Published March 20,2019

We are very sad about the two B737 Max crashes, that occurred within a short time of each other, and our prayers for the victims and their families. It is understood that authorities in multiple jurisdictions are investigating and final result are awaited – this is only my opinion based on information available and my personal experience!

I think these unfortunate crashes may be attribute to 3 areas (1) Automation and (2) Crew experience (3) Software Issue(s).

(1) Automation: Issue with Software  based systems – if a sensor provides a wrong input, the software will provide contradictory action! So the pilots need to trained in procedure to recognize and react to correct the situation which comes from experience! I understand there was some update to manual – not sure if the pilots trained on this emergency procedure

Many accidents have occurred when a plane is on autopilot and the pilot did not disengage and tried to make maneuvers! E.g. when Autopilot is engaged to fly straight and level, and if pilot tries to climb the plane will fight back and put nose down and if pilot continues to pull up, the plane will stall and if close to ground it will crash into ground! Has happened many times !

So when I get on a new aircraft, I always find out how to engage and disengage autopilot, change trim settings etc. and climb to safe altitude and try it a few times. But these computer slave systems make pilots lazy! I have noticed younger pilots depend on the computer too much and do not like to or want to fly the plane “by hand”

(2) Crew Experience: Captain and 1st Officers (FO) need to act as a team – we call it CRM (cockpit resource management) – and should practice all emergencies in a simulator (including this type) and it is very rigorous here in USA. Crew Training and experience is very important so that they are not overtaken by events and it appears they were not prepared for this low altitude surprise to disengage the MCAS

The crash is very sad and we pray for the victims – However, in case of this Ethiopian Aircrew, the captain and the first officer had 8,000 and 200 flight hours respectively. The low hours (200) of the first pilot have caused some concern as he would even not be able to attain a commercial pilot’s license (CPL) in the United States let alone ATP (Airline Transportation Pilot) rating which needs at least 1,500 hours! This could have definitely caused this accident since dealing with emergencies is a 2 Pilot Operations and the FO probably was not qualified to handle it!

Again very sad – One thing I did notice – Lion Air Captain was Indian from Delhi aged 31 while Ethiopian Captain was 29! Here in the US and Europe the captains are much older with more experience and I have always been worried when I saw crews who are so young during my trips to India when getting on the planes there! Also in Asia and Africa airlines are expanding so quickly and cannot find qualified older pilots which can come back to bite!

(3) Software Issues: Bottom Line – it’s all about money – Airlines want to cut (fuel) costs so they want airplanes with lighter material and software driven flight control systems to optimize performance! We have all been programmers and we know how all code has bugs or untested / boundary conditions! When one of our financial programs have a bug, some money is lost but if a plane has a bug it has disastrous consequences!! Sad part is the guy whose code failed and the guy who did the user testing is probably some junior programmer into whose hands we put our lives? Wonder if this code and testing was outsourced ?

I totally agree that Automation has made aviation safer with improved pilot situational awareness (SA) tools like TCAS (Terminal Collision Avoidance System), Ground Proximity Sensor both which give audio cues in the cockpit etc. along with Storm Scope, GPS separation but I am against computer taking over / overriding  pilots like autonomous vehicles which I will leave for another day. I still like older mechanical systems driven planes with less software driven flight systems but they are fast disappearing!

My 2 cents – I generally fly only US, Brit, French or Western EU carriers where Service may not be on par with the fancier Non-Western Carriers and I avoid flying on other Middle Eastern, Asian or African carriers because I am not sure of crew competence, their maintenance on the aircraft – sorry my opinion (please don’t take it otherwise)!

Of course I concur and strongly support grounding the Max’s out of caution until a clear determination can be made! I believe that these planes are safe and Boeing has an incredible safety record and will weather the storm! One Clarification – NOT ALL Boeing aircraft are affected by this grounding. ONLY B-737 Max Models which accounts for less than 3% of total fleet in USA and less than 1% of all commercial planes in the world are part of this grounding.

Hence in my opinion this automation and crews flying these aircraft with inexperienced, young, low time pilots are a recipe for disaster and will unfortunately occur more often in the future unless addressed worldwide – case in point. Nobody wants to talk about crew inexperience – how can you let a 200 hour pilot be the First Officer on a commercial plane? Wonder if he was related to some minister in Ethiopia – let us be real – nepotism and influence does exist in Africa and other parts of the world. So IMO pilot error contributed to this also – legally it may be argued “contributory negligence” and I am sure Boeing’s legal team will bring this up in any litigation!

These two crashes of a similar type of Aircraft (Make / Model / Type) viz. Boeing 737 Max appears to be a statistical anomaly since it is very rare for something like this to occur. In our opinion as per commonly held view, flying is still a safe activity and safer than driving statistically!

Unfortunately crashes do happen from time to time – remember AF447 from Rio to CDG in 2009 was an Airbus 330 whose wreckage was not found in the ocean for a long time! Hence, we cannot say one plane is safer than another – I was on an AF flight on a similar Aircraft the same day from Detroit to CDG and landed 8 hours after – saw family members crying etc. when landed which was very sad!  I remember people and experts saying they will never travel on Airbus Aircraft again but that never came to pass! And of course traveling public has short memory and it will Business as usual again and Boeing will continue to thrive – so any decision to travel / not travel should be based on personal risk assessment.