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General aviation thread

Spark

Spark

Global Moderator
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47691478

A British Airways flight destined for Düsseldorf in Germany has landed in Edinburgh by mistake, after the flight paperwork was submitted incorrectly.

The passengers only realised the error when the plane landed and the "welcome to Edinburgh" announcement was made.

The plane, which started at London's City Airport, was then redirected and landed in Düsseldorf. WDL Aviation ran the BA flight through a leasing deal.

BA said it was working with WDL to find out why it filed the wrong flight plan.
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h...ow...
 
D

Dan

Global Moderator
Yeah, read that and thought it was absolutely bizarre and incredible.

Did enjoy that they were less than 3 hours late to the real destination in the end.
 
Top_Cat

Top_Cat

Well-known member
I mean, the hearings going on with the FAA are a good thing in response to the MAX to uncover if stuff like the shutdown delayed safety fixes or what have you. But they're also kinda pointless because noone's putting up an alternative model, essentially in operation since the 50's. FAA is generally first in the sights for cuts by law-makers (been trying to privatise the ATC forever) and as certification staff have been cut over a couple of decades and more of it offloaded to Boeing, who are the subject-matter experts anyway, overall safety records have only improved.

All this talk of foxes and hen houses won't amount to much unless the FAA gets more people and a fundamental shift happens in thinking of how 'essential' the FAA is, end of.
 
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StephenZA

StephenZA

Well-known member
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ethiop...y-steps-to-disable-737-max-system-11554263276
(Don't have access)

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/03/africa/ethiopian-airlines-emergency-procedures-intl/index.html

Pilots flying Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 initially followed emergency procedures that were laid out by Boeing before the plane nose-dived into the ground, according to preliminary findings reported in the Wall Street Journal.
Citing unnamed sources familiar with the investigation, the WSJ reported that despite following the steps, which included turning off an automated flight-control system, pilots could not regain control of the Boeing 737 MAX 8.
CNN has not been able to confirm details of the report.
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If true that feels like a pretty big finding, because suddenly this starts falling straight onto Boeing.
 
StephenZA

StephenZA

Well-known member
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47812225

A preliminary report into the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane last month says the aircraft nosedived several times before it crashed.

Pilots "repeatedly" followed procedures recommended by Boeing before the crash, according to the first official report into the disaster.
Despite their efforts, pilots "were not able to control the aircraft", Transport Minister Dagmawit Moges said.
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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...res-first-official-crash-report-idUSKCN1RG0R4

Boeing is going to push back on this hard aren't they?
 
StephenZA

StephenZA

Well-known member
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47834556

So with Boeing bringing out a statement apologising and admitting that the MCAS system is at least partly at fault, pretty much guarantees liability of some sort. I read in the business times that this will cost Boeing about a billion dollars just to compensate the airlines that have had to ground their planes.

I also find it interesting in the little detail, you can switch the MCAS system off but if you pull up and MCAS believes it own sensors it will switch itself back on! That is a important little detail.
 
Top_Cat

Top_Cat

Well-known member
I don’t personally think they’re admitting fault. The system was (apparently) working as intended. The old ‘chain of events’ line is very telling, especially for any families seeking compensation. Boeing is basically saying we’re sorry the pilots weren’t good enough.

Compensation is a question but I can’t think of a time where manufacturers handed over cash to affected airlines. Mainly because they’re insured against exactly this. I’d suggest there might be some MAX discounts in the futures of a few airlines, though. Victims - another story.
 
Spark

Spark

Global Moderator
https://leehamnews.com/2019/04/05/bjorns-corner-et302-crash-report-the-first-analysis/#more-29839

There's a transcript of that video (now pulled) floating around as well. TL;DR on it: once MCAS starts doing its thing, you're very much in the lap of the gods.

C: So, now we are doing this just as an exercise!
C: Do not try this at home.
C: This...
C: We are at 300 knots now.
F: I'm fighting.
C: I'm sttrugling to to keep this aircraft flying.
F: My god! [FO surprised at how hard it is to trim further nose down]
C: Yeah, the thing is with higher speed the force on the stabilizer will be higher and higher as well.
C: So it becomes almost impossible to move it.
C: So we are now at about 3 degrees.
F: Yup. [FO still tries to continue trimming nose down, the wheels is so difficult to spin]
C: We're still about 3 degrees away from full nose down trim.
C: And I am using everything that I have. [CAPT still holding on to his yoke with both hands]
F: My God ! [the trim wheel barely move for the down trim]
C: This is realistic guys.
C: This is how much of effort it would take to trim the stabilizer at this kind of speed.
C: Umph... [Capt is still trying to hold on to his yoke with his hands]
C: I'm just in control of it, though. But it's getting harder and harder.
C: And remember we're still 2.5 degrees away...
F: My God! [FO still struggles to spin the refused-to-be-spun trim wheel]
C: It's not possible, is it?
C: All right, we stop at that.
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Top_Cat

Top_Cat

Well-known member
Looks like a mutant seagull. Looks like it'd run out of rudder in > 20kts of cross but you'd assume the designers have some tricks there.
 
Spark

Spark

Global Moderator
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/01/business/boeing-737-max-crash.html

This is the most comprehensive and lucid article I've seen on the chain of events and decisions that led to the silent implementation of a highly aggressive MCAS reliant on a single point of failure on the MAX.

This in particular:

Using MCAS at lower speeds also required increasing the power of the system. When a plane is flying slowly, flight controls are less sensitive, and far more movement is needed to steer. Think of turning a car’s steering wheel at 20 miles an hour versus 70.

The original version of MCAS could move the stabilizer — the part of the tail that controls the vertical direction of the jet — a maximum of about 0.6 degrees in about 10 seconds. The new version could move the stabilizer up to 2.5 degrees in 10 seconds.

Test pilots aren’t responsible for dealing with the ramifications of such changes. Their job is to ensure the plane handles smoothly. Other colleagues are responsible for making the changes, and still others for assessing their impact on safety.

Boeing declined to say whether the changes had prompted a new internal safety analysis.

While the F.A.A. officials in charge of training didn’t know about the changes, another arm of the agency involved in certification did. But it did not conduct a safety analysis on the changes.

The F.A.A. had already approved the previous version of MCAS. And the agency’s rules didn’t require it to take a second look because the changes didn’t affect how the plane operated in extreme situations.

“The F.A.A. was aware of Boeing’s MCAS design during the certification of the 737 Max,” the agency said in a statement. “Consistent with regulatory requirements, the agency evaluated data and conducted flight tests within the normal flight envelope that included MCAS activation in low-speed stall and other flight conditions.”
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Burgey

Burgey

Well-known member
Tony Abbott unequivocally promised to find MH370. Another broken promise. Where's the plane, Tony?
 
Spark

Spark

Global Moderator
Added to my "never fly with these people" list: Korean Air:

https://onemileatatime.com/korean-air-captain-drinking/

According to the report, the flight’s captain walked past a tray of pre-departure drinks and tried to take a glass of champagne, but a cabin crew member blocked him, saying he can’t drink alcohol. He responded that she could then give it to him in a paper cup instead.

Hours later the captain once again asked the cabin crew to bring him a cup of wine. The crew member refused, and reported the case to the cabin chief.

The cabin chief told other crew members, including the co-pilot, but urged them to remain silent until landing and not tell the captain, out of fear of making him angry, and possibly altering his mental state. To me that seems reasonable enough, since you’d want to alert other crew members in case the captain makes a similar request again.

Unfortunately the co-pilot ended up telling the captain what was going on before landing, which caused an altercation between the cabin chief and the pilots.

So after landing the cabin chief filed a formal complaint about the incident on Korean Air’s anonymous online message board.

Korean Air called in the cabin chief and captain, and what happened? The captain got a verbal warning, and the cabin chief got demoted on account of being responsible for the in-flight conflict.

Korean Air said in a statement “it’s true the captain made a controversial action, but it didn’t cause a real trouble.” Meanwhile the cabin chief was demoted for using “insulting words during the altercation and revealing the internal issue.”
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