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

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

#411

Post by WalterBright »

jnsaff2 wrote: post #363
mrandish wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least Airbus seems to be competent in building safe aircraft. Prior to new models released in the last ~10yrs-ish, Boeing made the safest planes in the sky (as measured by passenger miles). Many of those planes are still flying and still doing great. For me the interesting question is what changed in Boeing's design, testing and/or manufacturing processes which is apparently resulting in worse safety performance…

787 program: - designed to outsource most manufacturing to the lowest bidder, many program management problems, overruns and delays - to bust unions new factory was created in South Carolina and this has very poor QC, there are rumors that a certain large middle eastern airline refuses to accept any planes assembled there 737 program: - they decided that they are not going to do a clean sheet 737NG and use the existi…

It's safer to have a new airplane design behave like the old one. There have been many crashes due a pilot being stressed and automatically doing something that would have been right on a previous airplane he was familiar with, but which was wrong for the current airplane he is flying.

All jet airliners are aerodynamically unstable and use active controls to "paper over" that. There is nothing inherently wrong with doing that.

The MCAS problem was not due to its purpose. The problem was the software for it had too much authority, and did not shut off when the pilot countermanded it. A worse problem was the pilots did not follow emergency procedures for runaway trim.

For reference, the emergency procedures are:

1. restore normal trim with the electric trim switches (which overrides MCAS)

2. turn off the trim via a switch on the console

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

#412

Post by pityJuke »

jnsaff2 wrote: post #363
mrandish wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least Airbus seems to be competent in building safe aircraft. Prior to new models released in the last ~10yrs-ish, Boeing made the safest planes in the sky (as measured by passenger miles). Many of those planes are still flying and still doing great. For me the interesting question is what changed in Boeing's design, testing and/or manufacturing processes which is apparently resulting in worse safety performance…

787 program: - designed to outsource most manufacturing to the lowest bidder, many program management problems, overruns and delays - to bust unions new factory was created in South Carolina and this has very poor QC, there are rumors that a certain large middle eastern airline refuses to accept any planes assembled there 737 program: - they decided that they are not going to do a clean sheet 737NG and use the existi…

> there are rumors that a certain large middle eastern airline

Thank god there are airlines with standards. I'm certainly glad my Middle Eastern long haul option for a particular cross-continent journey does not have any faulty Boeing models.

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

#413

Post by [deleted] »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #104
throw0101d wrote: post #29

Good book describing the cultural change from engineering-focus to business-focus of Boeing: * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55994102-flying-blind * https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/646497/flying-blind...

Has there been any push to break up Boeing?

[deleted]

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

#414

Post by poncho_romero »

chris_va wrote: post #286
xvector wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A death penalty for grossly negligent execs is also necessary. They'd get their shit together so fast if they faced meaningful consequences to their fuckups.

I am not going to defend execs/board members, but that seems ill advised. If you had a death penalty for execs, most competent people would refuse the job, and you'd end up in a worse situation.

Where are the competent people taking the job now?

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

#415

Post by Macha »

einpoklum wrote: post #253

I realize it might not be fair to ask right at this moment, but: How come Boeing hasn't produced a clean-sheet-design replacement for the 737, despite its extreme age? I mean, since its design, the 747, 757 and 767 have come and gone, variants and all, no production continuing. Why the endless adaptations of this old thing: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Boeing_7... ?

1. Volume. They've sold so many 737s they're scared to upset the market. 747s

2. Target market. There are airlines like Southwest and Ryanair who use a lot of 737s and have optimised their routines around very specific aircraft, so want as little change as possible. In comparison the bigger aircraft are used more by the legacy carriers and flag carriers, who are more used to operating a mixed fleet and more willing to try something new.

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

#416

Post by WalterBright »

camillomiller wrote: post #273
crisdux wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this isn't a well-functioning capitalist system. Competition is a core principle of capitalism. What occurred in the aerospace industry represents a government-sanctioned monopoly.

It’s always so funny to read this kind of answer when someone points out the evident flaws of capitalism! “Hey, wait a minute, this is not how capitalism is supposed to work, so you can’t say it’s capitalism”. Too bad that capitalism isn’t one monolithic thing and this is ABSOLUTELY how loosely regulated American capitalism works. It’s a form of capitalism where human life is an optimization problem that sits on the…

And Soviet built airliners are known for their safety?

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

#417

Post by notherhacker »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #251
intunderflow wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FAA will never ban it because politically its untenable in the US, the only thing that could kill the Max off would be if another big regulator such as EASA refused to let the Max into their airspace.

> FAA will never ban it because politically its untenable in the US What are you basing this on?

Boeing is basically an extension of .gov

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

#418

Post by falserum »

ShadowBanThis01 wrote: post #408
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a good idea? I always feel like the best time to fly a plane or airliner is after they've had some incident that leads them to being under a microscope. That is, all the MAX 9s have been grounded, and I'm guessing they'll all be thoroughly inspected for this issue before they fly again. So if your concern is that you'll hit a repeat of this same issue , that seems like the wrong concern.

There's also the engine-nacelles-melting issue.

Boeing has bad month. There was also loose screws (not max though)

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

#419

Post by roody15 »

Interesting timeline.

Following the two fatal crashes involving the MCAS system and the 737 Max … The FAA gave Boeing until Dec of 2022 to implement a fix. The fix was to reconfigure the 737 Max with 2 sensors (instead of one) and include an manual shutoff

Guess what happened? Boeing didn’t fix anything.. instead they cried to congress that the fix is too expensive and they cannot get it done.

So what happens is congress includes a provision in the omnibus spending bill to exempt Boeing from having to fix the MCAS system. So today in 2024 .. the 737 Max still only have one sensor although they did retrofit a manual shutoff

https://lynnwoodtimes.com/2022/12/23/boeing-max-221223/

Pretty interesting after millions spent on investigation , congressional hearings, developing engineering a better MCAS system … quietly Boeing just bypasses everything.

Honestly it’s super depressing and makes me question if we are even a functioning democracy (inverted corporate democracy perhaps?)

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

#420

Post by snowwrestler »

hamstercat wrote: post #351
Symbiote wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Europe that's what seems to be a standard announcement. "The captain has switched off the fasten seatbelt sign, but we recommend you keep your seatbelt fastened at all times when seated, in case of sudden turbulence."

It’s the same with canadian and asian airlines. Is it not the case in the US? I just assumed all airlines did it.

Last year I flew domestic U.S. on several airlines and the preflight safety briefing on all of them included a line that passengers should always keep their seat belt buckled for safety whenever seated (or something to that effect).
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