Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 212 posts

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

#61

Post by kerng »

hohohmm wrote: post #29

It befuddles me to see people relating this to external motivations, not a genuine concern for safety. Would you fly 737 max8 tomorrow? Anybody who knows anything about Chinese aviation industry knows that it is severely government-regulated industry and the top 1 priority is safety. It has better records than the American counterpart. While BOEING(being one of the pillars of American industry) might twist arms in co…

You have very good points, I assume the FAA will issue a similar message soon - as it seems the most logical step if one cares about safety.

I will certainly not fly in one of these planes anytime soon.

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

#62

Post by beefield »

Has someone already gotten flight data of all 737max flights from adsbexchange and put that into torrent so that all budding data scientists and investigative journalists can take a shot to find out how many flights actually have had this kind of erratic behaviour in the flight path but that have managed to land safely?

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

#63

Post by sk5t »

hohohmm wrote: post #29

It befuddles me to see people relating this to external motivations, not a genuine concern for safety. Would you fly 737 max8 tomorrow? Anybody who knows anything about Chinese aviation industry knows that it is severely government-regulated industry and the top 1 priority is safety. It has better records than the American counterpart. While BOEING(being one of the pillars of American industry) might twist arms in co…

> It has better records than the American counterpart

What is the basis for this statement? And are you trying to say something about airline maintenance policy, or manufacturing, or training, or record-keeping?

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

#64

Post by ralfn »

steve19 wrote: post #8
asdfadsfgfdda wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese government is also a competitor to Boeing (Comac and AVIC). Seems difficult to believe China can provide truly independent oversight over certifying airplane or engine products designed by their own government.

I am quite sure that if the FAA banned Chinese, or European, aircraft the same accusations would apply.

That assumes Europeans or Chinese would have the same issue where nationalism constantly blinds their judgement.

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

#65

Post by xekc »

cameldrv wrote: post #52

Maybe it's politically motivated, but IMO so is the FAA's certification and nonaction so far. Boeing promised a software fix by January, and the FAA's decision not to ground the fleet was probably informally based on that promise. Unfortunately the software fix is proving more difficult than anticipated. Regulated, safety-critical software, whose failure leads to a smoking crater full of bodies can be like that. Espe…

FAA can write regulations that are favorable to the U.S. interests as long as it is seen to have integrity so the major course correction needed to save it's credibility as a long term advantage to the national aviation industry? Not credibility in terms of actually avoiding craters full of bodies better than anyone else on the planet to date(737MAX is still 737?), but only as a petty strategic trade war tool? This implies moving from fake news to fake aviation security, it seems.

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

#66

Post by akg_67 »

quanticle wrote: post #18
dschuler wrote: post #15

People seem to think this is a political move by the China, which may be true, but this is actually what they're supposed to do. According to the article, 96 737 MAX jets are operated by Chinese airlines, and the aircraft appears to be racking up a questionable safety record. I wouldn't put faith in the FAA to be beyond political influence and crack down on an American manufacturer quickly. Lauda Air flight 004 [0] c…

>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…

IIRC, FAA didn’t ground 787 until both Japanese airlines had grounded the 787. With the number of fatalities and accidents new 737 had, it should be grounded by all airlines.

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

#67

Post by sfilargi »

tuna-piano wrote: post #22

I’m most curious what 737 Max pilots think. Are they comfortable flying this plane tomorrow? I assume we’ll be hearing from them and their unions in the coming days, and would put a good amount of trust in what they say (they are the ones who know the airplanes and are at personal risk of death if things go wrong).

https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/safety/120514-ethiopian-7...

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

#68

Post by [deleted] »

hohohmm wrote: post #29

It befuddles me to see people relating this to external motivations, not a genuine concern for safety. Would you fly 737 max8 tomorrow? Anybody who knows anything about Chinese aviation industry knows that it is severely government-regulated industry and the top 1 priority is safety. It has better records than the American counterpart. While BOEING(being one of the pillars of American industry) might twist arms in co…

[deleted]

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

#69

Post by dschuler »

roenxi wrote: post #31
dschuler wrote: post #15

People seem to think this is a political move by the China, which may be true, but this is actually what they're supposed to do. According to the article, 96 737 MAX jets are operated by Chinese airlines, and the aircraft appears to be racking up a questionable safety record. I wouldn't put faith in the FAA to be beyond political influence and crack down on an American manufacturer quickly. Lauda Air flight 004 [0] c…

Firstly I want to make it clear I agree that without strong evidence otherwise this decision should be assumed to be a technical/bureaucratic one. However, citing single a 1991 crash as evidence of something 30 years later is a bit extreme - that isn't even in the same century any more. If it was geopolitics or community attitudes, sure. But extrapolating present attitudes from a technical decisions about a thrust re…

I wouldn't go as far as calling the Lauda Air anecdote "evidence of something", but there appears to have been a pattern whereby Boeing writes the rule book for test procedures, which are then adopted by the FAA as the standard. Of course, a manufacturer would not publish a set of tests, then promptly fail to pass them.

So the question becomes - assuming this dynamic is still valid today: what independent mechanism exists to ensure Boeing's standards are sufficient?

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

#70

Post by bouncycastle »

cjbprime wrote: post #43
bouncycastle wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Exactly, it's "shocking". I guess that's why the pilots reacted the way they did - they didn't expect the stall & it was probably shocking for them, especially if they weren't properly trained for it or thinking that a stall is impossible or takes "much more effort than this".

There's also been quite a few of these type of stalls documented in the past (eg. where the pitot tubes failed).

Post reply on HN