MCAS: The Silent Killer on the 737 MAX

well I think that the modern aviation industry is incredibly safe and make no mistake it typically is a statistically flying is consistently the safest mode of Transport by a decent margin it just happens that when something does go wrong though it goes wrong on a scale that is simply not seen elsewhere and produces a simply shocking list of fatalities now when such accidents do occur we typically take solid in the fact that while Aviation accidents are undeniably tragic they are at least understandable and typically not the result of corporate negligence a safety rule worked in a way that no one could have imagined a component failed in a way that no one thought of and so on and so forth and as a result of these no-fault tragedies lessons alert an aviation becomes even safer as a result but sometimes ever so rarely Aviation disasters occur that were the result of corporate negligence and people are killed in ways that are knowingly completely avoidable all just so that a corporation could cut corners and increase its profitability now today we're going to explore one such tragic instance the Boeing 737 Max and the 346 people who had to die as a result of Boeing's ill-conceived cost cutting MCAS system foreign [Music] [Music] 737 unveiled in 1964 has seen numerous Transformations since its first flight in 1967 becoming the most popular jet airliner in the world with 15 572 sold initially designed to supplement the 727 tri-jet on shorter route the 737 had gone through various iterations the 737-200 with a passenger capacity of 85 to 130 toting the Pratt of Whitney jt80 engine the 300 400 500 classic series launched in 1980 which featured enhanced seating capacity glass cockpit and larger engines and the 678 and 900 Next Generation line launched in 1990 which featured even larger engines still originally the 737 was designed with a low to the ground profile to accommodate its small engines and facilitate easier ground crew servicing however as engine technology advanced and the need for larger more efficient engines increased this low profile presented challenges for Boeing to accommodate these bigger engines Boeing had to make a series of design modifications the 737 namely extending the landing gear and moving the engines forwards and upwards so that they sat higher on the wings with the engine placed higher and further forward on the wing the aircraft center of gravity shift at altering its handling characteristics and this affected the overall balance During certain flight phases and you definitely will want to keep that in mind when we move on to the max it's also something we like to call foreshadowing [Music] so this brings us to the max Boeing's attempt at modernizing the venerable 737 for the 21st century its development was prompted by the Airbus A320 Neo the latest variant of the 737's main competitor announced all the way back in 2006 it promised a radical redesign that would make it one of the most fuel-efficient airliners in the sky and this terrified Boeing as fuel efficiency is the single greatest selling point for new aircraft as just a 0.1 percent increase in efficiency can equate to Millions saved from an operational budget every year so eager not to see their sales completely dry up Boeing Engineers started work on a response immediately initially they wanted to retire the 737 come up with a brand new design basically a 787 Dreamliner scaled down to narrow body size but this proved too expensive for the executive so instead they ordered the development of yet another refined and tweaked 737 to squeeze every single ounce of extra efficiency they could out of this new 737 a number of new features were Incorporated with a notable example being the Split Tip advanced technology winglet which decreased Vortex drag and thereby increased fuel efficiency this worked well as compared to the older NG models Max carrying 162 passengers on a 3000 mile 5600 kilometer flight had a 1.8 percent better fuel burn significant Improvement the structure of the max also changed significantly from earlier models its landing gear was extended by 8 inches or 20 centimeters allowing it to keep the same ground clearance as its ng-4runners despite the bigger engines those engines were CFM International's leap 1bs and rather than telling you how big they are let's just show you because in this image it's easy to see just a much bigger they are and gain some appreciation for the hurdles that Boeing's Engineers had to jump over to fit them onto the plane but why go for bigger engines I mean it sounds contradictory right after all if you put a bigger engine in your car it becomes less economical but the leap is not big in the way that you might initially imagine it is not big simply through being an exceptionally large jet engine it's big because of its high bypass ratio with that being the amount of air which is sucked in and moved around the actual engine to provide additional thrust if you look at this photo can you see how small the actual engine is that space between the large van at the front and the actual engine well that's the bypass ratio this makes the engine more efficient by essentially providing free thrust the air is moving around the engine anyway so why not suck it in and use it to push it Forward High bypass engines were nothing new to the Boeing 737 with the max however is if we compare this to the 737-200 from the 1960s and the 737 800 from the 2000s we can clearly see its engines were already getting bigger but still the Boeing Executives wanted more they were insistent that the max was to have an even greater engine still but how well its base design hailed from the 1960s when turbo fans were sleek and petite things with low bypass ratios and as a result its wings were low to the ground leaving only so much room to install bigger engines as the years went on like the engine before it the max made space for these enormous engines by moving them forward and up the wing but there is only so far that you can move the engines in this way before it starts to seriously affect the aerodynamic performance of the aircraft to address this issue Boeing included a system called the maneuver characteristics augmentation system or MCAS this automatically adjusted for the new flight characteristics of the aircraft and made it feel like a traditional 737 to fly now we're not going to go into too many of the technical details of this except for mentioning that it depended upon a single sensor for its data input and maybe you perhaps see the potential issue with depending on a single sensor for a system that controls the direction in which an aircraft is pointing but Boeing didn't see that problem and so safety concerns would dismissed and so the max formally entered service on the 22nd of May 2017 with Indonesian malindo air it proved to be a hit and orders soon flooded in the aforementioned melindo air ordered 16 but the biggest customers were United and Southwest Airlines who ordered 419 and 384 examples respectively this was followed by fly Dubai and Lion Air who both ordered 251 examples and then Ryanair who ordered 210. job well done for Boeing then they managed to modernize the 737 on the cheap and the orders were flooding in the executives most of whom had never held a flight stick nor a spanner in their lives could award themselves nice big juicy bonuses and a well-earned pat on the back also they thought until 737 Max's started crashing foreign the first max crash came on the 29th of October 2018 when Lion Air Flight 610 went down with the loss of All Souls aboard the pilots of Lion Air Flight 610 were experienced the captain had over 6 000 flight hours and the first officer at over 5000. as they took off from Jakarta all seemed well but just a few minutes into the flight disaster struck the mcas's single sensor had malfunctioned and was sending incorrect data to the aircraft's flight Control Systems this made the aircraft believe it was stalling oh when it wasn't and as a result the aircraft pitched sharply down the pilots attempted to troubleshoot the problem but they were unable to diagnose the root cause of the issue they then contacted the airline's maintenance team on the ground for assistance but the team was not able to provide any additional guidance but the max was at least somewhat controllable so with their options in the sky exhausted they attempted to return to Jakarta airport unfortunately for Flight 610 however the MCAS system continued to believe it was approaching a stall and eventually believing that a critical stall was imminent the system completely overrode the pilot and forced the max into a downward pitch which the pilots were powerless to override pulling on the Yoke did nothing adjusting the ailerons did nothing and throttling the engines did nothing the max continued to descend and soon enough at a speed of 450 miles per hour just 13 minutes after takeoff it crashed into the Java sea another Max went down shortly after on the 10th of March 2019. the max in question was operating Ethiopian Airlines flight 304 from Addis Ababa Ethiopia to Nairobi Kenya they experienced the exact same issues as the crew of Lion Air 610 the single input sensor had broken making the Max's MCAS system think that a stall was imminent and so it took over and it forcibly pitched the aircraft's nose down they tried to manually adjust the plane's pitch by pulling the Yoke with all their strength but the encas overrode them and continued to pitch the aircraft downwards while doing this the crew followed Boeing's recommended procedures which involved disabling the MCAS and manually controlling the plane's altitude but no good came of it the plane continued to oscillate and dive reaching speeds of up to 575 miles per hour and ultimately it crashed into the ground with tremendous force all 157 people on board the flight were killed including passengers from more than 30 countries many of whom were on their way to attend a major United Nations environmental conference in Nairobi two aircraft at the exact same type going down in such quick succession and in such similar ways had the aviation World spooked the entire Max Fleet worldwide was grounded by the 18th of March 2019 and a worldwide investigative effort was launched to get to the bottom of the matter the findings of which would go on to shock the world foreign the American Federal Aviation Administration FAA launched a joint Authority's technical review jatr team to evaluate the certification process for the Boeing 737 Max's flight control systems in March 2019. the jatr team included representatives from 11 International Aviation authorities demonstrating just how seriously this matter was being taken the naturally honed straight in on the MCAS system confident that it must have played a role in the crashes they soon found the issue with the single input sensor but their findings went much deeper than this they also discovered that the MCAT system was designed to activate multiple times with each activation capable of adjusting the aircraft's position further this repetitive activation led to a continuous downward pitch of the aircraft making it increasingly difficult for Pilots to regain control and counteract the system's actions this was just the tip of the iceberg however as it was also discovered that Boeing provided inadequate training and documentation of the system to Pilots they had downplayed the significance of the MCAS system during the certificate education process asserting the pilots would not require extensive additional training consequently many Pilots were completely unaware of the system's existence the lack of comprehensive training materials and simulator sessions left Pilots ill prepared to deal with unexpected MCAS activations we saw the results of this earlier the crews of both Lion Air 610 and Ethiopian Airlines flight 304 were clearly competent and skilled they simply lacked a full knowledge of the MCAS system and so when they followed their procedures to the letter nothing happened the investigation's findings made it clear that the MCAS system initially intended as a safety enhancing feature had become a critical vulnerability due to its design flaws Reliance on a single sensor and insufficient pilot training with such horrific Revelations having emerged attention naturally then went to trying to understand how Central Florida system was ever certified in the first place and to answer this the investigation delved deeper into the intricate relationship between Boeing and the FAA unearthing systemic flaw Wars the cause the max crashes one of the critical aspects that came under intense scrutiny was the faa's organization designation authorization or Oda program this program enabled aircraft manufacturers such as Boeing to perform certain certification tasks on the faa's behalf ostensibly to streamline the certification process and make it more efficient however this practice raised red flags with many questioning its overall effectiveness and implications for safety critics of the Oda program argued that it created an inherent conflict of interest as Boeing a private Corporation with a vested interest in accelerating the certification process and maximizing profits was essentially allowed to act as both the manufacturer and regulator of the max this Arrangement enabled a troubling culture within Boeing where the pressure to expedite the delivery of the Max and compete with rival Airbus took precedence over thorough safety assessments and rigorous testing the faa's decision to allow Boeing to assess the safety of MCAS without adequate oversight proved to be a due to the lack of independent validation Boeing's assurances that the MCAS was safe and the pilots required minimal training went largely unchallenged the faa's Reliance on Boeing's expertise coupled with the inadequacy of its own internal oversight mechanisms had created an environment ripe for disaster and worse still it was discovered the Boeing and manipulated this relationship intentionally Boeing's internal Communications revealed that employees had mocked Regulators knowingly downplayed the significance of the MCAS system and even boasted about their ability to circumvent regulatory scrutiny in some instances Engineers openly questioned the Max's safety and expressed concerns about the pressure to prioritize production deadlines over rigorous safety evaluations only to be shot down by Boeing's corporate leadership harrowing though these Revelations were a clear picture of the disaster had now been uncovered Boeing Executives were well aware that they had a dangerous MCAS system and rather than prioritizing the safety of their customers they had manipulated their cozy relationship with the FAA Regulators to get pushed through regardless also that they could increase their profits safety be damned [Music] when the results of the investigation were made public Boeing faced a fierce media backlash as well as a complete collapse in public trust one that it appears as though it has yet to fully recover from far more concerning for Boeing however was the legal Fallout which had the potential to get very very expensive they have faced numerous lawsuits from the families of the victims of the crashes as well as from shareholders and airlines that were affected by the grounding of the max Fleet in addition the U.S Department of Justice also launched a criminal investigation into the company's handling of the max development and certification process at the time of publishing this video Boeing has already agreed to pay billions in fines and settlements related to the Scandal this includes a 2.5 billion settlement with the U.S Department of Justice made up of a 243.6 million dollar criminal penalty or 1.77 billion dollars in compensation for Airlines and a 500 million dollar crash victim beneficiary fund the company has also settled with the families of many of the victims though these lawsuits are still ongoing the Scandal is also to regulatory changes with the U.S Federal Aviation Administration FAA and other Aviation Regulators around the world implementing new requirements for aircraft certification and oversight the FAA has faced criticism for its role in certifying the Max and has promised to make changes to its certification process in a response to the Scandal the grounding of the Max and the subsequent Revelations had a profound impact on the company's finances following the announcement of the worldwide grounding in March 2019 Boeing stock price plummeted from its peak of around 440 per share to a low of 90 in March 2020 a decrease of nearly 80 percent this sharp decline wiped out roughly a hundred billion dollars in market value substantially affecting shareholders and raising concerns about the company's future prospects as investor trust in the manufacturer rich and all-time low the financial repercussions also extended beyond the decline in stock price Berg reported a loss of 636 million dollars in 2019 its first annual loss since 1997 and an even greater net loss of 11.9 million dollars in 2020 although of course there were other factors affecting 2020's drop the company was also forced to take on billions of dollars in debt to whether the crisis significantly increasing its long-term liabilities this loss in Revenue was caused by a decline in new aircraft orders according to Boeing's own data net orders for the max dropped from 675 in 2018 to a negative 183 in 2019 as cancellations outpaced new orders in 2020 Boeing received only 82 new orders for the max far below the company's historical levels the decline in orders resulted in billions of dollars of lost Revenue further complicating Boeing's financial situation and casting doubt on its future growth prospects in the wake of the Scandal Boeing's CEO and other key Executives resigned from their positions this prompted a major restructuring of the company's management and safety protocols as a Boeing sought to repair its tarnished reputation and re-establish its commitment to safety the company faced immense pressure to demonstrate that it had learned from its mistakes and was taking the necessary steps to prevent similar incidents in the future worsening Boeing's Financial fortunes further still was the fact that the Max's return to service was significantly delayed due to the additional costs and time associated with making modifications to the aircraft undergoing the recertification process and providing new pilot training but as much as we're right today to shine a light on Boeing self-induced plight we must not forget the human victims of this tragedy three hundred and forty six lives were lost in those crashes in the shadow of the Boeing 737 Max MCAS Scandal we left a Ponder the somber lessons that echo through the aviation industry the tragic loss of those live stands as a haunting Testament to the catastrophic consequences that can arise when corporate ambition and design missteps Collide as we remember the victims of Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 we must confront the unsettling reality that the pursuit of profit and competitive Advantage can come at a devastating human cost it's incumbent now upon the aviation industry regulators and lawmakers alike to ensure that the lessons learned from this dark chapter in aviation history are never forgotten the future of air travel depends on a renewed commitment to safety transparency and accountability for only then can we begin to restore the Public's trust and confidence in the miracle of flight and as we bring this video to a close there's a small thing that we absolutely have to mention the Max has been declared legally safe this video is in no way intended to scare you from flying on the Max and what we have discussed today in no way serves as any counter to the legal opinion of the world's Aviation authorities it's just a little thing we had to make perfectly clear for uh no reason at all foreign [Music]

Channel: Megaprojects

Views: 442,445

Keywords: boeing 737max, boeing 737 max, boeing 737 max 8, boeing 737, boeing 737 grounded, boeing 737ng, aviation safety, aviation, boeing 787, boaing 757, fear of flying, flying, landing

Id: VYpvLRAwnU4

Length: 19min 45sec (1185 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 07 2023