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

nytimes.com

41–50 of 365 posts

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

#41
post #17

Does anyone know if there is a material difference between the MAX-8 and the MAX-9? All the banning seems to be specifically for the MAX-8, but should they consider banning all MAX series aircraft? I realize the crashes themselves were MAX-8, but the difference between them seems not significant?

Given this only seems to be afflicting MAX8 craft in terms of material evidence, my guess is they won’t ground the whole series unless/until another MAX craft goes down.

AFAIK the avionics on both variants are the same. A pilot who is (properly!) trained and type-rated on one should be able to effortlessly use the other.

The only difference, again AFAIK, is the passenger and cargo capacity, length, and the range.

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

#42
post #27
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A potentially interesting tidbit from Norwegian's Wikipedia page: > Diversion to Shiraz, Iran December 2018 > A Norwegian Boeing 737 MAX suffered an unspecified technical failure over Iran in December 2018. The pilot made a precautionary landing at Shiraz Shahid Dastgheib International Airport without incident. Spare parts required to make the aircraft airworthy were not available in the world outside the United Stat…

That seems like a disincentive to buy American aircraft. If you're a reasonably sized international airline, it seems like a reasonable possibility that you'd have to (or want to) land in a territory that the US in unfavourable toward. Why take the risk?

In the Iran case, there are similar sanctions from the EU, so the Airbus A320 family are also out of the question.

And if you want something the size of the best selling variants of the A320 family and 737 MAX you have essentially no choice.

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

#43

Does anyone actually know or suspect what's wrong with these planes? Hardware issue? Software issue?

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".

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

#44
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

This is Turkish Airlines, not Norwegian... Edit: Two are Turkish, only one is Norwegian

[deleted]

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

#45
post #13
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The engines are larger than previous models and had to be moved forward, which causes it to (potentially) stall, so they implemented an anti-stalling mechanism called MCAS which relies on a particular sensor, which can malfunction potentially. They also didn't inform pilots that this system even existed which means they have trouble diagnosing the problem and will potentially only make it worse by trying other things…

Didn't Boeing also market the plane as an evolution of the 737 that doesn't require retraining? So pilots with experience on the 737 can automatically fly the 737 Max?

Yes, but there are always going to be minor changes during each revision. Before the MAX there were the -600, -700, -800, and -900 series 737s. Before that, the -300, -400, -500 series. Each set will invariably have a few things that pilots will have to be aware of. In this case, Boeing didn’t alert pilots to the new MCAS system, which is a giant failure on their part.

It’s not yet known if this latest crash is in any way related to the first (although I have several outstanding wagers against this being the case).

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

#46

Does anyone actually know or suspect what's wrong with these planes? Hardware issue? Software issue?

Let me also enter the impopular Null Theory:

Maybe there is nothing in particular wrong with these planes, and they were just hit with two random accidents.

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

#47
post #17

Does anyone know if there is a material difference between the MAX-8 and the MAX-9? All the banning seems to be specifically for the MAX-8, but should they consider banning all MAX series aircraft? I realize the crashes themselves were MAX-8, but the difference between them seems not significant?

I believe only the MAX-8s are in service. MAX-7s exist, but not sure if they're in use, or just on order. The 9 and 10 haven't been produced yet.

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

#48
post #20

What would financially happen to an airplane company with a fleet of dozens of Max 8s?

We'll see, but some companies have ordered hundreds of this model, e.g. Southwest Airlines ordered 245!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_fleet#Curre...

Orders & Deliveries of the 737 MAX (all models): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_737_MAX_orders_...

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

#49
post #20

What would financially happen to an airplane company with a fleet of dozens of Max 8s?

Only one airline has a fleet of more than two dozen 737 MAXs (of any variety) currently: Southwest (and that's only 5% of their fleet). There are essentially no airlines with large fleets of them yet, which makes this relatively easy for them to deal with.

That said, "relatively easy" is still a comparative: aircraft are frequently leased and having any out of service will be costing the airline a lot of money.

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

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traditionally the fly-by-wire systems have at least 3 AoA sensors, which each "vote" on the output value. That way, if you have one faulty sensor, it gets outvoted. The MCAS system in the new 737-MAX's only have 2 AoA sensors, which means a single faulty sensor can cause bad things to happen.

> The MCAS system in the new 737-MAX's only have 2 AoA sensors That's pretty damning if true.

This is what i was told (it was something like "they have 2 flight computers, and 1 AoA sensor hooked up to each").

The reddit thread linked from elsewhere says the same thing.

The preliminary report on the Lion air crash (http://knkt.dephub.go.id/knkt/ntsc_aviation/baru/pre/2018/20...) says they replaced and tested the AoA sensor 2 days prior.

They repeatedly refer to the AoA sensor using only singular nouns everywhere.

Given the report says it was giving faulty data and that was used, the only way this can occur is either:

1. Their are multiple sensors and the software is broken

2. There is a single sensor

Given all other data, i'm going with #2 :)

Nobody has been enterprising enough to publish the MAX8 troubleshooting/etc manuals online, if they did, you could easily verify this.

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