Apertem os cintos… A Boeing está falindo!
Para que fique claro o que estou afirmando, vou repetir: se não for salva pelos contribuintes americanos, a Boeing vai quebrar
4 de novembro de 2019
10:39 - atualizado às 15:46
Miniatura de Boeing 737 MAX em exposição em Moscou em julho de 2017 - Imagem: Shutterstock
D
urante o fim de semana, troquei diversos e-mails e WhatsApps com um comandante de Boeings 777 de uma importante companhia aérea asiática. Assunto: crise da The Boeing Company, que inevitavelmente a levará à falência se não for encampada pelo governo americano.
Para que fique claro o que estou afirmando, vou repetir: se não for salva pelos contribuintes americanos, a Boeing vai quebrar.
Meu amigo piloto encaminhou um artigo de 110 páginas cujo título é: Why Boeing is Going... The Deadly Path from Blackmail to Bankruptcy (Por que a Boeing está indo… O caminho mortal da chantagem para a falência).
O autor da matéria, David Spring, é professor da Universidade de Washington. Pela qualidade técnica de sua argumentação, vê-se que conhece o assunto. Estou me referindo ao trágico Boeing 737 Max.
Como se sabe, dois Max, um da Lion Air, da Indonésia, e o outro da Ethiopian Airlines, ambos novos em folha, caíram em circunstâncias idênticas, logo após a decolagem, com um intervalo de 132 dias entre um desastre e outro.
Em resposta, diversas companhias aéreas que já haviam incorporado o Max em suas frotas imediatamente suspenderam os voos da aeronave, antes mesmo que a Boeing e a FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) determinassem essa interdição.
Agora, o Senado americano está investigando o que realmente aconteceu com os Max e a verdade começa a surgir à tona.
O projeto Max é um Frankenstein. Como a aeronave tinha um defeito sério de concepção, numa tentativa canhestra de saná-lo, os motores foram deslocados 30,5 centímetros para a frente e outros 30,5 para cima. Disso resultou um jato aerodinamicamente ingovernável.
Para corrigir o defeito do defeito, a Boeing criou um sistema automático de controle de voo chamado MCAS. Mas decidiu não dar conhecimento de sua existência aos pilotos, excluindo-o do manual do Max (1.600 páginas). Por um cochilo, se esqueceram de tirar a sigla do glossário ao final do livro de instruções.
No momento, há aproximadamente 500 Max em poder das companhias aéreas que os adquiriram, imobilizados no solo. Outros 1.514 já fabricados, atulham os pátios de estacionamento (inclusive os de automóveis dos empregados) da Boeing em Seattle e de boa parte dos aeroportos do estado de Washington (noroeste dos Estados Unidos).
Como desgraça pouca é bobagem, descobriu-se agora que os Boeings 737 NG (Next Generation, parece piada), que compreendem os modelos 737-700, 737-800 e 737-900, estão apresentando fissuras na estrutura.
A Gol, por exemplo, interditou 11 NGs, além de sete Max há meses no solo. Diversas companhias aéreas estão imobilizando parte de seus NGs. Entre elas, a Koreian Air, a Ryanair e a Qantas. É questão de dias que outras empresas façam isso também.
Até o surgimento da crise atual, os 737 representavam 80% das vendas da Boeing Company, uma das componentes do índice Industrial Dow Jones de 30 ações. Trata-se da oitava em valor de mercado: US$ 211 bilhões.
Quando a Boeing falir, pedir concordata ou for estatizada (hipótese esta última que considero a mais provável), teremos um tombaço na Bolsa de Valores de Nova York, que acabará repercutindo na daqui.
O mercado está varrendo esse problema para baixo do tapete. Não por muito tempo.
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Why Boeing is Going… The Deadly Path from Blackmail to ...
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25 de mai. de 2019 - Boeing is going… The deadly path from blackmail to bankruptcy” is the most detailed study ever published on the problems of the Boeing 737 ...
A Special Report from Turning Point News dot org David Spring M. Ed. May 25, 2019 Why Boeing is Going... Table of Contents 1 Introduction… Deadly by Design...................................................................3 2 The Biggest Lie about MCAS.........................................................................7 3 Why Boeing only used one Angle of Attack AOA Sensor.............................21 4 Why the Plan to Reduce the Power of MCAS will lead to more crashes.....25 5 What Happened during the 2016 737 Max Test Flights...............................29 6 Calculating the Odds of the Next 737 MAX Crash.......................................55 7 Corruption as a Business Model..................................................................62 8 The Thin Line from Financial Success to Financial Disaster.......................84 9 Questions for 737 Max Lawsuit Depositions................................................97 10 The Case for Public Ownership of Boeing...............................................107 Why Boeing is Going Page 1 Welcome to our special 109 page report which explains for the first time why the Boeing 737 Max is such an unstable airplane that it crashed twice during its first two years of operation – killing a total of 346 people. This report, called “Why Boeing is going… The deadly path from blackmail to bankruptcy” is the most detailed study ever published on the problems of the Boeing 737 Max. The report explains step by step how Boeing made a trillion dollar error - inadvertently creating a plane that is so unstable that is literally designed to crash. This is not a problem that can be fixed with any software patch. This report provides evidence that it was not merely a flawed MCAS program or a flawed angle of attack sensor or flawed pilot training that led to two devastating crashes. While these were contributing factors, none of these facts explain why Boeing engineers were compelled to increase MCAS from 0.6 degrees to 2.5 degrees after field testing the 737 Max in 2016. In this report, I explain why it is likely that one of the most complex forces in all of nature, a force called turbulence, was responsible for the need to radically change MCAS. I provide calculations showing that moving the new LEAP engine one foot forward and one foot higher than it was placed on the previous version of the 737 leads to a sudden increase in turbulence when the angle of attack exceeds 15 degrees. This hidden instability problem means that no change in MCAS can ever make the 737 MAX a safe plane. In fact, reducing the power of MCAS will actually increase the odds of another 737 Max crash in the coming years. The only solution to this turbulence problem is a complete recall of all 737 Max planes. Unfortunately, because each 737 Max costs $100 million, a recall of all 500 737 Max planes currently in existence would cost Boeing $50 billion – in addition to losing the opportunity to produce 10,000 more planes over time – for a total loss of over one trillion dollars. These are losses Boeing simply cannot afford. Therefore, a complete recall of all 737 Max planes will likely lead to the bankruptcy of Boeing. As Boeing is one of the oldest and largest corporations in the world, the bankruptcy of Boeing will have ripple effects felt through out the world for years to come. Why Boeing is Going Page 2 1 Introduction… Deadly by Design This is a story the corporate media does not want you to know. It is an article about the demise of a once great airplane manufacturer. Many people are wondering how Boeing executives could have made such bad decisions that led directly to the death of 346 people. This report will explain why the 737 Max problem is not merely a software problem. The real problem can not be fixed by any software patch. The plain truth is that Boeing placed short-sighted greed above human lives. This extreme greed led Boeing to built a plane that is so unstable it is literally designed to crash. Below is all that is left of an Ethiopian Boeing 737 Max that killed all 157 people who placed their trust in Boeing. Boeing continues to place short term corporate profit above the safety of people. Therefore, more 737 Max planes will crash. More deaths will occur. Soon, no one will want to fly on a Boeing plane. Then, some day soon, Boeing will be out of business. Boeing is a corporation recently valued at more than $250 billion dollars. But once the truth comes out, Boeing may have no value left at all. This will not matter to the people who made these terrible decisions. These corporate executives will have made millions of dollars in compensation and stock options. And thanks to our extremely corrupt government, none of them will go to jail. Why Boeing is Going Page 3 Below is all that is left of an Indonesian Boeing 737 Max that killed all 189 people who placed their trust in Boeing. In this article, I explain the history of how Boeing executives were seduced by short term greed, combined with extreme arrogance, to make such incredibly bad long term decisions. This is an important story because Boeing is not the only corporation that has been seduced by the desire to maximize short term profits. Boeing is not the only corporation to have corrupted democracy by buying politicians. My hope is that by telling this sad history, others may change course before their corporation suffers a similar fate. And I hope that voters will become wiser about the people they elect to represent us. For more than ten years, I have written articles about a culture of corruption in the upper management of Boeing. I and many others have predicted that this would not turn out well. Now the lust for short term profits that was inbreed in the Boeing culture of corruption has turned into a fatal virus called the Boeing 737 Max – a virus that has so infected its host that the case is now terminal. This article will explain why Boeing is going. There is no cure for the 737 Max. Thus, there is no cure for Boeing. Why Boeing is Going Page 4 I am not happy to be proven right about the fatal flaws of the lies, greed and arrogance of Boeing upper management. My grandparents moved to Seattle in the 1930s to work at Boeing. Both of my grandparents knew Bill Boeing first hand. My grandfather helped start the Machinists Union at Boeing. Both of my parents grew up at Highpoint – a community not far from Boeing Field and built by Bill Boeing for his workers. I was born in Seattle not far from Boeing Field. My aunt also worked for Boeing. I still have several more distant family members who work for Boeing. Many of my friends work for Boeing. And hundreds of my former students have worked for Boeing – some at Renton, some at Bellevue, some in Seattle and some in Everett. They are all about to lose there jobs. If you think this is an exaggeration, then you need to keep reading. Things at Boeing right now are not just bad. They are worse than your worst nightmare. The full truth is not yet out. I am in a unique position to summarize the deeper and darker layers of this problem. It is not merely that I have been writing about Boeing corruption for years or that I know a lot about the inside story of problems at Boeing. It is that I have instructed courses in Problem Solving at Bellevue College for 20 years. I often used Boeing in my college courses as an extreme example of what happens when short term greed is placed above the long term interests of workers and the public. I also have a degree in Science Education, including a major in Physics. I have taken courses in aerodynamics. I understand the complex equations of how planes fly. When I say that the Boeing 737 Max is the most dangerous commercial airplane ever built, I am not saying it to be mean. I am saying it because it is a fact. As I explain further below, the 737 Max is a very unstable plane. It was badly designed – so badly designed that it can not be fixed by any software program. Boeing and their accomplices at the FAA are simply misleading the public and investors on this issue when they pretend that the 737 Max only needs a software patch. One thing humans have trouble understanding is the consequences of events that have low probability but highly adverse outcomes. Plane crashes are different from car crashes in that when a car crashes, typically only a few people are killed. A fatal car crash barely makes the newspapers. Why Boeing is Going Page 5 But when a Boeing commercial jet crashes, close to two hundred people are killed and the event makes the news all over the world. Plane crashes are extremely bad advertising. It does not matter than 10,000 Boeing planes were in the air that day and only one of them crashed. People have vivid imaginations. People make emotional not rational decisions. If people know that they can fly on a well designed, stable and safe Airbus 320 Neo or fly on a poorly designed, unstable and dangerous Boeing 737 Max, they will either fly on the Airbus or they will not fly at all. Price is no object when your life is at risk. The day the public finally finds out about the real danger of the 737 Max, is coming because the 737 Max is a terribly designed Frankenstein airplane – unlike any other commercial airplane ever built. In this article, we will show that the new LEAP engines were simply placed too far above the wing. This is the problem that cannot be fixed by a software patch. This is the real danger being hidden from the public. Instead of scrapping this plane, it is likely that by August 2019, the FAA will approve the software patch. Once the FAA allows this plane back up in the sky, there will be more crashes – just as sure as there is rain in Seattle. Once another 737 max crashes, the public will refuse to fly on this death trap. Then carriers will refuse to buy the 737 Max and demand hundreds of billions in refunds for the hundreds of defective 737 Maxes already in their inventories. Then Boeing will no longer exist. Boeing will go bankrupt. That is how badly the Max was designed. It is a deadly design that not only kills people – it is a financial death trap that will kill the entire Boeing corporation. At this point, Boeing executives have made so many fatal errors that there is no longer any way to stop this series of deadly events. In this article, we will explain a few of the most important errors that led to the death of not only hundreds of people – but the death of one of the world’s oldest plane makers. We will explain why the Boeing 737 Max is likely the most dangerous commercial airplane ever produced. Barely two years after it was introduced, there have been two horrific crashes that killed a total of 346 people. So much for the Introduction. Now for the deadly details. We will go over the financial collapse facts later in this report. First, we will review the technical collapse – the unfixable design problems - that led to the 737 Max, doomed hundreds of people to a horrible death and soon will doom Boeing itself. Why Boeing is Going Page 6 2 The Biggest Lie about MCAS Most articles on the two Boeing 737 Max plane crashes have only scratched the surface of what happened or why these two planes crashed in nearly identical death dives. The corporate media would have you believe that some out of control computer programmer at Boeing wrote a bad software program called MCAS. This software programmer was so dumb that he or she failed to anticipate that the program might get a bad reading from a defective Angle of Attack (AOA) sensor located at the front of the 737 Max (as we will explain below, these sensors have been giving bad readings for years and everyone other then the public knew about it). But back to the “simple” story told by the corporate media. MCAS was intended to keep the nose of the plane from going so high that it would stall. But instead of MCAS pushing the nose back down into a safe, level position, MCAS was badly written by our villain - the crazy computer programmer. MCAS went haywire and took over control of both planes – forcing both of them into a steep dive – causing them to crash into either the ocean or the desert. End of story. According to this story, all Boeing needs to do is to have wiser computer programmers make the MCAS program less aggressive with a software patch. Boeing will then explain to pilots how MCAS works (especially how to turn MCAS off if it goes berserk again). Boeing will also use two of these unreliable sensors instead of only one - and the problem will be solved. To reassure the public that the 737 Max is safe, the FAA will require Boeing and their highly experienced pilots to fly the 737 Max more than 100 times with this new patch. These test flights will not crash because these experienced pilots will stay below the deadly angle of attack. The FAA will then rubber stamp their approval of the new MCAS program just like they did with the old MCAS program. As they say in the Mafia, the fix is already in. Passengers will then be lured back into flying on this unstable plane - – at least until the next 737 Max crash in a ball of fire. But if you want to know the truth about how to protect yourself and your loved ones from a horrific death, then keep reading. You are in for a real shock. I am sure that by the end of this report, you will agree that another 737 Max crash is inevitable. Why Boeing is Going Page 7 The first question that is rarely asked by the corporate media (or if it is asked is only superficially answered) is why the Boeing 737 Max needed the deadly MCAS program in the first place? This important question is typically brushed off with a couple of sentences about how the new engines were too big to fit under the wings and so the engines had to be moved forward and up a few inches. Moving the engines caused the nose of the plane to rise too much – which might lead to a stall and loss of control of the plane. MCAS was added to “fix this problem” and prevent the nose from going too high. All of these sentences have a grain of truth. But they are also hiding some rather ugly facts about the real origins and purpose of MCAS. For example, did you know that moving such heavy engines that far forward and that far up had never been done before on any commercial airline in the history of aviation? Because this monster had never existed before, there was no way of accurately determining the effect this huge gamble would have. It was like going to Vegas and betting a trillion dollars (as well as hundreds of lives) on the roll of the dice – only to have the dice come up snake eyes. It is amazing how such an important detail is rarely if ever mentioned by the corporate media. Instead the press, the FAA and Boeing all act as if moving the engine one foot forward and one foot up on the airplane was no different than changing the seating arrangements to fit a few more seats on the plane. We will later review the convoluted history of why and how such an extreme design change was needed. For now, all you need to know is that MCAS was created to address a problem whose true magnitude was not really know until the first prototypes of the 737 Max were flown in 2016. When Boeing learned that their gamble had come up snake eyes, there was so much money on the line that Boeing was forced to hide the truth from the FAA, from airline carriers and from airline pilots and even from their own test pilots. Boeing was boxed into a corner. They were forced to Double Down on MCAS. Boeing never intended to increase the power of MCAS from 0.6 degrees to 2.5 degrees. But they were FORCED to make this change. This is the important hidden back story that has not yet been revealed. This is the biggest lie about MCAS. Why Boeing is Going Page 8 Why Boeing Lied to the FAA about MCAS To see what really happened, let’s take a closer look at one of the most shocking admissions by Boeing – that Boeing lied to the FAA and to Airline Carriers and to pilots about the real function and degree of control that MCAS was designed to use when taking over the 737 Max. Boeing initially hid MCAS entirely from air carriers and pilots. They also deliberately misled the FAA about MCAS. Initially, from 2015 to November 2018 (one full month after the Indonesian Crash), Boeing told the FAA that MCAS was merely an optional feature that, if it was ever triggered, would only change the angle of the airplane stabilizer (also known as the tail wing flaps) by less than one degree – specifically 0.6 degrees. This was described in a now infamous 2015 report to the FAA written by Boeing and called the System Safety Analysis for MCAS. This document, written by Boeing as part of the FAA Certification process, has never been shared with the public. But it has been described in several reports. To the public, 0.6 degrees does not sound like much. But someone at the FAA either knew or should have known that tail wing flaps exert a huge level arm effect on the rest of the airplane. This means that a very small change at the back of the plane can result in a very large change at the front of the plane. Understanding this lever arm effect is crucial to understanding why the pilots of the two 737 Max planes were not able to stop the planes from crashing despite their best efforts. A better way to look at the 0.6 degree change made by MCAS is to compare it to the maximum possible change of the tail wing flap – which is 5 degrees. A 5 degree change in the stabilizer or tail wing flap is capable of causing the plane to go in a steep 40 degree dive because the lever arm is about 8 to 1. This is why both 737 Maxes were at a 40 degree nose down angle when they crashed. It is likely that the stabilizer tail flaps for both planes were forced into the maximum 5 degree nose down position by their malfunctioning MCAS systems when they crashed. MCAS mis- setting of the tail flaps combined with this 8 to 1 lever arm is what ultimately caused both crashes. Below is a crude drawing which attempts to show how small changes in the very back of the plane can have huge effects at the front of the plane due to this 8 to 1 lever arm. Why Boeing is Going Page 9 The green downward pointing arrow is the all important Center of Gravity of the plane. Think of the wings of this plane as the center of a teeter totter which has a very long end on one side – the tail. A very small change or push up of 5 degrees on the tail of the plane can cause a very steep 40% dive at the nose of the above plane. Therefore, when Boeing told the FAA that MCAS would only change the back flap by 0.6 degrees, what they were really saying was that MCAS would lower the nose of the plane by 8 times 0.6 degrees or 4.8 degrees. Put more simply, each time MCAS was automatically activated, the plane would automatically take about a 5 degree nose dive. This at least was the initial plan. The initial MCAS plan was dangerous enough. But Boeing next did something almost unspeakably dangerous. In 2016, when the first 737 Max was produced and subjected to testing, Boeing learned that the actual 737 Max was much more unstable than its designers had initially predicted. According to Wikipedia, the first 737 Max performed its first flight on January 29, 2016. These early Boeing test flights of the first four 737 Max planes in 2016 revealed that the new 737 Max was much more unstable than original estimates that Boeing had provided to the FAA in a 2015 report. It is stunning that the 0.6 degrees of adjustment originally planned for MCAS would not be enough. Boeing therefore increased the MCAS adjustment from 0.6 degrees to 2.5 degrees – about four times more than the original estimate given to the FAA. Ask yourself: Why did Boeing not just change MCAS to 1 degree or 2 degrees? Why Boeing is Going Page 10 Once again, the public is being misled as 2.5 degrees would not seem to be that much. But the public is used to thinking in terms of a 360 degree circle. Instead, you need to think in terms of the 8 to 1 lever arm that the change in the tail flap has on the front of the plane. A 2.5 degree change in the back flaps (at a rate of one degree every four seconds) will change the angle in the front of the plane by 8 times 2.5 degrees or 20 degrees. This 20 degree change occurs over a period of just under 10 seconds. This is a huge and shocking change for any airplane. Here is the description from a March 17 2019 Seattle Times article about the 2015 Boeing report called the System Safety Analysis for MCAS: “The original Boeing document provided to the FAA included a description specifying a limit to how much the system could move the horizontal tail — a limit of 0.6 degrees, out of a physical maximum of just less than 5 degrees of nose-down movement…. That (MCAS) limit was later increased after flight tests showed that a more powerful movement of the tail was required to avert a high-speed stall, when the plane is in danger of losing lift and spiraling down… After the Lion Air Flight 610 crash, Boeing for the first time provided to airlines details about MCAS. Boeing’s bulletin to the airlines stated that the limit of MCAS’s command was 2.5 degrees...That number was new to FAA engineers who had seen 0.6 degrees in the safety assessment.” “The FAA believed the airplane was designed to the 0.6 limit, and that’s what the foreign regulatory authorities thought, too,” said an FAA engineer. “The numbers should match whatever design was tested and fielded.” Why Boeing is Going Page 11 “The former FAA safety engineer who worked on the MAX certification, and a former Boeing flight controls engineer who worked on the MAX as an authorized representative of the FAA, both said that such safety analyses are required to be updated to reflect the most accurate aircraft information following flight tests.” https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/failed-certification-faamissed-safety-issues-in-the-737-max-system-implicated-in-the-lion-air-crash/ A later article added that even the Boeing test pilots who tested the 737 Max in 2016 were never told about the increase in the power of MCAS from 0.6 degrees to 2.5 degrees. This raises the likelihood that the more powerful MCAS system was never subjected to adequate field testing before the first commercial 737 Max was shoved out the door in the middle of 2017. It is also likely that due to the rush to make the 737 Max, that neither the new engine placement or the new more powerful MCAS system were ever tested in a wind tunnel. It is also likely that Boeing never updated their System Safety Analysis for MCAS – as was required by law. In short, the 737 Max was certified under false pretenses. The MCAS Monster is turned into an Infinite Loop The FAA, Airline Carriers and pilots were also never told that an Infinite Loop repeating function had been added to MCAS sometime after the System Safety Analysis for MCAS was provided by Boeing to the FAA in 2015. Boeing was so concerned about the extreme instability of the 737 Max that they also added an infinite loop repeat function to MCAS – forcing MCAS to repeat the 2.5 degree nose drop every ten seconds. With the Indonesian crash, this MCAS fatal loop repeated 11 times before the plane crashed. The Ethiopian plane was subjected to 5 cycles of this stupidity before it dived into the desert. MCAS will nose drive to 10 seconds and then pause for 5 seconds and then repeat the 2.5 degree nose dive process. Thus, in as little as 25 seconds a 737 Max – by design - can go from a normal level flying position to a 40 degree death dive. On July 5 2017, not knowing any of these facts about MCAS, the FAA certified the Boeing 737 Max including MCAS in the following legal document: https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/draft_docs/media/afx/FSBR_B737_Rev17_draft.pdf Why Boeing is Going Page 12 This document was then updated on April 17 2019 – apparently as a backdoor certification of the revised MCAS settings. Here is a quote from this document: “The purpose of this revision is to add the B-737-7, B-737-8200, and Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). In Appendix 3, the Design Differences Table from the Boeing 737-800 to the Boeing 737-8 is revised to include ATA 27 Flight Controls addition of MCAS… The evaluation was conducted during August 2016… In March 2019, the FSB conducted an evaluation of the modified Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) for training and checking differences determination. The system enhancement is incorporated on all MAX series aircraft. The MCAS system was found to be operationally suitable.” This FAA report is a prime example of FAA rubber stamping whatever Boeing wants. Why the FAA had to be kept in the dark about the more powerful MCAS There is no way the FAA would have approved such a powerful new MCAS device had they known about it in 2016. There is no way any airline carrier would have bought such an unstable plane had they known about it. This is why Boeing had to keep this new more powerful MCAS program a secret. This is why Boeing never told the FAA about the change in MCAS until November 2018 - a full month after the Indonesian crash. How Pilots were kept in the dark A pilot for a US airline told managers months before October’s Lion Air crash in Indonesia that he was uncomfortable with the level of training he had received before he was scheduled to fly the Boeing 737 Max for the first time. But when he asked for more training, he faced difficulties in getting it—and even a form of reprimand. Like pilots at other US airlines using the 737 Max—which has been involved in two deadly crashes in less than five months that have killed nearly 350 people—this pilot was only required by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to take a two hour video tutorial on the new jet, as he was already certified to fly earlier variants of the 737 aircraft, on which the Max is based. This video tutorial did not even mention MCAS. Why Boeing is Going Page 13 https://qz.com/1584233/boeing-737-max-what-happened-when-one-us-pilotasked-for-more-training/ The pilot told his superiors he wasn’t comfortable flying the plane and requested simulator training. “I was going to see the airplane for the first time 45 minutes before departure, and have 45 minutes to adjust to this new aircraft, after which I was going to have 189 people in the back that I was responsible for,” he said. “So I filed a report with the company that I’m not comfortable flying as a pilot in command of this.” His simulator request was denied as the carrier didn’t have simulators for the Max—even now, few airlines have Max simulators ready for training. A request to fly with an instructor the first time was also denied initially. Eventually, after a 45-minute conversation with the head of the airline’s 737 training department, he said the airline agreed that he could fly with an instructor on his first Max flight, which was scheduled for July between two US west coast cities. “When we arrived in Los Angeles there was no instructor and so I called the flight duty manager to ask where the instructor was and he said he’d call back,” said the pilot. A few minutes later his chief pilot called him to say that he was off the trip if he was unwilling to fly. “I was punished not just from being taken off the trip and having the pay subtracted from me but by having a ‘missed trip’ put in my schedule, which is the same as same as not showing up for the trip,” he said. “I’ve never had a missed trip and I was shocked that even though I was sitting in the seat in the airplane when I was taken off the trip, that I was given a missed trip.” The missed trip amounted to about $3,000 in lost pay, as well as being a black mark on his record of reliability. He raised the issue with the union, and filed Why Boeing is Going Page 14 reports internally and with the FAA. As information about his experience percolated to other pilots, several told him they had shared his concerns on training for the Max. “After this happened it became pretty well known, and since then I’ve probably had, I’m going to guess, 50 pilots speak to me,” he said. The video tutorial assigned to pilots before the Lion Air crash did not cover a new anti-stall flight system capable of sharply pointing the plane downward. That system is called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, for short. Another vital change linked to the new system—that a control column to counteract such maneuvers would no longer work as it used to—was also not communicated to pilots. The pilot said his concerns about the 737 Max—which he eventually flew for the first time only in December, less than two months after the Lion Air crash, with an instructor who had also previously not flown the aircraft either—deepened after the Ethiopian disaster. “I assume every 737 pilot in the world was briefed extensively after the Lion Air crash” to deal with automatic nose-down maneuvers by the flight system, he said. “So I kind of harbor a secret concern that maybe there’s something bigger than this and maybe just turning off [switches to override MCAS] isn’t going to fix the problem. I hope that’s not correct, I hope it will, but part of me says that it’s bigger than that and it’s not going to work.” The Wall Street Journal reported this week that black-box data shows the Ethiopian pilots had carried out steps recommended by Boeing and the FAA in the wake of the Lion Air crash. But they were unable to get the plane to climb again, and appear to have reversed some of them. The plane crashed six minutes after takeoff. Separately, a NASA-run database of confidential safety reports from US pilots recorded complaints from at least two pilots who flew the Max who said that they experienced the plane’s nose pitching down when they were in autopilot, which they were able to stop by shutting off autopilot. However MCAS is not supposed to activate when pilots are in autopilot mode—only when they are in manual flight mode. Boeing said it could not comment on those reports. Why Boeing is Going Page 15 According to Reuters, the doomed Lion Air cockpit voice recorder revealed how pilots scoured a manual in a losing battle to figure out why they were hurtling down to sea. Boeing didn’t tell Southwest Airlines and other carriers when they began flying its 737 MAX jets that a safety feature found on earlier models that warns pilots about malfunctioning sensors had been deactivated, according to government and industry officials. Here is a statement from Southwest Airline issued on April 28 2019: “Upon delivery (prior to the Lion Air event), the AOA Disagree lights were depicted to us by Boeing as operable on all MAX aircraft, regardless of the selection of optional AOA Indicators on the Primary Flight Display (PFD). The manual documentation presented by Boeing at Southwest’s MAX entry into service indicated the AOA Disagree Light functioned on the aircraft, similar to the Lights on our NG series. After the Lion Air event, Boeing notified us that the AOA Disagree Lights were inoperable without the optional AOA Indicators on the MAX aircraft. At that time, Southwest installed the AOA Indicators on the PFD, resulting in the activation of the AOA Disagree lights - both items now serve as an additional crosscheck on all MAX aircraft.” Southwest’s cockpit crews and management didn’t know about the change for more than a year after the planes went into service. They and most other airlines operating the Max globally learned about it only after the fatal Lion Air crash last year led to scrutiny of the plane’s revised design. “Southwest’s own manuals were wrong” about the status of the alerts, said Southwest pilots union president, Jon Weaks. Since Boeing hadn’t communicated the modification to the carrier, the manuals still reflected incorrect information. The FAA did not respond to a query on whether, prior to the Lion Air crash, US pilots had expressed concern to the regulator about the level of training they had received on the Max. Why Boeing is Going Page 16 Did Boeing Turn off Pilot Access to an Essential Safety Feature? Boeing clearly wanted MCAS to run as a secret and independent process to prevent what Boeing correctly interpreted as a huge and dangerous risk of a 737 Max nose up stall. However, according to a shocking report from the Seattle Times, Boeing may have inadvertently changed the Controls of a crucial “autodisable” switch in the cockpit of the 737 Max. I have not been able to find any other report to confirm the claims made in this Seattle Times article and I have a hard time believing this claim is true. If it is true, then it borders on criminal negligence. Here is a picture of the switches that Boeing may have altered: Stab Trim Cut-Out Switches Here is the claim made by the Seattle Times: “In the middle of Boeing 737 cockpits, sitting between the pilot seats, are two toggle switches that can immediately shut off power to the systems that control the angle of the plane’s horizontal tail. Those switches are critical in the event a malfunction causes movements that the pilots don’t want. And Boeing sees the toggles as a vital backstop to a new safety system on the 737 MAX – the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) – which is suspected of repeatedly moving the horizontal tails on the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines flights that crashed and killed a total of 346 people. But as Boeing was transitioning from its 737 NG model to the 737 MAX, the company altered the labeling and the purpose of those two switches. The functionality of the switches became more restrictive on the MAX than on previous models, closing out an option that could conceivably have helped the pilots in the Ethiopian Airlines flight regain control. Why Boeing is Going Page 17 Boeing declined to detail the specific functionality of the two switches. But after obtaining and reviewing flight manual documents, The Seattle Times found that the left switch on the 737 NG model is capable of deactivating the buttons on the yoke that pilots regularly press with their thumb to control the horizontal stabilizer. The right switch on the 737 NG was labeled “AUTO PILOT” and is capable of deactivating just the automated controls of the stabilizer. On the newer 737 MAX, according to documents reviewed by The Times, those two switches were changed to perform the same function – flipping either one of them would turn off all electric controls of the stabilizer. That means there is no longer an option to turn off automated functions – such as MCAS – without also turning off the thumb buttons the pilots would normally use to control the stabilizer. Peter Lemme, a former Boeing flight-controls engineer who has been closely scrutinizing the MAX design and first raised questions about the switches on his blog, said he doesn’t understand why Boeing abandoned the old setup. He said if the company had maintained the switch design from the 737 NG, Boeing could have instructed pilots after the Lion Air crash last year to simply flip the “AUTO PILOT” switch to deactivate MCAS and continue flying with the normal trim buttons on the control wheel. He said that would have saved the Ethiopian Airlines plane and the 157 people on board.” The Seattle Times article is behind a pay wall. Here is a link to an article discussing this claim that is not behind a pay wall: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/05/how-deep-is-boeings-hole.html If this claim turns out to be true, then some people at Boeing should go to jail. I disagree that members of the FAA should go to jail because they were in fact kept in the dark for years about the true power of MCAS. Federal Aviation Administration safety inspectors and supervisors were also unaware of the MCAS change. Boeing had a trillion dollars in reasons for keeping the FAA, pilots and airlines in the dark about MCAS. Boeing and the FAA and their airline partners are still keeping the public in the dark about the 737 Max. Why Boeing is Going Page 18 We now know that the jack screws from the horizontal tail stabilizer were recovered from both crashes. Both jack screws showed that the planes had been oriented in a full 40 degree dive position with the nose pointing down. A “screw-like device” found at the scene of the deadly Ethiopian Airlines crash indicates the plane was “configured in a nose dive” when it hit the ground, killing all 157 people on board, Bloomberg News reports. On Thursday, Daniel Elwell, the Federal Aviation Administration’s acting chief, said evidence found at the scene of the disaster led to the US. decision to ground Boeing 737 Max 8 and 9 series planes. “The piece of evidence was a so-called jack screw, used to set the trim that raises and lowers the plane’s nose,” Bloomberg News reports, quoting an unnamed source close to the investigation. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-15/piece-found-in-crashwreckage-said-to-show-jet-was-set-to-dive?srnd=premium Somewhere in this mess, investigators found the Jack screw which was in a full 40 degree nose down position. Why Boeing is Going Page 19 Here is a quote about the Indonesian descent angle: The last ADS-B data that we have from Flightradar24 has the aircraft at an altitude of 425 ft, a ground speed of about 360 knots, and a descent rate of 30,976 fpm. That translates to an approximate true airspeed of 472 knots and a descent angle of about 40 degrees. http://mh370.radiantphysics.com/2018/11/04/crash-debris-from-lion-air-jt610- provides-clues-about-mh370/ Note that when the horizontal stabilizer is pushed up the maximum of 5 degrees, the nose will be pushed down 40 degrees due to an 8 to 1 lever arm. It takes MCAS about 25 seconds to push the jack screw enough to move the stabilizer up 5 degrees – moving the nose down 40 degrees. MCAS had done the job it was intended to do. It had prevented the 737 Max from going into a nose up stall. Sadly, MCAS also put the nose into a 40 degree nose down death dive. Why Boeing is Going Page 20 3 Why Boeing only used one Angle of Attack AOA Sensor One of the primary changes being made by Boeing is to link two Angle of Attack sensors to MCAS. This will do nothing to change the fact that the engines of the 737 Max are in the wrong place. Even the head of the FAA agrees that the Angle of Attack Sensor problem was not the primary cause of the two 737 Max plane crashes. In a Congressional hearing on May 15, 2019, during questions about why the FAA concluded that the angle-of-attack sensor disagree light wasn’t critical to safety, FAA head Elwell claimed that the disagree light is only needed for maintenance purposes: Question: “Should the AOA disagree light be a required feature?” FAA acting chief Daniel Elwell: “No. It is just a maintenance alert. The AOA disagree light is only a service advisory. The AOA disagree light would not have changed the outcome of either accident. “ His statement seems hard to understand given that a defective AOA sensor was clearly involved in at least one and likely both of the 737 Max crashes. While there are two AOA sensors on all Boeing 737 Max planes (and have been ever since the first test flights in the spring of 2016), only one of these sensors is actively connected to MCAS – the sensor on the pilot side of the plane. Here is what the AOA sensors looks like on a 737 Max: Why Boeing is Going Page 21 Here is a close up view of one of these sensors: The AOA sensor is a small wing that can rotate and read the difference between the reference angle of the planes forward motion and the angle of the wind which is assumed to be the same as wind angle at the wing. It should be noted that the Airbus A320 uses three AOA sensors – two similar to the Boeing AOA indicators but made by a more reliable manufacturer – and one under the tail of the plane. Some reports have indicated that Boeing cannot add a third angle of attack sensor under the tail of the plane do to design problems. But I was unable to find a clear explanation of what those design problems were. However, the chief benefit of the Airbus A320 is not the three AOA sensors or the fact that they are using a better AOA sensor supplier with a better track record. The benefit of the A320 Neo is that the engine was properly placed on the plane to avoid excessive nose lift. The lack of excessive nose lift (a better balanced plane) means that the Airbus A320 Neo is much less likely to need the AOA sensors in the first place – no matter how many there are of them. But returning to the question we are considering in this section, we need to ask why Boeing deliberately chose to use one sensor instead of two sensors and why Boeing chose to make the Sensor Difference Light in the cockpit of the 737 Max an optional feature? The answer appears to be that Boeing concluded that the additional light would confuse pilots more than it would help them. An alternate explanation is that Boeing was simply trying to hide MCAS from the FAA, from pilots and from airline carriers. Why Boeing is Going Page 22 Giving Boeing the benefit of the doubt, let’s review why using the readings from two AOA sensors instead of one might confuse pilots and increase the chances of a crash. First, the proper response to a difference in AOA sensor readings is to turn off MCAS and not use it at all. As we explain in a later section, test engineers in 2016 clearly believed that an aggressive MCAS was needed to prevent a stall. Therefore, they viewed the risk of turning off MCAS as being greater than the danger from an inaccurate AOA sensor. Second, if the pilot is in a whiteout, it would be very difficult for an inexperienced pilot to tell which sensor was right and which one was wrong. Third, some circumstances such as icing and strong winds can affect both sensors and cause both of them to have erroneous readings. We do not know what was going through the minds of the Boeing engineers went they decided that one sensor was safer than two sensors in 2016. But what we can know is that these Boeing engineers were not idiots. They instead were clearly very concerned about the danger that using two sensors would increase the odds of pilots turning off MCAS and then getting into a stall. Due to the bad press Boeing has gotten from the two nose dive crashes, they have reversed course. They will now use two sensors instead of one (although the details of how these two sensors will be used has not yet been released). Nor has Boeing ever released the complete analysis their engineers must have conducted when they first decided that one sensor was safer than two sensors. But we cannot assume that two sensors will be any safer than one sensor. They should reduce the odds of a Boeing 737 Max crashing from an extreme nose dive. But as we show later, they will also increase the chances of a Boeing 737 Max crashing from a Nose Up Stall. It gets worse: over the last five years, 50 flights on US commercial airplanes experienced AoA sensor issues, compared to an estimated 76.8 million flights in US airspace in the same time frame. That is six times above the maximum rate set by the FAA for “hazardous” systems. This elevated risk of failure is why few commercial airliners make flight-critical decisions based solely on AoA sensor inputs. Why Boeing is Going Page 23 The FAA reports include 19 reported cases of sensor trouble on Boeing aircraft, such as an American Airlines flight in 2018 that declared a mid flight emergency when the plane’s stall-warning system went off, despite normal airspeed. The Boeing 737-800 landed safely. Maintenance crews replaced three parts, including the angle-of-attack sensor, according to the FAA database. In 2017, an American Airlines-operated Boeing 767 headed to Zurich declared an emergency and returned to New York. Another angle-of-attack sensor was replaced. And an American Airlines 767 was forced to return to Miami in 2014 after a mid flight emergency because of a faulty angle-of-attack sensor. Adding another sensor is ignoring the real problem – just as changing MCAS from 2.5 degrees to 1.5 degrees (or whatever) is ignoring the real problem. What is needed is not more faulty sensors or a different MCAS setting. Rather we need planes that are designed to be stable so that AOA sensors are activated less often. This means insisting that planes are aerodynamically sound with the engines in the right place in relationship not only to the center of gravity but also in relationship to the wings of the airplane. Why Boeing is Going Page 24 4 Why the Plan to Reduce the Power of MCAS will lead to more crashes “The overriding problem is the basic unstable design of the 737 Max. An aircraft has to be stall proof not stall prone.” Ralph Nader Boeing and the FAA have been extremely secretive about what their solution to the MCAS problem will be. All that Boeing has said was that they would have a software fix that would do four things: First, they will increase the number of sensors from only using one sensor to using two sensors. This change will do nothing about the real problem – the instability problem - created when Boeing moved the new engines forward and up. Second, the software fix will reduce the power of MCAS to push the nose of the plane down. This change will also do nothing about the real problem – the instability problem - created by moving the new engines forward and up. Third, the software fix will eliminate the infinite loop problem of MCAS reactivating itself repeatedly. This change will also do nothing about the real problem – the instability problem - created by moving the new engines forward and up. Fourth, Boeing will do a better job of explaining to pilots how they can turn MCAS off. This change will also do nothing about the real problem – the instability problem - created by moving the new engines forward and up. Problem Solving 101 – Identify the Underlying Cause of the Problem In order to solve any problem, it is important to focus on the underlying cause of the problem. The underlying problem of the Boeing 737 Max is that moving the large and powerful new engines too far forward in front of the wings and too high up in front of the wings caused the 737 Max to have an extreme tendency to have the nose of the plane tip up too high. This extreme nose up position is just as dangerous as an extreme nose down position because extreme nose up can lead to a stall and loss of control of the airplane just as extreme nose down can lead to a dive and loss of control of the airplane. Why Boeing is Going Page 25 The reason stalling an airplane as large as a 737 Max is dangerous is that there are huge forces involved. There are also Positive Feedback Loops involved. This means that once the nose of any airplane (not just the 737 Max) gets too high (near a stall angle), the nose will start to rise even faster making the stall much worse and lead to a very rapid loss of control of the airplane. Bigger faster planes present exponentially greater surface areas making stall recovery much more difficult. The whole point of a stable airplane design is that the plane should be aerodynamically stable. The plane should be naturally balanced around its center of gravity and should not require a highly experienced pilot in order to avoid stalling. Designing commercial airplanes to be aerodynamically stable is not merely a good idea. It is a federal law. Here is the stall regulation that Boeing violated when they moved the engines of the 737 Max too far forward and too far up: 14 CFR §25.203 Stall characteristics. (a) It must be possible to produce and to correct roll and yaw by unreversed use of the aileron and rudder controls, up to the time the airplane is stalled. No abnormal nose-up pitching may occur. The longitudinal control force must be positive up to and throughout the stall. In addition, it must be possible to promptly prevent stalling and to recover from a stall by normal use of controls. (b) For level wing stalls, the roll occurring between the stall and the completion of the recovery may not exceed approximately 20 degrees. Why Boeing is Going Page 26 Title 14 is the section on FAA Airplane Standards. Part 25 is the Airworthiness Standards for commercial planes. Section 203 is the law intended to prevent and recover from stalls. The stall prevention and recovery test – a test that must be conducted on any new plane – and therefore must have been conducted on the 737 Max in 2016 – is described in this document: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2010-title14-vol1/pdf/CFR-2010- title14-vol1-sec25-203.pdf Moreover because MCAS is also an automatic power operated stability augmentation system, it is also subject to these two federal laws which Boeing also broke: 14 CFR §25.671 General Control System Requirements (c) The airplane must be shown by analysis, tests, or both, to be capable of continued safe flight and landing after any of the following failures in the flight control system and surfaces (including trim, lift, drag, and feel systems), within the normal flight envelope, without requiring exceptional piloting skill or strength. 14 CFR §25.672 Stability augmentation and automatic and power operated systems If the functioning of stability augmentation or other automatic or power-operated systems is necessary to show compliance with the flight characteristics requirements of this part, such systems must comply with §25.671 and the following: (a) A warning which is clearly distinguishable to the pilot under expected flight conditions without requiring his attention must be provided for any failure in the stability augmentation system or in any other automatic or power-operated system which could result in an unsafe condition if the pilot were not aware of the failure. Warning systems must not activate the control systems. (b) The design of the stability augmentation system or of any other automatic or power-operated system must permit initial counteraction of failures of the type specified in §25.671(c) without requiring exceptional pilot skill or strength, by either the deactivation of the system, or a failed portion thereof, or by overriding the failure by movement of the flight controls in the normal sense. https://ecfr.io/ Title-14/pt14.1.25#se14.1.25_1672 Why Boeing is Going Page 27 Put in plain English, federal law prohibits Boeing from producing a plane with an extreme nose up tendency. Federal law also prohibits Boeing from producing an Augmentation System which cannot be counter acted by a normal pilot. Boeing was well aware of both laws – which is why the true power of MCAS had to be hidden from the FAA. The MCAS system was so well hidden from the FAA that a 30 page report by the FAA listing all of the new features of the 737 Max did not include a single reference to MCAS (see pages 64 to 94, Model 737-8 approved on March 8 2017). Page 88 states: “Modifications that reduce flight critical system separation or adversely impact survivability of systems are not acceptable.” http://www.b737.org.uk/a16we.pdf The design of the Boeing 737 Max clearly violates several federal laws. In the next section, we will take a closer look at how these crimes occurred. Why Boeing is Going Page 28 5 What Happened during the 2016 737 Max Test Flights The change in MCAS after the 2016 test flights from 0.6 degrees to 2.5 degrees is the smoking gun confirming that something must have occurred during these test flights which forced Boeing to make this radical change to MCAS. In this section, we will finally answer the question no one thus far has been able to answer: Why was such a radical change needed? How could Boeing engineers have made such a huge mis-calculation? The answer is turbulence – the most complex topic in all of physics. In this section, we will explain why even smart engineers might under-estimated the extreme effect that the turbulence of raising the engines one foot higher than it had been previously placed in the 737 NG would have on the 737 Max. First, you need to understand that turbulence has been called the most important unsolved problem in physics. The American Nobel Prize Laureate for Physics Richard Feynman once described turbulence as “the most important unsolved problem of classical physics”, because an accurate mathematical equation of turbulence does not exist. We have quantum mechanical equations to describe the inner workings of the atom – but we do not have accurate equations for turbulence. In 2000, the Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge/ Massachusetts offered one million US dollars to any mathematician who could provide an accurate equation for turbulence. So far, no one in the world has been able to solve this problem. Note the sudden and chaotic expansion: Even the inventor of Quantum Mechanics, and the winner of the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics, Werner Heisenberg once said that if he were allowed to ask God two questions, they would be, “Why quantum mechanics? And why turbulence?” Heisenberg said he was pretty sure God would be able to answer the first question (implying that not even God can explain turbulence). Why Boeing is Going Page 29 Given that not even God understands turbulence, it should not be too surprising that Boeing engineers might have under-estimated the adverse effect of turbulence when they designed the 737 Max. There are two ways that engineers guard against turbulence. The first and most common way is to avoid turbulence as much as possible. This is why no previous version of the 737 had placed the engine so close to the top of the wing. Putting the engine at or above the wing would create unpredictable turbulence exactly where you do not want it – at the top of the all important wings where it might have huge and difficult to calculate effects such as pivoting the plane around the center of gravity. Unfortunately, there was not enough room to put the new much bigger engines well under the wings – and Boeing executives insisted that the engine be moved up rather than redesign the entire plane to account for the bigger engines. So the engines were moved up about one foot – which as we will show later in this section, created a huge amount of turbulence right over the wings. Strike #1. The second way to deal with turbulence is to build scale models and do wind tunnel testing. I have been unable to find any accounts of wing tunnel testing on the 737 max. Instead, what I have found is many accounts of Boeing executives insisting that development occur more rapidly because they were in a trillion dollar race with Airbus to produce a new airplane to compete with the Airbus A320 NEO (which did have room for the new engines under the wing). I therefore have concluded that either there was no wind tunnel testing at all – or if it did occur, it was not adequate. Instead, it is likely that Boeing engineers simply did computer simulations of lift and turbulence. Here is a picture of one of these simulations: Why Boeing is Going Page 30
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