The lion air accident

[Bill Greenwood]

My Son sent me this report, I don't have all details but here is a summary with the critical point. Boeing came out with a new version of the proven 737 to compete with Airbus, with large engines mounted higher which affected the handling at slow speeds. . The critical change is they made a small change in the way the automatic system computer dealt with an emergency of stall or near stall. Not fatal in itself ,but then they made the decision, likely driven by profit margin , that the pilots of the new airplanes could just sit right down and fly, and didn't have to go through and real training for the new systems, certainly not time consuming and expensive simulator training. And guess what, Murphy never sleeps and he's always looking for anyone to make a mistake, even one that seems not likely.
Boeing has been such a good company, but they needed to err on the side of safety and extra training in this case.

[DRGT]

My Son sent me this report, I don't have all details ….

Too early to speculate. No good can from it for most of us on this forum even it the report you received is correct (which in my experience preliminary reports are 10% factual at best.

[skyfixer8]

this might give you further info. IMHO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glroNHUZD28

[Bill Greenwood]

Thanks Skyfixer, and as you give the report it is from NBC Today show and based on the data from the Black Box recovered from the ocean floor which factually shows the attitude and speed, altitude of the plane, and shows that it repeatedly pitched up and down before the final dive. It fits a struggle between the pilots and the computer autopilot in the plane, pilots trying to pull up and computer pushing nose down. Could the pilots have turned off the system and why didn't they. Of course the would be very busy, in a almost panic emergency, but maybe they didn't realize that turning it off was the key to regaining control.. The other box which gives cockpit voice recordings has not been found.

[rwanttaja]

Thanks Skyfixer, and as you give the report it is from NBC Today show and based on the data from the Black Box recovered from the ocean floor which factually shows the attitude and speed, altitude of the plane, and shows that it repeatedly pitched up and down before the final dive. It fits a struggle between the pilots and the computer autopilot in the plane, pilots trying to pull up and computer pushing nose down. Could the pilots have turned off the system and why didn't they. Of course the would be very busy, in a almost panic emergency, but maybe they didn't realize that turning it off was the key to regaining control..

I think the key questions are:

1. How was the previous crew able to maintain control of the aircraft with the suspected anomaly, and
2. Why wasn't the problem fixed between flights?

One would assume the previous crew had received the same training, and should have had the same understanding of the flight modes and the aircraft's response to anomalies. One would *like* to believe that the airline truly believed the problem had been fixed prior to dispatch for the accident flight.

Ron Wanttaja

[Bill Greenwood]

DRGT if you think the report is "incorrect" then what is not factual about it? By the way, I have no connection to Boeing, financial or personal, nor of course to that airline
Do you have any?
I do own stock in Southwest which of course uses the basic model of 737, not part of this story.