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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

#531

Post by coddingtonbear »

xfitm3 wrote: post #422
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…

Alaskan Airlines is notorious for taking maintenance shortcuts, this is likely not an inherent problem with the airframe but rather this operators SOP. Alaskan Airline flight 261 is one example. > The subsequent investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that inadequate maintenance led to excessive wear and eventual failure of a critical flight control system during flight. Source: ht…

Although I can sympathize with the story, this particular aircraft had been in their hands just a couple months. Its first commercial flight was just a couple weeks back. Maintenance isn't the issue here, clearly.

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

#533

Post by jnsaff2 »

WalterBright wrote: post #411
jnsaff2 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

> All jet airliners are aerodynamically unstable and use active controls to "paper over" that.

This is flatly wrong. The only aerodynamically unstable planes are experimental and some fighter jets.

No passenger plane can be certified if it can't be proven that it is aerodynamically stable.

EDIT: don't take my word, here is a short explanation by a 777 pilot: https://youtu.be/EuVlbVr_jrs?feature=shared&t=129

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

#534

Post by grotorea »

jgilias wrote: post #150
tiahura wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because some guy at the factory forgot to lock the door? Isn't that a little melodramatic?

“One doesn’t just” forget things like that. It’s aviation we’re talking about, not toy cars. This absolutely must not happen, and there should be processes in place to make sure it doesn’t. It doesn’t actually matter if it’s an engineering or a process problem, because both of those point to an organisational problem that needs to be rooted out at a company to which we basically entrust our lives.

There was the accident with Turkish Airlines Flight 981 caused by the cargo door not locking properly and it seems there was an attempt to blame the baggage handler who couldn't understand the English/Turkish language instructions, was not trained to do the check and it was someone's else job anyway.

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

#535

Post by steelframe »

shihab wrote: post #350
wkat4242 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched a documentary on Netflix recently that alleged that a lot of this change came from importing McDonnell Douglas management into Boeing after the acquisition. I wonder if the book concurs on that, I don't have time to read it right now. If this is the case I wonder if it could be reversible.

After seeng your comment, I just went ahead and watched the doc, and I frankly I find myself in a state of rage right now. From my limited understanding, I had this impression this was an engineering failure. And you know, when you have a complicated machine, sometimes shit happens. But it wasn't that at all. Boeing knew clearly what the dangers of MCAS system were, they went to great lengths to completely hide the p…

> I don't understand how a company-wide culture can get so toxic, how utterly devoid of humanity do you have to be that your first concern after that crash and knowing there might be more deaths coming, is keeping wall street happy.

The most garbage human being I know personally is a project manager at Boeing. Unfortunately the only way to get this person completely out of my life would be to move to a different neighborhood.

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

#536

Post by jnsaff2 »

mhalle wrote: post #453
jnsaff2 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I believe that the 737NG is not the problem aircraft. The new engines and the problematic MCAS are on the 737 MAX, a different model.

Sure I apologize, there is NG and there is "New NG" or MAX.

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

#537

Post by ahepp »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #492
game_the0ry wrote: post #482

The only remedy at this point is to hold executives financially and morally culpable. Anyone opposed to seeing the entire C-suite and board of directors having their bonuses clawed back and sent to jail? I'm not. Let the guillotine come out, I want to see heads roll.

Sounds like a great way to create an airplane company that no competent people will want to run. Might want to think through the game-theoretic consequences a bit further. For example, instead of ranting and howling about prisons and guillotines, you could point to some successful examples of other companies or orgs that have operated in a similar fashion. That might provide more productive grounds for further discus…

Yeah, if we did that we'd have broken sensor systems and doors falling off the plane!

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

#538

Post by danpalmer »

kazen44 wrote: post #405
AdrianB1 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And EASA, which is also politically controlled, will not do it because the US government pressure.

it works the same way the other way around no? airbus planes are still flying in the US even though they are currently eating boeing's lunch.

Are they eating Boeing's lunch? Do you mean in terms of quality/safety, or economically/financially?

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

#539

Post by hinkley »

dotancohen wrote: post #504
ls612 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the looks of it the composite fuselage of the A350 did its job splendidly, it held out against the fire long enough for everyone to evacuate, only flashing over after >20 minutes.

An emergency divert due to serious in-air fire could last far longer than 20 minutes.

And at speed it would act like a blast furnace.

That everyone survived the collision last week makes be feel better but still not great.

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

#540

Post by danpalmer »

g9yuayon wrote: post #402
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...

A friend of mine works in Boeing as a data scientist. His team has 10 people. Two of them can write code for analytics and models. The other 8 "manage projects", whatever that means. They spend their days creating processes, managing tickets, enforcing specific formats of tickets and stories and what not. Yet, none of the eight knew how to write product specs nor could be bothered with basic things like understanding…

> His team has 10 people. Two of them can write code for analytics and models. The other 8 "manage projects", whatever that means.

Not disregarding your point, I think we all agree Boeing sounds like bureaucracy hell, but could it be that the 8 who are "managing projects" are in fact managing contractors or outsourced employees who are writing code?

I worked with a large multi-national fashion company, and they had an app development team that consisted of a product manager, scrum master, and senior technical advisor. You could look at them and say that 2/3 being non-technical was a problem, or you could look past that team to the several developers in India who weren't exposed to the rest of the company or clients/collaborators, and who actually got the work done.

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