Boeing’s 737 MAX: A Crisis in Safety

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Boeing’s 737 MAX: A Crisis in Safety

Part 1 Transcript:

Aviation attorney/licensed pilot G. Scott Vezina explains the history of Boeing’s 737 MAX and takes listeners “inside the cockpit” to understand why the plane crashed twice, killing hundreds of people, before aviation authorities worldwide grounded it.

Is Flying in a 737 Safe?

G. Scott Vezina:

Okay. So let’s talk a little bit about the odds of actually dying in a plane crash in the United States or throughout the world. Your odds of dying in a plane crash are one in 20 million. So let me put that into perspective for you as well. Your chances of getting killed by a shark are one in 3.7 million. Your chances of getting killed while being struck by lightning are one in 1.2 million. So your chances of actually dying in a plane crash and commercial aircraft are less than your chances of being struck by lightning and killed by a shark on the same day. So flying is inherently safe. Commercial aviation in the United States is inherently safe, and advances that have been made through technology, through training and just through the development of newer equipment have made flying safer in general, particularly over the past 15 or 20 years.

The 737, there have been airlines that have been built just around this airplane. Southwest airlines is one for example. They have not flown any other airplane other than the 737 since the 70s and the 80s. And the reason is because not only is it inherently a safe aircraft, but it’s the routine of maintenance. It’s being able to transition pilots from one aircraft to the next without having to undergo additional training. The 737 has been, as I said earlier, the most produced aircraft in the United States, but they’ve of recent years been in a constant race to sell more airplanes with Airbus. Airbus has about 28% of the market share in the commercial aircraft industry throughout the world and Boeing has had about 38% almost 40% of the aircraft that are produced throughout the world. So the two of them have been fighting for market share for recent years.

G. Scott Vezina:

Within the last eight or nine years, Boeing came up with a new edition of the 737, called the 900. In response to that, Airbus found that they could use their Airbus A320, an aircraft that has been mass produced throughout the world and used by many, many airlines throughout the world. They found that about five or six years ago, they could put a new energy efficient or fuel efficient engine on the wing of the A320, and it would cut fuel costs per airline by 15%. Well, 15% of millions and millions of gallons used throughout the year as a significant savings for an airline. So airlines were jumping to get this A320, what’s called the A320neo. In response to that, Boeing said, well, we’ve got to find a way to put this engine on one of our airplanes. The problem was is if you’ve ever looked at an Airbus next to a 737, the Airbus sits significantly higher, meaning there is more room between the ground and the fuselage of an Airbus then there is of a 737.

Why Did the 737 MAX Crash?

G. Scott Vezina:

The 737 is just a low slung airplane with a short distance between the bottom of the fuselage or the belly of the plane and the ground. This new engine that Boeing wanted to place on its 737, it just wouldn’t fit. So I have in front of my hands here a Southwest 737. It’s the one that I could find, but what it is, is a 737 MAX. And if you are looking at it like I am, you can see that the engines sit a lot higher on the front part of the wing. The old 737 had the engines slung directly below the wing in that no part of the engine extended in front of the wing like the 737 MAX. So what that did was Boeing was able to make the 737 MAX by using the new fuel efficient engine to compete with Airbus, but the adjustment of the engine on the front of the wing had a significant impact on the way that the plane climbed, particularly right after takeoff. On takeoff, obviously engines are full or almost full throttle.

G. Scott Vezina:

The 737 MAX because of the new aerodynamics, the new way that the aircraft was now situated, caused the nose to go up a lot at a steeper angle than just the plain 737. So for example, 737 regular airplanes would take off and this is how the nose would generally go with thrust in an elevator application. The new 737, the MAX, the plane had a tendency to pitch up, which upon takeoff is a significant issue, and let me explain why. When you are taking off an airplane, you are forcing a several ton piece of metal into the air. It requires a lot of thrust and it requires a lot of coordination between all of the systems in the airplane. When you are taking off, the one thing that you want to avoid doing is stalling the airplane, and let me explain a stall for those of you who are out there. Airplanes can fly at a level attitude, meaning their nose is completely horizontal or straight or level with the ground.

G. Scott Vezina:

When you began turning a plane up and pushing the nose of a plane up, what happens to the airspeed? Well, the airspeed starts to go down. And as that angle of attack or that angle of the airplane begins to increase, there is generally not going to be enough thrust to keep the plane in the air. We’ve all seen fighter jets that can go straight up in the air because their thrust to weight ratio is so high. That’s not how it works in an airliner. At some point an airliner, the nose can only be pulled so high before there is not enough energy or thrust to push that plane forward, and then it begins entering into what’s called a stall. So let me explain a stall for those out there. A stall is something that you train for as a pilot, as a budding pilot. It’s something that you learn how to recover from as a budding pilot or a student pilot. Even as an airline pilot, they put you in a stall situation.

G. Scott Vezina:

And the way to control a stall situation or prevent a stall situation in an airliner or in a small Cessna, is pretty much the same way. You push the nose forward, you regenerate your airspeed and more air will flow above and below the wings, thereby keeping the plane in the air. If you were to pull back on an airliner or any airplane hard enough, what eventually is going to happen is one of the wings is going to dip over and you will enter into what’s called a stall. Now that’s critical. That’s bad at fifty thousand, thirty five thousand feet or 40,000 feet. At 2000 feet, the chance to recover from that is minimal if at all, which is why stalls right after takeoff are deadly. So what Boeing did, Boeing had a fix for this increased angle of attack of attack because of the placement of the engines on the front. And they decided they were going to have what’s called the MCAS. So MCAS is maneuvering characteristic augmentation system.

G. Scott Vezina:

In every other plane that Boeing had ever produced prior to this, every other version of the 737 there would be a stick shaker, which this plane still had, which means it would shake duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, saying, hey, pilot, pay attention. You keep pulling this plane up like this, you’re going to end up in a stall. There’s also the stall warning. We’ve all heard it stall, pull up. Stall, pull up. That’s also saying, hey, you’re about to enter in into a stall situation that you may not be able to recover from. What Boeing did on the MAX was that they developed this MCAS system, which would force the plane’s nose in a down position if the pilot got into an unusual attitude or an unusual angle of attack.

G. Scott Vezina:

Now, that’s important for a bunch of reasons, but the biggest reason that that’s important is while Boeing thought that that was an increased safety measure and one that would assist the pilots, unfortunately they did not put out bulletins and put out information to help train the pilots about that. So for example, many pilots who were being trained on the MCAS were not even being sent to a simulator because Boeing didn’t think that they needed it. Boeing generated a two hour iPad or iPhone training system where they knew pilots who were transitioning from a 737 into a 737 MAX were told about this MCAS system, but that’s it. They weren’t trained how to disengage it. They weren’t trained how to work with it. They weren’t trained how to integrate it into their takeoff procedures. They were just told about it, and quite frankly, at least in the Ethiopian Air and Lion Air crashes, seem to have surprised the pilots that were involved in these accidents.

G. Scott Vezina:

Now, Boeing unfortunately didn’t do such a great job of getting this plane certified and getting this plane ready to fly and letting the pilots know of the flaws and the defects in this airplane. Recent emails within the last two weeks have come out where Boeing employees were talking to one another and it’s interesting. It’s a little bit frightening, but it’s interesting to see what the Boeing employees internally thought of the MCAS system and the 737 MAX. One of the emails that was interesting to me was a Boeing employee said to another Boeing employee in discussions with the FAA said, I still haven’t been forgiven by God for the covering up I did last year. The covering up was in communications with the federal aviation administration about the safety of the 737 MAX. Another 737, I’m sorry, another Boeing employee sent one of the Boeing test pilots an email and it said, would you put your family on a MAX simulator trained aircraft? I wouldn’t. And the colleague replied, no, neither would I.

G. Scott Vezina:

And perhaps the most damning from a legal perspective email was two Boeing employees communicating with one another. One said, this airplane is designed by clowns who are in turn supervised by monkeys. So this podcast is being put on by lawyers. So let me talk to you a little bit about the effect of those type of emails between a proposed defendant when you’re dealing with a crash. So as a plaintiff’s lawyer, I always think of the jury going back to the deliberation room, and it’s like a group of 12 people or six people, whatever your jurisdiction is, and they’re just kind of sitting around a fire having a discussion, a fireside chat. When you take emails such as these from a proposed defendant or a defendant in a case, and let’s say that Boeing is a defendant in a family member of Lion Air or Ethiopian Air.

G. Scott Vezina:

And this jury is going to hear months of evidence. They’re going to hear technical bulletins. They’re going to hear about attitudes and flight attitudes and stall warnings and MCAS and hundreds and hundreds of hours of expert testimony. But what I think the thing that they will remember, and I’ve heard this from juries and jury consultants and psychologists who’ve assisted me with cases, that they’re not going to remember MCAS and they’re not going to remember angle of attack, and they’re not going to remember technical bulletins. They’re going to remember emails that use the word, clowns being designed by monkeys. That I wouldn’t put my family on this airplane, that God will never forgive me for what I did to get this plane certified. So back to my analogy, when I envision a jury in a deliberation room, having that fireside chat, these emails are the equivalent of somebody throwing a quart of gasoline on that fire.

G. Scott Vezina:

And I don’t know how all of these Ethiopian Air and Lion Air cases are going to proceed, and end against Boeing, but with emails like this, it is almost guaranteed that these cases will never get to a jury. This is the kind of thing as a former defense lawyer, that I would never let a jury see. And the way that you prevent a jury from seeing emails like this, the cases get resolved. So let’s talk a little bit about now the actual crashes themselves, particularly the Ethiopian Air and the Lion Air crash. The two crashes that really stopped the production of the 737 MAX, and grounded the entire 737 MAX fleet in the United States. First of all, I want to talk about the difference between foreign air carriers and domestic air carriers. I am sure that the pilots in foreign aircraft and in foreign air carriers are good people. I’m sure that they think that they’re really good pilots, and I think that they were probably always trying to do the right thing.

Did Pilot Error Cause the 737 MAX to Crash?

G. Scott Vezina:

Nobody wants to crash an airplane, but there is a significant difference between those that are trained in the United States, the training that they go through, the minimum number of hours they need in order to be even in the right seat of an airplane. And when I say the right seat, the copilot seat versus foreign air carriers. So for example, in the United States, in order to become a commercial pilot and be able to sit in the right seat of an airplane, you need to have 1500 hours along with multiple ratings such as an instrument rating, a multi-engine rating, a commercial rating. All of these ratings come with a significant training background. You need to either go to a flight school and learn how to fly an airplane. And once you do that, then you have to be tested by check airmen. People that will sit in an airplane an actual airplane, not a simulator, an actual airplane with you, take you out over a practice area and see if you can do things that a pilot should do. For a private pilot, they’ll pull the engine on you and you’ve got to almost simulate an emergency landing.

G. Scott Vezina:

For you to get your multi-engine rating, they want to pull one of the engines to make sure that you’re able to fly with one engine as opposed to two. It’s difficult to fly a twin engine plane with one engine. For a commercial pilot, they’re going to put you through the ringer to make sure that you understand all the policies of an airplane, all the emergency checklists. They’re going to put you in emergency situations and see your reaction time. And then you’re going to earn these qualifications and you’re going to build time, actual time, meaning you’re in an airplane in instrument conditions, flying in tough weather, trying to land in tough weather doing an ILS approach or a GPS approach. It’s different in foreign aircraft carriers, particularly Ethiopian Air. Let’s use that for an example. The copilot in the Ethiopian Air crash had 200 hours total time, 200 hours flight time.

G. Scott Vezina:

Now when I had 200 hours of flight time back in the late 80s and early 90s, I was not capable of flying a 737. I wasn’t even capable of flying a twin engine plane. I was capable of flying a Cessna 172 with one engine on a crystal clear blue day without a cloud in the sky. That was all I was good at at that point in time. To put a copilot in the right seat of a complex airplane where shortly after takeoff you give him a set of circumstances. Number one that he was not prepared for, two probably not trained for. There becomes a term in flying called the imbalance of responsibilities. So the pilot is trying to fly the airplane. When you get in a situation where you are in an emergency, whatever you are taught, the one thing that you want to do is fly the airplane. Talking to air traffic control is helpful.

G. Scott Vezina:

Looking over checklists is helpful, but flying the airplane is more important than anything else because nobody on the ground can help you. The air traffic controllers can’t help you. They can clear space for you, but they’re not going to help you fly the airplane. The pilot has to fly the airplane. The co-pilot’s job is to troubleshoot. And you can imagine a kid or a person or a young man in this case, and I call him a kid because he was very, very young, with 200 hours trying to troubleshoot something that was in a place where he was less than five minutes after takeoff. He was close to the ground. And what was happening was something that he had not been trained for. What was happening to the Ethiopian Air crash case and the Lion Air, was that the nose was jumping forward. The nose was just pushing itself forward because of the MCAS system. So as a pilot or as anybody else, if your nose is going forward and you’re not pushing it forward, what are you going to do? You’re going to pull back.

G. Scott Vezina:

So if you look at the flight path of both the Ethiopian Air and the Lion Air crash case, there was this effect called porpoising or dolphining, where they would come up and they would come down and they would come up and they would come down, because they were constantly fighting this MCAS system which was getting faulty equipment from one of the angle of attack indicators. So am I saying that this would not have happened in the United States? I’m saying that it’s less likely that it would have happened on a United States air carrier. And the reason I say that is because prior to the Lion Air and Ethiopian Air crash case, there were pilots who were flying the MAX who were reporting to Boeing that this was happening, but they were fixing it very, very quickly in the air. They were disconnecting the MCAS or they were disconnecting the trim or they were doing something that would automatically stop this porpoising process.

G. Scott Vezina:

So they were able to identify the problems, fix it and not crash the airplane. My personal belief is that a lack of training, a lack of understanding of the copilot in the Lion, in the Ethiopian Air crash case, was just a knowledge deficit and an experience deficit is what caused this plane to crash and not be able to recover from this MCAS system pushing the nose forward. I think that a pilot with more experience, a copilot with more experience would have been able to help. I don’t think though that you get into this position. These pilots would not have been in this position had they been properly trained though, on the MCAS. They would not have gotten in this position if they had known that this MCAS system was going to push this nose forward and not surprise them in the middle of this flight. So I think that it’s important that we know that the Boeing MCAS system was there, it was not presented to these pilots in a way that they really understood or whether they were trained at all on the 737 MAX MCAS system.

What Is the Future of the 737 MAX?

G. Scott Vezina:

That being said, I think Boeing is doing its best now to recover from this in that they’ve stopped production of the 737 MAX. If the 737 MAX ever flies again, I would assume that Boeing is going to make significant changes to the training, to the emergency checklists, or they may remove the MCAS altogether. I believe that the 737 MAX will probably never fly again. I think that we’ve probably seen the last of it. The 737, 800 was a fine airplane. It was a little less fuel efficient than the A320neo, and I think that if they are going to begin production again, it will be on those older models that did not have these flaws. The other thing too is that there’s just a public perception now that this is an unsafe product. I think that if you were to be on your way to the airport, you happen to call your airline and want to change your seat and ask, oh, by the way, what kind of airplane is this? And they’re going to say 737 MAX.

G. Scott Vezina:

It would make me a little bit uncomfortable though, I think it would make someone who’s not a pilot and who doesn’t have a flight training experience a lot more uncomfortable just because of what Boeing has said about its own product. I’m going to, God will never forgive me. This plane is designed by monkeys overseen by clowns. That kind of thing causes a product, I think, to go by the wayside. And I think that in the United States, we may have seen the last time that a 737 MAX ever flies. So that concludes this first portion of our podcast. Part two is going to be the actual dynamics of flying a 737 with a 737 commercial pilot for a major airline. We’re going to explore the MCAS system, his training in the MCAS system, and he’ll talk about real-world recovery of stalls by using the MCAS system or disengaging the MCAS system. And I thank you for tuning in today.

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