Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Costly Airbus paint flaw goes wider than the Gulf

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 109 posts

Re: Costly Airbus paint flaw goes wider than the Gulf

#81

Post by sokoloff »

slownews45 wrote: post #79
sokoloff wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Boeing had the audacity of blaming the pilots when they inevitably died in crashes. That wasn’t a great look, but Boeing is correct that if the pilots had followed the existing checklist memory items for stab trim runaway, the airplanes would not have crashed. The difficulty is that prior generations had breakout switches which would inhibit the stab trim from running in a direction counter to the control column de…

Excellent point. A lot of focus is on pilots, but the safety chain was also weak. Maint, communication with flight dept, communication to subsequent pilots etc, training dept and required experience / education to fly. Not a good combo. Someone with 200 hrs of time, plane badly maintained, no good handoff around prior issues etc. I still think Boeings safety model with humans as the backup for computers probably does…

There’s a genuine question as to whether someone with 240 hours should be holding the yoke of a jet airliner. For me, that answer is “hell no!” as we saw in Colgan 3407 (and others) which led to the FAA 1500-hour minimum for an ATP.

At 240 hours, I couldn’t be trusted with a Bonanza.

Re: Costly Airbus paint flaw goes wider than the Gulf

#82

Post by [deleted] »

1cvmask wrote: post #5

It seems that victim blaming is not something specific to just Boeing. Airbus blamed Qatar airways and the hot weather till similar issues emerged with planes of Finn Air and Air France in colder climates. Whatever happened to the customer is always right? Guess it is easier to victim blame when you operate in essence a duopoly. Competition is critical to solve these issues in the long run.

[deleted]

Re: Costly Airbus paint flaw goes wider than the Gulf

#83

Post by diskzero »

Imagine doing the walk-around inspection as part of the flight crew and seeing that sort of degradation? The flight crews were possible told it wasn't a major issue and to keep on schedule. As a pilot myself, I get very concerned whenever I see any sort of abnormal surface feature. I am lucky in that I can cancel my own flights.

Any commercial pilots here willing to share their experience with this sort of thing? In the US, the FAA gives the pilot command over the flight, but I imagine companies take a dim view of pilots canceling flights over certain maintenance issues.

Re: Costly Airbus paint flaw goes wider than the Gulf

#84

Post by WalterBright »

slownews45 wrote: post #60
smnrchrds wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boeing also initially blamed pilots for 737 MAX crashes, until too many of them crashed, the regulators caught up and grounded the planes, and forced them to take responsibility. It seems like shifting the blame is the norm in the airline industry. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-11-16/are-boein...

I thought Boeing blamed it on a combination of poor maintenance practices by the relevant airlines, poor handling and response to inflight error messages and maintenance requests on previous flights that left the issue unaddressed, and then weaknesses on the pilot side during the accident flights? I personally think they went a bit overboard with the revised procedure memory items.

The problems were:

1. poor MCAS design

2. poor maintenance

3. pilots not following runaway trim emergency procedures

The media pretty much never mentions (3).

Note that 3 flights experienced the MCAS malfunction. 1 applied runaway trim emergency procedures, continued with the flight, and landed safely.

https://theaircurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/B737-MA...

2018 - 035 - PK-LQP Final Report http://knkt.dephub.go.id/knkt/ntsc_aviation/baru/2018%20-%20...

Re: Costly Airbus paint flaw goes wider than the Gulf

#85

Post by WalterBright »

smnrchrds wrote: post #69
slownews45 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought Boeing blamed it on a combination of poor maintenance practices by the relevant airlines, poor handling and response to inflight error messages and maintenance requests on previous flights that left the issue unaddressed, and then weaknesses on the pilot side during the accident flights? I personally think they went a bit overboard with the revised procedure memory items.

I am no expert, but I remember the main culprit was that Boeing had insisted no further training is required for pilots to avoid some sort of expensive recertification. Weakness of pilots was the direct result of this. Pilots having experience with previous 737 planes were told in no uncertain terms that they can fly this new plane the exact same as the previous one and no further training or testing is required or e…

The Frontline episode is a mess of misinformation and omission of crucial facts. I submitted on the Frontline site a list of omitted facts and corrections supported by cited FAA documents. The moderators refused to post it.

I used to watch Frontline regularly. Although they had an obvious left wing bias, I thought they made good faith efforts to present the facts.

No more. I no longer watch Frontline nor consider them a reliable source of news.

BTW, the "Aviation Disasters" did an episode on the 737MAX that was pretty decent (although a bit shallow due to time constraints), so it is possible to do a good story on it. Recommended.

Re: Costly Airbus paint flaw goes wider than the Gulf

#86

Post by bobthepanda »

smnrchrds wrote: post #35
1cvmask wrote: post #5

It seems that victim blaming is not something specific to just Boeing. Airbus blamed Qatar airways and the hot weather till similar issues emerged with planes of Finn Air and Air France in colder climates. Whatever happened to the customer is always right? Guess it is easier to victim blame when you operate in essence a duopoly. Competition is critical to solve these issues in the long run.

Boeing also initially blamed pilots for 737 MAX crashes, until too many of them crashed, the regulators caught up and grounded the planes, and forced them to take responsibility. It seems like shifting the blame is the norm in the airline industry. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-11-16/are-boein...

Shifting blame is the norm, period.

Remember the coverage around Toyota’s stuck accelerators, or the woman who suffered third degree burns from McDonald’s coffee?

Re: Costly Airbus paint flaw goes wider than the Gulf

#87

Post by missedthecue »

OldHand2018 wrote: post #59

Halfway through the article is this extraordinarily helpful information (given that I know nothing at all about aircraft paint): > When Airbus 15 years ago launched the A350, it chose to follow Boeing's new 787 in using carbon-fibre instead of metal. > Experts say the lighter jets consume less fuel but are harder to deck out in a way that makes paint stick. > The new jets also need a layer of metallic mesh to dissipa…

You'd think we'd have more sophisticated paint in this day and age.

Re: Costly Airbus paint flaw goes wider than the Gulf

#88

Post by WalterBright »

WalterBright wrote: post #84
slownews45 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought Boeing blamed it on a combination of poor maintenance practices by the relevant airlines, poor handling and response to inflight error messages and maintenance requests on previous flights that left the issue unaddressed, and then weaknesses on the pilot side during the accident flights? I personally think they went a bit overboard with the revised procedure memory items.

The problems were: 1. poor MCAS design 2. poor maintenance 3. pilots not following runaway trim emergency procedures The media pretty much never mentions (3). Note that 3 flights experienced the MCAS malfunction. 1 applied runaway trim emergency procedures, continued with the flight, and landed safely. https://theaircurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/B737-MA... 2018 - 035 - PK-LQP Final Report http://knkt.dephub.…

For those who don't like what I wrote, I encourage you to read the cites, which are official documents, rather than what journalists who literally know nothing about flying, piloting, or aircraft design, imagine is true.

Re: Costly Airbus paint flaw goes wider than the Gulf

#89

Post by bserge »

lorenzfx wrote: post #54
Bayart wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Whatever happened to the customer is always right? That never made it to Europe to begin with.

It did, at least as a proverb. E.g. In German there is a saying "der Kunde ist König" (customer is king)

Judging by the quality of German customer care/support, that has got to be sarcasm :D

Re: Costly Airbus paint flaw goes wider than the Gulf

#90

Post by WalterBright »

sokoloff wrote: post #74
smnrchrds wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am no expert, but I remember the main culprit was that Boeing had insisted no further training is required for pilots to avoid some sort of expensive recertification. Weakness of pilots was the direct result of this. Pilots having experience with previous 737 planes were told in no uncertain terms that they can fly this new plane the exact same as the previous one and no further training or testing is required or e…

> Boeing had the audacity of blaming the pilots when they inevitably died in crashes. That wasn’t a great look, but Boeing is correct that if the pilots had followed the existing checklist memory items for stab trim runaway, the airplanes would not have crashed. The difficulty is that prior generations had breakout switches which would inhibit the stab trim from running in a direction counter to the control column de…

The first Lion Air flight crew correctly followed the runaway trim procedure and landed safely. The next crew on the same airplane crashed.

Boeing then issued an Emergency Airworthiness Directive to ALL 737MAX PILOTS:

"Initially, higher control forces may be needed to overcome any stabilizer nose down trim already applied. Electric stabilizer trim can be used to neutralize control column pitch forces before moving the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches to CUTOUT. Manual stabilizer trim can be used before and after the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches are moved to CUTOUT."

https://theaircurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/B737-MA...

which the EA pilots did not follow.

Post reply on HN