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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

#561

Post by lostlogin »

roody15 wrote: post #419

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 cong…

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

By international standards, US ‘democracy’ doesn’t get rated that highly.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Inde....

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

#562

Post by ironmagma »

letitbeirie wrote: post #307
ironmagma wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it's really not. Age is the only thing that will do that.

It's hard to know how much time has to elapse before all the problems have been teased out though. Anyone who thought the DC-10 was in the clear after its cargo door problems were fixed was in for a nasty surprise a few years later when an engine fell off of one at O'Hare, but if the industry had written it off after that incident they'd have missed out on 35 years of an otherwise reliable plane.

The thing I see missing is that it’s totally normal and even justified to not want to fly on one of these planes at this point. Regardless of whether there is some period of time on the order of years after which all the bugs will be worked out, in the meantime it makes absolutely no sense to take a gamble flying on one of these, but many, especially those within aviation, insist otherwise.

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

#563

Post by peter422 »

vc8f6vVV wrote: post #541
dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When someone runs a red light at speed and t-bones you on your left you're dead no matter how defensively you drive. The illusion of control doesn't change your odds much.

It does change odds. So when considering defensive driving the rule "flying is safer" may not hold.

There is no amount of defensive driving you can do that would make driving safer than flying commercial.

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

#565

Post by WalterBright »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #438
WalterBright wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think it's worth relitigating MCAS here but your analysis here is very generous to Boeing and harsh to the pilots who where unwitting test pilots in Boeing's mistake.

In the LA crash, the crew restored normal trim 25 times, and never thought to turn off the trim. Turning off the trim is a "memory item", meaning the pilots should not need to consult a checklist for it. The switch is right there on the center console within easy reach.

The FAA sent around an Emergency Airworthiness Directive reiterating the two step process before the EA crash:

Boeing Emergency Airworthiness Directive

"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...

They also ignored the overspeed warning horn because they were apparently operating at full throttle. This was a large contributory factor to being unable to move the trim by hand.

So, yeah, it is harsh to the crews. I've also talked with MAX pilots who were quite harsh towards them. I'm amazed that one would not be harsh towards a pilot who did not bother to read/understand/remember and EMERGENCY AIRWORTHINESS DIRECTIVE about how not to crash.

Would you get on an airplane knowing it had such a pilot? Not me.

I assign 50% responsibility to the pilots and 50% to Boeing.

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

#566

Post by Dah00n »

qwertox wrote: post #513

Why doesn't Boeing split into a commercial airplane producer and a pure defense contractor company. The former will then have to struggle like a real company while the defense contractor will still be above the law. I'm sure I'm missing lots of logical steps which say that this is a bad idea, but I'd like to hear reasons on why.

I don't know anything about this topic, but it seems straightforward to me. Why would they split up a company that is protected into something that is not above the law?

It would hurt both the company and the US.

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

#567

Post by jes5199 »

classichasclass wrote: post #296
bsimpson wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who poisoned Netscape?

Collabra, per jwz. See "groupware bad" (not direct linking in case he still has the referer block up).

thanks, I couldn’t remember where I had heard it

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

#568

Post by Angostura »

shriek wrote: post #259
thfuran wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's not like driving is especially safe. It's just that traffic deaths are so routine that they're not generally widely reported, while pretty much every major issue with an airplane gets national attention. In the US, traffic deaths amount to the equivalent of a fully loaded 747 lost with all hands every couple days.

Because the chance of you dying when something goes wrong in an aircraft at high altitude is significantly higher (almost 100%) than you dying in a car crash. There's still a chance of you getting ambulance on road accidents but you're plummeting to your death on major aircraft malfunction.

How many people died in today’s incident? None.

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

#569

Post by WalterBright »

dotancohen wrote: post #496
WalterBright wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The premise that MCAS makes pilot type training unnecessary, then under some circumstances the pilot should override MCAS, is dangerously flawed.

Pilots are already trained to stop runaway trim failures, and received an Emergency Airworthiness Directive explaining trivial procedure to counter MCAS failure.

Of course, the MCAS software was badly designed, and the single path failure, are squarely Boeing's fault.

Pilots must always be ready to deal with runaway stabilizer trim, on any aircraft type. It's a "memory item".

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

#570

Post by sjm-lbm »

ls612 wrote: post #456
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for that? This lists a number of others: https://simpleflying.com/aircraft-types-zero-hull-losses/

Huh I never realized the 717 had no crashes either that’s even more impressive considering the era it was designed in tbh. The others on that list look like subtypes (ie the 747-8; there have been numerous 747 crashes).

To be fair, the 717 is a DC-9 subtype if we're being honest with ourselves. If the 717 counts as type without a hull loss, the 747-8 should count as well.
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