A "battle" between pilots and computer, possible cause of the fall of two Boeing in 6 months – 11/03/2019

It seems that the difficulties started almost immediately after take-off. The pilots told the traffic controllers that they had technical problems. And apparently the plane went up and down several times before the final fall.

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Two disturbing scenes similar developed in recent months with the all-new Boeing 737 Max airplane: Sunday, when an Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed just after takeoff in Addis Ababa, killing 157 people, and in October, 189 people in Indonesia died in a company plane Lion Air.

The plane crash in Ethiopia occurred as soon as the plane left the country's capital, leaving a smoky crater where investigators followed the dark scene. There is still not much information on the causes of the incident and it will take several weeks to investigate. Boeing and the National Transportation Safety Board they sent teams at the place where the accident occurred.

The scarcity of the situation in which two aircraft of the same model crashed in a short time, immediately attracted the attention of pilots, pbadengers, engineers and industry badysts.

For Boeing, the questions are central and point to the heart of your business, since the 737 model is a workhorse of the airlines around the world, and the 737 Max from a single aisle was the plane best sale by the company since its inception. By the end of January, Boeing had delivered more than 350 Max 737 aircraft since it was commissioned in 2017. Their list price was about $ 120 million. They commented on the company and about 5,000 others were ordered.

"There are a lot of questions, but not many answers," said John Cox, former general manager of airline safety for the Airline Pilots Association in the United States. He is currently General Manager of Safety Operating System, a consulting firm.

Some airlines and some national officials do not expect answers. China on Monday morning ordered the 737 Max plane to remain grounded, and Cayman Airways announced that it would be laying down its two new 737 Max aircraft.

Fierce competition

The aircraft manufacturing and selling business is extremely competitive, and the 737 Max was Boeing's response to an update that Airbus, the European aerospace giant, unveiled for its popular A320 aircraft, which made it more efficient. the use of fuel. Both companies are world leaders in this field, and have competed for the field of business for years. About 10,000 Boeing 737 family aircraft are in service, compared with more than 8,000 in the Airbus A320 family. Many airlines use these types of aircraft as a strategic part of their fleet. They are designed to efficiently cover short and medium-haul routes (for example, from New York to Miami or Los Angeles) and carry around 200 pbadengers.

A new software system

Boeing's reaction to his rival's movement was a more efficient engine, although the Max engine was bigger than in previous versions. To meet this engineering challenge, Boeing has updated the software for the flight control system. After the accident of Lion Air, some US aviation authorities They said that the change had not been explained correctly to the pilots.

But since the Indonesian disaster, Boeing and the regulators have informed the pilots of the new Max system and the airlines have given them lessons on the subject. If Ethiopian Airlines, which, like Lion Air, enjoys a solid reputation for safety, provided this training, He did not meet immediately.

Boeing installed the system in the new 737, as part of the "control law" commands, issued by the flight control computer of the plane that to avoid the pilots. On the Lion Air flight, the ups and downs could have happened when the pilots they tried again and again avoid that the system has pushed the nose of the plane down and put it in a fatal fall. Whatever happened, the Indonesian pilots they lost their fight after 12 minutes of flight.

Although a malfunction of this system is a possibility for the flight to Ethiopia, which lasted only about six minutes and included a series of oscillations, the first information is still too superficial to draw from. conclusions. And what we know so far does not exclude the driver error or the malfunction of a completely separate system.

Robert Stengel, flight control systems expert and Professor of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton University, said it was unclear whether the oscillating trajectory of the Ethiopian aircraft was due to a system. defective control or if pilots tried to do so. Fly the plane manually while they were distracted by another unknown emergency situation until now.

While being careful not to draw conclusions without further information, Stengel stated that the general similarities between the two road accidents would be of no use, but would affect the public traveling by air.

"If we just look at the circumstantial evidence, it gives us a break, is not it?" Stengel said. "This is not a deep technical observation, it's just human nature."

The short and fatal flight to Ethiopia may require immediate action, while investigators determine whether there is a common thread, said Jim Hall, former president of the National Transportation Safety Board.

"This problem needs to be solved," said Hall. "The possibility of immobilizing the ground plane would be one of the many options that regulators and investigators badyze, I suppose."

Analysts agree that Wall Street will not be nice with the actions from Boeing. And any blow to its actions will weigh heavily on the industrial average of the Dow Jones, which had increased in recent years because of the success of Boeing.

Boeing's shares have tripled since the 2016 presidential election, making it the Dow's highest-rated stock. From November 8, 2016 to Friday, the Dow Jones added more than 7,000 points and the Boeing increase accounted for nearly 30% of its increase.

Richard Aboulafia, an aviation badyst at Teal Group, warned against an overly comprehensive reading of the immediate reaction to Boeing's actions. "I learned from the bitter experience of not looking at stock prices after a plane crash," he said. "It's everywhere." Aboulafia also predicted that any slowdown would likely be a brief slowdown, given the recent strength of the company.

By the end of Friday's round, Boeing was valued at nearly $ 239 billion, with a price per share of over $ 422. The company that employs approximately 150,000 people, has received more than $ 100 billion in 2018, with annual profits exceeding $ 10 billion.

Aboulafia said: "If you have to implement a very fast series of modifications or training procedures, a) you have the resources and b) your resources, it will not be a disaster".

Boeing said that evaluate the changes in the new software, and a person who reported on the subject said that an update was in progress.

Barely six years ago, Boeing had another headache with a new plane while his 787 were retired and left on the ground after a series of battery problems.

Scott Hamilton, aviation industry consultant at Leeham Co., said Boeing's response to the 787's problems, while there were 50 in service, could allow him to predict his response to accidents with the 737 Max.

300 aircraft MAX 737 in use

However, "it would be a bigger problem," said Hamilton, "because at this point we have a number close to 300,737 Max aircraft already in service ".

Boeing, which manufactures commercial and military aircraft, as well as other aerospace components, is one of the largest exporters in the United States. The company's headquarters are located in Chicago and the bulk of its production is carried out in factories in the state of Washington and South Carolina.

According to Hamilton, the Renton plant in Washington State produces mainly 737 Max aircraft. Boeing also opened a completion center in China in December. According to the Seattle Times, about one-third of the new 737s are delivered to Chinese airlines and the new facilities will allow finishing jobs such as exterior painting and interior fixtures to be completed more quickly and efficiently. customers

Monday morning in China, most Chinese transport companies they stopped using dozens of aircraft Boeing 737 Max They had bought and started flying the Boeing 737-800 on the same roads. The Civil Aviation Administration of China then ordered that Chinese companies maintain the aircraft Boeing 737 Max ground.

Flight tracking websites showed that Chinese airlines were beginning to replace them with the Boeing 737-800 in the routes on which they had already operated with the Boeing 737 Max.

Major Chinese airlines are among the largest users of the new Boeing aircraft. They ordered at least 104 and received at least 70. In contrast, many other airlines, often in markets with weaker growth than China, they have made only a small portion of their orders for the Boeing 737 Max.

The pilots who piloted the 737 Max are attentive to the development of events. Dennis Tajer, spokesperson for the American Airlines pilots 'union and pilot of 737 aircraft, said the training and other information had restored the pilots' confidence in Boeing after the crash in Indonesia.

Tajer said that he was too eager to say that the crash of the Ethiopian plane was going to change that opinion. He added, however, "We are not far from when they tell us that no new equipment has been introduced in the Max.We have this memory with which to work."

"It is too early," he said, to say what influence the accident will have, "but be careful, we are attentive".

By James Glanz and Zach Wichter. The New York Times

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