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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

#201

Post by outworlder »

w0utert wrote: post #54
notfromhere wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, that was the big selling point since airlines hate retraining pilots. Totally backfired in that regard though.

It sounds really stupid for Boeing if you put it that way. I can imagine it looks good on the marketing material, 'no pilot retraining required!', but as far as I understand from all the analysis so far, it's actually not that hard to disable the new MCAS system and prevent a crash. As a pilot you only need to know it is there, and what happens if it somehow fails. I would be surprised if they had sold even a single…

> As a pilot you only need to know it is there, and what happens if it somehow fails.

You don't even have to know it is there. All you need to know is "hey, auto trim is acting very funky today and I'm having to fight it. Better override.". And hit two switches.

> I would be surprised if they had sold even a single plane less if they advertised it as 'very minimal pilot retraining necessary'.

They were likely afraid that it would require a new type certificate.

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

#202

Post by xcyyyy »

mrdodge wrote: post #152
cal5k wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

God forbid that FAANG engineers ever work on aerospace software...

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

#203

Post by Scoundreller »

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.

I think I see a new product from LLoyd’d of London Syndicates: Early big double failure on new airframe insurance.

A perfectly good airframe can have its reputation ruined with 2 incidents in a short time period.

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

#204

Post by user5994461 »

soVeryTired wrote: post #140

There are a number of aircraft leasing companies who I'd imagine are fairly heavily leveraged. I don't suppose anyone knows if it's Boeing or the purchasers who are left on the hook for this sort of thing? How about for aircraft that haven't yet been delivered, or options?

It's gonna be the hell of a legal battle between Boeing, the leasing companies, the flying companies, the governments, the purchasers, the owners, the loaners and the insurances.

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

#205

Post by fixermark »

Regarding the FAA's lack of willingness to ground the Max 8's:

Are we looking at a lack of leadership in the org? The current head is acting administrator as a result of a failure of the Trump administration to appoint a new head in the wake of the previous administrator's planned exit on Jan 6 of last year.

I don't know anything about Mr. Elwell one way or another, but not all deputies are there with an eye towards taking the top job.

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

#206

Post by flurdy »

gizmo385 wrote: post #28
paganel wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yikes. How would ya like to be a passenger on one of those planes: "We're returning to our departure airport because this airplane has been grounded."

I was on a Norwegian plane once going from Oslo to London, 3/4 into the journey, just before descending into Gatwick, we got told the plane is turning around due to fault on the plane. So deflating when you are nearly home. The pilot did a good job calming everyone down and explaining it was a minor fault, two duplicate sensors were showing different values, but still, enough to recall the plane.

So basically another 1.5h flight back to Oslo, a few hours wait, then on a replacement plane (thank god) with another flight back to London. A long day.

I can, however, understand it. As with this 737 Max-8s they did not want the plane grounded in an airport where they don't have a full service centre with parts etc. Had it only been a few years later we could have continued as they made Gatwick one of their major hubs with probably full stock of parts.

Though I do have a rule of preferring flying out from an airport with a "local" airline, as they are quite likely to have parts and chances of spare or frequent incoming planes to shuffle around to.

Related, Norwegian plane was stuck in Iran: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/2019/01/10/norw...

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

#207

Post by outworlder »

mschuster91 wrote: post #129
Theodores wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bottom of the engines are a mere 40cm of so above the ground when the plane is on the runway. Hence the tight fit and need to move the engines forward so they would fit. Then the auto-fix-the-stall software isn't something the pilots are told about. They didn't come up with a common sense solution, doing so would have costed many billions for a new airframe with longer legs for the landing gear. This is how I und…

> The bottom of the engines are a mere 40cm of so above the ground when the plane is on the runway Jeez. How are pilots supposed to land that thing in heavy wind scenarios? One wind blow at the wrong moment and it will make ground contact.

Well, if it is that bad, you should have made a decision to divert to the alternate long ago. Plus, it's not any wind that would cause this.

The older versions of this aircraft have the same ground clearance and have had for decades.

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

#208

Post by Scoundreller »

foobarbazetc wrote: post #99
aunty_helen wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both incidents have been in the first few minutes of flight and this is also a 'long term safety' thing. They're relatively safe to fly still. On the other hand, if your plane gets stuck in a foreign country the bill just for parking the thing could be massive. Better to get it back while you still can.

It can happen any time if it’s the MCAS issue again. Which we don’t know yet.

You have a lot more time and airspeed to work with when flying at altitude at full speed.

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

#209

Post by throw0101a »

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.

> "News" today is a "for profit" enterprise [...]

Hasn't news always been for-profit? If not: which news organizations (newspapers, magazines, wire services) have been run on a non-profit basis?

The only recent change (IMHO) has been higher time-to-market pressures (minutes versus hours/days).

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

#210

Post by ams6110 »

dahdum wrote: post #128
Reason077 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

That would mean Southwest strongly believes the lack of "AOA DISAGREE" caused the crashes, so they are safe to continue flying their fleet. If so, they should come out and say it. Right now, 737 Max Fleet is the deadliest plane per mile that is in the air [1], by a wide margin. Maybe it's an anomaly and the rate is much lower, but by the same reasoning, it could be worse. I'm not flying on one, and my opinion of Sout…

Southwest are extremely experienced with the 737 in general and have specifically trained on MCAS and its potential failures on the MAX.

Southwest have been flying since the 1960s, and have I think a total of (3) fatalities. No relation or association to them but the operator and their training matters. Southwest are by any measure one of the safest airlines in the world.

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