Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 365 posts

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

#101

Post by linuxftw »

ConceitedCode wrote: post #53
linuxftw wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is, if they've added so much automation that trained pilots cannot determination the proper course of action 100% of the time, the system is at fault. "You don't have to do anything, the plane will fly itself. Unless there's a catastrophic emergency. Then you better remember everything you haven't practiced from 18 months ago" seems like a failed implementation.

That's definitely a mischaracterization of what the airlines do. Anyone that has been in a cockpit of a plane knows that you fly by checklists. There's a checklist procedure for almost any scenario they will run into (of course not every). This exact issue was seen by other airlines and the pilots followed the checklist procedures to safely regain control of the plane as expected. In theory, these checklists are opti…

Chicken and egg problem. How does the pilot know that the automation is malfunctioning? The pilot has to go through their mental checklist and make the realization that intervention is necessary to prevent catastrophic results. All this while in critical take-off situation.

Apparently, the plane thought all was well, just needed to point the nose of the plane down a wee bit.

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

#102

Post by VBprogrammer »

The more I think about it the less likely I think the most recent crash will end up being attributed to the MCAS system.

Why? Because with what we know now I could have prevented the Lion Air crash. Any airline flying these planes would have been criminally negligent to have not issued guidance to all of it's crews pointing out the system, the potential danger and the workaround. Any pilots who've gone through their annual sim time will no doubt have had a trim-runaway situation thrown at them.

I obviously have no data beyond what has been released to the public but I'd be unsurprised to here this was completely unrelated.

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

#103

Post by dahdum »

American and Southwest Airlines are still flying the Max 8/9, and are refusing refunds (Southwest/American) and charging change fees (American) for customers concerned for their safety.

I don't understand this logic. They are essentially risking their entire company over the safety of this plane. If something happens now they'll be driven to bankruptcy at record speed.

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

#104

Post by foobarbazetc »

cm2187 wrote: post #56
ak217 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. This is pretty ridiculous considering all three of these planes seem to have been closer to their destination than the origin, making it safer to just finish the planned flight.

Do these groundings also apply to ferrying the plane?

Yes. You’d have to seek an exemption from every country you’re overflying. Probably not worth it.

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

#105

Post by erokar »

jka wrote: post #34
erokar wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you have a reference to confirm that this was a knee-jerk/optics reaction, out of interest? (definitely curious to see how airlines/authorities are reaching these decisions) The MCAS system and the way it was introduced sound a little like a patch, and slightly haphazard. While training & runbooks and procedures are important, take-off is a busy time, and the Max-8 is (afaik) intended to operate very-nearly-like a…

UK CAA reasoning:

https://www.euronews.com/2019/03/12/caa-suspends-boeing-737-...

http://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/33/SD2019001.pdf

Norwegian Air and Norwegian authorities had the same information (or indeed lack thereof), but did not act until now. Given the known similarities, and the lack of data that rules out a problem with the B737 MAX, the responsible thing is to err on the side of caution.

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

#106

Post by DC-3 »

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…

Regardless of the cause of the Ethiopian crash, I think this whole affair has put into stark relief how much of a bodge job the 737 MAX is. It's the culmination of decades of revamps and modifications to a fundamentally outdated design, and the result is an aircraft that simply isn't very good. It's the aviation equivalent of the great edifices of legacy code that so many HNers will be familiar with from their day jobs.

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

#107

Post by jfk13 »

kawfey wrote: post #74
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…

The linked article also mentions the plane was smoking, and fire was coming from the engines. This is new information to me that I think is being overlooked, because if MCAS was enabled erroneously, it's unlikely the plane would have caught fire. The Lion Air Max 8 wasn't reported to be smoking/on fire. If something else made the engine(s) catch fire and become inoperative, and the MCAS system enabled correctly due t…

Bear in mind that eyewitness reports of events like this are notoriously unreliable.[1,2]

Yes, it may turn out that this incident bears no relation to the Lion Air one, but I think it's much too early to make any such assumption.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/23/weekinreview/ideas-trends...

[2] https://commons.erau.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1040&co...

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

#108

Post by linuxftw »

DannyBee wrote: post #50
linuxftw wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The MCAS system in the new 737-MAX's only have 2 AoA sensors That's pretty damning if true.

This is what i was told (it was something like "they have 2 flight computers, and 1 AoA sensor hooked up to each"). The reddit thread linked from elsewhere says the same thing. The preliminary report on the Lion air crash ( http://knkt.dephub.go.id/knkt/ntsc_aviation/baru/pre/2018/20... ) says they replaced and tested the AoA sensor 2 days prior. They repeatedly refer to the AoA sensor using only singular nouns every…

Either way, this is insanity.

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

#109

Post by eric_b »

At the gym today, on all the TVs, the media talking heads were crucifying the FAA for being "unsafe" or playing fast and loose with passenger safety (for not grounding the planes).

I've always held the FAA in high regard, and think they do a good job. Are they really being negligent here? Or is the media just looking for something to spark outrage?

Can anyone with more specific knowledge of aircraft safety weigh in?

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

#110

Post by Reason077 »

dahdum wrote: post #103

American and Southwest Airlines are still flying the Max 8/9, and are refusing refunds (Southwest/American) and charging change fees (American) for customers concerned for their safety. I don't understand this logic. They are essentially risking their entire company over the safety of this plane. If something happens now they'll be driven to bankruptcy at record speed.

One thing to note is that both American and Southwest's 737 Max aircraft are configured differently to those flown by most other operators, with regards to the display of AOA indicators and the "AOA DISAGREE" warning light. These features are optional and the fact that they are not present on Lion Air's aircraft may have contributed to that crash.

https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/southwest-airlines...

Post reply on HN