Flight Safety Information - May 18, 2022 No.095 In This Issue : Chinese plane crash that killed 132 caused by intentional act: US officials : US investigators confirm with CAAC they did not release China Eastern MU5735 crash probe info to media : Incident: Cargojet B763 enroute on May 12th 2022, left and right AoA sensors and Air Data Computer playing up : Incident: Canada A333 near Montreal on May 14th 2022, hydraulic problem : Incident: American B738 at Belgrade on May 16th 2022, bird strike : Accident: Jetstar B788 at ;Melbourne and Coolangatta on May 7th 2022, lightning strikes : Mass Brawl Breaks Out Aboard Greece-Bound Flight, Pilot Punched : Person charged with blinding VSP pilot with laser pointer : FSF Honors Burns, Lawton with Meritorious Service Award : Surack Enterprises Purchases Enstrom Helicopter : World's largest aircraft owner lost 113 planes to Russia due to sanctions : The Stakes for Boeing’s Second Starliner Space Mission Are Astronomical Chinese plane crash that killed 132 caused by intentional act: US officials The China Eastern Airlines plane crash that killed 132 people is believed to have been caused by an intentional act, according to U.S. officials who spoke to ABC News. The Boeing 737-800 passenger jet was flying from Kunming to Guangzhou on March 21 when it plunged into a mountainous area in Guangxi, China. All 123 passengers and nine crew members were killed. The Wall Street Journal was first to report the news. The officials who spoke to ABC News point to the plane's flaps not being engaged and landing gear not put down. The near-vertical descent of the plane, they believe, would've required intentional force. The plane slammed into the ground with such force that it created a 66-foot deep hole in the ground, according to Chinese officials. Investigators also looked into one of the pilots' personal lives and background and believe he may have been struggling through certain issues right before the crash, ABC News has learned. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said all information on the investigation will come from their counterparts in the Civil Aviation Administration of China, but regulators and Boeing have not flagged any mechanical issues. Sources said Chinese investigators also haven't flagged any mechanical issues. "The NTSB will not be issuing any further updates on the CAAC's investigation of the China Eastern 5735 crash," the NTSB said in a statement. "When and whether CAAC issues updates is entirely up to them. And I haven't heard anything about any plans for them to do so." The first black box, the cockpit voice recorder, was found on March 23, while the flight data recorder was found on March 27. Early data showed the airliner plunged from 29,000 feet to 8,000 feet, leveled off and then went into a freefall. One video showed the plane nose-diving into the ground. https://www.yahoo.com/gma/chinese-plane-crash-killed-132-195355700.html US investigators confirm with CAAC they did not release China Eastern MU5735 crash probe info to media The US' National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) confirmed with China's civil aviation regulator that it did not release any investigation information about the cause of the crash of China Eastern MU5735. NTSB's response comes after some American media reported the tragic crash was deliberately caused by someone. The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said that NTSB made it clear that they did not release relevant investigation information to any media, and that they are cooperating with the CAAC in strict accordance with the framework requirements of Annex 13 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation. NTSB also said it will continue to provide professional technical support to help identify the cause of the accident, according to a release the CAAC sent exclusively to the Global Times on Wednesday morning. The comment was made after the WSJ reported earlier that flight data indicates someone in the cockpit intentionally crashed the China Eastern jet, citing people familiar with US officials' preliminary assessment of what led to the accident. According to the CAAC, at present, the aircraft flight accident investigation department is carrying out in-depth wreck identification, classification and inspection, flight data analysis, experimental verification and other related work according to the investigation procedures. CAAC said the investigation department invited the NTSB from the US as the investigator from the country where the aircraft was designed and manufactured, and the move was made according to the relevant requirements of the Convention on International Civil Aviation. CAAC said it will continue to maintain close communication with all parties involved in the investigation, carry out the accident investigation in a scientific, rigorous and orderly manner, and disclose the progress of investigation timely and accurately in accordance with the Convention on International Civil Aviation and the relevant requirements of government information disclosure. The NTSB said in a reply sent to the Global Times on Wednesday that it has assisted the CAAC with their investigation of the China Eastern MU5735 crash. The NTSB doesn't comment on investigations led by other authorities. All information related to that investigation will be released by the CAAC. https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202205/1265929.shtml Incident: Cargojet B763 enroute on May 12th 2022, left and right AoA sensors and Air Data Computer playing up A Cargojet Airways Boeing 767-300 freighter, registration C-FGSJ performing flight W8-302 from Vancouver,BC to Hamilton,ON (Canada) with 2 crew, was enroute at FL380 about 460nm west of Toronto,ON (Canada) when the crew received an IAS DISAGREE amber EICAS caution. While working the related checklist the crew also received RUDDER RATIO and AILERON LOCKOUT messages. The crew informed ATC, requested a block altitude and deviations as needed and declared emergency. After completing the IAS checklist the crew determined the left hand airspeed was unreliable, the first officer became pilot flying. The right hand autopilot and flight director were restored, however, autothrottle remained unavailable. Given that the faults appeared to be stable the crew decided to continue to Hamilton. While descending through FL290 towards Hamilton the crew received R and L EEC (Electronic Engine Control) messages. The crew worked these checklists resulting in the EECs switching to Alternate Modes. Rudder Ratio, Aileron Lockout as well as ground proximity system advisory messages appeared again and kept re-occurring. The aircraft landed safely in Hamilton. The Canadian TSB reported maintenance replaced the left and right hand AoA (Angle of Attack) sensors as well as the left hand Air Data Computer. https://www.avherald.com/h?article=4f8f8b3c&opt=0 Incident: Canada A333 near Montreal on May 14th 2022, hydraulic problem An Air Canada Airbus A330-300, registration C-GHKC performing flight AC-811 from Lisbon (Portugal) to Toronto,ON (Canada), was enroute at FL380 about 310nm northnortheast of Montreal,QC (Canada) when the crew declared PAN PAN reporting a hydraulic problem and decided to divert to Montreal. The aircraft landed safely on Montreal's runway 24L about one hour later. The Canadian TSB reported Montreal's runway needed to be closed for cleaning. The occurrence aircraft returned to service about 62 hours after landing in Montreal. https://www.avherald.com/h?article=4f8f78c1&opt=0 Incident: American B738 at Belgrade on May 16th 2022, bird strike An American Airlines Boeing 737-800, registration N817NN performing flight AA-1612 from Belgrade,MT to Dallas Ft. Worth,TX (USA), was climbing out of Belgrade Bozeman Airport's runway 12 when the aircraft sustained a bird strike into the right hand engine (CFM56). The aircraft leveleld off at 11000 feet and returned to Bozeman Airport for a safe landing on runway 12 about 20 minutes after departure. The FAA reported: "AIRCRAFT STRUCK A BIRD ON DEPARTURE DAMAGING RIGHT ENGINE, BOZEMAN, MT.", rated the damage "UNKNOWN" and the occurrence an incident. The aircraft is still on the ground in Belgrade about 23 hours after landing back. https://www.avherald.com/h?article=4f8f76ef&opt=0 Accident: Jetstar B788 at ;Melbourne and Coolangatta on May 7th 2022, lightning strikes A Jetstar Boeing 787-8, registration VH-VKL performing flight JQ-444 from Melbourne,VI to Coolangatta,QL (Australia), departed Melbourne's runway 34, climbed to FL410 and landed on Coolangatta's runway 14 about 105 minutes after departure. The aircraft hasn't flown since (standing May 17th 2022), post flight examinations found extensive damage due to lightning strikes. The aircraft is currently estimated to be out of service for about two months. https://www.avherald.com/h?article=4f8f2efa&opt=0 Mass Brawl Breaks Out Aboard Greece-Bound Flight, Pilot Punched A British man punched a Wizz Air pilot amid a mass brawl that broke out on flight W95741, which had been traveling from Gatwick, UK to Crete, Greece. The incident took place Tuesday, according to The Mirror. At the center of the fight were two men, each thought to be 30-something and from London‘s Bermondsey district. The men had allegedly been behaving aggressively during the flight and boasting to other passengers about having consumed a lot of alcohol. The chaos erupted after the flight had landed, when one of the men was told he would be escorted off the aircraft by law enforcement due to his poor behavior on the flight. The pilot was hit when he intervened and attempted to calm the man down. The man and his companions attacked the pilot in a scene that has been described by other passengers as “complete and utter chaos.” In a video that was posted online, people aboard the flight, including children, can be heard screaming fearfully. A passenger stated that the pilot, though shaken up, was okay. Another said that prior to the brawl, the men had been abusing others on the plane throughout the flight and bragged that they had been “drinking since 10 a.m. before they began smoking on the flight.” A spokesperson for Wizz Air said, “On Wizz Air flight W95741 from Gatwick – Chania, a passenger became unruly. The cabin crew handled the situation as they are trained to do and reported the incident to the respective authorities, who arrested the passenger on arrival.” “Wizz Air confirms that crew were asked to go to the airport police station to file the case, by which point the crew had legally reached their duty time limitation, and needed time to rest before the return flight to Gatwick.” https://www.yahoo.com/news/mass-brawl-breaks-aboard-greece-120000468.html Person charged with blinding VSP pilot with laser pointer CREWE, Va. (WWBT) - Virginia State Police said it charged a person accused of blinding one of their pilots with a laser pointer. VSP said they were helping the Nottoway County Sheriff’s Office with a search for a suspect near Crewe on Monday evening. A Virginia State Police Trooper Pilot was flying a plane as part of the search when the pilot was temporarily blinded by a laser pointer used by a person on the ground, police said. “Once the pilot was able to regain sight several minutes later, he and his co-pilot, another trooper, were able to identify the source of the laser and provide troopers on the ground with an exact location and address,” a release said. While the plane continued to circle the area, police said the laser would strike and follow the aircraft. Authorities said they found the person and laser pointer at a home along Melody Lane. Tabitha A. Crater, 40, was arrested and charged with one felony count of interfering with the operation of an aircraft. The FAA was notified of the incident. https://www.nbc12.com/2022/05/17/person-charged-with-blinding-vsp-pilot-with-laser-pointer/ FSF Honors Burns, Lawton with Meritorious Service Award Flight Safety Foundation president and CEO Dr. Hassan Shahidi and Bryan Burns with framed Business Aviation Meritorious Service Award Two aviation safety leaders from the Air Charter Safety Foundation (ACSF)—ACSF president Bryan Burns and v-p of operations Russ Lawton—were presented with the 2022 Flight Safety Foundation's (FSF) Business Aviation Meritorious Service Award. It was given to the duo for their contributions to business and charter aviation safety last week at the 67th Business Aviation Safety Summit in Savannah, Georgia. “The ACSF-administered aviation safety action program has made a huge safety difference in Part 135 and 91 operations, all thanks to the vision and leadership of Bryan Burns and Russ Lawton,” said FSF president and CEO Dr. Hassan Shahidi, who presented the award. This particular award has been presented by FSF since 1975 to recognize individuals whose work enhances safety in aviation for outstanding service and contributions to corporate aviation safety. Recipients have included industry leaders, government officials, members of the news media, and researchers whose findings were especially relevant to business aviation. “Russ and I are extremely honored to receive the Meritorious Service Award, and we’re immensely grateful for this recognition from our industry peers,” said Burns. “ACSF has come a long way in the past 14 years, and winning this award would not have been possible without the support, care, and trust from our board of governors and members. It is truly a team effort.” https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/general-aviation/2022-05-17/fsf-honors-burns-lawton-meritorious-service-award Surack Enterprises Purchases Enstrom Helicopter Surack Enterprises founder Chuck Surack has purchased Michigan-based aircraft manufacturer Enstrom Helicopter Corporation. According to the company, which is headquartered in Indiana, it plans to “rebuild the Enstrom brand into one of the leading American-made helicopter manufacturer[s] as it once was.” Enstrom filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last January and announced in March that it had found a buyer in MidTex Aviation. “Earlier this year it looked as if MidTex Aviation would step in and buy Enstrom, but when they had unexpected problems securing the funding, Chuck was able to step in and save the company, which ended a lot of sleepless nights here for us in Michigan!” said Enstrom President and CEO Matt Francour. Surack Enterprises’ aviation-related business portfolio includes Sweet Aviation and Sweet Helicopters, which provide charter flights, training and rentals for fixed-wing aircraft and rotorcraft respectively, and Aviation Specialty Insurance. A helicopter pilot himself, Surack has owned an Enstrom 480B. Surack Enterprises says its immediate goal will be to provide parts and support to current Enstrom owners, followed by restarting production and exploring plans to “improve and update” the Enstrom helicopter fleet. https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/surack-enterprises-purchases-enstrom/ World's largest aircraft owner lost 113 planes to Russia due to sanctions AerCap Holdings, the aircraft leasing giant that is the world's largest owner of jets, lost 113 planes when Russia seized them in response to sanctions triggered by the war in Ukraine. The seizures of the planes and 11 jet engines by Russian authorities caused AerCap to take a $2.7 billion pre-tax charge during the quarter, causing the company to report a net loss of $2 billion rather than the $500 million profit it would have made without the hit. But company executives said the quarter was actually a good one and they see better times ahead as global demand for flying continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. "But for the impact of Russia, this is a strong underlying quarter for the company," said CEO Aengus Kelly in comments to analysts. "Across all our business lines ... we are seeing improving demand, increased utilization of our assets and the improving financial health of our customers." Investors agreed and shares of Dublin-based AerCap gained 6% in afternoon trading following the report. The company was able to recover 22 jets and three engines before they were seized by Russian authorities. It has filed insurance claims to seek to recover the lost aircraft, although some of those claims are with Russian insurance companies. Those policies are backed by Western re-insurance companies, but AerCap stated that "the timing and amount of any recoveries under these policies are uncertain." The company owns a total of 1,624 aircraft, far more than owned or operated any single airline. The jets lost to Russia represented less than 5% of the net value of Aercap's fleet, which grew larger during the pandemic by purchasing rival leasing firm GECAS from General Electric. Aercap should easily ride out the financial loss of the jets, said Richard Aboulafia, managing director with AeroDynamic Advisory. Even if the war were to end and the sanctions were to be lifted, the planes have lost their operating certificates in the eyes of Western aviation regulators. "Once the documentation goes, there's very little point in even trying to get them back," he said. When Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Russia's air carriers were operating 861 commercial planes, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium. Just over half of those planes, with an estimated market value of $9.2 billion, were owned by non-Russian leasing companies. Sanctions by multiple countries required international aircraft leasing companies that owned the jets to repossess them by the end of March. An estimated 79 jets were repossessed, but Russia announced it was nationalizing hundreds more. https://www.kcra.com/article/world-s-largest-aircraft-owner-lost-113-planes-russia-sanctions/40025853# The Stakes for Boeing’s Second Starliner Space Mission Are Astronomical Can Boeing begin to repair its battered reputation with one rocket launch? Its Starliner capsule now sits atop an Atlas 5 rocket on a pad in Florida, being readied for a flight to the International Space Station Thursday evening, as part of a test program already two and a half years behind schedule. NASA wants to use Starliner as a new vehicle to send its astronauts into space, as an alternative option to SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. But Starliner has yet to be cleared as safe enough to make a crewed flight because of potentially life-threatening glitches in its systems. SpaceX is sending astronauts, wealthy tourists, and even a few lucky citizens to space with regular insouciance—while Boeing’s human spaceflight ambitions are facing a make-or-break moment come 6:54 p.m. Eastern Time Thursday. Serious technical failures run wide and deep throughout Boeing’s sprawling business, from aerospace to military programs. A successful Starliner test flight would certainly help, but it would do little to counter the picture of a once peerless innovator falling badly behind its competitors. Indeed, the problems of the Starliner inevitably prompt analysts to suggest a classic case of industrial Darwinism—that, by its nature, Boeing can never match the game-changing brilliance of Elon Musk’s SpaceX programs because its engineering culture has been gutted by cost-slashing and its executives have become risk-averse. The striking difference in the performance of the two space programs so far would seem to validate that conclusion. But the company rot began long ago, in other places. To understand just how far Boeing has fallen and why, it’s instructive to go back to a time when its reputation was being built, to flashes of intuitive genius in a company that did, literally, change the world. Boeing’s Capsule Successfully Lands After Mission Test Fail What Goes Up, Must Come Down In October 1948, four of Boeing’s top engineers were called to a suite at the Van Cleve Hotel in Dayton, Ohio, for an emergency meeting along with two top company executives, Ed Wells and George Schairer. Wells had fathered the legendary World War II B-17 bomber. And, at the close of the war, Schairer had found and copied Nazi research papers on high-speed jet flight, and used them to design the B-47 bomber, the world’s first large jet and a Cold War weapon that gave the U.S. air superiority over Soviet Russia. The Boeing men were in Dayton to meet the U.S. Air Force’s top brass, who had decided they wanted a jet bomber twice the size of the B-47, and they wanted it fast. In one weekend, Wells and Schairer intuitively set out the shape of a new jet while the others projected its performance. Schairer—using balsa wood, glue and model paint from a hobby store—made a 1/120th scale model of it. Boeing was awarded the contract, one of the most lucrative military programs it ever landed. But it was actually four more years before the bomber flew. Boeing had to wait for Pratt & Whitney to develop new jet engines powerful enough to meet its demands. Incredibly, 70 years later, that bomber, the B-52 (otherwise known as the BUFF—big, ugly fat fucker) is still flying with the Air Force. It is currently being upgraded with new engines and systems to enable it to launch cruise missiles, and could still be flying in the 2050s. Stories like that tend to turn into company legends, and legends can get inflated. When I first heard it, more than thirty years ago, I suspected that it might have been sexed up a bit over time, but I was able to check it out with Schairer, and he confirmed it in detail. Schairer was a legend himself, often irascible with lesser wits, able to look at the outlines of a new jet and immediately detect potential flaws. (On one occasion, he and Wells killed a new airplane program in a single meeting.) The striking point to me was how personalized Boeing’s intellectual capital was. Just about every step forward they made could be attributed to the brilliance of either individuals or small teams: from the way a cabin door ingeniously sealed on closing to how a serious flight control issue was resolved, more or less overnight, by improvising with existing parts. There are familiar explanations of why Boeing lost that culture. One is that it was extinguished by bean-counters drafted into the executive suites from McDonnell Douglas when the companies merged. Another is that aerospace technology has become so much more complex that the opportunity for acts of individual genius no longer exists. There is no doubt that there were some truculent egos at large when Boeing became a byword for excellence, nor is there any doubt that some of the most brilliant engineers didn’t give a shit about the bottom line. But the inescapable historical fact is that it was Boeing’s ability to successfully manage such a collection of brain power that marked it out and made it singular. And my hunch is that today, Elon Musk would have had no trouble managing and enabling such a culture had he been lucky enough to acquire it. That said, the most catastrophic hit to Boeing’s reputation, the grounding of the 737-MAX after two fatal crashes, can be traced back to that team of engineers, though that outcome was not of their making. In fact, at Boeing we’re looking at a kind of corporate cannibalism, in which a creatively bankrupt culture raids the foundational culture for treasure and destroys its quality in the process. The 737 became the greatest cash cow in Boeing’s history, with more than 10,000 delivered, but it had a troubled birth. It was the brainchild of Jack Steiner, a gifted engineer with a personal velocity that, it was said, could “walk through walls.” When Steiner advocated a new small jet in 1965, Boeing’s boss, William Allen, was not persuaded and intended to veto it at a board meeting. Steiner risked being sacked by going behind his back and lobbying directors. Allen, outvoted, was furious, and never trusted Steiner again. His doubts seemed to be borne out by the results: Early versions of the 737 were plagued with problems and airlines complained that Boeing had delivered a dud. A turning point came in 1981, when new engines and other changes produced a jet that the airlines suddenly loved—Southwest Airlines built the original budget airline model around it. All the flaws in the 737-MAX stem from the attempt to take that airplane, whose limits are set by its origins in the 1960s, and push it into one more upgrade. And now, even though the 737-MAX has been allowed back in the air, those limits are still raising serious issues of safety. Both fatal crashes, involving jets operated by Indonesia’s Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines, revealed that pilots were confused by a cascade of audio and visual warnings in the cockpit of systems failures. The pilots did not cause the crashes, they were desperately trying to respond to the cause—errant software that allowed the airplane to override the pilots and trigger a near-vertical death dive. But the 737’s cockpit alert system falls well short of state-of-the art systems on all other jets—including Boeing’s. When the 737-MAX was cleared to fly again, the FAA agreed with Boeing that the existing cockpit alert system was sufficiently safe. Airline pilots were familiar with it and it was common across several generations of the jet. But, after investigating the crashes, lawmakers passed a bill in 2020 that mandated that any new jet certified as safe by the FAA after December 27, 2022, would require a new digital cockpit alert system. There were two new 737-MAX models to be certified before that deadline: the smallest of the series, the 737-7; and the largest, the 737-10. Both were important additions—Southwest needed hundreds of the small jet to meet demand on shorter routes, and the larger jet was Boeing’s only chance of competing with the Airbus A321XLR, a jet that airlines are snapping up for transoceanic routes. Now it seems that meeting that deadline for the two jets is problematic. The FAA is being far more rigorous in the certification regime, and the performance of the cockpit alert system is under review. On an earnings call with analysts in April, reporting a first quarter loss of $1.24 billion, Boeing CEO David Calhoun, in a masterclass of understatement, said that if they did not meet the deadline (or if it is not extended) “it is a problem.” The problem is that, apparently, there is no way that the 737 cockpits can be retrofitted with a completely new digital alert system. This was explained to me by an expert with long experience of Boeing jets and the evolution of their cockpit technology: “To achieve that kind of generational change requires the aircraft to have a digital backbone, and digital capable systems and sensors. That is not possible in the current 737 design.” All subsequent Boeing jets were designed to have that “digital backbone” that could accept continual upgrading, but the 737, with its 1960s architecture, was like a house that needed rewiring and the cost of gutting the house was too much— as the expert told me: “It would have required major systems changes, a complete revamp of the overhead instrument panels in the cockpit, massively different interfaces for engines and systems.” Boeing is looking at a fix to the alert system that could be done within the existing architecture, but the expert was dubious. “It would be like someone with a ’53 Chevy taping an iPhone to the dash and expecting Siri to activate anti-skid braking, all-wheel drive and confirm that all aspect airbags were disarmed.” He felt that Boeing should have made more radical upgrades of the 737 in the 1990s or, at the latest, when it committed to the MAX in 2011. Systemic Failure As it is, the MAX saga is just one part of a broad collapse in Boeing’s engineering standards. The commercial division recently reported a first quarter loss of $856 million which reflected the discovery of serious flaws in its next big jet, the 777X, including a flight control issue that, as in the case of the 737-MAX, led in a test flight to an “uncommanded” sudden pitching down of the nose. Another costly and persistent problem is quality control failures that for a while brought the production line of the 787 Dreamliner to a standstill. Discussing this dire picture, Calhoun told financial analysts in the April earnings call, “We keep trying to incorporate all our learnings, and it is definitely a more rigorous process that we’re all going through.” What Calhoun didn’t talk about was something that he believes offers Boeing the chance to escape in one leap from the morass of engineering cockups to a new way of building airplanes. When Boeing won the contract to provide the U.S. Air Force with a new trainer, T-7A, a lot of the credit went to an innovative design regime named model-based system engineering, or MBSE. Designing a new jet, particularly a large airliner, is one of the most complex engineering challenges in the world. Many thousands of parts, produced by thousands of suppliers across the globe, have to be impeccably manufactured and then finally assembled in one place. Critical systems have to be tested to extreme standards. As the 737-MAX showed, there is always a tension between meeting deadlines and not cutting corners that jeopardize safety. How an Unearthed Black Box Could Crack the Boeing 737 Plane Crash Mystery MBSE has been around as a concept since 1993, and is in its sixth generation. As well as using it on the all-new trainer, Boeing applied it to the 777X, which is an extensive makeover of the 777 that first flew in 1994. Techie evangelists praise the model-based system in Orwellian terms, as “the single source of truth.” At Boeing, that essentially means scrapping the old company hierarchy of specialist groups (“smashing the silos” is the jargon term) and concentrating the whole program under the new system—in effect, giving it total control of the design, development and manufacturing of an entire airplane, from the first concept sketch to the first flight. The Air Force said that the costs of developing the T-7A were “significantly reduced” as a result of using MBSE. That’s something that Calhoun, who has made a personal mission of slashing costs (and firing people) finds irresistible. Developing a new commercial jet can cost upward of $20 billion. Boeing’s top managers see this choice as a game-changer. They believe they can leap at least a decade ahead of their rival, Airbus, by going all-in with MBSE, when they finally green light their first new jet for two decades, the 797, a replacement for the 737. However, that “single source of truth” is not yet infallible. MBSE failed to anticipate and prevent the flight control issues on the 777X, and there was a similar failure with the T-7A when Air Force test pilots suddenly found that if they pulled the jet up into a steep climb it developed a disturbing tic known as “wing rock” that could lead to falling out of the sky. That has now been fixed by a change in software, but the FAA is far from finished with multiple systems issues on the 777X. Certification is taking so long that, by delaying delivery of the first airplanes, it is costing Boeing at least $1.5 billion. Since 2005, under three successive CEOs, Boeing has regarded engineers as an expense, not an asset. To Calhoun, MBSE promises a way of producing a new airplane with as few engineers as possible. But this might easily turn out to be an example of people in a deep hole grabbing too eagerly for a panacea. And there is also a larger question: Can artificial intelligence ever be a substitute for the kind of human intellectual capital that gave Boeing its command of the skies—the kind embodied in that sometimes ornery, often risk-taking cohort of engineers? In trying to make people think like machines, instead of independent minds, you can end up with just lines of software that, as in the case of the 737-MAX, lead to disaster. Boeing Make-or-Break As it is, in the hard reality of now, the approaching white knuckle moment for Boeing is the launch of the Starliner. The program has already cost Boeing $595 million more than the $4.3 million NASA provided in a fixed-price contract. By contrast, SpaceX won its contract with a bid of $2.5 billion. It has a fleet of four Crew Dragon capsules, and is readying its seventh mission to the ISS for later this year. The last planned launch of the Starliner was aborted nine months ago when a problem showed up in the propulsion system used to steer the capsule in space. This was not another recondite software issue. It was basic plumbing that you might think you could call HomeAdvisor to service: Thirteen fuel valves were stuck due to corrosion in the pipes. Reuters reported last week that Aerojet, the makers of the system, alleged that chemical cleaners used by Boeing on the launch pad were responsible. Boeing rejected that assertion. The propulsion system has been replaced by another, and NASA has cleared it to fly. However, the shadow of Boeing’s management style still hangs over the launch. Last week, the independent panel of experts that advises NASA on safety issues warned that Boeing’s staffing levels on the project “seem to be especially low” and that safety certification of the parachutes, deployed on the final phase of the capsule’s return to earth, was “lagging behind.” More ominously, Patricia Sanders, chair of the panel, was doubtful that Starliner will be ready to fly astronauts soon: “it is still a ways off before we have two fully functioning, operational vehicles.” https://www.yahoo.com/news/stakes-boeing-second-starliner-space-011301855.html Curt Lewis