American Airlines Is Quietly Bringing Back the 737Max

I think it comes out in favor of flying either way, but for sure the second makes it pretty lopsided. It limits the possibilities of OnPlane && !Flying to waiting for takeoff, and since you spend more time in the air than grounded even death by natural causes in flight would overtake death while grounded.

The difference between the Boeing problem, where the computer would do un-intuitive things that caused the planes to dive, and the AF447 A330 situation, where the pitot tubes froze over (they shouldn't have) but the aircraft wouldn't try to crash itself, is significant.

Of course the pitots shouldn't have frozen over, and of course the stall warnings were poorly thought out, and of course the lack of direct awareness by the other pilot of Bonin's inputs leads to misunderstanding of the situation, but there's one big problem in the AF447 case that has nothing to do with bugs in the A330.

Bonin (who flew the plane into the ocean) had no awareness of the Airbus's different flight modes or that the autopilot disconnect meant the plane was in Alternate Law, and as a result blissfully kept pulling back on the joystick thinking the computer would save him from ever stalling. The different flight modes are like the most basic part of operating an Airbus in an emergency, and the idea that any trained pilot wouldn't first consider which mode they're in is staggering.

Read the transcript. You have Bonin pulling back on the stick almost continuously without saying so, you have Robert advising him to descend, and Bonin replying that he was descending, when he never did. He let the controls go back to neutral, the plane was still ascending with a wildly high AOA for the conditions, and he quickly reverted to pulling back on the joystick.

Only less than a minute before impact, when the rapid descent and confusion lead to Robert advising Bonin to climb, does Bonin reveal the critical information, at which point both Robert and the Captain must have been shocked and horrified, both realizing they had to dive and also realizing they didn't have enough altitude and were going to crash:

    02:13:40 (Robert) Climb... climb... climb... climb...
    02:13:40 (Bonin) But I've had the stick back the whole time!
     [At last, Bonin tells the others the crucial fact whose import he has so grievously failed to understand himself.]
    02:13:42 (Captain) No, no, no… Don’t climb… no, no. 
    02:13:43 (Robert) Descend, then… Give me the controls… Give me the controls!

     [Bonin yields the controls, and Robert finally puts the nose down. The plane begins to regain speed. But it is still descending at a precipitous angle. As they near 2000 feet, the aircraft's sensors detect the fast-approaching surface and trigger a new alarm. There is no time left to build up speed by pushing the plane's nose forward into a dive. At any rate, without warning his colleagues, Bonin once again takes back the controls and pulls his side stick all the way back.]
    02:14:23 (Robert) Damn it, we’re going to crash… This can’t be happening!
    02:14:25 (Bonin) But what’s happening?
    02:14:27 (Captain) Ten degrees of pitch…

    Exactly 1.4 seconds later, the cockpit voice recorder stops.

Transcript with notes: https://www.tailstrike.com/010609.html

Bonin may have passed training but he clearly wasn't competent to fly an Airbus. Air France crew resource management (communication between pilots) sucked, and a bunch of Airbus quirks led to the other pilots not discovering that Bonin was doing the wrong thing until it was too late. However, virtually any other pilot wouldn't have stalled the plane.

>> because of aerodynamics

But yes. MCAS was put in place due to concerns over aero. If that was just to avoid the need for extra pilot training then it should have been scrapped since new training will be required now anyway. But since great effort has been made to fix MCAS we can conclude that the root problem is aerodynamic.

Can aerodynamic issues be compensated for with software? Sure. I need to read up on the final hardware/software/instruction solution before passing Judgement.

It’s “atypical” because it’s a 30+ year old superseded model and there are more efficient designs available. KLM, a flag carrier, was flying them up until just a few years ago. If it’s certified for carrying passengers, it’s certified. There are no special concessions made to airworthiness regulations for aircraft that sell few in number.

The MD-11 has been certified for air transport since it was introduced, was flying in revenue service until 2014, and as far as I know, that certification has never been revoked.

IMHO, the 737Max should be forced to serve in non-passenger service - e.g. courier shipping - for a number of cumulative flight hours (e.g. 5,000) before it goes back to passenger use.

Given the huge rise in shipping during the holiday season this criteria could be satisfied by the end of the year.