[Peetwo]

Flight JT610: Update 13 Nov 2018. 

From Reuters, via news.com.au: 

Search for Lion Air crash victims stops
Indonesian authorities say they will keep looking for the crashed Lion Air flight's cockpit voice recorder but stop searching for victims.

Reuters NOVEMBER 10, 2018 9:06PM

Indonesian authorities say they have stopped the search for victims of a plane crash that killed all 189 people on board, but would keep looking for the Lion Air flight's second black box, the cockpit voice recorder.

"There is nowhere left to search and we have stopped finding victims' bodies," Muhammad Syaugi, the head of the national search and rescue agency (Basarnas) told media on Saturday.

"We will limit our operations to monitoring."

The nearly new Boeing Co. 737 MAX passenger plane crashed into the sea on October 29 just minutes after taking off from Jakarta en route to Bangka island near Sumatra.

Syaugi said 196 body bags containing human remains had been retrieved and 77 victims identified after forensic examination.

Authorities have downloaded data from one of the black boxes found last week, the flight data recorder, but are still looking for the cockpit voice recorder.

Soearjanto Tjahjono, the head of the transportation safety committee (KNKT), said finding the voice recorder would be critical to understanding the cause of the crash.

"From the black box data, we know about 70-80 per cent of what happened but to 100-per cent understand the cause of the accident... we need be able to know the conversation that took place in the plane's cockpit," he said, declining to elaborate on what the flight data recorder had revealed.

KNKT has brought in a pinger locator and a vessel capable of sucking up mud to help with the search for the voice recorder, in addition to remotely operated underwater vehicles equipped with cameras.

Tjahjono said he was worried the cockpit voice recorder may have been damaged on impact because KNKT had yet to detect any "ping" sounds that would indicate its location, as had happened with the first black box.

He said authorities were searching for 15 aircraft parts, including an "angle of attack" sensor on the aircraft, which helps the plane's computers understand if the aircraft is stable. Investigators have said one of these sensors had provided erroneous data.

KNKT told Reuters on Wednesday that there was a problem with the sensor on the previous flight taken by the doomed plane from the island of Bali to Jakarta. One sensor had been replaced in Bali.

Via Negroni's  Flying Lessons blog:

737 Pilots Not Told of MAX Design Change That Could Factor in Lion Air Crash

November 12, 2018 / Share your comments...

How concerned are 737 MAX pilots about their new airplane? Plenty concerned.

Over the weekend, two U.S. operators of Boeing’s newest model narrowbody were sending out memos with details of a new system unique to the MAX called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, which may have contributed to the fatal crash of Lion Air Flight 610 last month in Indonesia. This memo had to be sent because until last week this system was a secret to the men and women who fly the plane.

The MCAS on the Boeing 737 Max was added as part of its Federal Aviation Administration certification. Pilots at American Airlines, which has 16 MAX-8s in its fleet and at Southwest with 26, were told over the weekend that the MCAS was added, “to enhance pitch characteristics during steep turns with elevated load factors and during flaps up flight at airspeeds approaching stall.”

Pilots have been abuzz over the Lion Air accident and what appears to have been the pilots’ inability to pull out of an airplane-induced nose-over on October 29. The din got louder when Boeing sent a Service Bulletin to operators and the Federal Aviation Administration followed up with an Emergency Airworthiness Directive nine days later.




“This is the first description you, as 737 pilots, have seen. It is not in the AA 737 Flight Manual Part 2, nor is there a description in the Boeing FCOM (flight crew operations manual),” says the letter from the pilots’ union safety committee. “Awareness is the key with all safety issues.”

The APA told pilots an update to the airline’s and Boeing’s crew manual would be added soon.

Pilots of any version of the 737 could encounter situations in which the elevator trim puts the airplane in a nose down position unexpectedly. It is something for which they train in the simulator. What makes the addition of the MCAS to the 737 MAX problematic for pilots, is not knowing about it.





“Events that happen seemingly for no reason can be very difficult to deal with.

That’s the whole reason we learn about systems in ground school and practice responding to their failures in the sim, to make a mental blueprint that acts as a vaccination against unexpected issues,” said John Gadzinski, a 737 MAX pilot and the president of Four Winds Aerospace Safety Corp (link: https://www.linkedin.com/company/four-wi...ety-corp./ ).

“There’s a huge dissonance here. At best we’re trained so that when the airplane tells us to do something, we do it. There’s an enormous part of your brain that wants to trust what the airplane is telling you and to all of a sudden to be told, ‘Wow, in this case, the airplane – which is the most advanced version of the most trusted airplane in the world – can’t be trusted,’ that’s kind of a big deal. That’s a huge deal.”

Via ABC News: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-13/l...tion=world

Lion Air crash investigators find anti-stall system not covered in pilots' manual
Updated about 3 hours ago



PHOTO: The training for Boeing 737 MAX aircraft includes three hours of computer-based training and a familiarisation flight. (Reuters: Willy Kurniawan)

Investigators looking into the deadly Lion Air crash in Indonesia have suggested more training is needed for Boeing 737 MAX pilots after they found automatic emergency systems to prevent stalling are not mentioned in instruction manuals.

Key points:

• Lion Air's flight JT610 from Jakarta to Pangkal Pinang crashed on October 29 killing all 189 on board
  
• Investigators' attention was initially on potential maintenance problems, but now procedures and pilot training is the focus
  
• US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued an emergency airworthiness directive urging airlines to update their flight manuals
  

US pilots were also not aware of potential risks, two US pilot unions told Reuters.

The comments shed further light on the areas under scrutiny as investigators prepare to publish their preliminary report on November 28 or 29, one month after the Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX dived into the Java Sea, killing all 189 on board.

Until now, public attention has focused mainly on potential maintenance problems including a faulty sensor for the 'angle of attack', a vital piece of data needed to help the aircraft fly at the right angle to the currents of air and prevent a stall.

Lucky escape from Lion Air: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-30/i...c/10445988



An Indonesian man who was supposed to board the ill-fated Lion Air plane that plunged into the sea with 189 people on board only missed his flight because he was stuck in Jakarta's notorious traffic.

Now the investigation's focus appears to be expanding to the clarity of US-approved procedures to help pilots prevent the 737 MAX over-reacting to such a data loss, and methods for training pilots.

Dennis Tajer, a 737 captain and spokesman for Allied Pilots Association (APA), which represents American Airlines Group Inc pilots, said his union was informed after the crash about a new system Boeing had installed on 737 MAX jets that could command the plane's nose down in certain situations to prevent a stall.

"It is information that we were not privy to in training or in any other manuals or materials," he said.

Soerjanto Tjahjono, head of Indonesia's transportation safety committee of crash investigators (KNKT), said on Monday (local time) that Indonesian regulators would tighten training requirements as a result of the findings of the investigation so far.

"We know, because this incident happened, we know we need additional training," he said.

The comments focus attention on the contents of aircraft manuals and a conversion course allowing pilots of the previous generation of Boeing jet, the 737NG, to upgrade to the MAX.



PHOTO: Investigator are expected to deliver a report into the Lion Air crash on November 28 or 29. (Reuters: Beawiharta)

The manual had not covered how to handle a situation like the one that occurred in the crash, Mr Soerjanto told reporters.

Lion Air officials said on Monday that they had followed a training regime approved by both US and European regulators.

The approved training was restricted to three hours of computer-based training and a familiarisation flight, Lion Air Training Centre general manager Dibyo Soesilo said during a media tour of the centre on Monday.

The October 29 crash was the first accident involving the 737 MAX, an updated version of Boeing's workhorse narrowbody jet that entered service last year.

Crash investigation sparked warning to US airlines
Information recovered from the jet's flight data recorder last week led the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to issue an emergency airworthiness directive urging airlines to update their flight manuals.



PHOTO: Indonesian navy frogmen try to retrieve debris from the water during a search operation. (AP: Tatan Syuflana)

The directive warned pilots that a computer on the Boeing 737 MAX could lead to the plane being forced to descend sharply for up to 10 seconds even in manual flight, leading to potential difficulties in controlling the plane.

Pilots could stop this automated response by pressing two buttons if the system behaved unexpectedly, but questions have been raised about how well prepared they were for such an automatic reaction and how much time they had to respond.

A long list of air safety incidents: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-30/l...s/10445326



The sadness in the Lion Air crash is that no-one would really be shocked by it — the Indonesian aviation sector has a bad reputation for good reason, writes former Indonesian correspondent Samantha Hawley.

An American Airlines spokesman said the carrier had received the FAA directive as well as a bulletin from Boeing on updating the flight crew operations manual.

Boeing declined to comment directly on its training program but said it was taking "every measure" to fully understand all aspects of the incident and working closely with the investigating team and all regulatory authorities involved.

Last week it said the fix for this type of event — known as a runaway stabiliser — was covered by existing procedures.

Even though this problem was, according to investigators, not covered in the operating manual, pilots did have access to a checklist designed to turn off errant systems when the plane started nosing downwards at the wrong time, said Soejono, a Lion Air instructor who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

VIDEO: Indonesian divers are reported to have retrieved one of two black boxes but is still searching for the voice recorder.(ABC News) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-01/r...k/10457050

Experts say investigators will be examining whether the crew examined this checklist and if so whether they had time to cut off the automated nose-down system while flying at a relatively low altitude of about 1,500m. Pilots on a previous flight are reported to have overcome a similar sensor problem.

To answer that question fully, investigators may need access to cockpit voice recordings thought to be hidden in the seabed.

A search for the jet's missing cockpit voice recorder is continuing and could provide important information about human factors relating to the crash, Mr Soerjanto said.

The FAA said in a statement that it would take further action if that was warranted by findings from the accident investigation.
Reuters

MTF?- No doubt...P2