Building the Plane while Flying
How is innovation killing us? It’s supposed to make our world better, safer and faster. Innovation protects us, in theory. But the implementation of innovation is useless unless we improve the systems we already have. It can be great but the many factors it takes for an innovation to be an improvement can easily get overlooked. Weighing the possible cost against the possible benefits we have to determine whether or not it’s worth it.
One of the biggest failures that could happen are technical malfunctions. The Boeing 737 MAX MCAS is an amazing idea on the surface but in action it caused the deaths of hundreds of people. This system was supposed to make our planes safer by preventing stalls. Instead it caused planes to nose dive due to a mechanical failure that gave a false detection of stalls to the MCAS. It stems from the Angle of Attack(AOA) sensors, which are known to frequently fail. In other control systems using the AOA sensors they compare data from all of the sensors. In the case with the 737 MAX one sensor started giving MCAS incorrect data, but the MCAS only accepted data from the active sensor. Since the MCAS couldn’t compare its input to the other sensors it was prone to failures. This was innovation without improvement, pilots can already take information from multiple sensors. But the fact pilots were so unaware of this new system they couldn’t even override it is a massive problem. They made a faulty system and then told no one. We already have amazingly safe aircrafts but major flaws like this could happen more and more if we continue to ignore past problems. These sensors were known to read incorrectly but Boeing still used them as a base for the MCAS system, when we know that good pilots can successfully take information from multiple sensors.
The 737 MAX was an extremely rushed project. It developed when Airbus, a Boeing competitor, released the A330neo. Boeing knew prolonging the project would put them far behind Airbus, so they rushed everything. Along with this the budget was tight. This is unethical due to the sheer amount of work it takes to safely produce an aircraft. Human greed has an impact on how safe our innovations are. Instead of taking the time to ensure the safety of their passengers they weighed the consequences of the possible failure to the cost of implementing the better sensor and determined it would be better to risk a crash. There was so much rush on this that the Federal Aviation Administration wrote off an important review of the aircraft. During the investigation it was discovered that the MCAS was changed to have more of an impact than previously reported. When dealing with the lives of hundreds of people we can’t overlook anything, but when major companies are presented with the decay of sales we risk it. We can’t trust in the organizations that are there to keep us safe from innovation without improvement. Until a failure like this is mended innovation should halt.
When the 737 MAX was released pilots were not properly informed of the MCAS. Whether this was due to the rushed release or Boeing just didn’t think it was important doesn’t matter. The bottom line is that a major innovation happened under the radar of pilots. We don’t have the proper systems in place to detect a major flaw like this. Pilots have an extremely stressful job but we undermine their place in the cockpit when we allow changes like this to happen.
Pilots are trained for years to prevent disasters, they have to have at least 1,500 hours flying to even be considered for commercial flight. That’s not even including flight simulator time or in class time. Even with all of these protocols most fatal plane crashes are due to pilot error. Instead of constantly releasing new systems for pilots to learn, why don’t we develop better training systems? Or put more effort into better coursework for pilots new and old? We could have the safest plane ever and still be at the will of a pilot. They will have to relearn how to control a different plane, when we could accept that as of now we are at our limit for technological advancement in the planes. If we could train the pilots more on the same aircraft that mechanically is amazing, why continue to put more stress on pilots?
All in all we are not ready for innovative improvements. We have mechanical failures, organizational failures, human failures, and protocol failures. Innovations can happen, but only if we perfect every step of the processes we have now. As of now we have a lot to work on before we can continue to advance, because we need to equally improve every component equally. Even if we had an innovation that could change the world of flying we don’t have the proper channels to make sure it can thrive in our world. So until we fix all of our current problems innovation is useless because it doesn’t have a sturdy foundation to build on.
The solution to our problem is to work on the systems we already have.
If we were to tighten the policy and processes to innovate. For example if the FAA had strict policies on not letting companies skip past certain tests this whole situation could be a lot different. But since we allowed Boeing to bypass important procedures due to a rushed release we started the path to these crashes.
Or we could incorporate them into the process of innovation more. Pilots have extremely high stakes jobs, people say pilots don’t want to be in the news because most of the time when they are it’s not good publicity. Which is extremely true, everyday they have the chance to kill hundreds of people. By letting the change of the 737 go unreported we instill a sense of uneasiness in our pilots. They were left in the dark about a life threatening change and expected to just figure it out. Our pilots shouldn’t have the responsibility of cleaning up Boeing’s mess.
Along with that we have to improve our pilot training programs. Most plane crashes are caused by pilot error. If we put more effort into our training we could possibly prevent that.
References
Author links open overlay panelBemnet Wondimagegnehu Mersha a, a, b, 10, A. M., DingS., GarrardW.L., GoupilP., LeiY., Nguyen-LeD.H., SherstinskyA., Tran-NgocH., YinS., Ababa EthiopiaA.I.B., A., AerospaceP., BengioY., BerdjagD., BruntonS.L., ChoA., ChoK., … LerroA. (2022, March 25). Data-driven model for accommodation of faulty angle of attack sensor measurements in fixed winged aircraft. Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0952197622000744
Departmental guidance on valuation of a statistical life in economic analysis. U.S. Department of Transportation. (n.d.). https://www.transportation.gov/office-policy/transportation-policy/revised-departmental-guidance-on-valuation-of-a-statistical-life-in-economic-analysis
Gandhi, D. (2022). Gandhi DWIJ STS research paper – libraetd.lib.virginia.edu. https://libraetd.lib.virginia.edu/downloads/xk81jm308?filename=Gandhi_Dwij_STSResearchPaper.pdf
Harris, R., & Johnston , P. (2019). The Boeing 737 MAX saga: Lessons for software organizations. https://embeddedartistry.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/the-boeing-737-max-saga-lessons-for-software-organizations.pdf
Counterintuitive Fall 2024 
What you say here is true, PlaneFan, but it makes you sound like a spokesperson for the “what’s it going to cost us?” faction.
NEVER waste an opportunity to push your Agenda when you’re laying out a set of options. You also asked a Rhetorical Question (forbidden) and then failed to answer it (doubly forbidden) You say:
You could have said:
If you REALLY like Rhetorical Questions, be sure you reply immediately with very Rhetorical Answers! 🙂
—I presume it worked most of the time, right?
—So, to be fair, could you allow that when it prevented stalls it functioned like other failsafe devices that airlines have come to rely on to improve safety?
—But that, when they failed, they failed in a way that SHOULD HAVE BEEN very predictable since they relied WAY TOO MUCH on a part that is prone to fail?
—It’s not too early to claim that pilots, too, in addition to the planes themselves, are well practiced at balancing reports from multiple sensors.
—Had they been permitted by the system to correct for potential stalls, they could have, probably almost always do.
—Be sure readers understand the fatal flaw was not JUST that the plane ignored ALL BUT ONE WRONG SENSOR, but that the PLANE ALSO prohibited pilots from OVERRIDING its fatal error.
—This buries the outrage, PlaneFan.
—The MCAS was changed to be ARROGANT in the face of superior knowledge (the pilot’s knowledge) and was given VETO POWER to prohibit actions that would have saved lives.
—The final arrogance is that it didn’t prevent pilots from CORRECTING naturally-occurring PROBLEMS. WORSE! It CREATED new problems and then REFUSED HELP.
—I don’t know where you’re planning to say this, but HERE would be a good place.
—You do have a good idea what Boeing was thinking.
—They calculated that getting the feature to market before the competition was WORTH THE RISK of catastrophic failure.
I hope that was helpful, PlaneFan.
Provisionally graded. Revisions are strenuously recommended (Required, in fact, for arguments in your Portfolio), and Regrades are always available following substantial improvements.
Deduct at least half a letter grade for NO REFERENCES OR CITATIONS. Fix that.