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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

#131

Post by CydeWeys »

bouncycastle wrote: post #70
cjbprime wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

This discussion is divorced from reality. These two fatal crashes were not caused by stalls. The first was for sure caused by MCAS incorrectly pitching the nose down and the second appears likely to share the same cause.

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

#132

Post by jaclaz »

sfilargi wrote: post #67
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...

Thanks, the two articles linked to on that forum were very interesting and clear eough even for a non-expert like myself:

https://leehamnews.com/2018/11/07/boeing-issues-737-operatio...

https://leehamnews.com/2018/11/14/boeings-automatic-trim-for...

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

#133

Post by exidy »

PaulHoule wrote: post #124

What people are forgetting here is that the 737 Max is an airplane that is designed to make flying more miserable even if you survive the flight. The common seat layout of the Max 8 squeezes in more rows for a worse experience. Compare the 737 to the Embrarer 175 - the Embrarer is a much smaller plane but it has an elliptical fuselage so that you can stand up comfortably in it and also not get a crick in your neck fr…

The 737 and 757 (and 707 and 727) all have exactly the same fuselage diameter, the 757 is merely longer. Seat pitch is determined by the airline.

I agree with you about the re-engining though. Seems Boeing might have pushed the 737 airframe one generation too far.

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

#134

Post by swfsql »

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.

But Embraer doesn't compete directly with that 737

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

#135

Post by Lev1a »

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…

> or to perform a test flight with him and two pilots attempting a deliberate reverse thrust deployment mid-flight

Reminds me of the scene in "Battleship" when Liam Neesons character tells the gov big-wig he will fly into the barrier-like thing as soon as he would come down to strap himself into the co-pilot's seat.

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

#136

Post by Rooster61 »

Johnny555 wrote: post #54
dis-sys wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The cause of this crash hasn't been determined, some witnesses described seeing flames before the plane hit the ground, so it's entirely possible that a cargo hold fire took the plane down. the black box should be relatively easy to find (assuming it survived), so investigators should have a better idea about the cause soon.

The pilots indicated a difficulty controlling the plane before it went down. We certainly can't rule out a cargo hold fire severing control avenues, but it's hard to shake the possibility that the flight software did something goofy after the Lion flight that went down.

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

#137

Post by vultour »

drstewart wrote: post #33
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…

Do you think the Airbus 330 should be grounded? It has 11 hull losses with 1447 built. That's a rate of 2.67 per 350 built by the way -- higher than the MAX

Out of the 11 hull losses, only 3 resulted in fatalities, one of those was a test flight, one was the famous Air France crash, and one was probably due to the pilot being surprised by somatogravic illusion during go around. All of this in the past 25 years.

The 737 MAX crashed twice in the past six months, I supposed based on this track record we should just close Boeing down altogether?

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

#138

Post by Rooster61 »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #123
dis-sys wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

what else you need to establish the fact that 737 Max worth to be grounded for a full investigation? With all my respect, this is an opinion, not a fact. A fact has to be proven beyond any reasonable doubt. Here it's just "likely to be true" at best.

This isn't a court of law. People have died on this aircraft twice in 6 months. Fact beyond reasonable doubt is not the threshold for taking actions of prevention while make sure nothing is wrong with that airframe.

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

#139

Post by izzydata »

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #23
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.

I'd guesstimate flying on a 737 Max is still safer than driving a car.

The chance of getting in an accident when calculated by per mile driven and not by per drive is quite low.

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

#140

Post by mprev »

YinglingLight wrote: post #127
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…

Billions of dollars are involved in the procurement of the 737. When billions of dollars are involved, politics is inevitable. Why are Boeing the only planes that crash?

The Airbus A320 alone has had 35 hull loss incidents.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incide...

Whatever else you think about this topic, it’s utter nonsense to say only Boeings crash.

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