On March 10, 2019, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 flying from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, crashed six minutes after take off killing all 157 people on board.
The aircraft, a Boeing 737 MAX 8, is the second such plane to crash in under six months after Lion Air Flight 610 crashed into the Java sea back in October 2018 twelve minutes after take off.
The crash of Ethiopian 302 caused countries around the world to force the grounding of all the 737 MAX 8s around the world until the cause was found and fixed.
Boeing responded by placing the blame of both crashes on faulty software which honestly creates more concerns than answers.
In order to fully understand why Boeing’s explanation is worrisome, we have to understand what makes the 737 MAX 8 different from previous generations of Boeing’s massively successful 737 series of aircraft.
Since 1986, the 737 has seen very stiff competition from Boeing’s European counterpart and rival Airbus with their A320 family of planes. Since both planes are so similar and trying to corner the same market, any little advantage may help with sales.
In 2012, Airbus introduced the A320neo (new engine option), a very slightly modified version of the A320 family of planes with small design changes to make the plane more aerodynamic as well as with larger, more efficient engines. These changes promised a 15% increase in fuel efficiency which of course makes each flight more profitable.
Boeing was in trouble. Unfortunately, when it was originally designed in the late 1960s, the 737 was a much smaller plane than it is today. It was purposely engineered to be lower to the ground in order for it to be flexible enough to be used at regional airports without special equipment to load and unload baggage.
Sadly for Boeing, this design feature would become a problem for them in the 21st century. Aircraft engines operate more efficiently with larger fan blade which force more air to combust. Since the A320 sits higher above the ground, this wasn’t much of a problem. The 737 on the other hand was specifically designed to be closer to the ground which made putting larger diameter engines on the plane difficult as they ran the risk of hitting the ground.
Determined not to lose significant market share to Airbus, Boeing needed to quickly come up with an alternative to the A320neo. Many thought that Boeing would soon be announcing the long rumored 797 family of aircraft, a plane meant to replace the aging 757. Using the latest technology in composites, the 797 would have a better range and capacity than the much older 757 and would beat out Airbus.
Creating a new plane isn’t exactly easy. Beyond the engineering and designing of a brand new plane, you then have to go through the very arduous process of getting the plane certified with numerous aviation administrations around the world.
Boeing’s short term solution would be to find a way to put the larger diameter engines on their 737 family of planes. They accomplished this by projecting the engines further forward, thus being able to lift them higher on the wing.
Although technically airworthy, the positioning of the new larger engines changed the aerodynamic properties of the aircraft by changing its center of gravity. This gave the plane a propensity to pitch upwards during takeoff. This could severely compromise the amount of lift the plane received at one of the most crucial moments of the flight.
Boeing felt the best way to fix this problem with their hardware was through software. The Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS for short, was a subroutine programmed into the MAX 8s computer that would automatically pitch the plane of the nose down if the computer felt that the plane was pitching dangerously upwards.
Although this sounds like a decent enough idea, its implementation proved fatal. If the pilot was trying to pitch the nose upwards in a manner the onboard computers felt put the plane at risk, MCAS would override the pilot’s command and tilt the nose downwards.
Since the MAX series of planes was marketing itself as just another 737, they boasted that very minimal training would be required for pilots of current 737 aircraft. Instead of spending 100s of hours in a simulator, they could merely take a refresher course on an iPad. The MCAS system was only mentioned in the flight manual once before the latest fatal crash of the MAX series, so it was possible to be easily overlooked.
The current belief is that both Lion Air 610 and Ethiopian 302 both must have suffered problems with their Angle of Attack sensors, giving the computer false readings that the plane was dangerously pointing upwards. The computer then, believing it was maximizing safety, pointed the nose down. Without the proper training on how to deactivate the MCAS system, a vicious tug of war between pilot and machine ensued, continuing until crashing to the surface below.
Several of these problems could have been easily avoided. Beyond the obvious, like giving the pilots more training with the new aircraft, acockpit warning light alerting the pilots to the MCAS activation would have helped. Unfortunately Boeing decided that this cockpit warning light would be an optional feature that would cost airlines an extra $80,000 per plane. Neither Lion Air nor Ethiopian Airlines chose to add on this crucial safety feature. Boeing now promises that the MCAS activation light will now be included standard on future 737 MAX planes.
As Jon Ostrower of The Air Current wrote about the investigation into the Lion Air flight, the aircraft’s “angle of attack sensors were disagreeing by 20 degrees as the aircraft taxied for takeoff. A warning light that would have alerted the crew to the disagreement was not part of the added cost-optional package of equipment on Lion Air’s 737 Max aircraft. A guardrail wasn’t in place. Once the aircraft was airborne, the erroneous angle of attack data collided with apparently unprepared crew with tragic consequences as the MCAS system repeatedly activated, driving the jet’s nose into a fatal dive.”
In its attempt to create a plane that was both new, in the sense that it was more efficient, and not new, in the sense that it was a similar enough plane that it would not need to retrain pilots or get re-certified, the 737 MAX was rushed through FAA approval in a manner that cut corners and risked lives.
The problem now stems beyond Boeing as it becomes increasingly obvious that the FAA intentionally put the new MAX series on a fast track through approval in an attempt to help Boeing, an American company, from potentially losing business to a foreign competitor.
In a report published on March 17 in the Seattle Times, Dominic Gates reports that in order to meet the certification deadline, the FAA delegated crucial evaluations of the certification process to Boeing itself. Gates writes, “as certification proceeded, managers prodded them to speed the process” and that “when time was too short for FAA technical staff to complete a review, sometimes managers either signed off on the documents themselves or delegated their review back to Boeing.”
So what’s next for the 737 MAX series? At the time of this writing, the FAA, as well as all other major aviation administrations around the world, have kept the MAX series grounded until Boeing can adequately explain how these two accidents happened and how their solution will prevent another accident like this from happening again.
As far as public opinion goes, only time will tell. This is not the first “scandal” Boeing has experienced with one of its newest airplanes, and if we can learn anything from the past, we can assume Boeing will bounce back.
In an article for Reuters, David Ljunggren reminds us, “This is not the first time that Boeing has faced a crisis after launching a new plane with innovative technology. In 1965, three Boeing 727-100 passenger jets crashed in less than three months in the United States while coming into land, killing a total of 131 people…[G]iven the publicity over the recent crashes, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration would only allow the 737 MAX 8 planes to fly again if the regulator is convinced the fixes worked.”
Airbus and Boeing are a virtual duopoly and have a stranglehold on the market. After the publicized crashes of the 727, the planes flew half full for months after they were deemed fit to fly again. Eventually without further incidents or crashes, people forgave the aircraft and the 727 went on to become one of Boeing’s most popular models.
Airlines want to maximize profit, and a new plane promising reduced overhead will always entice them. Southwest and other airlines that operate an exclusive 737 fleet are not about to switch to A320s anytime soon. Pilots and maintenance personnel would all have to be retrained and this alone would make it too expensive.
With better range and per person fuel efficiency, the economics all dictate that airlines will continue to purchase the MAX series. Boeing will be forced to fix the problems, pay fines, pay the grieving families and eventually without any further crashes, that will be enough for most people and we will have no real choice but to accept the MAX series.
