Flight Tj610 Crashed In The Sea.

[Panzermann]

It's time to roll out the A-380SP!

 

 

Washed too hot and it shrank?

[BansheeOne]

I wonder why they've kept pumping up the 737 rather than developing more versions of the 757 as their other narrowbody. Of course the latter has been dead for some time now, supposedly to be replaced along with the 767 by the future 797 midbody.

[sunday]

I wonder why they've kept pumping up the 737 rather than developing more versions of the 757 as their other narrowbody. Of course the latter has been dead for some time now, supposedly to be replaced along with the 767 by the future 797 midbody.

 

Airlines stopped buying it, and Boeing needed another 737 manufacturing line. So like Douglas did with the DC-8 in order to manufacture DC-10s, Boeing converted the 757 line in a 737 one.

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-757-airline-demand-la-compagnie-2016-5?IR=T

[DB]

 

https://www.easa.europa.eu/newsroom-and-events/news/easa-suspends-all-boeing-737-max-operations-europe

 

 

Grounded in Europe now.

Looks like reply to Dieselgate scandal.

 

Does that apply to China, too?

 

And Canada, Australia and nearly every other country that seems to be run by adults.

[R011]

 

 

 

 

https://www.easa.europa.eu/newsroom-and-events/news/easa-suspends-all-boeing-737-max-operations-europe

 

 

Grounded in Europe now.

Looks like reply to Dieselgate scandal.

Does that apply to China, too?

 

And Canada, Australia and nearly every other country that seems to be run by adults.

Not Canada. We are keeping the Max8 flying here.

[DB]

I just came back here to retract that bit, sorry. Take India instead.

[Stuart Galbraith]

It's time to roll out the A-380SP!

 

LMAO.

[Stuart Galbraith]

I wonder why they've kept pumping up the 737 rather than developing more versions of the 757 as their other narrowbody. Of course the latter has been dead for some time now, supposedly to be replaced along with the 767 by the future 797 midbody.

 

I wonder why they are sticking with the 737, and not pimping new versions of the MD80, which Boeing were building for some time as the 717. Id have thought you would have room for far bigger engines on an MD80 airframe than you can fit under the 737 wing.

 

Is this the first Boeing offing that features a FBW system? I am just wondering if this is A320itis, that the real problem is not the aircraft, its the pilots still trying to fly it as if its a legacy aircraft.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Reports on CNN by a whole slew of US pilots complaining of major pitch downs whilst the aircraft is in autopilot just after take off.

 

And the FAA say there isnt a problem? They have turned too much into an outstation of Boeing, or so it seems.

[JasonJ]

A PDF report filing a complaint about the pitchingdown nose in November 2018.

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5766398/ASRS-Reports-for-737-max8.pdf

 

Found it via link in this article. Among content about the complaints, says that on Tuesday, Ted Cruz said the planes should be grounded.

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/airlines/2019/03/12/boeing-737-max-8-pilots-complained-feds-months-suspected-safety-flaw

[Murph]

Sounds like Boeing is in full damage control mode.

[Panzermann]

Reports on CNN by a whole slew of US pilots complaining of major pitch downs whilst the aircraft is in autopilot just after take off.

 

And the FAA say there isnt a problem? They have turned too much into an outstation of Boeing, or so it seems.

 

Who is the boss of the FAA and who got a six digit donation from a certain oregonian aircraft manufacturer? America First!

 

 

the MD-80 aka Boeing 717 is NIH. Sales were going down as well (I guess mostly because the future plans for the MD-90 models were not going to be realized) and it was competing with Boeing's own 737 sales. So it was dropped.

 

---

 

Sounds like Boeing is in full damage control mode.

 

Of course they are. Bad image does not sell aeroplanes.

[BansheeOne]

Does that apply to China, too?

 

And Canada, Australia and nearly every other country that seems to be run by adults.

I'm usually Mr. Rational, but I do note that many of those who were quick to ground the type, like the Europeans and Chinese, have recently been pissed off by the current US adminstration's attempts at economic warfare by Twitter against them. In the case of Brazil, there has been bad blood about the Boeing-Embraer tie-up, though not necessarily by the current government.

 

Maybe it's because I read Michael Chrichton's "Airframe" just recently. While it's obvious he had several big chips on his shoulder, I find his description of trial by media of the aircraft industry pretty accurate. Only some weeks ago after Airbus' decision to stop production of the A380, local media called the type the blunder of the century, driven by egomanical hubris, etc. Now they're going similarly overboard by calling the Max 8 a misconstruction, talking of fear of flying due to the "horror crashes", and so on.

 

At the very least I have the reasonable suspicion that the alternating frenzies are happily fed by lobbyists for Boeing and Airbus respectively, á la Chrichton. For Airbus the current drama would certainly be sweet revenge for the long "if it's not Boeing I ain't going"-style badmouthing of their aircraft as computer-guided flying deathtraps after similar incidents (see Air France 447, etc.).

 

Ethiopian Airlines now reportedly sending the black boxes to "a European country" rather than the US as would be usual is easily interpreted as distrust of an American investigation, following criticism of the FAA's "failure" to ground the type, convenient media reports about a cozy relationship between Boeing and the US government, etc.; note that after Airbus incidents there have frequently been suggestions by the Boeing camp of the French covering up evidence for technical causes.

Edited March 13, 2019 by BansheeOne

[R011]

I just came back here to retract that bit, sorry. Take India instead.

Just a bit early. The Transport Minister announced this morning that Canada was grounding the Max8 due to "new data" - probably polling data rather than technical.

[Panzermann]

 

Does that apply to China, too?

 

And Canada, Australia and nearly every other country that seems to be run by adults.

I'm usually Mr. Rational, but I do note that many of those who were quick to ground the type, like the Europeans and Chinese, have recently been pissed off by the current US adminstration's attempts at economic warfare by Twitter against them. In the case of Brazil, there has been bad blood about the Boeing-Embraer tie-up, though not necessarily by the current government.

 

Maybe it's because I read Michael Chrichton's "Airframe" just recently. While it's obvious he had several big chips on his shoulder, I find his description of trial by media of the aircraft industry pretty accurate. Only some weeks ago after Airbus' decision to stop production of the A380, local media called the type the blunder of the century, driven by egomanical hubris, etc. Now they're going similarly overboard by calling the Max 8 a misconstruction, talking of fear of flying due to the "horror crashes", and so on.

 

Anything to sell the newspaper (or website). SCANDAAAAAAAL! OUTRAAAAGOUS!

 

 

Though considereing the seats in a 737MAX, a 757 would be the better base to build from, but that line is long closed and so they made the 737 fit.

 

At the very least I have the reasonable suspicion that the alternating frenzies are happily fed by lobbyists for Boeing and Airbus respectively, á la Chrichton. For Airbus the current drama would certainly be sweet revenge for the long "if it's not Boeing I ain't going"-style badmouthing of their aircraft as computer-guided flying deathtraps after similar incidents (see Air France 447, etc.)

 

Ironically it looks like the MCAS is suspected as one of the failure points together with the pilots making mistakes. So congratiulations Boeing, your smearing comes back to bite your behind.

 

The 737MAXis not a death trap, but with the accidents that have happened grounding adn a throrough investigation is the way to go.

 

 

 

Ethiopian Airlines now reportedly sending the black boxes to "a European country" rather than the US as would be usual is easily interpreted as distrust of an American investigation, following criticism of the FAA's "failure" to ground the type, convenient media reports about a cozy relationship between Boeing and the US government, etc.; note that after Airbus incidents there have frequently been suggestions by the Boeing camp of the French covering up evidence for technical causes.

 

FAA has a habit of not grounding aeroplanes on every suspicion. Europe is more cautious. But in the end the FAA seems to be as neutral as needs to be to do its job.

[BansheeOne]

Well whatever their habits, Donald Trump will not be left behind in a good media frenzy.

 

Trump follows lead of other nations and grounds Boeing 737 Max planes

 

US had stood virtually alone in allowing the plane to keep flying after Canada joined growing list of nations that grounded aircraft

 

Dominic Rushe in New York and Lauren Gambino in Washington and Edward Helmore

Wed 13 Mar 2019 19.16 GMT

First published on Wed 13 Mar 2019 17.37 GMT

Donald Trump grounded Boeing’s 737 Max fleet on Wednesday, days after the second fatal crash involving the plane in five months.

 

Issuing an emergency order, Trump said all 737 Max jets in the US would now be grounded. “Planes that are in the air will be grounded if they are the 737 Max. Will be grounded upon landing at their destination,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

 

Trump said the safety of the American people and others was of “paramount concern.” “They [boeing] have to find the problem ... and they will find it,” he said.

 

In a statement Boeing said it had “full confidence in the safety of the 737 Max” but “out of an abundance of caution and in order to reassure the flying public” it had decided to temporarily suspend the entire fleet.

 

The United States had stood virtually alone in allowing the plane to keep flying. On Wednesday Canada joined a growing list of nations that had grounded the aircraft involved in the Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed 157 people this week.

 

Boeing and US aviation safety officials at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had resisted mounting pressure from Congress and labor unions to halt operation of the the Boeing 737 Max while investigators work to find the cause of the crash. Regulators in the European Union, the United Kingdom, China, Australia and India have restricted the planes from flying. The latest bans came from Egypt, Thailand and Vietnam on Wednesday.

 

[...]

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/13/ethiopian-airlines-crash-canada-grounds-737-max-us-stands-alone

[DB]

Lets the FAA off the hook if the Prez takes responsibility.

[JasonJ]

There is of course the existance of the manuevers of the media and politicians in self-interest to follow popular trend.

 

But this is a different realm. Its not some sabre rattling, or inciting national pride, or statements of human right violations in Syria. This is entirely innocent civilians riding bugged airlines in which the result is over a hundred dead if the bug happens. Even if it is media frenzy, the media has a frenzy on other things that are ceftainly not worthy of a frenzy. Boeing screwed up. Over 300 people innocently died because of the software problem. So I think a different word of description to distinguish this case from other examples. Or risk another 100-200 innocently dead by not giving it its appropriate high degree of immediate attention.

Edited March 14, 2019 by JasonJ

[Burncycle360]

Not before shorting Boeing stock of course!

[Stuart Galbraith]

Nothing new here of course. Its no different than what Douglas did in the early 1970's when they started having problems with Cargo Doors. They said 'we will fix it, dont worry', and suddenly you have the Eremonville Forest Crash.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Airlines_Flight_981

 

Which was bad enough. Then Boeing managed to create their own version of exactly the same problem, despite clear evidence of what not to do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_811

'Deficiencies in the design of wide-body aircraft cargo doors were known since the early 1970s from flaws in the DC-10 cargo door. These problems were not fully addressed by the aircraft industry or the NTSB, despite the warnings and deaths from the DC-10 accidentsand attempts by Boeing to solve the problems in the 1970s.'

 

What is new is Boeing being the largest surviving aircraft manufacturer, has somehow managed to turn the FAA into its own outstation. There was a discussion on the news the other day that the FAA just took Boeing certifications of one of their aircraft (Ive a feeling it was the 787) and signed off on them without further study. It was widely known as the self certified airplane in the industry. Which when you remember what problems Boeing had with the batteries, you might think is something of a failure of responsibility on the part of the FAA. You wonder if it had any bearing in these accidents too.

[DKTanker]

 

What is new is Boeing being the largest surviving aircraft manufacturer, has somehow managed to turn the FAA into its own outstation. There was a discussion on the news the other day that the FAA just took Boeing certifications of one of their aircraft (Ive a feeling it was the 787) and signed off on them without further study. It was widely known as the self certified airplane in the industry. Which when you remember what problems Boeing had with the batteries, you might think is something of a failure of responsibility on the part of the FAA. You wonder if it had any bearing in these accidents too.

That's probably it, Stuart. That's probably the problem with the 737MAX, no real oversight. Why do you suppose two airlines with relatively small fleets of the 737 MAX have had planes fall out of the sky, but airlines with the largest fleets have had none? Luck of the dice roll?

[Stuart Galbraith]

There was an incident that occurred some 20 years ago that I think has some bearing. An RAF Tornado, i think an ADV version, when taking off had a flaps retraction. There was a clear failures, so the crew flew around, dumped fuel and landed in sporty fashion with a no flaps configuration.

 

So they took the Tornado into the hangar, tore it down, fault tested it and found... nothing. Not one single mechanical problem. They later determined that it was a single line of code, somewhere in the millions of lines of code in the flight management computer that had done it. But they never found where exactly it was, and as far as I can tell, it never happened again.

 

Thats 20 years ago. So you think of how sophisticated computers in modern airliners are, maybe something similar happened again, twice in close succession. Which is a million to once chance, but that isnt to say it couldnt happen. Or, its another mechanical condition, a failure of a data probe, that triggered the underlying fault in the rest of the system, which is an overreaction to an action it THINKS is happening but in reality isnt.

 

However its spun, 2 identical configuration aircraft crashing in close succession is just the kind of warning we had with the Comet airliner. It will not do just to point to operators as being responsible, not least because Ethiopian Airlines has an unusually good reputation, even by the rest of the world standards. And its worth pointing out, the media have found US pilots pointing to exactly the same problems in service in CONUS. The only difference is, it hasnt killed anyone. Yet.

 

 

If Boeing didnt have such a poor reputation right now with the KC767 Id cut them some slack. But they do, and I dont.

Edited March 14, 2019 by Stuart Galbraith

[BansheeOne]

I saw a conspiracy theory that Boeing was aware of the problem even before the Lion Air crash and was quietly sending out software fixes, starting with American carriers where pilots had already reported the bug. Not sure I'm buying that; the safe and easy way would have been amending the flight manual as they should have done from the start, even if it would have been a minor PR issue.

[Stuart Galbraith]

I think a more likely cause is they sent out advisories (or even manual updates as you say) of a problem for pilots to be aware of, and the US pilots got the heads up and were aware of the problem. And the African and Sri lankan airlines, for whatever reason didnt, and it caught them unawares. Which would point perhaps to the FAA being partly culpable, as well as the airlines concerned, but it still wouldnt let Boeing off the hook if it is, as it looks, a defective aircraft.

[rmgill]

Lets remember to look at technical documentation of possible faults and real reports from pilots as more credible than talking heads who profess knowledge on the subject in the media as the prime drivers of what's what.

 

 

The Canadian realist perspective...

 

 

Keep yer dick in a vice!