LIon Air 737 Max 8 Crash in Indonesia

With the Air Canada flight that almost landed on the taxiway at SFO, the NTSB was not able to get info off the CVR because it was kept powered up for over 2 hours after the plane landed.

With the current generation of FDR holding thousands of channels of information for several hours of flight time. Why cant they make a FDR/CVR built into 1 unit that can store several hours of information that has the cockpit/ATC conversations that are 100% in sync with the flight data. They can have 2 still mounted in case 1 were to fail or get damaged to the point that information cannot be extracted. With this type of recorder the investigators would have both the flight data as well as the voice recordings right now for this crash.

 

This was precisely my thought as well and seems to be tipped in the guidance issues by Boeing last night. I was actually on a flight in 2005 that had the exact same airspeed indicator malfunction as the Air France flight, as well as the incorrect response from the flight crew which sent the plane out of control, and was very fortunate to survive. In my case this was only true because we had already gained enough altitude that we were able to recover after a total plunge of 13000 feet. NTSB report is a good read at https://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/brief2.aspx?ev_id=20050523X00653&ntsbno=NYC05MA083&akey=1.

 

This is my experience also.

 

Breaking: Boeing Issues 737 MAX Emergency Airworthiness Directive

https://airwaysmag.com/industry/lion-air-crash-boeing-warns-737-max-operators-of-potential-trim-fault/

 

This sounds like several events that were preventable led to the fatal crash. First mtx did not properly diagnose the issue and repaired incorrectly. Secondly the pilot should have been trained to handle this situation. Boeing's directive is a reminder of the procedure, not a new procedure??

 

So far it looks like the airplane did think it was in a stall situation because of erroneous alpha vane data.

All crashes are a chain of events that could have been broken at some point.
If Boeing issued an AD then maintenance may not have had a clue as to what the problem was.
737 pilots are trained for stab trim runaway but not necessarily a stick shaker going off at three hundred knots with a nose down pitch trim situation because the airplane thinks it’s stalling.


If the ADIRS system was giving stall warnings at high speed. Which Looks like it MAY be the case. This is a different scenario than pilots simply being confused by erroneous airspeed info.
They would have been taken by surprise getting a stall warning at somewhere around 300 knots, if the airplane started pitching over because of the speed trim system they would have probably instinctively hauled back on the yoke to correct the problem making it worse as the stick pusher kicked in. I saw a graph of the flight and at one point they were doing 330ish knots. They were probably so busy trying to rectify the flight path that they didnt even consider reaching for the stab trim cutout switches.
It's possible they overstressed the horizontal stabs.
There are stab trim cutout switches built into the control column where if your trimming nose up and you move the control column forward at a certain point the trim stops, if you trimming nose down and pull the column back the trim stops. I think this was a safety feature to stop the speed trim system (STS) if it goes crazy.
The speed trim system kicks in at high power setting, low gross weight and relatively aft CG and auto pilot off. It automatically starts trimming the airplane. You see it a lot during climb out and sometimes during descent.
I know the speed trim system uses the autopilot trim so I'm guessing that the stab trim cutout switches would shut it off in a stall because the nose down trim in a stall is from the speed trim system; however I’m not sure of this.
During a stall situation the elevator feel shift module increases hydraulic pressure which increases foreword control column force to about 4 times the normal force.
I have done a stab trim runaway (nose down) in the simulator a few years ago and at speed over 280 knots it took both of us to pull back on the yoke enough to level the airplane out and stop the decent.
Of course you have the giant noisy trim wheel right by your knee and your supposed to grab it and hold it to stop the trim if you can't do it electrically.

 

I seem to remember the 707 had some early stab trim problems as well, which contributed to the 1962 Air France crash at Orly and may have contributed to the 1961 Sabena crash at Brussels.

 

Reading your explanations of how all this stuff is connected and operates and what you have to do to chase it convinces me that it is an "assist" that you don't need. I'm not apprised of all the fancy automatic computer aids and interconnected APHIDS, APIRS, DIPDUBS, and inter coagulated AMODIMS and I am convinced that the poor pilots are victims of a plethora of computer Gremlins that are not only designed to chase each other but to sucker the pilot into their game. All of this can be done in a simpler way and put the aircrew back in a place where they can read what is actually going on with the airplane instead trying to intercept the runaway impulses of a computer system that can't read itself when one element gets sick.

 

Thank you for your clarification. Will be interesting to see what Boeing does to resolve this or if anything else is required.

 

Well the FAA launches high-priority probe of Boeing's safety analyses: WSJ

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-deliveries-faa/u-s-faa-launches-high-priority-probe-of-boeings-safety-analyses-wsj-idUSKCN1NJ05S

 

US to charge ex-Boeing pilot over 737 MAX crashes: report
US to charge ex-Boeing pilot over 737 MAX crashes: report (msn.com)

Federal prosecutors are preparing to indict a former Boeing test pilot suspected of misleading aviation regulators over the safety issues blamed for two fatal 737 MAX crashes, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

Mark Forkner was the lead contact between the aviation giant and the United States' Federal Aviation Administration over how pilots should be trained to fly the planes, the Journal said.

According to documents published in early 2020, Forkner withheld details about the planes' faulty flight handling system known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS -- later blamed for both crashes -- from regulators.

The 737 MAX was formally certified in March 2017, but was grounded worldwide for 20 months following two crashes in October 2018 and March 2019 that killed 346 people.

The MAX was allowed to fly again at the end of 2020, once the MCAS software was modified.

Boeing has acknowledged its responsibility in misleading regulators and agreed to pay more than $2.5 billion dollars to settle certain lawsuits.

Neither the US Justice Department nor Forkner's lawyer responded to requests for comment.

The Wall Street Journal said it was not clear what charges Forkner would face.

 

Sacrificial lamb or being used to get to higher ups.