Vox
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2019
6:00 · 15M views · Apr 15, 2019
Vox explainer arguing the two Boeing 737 Max crashes were not just a software bug but the result of a company's drive to beat its rival, with a flawed MCAS design.
HN recommends it as a concise explanation of what caused the 737 Max crashes.
3 comments from Hacker News
So you want to use their historical record as some kind of justification for their dismal record with the 737 MAX, as if one is related to the other? Cold comfort to the 300+ lives, and families destroyed. Watch this video: this video This isn't just some "oops, these were badly trained pilots" – the whole premise of MCAS is seriously screwed up and smacks of non-engineers running the place.
VOX has a good explainer video on what caused the 737 Max to crash twice for anyone who doesn't know the details. Essentially, Boeing installed sensors and software to automatically push the plane nose down if the plane angle was too steep as it ascended. This software/sensor combination is implicated as the cause of the recent crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. The real reason Boeing's new plane crashed twice : this video
Meanwhile he claims 737 will be their safest plane ever: [LINK] Edit: unsure if this video is correct, but the MCAS system is classical "solution" to how in software a junior programmer would patch their software by adding more complexity to the code without realizing what that changes would further affect. It felt like they gave up on some solid solution and just decided to added a sensor who would overwrite pilot manuver. A similar situation would be downgrading a size of tires on a new model of a car (to be competitve with other auto makers that lower the price) and simply adding software blockage that you cannot turn wheels as violent as you could before because on thin thread that would lead to a car tipover. The whole video - if correct, paints a grim picture of profits above PAXes... this video