Boeing 737 Max: What happened to the cockpit of aircraft that crashed in Ethiopia and Indonesia?

The pilots could not do anything else. When the alarms went off in the cabin, the captain and the first officer struggled to regain control of the aircraft.

They were too close to the ground and urgently needed to gain height. But when Captain Yared Getachew tried to lift the nose of the Boeing 737 Max 8, the electronic system of the aircraft forced him to descend.

It was clear that pushing the orders again would not be enough. He then pressed a button to adjust the aerodynamic balance of the aircraft and, in this way, force him to climb.

But a few seconds later, these adjustments were automatically canceled. The attempts did not stop there: they tested the manual controls, then returned to the automatic flight systems, while an alarm sounded at increasingly short intervals to indicate that the speed was increasing dangerously.

Getachew and first officer Ahmednur Mohammed Omar tried everything. But finally, flight 302 of Ethiopian Airlines, which was supposed to travel to Nairobi, Kenya, the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, crashed to the ground at a speed of 500 km / h.

Only six minutes after takeoff and with 157 people on board. In a new plane and with good visibility, a clear sky and without sinister winds.

The victims included citizens from 35 countries. Among them, the deputy director of communications of UNESCO and the former Nigerian diplomat, Abiodun Bashua, as well as three generations of the same Canadian family.

Five months earlier, in an almost identical aircraft operated by the Indonesian airline Lion Air, a tragically similar episode was occurring: minutes after takeoff, the pilots had had a whole series of problems controlling the plane.

The flight, which lasted just over an hour, left Jakarta International Airport and headed for Pangkal Pinang in western Indonesia.

Whenever they tried to sound the horn, the pilot's efforts were reversed a few seconds later, as automatic systems forced the ship back down.

After about 20 attempts to stabilize the Boeing 737 Max 8 without success, it crashed in the Java Sea. This time 189 people died.

Two very similar fatalities, just five months apart, with aircraft of the same brand and the same new design.

A few days after the accident of Etiophian Airlines, investigators found "obvious similarities" between the two incidents. So, is there a common cause for both accidents?

When a plane crashes, an investigation is immediately opened to determine the causes.

And this task has several goals: first, loved ones want answers. Second, airlines and aircraft manufacturers need to know if the incident can be repeated.

In this sense, researchers are particularly concerned to have access to the information contained in the "black box".

In the case of the Lion Air flight, the aircraft was found at the bottom of the sea a few days later and actually gave essential information on the last minutes of the flight.

From there emerged the first clues about what had gone wrong: the researchers focused on the software that controls theft and is designed to work in the background, without even the pilot knowing that it was not in the background. ;he works.

Boeing designed this program to solve the Boeing 737 Max nose's tendency to climb more than necessary, especially when it is at a steep angle.

But apparently, it was activated at the wrong time. Thus, he forced the chest to "shoot down", at the precise moment he should have climbed, during takeoff.

In addition, the stabilizers – small wings that are placed on the sides of the tail – were placed in a bad position by the computer of the aircraft. And when the pilots tried to fix it, the software canceled the order and brought it back to the starting position.

Although Boeing insisted that his plane was safe, he sent a bulletin to the airlines to inform them of the case and tell them what to do in those cases.

On a day-to-day basis, pilots rely heavily on their check tables, which establish step-by-step procedures for executing flight operations.

When a failure occurs in mid-flight, these check charts help diagnose the cause of the emergency and solve a wide range of problems.

In this case, the pilots followed a series of steps – which they had to memorize -, established to deal with the anomalies affecting the stabilizers.

The list of steps included disabling the automatic control system. In this way, they could control the outriggers manually, using a crank in the cab.

Boeing was convinced that if pilots followed these instructions, the aircraft could fly safely. And also, as he had announced, he would start developing software to eliminate the problem.

But the company was working on it when the Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crash occurred.

We already know that it is very likely that the cause of accidents of both aircraft is the same.

And with an aggravating circumstance: according to a preliminary report of the investigation, the Ethiopian Airlines pilots reacted to the emergency, as Boeing said, but that did not save their lives or those of the pbadengers .

Today, the American company is asking serious questions about the safety of its aircraft and wonders if it should have been more radical to present solutions after the accident of Lion Air. And it is forbidden to fly at 737 Max for the moment.

For the moment, accidents have had two broader consequences. First, the close relationship that exists between giant Boeing and the body supposed to be independent and responsible for regulating the industry, the US Federal Aviation Administration, was put under the microscope.

And then he began to look at how pilots are trained around the world to fly planes equipped with more and more advanced and complex software systems.

When Boeing introduced the 737 Max in December 2015, he did it with drums and cymbals.

The pre-launch badyzes indicated that it would become the best-selling model in the shortest possible time in the history of aviation.

Although the 737 Max is a new model, it was truly a more advanced generation – silent, efficient and environmentally friendly – of the 737, which began navigating the skies in 1967.

Four years before the arrival of 737 Max, Boeing had serious problems. Airbus, the main rival of the American company, was developing a new version of its A320, a direct competitor of the 737 segment.

The rivalry between the two companies has always been intense. For years, the A320s and 737s – characteristics of short and medium flights – have dominated local markets around the world. And both have become sources of profit for their respective manufacturers.

But the new version of the A320 threatened to spray its competitor, thanks to a more modern design but especially to engines that allowed efficiency (and fuel economy) of the order of 15%.

Airbus has started receiving orders for the developing aircraft. The only way left to Boeing was to react with something.

"The longer Boeing took a model, the harder it was to fall," said BBC aviation expert Chris Brady.

But there was a problem: the American company had been trying for years to have another product ready to revolutionize the market: the 787 Dreamliner.

It was his priority. There was therefore not much incentive to allocate a budget to designing an aircraft from scratch and the alternative was to redefine an existing model with better engines.

Despite the fact that the A320s and 737s look like similar aircraft, the truth is that the technical challenges faced by their manufacturers are very different.

The A320 is basically a much more modern aircraft, which started flying in the late 80s. It is higher than the 737, which fuses its fuselage on a 1960s design.

For Boeing, this meant that the installation of new engines would not be easy.

You had to find a solution. But the chosen path has had unthinkable consequences.

The initial design of the 737, introduced in the 1960s, was to be low enough to facilitate baggage loading and pbadenger access to the cabin by stairs, which are often the only option available at smaller airports and regional airports. . what this model was going to serve.

But over the years, low altitude has become a problem.

For its all-new 737 Max, Boeing wanted to use the best-performing engines on the market, called CFM International LEAP. Airbus had also chosen a variant of the same model for its A320.

"Once Airbus chose these engines, which save a lot of fuel, Boeing had to do the same, otherwise it would have been a commercial suicide," Brady said.

But LEAP engines were very big for the 737 and did not fit under the end of the wing, where was the most elongated engine (cigar-shaped) of the old 737. Then it was decided to move it further towards the center of the wing. .

This solved the problem. But he created another one.

Essentially, the new aircraft began lifting the trunk more than was desirable, as it sought what is known as the "angle of attack".

In aviation, the angle of attack is determined by the difference in wing angle and the direction in which the aircraft flies.

And if the angle is very steep, especially during takeoff or landing, the aerodynamics of the aircraft can be seriously affected.

To master this effect of installing the new engines in the Max, Boeing engineers developed a system to increase the maneuverability of the aircraft (MCAS).

They were looking for pilots to familiarize themselves with the new model, similar to previous generations of 737.

What the software would do would be, in essence, to automatically lower the boot, in special circumstances, without the intervention of the pilot.

And while the investigation is still ongoing, the "accusing fingers" in the preliminary reports indicate that the MCAS is responsible for the losses incurred in Ethiopia and Indonesia.

But what does the MCAS do in the plane? According to several experts, the system manufactures horizontal stabilizers – these small rear wings on each side of the tail, which simply serve to maintain the flight height – force the nose of the aircraft to lean.

The main idea of ​​his design was to reduce the risk that the nose would become too high and affect the aerodynamics of the aircraft.

But now, after the two accidents, it has been established that it is possible that the MCAS has design flaws.

First, the software bases its response on data from a single angle-of-attack sensor, when the aircraft has two. This type of device, located at the front of an aircraft, measures the location angle of the airflow.

Trusting only one of them means that, in case of failure, the system can deploy at the wrong time and press the nose of the plane when, for example, it should go up.

Secondly, although the pilot can use manual control of the aircraft, the MCAS repeats itself in cycles, forcing the trunk to lean several times.

The problem in the Lion Air accident was that the MCAS was working without anyone knowing how to disable it. After that, Boeing had to explain to his customers not only how to disable it, but also what was the MCAS.

Because they had never mentioned it specifically in the aircraft manual, which provides pilots with all the information they need to order a plane safely.

What followed was an avalanche of fierce criticism from airlines and pilots.

Boeing noted that procedures had been established for pilots in the event of stabilizer failure, regardless of the cause.

In fact, he gave the example of a flight of the day before that of Lion Air, in which the pilots had managed to solve the problem by turning off the computerized system and flying the aircraft manually .

But it showed something worse: there had been defects in the 737 Max before the two fatal accidents.

Since then, it has been asked how the 737 Max got the flight certification and why the flights were not interrupted after the first failures were recorded.

And this is where many badysts are beginning to point to the close relationship between Boeing and the US aviation safety regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The FAA has been denounced for having certified the 737 Max and allowed it to fly.

The allegations suggest that this government office, because of the close ties that Boeing has with the US government. -It is one of the biggest contractors in the defense sector-, neglected details in the revision of the 737 Max. And then, it took longer than desirable for all aircraft models to stop working after accidents.

Critics have even been raised by the US Senate, where a public hearing was held to find out the details of how the 737 Max was allowed to fly by the FAA.

"In the FAA, they know that Boeing overcomes them, they know that the agency does not have the resources to do the work they are given," said Mary Schiavo, who worked as Inspector General at the Ministry of Finance. transport. He has been questioning the FAA for a long time.

Schiavo was in charge of several jobs at FAA and Boeing.

"They pretend to inspect, and Boeing pretends to be inspected, whereas in fact, Boeing does almost everything herself," he said.

For Barbara Lichman, an aviation lawyer, Boeing's economic power is also translated into political power.

"A similar sized company has a higher lobbying capacity than other companies, and they go to Congress time and again to put tremendous pressure to lift the restrictions on the company," says Lichman.

Regardless of whether the policy is in question, the FAA was criticized to the letter because 24 hours after the crash of Ethiopian Airlines, it still allowed the 737 Max to continue operating, while other agencies aviation from other countries had already established a ban.

It took three days for the FAA to stop the takeoff of all 737 Max on the US territory.

For its part, the FAA has defended itself by declaring, through the intermediary of its director, Daniel K. Elwell, that even though it was the last country to ban such flights, it was the first to do it "with valid information".

And he responded to accusations that he delegated the certification work to Boeing staff.

"The aircraft certification process is well-established, the 737 Max took five years and required 110,000 man-hours of FAA personnel work, in accordance with agency standards," the statement said. .

He adds: "The delegation (from the process to the companies) has been an essential part of our security system since the 1920s and, without it, the airline system in our country would probably have stagnated."

It has a reason to be: Modern planes are complex beasts, which combine advanced engineering with powerful computers that run software with millions of lines of code. The FAA, on the other hand, is a government office with limited resources. What they do, is delegate the essence of the review process, while agency representatives are responsible for oversight.

For its part, Boeing stated that it was operating "in full compliance with all the requirements and monitoring processes of the Federal Aviation Administration."

And he noted that "the collaborative commitment between the FAA, Boeing, its customers, and its industry partners has created the safest transportation system in the world."

In recent months, Boeing has been sued by relatives of the victims of the two flights.

Some investors, who believe that the company has hidden some of the problems badociated with the 737 Max and have placed "the profitability and growth of the company above the security and honesty".

And other details that affect society have appeared.

Boeing admitted last March that an alert mechanism, which would have warned of the "angle of attack" conflict and which should have been installed as standard on the 737 Max, would only work only if the customers – the airlines – had also installed it. a cabin screen for which additional fees had to be paid.

Engineers detected the problem for the first time several months before the accident of Lion Air, but the airlines were informed that after. And the FAA was also not notified, as Boeing staff argued that this did not compromise safety.

According to the company, the absence of this system was not critical to the safety of the aircraft.

"In each of the aircraft we deliver to our customers, including the Max, all the information and data needed to operate them are provided on the aircraft's main screens," Boeing said.

"Neither the" angle of attack "marker nor the warning mechanism were necessary for the safety of aircraft operation," the report said. airline company.

But others think that any additional information is useful in an emergency.

"I think any data or clue helps to solve a problem and understand what is happening at that time," says expert Brady.

At the same time, the investigation has raised more questions about the transparency of the activities of the aerospace giant … and about the fact that it has not reported any problems. other possible security issues.

Although air accidents are invariably tragic and heartbreaking, they are also extremely rare. Last year, there was one fatal accident for every 2,520,000 flights, according to the aviation safety network.

One of the bases for steering is as safe is the rigorous training to which future pilots are subjected.

And most importantly, the time they have to devote to obtaining the additional certification allowing them to fly a particular type of aircraft.

However, some experts point out that these stringent requirements are becoming more flexible and that manufacturers are trying to reduce the time and money needed for training.

Some see what happened with the 737 Max as a symptom of this trend.

Although there are serious differences between the previous 737 and the Max, the pilots who had piloted the older version only needed to follow an online tutorial before they could carry pbadengers in the new generation of aircraft.

By not modifying the controls of the Max – compared to older versions of the 737 – Boeing has ensured that pilots do not need a lot of extra training.

"Airlines do not want to spend money on training if they can avoid it, we saw it with the 737 Max, it's a plane with a body and engines different, but it had the same category for the pilots as the old versions of the 737 ", explains Dai Whittingham, Executive Director of the UK Air Safety Committee.

This is a crucial point: if a new aircraft gets the same qualification as previous models of a series, its training requires less additional training.

Whittingham insists that "shareholders demand many cost reductions for airlines".

"The training requirements are set to an absolute minimum: if airlines want to spend more on training their pilots, they have to cover this expense with their financial teams," he says.

"Learning from a USB stick is the same as structured learning, in clbad and with an instructor … And is an electronic test an accurate badessment of knowledge?", Asked Karlene Petitt, an experienced American pilot who has against the culture of safety within the air navigation companies.

It's one of the few to talk about: pilots generally prefer not to touch about it.

"I think there is a problem with training commercial pilots around the world, and the data corroborate that perception," says Petitt.

"The importance of this problem shows that pilots around the world are concerned about the safety of the industry," she said.

"The comments received from these pilots have also highlighted the concern for the trajectory (…) of the direction that this industry takes," he concluded.

Another area that worries him is the increase in the automation of flights. She worries that as pilots become more dependent on computer systems, they lose the skills to fly themselves and react to problems.

Dai Whittingham has a similar opinion. "Physical and practical flying: the pilots now do less, because the computer is more efficient, the pilots make mistakes and it costs money," he says.

This is not a new theory. In 1997, during a famous conference at the American Airlines Flight Academy, Captain Warren Vandeburgh noticed that the pilots became "children of magenta", that is to say that they trusted too much the lines of this color screens of cabin.

Vandeburgh identified the culture of excessive dependence of pilots on automated systems, compromising their ability to respond to emergency situations.

Boeing now says that all pilots who intend to fly the 737 Max after recertification will have to engage in a new training program.

In the meantime, researchers will continue to closely examine how the pilots involved in both accidents understood the systems they were using.

Boeing has developed a software update to change the operation of MCAS.

In the future, the system will be based on the information of two attack angle sensors, instead of just one. If the two sensors give different readings, the pilots will be warned and if they vary too much, the MCAS will simply shut down.

There will also be other safety measures: to ensure that the flight crew can always neutralize the system and prevent its deployment several times "under unusual conditions".

At a congressional hearing, Daniel Elwell, an acting FAA administrator, said he expects to receive details of the Boeing update "in the coming days".

He stated that he would be subject to a "thorough and rigorous security badysis". The plane would not be allowed to fly to the United States until it is "absolutely safe".

In fact, several local media said that at least until August, the models of the 737 Max would no longer be allowed to fly in the country.

Meanwhile, regaining the confidence of pbadengers may not be easy, but aviation historian Shea Oakley believes that the 737 Max can still be a success, once he has been allowed to return in Paradise.

"From the beginning, a number of commercial aircraft have suffered fatal accidents, related to design problems or training pilots," he noted.

He points out that aircraft such as Boeing 727, BAC 1-11 and Douglas DC9 were involved in serious accidents shortly after their launch, but nevertheless remained on sale for several years.

Boeing Executive Director, Muilenburg, promised that once the modified MCAS, the 737 Max would be one of the safest aircraft ever built.

Boeing still has more than 4,500 orders for the Max and the airlines want their new aircraft. These efficiency improvements are still needed and, moreover, Airbus alone can not meet the demand.

Production continues and it is possible that most pending orders will be executed.

But that does not mean that Boeing can just make the plane back in the air as if nothing had happened.

Both accidents claimed the lives of 346 people. Official surveys are underway and further information may emerge.

Nor can we ignore the impact of these losses on Boeing employees.

They were clearly proud of their new creation. Admittedly, they did not intend to make a dangerous product. Now, people inside the giant plane say they feel "broken" by what happened.