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

FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 884 posts

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#191

Post by Miraste »

rootusrootus wrote: post #97

One troubling aspect of this is that it appears Alaska had reason to believe something was wrong with this plane but basically ignored it. They were getting pressurization warnings on prior flights, but the only action they took was restricting the plane from flying ETOPS routes. They're the dominant carrier in my area, so these sorts of screwups make me nervous. I can't easily avoid using them without a fair amount…

I haven't trusted Alaska since the Flight 261 crash, where they failed to do basic maintenance for so long that the screw threads in the stabilizer system wore away and locked the plane in the "straight down" orientation. And fired and sued a mechanic who reported the problem. 100% fatalities.

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#192

Post by Denvercoder9 »

jessriedel wrote: post #179

What's the back of the envelope on whether the 737 Max is more dangerous than driving? 1,300 aircraft have been built since the first started flying in 2017, with two deadly crashes. I don't know how many miles those have accumulated, but presumably it's of order 4k miles per day per aircraft, and maybe 3 years (1000 days) of flying to date per aircraft on average, giving a very rough estimate of a few billion miles?…

> maybe 3 years (1000 days) of flying to date per aircraft on average

It's probably a lot less. 950 out of those 1300 aircraft were delivered in the last three years, and the other 350 were grounded throughout most of 2019 and 2020.

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#193

Post by Me1000 »

ugiox wrote: post #151

How to avoid the 737 Max? Fly only airlines that don’t have it. Luckily there are still a few around in Europe. Since the two fatal crashes I have avoided doing flights with 737s.

Just about every airline I’ve ever flown lets you see what kind of aircraft they’re using for the flight you book. It’s pretty easy to avoid flying on a 737 max if you want.

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#194

Post by toomuchtodo »

aeternum wrote: post #182
belter wrote: post #91

Ways in which you can experience an unexpected cabin decompression to the next world...Or join the mile-high never-come-back club, on a Boeing 737 MAX... 1- Loose bolts: "Boeing Urges Airlines to Check for Loose Bolt in newer 737 MAX Aircraft" - https://www.european-views.com/2023/12/boeing-urges-airlines... 2- Leave the anti-icing system on for more than 5 min after non-icing conditions: "Boeing still hasn't fixed t…

Wasn't there also the whole runaway trim issue leading to un-commanded climb and stall? Supposedly fixed with software when the root cause was retrofitting engines too large for the airframe leading to pitch instability under high thrust.

MCAS.

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

Need a Wikipedia page tracking all of these Boeing issues tbh.

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#195

Post by _cenw »

brewdad wrote: post #127
jaktet wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only assume major hubs have already completed inspection, because a buddy of mine flew out of Seattle on a 737 Max9 this morning. Guess I assumed inspections took longer than half a day

Supposedly the flaw exists on a section where a “false door” exists for future alterations to the exit points. Perhaps not all of their planes were built with this feature. Nothing to inspect in that case.

The number of emergency exits required depends on how many seats you cram on a plane. A Ryanair Max 9 would need that extra exit for compliance.

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#196

Post by thangalin »

"Whatever the reasons (market pressures, rushing processes, inadequate certifications, fear of being fired, or poor project management), Leveson’s insights are being ignored. For example, after the first fatal Boeing 737 Max flight, why was the entire fleet not grounded indefinitely? Or not grounded after an Indonesian safety committee report uncovered multiple failures? Or not grounded when an off-duty pilot helped avert a crash? What analysis procedures failed to prevent the second fatal Boeing 737 Max flight?"

https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2019/06/06/web-of-knowledge/

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#197

Post by jessriedel »

Denvercoder9 wrote: post #192
jessriedel wrote: post #179

What's the back of the envelope on whether the 737 Max is more dangerous than driving? 1,300 aircraft have been built since the first started flying in 2017, with two deadly crashes. I don't know how many miles those have accumulated, but presumably it's of order 4k miles per day per aircraft, and maybe 3 years (1000 days) of flying to date per aircraft on average, giving a very rough estimate of a few billion miles?…

> maybe 3 years (1000 days) of flying to date per aircraft on average It's probably a lot less. 950 out of those 1300 aircraft were delivered in the last three years, and the other 350 were grounded throughout most of 2019 and 2020.

Cool, thanks. So probably a factor of ~2 fewer miles, or twice the accident rate.

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#198

Post by Brybry »

hnarn wrote: post #170
Miraste wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two of those are manufacturing mistakes, and it seems likely the door one is as well. Not that that helps the passengers, but they're not systemic design flaws. That anti-icing system is deranged, though. They effectively installed a timed detonator on the engines and want a safety exemption for it.

Separating “manufacturing mistakes” only makes sense if someone else is responsible for manufacturing. As far as I know, Boeing is responsible for both the design and the manufacturing of these aircraft so the difference is purely informational, but in terms of criticizing Boeing mostly irrelevant.

Spirit AeroSystems makes the fuselage for the 737 Max. [1][2]

It's even in the article: "Spirit AeroSystems, which makes the fuselages for the planes, referred CNBC to Boeing when asked about the incident"

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_AeroSystems

[2] https://www.spiritaero.com/

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#199

Post by knowledge-clay »

jessriedel wrote: post #179

What's the back of the envelope on whether the 737 Max is more dangerous than driving? 1,300 aircraft have been built since the first started flying in 2017, with two deadly crashes. I don't know how many miles those have accumulated, but presumably it's of order 4k miles per day per aircraft, and maybe 3 years (1000 days) of flying to date per aircraft on average, giving a very rough estimate of a few billion miles?…

> What's the back of the envelope on whether the 737 Max is more dangerous than driving?

Driving is an absurdly dangerous mode of transportation, so it’s probably not the best comparison.

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#200

Post by hnarn »

jessriedel wrote: post #179

What's the back of the envelope on whether the 737 Max is more dangerous than driving? 1,300 aircraft have been built since the first started flying in 2017, with two deadly crashes. I don't know how many miles those have accumulated, but presumably it's of order 4k miles per day per aircraft, and maybe 3 years (1000 days) of flying to date per aircraft on average, giving a very rough estimate of a few billion miles?…

Who cares? The age-old comparison against cars is just to illustrate that flying, on average, is safer than driving, which most people intuitively don’t “feel” to be true (or at least they didn’t back in the days).

In this case we’re talking about a company that consistently makes mistakes and puts their passengers lives at risk due to negligence, whether “it’s still safer than driving” or not is completely irrelevant, because what they’re doing is not OK no matter how much safer it is than driving.

Post reply on HN