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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

#171

Post by qaq »

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…

Well we might be jumping to conclusions here a quote on the issue from pilots forum: "Runaway stabilizer procedures in the 737 have remained pretty much unchanged since its first flight. The same can be said for pretty much any Boeing airliner. 1 - Turn off the autopilot to see if it's causing the problem. 2 - Oppose the trim manually with the yoke. If that stops it, you're done. 3 - If that doesn't work, then you turn off the stab trim cutout switches.

If MCAS is getting some kind of erroneous AOA signal and inputting an unwanted nose down pitch, guess what? Those procedures will stop it. If pilots at airline X get to step 2 and think they're good and MCAS starts another input after it's initial 10 second trim, then they go to step 3.

If you want to speculate about something, why not start with what position investigators in both of these crashes are going to find the stab cutout switches. If they're not "off", why? MCAS or poor procedures? " https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/2779459-post40.html

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

#172

Post by elcapitan »

joncrane wrote: post #147
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…

Cool fact: Niki Lauda is a former F1 driver who is most famous for having severe facial and lung damage from a fiery crash, then returning while his burns were still healing. The doctors said he still had more operations to undergo to complete his recovery, but when pressed, admitted that the additional operations were for cosmetic reasons and would not affect his ability to drive. He raced in F1 races with open woun…

> The Ron Howard movie Rush is a great treatment of his time in F1.

Agree, probably one of the best racing movies in general.

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

#173

Post by mannykannot »

unethical_ban wrote: post #148
Tepix wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German car manufacturers self-certify the CO2 exhausts. TEPCO certifies their Japanese nuclear plants. Works great, doesn't it?

It was NOx, and they didn't self certify, they cheated the tests.

True, but an entity that goes so far as to cheat on tests is hardly likely to honestly self-certify - it is further evidence that some non-trivial form of verification is necessary.

I am not, however, going to take any position on whether Boeing has done anything wrong until the accident analysis is complete.

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

#174

Post by gruez »

PaulHoule wrote: post #153
gruez wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> breathe toxic fumes Elaborate?

The 737 uses an air bleed system instead of a modern electric system.

What airliners use bleedless system other than the 787? My speculation is that 737 max is a "refresh" of the 737, rather than a complete redesign like the 787, hence why the 787 has new features even though it came out later.

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

#175

Post by devy »

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…

> People seem to think this is a political move by the China, which may be true

Categorically FALSE. Let's get the facts straight.

1. The initial mandate was only to temporarily ground all 737MAX series for one(1) day (March 11th) not indefinitely. The CAAC (equiv. of FAA in the US) will determine the further action upon an initial report result is released. [1] It also mentioned that CAAC takes zero tolerance to air safety issues, which is consistent in the past 40 years.

2. Out of 350 Boeing's 737MAX series delivered since 2017, about one thirds (96 according to the Chinese news) went to China. To speed up delivery and reduce cost, Boeing actually opened and operated a brand new factory in Zhoushan, China for all deliveries to Chinese market. So Chinese airliners are one biggest early adopters and Boeing's biggest market. The Zhoushan Boeing factory is joint venture with CMAC (a State owned aircraft manufacturer).[2] So a politically move to ban 737Max that may cause significant economical impact for their own state-owned enterprise, which made no sense.

[1]: http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2019-03-11/doc-ihsxncvh1490704.sht...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX#Program_launch

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

#176

Post by Tepix »

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 largest Embraer (not Embrarer) model has 118 seats.

The 737 MAX 8 has 184. I don't think they are competing that much.

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

#177

Post by JKCalhoun »

houseofzeus wrote: post #154
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.

I agree. Even if it turns out to be a different cause, who wants to be the airline that gives it the benefit of the doubt in the meantime? The optics at this point if it happens again while this one is still being investigated are awful. The Chinese decision here seems pretty rational.

I would go even further and suggest Boeing ought to ground them. If, as you mentioned, another accident were to happen, irrespective of the impact it would have on that airline, Boeing's reputation would be triply hammered.

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

#178

Post by mikestew »

erdosnew wrote: post #167
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.

I was shocked a couple years ago when I drove a rental car and the engine turned off/stalled during stop at traffic lights, I took the car back to the AVIS and was told this is a feature of the car - a Malibu I think. if it works, don't change it - sadly nowadays that's not true anymore for tech industry, they change things for the sake of change.

if it works, don't change it

Idling cars at stoplights doesn't work. It adds unneeded pollution and wastes fuel. If there were an efficient way to avoid that, it would be stupid not to. That's why they changed it.

What shocks me is that this is the first you've heard of it. You've never heard the car next to you shut off when they pull up to a light?

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

#179

Post by pbhjpbhj »

alistairSH wrote: post #111
akg_67 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I'd have thought the UK government [and others in The West] had the ability to legally compel airlines not to fly particular models of aircraft?

If not, then the Chinese system would appear to be superior as safety can trump commercial considerations then.

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

#180

Post by m-s »

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…

You can safely assume that most airlines pay only half the list price, or even less.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_between_Airbus_and...

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