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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

#111

Post by alistairSH »

akg_67 wrote: post #73
chvid wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was checking out a thread about the subject on reddit aviation; half the people are saying this is a political move by China - the other half are checking their flights to make sure they are not flying a 737 MAX. What happened to better safe than sorry? Obviously this type of plane needs to be grounded until issues are resolved or the two crashes can be definitely be dismissed as a freak coincedence.

Will the reddit aviation answers be different if instead of China, it was Chinese (or another country’s) airlines were announcing one by one, they were grounding the planes?

Honest question... is there a difference between the Chinese government and the Chinese airlines? I know they're not literally led by the government, but I was under the impression the government still wielded disproportionate control over industry in Chine (relative to what we expect in the West).

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

#112

Post by objektif »

wp381640 wrote: post #109
chvid wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was checking out a thread about the subject on reddit aviation; half the people are saying this is a political move by China - the other half are checking their flights to make sure they are not flying a 737 MAX. What happened to better safe than sorry? Obviously this type of plane needs to be grounded until issues are resolved or the two crashes can be definitely be dismissed as a freak coincedence.

What you're somewhat observing is the split between Boeing and Airbus fans - if you only wade into airliner discussions periodically you might miss that there are two very entrenched and passionate groups of supporters who take the brand issue all too seriously

The question is do you wanna fly in one? I am not a fan of either and I would like to avoid it.

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

#113

Post by leereeves »

rurban wrote: post #100
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…

The problem is not the questionable safety record. The problem are the latest revisions 8 - 10 of the flight software, which enabled the new anti-stall feature by default automatically. Previously anti-stall just signaled a warning, now it automatically turns the nose down, fighting the pilots attempt to ascend the machine after a start. This is a serious security defect. #1 anti-stall being fooled by some strong AOA…

> This already caused two major crashes with zero survivors.

Has that been confirmed or are you just assuming it was the cause of the second crash?

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

#114

Post by sheeshkebab »

whbk wrote: post #105
rob74 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, most airlines are seeing the 737-MAX 8 and its predecessor, the 737-800, as interchangeable (or they did until yesterday), so I doubt they will be able to say with certainty which aircraft type will operate a given flight...

Yeah, in my case it was a pretty straightforward situation with 1 airline not having the 8max at all (despite an article saying otherwise?) and my other flights being on 737-700's. I read a fair bit about this whole mess today and saw some posts saying there was a way to use SeatGuru to reliably distinguish between Max 8 / legacy 737-800, but I didn't need to dig that much myself and as you noted especially for fligh…

The death will be quick - why worry so much?

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

#115

Post by snowwrestler »

userbinator wrote: post #106
smallbigfish wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on who died.

Indeed. If this happened to a US airline, I bet the reaction would be quite different.

Yes because FAA understands well the maintenance and training standards of US airlines. These are factors that depend on airline, not airframe, and affect the likelihood of crashes.

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

#116

Post by marcosdumay »

akg_67 wrote: post #73
chvid wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was checking out a thread about the subject on reddit aviation; half the people are saying this is a political move by China - the other half are checking their flights to make sure they are not flying a 737 MAX. What happened to better safe than sorry? Obviously this type of plane needs to be grounded until issues are resolved or the two crashes can be definitely be dismissed as a freak coincedence.

Will the reddit aviation answers be different if instead of China, it was Chinese (or another country’s) airlines were announcing one by one, they were grounding the planes?

It's unusual for airlines to announce that they are grounding planes, but countries do it once in a while.

It would be a very suspect thing.

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

#117

Post by marcosdumay »

blahblahthrow wrote: post #108
FabHK wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth pointing out that the FAA bought Boeing's claim that the 737 MAX 8, 9 did not require a new type certificate, and so did EASA. However, from what I gather, the Brazilian regulator deemed the MAX with MCAS sufficiently different from prior generations. So, there is some regulatory independence.

It could be argued the Brazilian authorities are biased towards Embraer, much the same way US authorities might be biases towards Boeing.

It would be a good argument, one that I am interested in hearing.

Do you have some examples to give?

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

#118

Post by ChicagoBoy11 »

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…

Great point, and what is very revealing in this instance, is that some countries regulators in this specific instance diverged from the FAA conclusion and required specific training for crews with respect to MCAS (I'm thinking of Brazil, for instance).

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

#119

Post by darkcha0s »

leereeves wrote: post #113
rurban wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not the questionable safety record. The problem are the latest revisions 8 - 10 of the flight software, which enabled the new anti-stall feature by default automatically. Previously anti-stall just signaled a warning, now it automatically turns the nose down, fighting the pilots attempt to ascend the machine after a start. This is a serious security defect. #1 anti-stall being fooled by some strong AOA…

> This already caused two major crashes with zero survivors. Has that been confirmed or are you just assuming it was the cause of the second crash?

The public flight data looks very similar; for lack of any further details people will assume the problem had a similar root cause. Either way, his point isn't wrong- enabling a feature that can take control of the aircraft where it could not previously needs to be properly communicated. If pilots flew the older generations for several years they would not expect this behavior.

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

#120

Post by rurban »

leereeves wrote: post #113
rurban wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not the questionable safety record. The problem are the latest revisions 8 - 10 of the flight software, which enabled the new anti-stall feature by default automatically. Previously anti-stall just signaled a warning, now it automatically turns the nose down, fighting the pilots attempt to ascend the machine after a start. This is a serious security defect. #1 anti-stall being fooled by some strong AOA…

> This already caused two major crashes with zero survivors. Has that been confirmed or are you just assuming it was the cause of the second crash?

Not yet confirmed, but all evidence points to it.

Even without a single confirmed crash it's a strong SW security problem.

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