What was that thing with the droopy jet nose? A heavily modded B-17?
14 engines FTW!
The “thing” was a B-1. So was the previous pic. Both were B-17s w an extra engine bolted to the nose to serve as a flying testbed for that new developmental engine.
As to your pic, no that’s not 14 engines. It’s 14 propellers attached to 14 electric motors. Connected to one big battery. With zero engines.
The idea of “engines” gets real weird once you start mixing electrics into the stew.
Yeah, I shouldn’t have said ‘engines’. And if we are limiting it to engines, it doesn’t qualify.
OSHA is proposing a penalty of nearly $7,000.
Wow, NEARLY 7k. That comes to about 15 minutes worth of jet fuel. They won’t DARE do it again!
In an interesting development the Ethiopian government’s safety investigation authority has published their final report on the fatal MAX accident, the second of the infamous two accidents caused by original-recipe MCAS. So far I haven’t been able to find the report itself online.
But what’s interesting is the NTSB and the French BEA both have blasted the report as a significantly misleading whitewash. In rather stern terms for the normally polite world of accident investigation.
Here’s the NTSB press release which has a link to their formal blast, a 9-page PDF:NTSB Releases Comments on Ethiopia’s Investigation of the Boeing 737 Max Accident
The NTSB’s punchline is the Ethiopian safety agency has chosen to make no mention of any concerns about the crews’ piloting, essentially claiming by their silence and by a few carefully chosen words here and there, that the MCAS malfunction rendered the aircraft utterly uncontrollable from the instant the malfunction started. Which is errant nonsense.
And further, in a real breach of investigation etiquette, the Ethiopian agency has refused to include the NTSB’s dissenting comments in the report. The French BEA’s complaints, though different in detail amount to exactly the same message. And were also suppressed rather than being included as dissenting comments.
But, since the safety investigative board, the aviation regulator, and the government-owned airline itself all answer to one minister, it seems they’ve decided to try to bury any concerns that maybe just maybe, they’ve got a crappy government airline with crappy training and crappy crewmembers being overseen by a crappy do-nothing “regulator”.
Here
[u]https://www.havkom.se/assets/reports/L-34_19-No-AI_01_18-ACCIDENT-FINAL-REPORT_compressed.pdf[/u] is the final Ethiopian government report. ~330 page PDF.
And this is the BEA’s press release on their dissatisfaction w the Ethiopian report:
Accident to the Boeing 737 registered ET-AVJ and operated by Ethiopian Airlines on 10/03/2019 near Bishoftu - Investigation led by EAIB / Ethiopia - BEA - Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses pour la sécurité de l’aviation civile
To me, the worst part of this was that the pilots COULD have notified ATC they’d lost both engines, and started to plan for a glide-in emergency landing (while trying to restart them, too). They had enough altitude that they could have made it to either of a couple of airports.
BUT, they were so worried they’d lose their licenses, they lied to ATC and said they’d lost only one engine. They were really hoping they could restart at least one of them, thinking no one need ever be the wiser about the cause of the incident.
So, they didn’t start planning for a possible glide-in landing (including getting vectors from ATC) until it was too late.
Pratt and Whitney. That was a turboprop and not a piston engine.
I was just posting an example of a five-engined plane. The type of engine is irrelevant.
But if you really want to be a purist, here’s a Vulcan bomber testing an engine for the Concorde.
To me the worst part was that the engines seized and could not possibly be restarted. And although the engine & airplane manufacturer knew about the problem of seizure after flameout they put exactly nothing in the pilot’s manuals about this. Not before the accident and not even after the accident.
Further the NTSB tasked the FAA to investigate all other jet engines for this issue. Now almost 20 years later FAA has steadfastly refused to even consider conducting that investigation, much less fixing anything the investigation may uncover.
Those guys were seriously unprofessional on that flight. That’s on them. They had received no training on very high altitude jet operations despite it being part & parcel of a day’s work. That’s on their employer & the FAA oversight. Had an engine (or two) quit at high altitude for some other reason, they’d still probably have been faced with an unrestartable engine(s). That’s on the manufacturers and the FAA oversight.
This is the first time I’ve heard this. There may be more to this but absent FAA involvement the NTSB should investigate it themselves. It should start with “in lieu of FAA investigation the following report has been issued without comment or involvement”.
NTSB has the statutory authority to investigate mishaps and issue recommendations to FAA. That’s it. They can’t go out investigating anything else, conducting research, etc. That’s beyond their authority. Meanwhile the FAA’s governing regulations permit them to ignore NTSB recommendations if they so desire.
Here’s the NTSB docket summary page for the Pinnacle accident: DCA05MA003.aspx (ntsb.gov)
The final report is the “AAB-07-01” link at lower right. It’s a 176 page PDF. Pages 76 & 77 are the safety recommendations about the engine seizure problem.
There are hundreds of pages of backing info on all aspects of the mishap shown on the docket roster page accessible from the “DCA05MA003” link just above the dead Googlemap.
Good point.
BTW, I am in Tucson, AZ for a conference. I stayed an extra day to enjoy the Pima Air Museum. I know I’m preaching to the choir, but it is PHENOMENAL. Come for the B-36, stay for…everything else.
True, but my understanding is that a) the core lock issue was in part because they had seriously overworked the engines in order to reach a non-standard altitude, contrary to generally accepted piloting standards (as per the discussion upthread) and b) had they promptly and effectively pitched down when both engines flamed out (as required by the checklist they apparently failed to use) it’s likely core lock would not have occurred. Or am I wrong?
It seems to me this is fair comment as regards operating at FL370 or even FL390, but not FL410. The company had no operational reason to expect the latter to be necessary, and had they remained at or below FL390 the incident most probably would never have happened. However, clearly there was a bit of a cultural issue in some sections of the industry which led to this, I’d be particularly interested to see your comments on this as it was then, and now.
As a non-pilot, before I read of this incident I’d never really appreciated what the concept of a service ceiling meant, or even why it existed. This really illustrates it rather well, I think. For 2 professional pilots to apparently not be aware of the issues is pretty unforgivable, even if the design and certification of the engines could have done more to help them out. They were damn lucky that the only people they killed were themselves, given where they hit the ground.
While I can certainly understand the concern about being unable to restart engines, if there have been no similar incidents, I can also understand the FAA’s reluctance to investigate further in this case. Is it fair to say most pilots (or at least, most commercial pilots) keep up to date on NTSB reports?
They would have encountered the same problem at FL390 if they were full of passengers. This isn’t a problem with FL410, it’s a problem with being at the performance limit of the aircraft which can happen at a lower altitude when heavy.
OK, but do we know if the airline’s procedures allowed FL390 when full? If they did, then the original criticism (about inadequate training provided by the airline to pilots around the edges of the flight envelope) is completely valid. If they did not, instead limiting pilots to FL370 (on the assumption this provided a reasonable margin of safety - I don’t know if that’s the case or not but let’s run with it for the sake of argument), then you could argue that the airline had no obligation to train pilots for higher altitudes/closeness to performance limits. Instead, if the pilots on any Pinnacle flight were instructed by ATC to climb above FL370, they would be obliged to decline and ATC would have to find an alternative solution.
You raise good points that deserve good answers. I’m working today from pre-dawn to bedtime, so it’ll be some time on Tuesday morning before I can address these. But I’m not ignoring you or feeling riposted.
Very kind of you to reply at all, let alone be so polite as to explain there may be a wait for something more substantive - not a problem at all. I learn so much from this board, and about aviation in particular, it’s a real joy.
I see on review that my point in my previous post is effectively addressed by @Richard_Pearse’s earlier post in the thread:
In other words, in appears Pinnacle’s procedures did indeed seek to prevent its pilots getting so close to the edge of the flight envelope. By ignoring this, these 2 pilots proved that their plane was capable of more performance than this procedure allowed - at least, for a brief period. And they belatedly realised that they weren’t going to be able to maintain FL410, but before they took any action on this, they stalled.
An earlier post compared this to a joy ride in a sports car, really it’s even worse than that - it’s one thing to push your car towards its top speed on any empty road, it’s another to do so without first checking the condition and rating of the tyres and then not look out for any obstacles (analogous to these pilots ignoring operating procedures and failing to monitor airspeed and AOA).
I’ve marveled at big jet flight deck gauges and lights, but never really had an understanding of what is where.
[This video popped into my YouTube feed today,] (How an Airliner Cockpit Works - YouTube) and gave me a look.
What aircraft is used for this video tour? Would this be the way all big jets appear? Or is this simplified?
The big question to me: Does crew know, in their head, where everything is? How long does it take to solidly learn these switches, displays and panels without referring to some kind of helper screen? Do pilots have a method, or mnemonic-type helper, to direct their attention in various emergencies.
I’m a vicarious pilot through those of you who post here and other friends who tolerate my endless, tedious questions, and these panels are dazzling.
I cannot imagine how pilots use all this in dire emergencies when multiple lights are flashing and horns are blaring.
Let’s say this is an Airbus and you know it well. For some reason, you change to Boeing equipment. How long does it take to learn the new layout? And I presume you cannot actually fly until you reach some point of familiarity. And then can you get in and turn the key and fly either at will in the future?
(Does this post belong in this thread?)
Not a pilot either, but from what I have learnt I can give basic answers to a couple of your questions.
Absolutely, welcome!
They train and practice for this both before being certified to fly the plane, and in order to retain that certification. But unfortunately, not all pilots are perfect and occasionally an accident happens that could have been avoided had the pilot(s) responded differently to warnings.
At the risk of looking like a fanboy (probably because I am), if you’re interested in this sort of thing then I literally can’t recommend Admiral Cloudberg’s accident write-ups enough: https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/ - really well-written, and you’ll learn a lot about aviation in general, as well as being slightly horrified about how sometimes, it can all go wrong.
Correct. Exact requirements will vary between airlines. But it’s going to involve a lot of hours as a first officer, observing someone experienced flying the plane. Plus classroom-based stuff, extensive simulator training, etc.
Probably not - in most (possibly all?) jurisdictions, you can only maintain one “type rating” at a time. In other words, be legally licenced to fly a specific type of aircraft. There are simply too many differences between (say) a Boeing 757 and 737 to be considered sufficiently competent on both at the same time, let alone Boeing vs Airbus.