In Test of Boeing Jet, Pilots Had 40 Seconds to Fix Error | Nairalaw

(CNN)Flight simulations recreating the problems suspected to be
responsible for the crash of a Boeing 737 Max 8 plane last year
gave pilots under 40 seconds to override a malfunctioning system,
according to a report in the New York Times.

Lion Air Flight 610 crashed off the coast of Indonesia last
October, killing 189 people. Indonesian officials believe the
failure of a sensor may have triggered an automated software system
designed to prevent the plane from stalling. However, the system
may have brought the plane down as pilots struggled to override
it.
During the recent tests, the simulator pilots found they had mere
seconds to shut down the system and prevent the plane going into a
nosedive, the Times said, citing two unnamed people involved in the
tests.

The system, known as MCAS, “as originally designed and
explained, left little room for error,” according to the report.
“Those involved in the testing hadn’t fully understood just how
powerful the system was until they flew the plane on a 737 Max
simulator,” the Times reported.

At least some of the tests described by the Times took place
over the weekend, the paper reported.

On Saturday, pilots and training officials from Southwest
Airlines, American Airlines and United Airlines met with Boeing
officials to review updated software for 737 Max planes in the
Seattle area, where the model is assembled, multiple airline
sources told CNN on Monday. The software updates are intended to
decrease the chances of triggering the MCAS system.

The pilots ran simulated flights using the current and updated
software, one of the sources told CNN, adding that each flight
landed safely.

MCAS is a key focus of the investigations into the Lion Air
disaster and the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8
flight on March 10 that killed all 157 people on board. Both jets
crashed minutes after takeoff, and in both cases the pilots
reported problems minutes into the flights.

Pilots transitioning to the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft from older
737 models were given a short, self-administered online course that
made no mention of the new system, pilots’ unions spokesmen for two
American carriers told CNN.

During the Lion Air flight’s last minutes, pilots searched in a
handbook for a way to stop the plane from nosediving, according to
a Reuters report.

The Trump administration grounded all Boeing 737 Max planes
indefinitely three days after the Ethiopia crash, and after the
rest of the world had already done the same.

In a statement Sunday, Boeing called the weekend meeting a
“productive session” and said that it had invited more than 200
pilots and technicians, as well as regulators, to an informational
session at the company’s production facility in Renton, Washington,
on Wednesday.

“This is part of our ongoing effort to share more details about
our plan for supporting the safe return of the 737 MAX to
commercial service,” Boeing said.

Updated software required less intervention from
pilots

In the simulations run over the weekend with the current MCAS
software, the test pilots used existing procedures to disable the
system, while test flights using the new software required less
intervention from the pilots, a source told CNN.

The updated software designed by Boeing uses input from two
sensors on the nose of the plane, instead of one, and is designed
to not trigger the MCAS system repeatedly, which is believed to
have pitched the Lion Air plane’s nose down so sharply that the
pilots’ attempts to regain control were futile.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which is part of
efforts to test the new software, declined to comment. One source
familiar with the tests said the FAA is expected to receive the
software early this week.

The FAA is not expected to allow dozens of 737 MAX planes it
grounded to fly again until it learns more about the causes of the
Ethiopian Air crash, the source said.

Flight data and cockpit voice recordings are being analyzed in
Ethiopia, where authorities have handed over segments of flight
voice and data recordings from the aircraft’s black boxes to US
embassy officials in Addis Ababa, a source with knowledge of the
investigation told CNN on Monday.

CNN’s David Shortell, Evan Perez, Gregory Wallace and Samira
Jafari contributed to this report.

The Shortcomings in 2019 General Elections, By Gidado
Yushau Shuaib

The 2019 general election is the most expensive poll ever
organised by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
It incurred an additional N69 billion than the penultimate exercise
in 2015. However, when teeming Nigerian electorate were preparing
to cast their ballot on February 16, something ‘mysterious’
happened.

In the dead of the night, the INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood
Yakubu, summoned a press conference to postpone the election to the
following week. He cited delay in delivering election materials and
deployment of staff to the nooks and cranny of the country as
reasons for the postponement. Other reasons included poor weather
condition, unresolved candidate registration issues and rumoured
plans for sabotage by desperate elements.

Many electorates who had travelled for the election were
disappointed over the postponement barely six hours to the
commencement of the exercise.

So, what happened when INEC finally conducted the
Presidential/NASS and Governorship/State Assemblies’ polls?
Incidences of vote-buying by the two leading political parties were
widely recorded.

Vote-buying by politicians and their agents, which has taken a
centre-stage in political sphere, is the act of exchanging votes
for money and other material items between politicians and the
electorate.

In fact the federal government was accused of vote-buying with
its TraderMoni economic intervention. The Nigeria’s Head of
Transparency International, Mr. Auwal Rafsanjani, in a media chat
posited that such initiative was not a part and parcel of the
manifesto of the ruling APC and it is not in the Nigerian
constitution. He bluntly stated that, “the allegation by many
Nigerians that this is clearly a case of vote buying using public
funds goes contrary to our constitution and to having a free and
fair election.”

If at all what Mr Rafsanjani said is anything to go by, one must
begin to wonder what hope a Nigerian has when such a policy of the
government is meant to woo support during elections, rather than
compete fairly for votes. This shows a blatant disregard for
democratic norms as well as the fact the current administration is
losing popularity by the day.

Responding to the accusations, Laolu Akande, the spokesperson of
the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, flatly denied such allegation,
saying that TraderMoni was not an act of vote buying, but rather a
means to empower petty traders. “It will be an absurdity to call
TraderMoni vote-buying. You can see it for yourself that this is a
program that has affected millions of lives,” he said.

Meanwhile, militarization of the electoral process, mostly in
the opposition’s stronghold also received bashing. This is despite
valid, subsisting court judgments that prohibited the use of the
military for election purposes.

Series of video clips have trended online which captured
soldiers overrunning the home of a state official as well as INEC
officials lamenting the besieging of collation centres by the army.
This act stands condemnable even as the Chief of Army Staff, Lt
General Tukur Buratai, had set up a panel to investigate the role
of the military in the just-concluded elections, although nobody
seems to be impressed by the development. Thanks to social media
for breaking barriers and making citizens aware of happenings
around the nation.

A seemingly worrisome electoral malpractices, is the deployment
of thugs to polling units in various but most endemic in Kano. A
situation where a keenly-contested election between two leading
parties turned out to be a landslide during the supplementary
elections raises a lot of unanswered questions. It is unfortunate
seeing how thugs took over streets, and strangely with security
cover provided by the Nigerian Police.

After wild allegation of fraud from the stakeholders involved in
the elections most especially the opposition, the African Union
(AU) said the elections were “largely peaceful and conducive for
the conducting of credible elections.”

Moving forward, there is a need for INEC to go back to the
drawing board and re-evaluate their performance in the 2019 polls.
They should, thereafter, put all necessary machineries in place to
correct the identified lapses. INEC should also endeavour to
eradicate the growing culture of inconclusive elections.

There is also a need for a political-will towards ensuring
peaceful, transparent election while also urging the authorities
concerned to improve voter education for the benefit of the
electorate on their expectations.

While we pray that future elections would have less military
interference, the youths should also resist the temptation of
serving as political thugs desperate and power-hungry politicians
during elections. They should rather identify ways to grab
leadership and put the nation back on the track of socio-economic
development and growth.

Above all, the progress we envision for our electoral system
will remain elusive if necessary and progressive amendments are not
carried out on the Electoral Act. Now is the time to act. A stitch
in time, they say, saves nine.

Gidado Yushau Shuaib, editor of Youths Digest, writes from
Abuja. Twitter: @GidadoYS; Email: giddyshuaib@gmail.com