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I'm refusing to fly the MAX, period! The plane is flawed by design...
"- A component of the main electric trim system became inoperative. Our pilots ran the appropriate checklist, which included manually trimming the aircraft. They returned to MIA and landed uneventfully. The issue was not related to MCAS." Indeed. This was a part failing on an aircraft in flight. It landed without incident, and was likely never in any sort of danger. Losing electric trim is an annoyance but also trims…
I agree but it’s like the galaxy phone that had the battery issue. It just killed confidence with the consumer. The investigation (and what we learned form it) into Boeing also didn’t help with confidence levels. After a few new iterations nobody talks about the battery anymore. I’m not so sure how Boeing can turn this around relatively quickly.
It's like a bug that will not go away in some software. You think you've fixed it and all seems well and you get a good nights sleep with the gleam of satisfaction in your eyes.
But the next day your manager says "That bug is still there".
You incredulously do not believe that bug report and go to replicate it yourself.
And surely, under some edge weird case scenario, it really happened.
You put the fix in and uneasily sleep the next night. You actually dreamed about the issue. And wake the morning with no reports.
Over the next weeks and months, its all good. No new reports. and your mind has turned to some new projects. Surely that bug has been squashed.
And then one day...
I feel their pain. It's not the same, because lives and reputations are at stake. It's so much worse.But I feel their pain.
"- A component of the main electric trim system became inoperative. Our pilots ran the appropriate checklist, which included manually trimming the aircraft. They returned to MIA and landed uneventfully. The issue was not related to MCAS." Indeed. This was a part failing on an aircraft in flight. It landed without incident, and was likely never in any sort of danger. Losing electric trim is an annoyance but also trims…
It's a new aircraft not one 20years in service like your average 767 or A320!
Component failures follow a bathtub curve. Mid-life is the lowest failure rate.
"- A component of the main electric trim system became inoperative. Our pilots ran the appropriate checklist, which included manually trimming the aircraft. They returned to MIA and landed uneventfully. The issue was not related to MCAS." Indeed. This was a part failing on an aircraft in flight. It landed without incident, and was likely never in any sort of danger. Losing electric trim is an annoyance but also trims…
As I understand it the aircraft has a quite complex relationship with trim because of fundamental aerodynamic flaws (engines are too far forward). Am I right in saying other aircraft e.g. an A320 would handle this sort of failure without as much risk to the plane?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I understand it the aircraft has a quite complex relationship with trim because of fundamental aerodynamic flaws (engines are too far forward). Am I right in saying other aircraft e.g. an A320 would handle this sort of failure without as much risk to the plane?
MCAS was only installed to cover up aerodynamic changes (not flaws) that would have required greater recertification and retraining of pilots. To save that expense, they covered it up with MCAS so they could say "See, it's just another 737!" which caused all the issues we know so much about.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I understand it the aircraft has a quite complex relationship with trim because of fundamental aerodynamic flaws (engines are too far forward). Am I right in saying other aircraft e.g. an A320 would handle this sort of failure without as much risk to the plane?
MCAS was only installed to cover up aerodynamic changes (not flaws) that would have required greater recertification and retraining of pilots. To save that expense, they covered it up with MCAS so they could say "See, it's just another 737!" which caused all the issues we know so much about.
I'm refusing to fly the MAX, period! The plane is flawed by design...
I have taken a similar stance myself (not that I'm flying anywhere these days) but, out of curiosity: do you also refuse to be a passenger in automobiles? The 737MAX is quite a bit safer than those.
I expect more from HN users.
The 737 MAX has not been demonstrated to be safe, let alone safer than other modes of transportation.
All of the original issues (no oversight over ODA process, outsourced software, lack of redundant sensors, etc.) still remain like insects in amber.
Source: commercially-rated pilot who has followed this since Day One, and was the only person who said the grounding would take at least a year, primarily because of the involvement of software with hardware.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
MCAS was only installed to cover up aerodynamic changes (not flaws) that would have required greater recertification and retraining of pilots. To save that expense, they covered it up with MCAS so they could say "See, it's just another 737!" which caused all the issues we know so much about.
So you’re saying without MCAS the plane flys just as safely but differently which would have required retraining. That’s interesting, thanks!
I sympathize with the engineers there. It's like a bug that will not go away in some software. You think you've fixed it and all seems well and you get a good nights sleep with the gleam of satisfaction in your eyes. But the next day your manager says "That bug is still there". You incredulously do not believe that bug report and go to replicate it yourself. And surely, under some edge weird case scenario, it really…
From TFA:
>A component of the main electric trim system became inoperative. Our pilots ran the appropriate checklist, which included manually trimming the aircraft. They returned to MIA and landed uneventfully. The issue was not related to MCAS.
That statement is from the airline, not from Boeing, so I'm more inclined to trust it. Additionally, if the airline lies and it turns up on an airworthiness audit (air maintenance organizations are subject to regular audits) then the penalties are quite severe.
In any case, per the airline's statement it was an issue unrelated to MCAS. Aircraft break literally every day in a myriad of ways that are often invisible/imperceptible to people riding on that very aircraft. In this particular case it was some unspecified component of the electric trim system.
You can look up the Master Minimum Equipment List for the B737[0] and see for yourself just how granular the approved maintenance program gets for aircraft like this. Everything on the MMEL is essentially an item that can be broken and the aircraft can still take off legally. Note that this is a different (and more rigorous) standard than "can be broken and aircraft can take off/operate safely".
I don't know exactly what broke here but I suspect it is a part that has broken on 737s hundreds if not thousands of times in the past, with similar outcomes.
I merely dabble in software but to further your analogy: This situation is when you've been dreaming about that bug for weeks and you get the call from the boss thinking it has recurred but instead it turns out it was a similar-smelling failure caused by some intern's microservice not failing gracefully when confronted with a network outage that brought down the system anyways.