Boeing 737 Max8 Crashes

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fountainhall

Re: Boeing 737 Max8 Crashes

Post by fountainhall »

Good news!

But I see it has flown only 360 hours with the new software fix. I wonder what the total hours in the air were before the first of the two fatal crashes and in the 21 months it had been in service before all 371 aircraft were grounded? Since it is a short to medium haul aircraft, each one delivered is likely to have had at least 10 hours in the air each day, if not more in some cases. Given that all those were delivered over 21 months at a rate of something like a minimum average of 18 deliveries a month, total hours in the air for all aircraft must have been well in excess of 1 million. So once it has flown 1 million miles with the fix, I will consider it safe. But I will still not fly in it for at least 3 years, same routine I followed after the Dreamlliners' batteries self-combusted.

Unfortunately for Boeing, getting FAA approval is likely to take far longer this time than in the past. And there is a lot of discussion that overseas regulators may not automatically follow the FAA as they have with earlier models. Facing lawsuits from the deceased passengers and crew, order cancellations, compensation law suits for cancelled orders and the grounding of the aircraft, Boeing's troubles are far from over. And then it is being sued by a consortium of shareholders who claim the company concealed problems with the 737 Max and “effectively put profitability and growth ahead of airplane safety and honesty.” Last but far from least is the public perception of an aircraft with two total crashes in less than a handful of months . . .

This link is to a very long and very detailed article on the entire 737 Max issue from before design to the present day.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/id ... ly_crashes
fountainhall

Re: Boeing 737 Max8 Crashes

Post by fountainhall »

It just gets even worse for Boeing with yet another fault relating to the 737 Max finally revealed.
Boeing has been forced to correct a flaw in the software of flight training simulators that are meant to reproduce the flying conditions of the 737 Max aircraft involved in two deadly crashes in the past six months.

The disclosure of a problem with the simulator software is a further blow to the credibility of the Boeing brand, which has been seriously damaged in recent months . . .

Boeing revealed at the weekend that the software used on the Max training simulator was unable to reproduce some flight conditions, including the conditions which led to the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302 on March 10. The preliminary crash report from the Ethiopian authorities revealed that the pilots of that flight were flying at high speed and were unable to overcome the power of the MCAS system as it drove the plane’s nose down, by doing what Boeing had told them to do in such circumstances: use a manual wheel in the cockpit to bring the nose back up. 

. . . A spokesman for the American Airlines pilots union, Captain Jason Goldberg, said the latest revelation had further undermined pilots’ confidence in the aircraft manufacturer. “Again we seem to hear one thing from Boeing and then months later we hear something else. Boeing seems to have a penchant of telling us one thing in private and another in public.”
https://www.ft.com/content/494354da-799 ... 85092ab560
Jun

Re: Boeing 737 Max8 Crashes

Post by Jun »

fountainhall wrote: Fri May 17, 2019 6:47 pm Good news! But I see it has flown only 360 hours with the new software fix.
In other industries, the software would be tested by setting the entire system up and then deliberately introducing the sensor errors and seeing how the system responds. I would expect Boeing has done something similar, so this particular fix SHOULD be OK. If the authorities in the US and other countries do their jobs properly, they will check the evidence before allowing the plane back into service.

However, I will still try to avoid this plane until it has done 5 years in service, purely because of all the other unknown risks with a new product.
fountainhall

Re: Boeing 737 Max8 Crashes

Post by fountainhall »

An extraordinary comment from the US FAA in an article in The Financial Times
This Thursday, nine global aviation regulators, including those from China, the EU, Canada and Brazil, will meet to review Boeing's application to get the Max back in the air. The aircraft maker has said it has completed work on a software fix aimed at preventing future disasters caused by the MCAS system. 

But Boeing has said it is still answering questions from the US regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration, ahead of formally submitting the fix to the FAA. All of the nearly 400 Boeing 737 Max aircraft were grounded by global regulators after the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 on March 10. 

The FAA, which organised the Texas meeting, said it does not need the agreement of other regulators before it approves Boeing's application. But officials say they want to avoid a repeat of what happened after the Ethiopian crash, when China grounded the aircraft before any other regulator and before analysing the flight data. 

US officials said China’s action was premature and undermined confidence in the global system of aviation regulation, and they want to make sure countries worldwide act together when allowing the Max back into their airspace.
So Boeing, whose engineers did almost all the work on behalf of the FAA, who failed to report several problem issues, including the MCAS system during the certification process which were only later discovered, which unilaterally changed a key issue relating to the MCAS system AFTER the documents had been sent to the FAA - the horizontal stabiliser was supposed to lower the nose by 0.6 degrees when in fact this was changed to 2.5 degrees, and who were the last organisation to ground the aircraft, takes issue with China for being the first to ground the plane. This was a new plane with two total loss crashes in five months and which the US regulators and Boeing were still saying was safe. So the US thinks by grounding the plane the Chinese Aviation Authority jumped the gun and that this could "undermine confidence in the global system of aviation regulation."

How utterly ridiculous! The US FAA failed to do its job. China grounded a new aircraft with two dreadful crashes. It was protecting its passengers. The US Authorities, in hock to Boeing, a company which last year spent $15.1 million on its lobbying activities in Washington, not only for doing most of the certification work but failing in its duty to ground the plane, is now blaming a third country! What arrogance!

https://www.ft.com/content/3fc8016c-7a4 ... 85092ab560
Jun

Re: Boeing 737 Max8 Crashes

Post by Jun »

The Chinese clearly made the right call here. Actually, from the moment it was clear both crash aircraft had erratic changes of altitude, that would be enough to ground the aircraft pending receipt of data.
As for further approvals, clearly the FAA does not have to wait for other countries approval, although the FAA approval will only be good within their own jurisdiction. I also imagine that if the plane is back in service in the US before other countries approve it, then US passengers will not have much confidence.
fountainhall

Re: Boeing 737 Max8 Crashes

Post by fountainhall »

Jun wrote: Mon May 20, 2019 3:33 pmI also imagine that if the plane is back in service in the US before other countries approve it, then US passengers will not have much confidence.
That surely is Boeing and the airlines biggest problem. Given the publicity attached to the two crashes, it is in my view a monster one. There will have to be a huge PR campaign with Boeing, the airlines, pilots and passengers giving a vote of confidence to the plane. Even so, I suspect deep discounting will be the norm for several months. Boeing will be praying that there is not another fatal crash - due perhaps for reasons not to do with the aircraft itself.
Jun

Re: Boeing 737 Max8 Crashes

Post by Jun »

The best case scenario for Boeing would be something like ALL the major countries accepting their fix.
Followed by some basic PR, including a clear demonstration that the failure mode is emphatically eliminated, reminders of how much Boeing have contributed to safety over the last few decades & the Boeing directors all flying the plane, complete with their families. If that goes well, most people will forget about the incidents within a few months.

If any major economy refuses to allow resumption of flights & requires further evidence at the same time flights are resuming in the US, then the item will run for a while.

Unless of course, the global media is distracted by some other event. Such as DT starting a war.
fountainhall

Re: Boeing 737 Max8 Crashes

Post by fountainhall »

The lawsuits are starting. Nadege Dubois-Seex, a French lady whose husband Jonathan Seex died in the Ethiopian crash leaving her with three young children, has filed suit against Boeing in Chicago, where the company is headquartered. The amount? US$276 million, or one day's gross revenue based on its 2018 expenditure.
"The life of my husband was taken knowingly, and even willingly," Dubois-Seex said, visibly emotional. "Boeing acted with cynicism. My husband was the collateral damage of a system, of a business strategy."
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/21/euro ... index.html

China had the most 737 Max aircraft in service. Air China, China Eastern and China Southern are taking action for losses due to grounding and delayed deliveries. With the country having had 71 737 Max already delivered prior to the grounding, the other five airlines which were operating the jet will no doubt join their suit.
China’s three biggest airlines have asked U.S. planemaker Boeing Co to compensate them for losses caused by the grounding and delayed deliveries of 737 MAX jets, just as regulators gather to discuss design changes for the troubled aircraft.

The triple compensation requests come at a sensitive time in Sino-U.S. relations, with a string of tit-for-tat import tariffs culminating in Washington accusing Beijing of backtracking on almost all aspects of a proposed trade deal.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethi ... SKCN1SS0A1
fountainhall

Re: Boeing 737 Max8 Crashes

Post by fountainhall »

Yet more problems for Boeing.
Ethiopian crash could have been prevented if Boeing took pilots' concerns seriously, union says

"a poisoned, diseased philosophy" for a global company.

American Airline's pilots' union is calling Boeing's response to two fatal plane crashes "inexcusable," claiming the crashes might not have happened if the company had listened to pilots.

Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for Allied Pilots Association — a union of American Airlines pilots — told CNN Business that Boeing had "a poisoned, diseased philosophy" for a global company.

"Shame on you... we're going to call you out on it," Tajer said . . .

In recent weeks, both Boeing's CEO and the acting Federal Aviation Administration administrator have said that the actions of the pilots were in part to blame for the recent Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes. Tajer pointed instead to Boeing's software, about which he said American Airlines' pilots had expressed concerns in a November 2017 meeting with the company. The meeting was a few weeks after the Lion Air crash, but months before the Ethiopian Airlines crash.[In this meeting, the pilots told Boeing exactly what was wrong with the aircraft's software and exactly how to fix it. Boeing did not do so]

It would be fair to conclude, Tajer said, that if Boeing had taken the suggestions of the pilots, the Ethiopian Airlines crash might have been prevented.

"They had wired that thing so that is was irrecoverable," Tajer said. "It just blew us away."

Boeing did not comment on the union's position early Thursday morning.
Dennis Tajer was a 737 Max pilot prior to the grounding.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/23/busi ... index.html
Jun

Re: Boeing 737 Max8 Crashes

Post by Jun »

I am interested in the fix.

Will it be something robust and professional like comparing 3 data sources and flagging up a warning if one has a mismatch?

Or a bodge requiring pilots to switch off the system and try to avoid stalling?
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