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China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Max aircraft

reuters.com

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Re: China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Max aircraft

#41

Post by United857 »

pedrosorio wrote: post #28
bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #2

The article implies that this is the Chinese government's way of signalling itself as a separate world aviation safety authority besides the FAA. Morbid as it is to think about, they're now postured in a position to benefit if another 737 Max goes down anywhere in the world.

> The article implies that this is the Chinese government's way of signalling itself as a separate world aviation safety authority besides the FAA Are you implying that before this "signalling" the FAA was a "world aviation safety authority" and furthermore the only one?

Of course, it's not the only one. But in practice, the FAA (along with its European equivalent, the EASA) are widely "trusted" by the rest of the world, meaning other countries will usually adapt their directives -- especially where safety is concerned.

Re: China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Max aircraft

#43

Post by cjbprime »

bouncycastle wrote: post #38
speedplane wrote: post #20

Forget China, think about yourself. If you have an option to fly on a 737 Max or another aircraft right now, which would you choose? I suspect market forces will ground these planes anyway.

Any aircraft can be stalled fairly easily. I think the problem may be between the yoke and the chair (PBYAC). Especially when it's a new aircraft, perhaps pilots need time to adjust, same as when you and I get in to a new car, it may have different response when you hit the gas, different mirrors, different sounds, different steering wheel sensitivity, etc.

General aviation aircraft can be stalled easily. Stalling a commercial airliner takes much more effort, which is why it's so shocking when it actually happens.

Re: China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Max aircraft

#44

Post by TimTheTinker »

My family (wife and kids) and I have a scheduled flight on a Southwest 737 MAX this week. I'm worried about whether there's an unacceptable risk involved in flying on a 737 MAX because of this morning's crash (and last year's Lion Air crash).

After a bit of googling, I found this article from November 2018: https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/southwest-airlines... Apparently, Southwest has been updating glass cockpits in its 737 MAX fleet to include extra indicators to mitigate factors that led to the 2018 Lion Air crash, like an on-screen AOA indicator and a warning light to indicate when AOA sensors don't agree. (I do wish they had gone far enough to disable the MCAS system when one AOA sensor indicates high AOA and the two sensors disagree by more than 2x their individual tolerance.)

That mitigates our risk in the chance that the crash was caused by the same factors that led to the 2018 Lion Air crash, but I'm still nervous as the cause of this morning's crash is unknown.

Re: China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Max aircraft

#45

Post by smallbigfish »

dis-sys wrote: post #27
quanticle wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I wouldn't put faith in the FAA to be beyond political influence and crack down on an American manufacturer quickly. I would. The FAA grounded the Boeing 787 after some widely publicized battery fires: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner_battery_... . I would assume that they would do the same thing here, if this also turned out to be a widespread issue not related to aircraft maintenance or pilot tr…

> I would assume that they would do the same thing here, if this also turned out to be a widespread issue not related to aircraft maintenance or pilot training. Two brand new 737 Max from two different types of airlines crashed in 6 months, what else you need to establish the fact that 737 Max worth to be grounded for a full investigation? How "widespread" it need to be? Maybe a few more crashes are required for FAA…

It depends on who died.

Re: China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Max aircraft

#46

Post by cjbprime »

PhantomGremlin wrote: post #16

I'm disappointed that the FAA hasn't done this. The FAA seems to be adopting Gollum's "I'm not listening" stance. There is historical precedent for the FAA suspending a type certificate. This happened after a DC-10 crash in 1979.[1] The facts are that the Indonesia crash just 5 months ago killed 189 people; this latest Ethiopia crash just killed 157 people. That's way too many dead people for a plane that has only be…

I agree with you. The FAA obviously knows that there are issues with MCAS, since it's been working with Boeing on finalizing a software update that fixes some of them for months. Grounding the fleet at least until that software update can be deployed seems prudent the moment there's objective reasoning to suspect MCAS was at play in this crash too. (And I think we might already be there.)

Re: China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Max aircraft

#47

Post by ww520 »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #42

I need to book a flight. Does anybody know whether Google Flight differentiates Boeing 737s from the 737 Max in its listings (where it lists the type of plane for a flight). I haven't seen any that say max..

Go to Seat Guru to enter your airline and flight date. It will show the seat layout of the flight, along with the plane model.

e.g. https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/American_Airlines/American...

Re: China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Max aircraft

#48

Post by chrischen »

s17n wrote: post #30
est wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If any other country ground 737s it's better for safety concerns. But if it's China, it must be political motivated.

China is a one party state which explicitly doesn't permit any organization, much less a government agency, to operate without political interference.

America is a two party state... so what?

My point is if your mind is closed to looking at their actions at an objective level, there is no point arguing against your position, since it is that China is inherently evil, and is incapable of good actions.

Question is, what if you’re wrong? What if one party is better than two, or four, or 8? And if you can’t consider that possibility, are you any more open than China’s politically oppressive one-party system?

Re: China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Max aircraft

#50

Post by koyote »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #42

I need to book a flight. Does anybody know whether Google Flight differentiates Boeing 737s from the 737 Max in its listings (where it lists the type of plane for a flight). I haven't seen any that say max..

The only way to mostly guarantee this is to fly with an airline that does not have a 737 Max (or has any orders).
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