Author: Cole Pawlak

There certainly have been some significant changes in our world since the last post on this site, so I will give you a quick recap on what we have learned so far and then queue into the discussion today which focuses on aviation administration that may have had underlying effects on this 737 MAX crisis.

On October 29th, 2018 and March 10th, 2019 Boeing 737 MAX airplanes went down in Indonesia and Ethiopia respectively.  These two crashes had no survivors and killed a total of 346 people including flight staff and passengers.  The 737 MAX was later investigated and determined to be too dangerous to continue flight until significant changes were made.  While correct, this ruling has sent the company Boeing into a downward spiral and completely derailed the initial concept for this release which was supposed to be a stopgap until an entirely new aircraft could be developed to keep level with the up and coming competitor Airbus.  As the situation continues to develop, it is important to remember all the perspectives and each part within the system that failed.  Last time, we talked about the MCAS system which was supposed to make the aircraft behave in a more familiar way for the pilot.  This design was not flawless as it should have been leaving the blame entirely on Boeing there.  This time, we will talk about how it is important to scrutinize the systems and regulations that allowed pilots to be unprepared and an airplane of this nature to reach the runway.

The United States has represented a hub of aircraft technology, innovation, and commercial potential in the aviation industry.  Therefore, it is no surprise that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is one of the foremost regulatory bodies across the globe.  Since August 23rd, 1958, the FAA has been pushing the standards for United States aircraft and setting precedents for other aviation administrations (“A Brief History of the FAA”).  After the two recent crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX, members of the media and the public began to question how an airplane with clear and systematic flaws could make its way through the many checks that FAA officials carry out before the airplane is even manufactured.  For many, the idea of FAA officials being private employees, paid by the airline manufacturers, was startling.  How could it be possible to be impartial and thorough in examining every part of an aircraft when the business is pushing that employee to complete the task quickly so that the next phase can begin?  One of the key reasons for having government certified private employees is to make sure that the engineers responsible for putting an airplane in the air are a part of the design and testing process from the beginning.  By having first-hand experience with the aircraft, an employee of the manufacturer will have more knowledge than an independent government official could ever receive in a similar time.  (Thrush)  To maximize business continuity and time required for assessing an aircraft, private certification is necessary.  Today, the question is whether or not independent certification should be administered as well.

Another area of significant concern for the aviation industry is the lack of an international governing body that is able to enforce highly effective and standardized rules across all member nations.  Right now, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a United Nations specialized agency, sets “civil aviation Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) and policies in support of a safe, efficient, secure, economically sustainable and environmentally responsible civil aviation sector (“About ICAO”).”  While this appears to be exactly the regulation necessary for the world to all be on the same standards, the reality is that nations like the United States with significantly greater aviation capacity also have significantly higher bars set for airplanes to be considered air worthy and pilots to be allowed to fly.  For example, the copilot on the 737 MAX that crashed in Ethiopia had only 361 total hours of career flying logged.  To become a pilot at of one of the major airlines in the United States, 1500 hours would have been required. (Gates)  These numbers are purely to demonstrate that the standards of flight requirements in different nations are inconsistent.  Some people have been using these facts to claim that under the same circumstances no United States pilot would have encountered the same issues and even if they did, they would have been able to carry out the recovery sequence more efficiently to regain control.  While there may be a sliver of truth to this as experience never hurts, it would be foolish to say that the conditions pilots on either of the crashed flights faced were not extreme, stressful, and challenging.  Looking back at the disparity in flight hours, it is clear that an international standard should be developed.  Whether it be the ICAO or some other aviation governing body, pilots and passengers should feel confident in the equipment that they are using and depending on to get from one location to another safely.

One of the concepts that has sustained throughout the investigation of the Boeing 737 MAX jet from many perspectives is the necessity of change.  From Boeing, to aviation certification, to international regulation, to consumer standards in this industry, everyone must rethink what it is they require and what is necessary to regain trust and confidence in one of the most important businesses across the world.  Pushing any technology towards greater innovation will always produce new risks and consequences that were previously unknown.  Our engineers find methods to implement new ideas that can change lives and they strive towards perfection.  As a society, we need to require that in areas that contain life threat, perfection is achieved, from research, to design, to manufacturing, to regulating, to flying.

 

Sources:

“About ICAO.” About ICAO, www.icao.int/about-icao/Pages/default.aspx.

“A Brief History of the FAA.” FAA Seal, 4 Jan. 2017, www.faa.gov/about/history/brief_history/.

Gates, Dominic. “How Much Was Pilot Error a Factor in the Boeing 737 MAX Crashes?” The Seattle Times, The Seattle Times Company, 15 May 2019, www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/how-much-was-pilot-error-a-factor-in-the-boeing-737-max-crashes/.

Thrush, Glenn. “F.A.A. Chief Defends Boeing Certification Process at House Hearing.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 15 May 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/05/15/us/politics/boeing-faa-congress.html.

If you have already read my first post, you will have head of this system before, but you may still be unaware of some of the causes and effects of its implementation on the Boeing 737 MAX airplane as a whole.  If not, I will reintroduce the basic idea of the system.  The Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) is a primarily software driven approach to “enhance the pitch stability of the airplane – so that it feels and flies like other 737s (“737 MAX Software Update”).”

In theory, this concept is perfect.  Not only can pilots fly the newest airplane systems, they can do so with confidence because it will feel like airplanes that they are already used to.  In the most basic of explanations, MCAS is meant to reduce the risk of the airplane undergoing stall conditions.

Stall conditions are where the wing is being flown at an angle of attack (the angle with which the leading edge makes with the free stream air flowing over and around it) that is above the angle where the flow of air around the wing will continue producing lift that is equivalent to the weight of the airplane.  If the force of gravity on the jet is greater than the upward force of lift produced by the wing, the airplane will begin to descend.  The problem with a descent under stall is that it is extremely difficult to control and regain the correct angle and airspeed in order to keep the airplane in the sky.

To reduce the likelihood of such an event occurring on the 737 MAX, MCAS uses sensors onboard the airplane to judge when the angle of attack has reached potentially dangerous levels, or when very steep turns are being performed and intervenes by pushing the nose down in an attempt to counteract whatever caused the airplane to get close to stall.  In the event that the pilot wants to override the system, they are able to manually trim the airplane in order to achieve the effects that they desire. (Ostrower)

So where is the problem?  All of this information sounds very good and the system as a whole should be preventing airplane crashes if anything, right?  As is inevitable with the 737 MAX situation at this point, not everything is as it appears.  With pilots who were untrained in the new software and malfunctions that became more prevalent than expected, MCAS had flaws.  Two of the major causes of these faults included the angle of attack sensor which was used by the software to determine flight conditions and the wiring through the airplane which was subject to failure.

Angle of attack sensors on airplanes have been commonplace for many years, and honestly, also not the most reliable of equipment for that same amount of time.  With the 737 MAX, Boeing felt that they had developed a method that was more reliable than the industry standard, and which could be counted on for other important airplane systems including MCAS.  Unfortunately, these thoughts proven to be false.  Instead of failing after the prescribed 10 million flight hours, these sensors ultimately ended up needing to be replaced every 1.7 million flight hours.  Over the past five years, this amounted to a total of 50 flights in the United States alone.  (Campbell)  By having a critical flight system such as MCAS based upon an unreliable sensor, the concept as a whole is flawed.  In essence, this would be like trying to measure a mile exactly by counting the number of steps you take.  Could it work?  Maybe.  Would it be perfect?  Definitely not.

The other issue surrounding MCAS involved wiring throughout the airplane itself.  If the angle of attack sensor was not bad enough, now imagine that the parts surrounding it and allowing it to work were also susceptible to failure.  In the investigation of the 737 MAX since it has been grounded, it was discovered that there is a possibility of creating a short circuit near the rear of the airplane where two wiring bundles come close together.  While it is still unknown whether this is a cause of any of the crashes, its concept is still worrying.  If the bundles were to short circuit each other, sensor data in the horizontal and vertical tail could be interrupted and cause MCAS to interpret the information as an issue and begin to push the nose up or down.  Without knowing proper procedure in the case of such an event, pilots would be unable to recover control of their aircraft.  (Kitroeff)

MCAS has come under great scrutiny in the media, and for good reason, it has its flaws.  What is important to remember here is whether or not the system was implemented with the proper protocol, the intentions were clear, MCAS would save an airplane from stall in situations that the pilot may not realize a problem was occurring and it would allow the airplane to feel similar to the other jets that pilots were comfortable with.  Boeing did not intend for such a system to have so many points of failure, even so, MCAS could be a contributing factor in hundreds of deaths and therefore is worth review.

References:

“737 MAX Software Update.” Boeing, www.boeing.com/commercial/737max/737-max-software-updates.page.

Campbell, Darryl. “The Many Human Errors That Brought down the Boeing 737 Max.” The Verge, The Verge, 2 May 2019, www.theverge.com/2019/5/2/18518176/boeing-737-max-crash-problems-human-error-mcas-faa.

Kitroeff, Natalie, and David Gelles. “It’s Not Just Software: New Safety Risks Under Scrutiny on Boeing’s 737 Max.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Jan. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/01/05/business/boeing-737-max.html.

Ostrower, Jon. “What Is the Boeing 737 Max Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System?” The Air Current, 28 Aug. 2019, theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/what-is-the-boeing-737-max-maneuvering-characteristics-augmentation-system-mcas-jt610/.

The Boeing 737 MAX, within just a couple of years, has already cemented itself as one of the most complicated engineering challenges of the 21st century.  Over the course of these blog entries, I will be exploring the issue as a whole and making an attempt to evaluate points of view on the subject that are often overlooked by popular media.

Today, it is time to start at the the beginning, what is happening with the Boeing 737 MAX jet airplanes?

The first Boeing 737 twin jet went into service in the year 1968.  This model has been the most successful commercial airplane to date, but it is now under threat of being eliminated entirely, or even sending the company into bankruptcy.

Airbus, a French airplane manufacturer and the second largest producer of commercial jet aircraft in the world, is quickly growing to challenge the dominance of Boeing in the aerospace industry.  Complications with the 737 MAX could force that issue even more quickly than could have been imagined.  In 2010, Airbus released the A320 neo, a comparable mid-sized airplane to compete with the latest models of the Boeing 737.  This new model stood out from Boeing competition because it fitted a similarly sized aircraft with a much larger and much more efficient engine.  Airlines were thrilled.  Not only could they make their trips quicker, they could spend less money on fuel getting there.  For Boeing, this airplane release came as a surprise.  In the past, every time that Airbus would release something new, Boeing would always have a counter of their own  to compete and generate sales that continued the company moving forward.  This time was different.  Instead of being prepared, Boeing was not ready.  While a project was in the works to design an entirely new airplane, that development was planned for significantly farther in the future.  Given the circumstances, Boeing was threatened with losing out on an entire market of airplanes, the largest segment.  The answer was clear, either find a solution, or risk the future of the company.

This is where the 737 MAX came in.  Instead of engineering an entirely new airplane, Boeing could try the same formula that had worked so well for Airbus.  Fit a newer and more efficient engine to the tried and tested frame of a 737.  While there were some changes to the airplane body, the majority of the switch from the previous model, the 737 NG, to 737 MAX, came from an engine swap.  Now, Boeing could pitch a new product to airlines and stay competitive in the industry.

One of the primary reasons for reusing the 737 body was the fact that it would be able to get into the air very quickly because procedures by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) would not require that a substantially similar aircraft go through an entirely new certification.  By creating a new design, the FAA would require a review that can be a multiple year process.  By the time the airplane was ready to fly and pilots had trained to use it properly, it would all be too late.  Airbus would take over the market and Boeing would lose their share.  The 737 MAX was the perfect answer for Boeing and all of their problems.

This story would be over if not for the events that have ensued over the past two years.  On October 29th, 2018, a Lion Air flight crashed after takeoff in Indonesia.  This was the first time that a crash of the 737 MAX had occurred and the 189 people who were onboard all died.  Unfortunately the bad news did not stop there.  On March 10th, 2019, an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX jet crashed, this time killing 157 people who were onboard.  (“Timeline”)  Two accidents of this nature within such a short period of time was an anomaly and needed to be investigated.

In order to comply with the FAA and not require new training for the 737 MAX, Boeing decided to implement a system called MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) in order to make the 737 MAX act like other 737 aircraft in manual flight situations. (“737 MAX Software Update”)  While the engineers thought that this would make airplane flight nearly identical to past models, there was some confusion among pilots, as well as a tendency for the sensor that the system ran on to fail.  The flaws were obvious after the crashes, but those lives can no longer be saved.

Each party and each person who researches these cases can come to a different conclusion of what caused the crashes and who is to take the blame.  Right now, all 737 MAX aircraft are grounded until there is sufficient evidence for the FAA that they can perform safe flight.  The situation is not necessarily black and white, and most likely, blame is deserved on all parties involved.

Currently, I would not be able to form a definitive opinion on who I believe deserves the blame the most.  I hope that as I continue to research this topic and form an outlook for myself, that you, the reader, will see not only the perspective that I am building, but also form your own beliefs from the facts and arguments I present.  Question what I am saying and find a truth in the situation for yourself.  Discuss in the comments what it is that you find.  The introduction today is to show how many variables are at play.  No opinion is wrong in a case as complex as this.  However, we may all learn to change our beliefs as our knowledge expands.

References:

“737 MAX Software Update.” Boeing, www.boeing.com/commercial/737max/737-max-software-updates.page.

Hepher, Tim. “Why Airbus Isn’t Pouncing on Boeing’s 737 MAX Turmoil.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 30 Apr. 2019, www.reuters.com/article/us-airbus-boeing-strategy-analysis/why-airbus-isnt-pouncing-on-boeings-737-max-turmoil-idUSKCN1S51SI.

“Timeline: Boeing 737 Max Jetliner Crashes and Aftermath.” Chicagotribune.com, Chicago Tribune, 23 Dec. 2019, www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-viz-boeing-737-max-crash-timeline-04022019-story.html.

Amir, Amir R., and Stanley I. Weiss. “Boeing Company.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 30 Aug. 2019, www.britannica.com/topic/Boeing-Company.