It's possible this is the initial charge to get them in the door with search warrants and subpoenas and testimony because someone dropped a dime with some info that there were criminal acts not know to the government at the time, not covered by the settlement. I doubt the settlement was a "you're pardoned for ALL acts related to 737 MAX."
A refresher since this happened so long ago:
Airbus was eating Boeing's 737 sales for lunch. Boeing management wanted to put better engines on the plane to get those sales back. But the better engines were bigger, and that meant they couldn't just swap them out and call it a day. So they moved the engine position. Well, when you move heavy shit around on a plane that also happens to be the thing generating thrust, you change a lot of stuff about the plane - its center of gravity, how the plane behaves when that thrust is applied (think torque steer but for planes) and aerodynamics.
The plane became aerodynamically unstable in certain conditions. Hence the need to add fly-by-wire systems and sensors. Except...they also cheaped out on both the number of sensors and even the frigging lightbulbs to warn pilots of sensor error.
The shit Boeing has gotten away with over the years boggles the mind. At one point the NSA got caught doing industrial espionage against Airbus for them!
> Except...they also cheaped out on both the number of sensors and even the frigging lightbulbs to warn pilots of sensor error.
I believe that the issue was more tragic than that (no expert)...
They wanted to 'hide' the fly by wire (FBW) as for it to be apparent would require that the plane (effectively) be re-classified as a new plane, requiring expensive up-skilling of the pilots. The existence of the new FBW was even hidden from the manual!
The FBW required information from the pitot tubes in order for it to know how fast the plane was flying. Planes have two such tubes, one for backup as they are prone to blockage. Normal practice would be to poll both tubes, and if their reading disagreed the pilot would be notified and assume blockage in one of the tubes.
However, they could not do this as a pitot tube warning would reveal the existence of the FBW to the pilot, who would not have been aware of its existence. Hence they relied on one pitot tube input and (of course) no warning lights.
This must have been a calculated risk on their behalf. They must have known that sooner or later it would fail.
The warning light shows a disagreement between the two AOA sensors, not the pitot tubes used for airspeed measurement (of which there are three on the 737).
They didn't cheap out on lights. They didn't want to add a light to the cockpit because changing anything meant pilots would have to be trained on it. Airlines, specifically American, didn't want to incur the cost of training of a new plane that could compete with Airbus. So to get the sales Boeing promised a million dollar kickback per 737 MAX sold if American 737 pilots had to get training to fly it. The cockpit had to remain the same in every way to avoid it.
It's not unstable, stop repeating this falsehood. It does behave differently when high trust is applied, pitching up much more, and MCAS was introduced to counter/hide that. Earlier models did pitch up as well, all planes with engines under low wings do, and pilots or automatic systems have to deal with it.
This is not an issue of instability. The plane will remain at a level pitch/roll at a given thrust with the appropriate elevator trimming. An unstable plane would require constant input changes.
Fly by wire isn’t really the right term here. Fly by wire means that control inputs are transmitted to actuators via an electrical signal (rather than by a hydraulic or mechanical connection). As far as I know, the 737 MAX retains conventional primary flight controls. Lots of airliners with conventional flight controls also have various forms of artificial stability that modify pilot inputs (such as yaw dampers).
The trim can be controlled by an electrical motor in the 737, and the MCAS system in question here controls that motor, so you could argue its part of a FBW system (but I guess normally you refer to the main flight surfaces which are not FBW in the 737 like you say).
Ah yes, that is a fair point. However, in that case we are not talking about 'adding' a new FBW control system, as the system was already in place on previous models.
A refresher since this happened so long ago:
Airbus was eating Boeing's 737 sales for lunch. Boeing management wanted to put better engines on the plane to get those sales back. But the better engines were bigger, and that meant they couldn't just swap them out and call it a day. So they moved the engine position. Well, when you move heavy shit around on a plane that also happens to be the thing generating thrust, you change a lot of stuff about the plane - its center of gravity, how the plane behaves when that thrust is applied (think torque steer but for planes) and aerodynamics.
The plane became aerodynamically unstable in certain conditions. Hence the need to add fly-by-wire systems and sensors. Except...they also cheaped out on both the number of sensors and even the frigging lightbulbs to warn pilots of sensor error.
The shit Boeing has gotten away with over the years boggles the mind. At one point the NSA got caught doing industrial espionage against Airbus for them!