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B737 design flaw, pilot error induced by B737 design

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Buzzing horns are useless human factors

How many people get out of their car with a horn buzzing? As they get out and walk away with the lights left on, some of them are asking a similar question you posed, What is that buzzing sound? Five hours later you realize what that buzzing sound was as you have a dead battery. How effective is the old gens landing gear horn? Not very! How conditioned are we to cut it out before we even consider its significants thereby conditioning ourselves to ignore horns.

So there you are 25 miles from the airport at 5000 feet, your told to slow to 190. The flaps come out to five. The plane is slowed. Then you are told to descend to 4000 feet.

HORN! HORN!

We all try to get to the cutout button as fast as possible because it is so annoying even though the horn is telling us something very important, PUT DOWN THE GEAR. Problem is, we are 25 miles from the airport!

Buzzing horns are useless warnings when applied to human factors engineering. And down right dangerous when the same horn has multiple needs depending on particular conditions.
 
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Die-hard 737 fans: it's okay to love the plane and admit that the warning system isn't the best.

For the "it's not a big deal" group, tell that to the Helios families. I'm betting the group of people who have had this type event and the group who say it's not a big deal have very little carryover.
 
At WN we've had several crews climb with the take-off warning horn sounding. Didn't figure it out till the FA's called and told them the "gear" was down.

It's happened to every 737 operator out there. Why? Cause it's a stupid system. Who puts a dual use horn in an airplane? I mean really. We've got a box that can tell us to pull up. A box can tell us to go around. A box can tell us if we're going to hit somebody. Surely we can have a box tell us:

"hey dumbass turn the packs back on" or
"hey dumbass put the flaps out" or
"hey dumbass release the brakes before taking off"

Gup
 
If you ever had this happen to you (especially the first time) you would know how distracting and confusing it may be. At low altitude or in the Takeoff segment its a real handful with everything else thats going on. Usually the ivsi on the pressurization panel is pegged at 4000 fpm. It also appears your in negative pressure since the needle is below zero. Then you question your self if its + or - 4000 fpm since its right in the middle of the very small gage. Best bet it to level off and don't climb anymore till problem is fixed or return to airport. But thats not what always happens and the horn gets disregarded for a Takeoff warning malfunction which is now way behind where your at on your flight segment profile. There should have been 2 different horns/tones/alerts from the beginning to eliminate this issue.

Did ya hear it on the takeoff roll? NO? Are you above 10,000 ft? HMMMM...

I heard it on the takeoff roll and kept going..Then you know damn well what that horn is!

Did not hear it on the take off roll,uneventful takeoff,below 10,000 and the horn goes off,probably not gonna fall out off the sky or pass out from lack of o2. Level off and deal with it. once again, 50/50 chance of getting it right. Am I on the ground or in the air? Oh, and what do you mean by "especially the first time"? how many times has this happened to you?
 
Did ya hear it on the takeoff roll? NO? Are you above 10,000 ft? HMMMM...

I heard it on the takeoff roll and kept going..Then you know damn well what that horn is!

Did not hear it on the take off roll,uneventful takeoff,below 10,000 and the horn goes off,probably not gonna fall out off the sky or pass out from lack of o2. Level off and deal with it. once again, 50/50 chance of getting it right. Am I on the ground or in the air? Oh, and what do you mean by "especially the first time"? how many times has this happened to you?

There have been many professional aviators that have gotten this scenario wrong over the years. Some have paid with there lives and had a bunch of people behind the cockpit door follow them to nirvana when the wrong decision was made.

I have had this problem multiple times over the last 26 years. At the Takeoff roll (bad takeoff warning horn), after breaking ground when the air/ground safety puts you in the air mode, before 10,000 feet, at cruise.........you name it. Its never a good feeling where ever it happens and it sometimes doesn't go by the book. What gets you is when its just after Takeoff, your in bad weather, at night with a brand new FO that just became frosty the snowman and it feels like your head is going to implode! Oh yea, ding,ding,ding........its the flight attendants wanting to know whats going on, was that a frequency change, Huh? What, Over, oh theres mountain's out there, what, huh? It can turn real fugly.....................fast!

Your turn will come and hopefully you will become Chuck Yeager when it does and you make the right decision.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNRXJEE3Nz8
 
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There have been many professional aviators that have gotten this scenario wrong over the years. Some have paid with there lives and had a bunch of people behind the cockpit door follow them to nirvana when the wrong decision was made.

I have had this problem multiple times over the last 26 years. At the Takeoff roll (bad takeoff warning horn), after breaking ground when the air/ground safety puts you in the air mode, before 10,000 feet, at cruise.........you name it. Its never a good feeling where ever it happens and it sometimes doesn't go by the book. What gets you is when its just after Takeoff, your in bad weather, at night with a brand new FO that just became frosty the snowman and it feels like your head is going to implode! Oh yea, ding,ding,ding........its the flight attendants wanting to know whats going on, was that a frequency change, Huh? What, Over, oh theres mountain's out there, what, huh? It can turn real fugly.....................fast!

Your turn will come and hopefully you will become Chuck Yeager when it does and you make the right decision.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNRXJEE3Nz8

I've already had my turn..It worked out fine. I got lucky again I guess.
 
Did ya hear it on the takeoff roll? NO? Are you above 10,000 ft? HMMMM...

I heard it on the takeoff roll and kept going..Then you know damn well what that horn is!

Did not hear it on the take off roll,uneventful takeoff,below 10,000 and the horn goes off,probably not gonna fall out off the sky or pass out from lack of o2. Level off and deal with it. once again, 50/50 chance of getting it right. Am I on the ground or in the air? Oh, and what do you mean by "especially the first time"? how many times has this happened to you?

Great. It is an easy problem to troubleshoot.

There is no valid reason that it should have to be a troubleshooting event though. Change the damn horn!!! There is no excuse on planet earth that the NG aircraft (at the very least) don't just state "landing gear" "flaps" "pressurization", etc. Even the freaking MD-80 has been able to do most of that for a quarter of a century. Even 727's with RAAS can tell you what runway you're about to enter.

Boeing is wrong on this one. Problem is, I'd bet that their lawyers are concerned that fixing it will be viewed by other scumbag lawyers as an admission of guilt that will get them absolutely smoked in a bunch of liability suits.

The system could be fixed very, very easily. The problem is, you won't be able to blame the pilots any more if there is a pressurization problem resulting in an accident.

PIPE
 
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The system could be fixed very, very easily. The problem is, you won't be able to blame the pilots any more if there is a pressurization problem resulting in an accident.
PIPE

Unfortunately, Boeing's lawyers will point to the old facts and the new additional training and say the pilots should have known better. Then Boeing will hire expert witnesses who are over 60 who just medical ed out the likes of Ron Burgundy. All the jury will hear from Boeing is how incompetent the pilots are as opposed to what a flawed system Boeing has insisted on producing.

The American legal system will once again not provide justice. Boeing will once again claim its innocence and walk. Boeing has taken this approach countless times. Admitting there is a problem and taking responsibility is a major problem for Boeing. Boeing claims it is perfect so it must be. Haven't you read the slogans or heard the commercials?

Take the nitrogen systems in the fuel tanks. Installed but not activated. Those inactive systems will sit idle until every -200/-300/-500 is parked or the numbers are so few, the FAA doesn't care and requires the systems installations in order to put some little operator out of business.

Another example is the B737 rudder PCU actuator. After four fatal accidents, the FAA gave Boeing eight years to fix the problem. The last unmoded B737 are just getting the fix today. The entire time table was based on a statistical calculation it couldn't happen until the fixes could be installed during an eight year period. Thankfully no additional lives were lost with a known problem and fix.

System issues on the 6000+ B737 fleet are not about safety. Instead they are political. And until the body count motivates the politics, the B737's deficiencies will continue to be present.
 
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I agree, they should definitely change the horn. I should point out that the nitrogen systems are now being activated, however. I have flown at least one that was operational.
 

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