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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

#151

Post by cmurf »

eric_b wrote: post #109

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?

There is a long history in aviation of putting safety in front of profits. And what Boeing and the FAA have the appearance of right now is putting profits in front of safety. So you're seeing trust being burned, and other government regulators standing away from the fire to avoid their own citizen trust relationship from getting shredded in the process.

Is it fair? Maybe not all of it. But I think it's completely predictable.

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

#152

Post by mrdodge »

cal5k wrote: post #147
mrdodge wrote: post #134

How good are Boeing's software engineers? They don't seem to pay very well.

The 777 is the second-safest aircraft in the world, next to the Airbus A340. The 787 is on track to demonstrate a similar safety record (in terms of fatal incidents). So overall, they seem to be quite good.

Those were produced pre-FAANG, Boeing probably paid comparatively better then. Do the smartest software engineers flock to Boeing in 2019?

I think the relatively low pay and status of software engineers outside of the Bay Area is a huge risk to society. We are going to start seeing it show up in interesting places.

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

#153

Post by [deleted] »

linuxftw wrote: post #101
ConceitedCode wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#155

Post by geoelectric »

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…

"very nearly like" is also extremely dangerous when it comes to risk prevention.

People are pattern-matchers, and if 99% of flying the plane is the same except the part that will kill you if you don't do it the new way--well, people will do it the old way and die. That's infinitely more true in an emergency situation where you tend to fall back strictly on training and instinct.

If you want to jar people into different behavior, the interface needs to be different as well. Otherwise it looks like the same old contract.

I think many of us kind of know this from GUI/API/whatever design, but there's no reason jet planes would be any different.

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

#156

Post by pgreenwood »

oppositelock wrote: post #137
anoncoward111 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two crashes in 6 months and there's only 350 planes in existence is a pretty bad safety record that is probably on par with Tupolev. The US can tacitly blame "third world" pilots all they want, but with 300 people dead already, I think it's important for the FAA and Boeing to say exactly what is going on, especially since the planes are in use in the USA. There is a debate over if the plane's hardware, software, or p…

The FAA and Boeing need to investigate this, but you can't make such statistical inferences, since you simply don't have enough data points. There could be no more crashes for the next few years with those 350 planes. The FAA and NTSB are very good at what they do, one of the very few examples of government services that work well together with industry, give them some time.

The statistic looks appallingly bad to me viewed as a poisson process. If you had thousands of planes with zero crashes over decades would you consider that as zero data points?

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

#157

Post by Someone1234 »

sfilargi wrote: post #146

I urge people to read the discussion by pilots regarding the 737 MAX. https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/safety/120514-ethiopian-7... It all comes down to this: "There are far too many aerodynamic bandaids that are permitted to pass the current standards. Not just this particular airplane, but a whole bunch of airframes. If the basic aerodynamics won't pass without the pushers, pullers and now AOA induced changes to…

Pilots have been pushing back hard on the narrative that this was simply pilot error.

The crux is that safety agencies never mandated training on these new systems, and new procedures weren't created with them in mind. Worse still procedures from older models of the same aircraft (such as automatic overriding of auto-trim) were removed without re-training on that either.

Lion Air had to repair the AOA sensor multiple times (replace, then flush), but a single sensor failure should not bring down an aircraft; and if the AOA sensor is that safety critical then why did Boeing put two of them instead of three (i.e. for cross-checking readings)? Either it wasn't safety critical and Lion Air's actions are reasonable, or it was and Boeing cut costs on safety.

So the justifications blaming either the pilots (who didn't get training, because safety agencies told them it wasn't needed) or maintenance (who were repairing a non-critical sensor that turns out to be safety critical) are weak.

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

#158

Post by sandworm101 »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #43
sandworm101 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All three. It also has to do with pilot training. The general idea is that there is an auto-trim system meant to stop the plane from stalling. But when it gets bad data from a faulty sensor it tries to crash the aircraft (short version). Pilots, all pilots, are trained to recognize this and override the system, but this aircraft requires them to do some things slightly differently. Specifically, they have to shut dow…

This is a very succint explanation of what's happening here (in the Lion Air case, anyway). Not sure why you're being downvoted - perhaps the claim that this is a "complex problem".

HN is slowly walking towards facebook culture. People up/down vote things they like or dislike, with the goal of disappearing opinions with which they even mildly disagree. Valid points and thoughtful discussion are increasingly unwelcome.

Lol. Thanks for the downvote all below. Thanks for proving my point about the change of behavior.

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

#159

Post by [deleted] »

Someone1234 wrote: post #157
sfilargi wrote: post #146

I urge people to read the discussion by pilots regarding the 737 MAX. https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/safety/120514-ethiopian-7... It all comes down to this: "There are far too many aerodynamic bandaids that are permitted to pass the current standards. Not just this particular airplane, but a whole bunch of airframes. If the basic aerodynamics won't pass without the pushers, pullers and now AOA induced changes to…

Pilots have been pushing back hard on the narrative that this was simply pilot error. The crux is that safety agencies never mandated training on these new systems, and new procedures weren't created with them in mind. Worse still procedures from older models of the same aircraft (such as automatic overriding of auto-trim) were removed without re-training on that either. Lion Air had to repair the AOA sensor multiple…

[deleted]

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

#160

Post by Tsubasachan »

ratsmack wrote: post #120
eric_b wrote: post #109

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?

"News" today is a "for profit" enterprise and they will take advantage crises and public outrage to bolster their bottom lines when the opportunity arises... it's nothing personal, it's just the nature of the beast.

Its easier for everyone to just cover their ass and err on the side of caution. If another accident happens politicians would be held accountable. For the US its harder because they have a stake in Boeing and they don't want to damage them.

Honestly why not ground a few hundred planes just to be safe? It doesn't bother the Netherlands or Singapore. There are other aircraft, nobody is running out.

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