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FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

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Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#711

Post by piloto_ciego »

jcadam wrote: post #282
rootusrootus wrote: post #97

One troubling aspect of this is that it appears Alaska had reason to believe something was wrong with this plane but basically ignored it. They were getting pressurization warnings on prior flights, but the only action they took was restricting the plane from flying ETOPS routes. They're the dominant carrier in my area, so these sorts of screwups make me nervous. I can't easily avoid using them without a fair amount…

I live in Alaska and Alaska Airlines (which isn't Alaskan - it's HQ is in Seattle) has a rather... notorious history with safety/maintenance issues. I fly Delta whenever possible when travelling to the lower 48.

There’s more than one of us up here that goes to hacker news!? Hello fellow northerner!

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#712

Post by yongjik »

nimbius wrote: post #645
throwaway67743 wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Executives are personally liable for loss of life, regardless of the law it is morally contemptible to hide behind a corporation. Until people go to jail for manslaughter this will not change.

worth noting for no particular reason China had a baby formula scandal in 2008 that led to the death of four infants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal The Intermediate People's Court in Shijiazhuang sentenced a farmer, Zhang Yujun, and a senior manager, Geng Jinping, to death in 2009. five more people received life sentences and the main company behind it went bankrupt. this was for four infant…

I'm sure sometimes China's legal system works, but we should also consider frequent cases when it does not, e.g.,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenzhou_train_collision (2011)

40 people died in train collision, and then:

> On orders from the authorities, the rescue effort concluded less than a day following the accident, and the damaged train cars were seen being broken apart by backhoes and buried nearby. The Railway Ministry justified the burial by claiming that the trains contained valuable "national level" technology that could be stolen. However, hours after the rescuers had been told to stop searching for survivors, a 2-year-old girl was found alive in the wreckage.

So, basically, all we know is that Chinese political system is set up to protect powerful people (such as politicians who are overseeing national rail projects). On the other hand, a local milk dealer is expendable, just as he would be in America.

The main difference is whether these powerful people are called "bourgeois" or something else.

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#714

Post by piloto_ciego »

cptcobalt wrote: post #436

Back in 2019, I made a lil microsite covering the 737 MAX groundings. Didn't think I'd have to update it again. https://www.isthe737maxstillgrounded.com/ It's chilling that both Alaska knew of pressurization issues in prior flights in this aircraft, and Boeing was already trying to get the FAA to look past known safety issues in the 737 MAX 7 certification. "Safety is our top priority"? Ha, absolutely not.

> It's chilling that both Alaska knew of pressurization issues in prior flights in this aircraft,

Actually this isn’t a big deal, they’d taken it off of ETOPS trips and were following the mx requirements.

Intermittent pressurization aren’t that rare. In a brand new airplane I would expect all sorts of weird faults.

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#715

Post by PaulHoule »

tayo42 wrote: post #706
PaulHoule wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is quieter for folks on the ground too. And it doesn’t get grounded when the temperature is too high nearly as much as the 737. If people realized you could get widebody comfort in a regional jet they’d quit flying on legacy airlines.

Is it more expensive? Where do you search for these flights?

Delta has some A220s, I got put on an E-Jet on an American from Philadelphia to Montreal.

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#716

Post by scarab92 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #544
tavavex wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is pretty concerning. The way how Boeing can get its way simply by threatening to can the entire MAX program (which they'd never actually do) shows that there's a very deep level of integration between the US government and its biggest companies, especially one like Boeing that's often seen as kind of a minor point of national pride. Not only that, but the article mentions that the 737 MAXs got an exemption on p…

Boeing doesn't have a real business plan until they have a plan to replace the 737. Boeing and Airbus have been going crazy over the past 30 years developing widebody airliners, some of which were solidly rejected by the market, but domestic flyers (most of them) are stuck with a 1967 design. It's a disaster when it comes to managing the social and environmental impacts of air travel. A ride in this plane https://en.…

The A220 / CSeries is another great example of the corruption that exists between Boeing and the US government. Locking out new competitors via dubious anti-dumping petitions.

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#717

Post by habinero »

kegoakwpfk wrote: post #634
CamperBob2 wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it your assertion that Boeing is currently operated by competent people? Is it your assertion that they can't get any worse? Because this sounds like a good way to get worse. You know, they could be killing more than 0.5 people per ten billion passenger miles, right...?

You wouldn’t build a website with a single point of failure, yet the argument here is it’s okay to engineer things badly because of the success rate of requests is high. For air travel impacting human lives. I think it speaks to current generation of leaders avoiding thought, consideration, foresight, insight, and just using any statistic that can justify a decision. It’s a decline and one that also explains the exci…

This statement makes no sense. It has never been safer to fly, precisely because aviation is so dedicated to root cause analysis.

A whole door exploded out of a plane and

1. The plane did not suffer structural damage and could land safely 2. Nobody died because seat belts are mandatory 3. The crew is drilled over and over on what to do 4. The plane has extensive monitoring and logging so RCA is easier 5. The US funds a whole org dedicated to investigating this sort of thing and the results are public

and that's just the ones I can think of.

This is shocking precisely because aviation is so good at this. There are multiple layers in the swiss cheese model and this somehow made it past them.

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#718

Post by habinero »

mulmen wrote: post #530
CamperBob2 wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a great way to create an airplane company that no competent people will want to run. Might want to think through the game-theoretic consequences a bit further. For example, instead of ranting and howling about prisons and guillotines, you could point to some successful examples of other companies or orgs that have operated in a similar fashion. That might provide more productive grounds for further discus…

> Sounds like a great way to create an airplane company that no competent people will want to run. Is it your assertion that Boeing is currently operated by competent people? They're getting crushed by SpaceX at rockets. How much more of this incompetence will it take before someone does the same to them with airliners? Relying on being "too big to fail" isn't a viable long term strategy. It only lowers the barrier t…

The aviation side of Boeing doesn't do rockets. That's a completely separate org which is part of the ULA consortium.

SpaceX has (ok, had) good PR, but they don't do anything others couldn't do. And they'd be bankrupt without NASA.

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#719

Post by tcmart14 »

jethro_tell wrote: post #329
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Weird how you can be a "key manufacturer" yet "go bankrupt." We massively drew down defence spending at the end of the Cold War.

Also, all the money in the world doesn't mean you spend it on things that make money later. If you spend your manufacturing budget on strippers, you won't have anything to sell later.

woah woah now, someone has to put those young ladies through college and the manufacturing budget has to be spent.

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#720

Post by habinero »

Exuma wrote: post #551
MadnessASAP wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't link you an independent source just my word as an aircraft mechanic. I have never seen a 100% serviceable aircraft, as far as I'm concerned a aircraft where everything works to spec and the spec works to needs is a myth that we strive for but can never achieve.

Got any undercover advice for Airlines or plane models to avoid? When you book at ticket is there anything you just won't fly knowing what you know?

Commercial aviation is ridiculously safe and well-regulated. Worry about the ride to the airport instead.

You're far more likely to die in a private plane or in an executive jet. GA aircraft crash constantly.

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