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Is my plane a 737 MAX?

ismyplanea737max.com

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Re: Is my plane a 737 MAX?

#261

Post by stouset »

flashback2199 wrote: post #247
stouset wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They allow you to, but on every single flight I’ve been on in ages, the pilot makes a note that they recommend keeping your seatbelt fastened whenever you’re seated. People have been injured due to sudden and unforeseen turbulence, and it’s just a good idea in general. That said this incident occurred during the initial climb-out where seat belt use is mandatory. So yes, if a passenger was seated there and if their b…

> Nobody is saying that this isn’t a serious fuckup TIL half the people commenting here are nobody :)

I think you’re misunderstanding the comments. This was a problem, it needs to be investigated and fixed, but the overreaction to this is bordering on insanity.

Commercial aviation in the U.S. is still incomprehensibly safe. It is not getting measurably less safe. The 737 MAX line are not death traps.

Re: Is my plane a 737 MAX?

#262

Post by JumpCrisscross »

dist-epoch wrote: post #243
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> doubt people are that afraid of 737 Max that they'll cancel a flight (and forfeit their ticket) over it Nobody rational will. But there are plenty of people with an understandable fear of flying who will create a customer-service kerfuffle over it. On the margin that might not do anything. But in aggregate it could affect how the airlines negotiate settlements from Boeing.

Everybody agrees that FAA is not what it used to be, these days the Boeing engineers are basically self-certifying their planes. So what's irrational in not believing that 737 Max is safe?

> what's irrational in not believing that 737 Max is safe?

The millions of miles they've flown without incident.

The key difference this conversation demands is a design versus fabrication or maintenance error. MCAS was a design error. It called into question the entire 737 Max fleet. This looks like a fabrication or maintenance mistake. That calls into question all of the planes similarly fabricated or maintained--those have been grounded. It doesn't affect a 737 Max of a different type, that has been flown for years and been through routine inspections, including of the very bolts suspected to be the cause of this accident.

Caveat: I strongly suspect more than the type 9 need to be looked at. But we do not have evidence that they are unsafe.

Re: Is my plane a 737 MAX?

#265

Post by mihaaly »

BizarreByte wrote: post #132

It's interesting to see how the DC-10 would have been treated in modern times with social media and mass (moreso) communication. I've flown on Maxes and will continue to do so, even with the problems they've faced a flight on one is still far safer than many I things I do every day.

... I can only hope that Turkish Airlines Flght 981 might not have happened then. Unsure though.

https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/a-legal-and-moral-questi...

Re: Is my plane a 737 MAX?

#266

Post by jessriedel »

gruez wrote: post #218
jessriedel wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong agree with this, although worth noting that a crude back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the 737 Max has a rate of fatal accidents per mile that is only safer than driving a car by a factor of ~10. (See below.) Since cars are one of the most dangerous forms of transportation, it's certainly not crazy that people would want to avoid an airplane model that's only 10x safer than a car. Bicycles are only…

> 1,300 aircraft have been built since the [737 Max] first started flying in 2017, with two deadly crashes How valid is this calculation for today? Presumably they fixed the issues with the two deadly crashes, so those arguably shouldn't be included in future forecasts.

If you think the problem with the 737 Max has been fixed, none of this is relevant. The crude estimate I gave is if you adopt the reasonable theory that the production/operation of the 737 Max is bad more generally, with the cause of the prior crashes being just one of the flaws discovered.

An illustrative example: suppose there was a plane model with 100 flaws that each cause a crash every 100B miles, and after each crash that particular flaw is fixed completely. The "correct" fatality rate would still be ~once per billion miles even after several crashes, and would only approach the standard airplane background rate asymptotically after dozens of crashes.

Re: Is my plane a 737 MAX?

#267

Post by StreetChief »

stouset wrote: post #96
xahrepap wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard a lot of people say this in these comment threads, and I think this glosses over the actual issue: safety is getting worse, not better or even staying the same. So it's MORE statistically significant than it was. The trend is heading the wrong way. Air safety going down is a trend you want to stop ASAP. Not wait around until it's just as dangerous as something else like driving your car.

> safety is getting worse, not better or even staying the same The only death in US major commercial aviation in ages was when a woman was partially sucked out of a window in 2018 when an engine failed and blew apart, breaking the window open. Before that, we have the Asiana flight which crashed after landing short at SFO, striking the undercarriage on the edge of the floating platform and cartwheeling. Everyone surv…

Why are you limiting events to the US? A max 9 crashing in the eastern hemisphere is still a max 9...

Re: Is my plane a 737 MAX?

#268

Post by ibejoeb »

daedalus_j wrote: post #208
ibejoeb wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a MAX, crashed in 2019, killing 157 people.

There's a big difference between an unsafe airframe and pilot error/poor-training though. For example the recent crash in Japan. Airbus isn't getting railed for that one. I know several 737 pilots on US flag carriers. Even at the time they were saying that neither crash would be possible for their fleet as they had done simulator training of exactly those sorts of scenarios. From wikipedia: While defending the pilots…

The was no pilot error or equipment malfunction in that incident. (I suppose you could look at the pilot of the dash 8 and wonder why he didn't hold short, but he could have been driving a golf cart and still made an runway incursion.) It didn't even happen in the air.

Boeing was rightly blamed for misleading everyone about the nature of the MAX8. It is a materially different airframe, and it required different systems to be created to be competently flyable with 737 type rating. Is Boeing misleading anyone here on the MAX9? Personally, I doubt it. It was probably a fluke non-conforming part, since that plug is a carryover from other 737s. The track record leaves a lot of us wondering if something's up, though.

Re: Is my plane a 737 MAX?

#269

Post by StreetChief »

stouset wrote: post #153
flashback2199 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason nobody was injured this time was nobody was sitting in the seats next to the door plug that blew off. The seat was destroyed.

I don’t think we can even remotely say that. From all photo evidence I’ve seen, some cushions were sucked off the seat. These cushions are designed to be removed. If a passenger was seated and wearing their seat belt, I have every faith that they would have been fine . Uncomfortable as hell but ultimately fine. I’ll bet money the NTSB report will say as much. And the point stands that the only reason this story is no…

A child in the middle row had his shirt sucked off his body. They were only at 16,000ft, maybe half the cruising altitude? I forget if it's 35,000 or 50,000 usually.

Re: Is my plane a 737 MAX?

#270

Post by JumpCrisscross »

_jal wrote: post #222
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people want to vote with their feet, and inflict damage to Boeing for abhorrent behavior People want to express outrage. That’s understandable. Most flight revenue is from frequent travellers, and they understand the business enough to know histrionics won’t change Boeing’s incumbency. A couple people who fly twice a year swapping airlines isn’t going to move the needle. And I doubt a material fraction of them are…

> their histrionics won’t change Boeing’s incumbency You seem to entirely miss the possibility that this has nothing to do with "punishing" anyone, and that people simply don't want to stress out about dying during their flight. You can call it irrational if you like, that feeling of superiority and a few bucks will get you a snack. The brain worm is there, I know I'll be thinking about it next time I book tickets.

> people simply don't want to stress out about dying during their flight

Sure, and as I point out elsewhere, that's reasonable [1]. It's irrational because it doesn't actually change anything, about your situation or systematically.

Not flying a 737 Max to feel better is reasonable. Doing it to be safer, or because it's going to punish Boeing or whatever, is not.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38929638

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