Alaska Airlines AS1282 door blow out!

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eljefino said:
^ Yes, but what's the airborne equivalent? How does it apply to openings large enough to matter? I'm going crazy hearing that one guy gets to throw bolts in loose "because they're coming out again" and the planes are then seemingly allowed to get delivered to the customer and put in revenue service.

I mean, school busses have those little pointer things on their lugnuts so anyone can see if they're starting to work their way loose!
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I thought about that too, but I wondered if the bolts were like torque to yield head bolts, one time use kind of thing?
 
Astro14 said:
I am far less concerned about the aircraft than I am about the pilot training and quality.

I'm happy flying on carriers that do a good job in hiring, training, and examining (checking) pilots.

The risk in commercial aviation is much more a matter of pilot error than of aircraft type.

As an example - my wife and I flew from Washington, Dulles, to Norfolk, Virginia on Tuesday night. Winds in both places were gusting over 40 knots with heavy rain (see the photo below of the radar summary on the East Coast… all of which had moved to the east and was right over our route). ORF, in particular, had runway construction, so, the runway was shortened, and it was wet, and the crosswind was at, or slightly above, the maximum for the aircraft type, which was 37 knots.

I chatted with the Captain in the gate area. Senior. Experienced. Acutely aware of weather and conditions that night. We delayed the takeoff due to reports of windshear on the departure corridor. He took ethe time to update us every few minutes of what he was doing, and why.

It was rough the entire way down, so rough that the flight attendants never left their jumpseats. I could feel the rain, and the moderate turbulence.

I heard, and felt, the strong gusts, and concomitant power adjustments, when we were on final approach. Reported weather was winds from 30, gusting to 48, knots, with a 36 knot crosswind, on a short, wet runway.

We touched down smoothly, safely, and turned off early after moderate braking.

We were safe, not because of the airplane design, but because we were in the hands of a true professional. I wasn't concerned, or worried. I didn't know the man, personally, but I knew the type - it was like flying with @Just a civilian pilot in command.

The hundreds of decisions made during that flight, and his skillful mastery of the airplane, is what kept us safe, despite what engineers might have you believe.

View attachment 197926
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I have not and probably never will get the chance to meet the pilot beforehand, but I've never thought "I sure hope our pilot knows what he's doing". I'm not saying I'm scared, but I would absolutely feel a little more worried on a Max aircraft than a 737NG. I'm not saying the max is a hack aircraft or anything, it was a compromise. But clearly there have been more shortcuts taken at the expense of safety, since the max planes were developed.
 
350Rocket said:
I thought about that too, but I wondered if the bolts were like torque to yield head bolts, one time use kind of thing?
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Entirely plausible, but they should use substitute bolts for fit-up that are painted a bright color or something so the quickest eyeball could see they aren't correct.
 
MolaKule said:
Your choice of words are inaccurate and are meant to elicit emotion instead of fact. First of all, it wasn't a hack. I did aerospace structures design and analysis at Boeing and customer specifications drive every design.

Have you paid any attention or understood the explanations from anyone on the aerospace side of things who have explained the reason for the engine placement and the need for MCAS?

I could name a lot of companies with sick cultures but Boeing is not one of them. The past culture showed a new culture was needed for sure, but it was not a sick culture.

See Astro14's post above for some accurate and historical data on the airline industry.

When was the last time you had a choice as to what aircraft you flew in? When you check in, do you specify the aircraft in which you shall be a passenger? And what is the airline's response?
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You and Astro14 are more knowledgeable on aviation than I am. Both of you have very good, detailed, and well respected posts.
I know there are more details to consider to make an accurate judgement on Boeing's commitment to safety.

The flight reservation websites state the aircraft brand and model - so you can know before you buy.
 
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OK pudknockers... I'm ready to take that Max 9 window seat...

PT17Stearman04.JPG
 
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eljefino said:
So this is a submarine mechanic question for all the A&P guys out there, what proportion of fasteners in these planes have locking devices, what engineering evaluation determines if they do need lockwire (or cable, tabs, nylock, etc), and how granular are your work documents, so that you could get signature sign-offs for

-- correct bolt with tracability to vendor with type acceptance
-- in the correct hole
-- torqued correctly
-- nylocked/ lockwired correctly
-- independently inspected by a discrete 2nd party?
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Yes, they are that detailed with airplanes. The Naval Aviation Maintenace Program was cribbed, completely, from United Airlines in the 1960s. I worked as quality assurance officer when I was a junior officer in a fighter squadron many years ago.

Much of what you see in SubSafe is analogous to the NAMP. They’re contemporaries and similar in intent and detail.

For specific details on aircraft maintenance these days, I would defer to @john_pifer - it’s his area of expertise.
 
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Astro14 said:
I am far less concerned about the aircraft than I am about the pilot training and quality.

I'm happy flying on carriers that do a good job in hiring, training, and examining (checking) pilots.

The risk in commercial aviation is much more a matter of pilot error than of aircraft type.

As an example - my wife and I flew from Washington, Dulles, to Norfolk, Virginia on Tuesday night. Winds in both places were gusting over 40 knots with heavy rain (see the photo below of the radar summary on the East Coast… all of which had moved to the east and was right over our route). ORF, in particular, had runway construction, so, the runway was shortened, and it was wet, and the crosswind was at, or slightly above, the maximum for the aircraft type, which was 37 knots.

I chatted with the Captain in the gate area. Senior. Experienced. Acutely aware of weather and conditions that night. We delayed the takeoff due to reports of windshear on the departure corridor. He took ethe time to update us every few minutes of what he was doing, and why.

It was rough the entire way down, so rough that the flight attendants never left their jumpseats. I could feel the rain, and the moderate turbulence.

I heard, and felt, the strong gusts, and concomitant power adjustments, when we were on final approach. Reported weather was winds from 30, gusting to 48, knots, with a 36 knot crosswind, on a short, wet runway.

We touched down smoothly, safely, and turned off early after moderate braking.

We were safe, not because of the airplane design, but because we were in the hands of a true professional. I wasn't concerned, or worried. I didn't know the man, personally, but I knew the type - it was like flying with @Just a civilian pilot in command.

The hundreds of decisions made during that flight, and his skillful mastery of the airplane, is what kept us safe, despite what engineers might have you believe.

View attachment 197926
Click to expand...
Thanks for the kind words.
 
eljefino said:
So this is a submarine mechanic question for all the A&P guys out there, what proportion of fasteners in these planes have locking devices, what engineering evaluation determines if they do need lockwire (or cable, tabs, nylock, etc), and how granular are your work documents, so that you could get signature sign-offs for

-- correct bolt with tracability to vendor with type acceptance
-- in the correct hole
-- torqued correctly
-- nylocked/ lockwired correctly
-- independently inspected by a discrete 2nd party?
Click to expand...
As for the first part of your question:
what engineering evaluation determines if they do need lockwire
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
That's a question for an engineer. As a general rule, if it's a part that affects airworthiness/safety of flight, it'll have a method for safetying.

RE: What proportion of the fasteners have a locking device? No idea. Most, if not all, will have SOME form of safety. If not lock wire, it’ll minimally have a nut or nut plate that is slightly oval, therefore deforming slightly and resisting the tendency of the bolt or screw to back out.

RE: Correct bolt - That's a question for someone at the OEM. I'm sure they have a system for ensuring that the correct fastener gets used.

As far as whether it's the proper fastener in the correct hole, torqued, safetied, and who's responsible for it, that falls on the technician who installed it. In some environments and regimes (mostly heavier maintenance like hangar maintenance or C-checks), there's also a QC inspector who would verify that it's done correctly. It depends on the airline, and, if it's a contractor, and their GMM (General Maintenance Manual), which is the guideline used by the maintenance contractor with regard to how maintenance will be performed on the customer's aircraft. With contractors, that GMM, and the airline's RII (required inspection item) list, will determine whether or not there's QC "buyback" on the work that's performed. Some jobs will have QC buyback, and others won't. In an airline (line maintenance) environment, most of the time, there is not a 2nd set of eyes looking at work that's been performed. The tech is responsible for his own work, and must be certificated (A&P or, in the case of avionics work, FCC certificate) in order to sign for the completion of the work. And his certificate is on the line if he screws it up (accountability).
 
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Tail being ripped off aircraft due to pilot induced oscillations ( Juan Browne video touched on this ).

That could happen to any aircraft if pilots over control.

We all learned something after that unfortunate accident.

No aircraft is designed ( passengers jet ) to be able to withstand full left, then right, rudder deflections. Rudder reversals broke the tail off.

 
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This Air France pilot was pulling a Stockton Rush superior pilot stunt and is 101% responsible for the crash.

He was doing stuff neither Airbus ( deliberately deactivated low speed alpha floor protection ) or Air France would have approved ( but left it up to him ironically ).

He selected idle thrust , descended to 30 feet above ground with idle thrust ( Airbus says no lower than 500 at idle basically ) , realized someone had planted a forest in front of him , applied full thrust ( TOGA ) but the engines took 8 seconds to start spooling up, pulled back on the stick and lost airspeed due to low energy and did some brush cutting and clearing.

As an Airbus pilot, I fully understand the aircraft but not why he would do what he did ( and blamed Airbus afterwards …..he went to jail BTW ).

No airline pilot would do what he did.

AF 447 crash was 100% pilot error despite so many very valid contributing factors.

Its like the Beoing 757 crash in Cali ( pilot lost situational awareness / FMS similar WP / accepted a closer runway which they had not planned for, forgot to retract the speed brakes once they got a GPWS warning IMC at night ), is Boeing at fault for not designing an aircraft with auto speed brake retraction when the pilot goes full thrust ( TOGA ) like Airbus does ( not sure about newer Boeing )? IIRC, they speculate it would have missed the top of the mountain had they retracted the speed brakes.

Both Boeing and Airbus make good, innovative, aircraft overall despite what's going on now currently with Boeing. I might be changing aircraft ( rumors about different type coming to the leisure division that I fly ) and don't care if my next aircraft is Airbus ( 330,787, B777, A321 XLR ...Europe/Japan stuff ). or Boeing. I have zero doubt I will love flying Boeing if I make the move.

In most cases, the safest thing is who is flying the aircraft.

Google the story below about the trees planted in front of the A320 that crashed.

1705082570046.png
 
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Astro14 said:
I’m not a Max fan. Search my posts on it. Let us not forget that Boeing was heavily pressured to keep the 737 in production by an airline whose absolute core business model, whose very existence, required new 737s.

They could not have survived if they had to switch fleet types. They lobbied hard for new, fuel efficient 737s.

The failures were not solely internal to Boeing.

Your post is, well, old news to those of us in the industry. For example.

Post in thread 'United Airlines Places Orders for 100 787s + 100 Options, Orders 56 737MAX + 44 Exercised Options'
https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/t...7max-44-exercised-options.363074/post-6645311

But the tail snapped off AA587 because Airbus designed only to the minimum strength required, and it couldn’t handle the inappropriate rudder input of the FO.

AF 447 was partly a design flaw in the pitot tubes, and partly the ergonomic failures of the entire Airbus flight control system, duplicated and repeated on the A-330, A-340, A-350 and A-380. It was more than just pilot error.

The A-320 that flew into the trees in Toulouse on a demo flight? Pilot error. Flight control system logic was not understood by an Airbus Test pilot. What chance did AF 447 have if the Test Pilot at Airbus got the logic wrong?

The way Airbus has developed the flight controls (fly by wire) in every single airliner they sell, is that the pilot cannot override the computers limitations. Through the ergonomic failures of displaying “alternate law” as happened in AF447 the pilot can be kept from understanding what is happening to the airplane, and if the airplane decides that the pilot is wrong, the airplane wins.

Even when the pilot is right.

There have been plenty of crashes of Airbus airplanes. Many pilot error, of course, but many of those errors are driven by the way Airbus built the flight controls, and display interfaces.

It’s your choice, but to say that Boeing builds trash, and Airbus builds perfect, is to grossly miss state, the reality of airliner design, construction, and the interface between engineering and pilot performance.

I am not defending Boeing, nor am I defending the Max. However, I do not agree with specious oversimplifications, particularly when they lead to uninformed blanket pronouncements.

Edit: one might say, that, after examining the Pinto, and the Explorer, that I will never put my family in a Ford. They’ve lost my trust. They are a terrible company, rife with corruption and poor build quality.
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I sincerely believe those pilots would have reacted the exact same way in any other make ( AF 447 ). Based on what I read , I don’t see the outcome being any different to be honest. They didn’t even react when , repeated, stall warning went off.

Yes, both pilots were using their side sticks at the same time ( unlikely in an aircraft with interconnected control columns where you can see both moving at the same time …..but look at the B777 AF incident where both pilots were on the controls at the same time ) which is a unique Airbus “ computer” issue , but the flight computer was warning them to stop doing this with the “ dual input” warnings ( all Airbus pilots know what that means ) and even then, neither pilot cancelled be other pilots side stick out by pressing the Red priority take over button.

That said, by the time both pilots were fighting against each other on the controls, it was far too late to recover from the deep stall ( and severe out of trim ). They had ignored the basic , audible stall warning that had been going off.


Even the fact that one of the pilots initially held the stick full back is easy to see ( other pilot cannot tell by their own side stick because they are not connected to each other like in a Boeing ) visually on BOTH pilots primary flight displays ( cross hair symbol ).

Airbus designed the aircraft so that if the computers do not have enough information to do the job for pilots, it disconnects ( via warnings ) and gives control to the pilots ( AP and auto thrust disconnected ) to figure out. warnings told them they were in alternate law and every Airbus pilots knows protections are lost and the aircraft can stall unlike in normal law ( aka , don’t pull full back on the stick, especially at high altitude ).

Anyone with experience with jets ( it was fairly heavy ) at high altitude knows pitch should be around +2.5 degrees ( Airbus ) , not 10 degrees nose up. Never pull, ease the stick ( pull if a GPWS ).

I am not trying to slam the pilots because they weren’t trained properly with respect to unreliable airspeed procedures and the aircraft didn’t have the upgraded back up speed scale for use in unreliable airspeed situations ( push a button and fly in the green area….works off angle of attack, not pitot static data…..but never use speed brakes as it messes with AoA info ).

The pilots ( human brain made out of meat ) didn’t understand, or believe what was going on or what the aircraft was telling them.

RIP.

Any pilot, in any make, that pushed full left and right rudder deflections risks ripping the tail off. No aircraft is designed to withstand that force. Rudder reversals vs full deflection one way. I learned something myself after that pilot did the rudder reversals ( Juan Browne talked about pilot induced oscillations ) that ripped the tail off the AA Airbus - it can happen to any make as they are not designed to handle it ( they don’t test tails for rudder reversals so we cannot say for sure which make is stronger ).

That said, no doubt Boeing built tough B747s after seeing what G forces pilots put in that B747 off the U.S coast when it went into a high speed dive. I never would have believed any aircraft could take that kind of punishment.
 
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Just a civilian pilot said:
I sincerely believe those pilots would have reacted the exact same way in any other make ( AF 447 ). Based on what I read , I don’t see the outcome being any different to be honest. They didn’t even react when , repeated, stall warning went off.

Yes, both pilots were using their side sticks at the same time ( unlikely in an aircraft with interconnected control columns where you can see both moving at the same time …..but look at the B777 AF incident where both pilots were on the controls at the same time ) which is a unique Airbus “ computer” issue , but the flight computer was warning them to stop doing this with the “ dual input” warnings ( all Airbus pilots know what that means ) and even then, neither pilot cancelled be other pilots side stick out by pressing the Red priority take over button.

That said, by the time both pilots were fighting against each other on the controls, it was far too late to recover from the deep stall ( and severe out of trim ). They had ignored the basic , audible stall warning that had been going off.


Even the fact that one of the pilots initially held the stick full back is easy to see ( other pilot cannot tell by their own side stick because they are not connected to each other like in a Boeing ) visually on BOTH pilots primary flight displays ( cross hair symbol ).

Airbus designed the aircraft so that if the computers do not have enough information to do the job for pilots, it disconnects ( via warnings ) and gives control to the pilots ( AP and auto thrust disconnected ) to figure out. warnings told them they were in alternate law and every Airbus pilots knows protections are lost and the aircraft can stall unlike in normal law ( aka , don’t pull full back on the stick, especially at high altitude ).

Anyone with experience with jets ( it was fairly heavy ) at high altitude knows pitch should be around +2.5 degrees ( Airbus ) , not 10 degrees nose up. Never pull, ease the stick ( pull if a GPWS ).

I am not trying to slam the pilots because they weren’t trained properly with respect to unreliable airspeed procedures and the aircraft didn’t have the upgraded back up speed scale for use in unreliable airspeed situations ( push a button and fly in the green area….works off angle of attack, not pitot static data…..but never use speed brakes as it messes with AoA info ).

The pilots ( human brain made out of meat ) didn’t understand, or believe what was going on or what the aircraft was telling them.

RIP.
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I watched a little documentary on that flight and they said that one of the first thing that "goes" on us when we're really stressed is our hearing. We're in the middle of a panicky/stressful situation and we're just not processing what we're hearing.
 
hemioiler said:
I watched a little documentary on that flight and they said that one of the first thing that "goes" on us when we're really stressed is our hearing. We're in the middle of a panicky/stressful situation and we're just not processing what we're hearing.
Click to expand...

That maybe true for "stick actuators" but not prime pilots or test pilots...
 
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