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Another Boeing 737 Max just crashed after landing

Should Boeing 737 Max continue to operate or grounded until further investigation?


  • Total voters
    47

Chittagong

Gold Member
Looks like Boeing’s off to a flying start for this year.

You could almost say that the Boeing 737 Max has been...

380.gif


Maxed out.
 

lil puff

Member
The US should ground these until there is evidence as to what occurred to review. Just for safety's sake.
It kinda feels like they are taking the opposite approach.

They want evidence that something is wrong before they shut it down.

I hope they are making it extremely clear to customers what flight model they are boarding, and making it very easy to change if they choose.
 

NickFire

Member
It kinda feels like they are taking the opposite approach.

They want evidence that something is wrong before they shut it down.

I hope they are making it extremely clear to customers what flight model they are boarding, and making it very easy to change if they choose.
Well, the airline is claiming a shut down prevented a software update. That's all the evidence I need to temp shutter following 2 crashes so close together. And if the update was significant enough to comment on and blame the US Gov, why were the planes still flying without it?
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
airline was originally aiming to have that update out in January, yet the shutdown only started Dec 22. they had plenty of time to work on it, considering complaints were made in October about it. sounds like the company is trying to cover their ass with lame excuses.

a more likely scenario is they dragged their feet on it & resisted federal regulators until the absolute last minute when it blew up in their faces. also see that BP oil spill.

but yeah, pass the buck to Trump. it's not like they had 44 days following the shutdown to get this shit figured out before the crash happened. oh wait, it IS exactly like that.
 
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mckmas8808

Banned
airline was originally aiming to have that update out in January, yet the shutdown only started Dec 22. they had plenty of time to work on it, considering complaints were made in October about it. sounds like the company is trying to cover their ass with lame excuses.

a more likely scenario is they dragged their feet on it & resisted federal regulators until the absolute last minute when it blew up in their faces. also see that BP oil spill.

but yeah, pass the buck to Trump. it's not like they had 44 days following the shutdown to get this shit figured out before the crash happened. oh wait, it IS exactly like that.

This situation and the BP oil spill are two of many reasons how human greed gets in the way of good business.
 

mckmas8808

Banned
What’s crazy is that flights currently in air have been ordered to land IMMEDIATELY!!! How is that gonna work exactly?
 
You can't have "yes" as an answer to a question with "or" in it.

I refuse to publicly cast my vote in a grammatically corrupted poll.
 

aeroslash

Member
What’s crazy is that flights currently in air have been ordered to land IMMEDIATELY!!! How is that gonna work exactly?

The same happened yesterday in Europe. Planes from Africa/Asia going ti europe had to divert because they would not let them enter into the continent. They must land and no more problem.

Regarding the accident, so much for the people blaming Lion Air training on the first accident when it was already clear it was a BOEING fault.
The tricky thing about this one is that Boeing issued an operations bulletin after the first crash, stating what the pilots had to do if the event happened again... so the Ethiopian guys had more information than the Lion air crew but still couldn’t manage to solve the situation. Scary.
 
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Pagusas

Elden Member
Who is responsible for pilots having the proper training on new air craft? Is it Boeing or is it the indivial airlines? Like I assume they all have their own training courses and stuff. If it is Boeing, and it’s proven they were incompetent with this, is that grounds for civil lawsuits from the families of the victims?
 
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Hari Seldon

Member
What I got out of reading a lot about this was that the marketing goal for this plane was that it wouldn’t require pilots to retrain. But the reality was that due to the more powerful engine the nose kicks up more so they stealth put this shoddily designed software in there and didn’t tell anyone about it. After the first crash they put the word out but it is still crap software if the sensor fails on takeoff when the pilot has no time to diagnose what is going on.
 

-Minsc-

Member
What I got out of reading a lot about this was that the marketing goal for this plane was that it wouldn’t require pilots to retrain. But the reality was that due to the more powerful engine the nose kicks up more so they stealth put this shoddily designed software in there and didn’t tell anyone about it. After the first crash they put the word out but it is still crap software if the sensor fails on takeoff when the pilot has no time to diagnose what is going on.
Definitely sounds like more is on Boeing this time.

This actually sounds worse than the situation I mentioned previously.

On 26 April 1994, the Airbus A300B4-622R was completing a routine flight and approach, when, just before landing at Nagoya Airport, the first officer (copilot) inadvertently selected the takeoff/go-around setting (also known as a TO/GA), which tells the autopilot to raise the throttle position to the same as take offs and go-arounds.[1]

The crew attempted to correct the situation, manually reducing the throttles and pushing the yoke forward. However, they did not disconnect the autopilot, which was still acting on the inadvertent go-around command it had been given, so it increased its own efforts in reaction to overcome the yoke forward being enacted by the pilot. The autopilot followed its procedures and moved the horizontal stabilizer to its full nose-up position. The pilots, realizing the landing must be aborted, then knowingly executed a go-around, pulling back on the yoke and adding to the nose-up attitude that the autopilot was already trying to execute. The resulting extreme nose-up attitude, combined with decreasing airspeed due to insufficient thrust, resulted in an aerodynamic stall.[1] With insufficient altitude to recover, the aircraft crashed into the ground.

Of the 271 people on board (15 crew and 256 passengers), only 7 passengers survived.

The crash, which destroyed the aircraft (delivered less than 3 years earlier in 1991), was primarily attributed to crew error for their failure to correct the controls as well as the airspeed.[1] Nine months earlier, Airbus had advised its customers to make a modification to the air flight system that would fully disengage the autopilot "when certain manual controls input is applied on the control wheel in GO-AROUND mode",[4] which would have included the yoke-forward movement the pilots made on this accident flight. The accident aircraft was scheduled to only receive the update the next time it required a more substantial service break, because "China Airlines judged that the modifications were not urgent".[4] These factors were deemed contributing incidents to the crash, after the primary failure of the pilots to take control of the situation once it began.[1]

From what I can see a big difference is that the Boeing 737 Max automatically activates MCAS and the TO/GA in the Airbus A300B4-622R required manual activation. Either way, pilots had to fight with the computer. The computer won.
 

aeroslash

Member
When you buy a new aircraft, one of the things you look out is how much will it cost in training your pilots, that’s why Boeing and airbus don’t do complete renewals of their old planes. From the 737 to the Max it takes one online course to complete the transition, and with Airbus the transition to the “neo” versions it’s just a matter of small differences.
Basically in this case, they (boeing) wanted to be cheap so they reduced the training needed.

Definitely sounds like more is on Boeing this time.

This actually sounds worse than the situation I mentioned previously.

On 26 April 1994, the Airbus A300B4-622R was completing a routine flight and approach, when, just before landing at Nagoya Airport, the first officer (copilot) inadvertently selected the takeoff/go-around setting (also known as a TO/GA), which tells the autopilot to raise the throttle position to the same as take offs and go-arounds.[1]

The crew attempted to correct the situation, manually reducing the throttles and pushing the yoke forward. However, they did not disconnect the autopilot, which was still acting on the inadvertent go-around command it had been given, so it increased its own efforts in reaction to overcome the yoke forward being enacted by the pilot. The autopilot followed its procedures and moved the horizontal stabilizer to its full nose-up position. The pilots, realizing the landing must be aborted, then knowingly executed a go-around, pulling back on the yoke and adding to the nose-up attitude that the autopilot was already trying to execute. The resulting extreme nose-up attitude, combined with decreasing airspeed due to insufficient thrust, resulted in an aerodynamic stall.[1] With insufficient altitude to recover, the aircraft crashed into the ground.

Of the 271 people on board (15 crew and 256 passengers), only 7 passengers survived.

The crash, which destroyed the aircraft (delivered less than 3 years earlier in 1991), was primarily attributed to crew error for their failure to correct the controls as well as the airspeed.[1] Nine months earlier, Airbus had advised its customers to make a modification to the air flight system that would fully disengage the autopilot "when certain manual controls input is applied on the control wheel in GO-AROUND mode",[4] which would have included the yoke-forward movement the pilots made on this accident flight. The accident aircraft was scheduled to only receive the update the next time it required a more substantial service break, because "China Airlines judged that the modifications were not urgent".[4] These factors were deemed contributing incidents to the crash, after the primary failure of the pilots to take control of the situation once it began.[1]

From what I can see a big difference is that the Boeing 737 Max automatically activates MCAS and the TO/GA in the Airbus A300B4-622R required manual activation. Either way, pilots had to fight with the computer. The computer won.

Where did you find that report? The AP disconnects automatically when you move the sidestick (there’s no yoke on the 320). If you want a more similar event, which ended happily is this one: https://avherald.com/h?article=47d74074

The Airbus has some automatic protections, one of them being the “AoA protection” which induces a pitch down when detects the AoA is higher than a predefined value, even with pilot input. It is basically what Boeing tried to copy.
It works nicely in the 320 but the problem is when the AoA doesn’t work as expected. Crew have a procedure for that, which seems it’s not sufficient in the case of the Boeing 737 Max.
 
When you buy a new aircraft, one of the things you look out is how much will it cost in training your pilots, that’s why Boeing and airbus don’t do complete renewals of their old planes. From the 737 to the Max it takes one online course to complete the transition, and with Airbus the transition to the “neo” versions it’s just a matter of small differences.
Basically in this case, they (boeing) wanted to be cheap so they reduced the training needed.

What are you talking about? I worked for an airline for 7 years. Boeing and Airbus have nothing to do with training other pilots, besides maybe their own that do the testing once they are out of the hangar for the first time. They can bring their own people in to give theoretical training but its up to the airlines pilots and simulators where they get the real training. You dont just complete some 10 hour online course and give you the keys to new tech. Its hundred of hours inside simulators testing over and over under different circumstances until you are qualified to fly the new model.

Airbus and Boeing provide a metal fuselage, empty shell with all the wireing. You as an airline chose, is it going to be a 2 row or 3 row seaters, what seats you are going to use, how much space will be dedicated to cargo and how much to CRC (crew rest compartment) in case of long haul flights. You even chose which brand engine you want/can afford. For example Emirates uses Rolls Royce engines on all their 777-ER. That doesn't mean that every 777 in the world has RR engines. Obviously they will provide a qualified Captain to go to your country and give basic training but that is just introduction. The rest is up to the company to train through simulators, if they dont have their own simulators then they send the pilots to countries that do. All that is airline expense. Airbus and Boeing have nothing to do with that.
 
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mckmas8808

Banned
What are you talking about? I worked for an airline for 7 years. Boeing and Airbus have nothing to do with training other pilots, besides maybe their own that do the testing once they are out of the hangar for the first time. They can bring their own people in to give theoretical training but its up to the airlines pilots and simulators where they get the real training. You dont just complete some 10 hour online course and give you the keys to new tech. Its hundred of hours inside simulators testing over and over under different circumstances until you are qualified to fly the new model.

Airbus and Boeing provide a metal fuselage, empty shell with all the wireing. You as an airline chose, is it going to be a 2 row or 3 row seaters, what seats you are going to use, how much space will be dedicated to cargo and how much to CRC (crew rest compartment) in case of long haul flights. You even chose which brand engine you want/can afford. For example Emirates uses Rolls Royce engines on all their 777-ER. That doesn't mean that every 777 in the world has RR engines. Obviously they will provide a qualified Captain to go to your country and give basic training but that is just introduction. The rest is up to the company to train through simulators, if they dont have their own simulators then they send the pilots to countries that do. All that is airline expense. Airbus and Boeing have nothing to do with that.

In this case Boeing sold the new MAX planes under the theory that you wouldn't even have to do any of the needed additional training for the new plane. It's being talked about everywhere.
 

lil puff

Member
But why? At least if a cruise ship crashes/sinks you have a 90% chance of survival. If a plane crashes you have a 99% chance of dying horribly!
Logically you are right!

I would rather die relatively fast, than to experience the feeling of swimming in the middle of an ocean.

I have a phobia of drowning. Also cruise food is nasty.
 
Are there more than two crashes of the 737 Max? Are the 737 Next Generation crashes being counted in this as well? I know nothing about this topic so I am trying to get a basic understanding to help with research on the subject.
 

Airbus Jr

Banned
Logically you are right!

I would rather die relatively fast, than to experience the feeling of swimming in the middle of an ocean.

I have a phobia of drowning. Also cruise food is nasty.
Logically you are right!

I would rather die relatively fast, than to experience the feeling of swimming in the middle of an ocean.

I have a phobia of drowning. Also cruise food is nasty.

If you think dead from ship accident is scarier than plane you really need to reconsider

try visit some xxx rated gore/disturbing picture website about plane crashes, absolutely horrific
you prob gona loose soo much weigh after seeing those

cruise ship crash/sink has nothing in comparison
 
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lil puff

Member
If you think dead from ship accident is scarier than plane you really need to reconsider

try visit some xxx rated gore/disturbing picture website about plane crashes, absolutely horrific
you prob gona loose soo much weigh after seeing those

cruise ship crash/sink has nothing in comparison
Oh I know! But I'd hope to be dead instantly. I agree that the few moments beforehand would be horrifying.

I've seen too many lost at sea documentaries, and the idea of floating in the middle of nowhere for days on end is a nightmare.

However, I did see one where a guy was skydiving and his two chutes got tangled up and he could not activate them. He fell down 8000 ft to the ground.

He lived, because he landed on a field that was just soiled and softly silled. He threaded the most impossible needle, there were trees a few feet from his left and right. Ended up with a few scratches. 8000 feet.
 

aeroslash

Member
What are you talking about? I worked for an airline for 7 years. Boeing and Airbus have nothing to do with training other pilots, besides maybe their own that do the testing once they are out of the hangar for the first time. They can bring their own people in to give theoretical training but its up to the airlines pilots and simulators where they get the real training. You dont just complete some 10 hour online course and give you the keys to new tech. Its hundred of hours inside simulators testing over and over under different circumstances until you are qualified to fly the new model.

Airbus and Boeing provide a metal fuselage, empty shell with all the wireing. You as an airline chose, is it going to be a 2 row or 3 row seaters, what seats you are going to use, how much space will be dedicated to cargo and how much to CRC (crew rest compartment) in case of long haul flights. You even chose which brand engine you want/can afford. For example Emirates uses Rolls Royce engines on all their 777-ER. That doesn't mean that every 777 in the world has RR engines. Obviously they will provide a qualified Captain to go to your country and give basic training but that is just introduction. The rest is up to the company to train through simulators, if they dont have their own simulators then they send the pilots to countries that do. All that is airline expense. Airbus and Boeing have nothing to do with that.

Nice, i´m just a nobody. An airline pilot with more than 10 years of experience but a nobody.

Type rating courses as well as CQC (changing from similar models eg; a320 to a330) are stipulated by the manufacturers, and it’s one of the points of selling aircrafts to the companies. A few years back a type rating used to last more than a month, now it can take as low as 20 days, and it’s just because companies pushed for more focused training and manufacturers complied.
If you have a fleet of 737’s and want to buy 737’s MAX but you need to train every pilot for a month, maybe you won’t buy them.
The same happened with the a320. When they renewed it with the 320 NEO’s they changed everything they could taking into account that crews would not do a new type rating.
 

-Minsc-

Member
Where did you find that report? The AP disconnects automatically when you move the sidestick (there’s no yoke on the 320). If you want a more similar event, which ended happily is this one: https://avherald.com/h?article=47d74074

The Airbus has some automatic protections, one of them being the “AoA protection” which induces a pitch down when detects the AoA is higher than a predefined value, even with pilot input. It is basically what Boeing tried to copy.
It works nicely in the 320 but the problem is when the AoA doesn’t work as expected. Crew have a procedure for that, which seems it’s not sufficient in the case of the Boeing 737 Max.

What I posted is just from wikipedia. I don't know where to find (and haven't looked for) the actual report for China Airlines flight 140. The reason I referenced flight 140 was it being a situation where the pilots didn't know how to deactivate the AP (or even know it was on). Definitely not the same situation, but it is what popped in my mind.

Here's a FAA blurb on the crash for any person interested in a bit of history.

edit:

I'm the nobody. :D

The same happened with the a320. When they renewed it with the 320 NEO’s they changed everything they could taking into account that crews would not do a new type rating.
Basically, are the crashes saying they went one or more steps too far beyond the max of what they could change without new training?
 
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mckmas8808

Banned
Nice, i´m just a nobody. An airline pilot with more than 10 years of experience but a nobody.

Type rating courses as well as CQC (changing from similar models eg; a320 to a330) are stipulated by the manufacturers, and it’s one of the points of selling aircrafts to the companies. A few years back a type rating used to last more than a month, now it can take as low as 20 days, and it’s just because companies pushed for more focused training and manufacturers complied.
If you have a fleet of 737’s and want to buy 737’s MAX but you need to train every pilot for a month, maybe you won’t buy them.
The same happened with the a320. When they renewed it with the 320 NEO’s they changed everything they could taking into account that crews would not do a new type rating.

LOL! Dude you are a somebody. Like literally the best person in the thread to talk to about this subject. I hope you subscribe to this thread because I have a feeling we'll need your expertise on this when new information comes out.
 

aeroslash

Member
Basically, are the crashes saying they went one or more steps too far beyond the max of what they could change without new training?

To me, what the crashes are saying is that you cannot put something in your plane (specially if it changes the way it flies) without telling the pilots about it. The thing is: when everything is fine, flying a plane is easy, but when something goes wrong can be very demanding. Imagine if you have to fight against the plane as well.
And sorry, i thought the accident you quoted was about a 320 not a 300.

LOL! Dude you are a somebody. Like literally the best person in the thread to talk to about this subject. I hope you subscribe to this thread because I have a feeling we'll need your expertise on this when new information comes out.

I like to come here from time to time when there are news like these. You see a lot of people who likes to talk a lot. And as i said, i’m a nobody, because i just have my experience and i’ve never flown the 737. I have many friends flying the Max though and i like to be informed obviously. I’ve been in the safety department of the las two companies i’ve worked for as well, but all the accidents have to be taken with patience..
 
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Pagusas

Elden Member
everytime i see this thread topic name I freak out and think "OMG ANOTHER ONE!?" Than I remember this thread is days old.
 

llien

Member
Note that this isn't simply "pilots weren't trained what to do when MCAS fucks up" it is also MCAS failing.

Never rush an aircraft design out of the factory. This happens.
It's an engineering problem of "how do I put these oversized new efficient engines onto 65 years old model line".
They decided MCAS was the answer to crippled aerodynamics.
 
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One of my big concerns is the fact that many airline's fleets are now many years old, with planes dating back to the late 80's as of the oldest. Remember the Southwest Airlines 737 that landed in Philadelphia because of a part of the engine breaking off and causing a glass window to break in air, killing a passenger as a result? That plane was nearly 20 years old as of the crash, and also used 40+ year old engine technology, the CFM56 motor. I understand it takes a long time to update your fleet, but it has to happen sooner or later.
 

aeroslash

Member
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ash-wreckage-said-to-show-jet-was-set-to-dive

What does anyone make of this? What I’m getting from this is that it looks likely that the software accounting for the centre of gravity problems (MCAS) on the 737Max is not working as intended. Even if the pilot knows how to disable this MCAS system, this isn’t normal behaviour of a 737?

Well, i think it’s exactly what was supposed to do. The MCAS pitches the aircraft down in order to lower the AoA, and that’s why the elevator screwjack was set to dive...
The problem was that it didn’t have to dive, but that article is just stating the obvious.

One of my big concerns is the fact that many airline's fleets are now many years old, with planes dating back to the late 80's as of the oldest. Remember the Southwest Airlines 737 that landed in Philadelphia because of a part of the engine breaking off and causing a glass window to break in air, killing a passenger as a result? That plane was nearly 20 years old as of the crash, and also used 40+ year old engine technology, the CFM56 motor. I understand it takes a long time to update your fleet, but it has to happen sooner or later.

Aircraft designs may be a few decades old but that doesn’t mean that they have not had improvements. On the a320 for example, every year there is new “software” available with new improvements on the flight computers. And i’m sure the 737 is exactly the same. The design might be old, but there have been improvements for sure.
And by the way, the CFM56 is one of the most reliable engines ever made. Why change it?
 
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mckmas8808

Banned
I don’t know if you guys read it, but this article is very iluminating on what happened during the certification process. The fuck up is even bigger. No wonder why the FAA didn’t want to ground the planes.

https://www.seattletimes.com/busine...-max-system-implicated-in-the-lion-air-crash/

Man this is truely scary.

As Boeing hustled in 2015 to catch up to Airbus and certify its new 737 MAX, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) managers pushed the agency’s safety engineers to delegate safety assessments to Boeing itself, and to speedily approve the resulting analysis. Several technical experts inside the FAA said October’s Lion Air crash, where the MCAS has been clearly implicated by investigators in Indonesia, is only the latest indicator that the agency’s delegation of airplane certification has gone too far, and that it’s inappropriate for Boeing employees to have so much authority over safety analyses of Boeing jets. “We need to make sure the FAA is much more engaged in failure assessments and the assumptions that go into them,” said one FAA safety engineer.

This looks like the govt actually helped out Boeing to get the plane to market so that it could compete better against the Airbus' new plane. And what's even scarier to me is that Airbus is a European company. Is it possible that American regulators are purposely pushing new tech from an American plane company so fast, in order to better compete with a European brand?

Because MERICA!?!?
 

Pagusas

Elden Member
Man this is truely scary.



This looks like the govt actually helped out Boeing to get the plane to market so that it could compete better against the Airbus' new plane. And what's even scarier to me is that Airbus is a European company. Is it possible that American regulators are purposely pushing new tech from an American plane company so fast, in order to better compete with a European brand?

Because MERICA!?!?

There are many issues with what has happened, but the idea that the US government would help a US company compete in the global market place is NOT one of them. Our government SHOULD be assisting US companies, especially Boeing who is also a major military asset.
 

mckmas8808

Banned
There are many issues with what has happened, but the idea that the US government would help a US company compete in the global market place is NOT one of them. Our government SHOULD be assisting US companies, especially Boeing who is also a major military asset.

You don't think this could be a conflict of interest? Why should US "regulators" care about an American company competing in the global market place? It's not the regulators job to boost up profits amongst American companies. Even if they are a major military asset.
 

Breakage

Member
Details starting to emerge from the final moments of the flight.

Ethiopian Airlines crash: “Pitch up, pitch up!”:
Soon after take-off - and just 450ft (137m) above the ground - the aircraft's nose began to pitch down.
One pilot, according to the Wall Street Journal, said to the other "pitch up, pitch up!" before their radio died.
The plane crashed only six minutes into its flight.


Catastrophic failure
The Wall Street Journal - which says it's spoken to people close to the ongoing investigation - says the information it has "paints a picture of a catastrophic failure that quickly overwhelmed the flight crew".

More at the jump:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47759966

I wonder how many people will be comfortable about stepping onto a 737 Max even after Boeing's software update.
 
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