Abstract
The goal of current study is to discern the antecedents of two airplane accidents involving the Boeing MAX 737. The theory of normal accidents serves as a lens to comprehend the hazard stemming from MAX design with dissonance between two critical systems: engine propulsion and flight control. Cooper’s framework further delineates lack of psychological safety during prototype development from the project’s inception along six dimensions: management/supervision, safety systems, risk, work pressure, competence, and procedures/rules. The analysis indicates dearth of leadership commitment for a safety culture under time pressure and budget constraint. Our results corroborate the paramount importance of the pilot’s extensive simulator training in order to test the interaction between the innovative Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System and human behavior response time. Lessons gleaned from the study include three insights. First, the importance of meticulously testing a prototype during the new product development stage and the hazard stemming from improvisation to extend the life of outdated engineering design. Second, the necessity of regulatory authorities, such as the Federal Aviation Administration, undergoing a modernization process by invigorating their ranks with data scientists attuned to 21st century skills in big data analytics. Third, FAA should diminish the delegation of self-certified permits to manufacturers.
Highlights
In October 2018, 189 passengers perished when Lion Air Flight 610 crashed a few minutes after taking off from Jakarta
The findings revealed that intense competition in the aviation industry between Boeing and its rival Airbus placed enormous pressure on the manufacturer to produce a new plane as quickly and inexpensively as possible
The situation changed in 2010, when the company discovered that its main competitor, Airbus, had debuted the A320neo, an innovative fuel-efficient short-haul airplane
Summary
In October 2018, 189 passengers perished when Lion Air Flight 610 crashed a few minutes after taking off from Jakarta. Boeing implied that the crash was due to human error and embarked on a process meant to update the online training software administered to pilots. A few months later, in March 2019, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a second airplane of same type, the 737 MAX model, carrying 157 passengers, crashed. Investigations into both accidents are continuing, but data from the black boxes’ flight data recordings immediately indicated several similarities between the two accidents. Most pilots were neither aware of its existence nor trained in how to override it
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