Boeing Crisis | This is how the gap between you and your competitors is widening!

How big is the Boeing crisis?

On March 28, the World Trade Organization (WTO) released an Appellate Body report on the implementation of Boeing's subsidy case, ruling that Washington state in the United States provided Boeing with about $100 million a year in violation of tax cuts. subsidy. For Boeing, which is currently caught in the whirlpool of the crash, in the case of constant troubles such as grounding, returning orders, making claims, and accepting inquiries, receiving this ruling is undoubtedly "the house leaked and it rained overnight."

Airbus won a key battle

At a time when Boeing was in deep 737MAX "crisis of confidence", its main rival Airbus successfully won a huge order from China.

On March 25, China Aviation Supplies Group Co., Ltd. and Airbus signed a bulk purchase agreement for 300 Airbus aircraft in Paris, France, including 290 A320 series and 10 A350 series aircraft, catalogue The price is about 30 billion euros.

The last time China signed a large-scale civil aircraft purchase order was in November 2017, when China Aviation Supplies and Boeing signed an order for 300 passenger aircraft worth $37 billion.

Time has changed. For Boeing, Airbus, which was just a "little brother" at the time, has now become a competitor with considerable strength, and has won a huge order this time, while Boeing itself cannot escape from the crisis. .

The origin of the Boeing crisis

On March 10, 2019, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 203 crashed six minutes after takeoff in Addis Ababa, killing all 157 people on board, including 8 Chinese tourists. On October 29, 2018, Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610 crashed 13 minutes after takeoff in Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board.

The two horrific crashes involved Boeing 737-MAX8 airliners, both new planes that were only a few months into service. But state-of-the-art engines and electronics failed to prevent the vicious crash, which shocked the world. The impact of the accident goes far beyond Boeing's 737MAX product line, and the reputation that Boeing has accumulated over the years is damaged. If Boeing cannot handle this crisis correctly, I am afraid that Airbus will take more orders.

Compared with the WTO ruling, Boeing's quality reputation crisis is more serious. A huge industrial machine was suddenly stopped, and the chain reaction was shocking: in addition to the global grounding of the 737MAX, data show that there are still more than 4,000 orders that have not been delivered. Fitch ratings, the international rating agency, called the 737MAX "a key project for Boeing". Fitch warned that the credit ratings of Boeing and its suppliers could be affected if the impact of the Ethiopian and Indonesian air crashes worsened.

How should we apply artificial intelligence correctly?

It's lamentable that automated systems that were supposed to improve aircraft safety have the potential to lead to serious air crashes. Anti-stall software installed on Boeing 737 MAX jets is the focus of the investigation into the two crashes.

So how should the automation system be authorized? How much authority is granted? How to deal with emergencies? Is there a correct and feasible liberation plan? These are key issues that cannot be avoided.

Some analysts believe that the role of artificial intelligence should be to assist human experts to make correct decisions. Artificial intelligence and human experts have been proved to be complementary, and artificial intelligence cannot completely replace human experts in aviation.

On June 1, 2009, Air France Flight 447 took off from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, bound for Paris, and crashed on the way, killing all 228 people on board. It was an Airbus A330-200. After the Air France 447 accident, the interaction between the automated system and the human, the emergency solution when the human and the automated system "out of control", and the issue of final control have become the focus of controversy.

As a relatively mature technology, automated systems have been part of commercial aviation for many years. Thanks to fly-by-wire controls and auto-flight systems, machine learning and artificial intelligence are taking on the crew in the cockpit to not only simply reduce the pilot's workload, but also to be another co-pilot.

For example, systems originally developed for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) safety, such as Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) for traffic situational awareness, have migrated into manned aircraft cockpits. Emerging systems such as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) are being developed to increase safety when compensating for aircraft handling characteristics. They use sensor data to automatically adjust the aircraft's controls based on flight conditions.

But machine learning systems are only as good as the data they get. There are inherent risks in passing more of what humans do in high-risk environments to ML or AI that few understand.

At the same time, the seamless switching back and forth between automatic and manual automation systems is inherently extremely complex, especially the hybrid mode of part manual-part automatic. Large aircraft systems have computation and response times that can be laggy.

As machine learning and artificial intelligence change the role of pilots, these technologies need to be thoroughly tested and at least considered capable.

Reject any excuse that reliability and safety should be the first standard of products

Airbus claims to always adhere to Quality First and do it right the first time.

Boeing and Airbus have their own strengths, and different design concepts lead to different development directions.

Boeing: It adopts mechanical transmission and has a complex structure. Various small parts are riveted to form an integral force-bearing part, so the maintenance cycle is short, and the development direction is weight reduction and energy saving. The 737MAX brings airlines lower fuel costs.

Airbus: It adopts electric drive and computer, and uses mechanical drive as emergency drive. It has a simple structure, uses a large number of integral parts, and has a long maintenance cycle. The development direction is automation and high comfort.

Product design or defects caused by competition. Due to the lag in the development of the next generation of aircraft, and Airbus's squeeze on key markets, the 737 has been upgraded and put on the market again. Boeing confidently presupposes that the Boeing 737 is the best-selling airliner in civil aviation history (as of 2018).

According to the needs of different customers, Airbus has made efforts on the "new generation of small aircraft" and "new generation of medium-sized aircraft", and launched A320NEO and A321NEO models with new engines. At the same time, Boeing did not have an advantage in time and technology. It upgraded and updated the Boeing 737 again, and launched the Boeing 737MAX series with new engine, cabin and cockpit designs. It has become a major weapon to contend. However, it has been 51 years since the Boeing 737 series was introduced. Of course, we can't question the entire Boeing company's products because of the Boeing 737MAX accident. What we need to think about is that whether it is a new product launch or an old product update design, reliability and safety should be the first standard of the product. This line Absolutely cannot be crossed.

Hayne's Law: Any unsafe accident is preventable

The 737MAX8 aircraft has major design problems, but Boeing does not pay attention to it. Boeing was accused of not providing adequate safety reminders after the crash of Lion Air Flight 610 in Indonesia on October 29, 2018. What Boeing did to airlines around the world using the 737 MAX 8 was to revise the manual and did not address the underlying causes of the accident. Make any improvements to the MCAS system, and the worst thing is that Boeing did not submit the aircraft control model data to the simulator manufacturer, so that the manufacturer can modify the simulator program, so that all pilots of the airline can avoid similar accidents through simulator training.

Any unsafe incident can be prevented. Heinrich's Law on Industrial Safety proposed by American industrial safety pioneer Herbert Wilhelm Heinrich. Hayne's Law states: Behind every serious accident, there must be 29 minor accidents, 300 near misses and 1,000 hidden dangers.

The rule emphasizes two points: one is that the occurrence of accidents is the result of the accumulation of quantity; the other is that no matter how good the technology or the perfect regulations, at the practical level, it cannot replace the quality and responsibility of people themselves Heart.

Some enterprises have security incidents, or even a series of major security incidents. The problem lies in ignoring the signs and signs of accidents. "Hain's Law" is a kind of warning for enterprises, it shows that any accident has a reason and there are signs; it also shows that safety production can be controlled and safety accidents can be avoided; it also It gives enterprise managers a method of production safety management, that is, to find and control symptoms and establish a risk early warning mechanism.

Similarly, Hayne's Law applies to aircraft manufacturers Boeing and Airbus.

According to the analysis of Hayne's Law, when a major accident occurs, while dealing with the accident itself, we should also promptly investigate and deal with the "accident symptoms" and "accident signs" of similar problems, so as to avoid the occurrence of accidents. This prevents the recurrence of similar problems, solves the hidden danger of major accidents again in time, and solves the problem in the bud.

Looking back at the two air crashes of Boeing 737MAX8, Boeing did not seriously summarize the reasons for the accident and make corresponding, reasonable and problem-solving operation plans . Of course, there were reports that Boeing had updated manuals. "They (Boeing) didn't provide all the information on the planes we flew," Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for the United Pilots Association, told CNN. The announcement is not to reiterate the existing procedures, but to supplement new information."

Foreign things are established, not foreshadowing is invalid. Eliminating hidden dangers in the bud is an important part of safety management. If the reasons cannot be summed up in time and the technical hidden dangers are removed, the probability of accidents will be multiplied. This is something no one wants to see.