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Boeing 737 Max to Resume Flying U.S. Passengers Today

nytimes.com

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Re: Boeing 737 Max to Resume Flying U.S. Passengers Today

#51

Post by briandear »

sokoloff wrote: post #45
mannykannot wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have preferred Boeing to be required to redo the test, and be dinged by the airlines for the delay, just to make it clear that this sort of nonsense is not tolerated. The fact is, however, that everyone going into the test was aware of what the issue was, so it could only give information about best-case response times (which is not useless information, at least if done on suitable simulators.) For a while, e…

I still don't understand why the pilots of ETH302 weren't primed about this issue. I seem to recall it being common knowledge within the aviation community that there was a likely trim system fault that downed LNI610. With that backdrop, I'd expect anyone sitting in the front seats of a 737-Max to be aware of the recent crash of the type and reasonably fresh on the systems procedures/memory items to remedy. It's cert…

The pilots were inexperienced. The right seat guy had less than 250 hours total time in any airplane. At that level of experience, he’s lucky to remember where the landing gear controls are. (He didn’t have 250 hours in the 737, but less than 250 hours in any airplane!) Even the captain had fewer hours than an average United first officer. At those low levels of experience, it’s just unrealistic to expect them to be that good with non-standard situations.

Re: Boeing 737 Max to Resume Flying U.S. Passengers Today

#52

Post by sokoloff »

ashtonkem wrote: post #48
sokoloff wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't understand why the pilots of ETH302 weren't primed about this issue. I seem to recall it being common knowledge within the aviation community that there was a likely trim system fault that downed LNI610. With that backdrop, I'd expect anyone sitting in the front seats of a 737-Max to be aware of the recent crash of the type and reasonably fresh on the systems procedures/memory items to remedy. It's cert…

Boeing just didn’t care about them. The risk of having to re-certify pilots was considered greater than the risk to the passenger’s lives, at least from Boeing’s perspective.

Emergency Airworthiness Directive 2018-23-51 was issued in between the two crashes, essentially at Boeing’s request. That does not strike me as “just didn’t care about them”.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/12/06/2018-26...

Re: Boeing 737 Max to Resume Flying U.S. Passengers Today

#53

Post by tyingq »

franczesko wrote: post #23

Out of curiosity - was anyone from Boeing held accountable for the decisions that led to the 737 max catastrophes?

They fired the CEO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Muilenburg

A "criminal probe/investigation" is supposedly ongoing. I haven't heard of anyone being charged.

Re: Boeing 737 Max to Resume Flying U.S. Passengers Today

#55

Post by mannykannot »

sokoloff wrote: post #45
mannykannot wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have preferred Boeing to be required to redo the test, and be dinged by the airlines for the delay, just to make it clear that this sort of nonsense is not tolerated. The fact is, however, that everyone going into the test was aware of what the issue was, so it could only give information about best-case response times (which is not useless information, at least if done on suitable simulators.) For a while, e…

I still don't understand why the pilots of ETH302 weren't primed about this issue. I seem to recall it being common knowledge within the aviation community that there was a likely trim system fault that downed LNI610. With that backdrop, I'd expect anyone sitting in the front seats of a 737-Max to be aware of the recent crash of the type and reasonably fresh on the systems procedures/memory items to remedy. It's cert…

I believe the captain was primed - IIRC, did he not, in his position as a senior captain, write a memo to other pilots of the airline about the issue?

Again IIRC, and reading between the lines, I think the Boeing/FAA response to LNI610 was to remind pilots of the existing trim runaway procedure, in keeping with the story that no significant change had been made to the aircraft handling. They were still being cagey about the existence of MCAS, let alone its power and its dependence on a single sensor on any given flight, and the people writing the airworthiness directive were apparently unaware that the power of MCAS had been increased after initial flight testing. Did the directive even mention that, unlike the behavior in previous versions, using the yoke switches to countermand a system-driven trim change did not stop it, if that system was MCAS? It would seem to have worked, but then MCAS would do it again.

I believe the crew had trouble manually re-trimming on account of the load on the stabilizer jackscrew, which in turn was due to how far MCAS had driven it out of trim. I think someone (Blancolirio on Youtube?) said that training rarely, if ever, got that deep into the issue.

At least two things have changed since then: the power of MCAS has been reduced, and pilots have been fully primed about it.

The issue of the second pilot's inexperience in some countries is an issue that goes beyond the Max, as it means that the captain effectively has to deal with emergencies single-handedly, at least if they go 'out-of-book' like this.

Re: Boeing 737 Max to Resume Flying U.S. Passengers Today

#56

Post by winfred »

briandear wrote: post #51
sokoloff wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't understand why the pilots of ETH302 weren't primed about this issue. I seem to recall it being common knowledge within the aviation community that there was a likely trim system fault that downed LNI610. With that backdrop, I'd expect anyone sitting in the front seats of a 737-Max to be aware of the recent crash of the type and reasonably fresh on the systems procedures/memory items to remedy. It's cert…

The pilots were inexperienced. The right seat guy had less than 250 hours total time in any airplane. At that level of experience, he’s lucky to remember where the landing gear controls are. (He didn’t have 250 hours in the 737, but less than 250 hours in any airplane!) Even the captain had fewer hours than an average United first officer. At those low levels of experience, it’s just unrealistic to expect them to be…

That can't be right, can it? That's the equivalent of me doing my job for 6 weeks.

Here, looks like the legal minimum is 1500:

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

Re: Boeing 737 Max to Resume Flying U.S. Passengers Today

#57

Post by lefrenchy »

briandear wrote: post #50

One of my best friends is a 20,000 hour 737 captain (and check pilot) at United and spent the past several weeks getting training on the new Max. He says the primary win for the new MCAS is that there is no longer a single point of failure (in the prior version the system only took data from a single AOA source even though there were two AOA indicators already on the airplane. At least on the United versions of the p…

I get what you’re saying, and your friend is likely very trustworthy. But the fact still remains that the previous planes that crashed were flown by pilots too, and people trusted them with their lives.

I won’t trust this plane for a while, especially given the behavior i’ve seen from Boeing.

Re: Boeing 737 Max to Resume Flying U.S. Passengers Today

#58

Post by sokoloff »

winfred wrote: post #56
briandear wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pilots were inexperienced. The right seat guy had less than 250 hours total time in any airplane. At that level of experience, he’s lucky to remember where the landing gear controls are. (He didn’t have 250 hours in the 737, but less than 250 hours in any airplane!) Even the captain had fewer hours than an average United first officer. At those low levels of experience, it’s just unrealistic to expect them to be…

That can't be right, can it? That's the equivalent of me doing my job for 6 weeks. Here, looks like the legal minimum is 1500: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_certification_in_the_Uni...

ETH302 was not operated by a US airline. There's a reason why I'll blindly get on a US major and make more checks and be more choosey about boarding airliners operated by countries with far looser training standards.

Even prior to 2013, you could be an SIC ("first officer") for a US operator with just 250 hour minimums required then by the ATP certificate. Colgan Air 3407 ended that.

Re: Boeing 737 Max to Resume Flying U.S. Passengers Today

#59

Post by buran77 »

slumdev wrote: post #37
credit_guy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except if another plane crashes.

When another plane crashes.

It's just another expense. If US authorities have shown anything so far it's that they're very forgiving especially with companies with government contracts.

Re: Boeing 737 Max to Resume Flying U.S. Passengers Today

#60

Post by sokoloff »

amyjess wrote: post #19

...and once the pandemic is over and I start flying again, I'm going to fly exclusively with Spirit from now on.

I'd rather punch myself in the face than fly Spirit again. (They're as safe as any other US airline; they just operate like a worse-Ryanair.)
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