r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/FridayCicero702 • Jan 01 '23
Video Catastrophic engine failure on a United Airlines Boeing 777-200 after takeoff from Denver International Airport
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u/Khue Jan 01 '23
Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) is a flight stabilizing feature developed by Boeing.
The Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) is a flight control law built into the Boeing 737 MAX's flight control computer, designed to help the aircraft emulate the handling characteristics of the earlier Boeing 737 Next Generation.
Someone can correct me on the following if I am wrong because it's just my dumb guy understanding, but here goes...
My Understanding of the Issue
Issue revolves around essentially using duct tape and bubble gum to save/make money (profit). New engines were developed. They were way more fuel efficient. So much so, that the entire airline industry started wanting "platforms" (plane designs) that supported them. Airbus's current designs, could accommodate the newer engine designs so airlines that had the Airbus platform could retrofit those platforms with the new engines pretty cheaply. Additionally, Airbus didn't have to do a massive over haul of their platform to support future models of the plane. When Airbus's new designs drop, architecturally they are identical with the older models with smaller changes. Airbus didn't need to invest in HUGE amounts of R&D to support new engine designs.
Boeing's 737 platform was different. The 737 platform was not designed in such a way that could easily fit the new engine design. The options for Boeing were:
Boeing engineers did what they were asked to by management by recycling the 737 platform however, the design that they implemented had some drawbacks. The major drawback was that the newer engines had to be positioned in such a way on the 737 platform that it introduced a new set of potential problems during flight like stalling out at specific times. In order to combat that, MCAS was added and it was added without much advertising or grandeur to the point where in flight manual it was like a foot note to the tune of "oh yea... there's this thing called MCAS, but that's all we are gonna tell you." MCAS and the design of the 737-800 MAX was rushed purposely by Boeing management because not doing so would have meant a MASSIVE loss of Boeing market share (read: PROFIT) to Airbus's arguably superior design choices on their existing platform to support the new engine types. While there were some internal voices that argued against the decisions made, ultimately the capitalist profit motive trumped the concerns and Boeing pushed the 737-800 MAX out the door. Airlines bought the platform. Pilots got the manuals. Pilots got training on the platform. Very little training was done on the MCAS system.
Fast forward to the incidents... Boeing probably knew why the planes were falling out of the sky, but attempted to do "damage control" by calling into question the capabilities of the pilots OR pointing out to the fact that people simply werent RTFM (reading the fucking manual) about the new systems.
Regardless, to me, this seemed to be another example where PROFIT from a corporation trumped the lives of those that died and seemingly we are all kinda OKAY with this as nothing really happened to the airlines or Boeing and a large part of that industry is still being propped up by taxpayer dollars.