Does the Airplane Automation Killed the Passengers of Boeing 737 Max ?

aaSan

[p style="text-align: center; "][font color="#c27ba0"]Hello [g id="14"]XFans ![/g]

[div]More than 50 countries have grounded all Boeing 737 MAX 8 and 9 aircraft following two major aviation accidents over the past five [g id="24"]months ![/g] Indian aviation watchdog DGCA on March 13 announced the immediate grounding of the planes over passenger safety.[br][/div][p style="text-align: center; "] [br]

[div][br][/div][div]On March 10, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in Ethiopia to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya, nosedived six minutes after takeoff. The tragedy claimed the lives of all 157 people on board, including 8 crew members.[/div][div style="text-align: center; "] [br][/div][p][br]

[div]Around six months back, the Indonesia-based Lion Air Flight 610 crashed under similar circumstances. The plane crashed 12 minutes after [g id="42"]take off[/g] killing 189 passengers and crew on board.[/div][p style="text-align: center; "] [br]

[div][br][/div][div][div][font color="#20124d"]Similarities between the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes have focused attention on an anti-stalling system used in the new Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft.[/div][div][br][/div][div][div]The Max 8 uses a system called MCAS — Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System — which is designed to stabilize the aircraft in flight.[/div][div][br][/div][div]Boeing added MCAS after redesigning its 737 [g id="57"]platform[/g] for the Max. The redesign changed the size and placement of the aircraft’s engines, which altered how the jet handled in flight.[/div][div style="text-align: center; "] [br][/div][div]The Max tended to raise its nose in flight, a movement called pitch. If an aircraft [g id="58"]pitches[/g] too high, it risks stalling and crashing.[/div][/div][div][br][/div][h3][font color="#073763"]1st Understand what is [g id="78"]Stalling ?[/g][/h3][div]A wing is a surface that encourages moving air to follow its contours ("laminar flow").  By doing so, it creates lift. [/div][div]As the angle between the wing and the air increases ("angle of attack"), it gets harder and harder for the air to follow the surface of the wing.  At some point ("critical angle of attack"), the airflow detaches from the wing's surface and forms turbulent eddies.  At this point, the wing is no longer generating [g id="87"]lift,[/g] and is stalled.[br][/div][div style="text-align: center; "] [br][/div][h3][font color="#073763"]Now the MCAS[/h3][div][div]MCAS is designed to automatically reduce the pitch in manual flight without pilot input. The system is constantly fed data from two synchronized wing-like devices called Angle of Attack sensors, located on the plane’s nose.[/div][div][br][/div][div]If the AOA sensors detect the plane is pitching too high, the MCAS automatically adjusts the tail’s stabilizer — the horizontal part of the aircraft’s tail — to level out the plane.[/div][div style="text-align: center; "] [br][/div][div]When the MCAS detects the plane climbing too steeply without enough speed—a recipe for a stall—it moves the yoke forward, using the horizontal stabilizer on the tail to bring the nose of the plane down. [br][/div][/div][div][br][/div][div]Pilots can cut off the system manually, but its sudden activation can confuse pilots. Flight data recovered from the Lion Air crash showed pilots repeatedly tried to get the nose up but unfortunately, it did not [g id="206"]happened ![/g][br][/div][div][br][/div][/div][div][div]The problem with the Lion Air flight was the MCAS went to work when it shouldn’t have. The 737 MAX was climbing normally, but due to a faulty sensor, the digital flight data recorder detected a hard-to-believe 20-degree difference in the angle of attack between the left and right sides. Over the next 10 minutes, the pilots repeatedly tried to pull the plane’s nose back up, but the MCAS kept forcing the yoke forward, pushing the plane down. Ultimately, the plane crashed into the Java Sea, killing everyone aboard.[/div][div][br][/div][div style="text-align: center; "] [br][/div][div]If the pilots had known the MCAS was at fault, they could have shut down the plane’s ability to automatically adjust its trim (which determines its position in the air) so they could manually do it themselves.[/div][/div]

jcbose

good explanation

sakhr68

Nice share brother thank you