This isn’t as ominous as it sounds. The FAA appoints designees (DERs) in a very diverse and wide variety of discriplines, who have the ability to sign off on aircraft certification aspects on behalf of the FAA. This is in addition to the OEM maintaining a ODA which is essentially a certification organization per FAA regulations, which the designees are a part of. Because the FAA does not practically have the ability to review and approve every aircraft certification project, these people practically speaking are the FAA for these projects. The designees are subject matter experts and it’s very difficult to obtain and hold a DER, and the ODA is subject to a lot of regulation and frequent FAA audits. There are a lot of rules and protections in place to keep the DERs from being subjected to undue pressure by company leadership including revocation of ODA authority which I have seen happen. So it’s not necessarily a “Boeing employee rubber stamp” as some are saying.

I agree it's not a rubber stamp, but you can bet those people are subject to implicit yet intense pressure to pass things along. Their compensation and career progression is in the hands of Boeing. Yes, this process is a force multiplier, and those folks are highly trained, serious people, but the system has an irreconcilable conflict of interest.

The DOJ has convened a grand jury to look at it, and if I were still there, I'd be on the team responding.

I have no qualifications to comment on 737s or airplanes, but do have a general thought about technology. With systems this complex, there is a judgment call on how much of the complexity do you ask the human to deal with vs how much do you have the system to handle. You can put it all on the human and risk causing an accident that way. You can hide it all from the human and risk causing an accident that way. After each accident, it is easy to say of course that particular aspect should have been manually controlled because of course the perfectly skilled and highly experienced pilot would have done exactly the right thing based on his perfect training and everything would have been fine. Designing systems by lawsuit and hindsight isn't the ideal way to do it. Maybe Boeing got this particular decision wrong but I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that the way it builds, tests and certifies airplanes is wrong. The right process can still lead to wrong decisions.

I don't know if this has been brought up


https://www-bloomberg-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2019-03-19/how-an-extra-man-in-cockpit-saved-a-737-max-that-later-crashed?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1#amp_tf=From%20%251%2 4s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomberg.com%2Fnews %2Farticles%2F2019-03-19%2Fhow-an-extra-man-in-cockpit-saved-a-737-max-that-later-crashed

Jumpseat rider played critical role in Indonesian cockpit

An off-duty pilot saved the 737 Max from a crash. The next day, the same plane on flight JT610 crashed into the sea.
As the Lion Air crew fought to control their diving Boeing Co. 737 Max 8, they got help from an unexpected source: an off-duty pilot who happened to be riding in the cockpit.

That extra pilot, who was seated in the cockpit jumpseat, correctly diagnosed the problem and told the crew how to disable a malfunctioning flight-control system and save the plane, according to two people familiar with Indonesia’s investigation.

The next day, under command of a different crew facing what investigators said was an identical malfunction, the jetliner crashed into the Java Sea killing all 189 aboard.

I've seen that. One more suggestion that the pilots were not up to snuff. Reports are that their was a great deal of panic expressed in the voices heard in the cockpit voice recorder.

When a pilot (the captain) adjusts the trim 21 times and fails to figure out he has an uncommanded trim problem, or recognizes it and doesn't know how to stop it, I'm going to say he shouldn't have been a captain. I understand that there was a lot going on but he had the presence of mind and time to keep adjusting the trim.

What I can't wrap my head around with this is if the same ****ing plane had a problem the day before it crashed why was it in service?

Did no one file a report that the thing was ****ed up?

Did maintenance not check it?

Did the airline not think to issue a bulletin to its pilots as a "heads up dudes, if this happens here's how to not die"?

Many have stated the aircraft was not airworthy for that flight. Improper maintenance being the largest issue.

Every single passenger really hopes to have another Chesley Sullenberger or a pilot just like him as the pilot in command. He lost both engines and had zero panic, just 100% business, clear communications and make the right choices NOW.

Unfortunately we often get the folks that cheated on tests, did not read the manual, and should not be flying a ultralight much less a airliner.

It looks like Boeing has shot themselves right in the middle of their foot. With a large caliber gun. With 20/20 hindsight it is virtually incomprehensible they would design a system that wants to take control with just one sensor thinking there is a problem, and not make it perfectly clear to every pilot how to disable it quickly.

I saw that. Really remarkable, lucky that pilot was there, or we'd have had a disaster the day before. Incredible that that incident was not shared.

The PIC was an experienced, high-hour guy. I find it hard to believe that he would not understand an uncontrolled trim problem.

I haven't heard much about what the FDRs have revealed.

This came in today on the Lion Air crash. It seems that those pilots did not realize it was a trim issue and just wrestled the thing all the way down. Eerie and sad.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/cockpit-voice-recorder-reveals-moments-leading-lion-air-boeing-737-n985296

Reminds me of a case a friend of mine had where a throttle stuck open on a young lady's car on I-90 near Snoqualmie. She hammered the brakes for 60 miles til she got to 405, then crashed. It didn't occur to her to put the car into neutral or to switch off the key. People behave really oddly under stress.

I had a similar experience in a brand new cube van, driven by a person I would say is a car guy and mechanically apt. The throttle jammed wide open and, brakes were inadequate to stop it, and to this day I am sure it would have been an accident if I had not knocked it into neutral for him. He was so consumed with steering and holding the brake down, he forgot he had other means of engine control at hand.
Panic does weird things to your thinking for sure. Which is why training is supposed to make your required reactions second nature.

I did a minor repair on my old 951 and took it for a test drive. After a few miles of successful testing, I decided to open it up. When I went to shift from 1st to 2nd the revs did not drop and instead pegged the red line and bounced off the rev limiter. First thing I did was to not release the clutch. Second thing I did was to put it in neutral. Third thing I did was to turn off the engine. Then I just coasted into a nearby parking lot and popped the hood.

The problem was immediately obvious: the throttle cam was stuck open on a hose clamp. 30 seconds later I had the hose clamp rotated out of interference with the throttle cam and the problem was fixed.

I agree completely. Between racing, autocrossing, and track driving, I've spun a whole bunch of cars over the years. It took about five or six spins to successfully execute the "both feet in" rule, and several more to learn that that rule is not necessarily the best plan of action. That's a whole lot of spins required to unlearn things under natural stress reactions.

I don't know the extent to which modern airplanes allow "close to edge" events (do they spin airplanes in flight training?), or if they even have much "feel" left to them. I read up on today's "last seconds" stories on each crash, and it sounds like the captain was trying to find the answer in the manuals.

This is starting to feel like the usual confluence of machine/software/training/maintenance issues that crashes usually are.

One I will never forget: I was checking out a guy I didn't know on a Piper Arrow many years ago, he claimed he had a license, hours, etc. He wanted to rent the plane for a few hours. I had him do a few maneuvers, and had him do a power-on stall. He froze with the yoke pulled fully back and wouldn't let go. I had to whack him after he didn't respond to my instruction (increasingly loud instruction!). I took control of the plane and we had a quiet ride back to the airport. In a stressful situation bad things can happn.

I have no personal experience, but I believe that pilots spend a lot of time in simulators going over emergency procedures. And the simulators will make you sweat.

Yeah, but does the simulator simulate what happened on these two doomed flights?

05/22/18
737 MAX: A YEAR OF SERVING THE GLOBE
https://randy.newairplane.com/2018/05/22/737-max-a-year-of-serving-the-globe/
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1553138133.jpg

2016-02-12
Airbus A320 Neo vs Boeing 737 MAX
https://aviationvoice.com/airbus-a320-neo-vs-boeing-737-max-2-201602121522/
https://aviationvoice.com/wp-content...ng-737-max.jpg

“The captain of the doomed Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 never received updated training on a Boeing 737 Max 8 simulator, even though the airline had the technology available since January, according to a report.”

https://www.foxnews.com/travel/ethiopian-airlines-pilot-of-doomed-flight-didnt-receive-training-on-new-simulator-report

Just the other day I was flying in the FSX video game.
The twin DA-40 was trying to roll over hard and I was fighting controls while I was trying to figure out what was causing it. It was a low flight and there were some near misses with hills.

First I thought one engine was out but that would not cause that. Perhaps one flap had not retracted but I still hadn't put them down. Opposite rudder responded and elevators and ailerons all seemed to be affecting flight. Tried trim adjustment but no effect. I was panicked.

Then I realized autopilot was on. Pushed that and everything returned to normal.
That was minutes after the first signs of trouble. I failed that test as well.

One of the oldest flying platforms out there.

Boeing 737
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737