Lion Air flight

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Fred99

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#242470 29-Oct-2018 16:22

A new 737 Max 8 with 188 people on board - it doesn't look hopeful.

Flightaware data shows it flying erratically - not gaining altitude for the last few minutes, and as if it wasn't under control, before descending rapidly and all contact was lost.

This was more or less a brand new plane. Edit to say that there's an unsubstantiated claim that the pilot reported a technical issue, and requested to return. There's no sign of it actually turning before contact was lost.

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#2116374 29-Oct-2018 16:22

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Fred99

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#2126879 14-Nov-2018 22:30

Hmmmm...

https://outline.com/rDfUhL

Goosey

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#2126903 15-Nov-2018 06:29

In my previous long time following of "flight crash investigation" on SKY........

I always saw many a incident that involved air speed sensors.....

All Im saying is... if you wanna play with em then you better be sure about it and if one fails then replace it quick.... (seen too many episodes where they didnt).

tdgeek

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#2126905 15-Nov-2018 06:34

That is a shocker. So much wrong there. They released this a week after, in a standard bulletin, clearly not coincidence. Its one thing for a new aircraft to have an unknown design issue, but another to change the design, and then say you dont need any extra training.

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#2126952 15-Nov-2018 08:56

Goosey:

I always saw many a incident that involved air speed sensors.....

This one seems quite different, as it wasn't in any of the material given to the Airlines for training. Its unique to the MAX model due to its bigger engine sizes which results in a much faster stall speed.

tdgeek

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#2126958 15-Nov-2018 09:07

Sounddude:

Goosey:

I always saw many a incident that involved air speed sensors.....

This one seems quite different, as it wasn't in any of the material given to the Airlines for training. Its unique to the MAX model due to its bigger engine sizes which results in a much faster stall speed.

AND, no extra training if you already know the 737. For a pilot, the MAX is just a 737, except it wasnt as now found

chatterbox

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#2127282 15-Nov-2018 16:26

Hate it how it says “We are confident in the safety of the 737 MAX.”

189 dead people and their families think otherwise

And "the company had decided against disclosing more details to cockpit crews due to concerns about inundating average pilots with too much information—and significantly more technical data—than they needed or could digest."

Passengers put their lives in those "average" pilots hands every day. Boeing denied crew the tools / information to get themselves out of a deadly situation.

This isn't some app that you get to fix after the release when you find out about problems. It seems they were more interested in selling the MAX as 'nothings changed' no extra training.

Never say never

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Fred99

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#2127808 16-Nov-2018 10:15

I expect that there'd be more from the investigation than "Boeing goofed".

The flight data recorder apparently confirms that there'd been a problem with that sensor/system on previous flights. The issue was supposedly fixed (but apparently wasn't?). If there were issues with pilots gaining manual control yet they managed to get the plane back on the ground okay, how did they manage that? What actions were taken etc? Flightradar show data for the previous flight by the plane, the first 11 minutes of data look similar the doomed flight, except they managed to maintain control. From Flightradar:

I guess there are lots of unanswered questions, about pilot training, maintenance, procedures etc. It doesn't give me a lot of confidence in Lion Air, regardless of the issue with Boeing.

sbiddle

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#2127835 16-Nov-2018 11:13

There are two very distinct issues here.

Boeing have changed the way the stall protection works on the MAX and there appears to have been a fault with the pitot tubes and sensors on the aircraft that may have been providing incorrect data.

It would seem based on what we know so far that as a result of incorrect data the plane has entered a dive to prevent a stall and the pilots have potentially not taken the appropriate action which would have prevented the crash.

What is very clear from past incidents in that part of the world is that the pilots are not up to the same standard of training that many Western airlines would have. It doesn't take a lot of skill to get a plane from A to B these days, but that doesn't mean you really know how to fly the plane or deal with an emergency.

networkn

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#2127845 16-Nov-2018 11:19

This is really scary. Most traditional thinking is that planes don't just "fall out of the sky" but in this instance and in theory, others, it quite possibly could.

I am a nervous flyer despite having taken hundreds of flights over my 40 years. I have only really had one "close" call, but even then it wasn't THAT close.

I am the guy white knuckling it, every time the plane makes an unexpected speed increase, decrease, sharp adjustment or unexpected sound. NC headphones have helped a fair bit, but I am still "hyper vigilant".

Last night flying back from Wellington, we had one of the fastest descents I've experienced, it literally felt we were doing a million miles an hour and sounded like it too.

I don't fully understand what happened, was it a speed sensor failure? Aren't there like 6 of them on modern planes for redundancy? Did they all report the wrong thing?

It's scary. What's even as scary is the way Boeing announced the "issue" in a bulletin. Seems like it should have been one of those emergency notifications.

alasta

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#2127846 16-Nov-2018 11:19

On Airbus aircraft inconsistent pitot, static port and AOA readings usually engage direct or alternate law, which effectively disengages the flight envelope protection.

I would have thought that Boeing would have implemented something similar?

networkn

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#2127852 16-Nov-2018 11:22

alasta:

On Airbus aircraft inconsistent pitot, static port and AOA readings usually engage direct or alternate law, which effectively disengages the flight envelope protection.

I would have thought that Boeing would have implemented something similar?

I have no idea what you just wrote :)

Disengaging the anything protection doesn't sound like a good idea :)

empacher48

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#2127859 16-Nov-2018 11:28

sbiddle:
It would seem based on what we know so far that as a result of incorrect data the plane has entered a dive to prevent a stall and the pilots have potentially not taken the appropriate action which would have prevented the crash.

From what I’ve read so far is that the appropriate action to prevent the crash is in the manuals the pilots have access to (buried in a book no less than 5,500 pages long), however the situation the crew found themselves in and what they had to do to stop it were not immediately obvious.

What they tried to do, and what every pilot in the world has been trained to do in this situation has made the problem worse.

There are more questions to ask, and more answers to be uncovered as I believe from what I’ve read, we don’t know everything yet about this.

hairy1

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#2127860 16-Nov-2018 11:29

alasta:

On Airbus aircraft inconsistent pitot, static port and AOA readings usually engage direct or alternate law, which effectively disengages the flight envelope protection.

I would have thought that Boeing would have implemented something similar?

Not in all cases.

My views (except when I am looking out their windows) are not those of my employer.

networkn

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#2127861 16-Nov-2018 11:33

I'm certainly no expert, pilot and so my comments are made from a laypersons perspective, however, if the plane went into a dive, surely "pull up, pull up" would have been screaming at them from the cockpit computer.

The simulation I saw (that admittedly I don't know if accurate" was that the plane went into the ocean nose first at a VERY steep angle. Maybe there just wasn't the height to bring it out of the dive or something.

I would imagine, that if the plane dives, it builds up speed, which if you can get the plane to somewhat of an angle, gets wind under the wings to provide lift.

It's obviously, much more complicated than that, I am just struggling to understand how a plane hits the ocean nose first like that (if the simulation was accurate).

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