You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
I was right about how the door failed.
But wrong about...
Pilot’s unions oppose using cockpit flight recording data in prosecutions because it encourages pilots to turn them off. My guess is that pilots are unofficially coached in how to ensure that evidence is accidently lost after incidents.
1 out of 2's not bad.
I’m glad I don’t work with you.
Damn right. I have a perfect record. Some of my colleagues however...
Damn right. I have a perfect record.
Yeah thats not overly convincing bearing in mind you have announced the first thing you do is destroy any evidence incriminating you.
But wrong about…
Pilot’s unions oppose using cockpit flight recording data in prosecutions because it encourages pilots to turn them off. My guess is that pilots are unofficially coached in how to ensure that evidence is accidently lost after incidents.
1 out of 2’s not bad.
No, the coaching isn't informal. It's the public policy of the pilots' unions to make sure evidence can't be collected. The pilots are formally coached in how to avoid legal issues, nothing informal about it. Gotta hand it to those union guys, they just put it right out there in public.
Yeah thats not overly convincing bearing in mind you have announced the first thing you do is destroy any evidence incriminating you.
I've never had to destroy evidence. I've never done anything wrong and there never was any evidence linking me to any failures. Prove me wrong.
The onus is on the employer to prove guilt. The union’s job is to demand that evidence. Even if your member is as guilty as hell, your job is to protect their interests and insist on evidence of guilt. You’re not a public safety commission, you’re a representative for your members interests. Sometimes those will be in conflict and a union’s responsibility is to its members.
Hmmm. Are you seriously telling someone with over 30 years experience in aviation, and a 10 year stint on a Union's executive body, how the organisation should operate? Remind me what your qualifications are? I'm telling you. That isn't how it works. Nobody wants an incompetent air traffic controller sitting on a radar screen where hundreds of people's lives are at stake. Nobody wants a pilot flying a plane who is a danger to everyone on the aircraft. No matter how much they pay each month in subs.
there never was any evidence linking me to any failures
Your colleagues destroyed the evidence by mistake? And I quote...
Some of my colleagues however…
No, the coaching isn’t informal. It’s the public policy of the pilots’ unions to make sure evidence can’t be collected. The pilots are formally coached in how to avoid legal issues, nothing informal about it. Gotta hand it to those union guys, they just put it right out there in public.
Your guess was that pilots are coached in how to turn the CVR off.
Hmmm. Are you seriously telling someone with over 30 years experience in aviation, and a 10 year stint on a Union’s executive body, how the organisation should operate?
The problem with using this sort of boring experience is:
a)they have decided you tell the pilots to lie and cover up.
b)this is clearly a bad thing and so therefore you are also going to lie and cover up that you do a.
Therefore they are still right and anything you say will just prove them more right.
If you are ever involved in a serious incident, never make a statement without your lawyer or union representative present. Their job is to determine what happened and what legal liability you might have. They will look at what evidence the other side has and try to discredit it. Whatever you do, do not provide evidence that can be used against you by opening your mouth, unlocking your phone, etc.
That's certainly a common attitude in some industries. But aviation has a culture where finding out what went wrong and why is actually quite normal rather than arse covering. Other industries try to learn from that and encourage the same level of openness and candour. I'm a big advocate of the right to silence - but if its the immediate response following an incident that could put many more lives at risk if it happens again it doesn't send a good message.
U.S. pilot unions oppose any use of CVRs because they can be used as evidence against pilots.
Well they say 'privacy' which is not quite the same thing. Why do European pilots not object to it - even when flying to the US? Could it be that they have sufficient safeguards in place that the data will not be misused by management or others on matters totally unconnected with safety?
Do you work for Boeing? it would explain your determination to make this about pilots, and your attitude to making sure you are not personally seen to be at fault.
It’s basically the first rule of being involved in a ****up. Try to eliminate any evidence that you were there.
Prove that's what you do, otherwise it's just posturing from behind a keyboard.
Can we park the Thols2 argument please? There's a risk that the thread will just descend into squabbling then get closed and we'll miss all the good stuff from the really informed.
If you don't agree with Thols2, just ignore him as you're clearly not going to change his mind.
your view on the aviation industry does not coincide with my particular experience.
Likewise with mine in an adjacent space. In fact the manner in which he is insistent on apportioning blame and to use an American term; malfeasance, with such a high degree of arrogance & certainty is something I find genuinely astounding. That attitude was one of the very reasons Haddon-Cave had a field day within defence aviation.
Something I'm sure Dan is also well versed and experienced in as a former member of the RAF.
But the attitude on display serves as a great insight into how people create either healthy or unhealthy safety culture within their area of work.
Surely no-one finds themselves as a pilot on a commercial aircraft without being aware that there are CVRs and FDRs? It is a known and accepted part of the job.
There must be 1000s of hours of self incrinination on UK dashcams...
Of course we know they are there. I have no input to them, don’t touch them, have no interest in finding ways of fiddling them, and in all honesty, I’m more bothered about how the kettle in the galley works, as that actually affects how my day goes.
If the airbus comes up with a little message telling me it’s broken, I’ll look it up in the book of 10,000+ similar messages to see if Mr Airbus will let me fly without it working. If they will, I will carry on drinking my tea. If not, I’ll call an engineer to fix it.
Airbus, CAA, my employer their lawyers and me are content with this arrangement.
So back to the Alaskan 737, it is perfectly feasible that aircraft has had issues with that door/plug in recent weeks, that had been checked by maintenance in accordance with manufacturer procedures, and cleared for flight. These jets are big flying computers and networks. Sensors fail, get bent/wet/corroded/ stop communicating all the time. There will be backup systems and manual checks.
Every now and then a novel failure will appear, either due to flawed design, manufacturing flaws, poor maintenance procedures, or just a straight human error.
A good safety culture embraces that and learns, without looking for blame. If we penalise anyone making genuine errors, people will try to cover it up.
A good safety culture embraces that and learns, without looking for blame. If we penalise anyone making genuine errors, people will try to cover it up
and this is exactly why flying is by far the safest form of transport and has led the way for other industries in reduction of errors and improvements in quality and safety.
Boeing have definitely lost their way. It’ll take 10 years to rectify that. You can lay the blame squarely at the merger with McDunderheads. Shame as they both made beautiful aircraft that were a pleasure to fly in as pax. Interesting item on PM tonight going into the ramifications and parallels with other businesses that switched technical excellence for shareholder value and all either failed as businesses (ICI) or sunk their share value (Boeing, GE).
Yes it would be nice to have a thread about the recent 737 incident, given the number of people on this forum who have experience in the industry.
Shame this thread isn't on a CVR. All the crap would be overwritten a few hours later.
Every now and then a novel failure will appear, either due to flawed design, manufacturing flaws, poor maintenance procedures, or just a straight human error.
Usually all of the above at some stage or a other. Just the Swiss Cheese model doing its thing.
A good safety culture embraces that and learns, without looking for blame. If we penalise anyone making genuine errors, people will try to cover it up.
Indeed, first rule of preventing something happening again is to allow people to speak without fear of recrimination for either active or passive errors on their part.
Not every company gets it right but if unions are involved they represent the interests of all their members, if they colluded in covering up an incident that affected overall safety then their other members would quickly find someone else to represent them. It's the exact same as all those who claim nuclear workers know that plants are unsafe, if that was the case why would we live and have families near them?
I guess we’ll find out more as the investigation progresses but I would hope that safety critical bolts would be wire locked to stop them loosening. Unless they were wired but not to the right torque setting so failure could still occur?! I guess that if maintenance schedules are such that frequent inspections could negate this to a degree but I get the feeling the door plug wouldn’t get the same inspection frequency as say the brakes or the rudder.
Airbus, CAA, my employer their lawyers and me are content with this arrangement.
I can confirm that Airbus are very happy when people don’t fiddle our anvionics and electronics. They’re complicated enough as it is!
40m lines of code on A340. 3 other aircraft programs since that time and the new systems are now incredibly cross connected = very, very complicated.
They claim that pilots have an expectation of privacy in the cockpit.
They believe that pilots ‘wouldn’t have agreed’ to any recording in the first place (as though it was their decision right) had they known these recordings would ever be made public.
The cockpit doesn’t belong to the aircrew, it belongs to the airline who operate it, so why, exactly, should any member of the crew, employees of the company who owns the aircraft, have any expectation of privacy when doing the job they’re assigned and paid to do?
I’ll wait…
I've been an aviation nerd for years, although mainly on the military side of things. With the recent 737 problems, not to mention the two Max crashes, there seems to be a view that Boeing have lost their way,and that these issues started with the merger with McDonnell Douglas. Given that McDonnell are responsible for some legendary aircraft in the Phantom, Eagle and Hornet (with Northrop), why are they seen as the cause for Boeing's woes? I don't know much about McDonnell's civilian aircraft, although I believe the DC10 had a poor record in the 70s and 80s. Not sure about any of their other planes (MD80 etc. ).
It makes a lot of sense that pilots and cabin crew have no direct acess to 'black boxes', it would kind of defeat the object if they could.
@teesoo The board of McDonnell Douglas were known as ruthlessly shareholder focused. Boeing were always an engineering first organisation - like Lockheed. When they merged the Boeing board were largely liquidated and replaced with the MD board. They relocated the HQ to Chicago in a deliberate move to distance themselves from the inconvenience of having to oversee an aircraft manufacturing business. The engineering teams immediately began to feel pressure to cut corners, increase productivity, reduce costs in an internal race to the bottom.
DC9/md8x were lovely aircraft, indeed the Dc9 was the first aircraft I flew on back in 1980. They did develop a somewhat unjustified reputation of flying into the ground having had the horizontal stabiliser screw jack catastrophically fail on a few occasions. DC10/MD11 had some issues with hold doors falling off at the start of its career. Went on to be a fantastic long haul liner and later a great cargo plane.
Because when old man McDonald died, MD was ran by the business side at the expense of the engineering side. When Boeing and MD merged, senior managers from MD were placed in Boeing commercial to raise the stock price and thus increase the worth of the company. This both limited innovation and reduced engineering quality. Combined, these placed Boeing in a difficult position in the market as the narrow bodies took over as the profit makers for the company. They had an older product, more difficult to iterate, very risky to replace with a management that didn’t want to invest. How do you keep your stock rising when your product is inferior and your competitor has parity of position - you make it cheaper…sadly aircraft are both products and services and if the services required (Pilot training, maintenance, etc) are high the overall package is less advantageous. Boeing tried to get around this through control laws on the aircraft.
Boeing have been further hit by pentagon and nasa switches to fixed price contracts, no longer can they just recoup bad engineering by cost overruns. This is doubly expensive as you (Boeing) have to pay twice. Once to actually fix it and again because your staff aren’t working on something else, making you fall even further behind your competion.
Boeing’s whole focus in the 2010s was on “vertical integration” or swallowing your supply chain to increase your own profitability rather than focusing on direct innovation.
If one has the time this is a good read on the culture changes at Boeing since the MD merger.
Given that McDonnell are responsible for some legendary aircraft in the Phantom, Eagle and Hornet (with Northrop), why are they seen as the cause for Boeing’s woes?
Different management team.
All the good stuff was until the late 80s. They then got a new CEO and bunch of cronies who implemented a bunch of "reforms" which left the company in tatters with massive cost overruns and generally failing projects. Which wasnt helped by the end of the cold war.
For some reason despite the fact their management had failed hence the need for the effective takeover they ended up in charge and imposed their failed culture on Boeing.
With surprise, surprise no better results than the first time round.
Your guess was that pilots are coached in how to turn the CVR off.
No, completely the opposite. It was that they were coached in how to leave it running so that the data is overwritten. Other people went off on an irrelevant path that pilots can't turn it off. As it turns out, because of the policies of pilots' unions, the data is automatically overwritten after two hours as long as the system is left running. All that pilots need to be coached to do is to leave the aircraft systems running and any evidence will be destroyed. Even if you did everything according to the manual, you are better off if the record of what happened in the cockpit is your recollection rather than an audio recording that could be misunderstood or misrepresented in court in the U.S. The erasure of CVR data in the U.S. is a deliberate policy on the part of the unions, if they wanted it retained, they would agree to a 25 hour recording.
Boeing have definitely lost their way. It’ll take 10 years to rectify that.
Yep. I posted this a page or two back.
https://qz.com/1776080/how-the-mcdonnell-douglas-boeing-merger-led-to-the-737-max-crisis
This is also good reading:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how-boeing-lost-its-bearings/602188/
To me, these incidents are just symptoms of a much deeper change in corporate culture over the last 50 years. It's not just Boeing, it's many companies, GM is another prime example. GM had a huge scandal about 15 years ago with ignition locks that could jam and lock the steering after the lock had a few years wear. It was a standard part on millions of GM vehicles. GM knew about the problem and it would have cost about $10 per vehicle to replace them all. Instead of just recalling all the vehicles and replacing all the locks, GM had meetings about it and put lawyers on the job until there were enough deaths that they could no longer pretend there wasn't a problem. GM, like Boeing, used to be known for great engineering back in its glory days but they just lost their way in the 1970s and decisions were driven by accountants instead of engineers.
But deeper than that, many of those companies have evolved so that they are primarily finance companies, the physical products they sell are just a way to get customers to sign up for financial services. Airlines make their actual money off financial services rather than air tickets, car companies make their money off selling loans, etc. The people who run them don't care about the products they make or the people who make the products, they have MBAs, not engineering degrees and they get most of their compensation as bonuses tied to stock prices.
They've also lobbied successfully over the decades to limit regulatory oversight. Boeing persuaded the FAA that they were trustworthy enough to basically self-regulate, the result being the 737 Max fiasco. If you look up the name Darleen Druyun, you'll find that the woman overseeing U.S. Air Force procurement took a well-paying job with Boeing after retirement. She served prison time for her role in giving Boeing a very lucrative leasing deal on air tankers. The Boeing CFO also served prison time. Boeing is a company that should never have been allowed to self-regulate on safety issues. I'm sure that Boeing are not alone in that sort of thing (Lockheed were prosecuted back in the 1970s, for example), it's a highly corrupt system rather than just a few corrupt individuals in one company. It doesn't really matter who's running Boeing if the system is set up to reward corruption and shoddiness.
It’s basically the first rule of being involved in a ****up. Try to eliminate any evidence that you were there. They don’t have to have done anything wrong, it’s just much easier if they don’t have to explain their conversations. That’s why it’s union policy to oppose any CVRs. It’s just automatic, don’t be stupid enough to record yourself being involved in a problem.
So the blokes on the flight deck when a door installed by person or persons unknown inexplicably falls off the aircraft while there flying it, can then stand up and say, hand on heart, sorry guv, nothing to do with us, we weren’t there, we know nothing about it.?
As everyone knows they were there, they were on the roster to fly that plane on that route at that time, I somehow don’t think that’ll wash. It’s clearly in the flight crew’s best interest to say, and have a taped record thereof, that they were flying in strict concordance with the accepted protocol and procedures, when suddenly and unexpectedly, things went to Sheol in a ****ing hand basket! *rollseyes*
They then, in observance of all protocols and procedures laid down when experiencing a sudden and unexpected emergency, brought the aircraft and its entire crew and passengers safely back to the airport.
When a pilot and his crew brought an aircraft with full complement of passengers into land on the Hudson River, with no loss of life, I have no recollection of some jackass on a cycling forum doing his utmost to try to put some portion of blame on them because they might have turned off the CVR.
The door problem is absolutely Boeing's fault. The problem for the airline and the pilots is that there had been warnings about loss of cabin pressure on previous flights. The airline had obviously investigated, did not discover the incorrectly fitted door plug, but they were concerned enough to restrict the aircraft from flying over water, evidence that they were concerned. The pilots should have known of the reported faults and may have discussed it before takeoff. It's possible that they were concerned but felt pressured to fly the plane, we just don't know what they said and never will. Whatever the case, the pilots made the decision that the aircraft was safe to fly. It's also possible that they discussed it after takeoff but before the door plug blew out. Now that the CVR data has been erased, we can only take the word of the pilots about what was discussed.
The airline will be sued over this because they approved flying an aircraft with a fault that they couldn't diagnose and it will probably be settled out of court with the airline not admitting any fault in exchange for a monetary settlement. If the pilots had discussed the fault on CVR before or during the flight, that puts them in legal danger of being named as co-defendants. If they had discussed the fault pre-flight, that could be presented to a jury that they flew an aircraft despite knowing it had an undiagnosed fault. Juries are composed of non-specialists so they can be swayed by emotional appeals even if the hard evidence isn't incriminating. So, not having the CVR data available is the best thing the pilots could hope for, even if they didn't do anything wrong. Now all they have to say is that they were informed that the aircraft was safe to fly by the airline. Much harder for an unscrupulous lawyer to misrepresent to a jury than a recorded conversation. That's a large part of why pilots' unions insist on the data not being available. If it was useful exculpatory evidence, the unions would have the opposite policy.
Unless Boeing try to say that the aircraft was perfectly good, and the operator ignored an obvious safety issue?
In this scenariao, the pilot is the last person to blame, as I imagine most pilots would like to land safely, and not die.
In this scenariao, the pilot is the last person to blame,
The problem with things like this is that there is an enormous chain of decisions that led to the incident. A worker in the Boeing factory did not fit the door plug properly, but that indicates that procedures were inadequate, backed up by other door plugs being incorrectly fitted. So, supervisors and whoever else was involved in the assembly procedures are also partly responsible, and so on up the chain of responsibility at Boeing. If a single person in that chain had made a different decision, this might not have happened.
The airline took delivery of a brand new aircraft and then discovered there was a flaw. They couldn't find the source of the warning but decided to keep flying the aircraft, which costs money and they can't afford to ground without good reason. However, they didn't check the door plug. There must have been numerous people involved in that chain of decisions and a different decision by any one of those people might have changed the result. Then, the pilots, presumably knowing that the aircraft had some sort of issue, agreed that it was not serious enough to ground the aircraft and chose to fly it. I suspect the pilots are probably on solid ground there, but they are still part of the decision chain that led to the incident so their role needs to be investigated. How much did they know, how much input did they have into the decision to keep the aircraft flying? Surely a senior pilot had to sign off that the aircraft was airworthy, were the crew of the aircraft involved in that or were they just told to fly it and ignore the warning about cabin pressure?
In this scenariao, the pilot is the last person to blame,
I posted a link to the criminal case against the Drilling Supervisors on Deepwater Horizon a page or two back.
In that case as well they were simply the last link in a chain that went all the way back to senior management and, as such, BP saw them as the perfect sacrificial lambs and laid out the 'facts' in such a way that the DOJ felt they were the obvious culprits when anyone with any industry knowledge knows that simply wasn't the case.
I can see pilots being in a similar situation, and equally vulnerable to management showing that they didn't do the risk assessment properly and 'choosing' to fly a plane they knew to be unsafe, despite them having very little opportunity to do much else but downgrade any issue until the operation was deemed sufficiently safe on paper.
It comes down to culture, and I can definitely see why, in the US, the CVR gets overwritten after 2 hours while in Europe it's after 25 hours. I'd imagine the cultures are very different, just like the culture around Oil and Gas is very different in Europe compared to the US.
Two things can be true at once. The pilots most likely did nothing wrong and Boeing and/or Alaska Airlines are 100% at fault while at the same time there is a culture that means US pilots very much don't want their discussions around risk assessments being made public while they are still alive.
as I imagine most pilots would like to land safely, and not die.
I'd imagine most drivers don't want to die but given the state of many cars and the way many drive that is hard to believe sometimes.
Humans are very good at convincing themselves the worst case scenario isn't going to happen. Especially if they are worried about losing their jobs.
And yet
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67930977
"Boeing admits mistake over plane door blow-out"
They’ve had a very, very narrow escape. Is that 6 aircraft they’ve found that could have just vanished from the sky, all with similar faults. That wouldn’t be the end of the max program, it would be the end of Boeing.
Perhaps they’ll now go around the office and fire everyone who can be described as bean counting corporate slime, decamp all those in Chicago back to Everett and go back to being an aircraft manufacturer, rather than a sales company who happen to sell aeroplanes?
I view their newly relocated humility with a big slice of skepticism.
No, completely the opposite. It was that they were coached in how to leave it running so that the data is overwritten. Other people went off on an irrelevant path that pilots can’t turn it off.
Fair enough - when you said...
Pilot’s unions oppose using cockpit flight recording data in prosecutions because it encourages pilots to turn them off.
... it rather gave the impression that you thought pilots could turn it off.
Humans are very good at convincing themselves the worst case scenario isn’t going to happen. Especially if they are worried about losing their jobs.<br /><br />
sounds like you are trying to justify some ropey decisions you have made in the past. No doubt there will be people at the public enquiry into the post office who say the same - and yes you can point the finger at a few people at the top table who drive that culture but everyone who quietly takes the money (and it’s pretty lucrative money) is part of the problem too. Every professional in the chain has an opportunity to stand up and speak out.
sounds like you are trying to justify some ropey decisions you have made in the past.
I think it's more a comment about the worryingly high number of cars that fail their MOT than Bruce's individual decision making.
Yet people either:
Willfully ignore the fault because driving is more important than waiting for payday to fix it (or not fixing it at all because "it's still got ...... months MOT")
Willfully ignore that they really should check things once in a while, there's no excuse for setting off with blown bulbs or worn tyres.
Car's kill in the UK alone 1800* people a year, injure 150,000, and 1 in 500 people will be involved in a crash with a car every year. Yet even on this forum which is mostly affluent and grown up enough to know better there's a lot of talk about "it'll probably not pas it's next MOT" or defeating/bypassing emissions and safety systems on cars.
*in collisions, not including pollution.
Every professional in the chain has an opportunity to stand up and speak out.
The problem is that it's never one big thing, it's an endless series of small things that slowly erode standards over years or decades. You end up with a culture that no individual can fight, you either have to leave or go along with it. It happens because of poor leadership, if managers and supervisors don't set high standards, the people working under them won't maintain high standards either.
sounds like you are trying to justify some ropey decisions you have made in the past.
Nope, just commenting on human nature.
Humans are reasonably good at judging risks for themselves alone. However, they are not good at judging risks for themselves plus 3 other people plus 1.5 tonnes of metal travelling at 100km/hr. Or for themselves plus 500 people plus 500 tonnes of metal travelling at 1000km/hr. Or for themselves plus a nuclear power plant.
Human risk assessment doesn't scale. That's why we have to have so many checklists and procedures.
Saying, 'The pilots/nuclear engineers/drilling supervisors/whatever responsible person wouldn't take any risks because their life is at stake as well' is wrong because it's assuming the risk assessment for an individual naturally scales up to take into account the potential devastation that can be caused by modern technology. It doesn't.
Every professional in the chain has an opportunity to stand up and speak out.
Sort of. But not all 'professionals' in the queue are equal. It is, at the end of the day, the pilots sig on the paper-work saying they accept the aircraft, not the chief executive of Boeing or the Airline, who's attitudes to "efficiency" and "cost reduction" pervades through an organisation regardless of whether there's a paper trail or not, or whether that attitude is unspoken or not...and pilots may find that keeping quiet or speaking out directly effects whether they can pay the mortgage...or not.
Thisisnotaspoon -
1. I’m not sure pilots treat aircraft faults like motorists do with likely mot failures. It’s an interesting analogy but I’ve been on enough delayed flights that almost certainly were not going to fall out the sky but had a warning to believe pilots are particularly careful to follow the rules.
2. Would motorists be so cavalier if there was a team of mechanics available to fix issues quickly, at no personal expense to themselves and with minimal inconvenience - the evidence seems to be that large commercial operations with in house workshops don’t seem to operate dodgy vehicles so probably not?
3. There are far too many vehicle related deaths on our roads but only a tiny fraction are caused or contributed to by vehicle faults. That is a signal that motorists are too cavalier but probably not that their mechanical fault v risk understanding is wildly wrong.
4. The sanctions for driving a vehicle with a bald tyre or blown bulb are rarely enforced. That has an impact too. The sanctions for flying a plane with an equivalent fault would be potentially career ending; and there’s a lot of other people who might “grass you up” for doing it (copilot, aircraft tech at either end, the next pilot who gets in the seat and discovers the fault etc). In your car, with no logs, your blown bulb “must have just happened officer as I checked it just this morning”…
According to the BBC article, the plane had 3 previous flights where (presumably unexplained) warnings were observed by pilots, additional maintenance had been requested but not carried out & instead restrictions were imposed about where that plane could fly so that it "could return very quickly to an airport" if need be 😂 Doesn’t really sound like a culture of “safety first” by anyone involved tbh but IANAP 🤷♂️
warnings were observed by pilots, additional maintenance had been requested but not carried out
Every lawyer on the West Coast will be hoping to get a bit of that action. Gonna be some lovely mansions paid for with that settlement.
My point wasn't a comparison with airlines, just illustrating that peoples perceptions and attitudes to safety are somewhat flexible. "We" will do things that affect our own safety, but would baulk at the idea that someone took that risk on our behalf.
Another example are smart motorways, people feel that their own driving is above average, so the odds of dying in a crash are low. But if you stop people from speeding and open the hard shoulder as a lane the fatality rate drops by about 30%. But people focus on the "added" risk of being hit from behind by inattentive drivers (a risk they can't control so overestimate) whilst broken down more than they do the far bigger reduction in risk from everyone driving at a sensible speed (something they could previously control, so thought "making progress" was perfectly safe).
Every lawyer on the West Coast will be hoping to get a bit of that action. Gonna be some lovely mansions paid for with that settlement.
Maintenance engineer bingo cards at the ready:
Operator - .... is almost worn out
Maintenance - ..... almost replaced
Operator - intermittent fault observed
Maintenance - intermittent fault not observed
I suppose it'll come down to who decides what was reasonably practicable. We know now that the door plugs leak and fall out, so they're checking them. Last week they were one of probably thousands of seams, seals and items that could have leaked. Culpability IMO therefore lies with the manufacturer as the operator couldn't have diagnosed the latent faults, but the manufacturer should have had systems in place to make sure the aircraft was built to whatever specifications / procedures / instructions.
But not all ‘professionals’ in the queue are equal. It is, at the end of the day, the pilots sig on the paper-work saying they accept the aircraft, not the chief executive of Boeing or the Airline,
correct - but the pilot is the “professional”, like an accountant, solicitor, doctor etc. the reason it needs their signature is they are expected to be professional enough, and stick to their professional body’s code of conduct to reject bull shit from above. I do realize it’s not quite so black and white when there’s a mortgage to pay but I don’t buy the “not my fault, corporate culture” line. Those cultures succeed when none of the professionals stand up and say no. If that’s because they like the money, then they aren’t that different from the guy at the top!
According to the BBC article, the plane had 3 previous flights where (presumably unexplained) warnings were observed by pilots, additional maintenance had been requested but not carried out & instead restrictions were imposed about where that plane could fly so that it “could return very quickly to an airport” if need be 😂 Doesn’t really sound like a culture of “safety first” by anyone involved tbh but IANAP 🤷♂️
The warnings were in relation to the pressurisation system and would have been checked by the line engineers on reporting, if not faults were found then the pilots would have been to told to report further instances, it looks like they stopped that aircraft from flying ETOPS routes, ie over long distance of water but they still would have been able to fly at least 60 minutes away from any airport.
If you are at cruise altitude and you lose cabin pressure through either structural (bomb, loss of door, panel) or system failure (you have two, double redundancy), you instantly go onto oxygen (masks are by your leg), passengers oxygen masks drop down automatically. Then you perform an emergency descent to get down to breathable air at 10,000ft, once you are there, everyone is safe!
You have to remember pilots don't go to work thinking how they can get around safety issues, they all want to get home at the end of a working day to see their families.
If an engineer tells me the aircraft is safe, I trust them.
Zilog - go watch the NTSB video further up the thread. They explain that the system reporting a fault had two backups and FAA rules allow it to fly so long as one of the main systems was working (it was). They highlight that they’ve not found a correlation between that system warning and the bit that fell off. They highlight that it is not an FAA rule that an aircraft with that sort of fault should fly restricted routes but an extra precaution placed by the airline. It’s funny how the tone of a headline can set your expectations.
Until the FAA preliminary report comes out telling us exactly what faults were diagnosed/fixed/not fixed, then it’s all conjecture.
If it were so simple to diagnose and fix every issue as Thols seems to think it should be, my job would be a lot simpler. <br /><br />
I do feel lucky to work for a company that doesn’t try to overrule my decisions on safety.
If you are at cruise altitude and you lose cabin pressure through either structural (bomb, loss of door, panel) or system failure (you have two, double redundancy), you instantly go onto oxygen (masks are by your leg), passengers oxygen masks drop down automatically. Then you perform an emergency descent to get down to breathable air at 10,000ft, once you are there, everyone is safe!
Well everyone apart from the people that got sucked out of the plane and fell to their deaths anyway.
Those cultures succeed when none of the professionals stand up and say no.
As you say its not that black and white, when they professionals aren't in a position to say no, or they have no leverage, or that message is rejected, then what?
commercial pilots in the US a dime a dozen. Don't like they way we work at CheapAss Airlines? Fine, there are a dozen pilots just like you with enormous training credit card debt to pay off, and a willingness to turn a blind eye. A while back; the US Army retired a particular helicopter and rather than re-train them, binned off a bunch of quite experienced pilots, for a while; the starting salary for commercial helicopter pilots was only a little more than burger flipping paid.
The first thing to get side-lined when you can't get a job is your professional responsibility to whistle-blow.
Love this place, everyone's a ****ing expert except the people that actually do the job.
I’ve just listened to the NTSB video press conference. From what they said, there had been an issue with the primary Cabin Pressure controller on previous flights. That system had been isolated pending maintenance, which is allowed by FAA rules, and a perfectly standard procedure. They say, I would tend to agree, that this issue is not suspected to be linked to the failure of the door plug.
Rather different to some of the accusations on previous pages…..
That’s why you should always wear your seatbelt…
Yeah, even coming from an expert I'm struggling to accept the idea that a big hole appearing in the side of an aircraft while at cruising altitude wouldn't be a particularly big deal.
I might stop reading this thread in advance of my flight on Saturday where I'm seated....right next to the overwing exit. 😳
No idea what type of aircraft I'm on though, Jet2 operate both Boeing and Airbus.
Over wing exits are fine - that’s a plug door, not a door plug. They’re bigger than the hole they’re in. That’s why you have to pull them into the aircraft, then throw them out sideways to exit.
I'm sure it's all in a days work for you but what are you smoking if you think that's what a paying passenger wants to hear from the pilot, i.e. "don't worry if the door falls off mid-flight, it'll be reet'. What we want to hear is "we've done everything possible to ensure the door [I]won't[/I] fall off, and we won't have to make an emergency landing with a hoofing great hole in the plane." 😂If you are at cruise altitude and you lose cabin pressure through either structural (bomb, loss of door, panel) or system failure (you have two, double redundancy), you instantly go onto oxygen (masks are by your leg), passengers oxygen masks drop down automatically. Then you perform an emergency descent to get down to breathable air at 10,000ft, once you are there, everyone is safe!
Right. That is the mental gymnastics I'm finding it difficult to follow. They clearly knew there was some kind of problem with the plane, but rather than grounding it & fixing the issue they attempted to "mitigate" the potential consequences of the problem (not the actual problem itself!) How can you possibly argue that passenger safety is primary consideration here?They highlight that it is not an FAA rule that an aircraft with that sort of fault should fly restricted routes but an extra precaution placed by the airline.
Right. That is the mental gymnastics I’m finding it difficult to follow. They clearly knew there was some kind of problem with the plane, but rather than grounding it & fixing the issue they attempted to “mitigate” the potential consequences of the problem (not the actual problem itself!) How can you possibly argue that passenger safety is primary consideration here?
To be fair, I suspect these kind of faults are incredibly common. With the current business model it wouldn't be possible to ground all the aircraft showing some sort of fault.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stop-outsourcing-your-aviation-maintenance-michael-salmon/
They clearly knew there was some kind of problem with the plane, but rather than grounding it & fixing the issue they attempted to “mitigate” the problem. How can you possibly argue that passenger safety is primary consideration here?
Planes fly with snags all the time. Most are very minor, there are multiple redundant backups and life carries on. Same as you might drive a car with a warning light on but avoid motorways.
I suspect that if the airline were required to have a perfectly functioning plane with not a single snag, nothing would ever get off the ground.
Plus it shows that - while there was a hefty dose of luck involved for all on board - aircraft are actually remarkably safe even with a big hole in the side. You'd probably end up with a worse outcome if a door fell off your car while driving along.
I’m sure it’s all in a days work for you but what are you smoking if you think that’s what a paying passenger wants to hear from the pilot, i.e. “don’t worry if the door falls off mid-flight, it’ll be reet’. What we want to hear is “we’ve done everything possible to ensure the door won’t fall off, and we won’t have to make an emergency landing with a hoofing great hole in the plane.”
Of course that goes without saying! Every flight, engineers, pilots and cabin crew do everything possible to make sure it's a safe flight for the passengers. No way am I expecting the "door to fall off" if I was, I would stay in bed.
My point wasn’t a comparison with airlines, just illustrating that peoples perceptions and attitudes to safety are somewhat flexible.
As an aside, I completely agree - SiL is hugely risk averse (child monitors still used on their 11 and 7 year olds) but neither her nor her husband (high up in a nationwide transport company) get their cars (both 16 plate, I think) serviced, they just rely on the MOT to pick up problems. They're too cautious to ever trust a baby sitter but last MOT, her car failed on dangerously worn tyres,
Plus it shows that – while there was a hefty dose of luck involved for all on board – aircraft are actually remarkably safe even with a big hole in the side.
I don't think the absense of fatalities or injuries proves anything, tbh.
If it had happened 5 minutes later at cruising altitude with queues for the toilets and everyone playing with their laptops I think we'd be looking at a very different outcome.
I think there has been significant cost cutting going on for years now. I also think that the fallout from any significant cost cutting generally isn't felt immediately but builds up over a number of years and saying, 'See, no one died this time!' is not a good attitude to take.
Please stop linking the fact the plane flew without its primary cabin pressure controller with the door plug falling off. It’s a complete red herring IMHO. The controller balances airflow in from the packs , with air out via an outflow valve, to maintain the correct pressure schedule. It has a secondary backup (that was being used instead, functioning correctly) and a 3rd manual backup system. Many aircraft just have 1 and a manual backup.
Aircraft have thousands of sensors and systems, all with backups and tertiary workarounds. If they were immediately grounded whenever any component failed you would never fly, or your ticket would quadruple in price.
Next time you buy the cheapest ticket ask yourself what cost that airline has taken out?
Every single component on the aircraft is trialled and tested for its importance and integrity to the whole. Some things are just cosmetic, some nice to have, some essential. Then you have to balance the interface between each component and the impact of multiple failures. These links areall set out by the manufacturer and agreed by the FAA/CAA/EASA.
The final arbiter of safety after all of this is the Captain. If I’m not happy, we aren’t going. End of.
Right. That is the mental gymnastics I’m finding it difficult to follow. They clearly knew there was some kind of problem with the plane, but rather than grounding it & fixing the issue they attempted to “mitigate” the potential consequences of the problem (not the actual problem itself!) How can you possibly argue that passenger safety is primary consideration here?
The fault was saying there was an issue with the pressurisation system, of which there are two. I'm guessing the engineers tested the system and no faults were found but as a precaution Alaska airlines stopped the aircraft flying long distances over water (ETOPS) but knowing airlines as I do it was probably more to do with the fact if the fault occurred down route in Hawaii the aircraft would be stuck there and cause issues with scheduling etc.
Pilots have what's called a minimum equipment list (MEL) and when we get a technical issue on the ground, we consult that to see if we can carry on with a SAFE flight. If we get a fault in flight we look at our quick reference handbook (QRH) to see how we can fix it or what actions to take. There are about 10 faults we need to know by memory as these are time critical, such as a loss of cabin pressure.
But try and be reassured that not one crew member or engineer wants an aircraft to take off in an unsafe condition ever.
Right. The question is then, is this a "minor snag"? How often is this particular protocol employed - i.e. "we trust this plane but not so much that we'll let it fly over water"? Is this a routine thing then?Planes fly with snags all the time. Most are very minor, there are multiple redundant backups and life carries on. Same as you might drive a car with a warning light on but avoid motorways.
Right. The question is then, is this a “minor snag”? How often is this particular protocol employed – i.e. “we trust this plane but not so much that we’ll let it fly over water”? Is this a routine thing then?
See my post above, trust me if it was a major fault no professional pilot would fly that aircraft and definitely would'nt be coerced into it either.
If an engineer tells me the aircraft is safe, I trust them.
This doesn't really tally with this
The final arbiter of safety after all of this is the Captain. If I’m not happy, we aren’t going. End of.
If Pilots didn't trust the engineers, then no aircraft would fly.
Love this place, everyone’s a **** expert except the people that actually do the job.
Of course, it is the way of the world. Those who proclaim 'I was right' when talking about the technical details so confidently are laughable, the reality is they took information from others who are suitably qualified and experienced from around the internet and arrogantly talked with authority as though they had relevant subject matter knowledge and insight, and that they had drawn these conclusions from their deep well of first hand exposure. Even in the face of being told contrary by those who would be considered SME.
Well, in the sense that final responsibility lies with the pilot then yes it does.
However, there are so many factors in any operation that saying that is pretty meaningless. For example, the pilot and ground engineer don't have any say over cost cutting measures that go on at Boeing. Or the decision to outsource maintenance to countries that the aviation authorities don't have easy access to.
We're being told by pilots to just trust them when they must be aware of just how little say they have in the really important decisions that affect overall aircraft safety.
I believe that the ground and air crew are going to do everything in their power to make things as safe as possible.
I also believe that aircraft manufacturers, aircraft maintenance companies, and airlines are going to do everything in their power to maximize profit and safety is very much a secondary consideration compared to profits.
I'm a complete layman here but with an avid interest in aviation, engineering and technical stuff. I crave technical info and love knowing how things work, why things work that way and what procedures are built around things. It's great to hear what the actual pilots have to say on this thread.
I would highly recommend Petter's two youtube channels mentourPilot and mentourNow for anyone curious about the inner workings of the flying side of the aviation industry. The video below on MELs is particularly pertinent. I'm currently working for a customer in another safety-critical industry. In contrast to flying they're much more aligned to the gun-ho approach adopted by the oil & gas cowboys. They haven't even got a test environment for me to try stuff out in. Couple of incorrect mouse clicks and I can lock the entire business out of everything. Didn't tell me there was no test infrastructure until about 3 months into the gig either. I'd rather fly continuously on a badly assembled Boeing than visit their site.