E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets
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Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets
#2So this isn't just banning from airports, this is banning from their airspace? That's then more or less a total grounding of them in Europe.
As an example, Norwegian (who has 15 of them) said they weren't grounding them as late as this morning, but now they'll have no choice. They use them mainly for their medium flights between scandinavia and southern europe (Nice, Budapest, Tenerife etc). No way they can do that without flying over Germany and France. It wouldn't be very good optics if they swapped their MAX'es to domestic use to free up regular 737's for flying over the continent either.
Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets
#3Does anyone actually know or suspect what's wrong with these planes? Hardware issue? Software issue?
Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets
#4Does 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 down the system rather than manually work against it. Difficulties arise where there is a disconnect between what the pilots think is happening, what the systems think and tell them is happening, and what the aircraft is actually experiencing. So this is an interaction between an automated system (software) a potentially faulty sensor (hardware) and pilot training. It is a complex problem that will take a while to fully understand and solve.
Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets
#5Does anyone actually know or suspect what's wrong with these planes? Hardware issue? Software issue?
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.
Of course that's all speculation since we don't know much about this particular crash, but that's the main issue with them.
Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets
#6Does anyone actually know or suspect what's wrong with these planes? Hardware issue? Software issue?
Boeing is issuing a software update in April.
https://boeing.mediaroom.com/news-releases-statements?item=1...
Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets
#7Does anyone actually know or suspect what's wrong with these planes? Hardware issue? Software issue?
The speculation I've seen is around a change to the autopilot system which pilots ave been struggling with:
> Following the Lion Air crash, US aviation authorities issued an emergency directive to carriers to update flight manuals with information on what to do when the aircraft’s anti-stall system is triggered by erroneous data from what’s called an “angle-of-attack” sensor. The flight system can react to that data by pointing the plane’s nose sharply downward. Boeing, meanwhile, directed airlines to a checklist in manuals for stabilizing the aircraft. Pilots said the crash and the directives that followed were the first time that they were made aware of these changes to the flight system.
Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets
#8Does anyone actually know or suspect what's wrong with these planes? Hardware issue? Software issue?
The more I read about flight systems and protocols (and I am absolutely a layman when it comes to this), the more it seems like it's very rarely solely isolated to one component.
The hardware, software, and human systems are so intertwined that it likely involves all 3, even if the route cause can be isolated to one.
That being said, there hasn't been much specific information about the cause released yet, that I've heard.
Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets
#9Does anyone actually know or suspect what's wrong with these planes? Hardware issue? Software issue?
There's speculation that the crash was caused or contributed to by the MCAS system, which is new on the MAX 8. At this point it is just speculation.
Here's a good answer from Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/azzp0r/ethiopian_...
Re: E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets
#10So this isn't just banning from airports , this is banning from their airspace ? That's then more or less a total grounding of them in Europe. As an example, Norwegian (who has 15 of them) said they weren't grounding them as late as this morning, but now they'll have no choice. They use them mainly for their medium flights between scandinavia and southern europe (Nice, Budapest, Tenerife etc). No way they can do that…
Austria also closed the airspace for 737 max planes, while not the largest country in Europe together with France and Germany that adds quite a bit of extra detour coming from Norway.