You said it better than I could.

They had a lot more that 4-10 seconds. The second LA crew corrected the trim 25 times over several minutes. The EA crew corrected it twice.

The runaway trim procedure is also a "memory" procedure, meaning the pilots have it memorized in order to save time.

Listen to you. Yes the second LA crew managed to couteract the malfunctioning system 25 times before they finally succumbed.

What's your argument? "Real pilots need to work against the aircraft's malfunctioning systems 26 times" ? Oh these poorly trained Lion Air idiots, only prepared to counteract the badly programmed airframe 25 times

They incorrectly counteracted the malfunctioning system 25 times. If they had followed the correct procedure for handling runaway stab trim, they would have only needed to respond once. It's a three-step procedure that takes just a few seconds - press the override button on the yoke, turn off the master switches for the stab trim automation, set the stab trim manually.

The Lion Air flight crew caused that crash because they lacked fundamental piloting skills. Like many low-cost carriers in middle-income countries, Lion Air have systematic problems with poor pilot training and supervision. The poor design of the MCAS system contributed to the crash, but any number of other system failures could have caused a similar accident if handled equally poorly.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/magazine/boeing-737-max-c...

I'm not excusing Lion Air. I actually live in the region and everyone knows about their problems; I and many others refuse to fly with them. But that doesn't let Boeing off the hook at all. And I note you didn't mention Ethiopian air, who have a far better reputation.

I think a lot of us here are software developers. As such, we all know that if a user does the wrong thing once, that's their problem. If they do the wrong thing 25 times in a row - that's our problem. I don't care how good the pilots are, or what country they're from. If a software system silently activates, with no immediately obvious way to turn it off, and ends up killing hundreds of people - I blame the developer. Fail-deadly systems have no place in commercial aviation.

I don't want Boeing to go bankrupt, but I want them to hurt very badly from this. $25B of stock buybacks but they cut corners on this jet, to the cost of ~300 lives. This needs to cut right to their core and I'd be happy to see the entire C-suite and board fired.

> What's your argument?

I was replying to the argument that they had only 4-10 seconds. They had much more than that.

Which still was not enough, as the crash showed. The simple fact that neither the FAA nor EASA have yet cleared the 737 MAX for flight is a pretty good indicator that it was, indeed, the planes fault. I think the "human error" argument phase should be over by now.

In the article they clearly state that adjustments need to be made within 10 seconds. Boeing suggests not doing this would be “catastrophic.”

Both the LA and EA did make the adjustments within 10 seconds. They then did not throw the cutoff switches.

I, for one, would jump at the chance on flying on commercial planes so problematic a reaction by the pilot of less than 10 seconds causes the whole passenger list's death

Hey walterbright, who do you work for?

Considering that he claims to have worked for Boeing, this has made me... really concerned.

As far as I know, there's never been an incident with the 757 stab trim. I'm delighted when I find out my flight is on a 757.

By the way, my opinions on this issue are my own. I don't speak for anyone else.

The 757 rightfully has a reputation as a high-performing, well-engineered plane, that pilots love to fly.

The 737 MAX rightfully has a reputation as a death trap too unsafe to remain in the skies.

I'm not sure how the one is relevant to the other.

When Walter worked for Boeing he worked on the 757 trim system, which has never had a problem yet, therefore Gigablah can probably relax about the fact that Walter worked for Boeing.

Let’s assume “several” minutes is 4 minutes. 240 seconds.

Correcting 25 times in that window is <10s on average.

>> They had a lot more that 4-10 seconds. The second LA crew corrected the trim 25 times over several minutes.

That doesn't sound like anything was corrected to me. It just kept pushing down, over and over.

They used the column trim switches to override the trim and restored the trim setting to normal, per procedure. The next part of the procedure is to throw the cutoff switches, which they did not do.

I'm sure you studied a lot of accident reports and analyses.

I'm sure you know the human factor plays a role in tons of cases.

What I don't quite understand is where you want to go from what you repeat again and again, pointing at supposed faults of the pilots, and then when more directly asked on the line if you are trying to diminish Boeing responsibility, you conveniently answers on the line of "of course not, I did not say there was no engineering problems".

So yeah, maybe pilots did not do a critical step in a critical phase of the plane doing utterly stupid things trying to kill everybody, because of various economics factor that have been debated to hell.

So... what?

You know Air France is a reputable company. You know that the pilots of AF 447 did some really weird things in the cockpit. That does not make the pitot tubes used at the time less defectives. And MAX trim (and the whole story around it) is way worse than that. I mean common, were you not once subject to a high stress situation that made you fuck one thing? And even if you were, can't you also not understand some people react differently and the human factor must be taken into account?

If they do this 25 times, and still end up crashing is it possible that perhaps the procedure is a touch too complicated for a life and death situation?

How hard it is to turn off a switch right there on the center console so it is easily accessible?

(It's not like the pilot has to turn around and search for it.)

This incident happened 2 times in a distance of a few months, if you would just use logic you can deduce that something is wrong , it is more probable that this 2 pilots forgot how to handle a standard procedure or that things are more complex then you are trying to imply, this could have been avoided if the pilots were informed about the new system and the warring lights would have been made default but doing this would have cost Boeing a lot of money

Hey Walter,

I've been reading these comment threads with increasing amazement. I understand where you're coming from but if you really want to make the case that this system is faulty and that the pilots did something wrong at the same time you're doing a poor job of it by not taking into account the human angle: (1) there's 600 people dead; (2) HN'ers likely fly a lot and have little to no control over the systems on the planes that they fly with, but know all - or think they know all - about bad software and systems design; (3) The planes are still grounded pending investigation and fixes. Taken all those together I think you should take a dose of your own medication and not take such a strong position given that the facts aren't in yet.

Best case you manage to convince one or two people that there is more than one factor at play here, worst case people will associate you with Boeing in a way that helps neither. Finally, it is none of my business but ex-employees often hold stock in their former employer, if it should ever come out that you hold Boeing stock that would be held against you, so I really hope that is not the case.

Clearly it was hard enough that they forgot, repeatedly.