I have not seen specifics but there are several possibilities.
They could have revisited wiring system analysis using a tool such as Capital Integrator and found signal integrity/crosstalk issues. Wiring harnesses are part of the A-kit of aircraft and are more complicated than many people can imagine. A380 launch delays can be attributed to wiring design flaws.
The brief report I saw mentioned possible shorts. It’s possible they ran additional model simulation using a tool such as ANSYS and found areas where the harness was not properly constrained.
Could be wrong, but it’s most likely that they found something that was too close to a limit for comfort rather than an outright flaw.
(don’t work for Boeing but have ample experience in this area)
Sure they can. The plane has engines which are too big for the old design of everything else, and make the plane unstable in flight. A human would find it very difficult to adjust for that, so software was coded to make automatic adjustments. These adjustments depended upon sensors which malfunctioned, so the software kept doing the wrong thing. There was a light bulb that Boeing was charging extra for which alerts when there is a problem with those sensors. I hope to god that light bulb is now complementary. So in the simulator you add a light bulb to alert the test pilot the simulation is now simulating malfunctioning sensors. Then I guess he needs to pretend he needs to consult a document to figure out how to turn off those automated adjustments, to simulate someone who believed it was “just like the old plane, no new training required”, and didn’t know any of the above. Then he needs to make human adjustments to the simulated bad flight characteristics that were so difficult they necessitated the software in the first place. After many similated flights where he needs to make adjustments a robot is really needed to do, he might get good enough at it not to crash the plane.
sounds like they need to start over from scratch for the software. But I doubt that happens due to expense. Sometimes software has so many patches it ends up worse than the start, I know from personal experience. You end up fixing the fixes.
It’s not a software problem, it is a hardware problem. But I think you knew that and were being sarcastic. The only real solution is to say: “Look, it’s safety profile isn’t like the old 737’s, it’s safety profile is more like that of a helicopter, where if certain somethings go wrong, no piloting skill can be expected to help”.
In a 2016 email, Forkner told an FAA official he would be “jedi-mind tricking regulators” around the world into accepting a lower level of training for pilots.
Someone does not get to having that approach to their work if those around him do not nurture and even reward that sort of attitude. Time to point some fingers, Forkner.