptable cost of doing business, brushed aside by investors. They saved a lot of money and secured several contracts early with the rushed release, and those poor people who died were the the equivalent of beta testers of the new system, and helpfully revealed the problems! WIN for Boeing!

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On the upside at least Airbus seems like it will become much more competitive in the future and probably take much more of the market.

EMNofSeattle said:

Boeing did nothing incompetent. This was a very minor flaw, the accidents were pure pilot error borne out of failure to apply proper procedures

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Strange, that's not the same message that Boeing's actions and statements convey.

Are you sure that you are using the latest version of the currently operative, officially endorsed, "Team Trump", truth-of-the-day?

EMNofSeattle said:

Boeing did nothing incompetent. This was a very minor flaw, the accidents were pure pilot error borne out of failure to apply proper procedures

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Boeing was not merely incompetent, Boeing did something both wrong and illegal by risking the lives of every human that boarded one of their planes that didn't have the software update. They knew the problem existed, it had been reported by several experienced pilots. And yes, they retrofitted many of their commercial planes with the software update. But the two airlines that had planes that crashed killing all aboard were told the repair of the problem would come at a hefty cost and they chose not to incur that overrun expense. This was a mistake of course but Boeing had not only legal obligation but a moral one to FIX those planes at NO cost, period! No, the crashes of the 737 MAX was not pilot error by any stretch.

Republican Senator Sam Graves of Missouri, who is the ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, blamed errors by the pilots of Indonesian and Ethiopian airlines for the two deadly MAX crashes in those countries. That's exactly what Boeing wants everyone to believe. However, pilots strongly disagree. The flight crew on the March 10 Ethiopian flight faced a barrage of alerts in the flight that lasted just 6 minutes. Those alerts included a “stick shaker” that noisily vibrated the pilot’s yoke throughout the flight, warning the plane was in danger of a stall, which it wasn’t; repeated loud “DON’T SINK” warnings that the jet was too close to the ground; a “clacker” making a very loud clicking sound to signal the jet was going too fast; and multiple warning lights telling the crew the speed, altitude and other readings on their instruments were unreliable.

As one veteran US pilot said; “What would the best pilot do on their worst day with all of this sensory overload?” “Who knows what any of us would have done?” “The manufacturer isn’t supposed to give us airplanes that depend on superhuman pilots,” he added. “We should have airplanes that don’t fail the way these airplanes failed.” He criticized Boeing for designing an airplane in which a system triggered by a single sensor failure would present such challenges and require such a high-performance response from the pilots.

EMNofSeattle said:

Boeing did nothing incompetent. This was a very minor flaw, the accidents were pure pilot error borne out of failure to apply proper procedures

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well, that flat out wins the alternate reality contest for today, and it's only 12:30. we should make an announcement that others need not submit their entries.

Helix said:

well, that flat out wins the alternate reality contest for today, and it's only 12:30. we should make an announcement that others need not submit their entries.

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He believes that corporations can do no wrong. A key belief of most libertarians.

Carjosse said:

He believes that corporations can do no wrong. A key belief of most libertarians.

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i didn't believe that when i was a libertarian, which might be part of why i'm no longer a libertarian.

when i was running my own board back in the day, i did research into laissez faire, and then made a sock to try to defend the concept. i found it to be exceptionally difficult.

EMNofSeattle said:

Boeing did nothing incompetent. This was a very minor flaw, the accidents were pure pilot error borne out of failure to apply proper procedures

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I'm honestly not sure if that's sarcasm or not. The "very minor flaw" just crashed two planes killing all on board. It's unclear what a "major" flaw might look like if that's a "VERY minor" one.

As to the "pilot error" it would seem to be a legitimate duty of Boeing to tell pilots who were expected to jump into this new plane's cockpit with virtually no new training HOW to "apply proper procedures" to keep from crashing during totally ordinary takeoffs...

JasperL said:

I'm honestly not sure if that's sarcasm or not. The "very minor flaw" just crashed two planes killing all on board. It's unclear what a "major" flaw might look like if that's a "VERY minor" one.

As to the "pilot error" it would seem to be a legitimate duty of Boeing to tell pilots who were expected to jump into this new plane's cockpit with virtually no new training HOW to "apply proper procedures" to keep from crashing during totally ordinary takeoffs...

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It would, indeed, have been the duty of Boeing IF the companies purchasing the 737 MAX 8s had paid for the training to deal with the problem that Boeing didn't tell them existed and which Boeing was "marketing" as "optional".

JasperL said:

I'm honestly not sure if that's sarcasm or not. The "very minor flaw" just crashed two planes killing all on board. It's unclear what a "major" flaw might look like if that's a "VERY minor" one.

As to the "pilot error" it would seem to be a legitimate duty of Boeing to tell pilots who were expected to jump into this new plane's cockpit with virtually no new training HOW to "apply proper procedures" to keep from crashing during totally ordinary takeoffs...

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The Lion air crew did not apply the runaway trim checklist which was the standard procedure for the problem they faced. The previous aircrew applied runaway trim checklist and flew the plane without incident

EMNofSeattle said:

The Lion air crew did not apply the runaway trim checklist which was the standard procedure for the problem they faced. The previous aircrew applied runaway trim checklist and flew the plane without incident

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Two crashed planes, everyone on board died.... VERY minor problem.

Kiss their ass all you want, they ****ed up.

EMNofSeattle said:

Boeing did nothing incompetent. This was a very minor flaw, the accidents were pure pilot error borne out of failure to apply proper procedures

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You really don't know what you are talking about. Boeing used a 40 year old fuselage and moved the engines inward in order to fit the new engines, it then created the software to cope with this aerodynamic change, but didn't code it right, nor did the pilots get the training necessary because they kept the plane type the same, meaning that a 737 300 through 800 series pilot had the same type rating, even though the MAX was much different. They configured the planes so that the MCAS software acted on only one angle of attack sensor, unless the airline paid for an additional bit of hardware that read both AOA sensors. Boeing rushed this crap version of the 737 through, because Airbus had a much better plane in their NEO series, and Boeing could not compete unless they spent a few years building a new plane from a clean slate.

There is so much info out there from actual engineers, and from Boeing that proves you wrong.

EMNofSeattle said:

The Lion air crew did not apply the runaway trim checklist which was the standard procedure for the problem they faced. The previous aircrew applied runaway trim checklist and flew the plane without incident

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Uh, neither crew was trained on this (nor was any crew). The trim settings acted upon faulting AOA readings that the plane accepted from only one sensor. The other sensor was correct. I suggest you go to some aviation sites and read up on this fiasco.

Carjosse said:

On the upside at least Airbus seems like it will become much more competitive in the future and probably take much more of the market.

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The Airbus A320 series (A319, 320, 321) all were made with a much higher wing, which could accommodate the newer generation engines. The A320 and 321 NEO was kicking Boeing's ass in sales because it offered a much more fuel efficient plane with a longer range and better take off weight. Boeing didn't take the time to build a new airliner from scratch, they moved the new LEAP engines closer to the fuselage on their 40 year old frames because of the bigger engines. This changed the flight dynamics, so they put the MCAS software in to control it. But, Boeing, as usual, wanted to keep the MAX as a same plane type so that other 737 pilots could keep their same certs on this plane with the barest of differences trainings. And Boeing rushed it, sold the multiple Angle of Attack sensors to the airlines as an option, and kept the pilots in the dark. Boeing has been making pure crap for the last 10 years and this is what has become of it...and, Boeing self tested without the same FAA scrutiny as before. How about that?

Boeing deserves to be hurt over this...the free market is already kicking their ass. Airbus knows what they are doing, which is why they are selling better planes.

beefheart said:

Uh, neither crew was trained on this (nor was any crew). The trim settings acted upon faulting AOA readings that the plane accepted from only one sensor. The other sensor was correct. I suggest you go to some aviation sites and read up on this fiasco.

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That is simply not true, the runaway trim checklist is required training.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

AOA indicators are not relevant, it may have been a malfunctioning indicator that caused the problem in the first place, but the crash was pilot error, specifically failure to apply a checklist that should be memorized

EMNofSeattle said:

That is simply not true, the runaway trim checklist is required training.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

AOA indicators are not relevant, it may have been a malfunctioning indicator that caused the problem in the first place, but the crash was pilot error, specifically failure to apply a checklist that should be memorized

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Yes they are! You really haven't read up on this.

Boeing even admitted it.

beefheart said:

Yes they are! You really haven't read up on this.

Boeing even admitted it.

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The airplane industry has few options. Just like McDonnell Douglas took to fall for American’s **** up in the 191 crash.

In a world where people act with phony outrage over some one off events in a risky field like flying every little tiny thing will be overscrutinized. Airbus’s joystick configuration arguably caused the Air France 447 crash but in the end that was pilot error as well.

There are procedures pilots are supposed to use, a bad AOA indicator (which many airplanes don’t even have) should not be sufficient to cause a fatal crash, and in fact when a pilot who’s skilled and follows proper procedures is at the controls it doesn’t.

EMNofSeattle said:

The airplane industry has few options. Just like McDonnell Douglas took to fall for American’s **** up in the 191 crash.

In a world where people act with phony outrage over some one off events in a risky field like flying every little tiny thing will be overscrutinized. Airbus’s joystick configuration arguably caused the Air France 447 crash but in the end that was pilot error as well.

There are procedures pilots are supposed to use, a bad AOA indicator (which many airplanes don’t even have) should not be sufficient to cause a fatal crash, and in fact when a pilot who’s skilled and follows proper procedures is at the controls it doesn’t.

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You haven't read up. Here is a good start. After Reading the Preliminary Report, A Change of Heart on the 737 MAX Grounding | Cranky Flier

Lots more articles out there by people who know. You don't know what you are talking about regarding the MAX.

beefheart said:

You haven't read up. Here is a good start. After Reading the Preliminary Report, A Change of Heart on the 737 MAX Grounding | Cranky Flier

Lots more articles out there by people who know. You don't know what you are talking about regarding the MAX.

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Thank you for an excellent reference article.

JasperL said:

What's amazing is Boeing put out a defective product, two planes crashed killing everyone on board, and if you bought the stock a year ago, you're basically flat, +-0%. If you've held it 2 years, you've roughly doubled your money!

When it happened it amazed me a major corporation like Boeing could be so incompetent as to put out an unsafe product that insiders knew or suspected was being rushed, and potentially deadly, and now I know why I'm not a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Killing a few hundred people is just an acceptable cost of doing business, brushed aside by investors. They saved a lot of money and secured several contracts early with the rushed release, and those poor people who died were the the equivalent of beta testers of the new system, and helpfully revealed the problems! WIN for Boeing!

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You are amazed that greed carried more weight at a US Corporation than safety and professionalism did?

I am NOT amazed that you are amazed.