Lion Air JT610

[cpotisch]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/22/world/asia/lion-air-crash-safety-failures.html

Gobble Gobble

The Times has quite an article today reporting on Lion Air safety deficiencies.  Of interest is the report how it is their practice simply to "cannibalize" one aircraft for a part to repair another (guarantee you the Air Force is known for that, anyone else around here who has been in Service knows their branch does same). However, rather than grounding the canibalized aircraft, they will simply replaced that part with the defective one from the other aircraft

Oh well, X your fingers.

What's the point in swapping parts like that at all? Unless I'm misunderstanding, that's literally just as bad as not doing anything about it. Either way they've got a plane flying with that defective part...

 

[GBNorman]

You can be sure that any airline under FAA jurisdiction, or any branch of the service, would ground an aircraft with cannibalized parts. Likely that is what occurred with the aircraft that were left behind at Eglin when Michael came a calling.

 

[GBNorman]

Possibly a "knothole in the Paywall:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/world/asia/indonesia-lion-air-crash-.html

Feedback, anyone, if such be the case.

Fair Use:

....

Data from the jetliner that crashed into the Java Sea last month shows the pilots fought to save the plane almost from the moment it took off, as the Boeing 737’s nose was repeatedly forced down, apparently by an automatic system receiving incorrect sensor readings.

The information from the flight data recorder, contained in a preliminary report prepared by Indonesian crash investigators and released on Wednesday, documents a fatal tug of war between man and machine, with the plane’s nose forced dangerously downward over two dozen times during the 11-minute flight.

If they were able to recover the Data Recorder, why not the Voice?

Corner bet: they recovered the Voice as well, but are keeping that under wraps.  In these days of media frenzy, fake news, and hackers going to the lengths they do, some personal and sensitive conversations could leak out.

 

[jis]

From what I have read, the data recorder was recovered from its deeply buried in mud location. They did hear the pings from the voice recorder for a period, but could not find it before the pinger battery ran out. They might yet find it fortuitously some day.

 

[caravanman]

I don't have much knowledge about this incident, but wasn't it an almost brand new plane, and didn't Boeing issue some notice to check similar planes?

I doubt that it can be down to taking parts off another plane?

Ed.

 

[jis]

I don't have much knowledge about this incident, but wasn't it an almost brand new plane, and didn't Boeing issue some notice to check similar planes?

I doubt that it can be down to taking parts off another plane?

Ed.

As far as is known from reliable reputable sources, it has little to do with taking parts off another plane. It is slowly appearing to be poor maintenance combined with faulty design that crashed the plane in spite of the pilot's best efforts.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/report-on-airline-crash-that-killed-189-people-draws-few-conclusions/2018/11/27/a07b833c-f274-11e8-80d0-f7e1948d55f4_story.html?utm_term=.bf506f584609

It appears that Boeing may be in for a bit of a deep doo doo on this one. Even pilots in the US are not happy with how Boeing rolled out this new technology essentially not adequately telling or training anyone, apparently.

 

[B757Guy]

I can say this, both my airline, and the airline my wife flies for has it's pilots union in an uproar with Boeing over the MCAS system, and the lack of awareness they provided to the pilots. I've flown various Boeing aircraft almost my entire career in the military and now with my airline, and I'm very disappointed with them at the moment, for how they have handled the MCAS feature.

 

[GBNorman]

The immediate is difficult to learn for anyone having occasion to fly on a later Boeing aircraft. Difficult for me in that the entire fleet of my "go to" airline flown on overseas routes is Boeing.

While I no longer hold a position in BA (at my age, you "lighten up" your equity portfolio), I still think of it as "my company" and it appears they will be "on tap" for claims arising from the incident.

Passengers can only hope that pilots have, or will have, this MCAS condition included in their SIM training.

 

[PVD]

Swapping parts and cannibalizing is way more common than most people would be comfortable with. Sale of parts from retired aircraft before they are cut up is a robust business, and if properly tested and certified and pedigree tracked happens every day. There are reasons for taking a good part from a plane and putting it in another. If a plane isn't going to fly for any one of many reasons, taking a working part might not be unreasonable if you think the defective can be repaired or replaced before the donor is going back in service. Also, depending on levels of redundancy, a part "loan"  may result in an airplane complying with a minimum equipment list while not grounding the other. Any of this stuff requires an operator or maintenance organization to maintain strict tracking and oversight standards, that is often a failing point. 

 

[B757Guy]

The immediate is difficult to learn for anyone having occasion to fly on a later Boeing aircraft. Difficult for me in that the entire fleet of my "go to" airline flown on overseas routes is Boeing.

While I no longer hold a position in BA (at my age, you "lighten up" your equity portfolio), I still think of it as "my company" and it appears they will be "on tap" for claims arising from the incident.

Passengers can only hope that pilots have, or will have, this MCAS condition included in their SIM training.

My understanding is that they will. However, the risk taker in me thinks shorting Boeing stock may potentially be a lucrative thing, as they have a huge mess on their hands with this. If this accident had happened to a US based airline, in US airspace, it would be a non-stop news cycle, and Boeing would be in far worse shape.

 

[B757Guy]

Swapping parts and cannibalizing is way more common than most people would be comfortable with. Sale of parts from retired aircraft before they are cut up is a robust business, and if properly tested and certified and pedigree tracked happens every day. There are reasons for taking a good part from a plane and putting it in another. If a plane isn't going to fly for any one of many reasons, taking a working part might not be unreasonable if you think the defective can be repaired or replaced before the donor is going back in service. Also, depending on levels of redundancy, a part "loan"  may result in an airplane complying with a minimum equipment list while not grounding the other. Any of this stuff requires an operator or maintenance organization to maintain strict tracking and oversight standards, that is often a failing point. 

Excellent point, but this issue is far greater than just an MX issue....

 

[PVD]

Absolutely no argument with that. I was just responding to the earlier post indicating that the FAA would not accept cannibalized parts, which obviously is not the case.

 

[BCL]

Absolutely no argument with that. I was just responding to the earlier post indicating that the FAA would not accept cannibalized parts, which obviously is not the case.

I've heard one of the big issues is counterfeit parts.  Maybe 30 years ago I was reading Time Magazine, and they had an article on counterfeit aircraft parts, including a photo showing fake boxes with the United Technologies logo that were pretty close to the real thing.  The parts themselves were machined and I'm sure that it's easy to tell the difference, but of course the counterfeit likely doesn't have the strength of the genuine part.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

The likelihood of loosing all three [pitot tubes] [is] slim to none.

The likelihood of losing all pitot tubes is indeed quite slim, but still a fair distance from none.  Although rare, hundreds of passengers have lost their lives because human pilots were unable to work around the loss of pitot tubes.  Which is surprising to me because a modern commercial aircraft does not become uncontrollable simply because the pitot tubes have failed.  

All of the primary flight controls, engine thrust, and fundamental aerodynamic properties remain fully intact and operational.  Today pitot tubes are extremely robust and plentiful, but that does not mean they cannot fail.  If discovered and addressed in a timely fashion even severe pitot tube failures should be resolvable by maintaining level flight and steady engine thrust until the failure clears or visual flight control becomes possible.

Several recent crashes seem to involve misunderstandings and/or conflicting commands between the computer control and human pilot.  There are so many systems and sensors that can be impacted by a single major failure that we may be reaching the point where a human being can no longer respond to all of them in a timely and effective manner.  Which could mean the days of manual flight control may be coming to an end.  Probably not during your career but starting with the introduction of more advanced automation over the next decade or two.

The most obvious gaps in aircraft automation are currently found in severely adverse conditions and the areas between the runway and gate.  Gaps that are likely to receive renewed interest as knowledge and experience is gained from bringing fully automated commercial vehicles to market.  With command conflicts and confusion playing a larger role in recent aircraft disasters we're probably nearing the point where the dividing line between human and computer control needs to be reevaluated.

 

[jis]

At this point we should also take cognizance of the fact that the Pitot Tube failure was causing a secret elixir new automation feature that was trying to crash the plane actively too, apparently, from what I gather reading the material available on the subject, as interpreted within the context of my admittedly limited knowledge in this area. Apparently it finally succeeded in its mission.

 

[Trogdor]

At this point we should also take cognizance of the fact that the Pitot Tube failure was causing a secret elixir new automation feature that was trying to crash the plane actively too, apparently, from what I gather reading the material available on the subject, as interpreted within the context of my admittedly limited knowledge in this area. Apparently it finally succeeded in its mission.

If we’re referring to the LionAir crash, it seems like the pitot tubes really didn’t cause the crash, but rather the angle-of-attack sensor that was causing the plane’s automation to do things contrary to the pilots’ desires, and an undocumented change in design between the NG and MAX meant that a procedure to disable said automation on the NG no longer works on the MAX.

 

[jis]

You’re right. It is the angle of attack sensor.

 

[railiner]

meant that a procedure to disable said automation on the NG no longer works on the MAX.

I know very little about airliner controls, but it seems that at one time the "universal fix" for such situations, was to simply reach up and pull the circuit breaker supplying power to the automated control's....guess that's no longer the case? :unsure: