Originally appeared at ZeroHedge
A doomed Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max 8 that crashed shortly after takeoff on March 10 had “clear similarities” to an October 2018 crash of the same type of airplane, according to Ethiopia’s transport minister. Today, Reuters sheds light on exactly what happened that fateful day last year off the coast of Indonesia.
Lion Air Boeing 737-8 MAX
According to a new report, the cockpit voice recorder of the October crash which killed all 189 people onboard reveals that the pilots were scouring the plane’s manual to understand why the plane kept lurching downwards – only to run out of time before it hit the water, reports Reuters, citing three people with knowledge of the cockpit voice recorder contents.
The captain was at the controls of Lion Air flight JT610 when the nearly new jet took off from Jakarta, and the first officer was handling the radio, according to a preliminary report issued in November.
Just two minutes into the flight, the first officer reported a “flight control problem” to air traffic control and said the pilots intended to maintain an altitude of 5,000 feet, the November report said.
The first officer did not specify the problem, but one source said airspeed was mentioned on the cockpit voice recording, and a second source said an indicator showed a problem on the captain’s display but not the first officer’s.
The captain asked the first officer to check the quick reference handbook, which contains checklists for abnormal events, the first source said.
For the next nine minutes, the jet warned pilots it was in a stall and pushed the nose down in response, the report showed. A stall is when the airflow over a plane’s wings is too weak to generate lift and keep it flying.
The captain fought to climb, but the computer, still incorrectly sensing a stall, continued to push the nose down using the plane’s trim system. Normally, trim adjusts an aircraft’s control surfaces to ensure it flies straight and level.
“They didn’t seem to know the trim was moving down,” the third source said. “They thought only about airspeed and altitude. That was the only thing they talked about.”
FILE PHOTO: Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) of a Lion Air JT610 that crashed into Tanjung Karawang sea is seen inside a special container after it was found under the sea, during a press conference at Tanjung Priok Port in Jakarta, Indonesia, January 14, 2019. REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan/File Photo
The pilots of the doomed Lion Air flight remained calm for most of the flight according to the report, however near the end “Near the end, the captain asked the first officer to fly while he checked the manual for a solution.”
As we reported Tuesday night, the same plane was saved by a ‘dead-head’ pilot the day before.
According to Bloomberg, an off-duty pilot hitching a ride from Bali to Jakarta was able to explain to the crew how to disable a malfunctioning flight-control system by cutting power to a motor driving the nose of the plane down.
The previously undisclosed detail supports the suggestion that a lack of training is may be at least partially to blame in the March 10 crash of another 727 Max 8.
The previously undisclosed detail on the earlier Lion Air flight represents a new clue in the mystery of how some 737 Max pilots faced with the malfunction have been able to avert disaster while the others lost control of their planes and crashed. The presence of a third pilot in the cockpit wasn’t contained in Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee’s Nov. 28 report on the crash and hasn’t previously been reported. –Bloomberg
***
As we noted last week, several pilots had repeatedly warned federal authorities of the Max 8’s shortcomings, with one pilot describing the plane’s flight manual as “inadequate and almost criminally insufficient.”
“The fact that this airplane requires such jury-rigging to fly is a red flag. Now we know the systems employed are error-prone — even if the pilots aren’t sure what those systems are, what redundancies are in place and failure modes. I am left to wonder: what else don’t I know?” wrote the captain.
After the Lion Air crash, two U.S. pilots’ unions said the potential risks of the system, known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, hadn’t been sufficiently spelled out in their manuals or training. None of the documentation for the Max aircraft included an explanation, the union leaders said. –Bloomberg
“We don’t like that we weren’t notified,” said Southwest Airlines Pilots Association president Jon Weaks in November. “It makes us question, ‘Is that everything, guys?’ I would hope there are no more surprises out there.”
In the Lion Air crash, a malfunctioning sensor is believed to have tricked the plane’s computers to force the nose of the plane down to avoid a stall. Following the March 10 crash less than six months later – which followed a “very similar” track to the Lion Air flight, All Boeing 737 Max 8s were grounded by US regulators following dozens of countries and airlines doing so first.
“After this horrific Lion Air accident, you’d think that everyone flying this airplane would know that’s how you turn this off,” said former FAA accident investigation division director Steve Wallace.
Meanwhile, investigators are now looking into how the new 737 model was approved. The Transportation Department’s inspector general has begun an inquiry into the plane’s certification, while a grand jury under the US DOJ is also seeking records in a possible criminal investigation of the plane’s certification.
“We will fully cooperate in the review in the Department of Transportation’s audit,” said Boeing spokesman Charles Bickers.
“a lack of training is may be at least partially to blame in the March 10 crash of another 727 Max 8”
If the aircraft has a defective system, you don’t train pilots to circumvent it, you go back to the drawing board and solve it.
I mean, if an aircraft has a defect that makes it lose its wings, what you do after a crash, blame the pilots because they weren’t tranied to fly a wingless plane?
but of course, Boeing is in full damage control mode after the whole world grounded the type and they are already spending billions to make sure that the pilots get at least a small percentage of responsibility.
But the pilots did get 55 minutes of Max 8 type training on an iPad (which didn’t mention MCAS).
What’s next? Unreasonable pilot demands for THREE hours of iPad training on new types? That would devastate the finances of the entire airline industry. Unless they get rid of one of the pilots, then they could afford several additional hours of iPad instruction. It’s a win-win.
“The captain fought to climb, but the computer, still incorrectly sensing a stall, continued to push the nose down using the plane’s trim system” This is a bit scary, like not being able to manually over ride a faulty part of the autopilot system !!
This is what happens when the Artificial Intelligence in Boeing aircraft is designed by people with no common sense.
I cannot wait for the introduction of driverless cars on our roads. :)
That will be the right time to buy a little tank for safety I think, PZIVJ.
A heavy duty SUV might suffice for now. I have noticed some vehicles moving around like there is no human intelligence involved. :D
Welcome to fly by wire.
Seems like it really is a major software problem and Boeing released it too soon.
Its a sad time when aircraft manufactures mimics game developers.
Tragicaly comical comment.
Relevant nontheless
The underlying problem is that the plane is inherently unstable. When Boeing tried to play catch up to Airbus by using heavier fuel efficient engines, it made the plane fly nose up. Instead of redesigning the fuselage to stabilize the plane, Boeing did a quick fix: a badly designed software package with inadequate sensors. Trump/Boeing solution is to appoint an industry insider to the failed FAA and try and fix the software. Time to take upper management out of their private jets and make them fly in their own planes.
January 2019, Trump Government Shutdown of e.g. Federal Aviation Administration, might have not been the primary cause of the crash but certainly contributed too. This American-made Boeing passenger aircraft, is product of an evolution in Culture of Negligence & Carelessness; where the little people don’t count. Gutting the regulators is just an expression of the modern malaise that Trumpism is solely an symptomatic, not causal, expression of it.
Boeing never recommended additional training for pilots and even after the first crash gave inadequate pilot alerts.
That would have been an admission too far. It would have cost money and money is the sacred cow of Boeing, who likely wonder what all ihe fuss is about.
The plane was not full of Israeli’s and Libtards afterall.
Exactly. Why worry about a few cattle disappearing into the night!
Yeah, poor pilots, the fact is, an unstable design, over siced engines, and an cheep electronic device, whom on top of it, malfunctioned, by resons I dont bother to deal with, but others have and some nails it, forced the plain to nose dive, and the pilots didnt know jack shit, and frantically tried to sap thru manuals, in an time frame, since the plain was de facto nose diving and possibly since the plain had some design flaws, influensing the plains ballance and vectores, snapped faster into an full nose dive and usuall, maye I dont know, but something stinks high heaven, when it had to be added an comensator, thru additional divises to adjust the flight path or direction, and it failed, made it dive.
They as I understand had an starting point the airport is on 7000 feets. a s. l. , got additional 1000 f ( 320 m, not miles, not kilometers, but f….. meters) when the nose dive kicked in on the flights path upward (takeoff) from the airport, and what time frame did this pilots have when the shitforbrain AI kicked in, huh, 5 second, its just 6-7 times the lenght of their airplain it self, so it means it just went straight down into the ground, the pilots never had an chanse, and it pisses me abit when some …… drools something about 3 world countrys, this is an crimial case, an deliberate neglect that lead to an airplains doom and the death of people. Aspects as some mentions, additional info and/or training, again why and based upon what, etc.
And it was done on serveal levels, incl the federal one, due to what, corruption, dont f….. up the stocks, huh, scumbags, should be dragged out and exectuted in the nearest possible square in public. This is an briliant/horrible ex. in corrption, design short cuts, doing what they could with painting lip sticks on an old wourn out pig, and I am infact pissed, and the low f….. air corps have dropped in my viue, considerablly, and we start to see something we dont like, an rotten ind. run by rats. I want heads to role, somebody must pay, this is an crime, nothing else than a crime and do also take an hard look an silence, the complyance, why, etc and of course, power corrupts, follow the moonie.
peace
Criminal negligence on the part of Boeing.
A failed sensor started the problem, why only one sensor? The software failed to recognize that the sensor was faulty? The crews who fly these planes were not told that this device existed? But the real core issue is, the engines are too big for the plane.
You can fix the other stuff, but you can’t fix the weight imbalance without changing the engines.
The decline of empires, remember the Titanic?
People use to build things more reliable back in the days when it was (the right man for the right job) Now it is based on social engineering and hiring quotas for social points. That is why the difference between the beautiful F-14 and the failure F-35. Different times = different priorities. Time to let the US disintegrate and start a new.