Is the Sky Falling? Remembering the Titanic

What happenned to UAL flight to SFO?

We stand on the shoulders of giants, and perhaps a few fools. Although we rush to immediate details, perhaps history prepares us for the Now.

The Boeing 737 MAX passenger airliner was grounded worldwide between March 2019 and December 2020 – longer in many jurisdictions – after 346 people died in two crashes: Lion Air Flight 610 on October 29, 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10, 2019. Dates (of grounding): Mar 13, 2019 – Jan 13, 2023 Source: wikipedia

Initial talking-head analysis placed the blame on pilot / aircrew training. There were generic pictures of representative people; they were brown people. Disclosing race by showing pictures of people is a well-used technique of giving the message without saying the words. Look at the Michigan University shooter. We've become adept at not saying the words.

There was a clear tone throughout American aviation and media that 'those people' weren't ready to operate our complicated machines. Critiques of Asian flight training and cultural issues.

The truth turned out to be different. The crashes were caused by corporate greed and FAA participation in corner-cutting.

Airline pilots get a type rating. You get a type rating in a particular aircraft, for instance a DC-9. Once you've got that type rating, you can fly a DC-9 Series 10, Series 20, Series 30, Series 40, or Series 50. There are differences but they're not that significant, and pilot training covered them.

Let's look at the Boeing 737 type rating. They include:

• The first generation "Original" series: the 737-100 and -200, and also the military T-43 and C-43, launched February 1965.
• The second generation "Classic" series: 737-300, -400 and -500, launched in 1979.
• The third generation "NG" (Next Generation) series: 737-600, -700, -800 and -900, also the military C-40 and P-8, launched late 1993.
• The fourth generation 737 MAX series: 737-Max7, 737-Max8, 737-Max9, launched August 2011.

Boeing convinced the FAA that flying a 737-900 is covered under the same pilot check ride (driver's test) used for the 1965 B737-100.

Boeing really wanted the One Type Rating to rule them all, because when they tried to sell upgrades to airlines Boeing could say, And No Pilot Training Costs or Delays are Required. Airbus, who treated new planes like new planes, couldn't say that. But these planes were very different; each had different dimensions, centers of gravity, engines, and fuel tanks. There was a big difference between the airplanes.

Boeing is too big to say No to. Boeing is too big to be permitted to fail. Nobody wants to be that person. Everybody says, the Boeing series are the best passenger aircraft in that category ever made. Reminds me of the Titanic.

Back to LionAir610 and Ethiopean302. The second investigation noted,

‘During the verification process of the FDR data, clear similarities were noted by the investigation team between Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Lion Air Flight 610, which will be the subject of further study during the investigation.’

These are the vertical speed profiles of both flights in their last moments, from Flight Radar 24:

What I see is a vertical struggle, a lot of pushing forward and pulling back on the yoke.

in order to claim that the 737-800-MAX is the same as the 737-100, Boing added MCAS software to the airplane. Airplanes are software driven. This was a new function that the pilots weren't significantly briefed on. Turns out, when MCAS goes crazy, the pilots need to diagnosis the problem and disable the MCAS or they're going to crash.

UAL1724, a Boeing 777-200ER (extended range), had a dangerous departure out of Hawaii for SFO:

To be clear, the United 777 is not a 737-700; it is a different airplane. You have to wonder what software upgrades went into the 777 that the pilots didn't need to be trained on, until they did. Did MCAS or its equivalent make it to the -777 fleet?

Media reports say that the United crew was sent to "additional training".

This is what corporations do; they blame cultural safety issues on individuals.

Personally, I believe the complexity of the software on modern flight decks has grown so fast, and Boeing is so eager to keep costs down and keep the airlines flying, that this is not an individual performance issue, and this is not something we can blame on brown-skinned pilots. Finally it happened to a US-based crew.

There is a technical and a safety culture issue with Boeing software. People responsible for the safety of the flying public need to step up. Hello, Pete Buttigieg.

Racism shades everything we see and think. We saw the first 326 fatalities as a function of brown pilots and brown airlines. We barely seee major crashes because of racism.