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E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

nytimes.com

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Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#11

Post by erokar »

alkonaut wrote: post #2

So this isn't just banning from airports , this is banning from their airspace ? That's then more or less a total grounding of them in Europe. As an example, Norwegian (who has 15 of them) said they weren't grounding them as late as this morning, but now they'll have no choice. They use them mainly for their medium flights between scandinavia and southern europe (Nice, Budapest, Tenerife etc). No way they can do that…

Indeed. Norwegian is doing this because the optics now force them to do so, not self-assessment of the risk. They, and the Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority, failed in that regard.

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#12

Post by adwww »

Areading314 wrote: post #3

Does anyone actually know or suspect what's wrong with these planes? Hardware issue? Software issue?

Also training issue - according to a commentator on Radio 4 this morning, the conversion training for this aircraft is a 90 minute course run on an iPad.

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#13

Post by foepys »

anaphor wrote: post #5
Areading314 wrote: post #3

Does anyone actually know or suspect what's wrong with these planes? Hardware issue? Software issue?

The engines are larger than previous models and had to be moved forward, which causes it to (potentially) stall, so they implemented an anti-stalling mechanism called MCAS which relies on a particular sensor, which can malfunction potentially. They also didn't inform pilots that this system even existed which means they have trouble diagnosing the problem and will potentially only make it worse by trying other things…

Didn't Boeing also market the plane as an evolution of the 737 that doesn't require retraining? So pilots with experience on the 737 can automatically fly the 737 Max?

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#14

Post by paganel »

alkonaut wrote: post #2

So this isn't just banning from airports , this is banning from their airspace ? That's then more or less a total grounding of them in Europe. As an example, Norwegian (who has 15 of them) said they weren't grounding them as late as this morning, but now they'll have no choice. They use them mainly for their medium flights between scandinavia and southern europe (Nice, Budapest, Tenerife etc). No way they can do that…

It looks like Norwegian is already asking its 737 Max flights to return to their departing airports, at least according to this recent screenshot I found on reddit [1]

[1] https://i.redd.it/6gtecemacpl21.png

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#15

Post by ElBarto »

alkonaut wrote: post #2

So this isn't just banning from airports , this is banning from their airspace ? That's then more or less a total grounding of them in Europe. As an example, Norwegian (who has 15 of them) said they weren't grounding them as late as this morning, but now they'll have no choice. They use them mainly for their medium flights between scandinavia and southern europe (Nice, Budapest, Tenerife etc). No way they can do that…

A potentially interesting tidbit from Norwegian's Wikipedia page:

> Diversion to Shiraz, Iran December 2018

> A Norwegian Boeing 737 MAX suffered an unspecified technical failure over Iran in December 2018. The pilot made a precautionary landing at Shiraz Shahid Dastgheib International Airport without incident. Spare parts required to make the aircraft airworthy were not available in the world outside the United States, which has prohibited exports of technology to Iran. Two months later, the almost-brand-new aircraft remained stranded in Shiraz and subject to seizure by the Iranian government.[86]

> On 22 February 2019 the plane was ferrried from Shiraz to Stockholm as DY8921

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#16

Post by DannyBee »

swarnie_ wrote: post #7
Areading314 wrote: post #3

Does anyone actually know or suspect what's wrong with these planes? Hardware issue? Software issue?

The speculation I've seen is around a change to the autopilot system which pilots ave been struggling with: > Following the Lion Air crash, US aviation authorities issued an emergency directive to carriers to update flight manuals with information on what to do when the aircraft’s anti-stall system is triggered by erroneous data from what’s called an “angle-of-attack” sensor. The flight system can react to that data…

Traditionally the fly-by-wire systems have at least 3 AoA sensors, which each "vote" on the output value.

That way, if you have one faulty sensor, it gets outvoted.

The MCAS system in the new 737-MAX's only have 2 AoA sensors, which means a single faulty sensor can cause bad things to happen.

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#17

Post by sheri »

Does anyone know if there is a material difference between the MAX-8 and the MAX-9? All the banning seems to be specifically for the MAX-8, but should they consider banning all MAX series aircraft? I realize the crashes themselves were MAX-8, but the difference between them seems not significant?

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#18

Post by alistairSH »

foepys wrote: post #13
anaphor wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The engines are larger than previous models and had to be moved forward, which causes it to (potentially) stall, so they implemented an anti-stalling mechanism called MCAS which relies on a particular sensor, which can malfunction potentially. They also didn't inform pilots that this system even existed which means they have trouble diagnosing the problem and will potentially only make it worse by trying other things…

Didn't Boeing also market the plane as an evolution of the 737 that doesn't require retraining? So pilots with experience on the 737 can automatically fly the 737 Max?

Correct.

Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

#19

Post by notfromhere »

foepys wrote: post #13
anaphor wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The engines are larger than previous models and had to be moved forward, which causes it to (potentially) stall, so they implemented an anti-stalling mechanism called MCAS which relies on a particular sensor, which can malfunction potentially. They also didn't inform pilots that this system even existed which means they have trouble diagnosing the problem and will potentially only make it worse by trying other things…

Didn't Boeing also market the plane as an evolution of the 737 that doesn't require retraining? So pilots with experience on the 737 can automatically fly the 737 Max?

Yep, that was the big selling point since airlines hate retraining pilots.

Totally backfired in that regard though.

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