Communication is key.
Document and communicate any changes to mission-critical systems.
Does this mean that any execs will go to jail for this? Will their stock price go down? Or will it be business as usual due to human lives meaning nothing to companies.
Why didn’t the pilot do a search on Google for “How to fix Max autopilot update failure?” I mean c’mon; surely there’s a Boeing forum or something. /s
Have you ever waded into airplane nerdom? The pilots would get pages of hits.
One of my relatives works in the industry, and it’s astonishing how much is on-line. I had a weird situation where an acquaintance lied about flying somewhere and having a (non-fatal) crash, and my family connection helped me find a planespotting Web site which notes all crashes and malfunctions across North America, and what exactly was noted as going wrong, as well as injuries/fatalities if known.
I have no doubt a change to a safety system on a new model of commercial jet would have generated tonnes of discussion on several forums, with radically varying degrees of expertise, from “knows nothing but wants to be thought of as an engineering nerd” to “helped draft the documentation”.
Good point! I hadn’t thought of that. I guess it depends on the pilot’s google-fu as the plane stalls and starts to dive.
I don’t think it ever actually stalled; I think there was a faulty sensor displaying an erroneous angle of attack, which made the plane believe it was in a stall.
Had the plane actually been in a stall, the safety feature might have been useful, but forcing the nose down until you get out of a stall that doesn’t exist is only going to have one possible ending.
Safety-system-controlled flight into terrain.