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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

#251

Post by rbanffy »

hlecuanda wrote: post #170
varenc wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 resp…

Even if Boeing didn't change anything in the UIs, different models have different features and pilots need to know these differences before the airline can say they can safely fly a given plane.

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

#252

Post by slezyr »

AnabeeKnox wrote: post #196
toweringgoat wrote: post #186

>> Thank you for being a patron of the Dallas Morning News. Unfortunately, our site is unavailable to European Union visitors Please learn some basic geography. Norway (and Switzerland) are not in the EU.

GDPR applies to Norway, even if it's not in EU

Well, they give same message for Ukraine.

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

#253

Post by Turbots »

mcv wrote: post #244
fsloth wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The appeal of the 737 MAX for airlines was that it was intentionally made so that you could take crews with a 737 qualification and put them in. I.e the airlines could save money on training. The main design constraint on that bird was that it should pass most of the old paperwork so that Boeing nor airlines would need to go through expensive training and quification. Yet, they modified the plane quite a bit - but th…

> The appeal of the 737 MAX for airlines was that it was intentionally made so that you could take crews with a 737 qualification and put them in. Really? Everything I heard so far sounds like the 737 MAX has a few new, unusual or counter intuitive features that require extra training, and that training material skimped on training for that. > "just old 737 nothing new here hop in" Am I correct in understanding that…

wouldnt be surprised if money was handed to the correct person at some point to ignore these facts... Save potentially millions of dollars for less training and more sales by paying off the right guy? Sounds good to us!

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

#254

Post by JshWright »

ethbro wrote: post #250
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flip that around: would you expect that pilots flying a new aeroplane without any conversion training would be more likely to cause an accident. It's a damning indictment of Boeing, and whichever authorities let them get away with it, that they pushed through an aircraft with a different pilot UI/UX knowing that pilots would then be under trained when using it: like someone said we train baristas better. I've driven…

At least in this particular instance... how is it Boeing and aviation authority's faults that pilots are given an hour's notification they'll be flying a new model of plane? That would seem to fall directly on the operator / carrier. Boeing takes responsibility if the training manuals were not comprehensive. Aviation authorities take responsibility if they under-mandated training. But ultimately neither know a given…

I assume an hours notice is quite typical for pilots to find out which specific airplane they will be flying.

If the carrier was told by Boeing and the FAA that no additional training was needed, why would they use any different procedure.

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

#255

Post by woofcat »

cjbprime wrote: post #181
woofcat wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A best it's reactionary as we simply don't have enough data. The FAA said it will review once the crash investigation has been completed. Sometimes clustering occurs, such as Maylasian airlines being shot down and lost in an ocean and never found. We didn't ground the whole airline.

It sounds like you're going for a "innocent until proven guilty" approach to the Max's airworthiness, if I'm understanding your comment correctly. That seems opposite to the culture of air safety, where planes are certified airworthy because the data prove them to be so. I don't think the data prove airworthiness of the Max anymore.

However no data that originally certified it as airworthy has changed. All we have is two incidents, one of which we have no information about. For all we know it was a hijacking, or a drunk pilot.

Absurd ideas, however in my mind without any evidence it is equally likely. They have the CVR and I'm sure very shortly we'll know for sure.

If it turns out to be MCAS then we can ground the fleet, the extra day of delay doesn't seem like the highest risk factor.

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

#256

Post by hyperbovine »

cjbprime wrote: post #158
varenc wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Boeing fought extremely hard to avoid having this happen, since then any pilot wanting to fly the Max would have to first achieve a type rating certificate for the new type of plane, and the FAA would have to test and certify it instead of Boeing "self-certifying" that it was a type of 737. The determination to shoehorn what aerodynamically kind of is a new type of plane into the 737's type rating seems likely to be…

Initial eyewitness reports are of fire, smoke and debris trailing the aircraft before it went down. I would caution against the use of the word "likely" here.

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

#257

Post by cobookman »

tziki wrote: post #213
privong wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So 20 MAX-related issues out of ~850. How is that significant? To build on what @ggm and @siwatanejo noted. The 737 debuted in 1967, so it is 52 years old now. The 737 MAX is 2 years old. In terms of number of issues per year since the aircraft was introduced the 737 is at ~15 incidents per year and the 737 MAX is at ~10/year. But as @ggm notes, it's important to look at when in the life cycle many of the non-MAX 7…

Note that 15 vs 10 incidents per year is also not accurate since there are far fewer 737 MAXs out there.

It's likely that a given plane gets more incidents at the start of its life. It might not be statistically significant

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

#258

Post by anentropic »

callalex wrote: post #184
known wrote: post #159

Car manufacturers RECALL defective cars; Why isn't Boeing doing that? And hope Boeing is NOT simulating https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_control

This comment reallly comes off as a procedurally generated combination. Can you rephrase your point another way? I don’t think it’s even clear what point you are trying to make.

that's interesting, their other comment in this thread is also a bit wtf

> In order to increase fuel efficiency on the 737 MAX, the engine fan diameter was increased;

> "Premature optimization is the root of all evil" -- Knuth

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

#259

Post by privong »

dajohnson89 wrote: post #195
privong wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So 20 MAX-related issues out of ~850. How is that significant? To build on what @ggm and @siwatanejo noted. The 737 debuted in 1967, so it is 52 years old now. The 737 MAX is 2 years old. In terms of number of issues per year since the aircraft was introduced the 737 is at ~15 incidents per year and the 737 MAX is at ~10/year. But as @ggm notes, it's important to look at when in the life cycle many of the non-MAX 7…

So then why did I get downvoted so hard?

I didn't downvote you, so I can't speak for those who did. But I replied because simply saying "20/850 is small" isn't sufficient to argue there isn't a difference between the two planes. Partly because the timescales for the two incident counts are different and so are the number of planes constructed. So normalizing the incident counts against those quantities is a first step at getting towards their significance. Though as @ggm and @ansy point out, the incident rates also vary as a function of time through the lifetime of that airplane model. So really that behavior needs to be examined as well.

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

#260

Post by jussij »

mprev wrote: post #210
rectang wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DC-10's infamous cargo door was a grievously poor design choice, violating well-understood safety principles for the sake of a little more cargo space. It's everything you fear about psychopath executives rolling the dice on safety because what do they care? The DC-10 deserved its ignominious reputation and the McDonnell-Douglas deserved every bit of the scorn they received and more.

It might turn out that the MAX situation is a similar roll of the dice.

That would also be my take on this situation.

The fact remains two brand new, state of the art aircraft have some how managed to fall out of the sky and the best the builder of the plane can offer is the plane is safest plane ever.

I don't see how that spin will not stick and I too suspect the public perception will grown to a point were this plane is also branded a lemon.

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