NEGOTIATING THE DIVIDE BETWEEN
MAN AND MACHINE
Admittedly, this isn’t the most positive topic, but
Boeing’s recent troubles have introduced us to
a technologically focused conundrum that we
may keep running into for the next few years. Two
horrific commercial plane crashes in the space of
just six months, causing the tragic deaths of some
326 passengers and flight crew, have led to the
grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX worldwide.
In October last year, Lion Air Flight 610 crashed
in Indonesia, killing everybody on board the
aircraft. Shortly after takeoff at 06:20, the pilots
experienced a problem establishing their correct
speed and altitude; an error also experienced
the last time the plane flew.
Outside the plane, an ‘angle of attack’ sensor had
falsely indicated that the plane’s nose was too
high, which could mean the aircraft stalling. This
triggered an automated system, called M.C.A.S.
(Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation
System), which immediately began to force the
nose of the plane down by engaging stabilizers
on the plane’s tail.
This automatic system was a recent addition
to Boeing’s fleet of 737 MAX aircraft, and it’s
rumored that the pilots on board Flight 610
were unaware of how it worked. Struggling
against a system they didn’t know was working
against them, or unsure of how to effectively
disable it, 12 minutes after the flight took off,
the pilots found themselves plunging with their
passengers into the Java Sea.
Even worse, on March 10 of this year, it
happened again. The day after Ethiopia Airlines
Flight 302 crashed in Bishoftu while en route toImage: Jon Ostrower