Page 6 - AAA MARCH - APRIL 2019 Online Magazine

load stressful situation and instead of becoming
more “Decisive”, uni-focus some of them may
become more “Integrative”, multi-foci and may
ask for more information which is a more elab-
orate and slower decision-making style. “This
is perfectly normal but the key is to understand
and appreciate individual differences ahead of
time and to address that in design and opera-
tion of our technological systems, such as the
cockpit,’’ Meshkati says.

Skill Gap
This is an enormous challenge for both manu-
factures when the skill levels — or lack thereof
—- of some pilots going through training today
is taken into account. A senior captain with 35
years’ experience with a leading pilot training
organization told AirlineRatings.com that of the
pilots his company is training “only 10 percent
are smart enough to understand every system
on an aircraft.”

“Today’s aircraft – the A350, 787, A320neo and
737MAX are hugely complicated with multiple
redundancies which is why flying is so safe.
But when I instruct the pilots, I’ve got to be
very careful about not telling them too many
facts. Sure, if I’ve got a very, very clever pilot I
will tell him or her more of the facts. But essen-
tially, they don’t have to know all the complex
background systems. The pilot just has to know
how to react if a system fails,” said the training
captain.

He adds: “For instance, the tutorials that we
are given have the simplest little cartoon pic- the MCAS keeps trimming forward and a runaway stabilizer trim
tures on how this thing works. Really simple, condition develops sending the aircraft into a dive. The solution is
and essentially that’s all the guys have to know a memory item of switching off the runaway Stab Trim.
and they don’t learn anything more than that.
Both major manufacturers are buying into this MCAS was developed to harmonize the flight characteristics of
philosophy. There are focused on making their the MAX and the previous NG model as the new model has more
planes as simple as possible to operate while powerful engines mounted higher and further forward on the wing.
increasing the complexity in the background A senior 737 check captain with an Australian airline backs up the
to improve safety.” background MCAS system saying “we don’t want to go too deep
into background systems or pilots get overloaded at critical times.
Saviour turned Disaster The runaway stabilizer trim procedure has been in Boeing aircraft
In the Lion Air accident, a new background since 1960.”
software system called Maneuvering
Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), “If you have a stabilizer trim runaway, which they had, and it’s not
which was developed for the MAX to prevent your action, there are two cut-off switches right next to the throt-
stalls when the aircraft is in flaps-retracted, tles,’’ he says. “You uncap them and you switch it off. It’s just that
low-speed, nose-up flight configuration, acti- simple.” “The previous crew that had the same problem should
vated because of a faulty Angle of Attack (AoA) have written that up properly so when the next pilot comes in, he
sensor. looks in the tech log and he sees what happened. Even if he forgot
the procedure he would have been reminded of the procedure.”
MCAS uses airspeed and other sensor data
like AoA to compute a dangerous flight con- On the new much talked about MCAS system software, the training
dition and trims the aircraft nose down. If the captain says “even if they had intimate knowledge of the system
AoA continues to send the faulty data through you still have to cut off the stabilizer trim regardless.” He adds: It’s a

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