Concerns about Boeing 737 Max¶
What happened?¶
- On October 29, 2018, a Boeing 737 Max 8 operated by Lion Air crashed into the Java Sea 13 minutes after takeoff, killing all the 189 people on board.1
- On March 10, 2019, another Boeing 737 Max 8 operated by Ethiopian Airlines crashed 6 minutes after takeoff, killing all the 157 people on board.2
What is the problem?¶
The main problem is the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) that was introduced in the Boeing 737 Max series.
The MCAS is a software system that automatically adjusts the horizontal stabilizer to push the nose of the aircraft down when it detects that the aircraft is in danger of stalling.
Why introducing MCAS?¶
As Airbus introduced the A320neo, a new version of the A320 family, Boeing needed to respond to the competition. The 737 Max was Boeing's response to the A320neo.
One of the fastest ways to publish a new air craft is to modify an existing one. However, not like the A320neo, the 737 Max had a problem. The new engines were larger and heavier than the previous ones. This caused the aircraft to be more prone to stall.
To solve this problem, Boeing introduced the MCAS system.
What went wrong?¶
As Boeing want to get the 737 Max to the market as soon as possible, they didn't want to spend time and money on training pilots to fly the new aircraft. So, they decided to hide the MCAS system from the pilots.
What can be known from the crash reports is that the pilots were not aware of the MCAS system. They didn't know how to disable it. They didn't know how to react when the system was pushing the nose of the aircraft down.3
The technology is not the source problem¶
The MCAS system is not the source problem. The problem is that Boeing have never tell the pilots to be aware of the system. They didn't know how to disable it. They didn't know how to react when the system was pushing the nose of the aircraft down.