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Boeing 737 Max pilots complained to feds for months about suspected safety flaw

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Re: Boeing 737 Max pilots complained to feds for months about suspected safety flaw

#161
post #66

This is off topic. But I've been skeptical of the commercial aviation accident risk compared to cars. I'm not saying cars are safer. But using accident count per mileage seems a bit odd, especially when the most risky parts of flying are taking off and landing. A plane travelling 400 more miles doesn't incur much more risk. But a car travelling 400 more miles incur a much bigger risk (e.g. fatigue, car malfunctioning…

I'd say it's accidents per person/hour. And I've read somewhere that the figures used to be similar for cars and airplanes (though aircraft safety is constantly improving, cars probably less).

Cars have been improving safety significantly over time as well. However, the fatality rates seem to be significantly better for airlines.

https://www.bts.gov/content/fatality-rates-mode

For the sake of argument, assume cars travel an average of only 10 mph, and air carriers carry just 50 passengers (low estimates tilt the comparison in favor of cars). That would mean cars had 1.1 fatality for every 10 million hours in 2015. The corresponding figure has been between 0.0 and 0.6 for the last decade, and airlines come out way ahead even after amortizing the 5.8 from 2001 over the following years. And this is with very conservative assumptions.

On the other hand if you add in non-occupant deaths, the numbers might work out better for cars, even after using less conservative assumptions, once you amortize the non-occupant deaths from 9/11.

Re: Boeing 737 Max pilots complained to feds for months about suspected safety flaw

#163
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be ironic if the lack of 737-MAX category for reports is why these reports never made it to the people who needed to see them, which caused the issue to go unnoticed.

1555013 is pretty damning in telling how the airlines treated the MAX as the same type as the 737-800: "I had my first flight on the Max [to] ZZZ1. We found out we were scheduled to fly the aircraft on the way to the airport in the limo. We had a little time [to] review the essentials in the car. Otherwise we would have walked onto the plane cold.My post flight evaluation is that we lacked the knowledge to operate th…

As a passenger I would feel safer knowing that last information and instructions are not send a day before the flight but a pilot gets actual training?

Maybe that’s just me

Re: Boeing 737 Max pilots complained to feds for months about suspected safety flaw

#165

For a car analogy, imagine Tesla creates a new model that under certain conditions tends to over-steer left. To prevent any accidents because of that, they have added a system that turns the steering wheel clockwise. To disable the system it is not enough to try to prevent by force the steering wheel from turning, but you have to press a button that disables electric steering assistance. Notice they have never briefe…

I feel like every time someone insists on making a car analogy, it just piles on more evidence that car analogies never work. At least you don't have to get a new endorsement on your license for every model of car.

Analogy implies that people could die. They have died.

Re: Boeing 737 Max pilots complained to feds for months about suspected safety flaw

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1593699 is amazing.

To me, it's rather scary that even the aviation industry is now seemingly changing the UI and confusing users; HN (and a lot of other people) love talking about how much they hate a redesign of some site or software because it broke their workflow and hid/removed critical functionality, and now it's happening to pilots in life-or-death situations.

I use webflow regularly. Recently they updated the UI but didn't bother addressing the hundreds of other requests for obvious missing features. If anyone here has the capacity to make a dumb webflow - you'll make a lot of money. Include all the basic building like drop-down menus, tabs, carousels etc... And make some freely available premium themes (I can help with this) and you have yourself some loyal users myself included.

Nothing is more infuriating than a UI redesign to fix what's not broken.

Re: Boeing 737 Max pilots complained to feds for months about suspected safety flaw

#167

Some context: 1. There have been 865 737 related ASRS reports since 1/1/2018 2. I don't know how to quickly separate out 737-MAX reports from the non 737-MAX reports, as the ASRS database doesn't include 737-MAX as an airplane type! From scanning, I can say that there are more than five MAX related reports, though. [1] All 865 737 reports since 1/1/2018 CSV - http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=5466867979406…

Some other MAX reports: 1583028: B737 MAX-8 Captain reported the engine fuel burn was higher than expected. Maintenance confirms that several 737-MAXs are burning fuel faster than expected. 1593699: ATIS sheet fell through the slot forward of the center pedestal and the blank off plate. We had Maintenance come out to remove it. We discovered 20 other ATIS sheets mixed into the wiring. The aircraft is only six months…

Another one:

1603376: B737 Captain reported the flight recorder light was inoperative, which led to the discovery that the flight data recorder was not installed.

Can anyone anyone with more experience with this say whether this is normal for a new aircraft? I get that it's easy to forget parts of the assembly process, but how do you put an aircraft into service without verifying that all the parts (especially important parts like this one) are installed?

Re: Boeing 737 Max pilots complained to feds for months about suspected safety flaw

#170
post #150
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1555013 is pretty damning in telling how the airlines treated the MAX as the same type as the 737-800: "I had my first flight on the Max [to] ZZZ1. We found out we were scheduled to fly the aircraft on the way to the airport in the limo. We had a little time [to] review the essentials in the car. Otherwise we would have walked onto the plane cold.My post flight evaluation is that we lacked the knowledge to operate th…

Wow... I wonder how much of this could have been avoided if the 737-Max had just been given an entirely new model name like "738". I'd assume that when the 777's came out even pilots with experience on the 767 and other Boeing planes were still given ample training beforehand. The minor difference in the Max's model name disguises the seemingly large difference in their operation.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember reading somewhere that this is one of the reasons Airbus aircraft are popular with airlines and pilots: their fky-by-wire common cockpit allows a pilot certified on say the A320 to safely fly an A330 since all instruments, displays, controls and what-nots are exactly the same, only a quick "refresher" certification is required, so pilots get a feel for the aerodynamics and response of the bigger/smaller model they are certifying for..

Why would boeings shuffle around such critical human+machine interfaces?

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