Where is the FAA?

Boeing has a remarkable history of making good airplanes. I’ve flown quite a few of them and I’ve been a Boeing apologist for years.

But there is something troubling about Boeing’s design and handling of the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) crisis. This is the system that Boeing designed to re-normalize the abnormal flight control characteristics that came from hanging more powerful engines in a less-than-ideal location, relative to the aircraft’s center of gravity and its center of lift.

Ever since airplanes started flying faster than about 300 knots, there have been various stick shakers, stick pushers, and stick pullers, devices to alert pilots for avoiding dangerous control issues that might be encountered near the limits of an aircraft’s flight envelope. Some airliners with rear-mounted engines and with high “T” tails (the horizontal stabilizer mounted at the top of the vertical stabilizer) had such bad slow-speed characteristics that the aircraft were fitted with stick shakers that would shake the pilot’s control wheel as it approached these slow-flight conditions. If the pilot allowed speed to degrade further, there would be an unbelievably loud horn that would blow from a gigantic megaphone in the cockpit. And, finally, if these two warnings failed to correct the pilot’s handing of the aircraft, there was a “stick pusher” that would literally push the control wheel forward, lowering the nose and helping the pilot regain critical airspeed.

There were some “stick pullers” too. Early turbojet airliners such as the DC-8 had some famous mishaps that were eventually attributed to pilots allowing the aircraft to get too close to the speed of sound. As the aircraft approached Mach 0.84 and beyond, some areas of the aircraft wings would, by the nature of the airfoil shape, cause the relative slipstream to travel past the aircraft’s aluminum surface at or above the speed of sound. The shock wave that formed as a result tended to move the wing’s center of lift rearward, causing the nose of the aircraft to dip, which caused the aircraft’s velocity to increase, which in turn caused the problem to get worse. Sometimes it would get worse quickly and cause the airliner to descend beyond the ability of human effort to correct. I was a DC-8 pilot with Air Canada and this issue had my full attention.

The DC-8 was fitted with a stick puller that would automatically and gradually introduce a nose-up force into the flight control system as the aircraft went beyond (about) Mach 0.81. This system was detailed in our training and the system was tested prior to every flight. Interestingly, the system had an innovative visual indicator to inform the pilots when stick pulling force was being applied: There was a half-inch-diameter tube attached vertically to the DC-8 control column and from this tube a small metal rod would begin rising as the stick-pulling force was applied. We would sometimes see this rod extending out of the tube a little when we were trying to make up time to get back on schedule. It was a gentle but persistent warning that we should cool our jets a little.

In the image below you can see the rod sticking out of its tube on the co-pilot’s control column.

I mention these early analog flight control augmentation systems because they all had one thing in common: Pilots knew about them, we were trained how to react when we encountered them during flight, and, most importantly: They all had visual, aural, or haptic (shaking) cues to announce themselves. 

By contrast, Boeing’s 737 Max MCAS seems hidden by design. Pilots were not told about it. Before the Lion Air mishap there were no checklists for dealing with an MCAS malfunction. And there is still no cockpit indication that MCAS is engaging with a flight control force. That seems like engineering arrogance to me.

In both 737 Max accidents, the aircraft hit the surface of the earth at tremendous velocity. In the Ethiopian accident, the crater has a surprisingly small diameter and some of the parts are buried deep. Wow. What kind of control forces are we dealing with here? It seems likely that no matter what the circumstances, if an airliner is pointed directly down, the pilot will be pulling back with all the strength a human can muster. Doesn’t it seem obvious that such control forces might warrant some sort of annunciation, so the captain knows what the heck is going on?

Boeing is dealing with a problem so severe that it could bring about the end of its commercial airplane business. The loss of confidence is stunning. Globally, aviation experts wonder aloud why Boeing did not take appropriate action after Lion Air. Now, after the second accident in Ethiopia, we are watching in disbelief as Boeing continues to defend their aircraft. Of course, why would Boeing’s action surprise anyone? American corporations are pathological about profits: “Shareholder value” above everything—it’s the free market system, baby.

The real surprise is that there is no action from the agency we depend on to protect the travelling public: the FAA. While foreign governments around the world act in the best interests of their citizens, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Elaine Chao, expresses confidence in the experts at Boeing.

Here in the United States we are becoming familiar with lack of government oversight. We have an EPA being administered by officials who hate the EPA and everything it stands for. The FDA is being run by a former Big Pharma lobbyist. Lack of governance is supposed to be good governance.

But this situation is nonetheless remarkable. Our government’s lack of regard for the public good is jaw-dropping.

I work for a large multinational corporation. I know how engineering decisions are made. The experts at Boeing need our government to help. Most are good people who are diligent and conscientious in their day-to-day jobs. But Boeing needs an FAA that has teeth. They need regulators who insist on visible cues and a memorized checklist for a malfunctioning MCAS. The Boeing engineers need other aeronautical engineers who work for the public and who have the power to say, “You shall not pass.” Tough FAA oversight is needed to ensure that industry interests do not conflict with public safety.

The 737 Max needs to be grounded until further notice by the FAA. Boeing needs to develop an annunciator that tells the pilots when MCAS is operating and a “kill switch” needs to be put in place. This will serve Boeing’s best long-term interests. More importantly, it will put government back into its proper public role of oversight. I’m ready for some of that.