Ethiopian ET302 Crash.

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Originally Posted by Exhaustgases
Questions that I'd like to ask someone that really knows. When you turn off any thing on that instrument panel or on the yoke, does that cause a relay to completely disconnect the power from what ever it is you are commanding off? Now I will answer that, NO. Maybe on an old DC3 or DC7 it did, now a computer runs or controls all inputs from pilots, just like many new cars, the driver has control over nothing, unless he has installed a huge disconnect switch that turns off all power feeding everything. All new passenger aircraft are fly by wire, that is by computer control. There are no longer mechanical connections to the control surfaces that link to a control that the pilot operates independent from the computer system. So there are a few not so nice things that can happen.


You've oversimplified a complex topic and really don't know what happens, or how a modern airplane works.

Particularly the 737.

It has a direct, mechanical connection between yoke and elevator.

It can be flown after the MCAS is turned off.

But it takes a pilot to do that, not a child of the Magenta...
 
Originally Posted by Astro14
Originally Posted by Exhaustgases
Questions that I'd like to ask someone that really knows. When you turn off any thing on that instrument panel or on the yoke, does that cause a relay to completely disconnect the power from what ever it is you are commanding off? Now I will answer that, NO. Maybe on an old DC3 or DC7 it did, now a computer runs or controls all inputs from pilots, just like many new cars, the driver has control over nothing, unless he has installed a huge disconnect switch that turns off all power feeding everything. All new passenger aircraft are fly by wire, that is by computer control. There are no longer mechanical connections to the control surfaces that link to a control that the pilot operates independent from the computer system. So there are a few not so nice things that can happen.


You've oversimplified a complex topic and really don't know what happens, or how a modern airplane works.

Particularly the 737.

It has a direct, mechanical connection between yoke and elevator.

It can be flown after the MCAS is turned off.

But it takes a pilot to do that, not a child of the Magenta...

100% accurate.

MCAS controls the electronic trim, which can be turned off and manually trimmed by experienced pilots who know what they're doing. This is why, in my opinion, U.S. based carriers (Canada too) are still comfortable operating this aircraft. Nowhere else in the world will you find a more thoroughly trained and experienced population of pilots. If you find that hard to believe, find one U.S. carrier that has an FO flying the MAX with 200 hours under his belt. I don't mean to be offensive, but there's a reason why we haven't had serious incidents involving the MAX in more developed (aviation-wise) countries.
 
Originally Posted by billt460
I seem to remember a couple of fatal, (no survivors), 737 accidents that happened with several years in between, similar to this. (I'm sure Astro remembers both, and he can feel free to add or correct anything I may have gotten wrong here). Both ended up being caused by the same thing. One happened in Colorado Springs, and the other 3 or 4 years later in Pennsylvania. They never solved the Colorado Springs crash until after the Pennsylvania crash happened.

If I remember correctly, it was caused by a faulty designed hydraulic valve. That somehow managed to reverse the rudder pedal input. But only sometimes under certain rare conditions. But all 737's continued to fly with that bad valve for several years in between both crashes. Because they never discovered it until after the Pennsylvania crash. (Both were similar accidents, going in near vertically).

I hope this doesn't turn into the same thing. Not being able to solve 2 non survivable crashes involving the same aircraft is scary. (Assuming they were both caused by the same thing). And that it turns out to be mechanical. Now it's just too early to tell.

They didn't ground the 737 after the Colorado Springs crash, because some believed at the time it might have been weather related. (Rolling wind shear off the mountains, or some such occurrence). Not to mention it would have been economically devastating to so many airlines worldwide, and would have made a mess of airline travel. This appears to be shaping up differently. That said, these 2 crashes involving the 737 Max aircraft happened months in between... Not years.

That was unbelievably good work finding that bad valve, and solving the problem once and for all. I hope the same thing happens here... Assuming something in the aircraft is faulty.


You remember correctly, Bill - and the forensic analysis that revealed the design flaw in the rudder actuator is a textbook case of how to conduct an investigation.

I talked about that in this thread: https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/4592998/all/Boeing_737_Max_take-off

I wasn't kind to the FAA or the 737 in my series of posts in that thread.

I'm clearly not a 737 fan, but I don't blame the 737 for either Lion Air or this crash.

We have, in both these crashes, the intersection of new design, poor communication from manufacturer, poor training by airlines, poor dissemination of updated procedures, and pilots who really don't know how to fly.

The specific crashes to which you refer were US Air 427 and United 585.

They crashed as the result of a design flaw and mechanical malfunction that slammed the rudder to the stop, and left it unresponsive to pilot input. Totally different than what we're talking about with Lion Air, and speculating about with Ethiopian.
 
Well, there are a lot of journalists and low life politicians in the news that are trying to make a name for themselves. Their argument seems to be, and I paraphrase, "If all these third world countries are grounding the plane they must know more than us, and the FAA must be bribed by Boeing or they would ground the plane..."

The bottom line is that all aircraft have malfunctions. Qualified pilots are capable if dealing with those malfunctions. The US (and probably Canada, but I am not fully familiar with Canadian civil aviation) has the best trained and experienced pilots in the world.

Jumping the gun a little, I'm guessing the malfunction seen creates a flight control problem that is easily corrected by experienced pilots with proper training.

If Boeing is guilty of anything, it's making an aircraft easy enough to fly so foreign carriers think they can put low hour third world pilots in command. When something goes wrong, they are incapable of maintaining control of the aircraft.
 
Heard on Fox Business this am that Canada grounded their planes and any flying into Canadian airspace because of "new" information based on the Ethiopian crash.
 
All discussions fail to mentioning eyewitness accounts of smoke and debris trailing acft before crash. Has know one seen these accounts?
 
Originally Posted by ArrestMeRedZ
Well, there are a lot of journalists and low life politicians in the news that are trying to make a name for themselves. Their argument seems to be, and I paraphrase, "If all these third world countries are grounding the plane they must know more than us, and the FAA must be bribed by Boeing or they would ground the plane..."

The bottom line is that all aircraft have malfunctions. Qualified pilots are capable if dealing with those malfunctions. The US (and probably Canada, but I am not fully familiar with Canadian civil aviation) has the best trained and experienced pilots in the world.

Jumping the gun a little, I'm guessing the malfunction seen creates a flight control problem that is easily corrected by experienced pilots with proper training.

If Boeing is guilty of anything, it's making an aircraft easy enough to fly so foreign carriers think they can put low hour third world pilots in command. When something goes wrong, they are incapable of maintaining control of the aircraft.




I've noticed this as well in the past 24 hours or so. Everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. Some are even pushing passengers to check what model of airplane their flight is on and if it's a -8 Max then demand to get the airline to change it. That is irresponsible. Unfortunately the press has decided to create agendas and news rather than simply reporting the news.

Every single day, something happens on airplanes all over the world. Engines fail, other technical issues arise. In virtually every instance the pilots make the decisions they were trained to make and use their experience and knowledge to bring the flight to a safe and happy ending.

These recent accidents are concerning, no doubt about that. The system is in place. Let the experts deal with it. If it scares you that much, go Greyhound and leave the driving to them.

Rant over.
 
Originally Posted by faltic
All discussions fail to mentioning eyewitness accounts of smoke and debris trailing acft before crash. Has know one seen these accounts?


I've said it before, and I guess it bears repeating, that decades of accident investigation has revealed that:

90% of eyewitness accounts are wrong.

They remember things that didn't happen, or describe things incorrectly/inaccurately.
 
Originally Posted by ArrestMeRedZ
If Boeing is guilty of anything, it's making an aircraft easy enough to fly so foreign carriers think they can put low hour third world pilots in command. When something goes wrong, they are incapable of maintaining control of the aircraft.

I remember reading somewhere that you are 10 times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash on ANY African carrier, regardless of the type of aircraft, than you are on an American carrier. I'm willing to bet that encompasses more than just lousy pilots.

I just watched a show on Air Force One. This was back when Bush the younger was President, and took it to Africa on a 9 day trip. They had to fly in several tanker trucks on C-17's, in order to fuel Air Force One to get it home. The reason was because they didn't trust any fuel they could get from the airports in African countries. Because none of it could be certified. Not very reassuring.
 
Originally Posted by Astro14
Originally Posted by faltic
All discussions fail to mentioning eyewitness accounts of smoke and debris trailing acft before crash. Has know one seen these accounts?


I've said it before, and I guess it bears repeating, that decades of accident investigation has revealed that:

90% of eyewitness accounts are wrong.

They remember things that didn't happen, or describe things incorrectly/inaccurately.

So the "investigators" just ignor the 10% who saw what they saw. Shades of flt 800. It's not that difficult to sift thru eye witness accounts (there seems to have been a few) for facts. Your rush to discount the posibality of information contrary to the preordained "facts" give my pause my friend.
 
Originally Posted by Astro14
I've said it before, and I guess it bears repeating, that decades of accident investigation has revealed that:

90% of eyewitness accounts are wrong.

They remember things that didn't happen, or describe things incorrectly/inaccurately.

Police detectives say much the same when they are crime solving. They would much rather have forensic evidence, or even good circumstantial evidence. As opposed to a bunch of untrustworthy eyewitnesses. Most of which can be disassembled on the witness stand by any good defense attorney in cross examination.

Joe Pesci comes to mind in, "My Cousin Vinny"...... "You could say that"... "I did say that, would you say that?"
 
Originally Posted by faltic
Originally Posted by Astro14
Originally Posted by faltic
All discussions fail to mentioning eyewitness accounts of smoke and debris trailing acft before crash. Has know one seen these accounts?


I've said it before, and I guess it bears repeating, that decades of accident investigation has revealed that:

90% of eyewitness accounts are wrong.

They remember things that didn't happen, or describe things incorrectly/inaccurately.

So the "investigators" just ignor the 10% who saw what they saw. Shades of flt 800. It's not that difficult to sift thru eye witness accounts (there seems to have been a few) for facts. Your rush to discount the posibality of information contrary to the preordained "facts" give my pause my friend.


Where did I say that? I discount nothing.

I merely point out, again and again, that it's too soon to tell.

Perhaps they were among the 10%, perhaps not.

It's too soon to know.

TWA 800 was a classic case of people seeing things that weren't there.

Human memory is a funny thing - it "fills in the facts" when it lacks a reference frame. Since most people have zero experience with things like missile launch from a ship, or airplane damage/explosions, they "fill in" things that simply didn't happen, in order for the image in their mind to make sense. They have to have context, and where they lack it, they subconsciously make it up.
 
Originally Posted by Astro14
Originally Posted by faltic
Originally Posted by Astro14
Originally Posted by faltic
All discussions fail to mentioning eyewitness accounts of smoke and debris trailing acft before crash. Has know one seen these accounts?


I've said it before, and I guess it bears repeating, that decades of accident investigation has revealed that:

90% of eyewitness accounts are wrong.

They remember things that didn't happen, or describe things incorrectly/inaccurately.

So the "investigators" just ignor the 10% who saw what they saw. Shades of flt 800. It's not that difficult to sift thru eye witness accounts (there seems to have been a few) for facts. Your rush to discount the posibality of information contrary to the preordained "facts" give my pause my friend.


Where did I say that? I discount nothing.

I merely point out, again and again, that it's too soon to tell.

Perhaps they were among the 10%, perhaps not.

It's too soon to know.

TWA 800 was a classic case of people seeing things that weren't there.

Human memory is a funny thing - it "fills in the facts" when it lacks a reference frame. Since most people have zero experience with things like missile launch from a ship, or airplane damage/explosions, they "fill in" things that simply didn't happen, in order for the image in their mind to make sense. They have to have context, and where they lack it, they subconsciously make it up.


Well my friend the witness quoted in the article lived in the common flight path around the airport. Events observed by them of aircraft in the area might skew your quoted static of witness reliability some. IMHO I you never said discount but the implication was clear. BTW as I remember some of the flt 800 witnesses had backgrounds that made them quite creditable. Sorry to drag this out but events of late have exacerbated my distrust of news, corporate and gov info streams.
 
Trump has the guts to override his own FAA "experts"? Wow. He really doesn't care who dislikes him in the big Fed bureaucracies we have.
 
I suspect the FAA provided the President appropriate information upon his staff's request as soon as it was known, and the President's ban preceeded both the FAA's grounding and Boeing's recommended grounding by only a short period, with their concurrence.
 
Originally Posted by oil_film_movies
Trump has the guts to override his own FAA "experts"? Wow. He really doesn't care who dislikes him in the big Fed bureaucracies we have.




He is a businessman, not a politician. They are not used to that sort of thing in DC. The wheels of government turn very slowly.
 
Is it really too complicated for a pilot and/or copilot to turn off electrical power to the stabilizer trim? From a Human Factors viewpoint, it sounds simple. Of course, recognizing it in the air and acting on it may require too much for pilots "confused" in the air, to be fair.
If anybody doesn't know what I'm talking about, read the good explanation at
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/16/world/asia/lion-air-crash-cockpit.html
 
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