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US refuses to ground Boeing 737 Max

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11–20 of 344 posts

Re: US refuses to ground Boeing 737 Max

#11

Will this basically be negated by enough other countries grounding it though? It seems to me that if the EU, China, the UK, and other major countries are all grounding it then many others are likely to follow suit basically making it irrelevant if there are one or two holdouts (even if one of them is the U.S.)

There are a ton of these aircraft flying in the US domestically and on US-Canada routes.

Re: US refuses to ground Boeing 737 Max

#13
post #2

What does the US know that the EU or China doesn't which gives them such confidence? Any clues?

Safety is always a priority, but it's never the only one: There's also an economical factor in the equation. Other nations have less to lose by grounding these planes, leading to a different result between 'risking human lives' vs 'causing financial impact'.

Finally, airplanes may have different configurations. I only skimmed some discussions and I'm not well versed in the subject so take what I say with a grain of salt, but there seem potential differences in configurations, e.g. AOA disagree indicators (which is related to the potential cause for both accidents); Some airlines (I think South West at least) also announced changes w.r.t. those systems after the Lion Air accident. That might also change the 'risking human lives' variable in the equation.

Re: US refuses to ground Boeing 737 Max

#14
post #5
post #2

What does the US know that the EU or China doesn't which gives them such confidence? Any clues?

They know Boeing makes up 10.5% of the Dow... [1] or it did before these crashes, currently under 10% due the the stock price dropping [1] http://indexarb.com/indexComponentWtsDJ.html

The FAA was intentionally made independent of airline advocacy to avoid conflicts of interest that previous government agencies overseeing air travel in the past had. So it’s odd if it’s not based on the data.

Re: US refuses to ground Boeing 737 Max

#15
It’s scary to think how complicit the FAA was in granting Boeing’s wish that this 30 year newer plane with substantially larger engines only required 2-3 hours of new training and said training was able to miss covering entire systems like MCAS. Now 350 people are dead, all the FAA can be thankful of is the dead are foreigners so it’s unlikely they’ll be held properly accountable.

Re: US refuses to ground Boeing 737 Max

#16
2 crashes in less than 6 months for a plane that's been in service less than 24 months, yet "no systemic performance issues". Somebody's going to die so US companies can make a some extra profits. Business as usual here.

Re: US refuses to ground Boeing 737 Max

#18
post #2

What does the US know that the EU or China doesn't which gives them such confidence? Any clues?

Nothing. Boeing lobby power in US is exceptional. That's the only reason.

Our actual current Secretary of Defense spent 30 years at Boeing.

Re: US refuses to ground Boeing 737 Max

#19
post #15

It’s scary to think how complicit the FAA was in granting Boeing’s wish that this 30 year newer plane with substantially larger engines only required 2-3 hours of new training and said training was able to miss covering entire systems like MCAS. Now 350 people are dead, all the FAA can be thankful of is the dead are foreigners so it’s unlikely they’ll be held properly accountable.

American lives have been claimed in these incidents as well.

Re: US refuses to ground Boeing 737 Max

#20
From a customer perspective I would have appreciated a joint approach of the major aviation agencies. The way it is handled right now, I can’t judge whether the EU is reacting shortsighted or if the US is too careless. One seems to be true?
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