While it is easy to blame Boeing these days, I suspect we have survivorship bias here. Dig into Airbus software and all sorts of similar scary bugs will pop up. For instance, one may remember inconsistencies between airspeed measurements that resulted in the loss of AF 447 on June 1, 2009. Overall, it's great that at least some airliner's closed software finally gets more eyes looking at it.
Frozen pitot tubes causing an airspeed disagree is something we train for. The issue there isn't software, it's mechanical, and what the Airbus did is exactly what it's supposed to do according to the manual.
The problem there was the junior co-pilot responding all wrong and the other pilot not noticing because Airbus sticks don't move together. The captain woke up, came to check and realized what was wrong but did so too late to fix it.
Agree, though the investigators also pointed to the lack of a clear display of the airspeed inconsistencies even though the computers had identified them. This sounds more like a UX problem rather than a bug, but still the software issue in the edge case.
I seem to recall Airbus having different engineering teams across EU using different versions of the CAD tool and then when they went to build the plane the wires were too short because one version of the CAD tool accounted for the radius of wires turning a corner while the other didn't.
Boeing had an approach to this issue: Your either running the correct version of the CAD software, or you can't check in designs. This also meant that every time it was updated there was a rush to get engineers who's update did not work back up and working. Fortunately those were a small minority and it was usually disk space issues.
The measurements would have been the same in both cases: therefore it would have been a) designed correctly and implemented correctly, or b) designed incorrectly, but caught in the design phase, looping back into a). This way, you get c) designed correctly, but implemented incorrectly or d) designed incorrectly and the design implemented as specified, in both cases leading to an unworkable implementation.
It is certain that under close scrutiny one can find bugs as well in Airbus airplanes. Bugs are inherent to software production, all processes are just there to minimizes the risks posed by critical bugs.
However, as airbus released the first fly by wire airliner (a320), they have more experience in software over boeing. Boeing was always afraid to give too much power to the software, a boeing plane has more mechanical backup than an airbus.
I sincerely hope that they are not fucking around by following the agile trend from the sw industry, and instead stay focused on old and proven engineering development practices.
I must say that this whole boeing show makes me scared to hop in a boeing, and is another reason why i will now seek flight in a a320 instead of a 737. The first reason is simply comfort, the 737 cabin size is really too small.
Edit : the a350 had a bug where the pilots needed to switch off the plane every 149h, and recently they discovered a bug in the a220 P&W engine (not airbus developped) leading to engine shuting down in flight.
They also found a kind of mcas like bug the a321neo, but I think it happens in extreme manoeuver which can be only replicated in simulators
A Boeing with an engine fire will pop up a dialog saying “flight computer detected a possible engine fire, would you like to shutdown?”. An Airbus with an engine fire will pop a dialog saying “flight computer detected an engine fire, shutting down engines”.
The joke being Boeing pilots have a chance of saving the plane in the event it’s not an engine fire, Airbus will just do what it thinks is best and let the pilot sort out the aftermath. MCAS changed all that
