The Seattle Times is reporting a prominent lawmaker wants the certification of the latest models of the Boeing 737 MAX delayed until Boeing can bring the crew alerting system up to current standards. The 737 is the only Boeing product that has a decentralized malfunction warning system designed in the 1960s and it doesn’t meet certification requirements enacted two years ago. The system alerts pilots to a problem by activating a master caution warning. Pilots then have to hunt through various switch panels to figure out why the caution light came on. For more than 40 years, other airliners have used a system that uses a text message on a cockpit screen to tell pilots precisely what is wrong. The MAX 8 and 9 versions use the old system thanks to an exemption. If the 10 has a new setup then separate training will be required. Boeing says the upgrade could cost as much as $10 billion.
Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the House Transportation Committee, says the MAX 10 should have the new system. “The FAA should side with safety and establish a high bar for the certification of the 737 MAX-10,” he said in a statement issued last week. Meanwhile, the Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., has sent a proposal for a watered-down version of the up-to-date system, which its authors say could be employed on the 10 and be retrofitted on the models already flying, to the FAA and NTSB for review. They say it will cost less and create less disruption. The Times says Cantwell has said she will support the revised system if the FAA approves it.
I’d like to think this was about safety. I’d also like to think that we all had confidence in the FAA, and that if we didn’t, Congress would endeavor to fix it.
Here in the real world, I’m guessing there’s money or power or political games involved.
Note that ‘switch panel’ does not include annunciator lights and instruments on the system control panels on the ‘overhead panel’ area of the flight deck.
(Where actions could be taken, such as turning pitot heat on or switching gyro feeds to ‘Both On 2’.)
My memory of the original 737 design is that some alerts were clear, such as discrepancies between left and right systems of navigation (radio and compass/gyro), by annunciators above the attitude indicator right in front of the pilot.
Indeed, the actual Seattle Times article says the broad system is identified by specific annunciation beside the master caution light. You omit that, incorrectly saying crew has to hunt through overhead panel. Crew should know by training roughly where the cognizant panel is on the overhead.
Recall that pitot heat lights were changed from green-when-on to amber-when off, to increase crew awareness of failure of a heater (or of crew not turning it on). (Some annunciators were blue or white to indicate non-alert status.) So the alert location should be easy to find.
I agree with Pete Morton who claims involvement in 757 flight deck’s alerting system, Hartwell Stoll was manager of the 767 flight deck when I was a customer and the original 737’s, about complexity of making big changes. Recall Southwest Airlines wanted advancement of 737s for commonality, when a long view would have been to buy 757-100 airplanes (the short version of 757-200, never built). Better aerodynamics, better flight deck, better engines.
In advance of reading the proposal, I suggest that perhaps a single line display at top of center instrument panel providing more information would be sufficient, as the main concern seems to be quicker identification of offending system.
Recall that appropriateness of turning stick shaker off was debated among regulator engineers. Boeing has long given crews option of silencing aural alarms, on the 767 it even inhibited fire warning until a minimum safe altitude (such as initial flap retraction altitude, IIRC 400 feet AGL on 767) as crew need to be handling the airplane before then).
And recall crew handover was a key factor in one crash of the MAX, Captain turned control over to F/O without telling him what he knew. Perhaps a combination of tired Captain and inexperienced F/O, one of them was a substitute for that early morning flight.
Do keep in mind that THE problems with the 737MAX were:
– unnecessarily aggressive MCAS
– pilots not told of its existence
– dependent on a single AOA source despite airplane having two vanes
Those have been corrected in the revised design.
A development problem.
I understand there’s an anti-GA Senator pushing for an AD to require all Bonanzas be upgraded to the latest configuration.
OK, kidding. But you have to admit, in today’s America it sounds plausible.
You may think you’re kidding but this is one way misinformation is initiated.
If the system works which it appears to do why change it?
Because they CAN.
No other justifucation required, although there may be many.
Having flown 757-236 & 747-436 with the then advanced caution/warning systems I moved to the 737 700NG with a UK LCC. The caution/warning was primitive compared to it’s predecessors, however at an address given in London to the Royal Aeronautical Society by the Boeing project pilot for the Max8 I asked if the overhead panel and warning systems resembled the older models. The answer was clear “Commercial secret”. Later at a well known Air Force bar the unattributed answer was “Yes”. My opinion now years on is that Boeing have stretched the 737 a change too far.
Clarifying my note about ‘switch panel’, my fuss was that the overhead panels are far more than switches they contain annunciations and indicators.
http://www.b737.org.uk/paneloverhead.htm shows some versions of the panel, the -200ADV is representative of original 737s (ADV was an aerodynamic change).
Some of the photos have the horrid old ‘nixi tube’ numberic readouts, which were amber thus giving some amber indications that should be reserved for caution alerts.
(Just FTR, the photo of a 707 overhead panel is of an airplane before the flight deck was improved, the later version has engine fire extinguishing handles with big red lights that were originally on the glareshield.)
http://www.b737.org.uk/warningsystems.htm covers some of the alerting functions.
Note the Master Caution light and accompanying identification of which system is alerting, different list each side, arrangement matches overhead panel.
There’s mention of Recall, which IIRC is in normal checklists especially descent/approach.
(737s had a nifty brief checklist on center of control wheel, with a horizontal line interrupting one phase of flight – crew would do something like say ‘above line complete’ or ‘continuing below the line’.)
(The PSEU basic function is on all 737s, a box that interprets proximity sensors used for various things including IIRC weight-on-wheels. Perhaps the NG communicates more data to other systems.
For completeness I note that the autopilot was changed to dual channel during production of the -200ADV, perhaps optional for a while. Sperry SP-177 replacing SP-77.
I don’t remember minima the airplanes without it were eligible for, definitely were used down to 200 feet and a half mile IIRC, the conditions at Cranbrook when a PW airplane did not realize snow in the air way down the runway was actually a sweeper – airport was mis-controlled in my terms.)
Money talks. And Boeing has let itself get sucked into a dead-end street with the 737 by customers like Southwest who absolutely demand commonality with the ‘old’ models to save a few bucks on pilot training. On top of that add a previous Boeing management who put share holder value above progress and you end up with the mess the Max is continuing to produce. This short term vision has cost them more than development would have. The company has apparently lost the balls it had when it developed the 747. The 737 series is a fine flying platform, as is the 747, but the flight deck should have evolved alongside other improvements made throughout the years. Instead, saving a few bucks on flight crew training has been in the lead. Shame on them. Shame on the likes of Southwest.