Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/03/12/australia-singapore-china-gr.html
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Good thing the US is cutting back on inspections. Who knows what we might have found?
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It will be our final bell, humankind’s terminus.
Blue screen of death.
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I just hope that some plane doesn’t go down here, since neither the FAA or the airlines that have these seem willing to do anything about it right now. I get that air travel is still safer than other forms, but the stakes when a plane does go down is generally higher.
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So, instead of making the logical decision to ground the planes to find the problem U.S. politicians are apparently gambling that another accident won’t happen before Boeing pushes a software patch. (admitting there IS a problem)
Boeing is so far up trump’s ass that even if there was a specific issue with the 737 we’d probably never know.
“There’s no technical trigger for a grounding order. Instead, it’s a judgment call by the department in question, complicated by the fact that the FAA currently doesn’t have a permanent administrator. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, who’s responsible for the agency and whose views would probably be decisive, seems to be taking a wait-and-see approach. Boeing’s Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg, meanwhile, has worked hard to be close to President Donald Trump, who could decide the issue one way or another with a single tweet. There’s no technical trigger for a grounding order. Instead, it’s a judgment call by the department in question, complicated by the fact that the FAA currently doesn’t have a permanent administrator. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, who’s responsible for the agency and whose views would probably be decisive, seems to be taking a wait-and-see approach. Boeing’s Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg, meanwhile, has worked hard to be close to President Donald Trump, who could decide the issue one way or another with a single tweet.” -Bloomberg
Safety or stock options? Hmmmm
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Air travel, the next overwhelmingly safe thing to be turned into a divisive, dangerous, explosive culture war by short-term corporate priorities and perverse political incentives.
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This has ‘complex systems defect’ written all over it - a bug that doesn’t show up in unit or system testing, but shows up randomly in the field due to some strange/unanticipated combination of interacting states and factors. The 737 flight platform and airframe are amazingly solid and well tested - this is not likely a flaw or problem with the overall platform - but the newer block aircraft have all new software and a very complicated avionics network - there’s bound to be some edge cases where stuff goes sideways, and in an aircraft flight control system that’s a pretty bad thing. No FAA Administrator isn’t making this any easier because Boeing execs will always follow the path of least resistance.
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Add the UK to the list.
Statement: Boeing 737 MAX Aircraft.
The UK Civil Aviation Authority has issued instructions to stop any commercial passenger flights from any operator arriving, departing or overflying UK airspace.
You can read the full update online: https://t.co/xa1BUR7wJk pic.twitter.com/AsmhLElF0K
— UK Civil Aviation Authority (@UK_CAA) March 12, 2019
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VLADIMIR: But we have to solve this problem!
ESTRAGON: What’s causing the problem?
VLADIMIR: The problems emerge from the incomprehensible complexity of the system.
ESTRAGON: Make it less complex.
VLADIMIR: Impossible.
ESTRAGON: OK. I guess we have to live with the risk.
VLADIMIR: But we have to solve this problem!
ESTRAGON: What’s causing the problem?
VLADIMIR: The problems emerge from the incomprehensible complexity of the system.
ESTRAGON: Make it less complex.
VLADIMIR: Impossible.
ESTRAGON: OK. I guess we have to live with the risk.
VLADIMIR: But we have to solve this problem!
ESTRAGON: What’s causing the problem?
VLADIMIR: The problems emerge from the incomprehensible complexity of the system.
ESTRAGON: Make it less complex.
VLADIMIR: Impossible.
ESTRAGON: OK. I guess we have to live with the risk.
VLADIMIR: But we have to solve this problem!
ESTRAGON: What’s causing the problem?
VLADIMIR: The problems emerge from the incomprehensible complexity of the system.
ESTRAGON: Make it less complex.
VLADIMIR: Imposs
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I didn’t know about the original thing until i played Fallout 76, which has a reference to the chatbots. I was confused by the random encounter so i looked up what it was about
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Former NTSB official: ‘I’m not sure if I would put my children on a 737 MAX this morning’ TheHill
Anybody get the feeling the FAA is in Boeing’s pocket?
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Indeed. And this will be hard enough to solve without all the mindless posturing and pressure by their execs.
POZZO: Get back to work, lazy programmer - oh, see how my stock suffers for your incompetence?!
Honestly, this kind of critical system shouldn’t be that complex, and certainly not ‘incomprehensibly’ so.
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if it’s Boeing, I ain’t going.
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My friend does QA for Rolls Royce jet engines. He’s apparently good at his job, but if you met him, you would never feel comfortable flying again.
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On Lion Air flight 610’s deadly crash into the Java Sea on 2018-11-27:
Boeing 737 pilots battled confused safety system that plunged aircraft to their deaths – black box
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Add France, Icelandair, Norwegian Air, Turkish Air… live updates at https://twitter.com/flightradar24
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Welcome back, Captain!
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Boing Boeing
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From the second article you linked:
Peter Lemme, a longtime aeronautics exec and consultant who analyzed the early reports, estimates this month that the pilots fought with the MCAS system, pulling the plane’s nose up 26 times before finally losing control and crashing the 737 into the Java Sea at more than 450 knots.
That’s about the most terrifying thing I’ve read in a long time. The software crashed the plane and the pilots were helpless.
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