Is it ever time to not dump on Boeing! UK 737-800 almost crashes on take-off from software glitch.

[thewayne]

The jet cleared the end of the runway with just under 300 meters remaining and sailed over the A38 (major highway) with 30 meters of clearance!

The culprit? Something called Auto-Throttle. The pilots, per standard procedure, set the take-off thrust to 92.8%. Then somehow the plane dialed itself down to 84.5%, giving it a take-off speed of about 150 knots, which isn't very much.

During the subsequent investigation, "Boeing told investigators looking into the incident that they were aware of a “long history of nuisance disconnects during takeoff mode engagements”."

Uhhh.... you're aware of a "LONG HISTORY OF NUISANCE DISCONNECTS" and you haven't fixed it?!!! WTF?!!!

The article goes on to relate the incident in April of a FedEx cargo plane landing in Turkey WITHOUT THE FRONT LANDING GEAR DEPLOYED! It somehow managed to stay on the runway and stop safely.

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/tui-boeing-flight-bristol-disaster-avoided-b2558536.html

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/06/07/2032214/boeing-passenger-jet-nearly-crashes-due-to-software-glitch

Comments

[warriorsavant]

Remind me not to contract with Boeing to build airplanes. Or space rockets. Or probably anything.

[thewayne]

Yeah.... With their obsession of quarterly profits, screw the safety culture, definitely not a company that I would ever want to do business with.

[acelightning73]

The "door" that blew out wasn't a real door. Airlines can order planes built with certain configuration. If they order a 737 with a shorter body, there are frame spacers that take up the part of the boy without one of the cabin doors, and in assembly they put a spacer in the place where the door is supposed to be, so that all the frame pieces fit togther correctly. And it turns out that a locking device that was suppose to hold the spacer into the frame. Some of the bolts weren't installed properly in that frame, which allowed it to fall out.

As for the autopilot adding nose-down pitch during takeoff... there was an aviation accident video that showed how the aerodynamics of a particular plane made it want to let the nose point upward during takeoff. This led to stalls and crashes until they re-programmed the autopilot to add a bit of nose-down pitch to compensate. (Used to be, "Hey, watch your rate of climb on takeoff on these new planes. You need to fiddle with the the pitch controls.")

Dammit, Boeing built some pretty impressive planes - hey, the B-52s, which are still our main strategic planes, are still serving as warhorses after all these years.

[thewayne]

The flight and ground crews of Buffs are all younger than the plane the fly and service!

[acelightning73]

Yeah, and they were weird planes to begin with. I got to saw them take off from an air force base. As the beast lumbers down the runway, the tip tanks start to lift up, and in a while the wings are holding most of the plane's weight. And That's when the whole damn thing lifts into the air. Very strange to see.

[thewayne]

I'll bet that was pretty cool!  What I've always wanted to see is a rocket-assisted take-off!  I saw an air demonstration of an A-10, that was pretty cool!  Those engines make an amazing sound.

[acelightning73]

I didn't see it, but I heard it. I lived near a minor Air Force base, and the takeoff path went right over my house. Somehow or another, a B-36 needed to make an emergency landing somewhere in the Northeast. They set the beast down at Mitchel AFB. It had six piston engines and four jets, "six turning, four burning, and one just fell off now." Now, this little base had a runway that was totally inadequate for the B-36. They got every JATO bottle east of the Mississipi and duct-taped them to that plane. It took off, with the JATOs screaming and the jets bellowing and the props howling. My dad, who worked a night shift, was asleep in bed at the moment, and he said he levitated a foot in the air in a perfectly flat position.

[thewayne]

Amazing what can be done with sufficient motivation!

[acelightning73]

I'll bet the Air Force found a way to recruit people with "technomage" talents to keep the 52s flying. Too bad they wouldn't let me join the Air Force when I turned 18. The USAF didn't believe women could be pilots or mechanics. And I learned how to fix electronics and mechanical devices from the "war surplus" electronics junk that was for sale in the 1950s. (I do understand the attraction of "steampunk".)

I'm an antique myself now. I know how to adjust a "normal aspiration" carburetor on an engine. I know how to cook on a wood-burning cast iron stove. I know how to preserve food by home canning in glass jars (and I know how to make jam and pickles). I know how to sew clothes from patterns. I know how to program in BASIC a little bit. I know how tube circuitry works. (In one of Heinlein's juvies, written for the Boy Scouts' magazine, he has his teenage protagonist (a radio amateur) build an AM radio transmitter and receivers, and use them to plan a revolt against the repressive government of the Venus colony - nobody in the gummmint had ever heard of AM radio. Occasionally "obsolete" skills can be useful in a modern context.

[thewayne]

I was thinking of Heinlein's list of skills that a person should be able to do as you listed things.  A woman I worked with a few jobs ago, a girlfriend of hers wanted to enlist in the Air Force and wanted someone to go with her to the recruiter, so she went.  And while she was waiting, another recruiter asked her if she wanted to take the test, just for fun.  She decided 'what the heck' and scored crazy high.  Had amazing color/pattern matching skills.  And she went ahead and enlisted, and ended up a flight stewardess, I think just post-Vietnam.  And her friend?  Failed the test.  Another friend of mine, this lady is less than 5' tall and probably 90 lbs sopping wet, was a jet engine mechanic.

[acelightning73]

I have tried all my life to be a Heinlein Human. I wasn't sexy enough to be a Heinlein Woman, nor was I red-haired. But I always like to know how things work, so I can fix them when I have to. And having a diverse range of skills is a survival trait; you never know when you might need to deliver a baby aboard a plane while talking someone on the phone through how to start the barbecue grill.

The petite ones are more agile at getting into the weird spaces around engines.

[disneydream06]

OMg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Talk about criminal neglect. :o :o :o
Hugs, Jon

[silveradept]

"Nuisance" disconnects, they call them, on the assumption that they would never happen in a situation where the disconnect could be harmful or dangerous and the pilots wouldn't notice because they were busy with something else that was cognitively taxing. Feh. Boeing continues to be extremely lucky that none of those "nusiances" has created a situation that can't be ignored and that will bankrupt the company in legal fees, judgments, and costs.

[kaishin108]

Oh my gawd.... :-/

[thewayne]

Yeah.