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Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption for Boeing 737 MAX 7

reuters.com

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Re: Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption for Boeing 737 MAX 7

#31

Post by KennyBlanken »

jfim wrote: post #19
fbdab103 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A $20 toaster has overheat detection technology. Presumably other planes are doing this already. I am not understanding how there is a novel engineering problem to solve that could not be incorporated into the release.

The worst thing that can happen with a toaster is that it catches on fire, while a plane can crash and kill hundreds of people. While that doesn't make Boeing any less responsible for engineering proper solutions instead of a compliance hack, there's a difference between the solution for a throwaway consumer device and one for a multi-million dollar airplane that has to operate in conditions with harsh vibration and…

Yeah, because an electrical appliance catching on fire is never deadly?

What a bunch of hysterical hand-wringing.

They just needed to a program a timer on the heater circuit and/or add sensors; the engines are already incredibly instrumented so this wouldn't be hard to do.

"Cannot fail in ways that render the plane inoperable" is precisely why there should not be a system that if forgotten about by the pilots past ~10 minutes causes the destruction of the engine nacelle and thus both probable destruction of the engines and penetration of the body of the aircraft by parts of said engine when it ingests parts of the nacelle.

You don't understand how serious that is. The nacelle of a jet engine is designed to contain a blade-off event where one or more blades - each of which has a massive amount of kinetic energy - completely break off from the turbine rotor at takeoff power levels.

The level of corporate apologism in your comment is breathtaking.

Re: Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption for Boeing 737 MAX 7

#32

Post by wokwokwok »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #21
hayst4ck wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the way you read it entirely. They did not acknowledge and admit wrong doing. They disavowed responsibility and said "we are complying with public pressure against our will". In other words, they don't understand what they did wrong, but people more powerful than them are forcing them to change. "We are being coerced into expending unnecessary resources." They think it is an engineering problem that can…

> They did not acknowledge and admit wrong doing. Of course not. Wouldn't it just open them up to legal liability and additional lawsuits if they admitted wrong doing? It seems like saying "we have updated our plan and will now focus on an engineered solution" is exactly the kind of language I would expect from a large corporation that has made such visible failures as to be very vulnerable to lawsuits. I am not even…

...mm... but they didnt say "we have updated our plan and will now focus on an engineered solution".

That's not even a paraphrase of what they said.

They said:

> we are confident that the proposed time-limited exemption for that system follows established FAA processes

When we know that:

1) The established FAA processes resulted in a variation of this aircraft that crashed.

2) The established FAA processes resulted in a variation of this aircraft that had part of the hull pop out mid-flight.

3) The established FAA processes resulted in Boeing doing their own certification of their own aircraft.

We know also know:

4) They asked for a safety exemption for the new variation of this aircraft under the 'The established FAA processes'.

slow clap...

If we're talking about investor and consumer confidence and bland corporate HR talk, they could have phrased this in any number of other ways (like saying literally what you said) that didn't draw attention to the fact that they continue to de-prioritize safety.

What they actually said does the opposite of the intended effect of 'we're focusing on safety' and instead says (to me at least) 'we continue to think we can ignore the FAA safety rules for our aircraft until a senate committee makes a fuss about it'.

Re: Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption for Boeing 737 MAX 7

#33

Post by avalys »

inamberclad wrote: post #18
Narkov wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily disagreeing with your assessment but I guess all these things are about statistical probabilities. If the chance of this happening is small enough and the possible "worst case" outcome is tolerable, it gets a tick.

And the statistical requirements for failure causing injury or fatality to the passengers are on the order of 1 in 10 million to 1 in 1 billion. Forgetting to turn off a small switch within five minutes of exiting icing conditions will almost certainly happen more often than that.

The question is how often this failure will occur when the pilots fail to turn off the switch.

Given that the 737 Max 8 and 9 are currrently flying with this defect and no damage has been reported, let alone failures, the actual likelihood of catastrophic failure is clearly low.

Re: Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption for Boeing 737 MAX 7

#34

Post by avalys »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #31
jfim wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst thing that can happen with a toaster is that it catches on fire, while a plane can crash and kill hundreds of people. While that doesn't make Boeing any less responsible for engineering proper solutions instead of a compliance hack, there's a difference between the solution for a throwaway consumer device and one for a multi-million dollar airplane that has to operate in conditions with harsh vibration and…

Yeah, because an electrical appliance catching on fire is never deadly? What a bunch of hysterical hand-wringing. They just needed to a program a timer on the heater circuit and/or add sensors; the engines are already incredibly instrumented so this wouldn't be hard to do. "Cannot fail in ways that render the plane inoperable" is precisely why there should not be a system that if forgotten about by the pilots past ~1…

There’s no indication that the catastrophic failure you’re speculating about here is actually likely to occur - and plenty of evidence that it’s not.

Re: Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption for Boeing 737 MAX 7

#35

Post by Animats »

The trouble is, Boeing hasn't built a new single-aisle transport since the 757, which first flew in 1982. There was supposed to be a 797 by now, but it keeps slipping into the far future. So they're still cranking out 737 variants, a 1960s design.

This is pathetic. Boeing could end up losing out to the COMAC C919, which, although years late, is finally flying a few routes.

Re: Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption for Boeing 737 MAX 7

#36

Post by [deleted] »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #21
hayst4ck wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the way you read it entirely. They did not acknowledge and admit wrong doing. They disavowed responsibility and said "we are complying with public pressure against our will". In other words, they don't understand what they did wrong, but people more powerful than them are forcing them to change. "We are being coerced into expending unnecessary resources." They think it is an engineering problem that can…

> They did not acknowledge and admit wrong doing. Of course not. Wouldn't it just open them up to legal liability and additional lawsuits if they admitted wrong doing? It seems like saying "we have updated our plan and will now focus on an engineered solution" is exactly the kind of language I would expect from a large corporation that has made such visible failures as to be very vulnerable to lawsuits. I am not even…

[deleted]

Re: Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption for Boeing 737 MAX 7

#37

Post by bestouff »

Animats wrote: post #35

The trouble is, Boeing hasn't built a new single-aisle transport since the 757, which first flew in 1982. There was supposed to be a 797 by now, but it keeps slipping into the far future. So they're still cranking out 737 variants, a 1960s design. This is pathetic. Boeing could end up losing out to the COMAC C919, which, although years late, is finally flying a few routes.

Didn't Boing already lose to Airbus ?

Re: Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption for Boeing 737 MAX 7

#38

Post by NegativeLatency »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #16
spookie wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Early access for planes. The next step in commercial aviation. Feel the thrill of life threatening bugs!

Boeing: "For the real adrenaline junkies"

If it’s Boeing I’m not going.

Re: Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption for Boeing 737 MAX 7

#40

Post by dragoncrab »

jfim wrote: post #19
fbdab103 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A $20 toaster has overheat detection technology. Presumably other planes are doing this already. I am not understanding how there is a novel engineering problem to solve that could not be incorporated into the release.

The worst thing that can happen with a toaster is that it catches on fire, while a plane can crash and kill hundreds of people. While that doesn't make Boeing any less responsible for engineering proper solutions instead of a compliance hack, there's a difference between the solution for a throwaway consumer device and one for a multi-million dollar airplane that has to operate in conditions with harsh vibration and…

And this means a 10x increase in the thermistor price compared to the toaster. It cold be even as high as $2 for a piece!
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