Word from Air Canada shortly after the announcements of the grounding was that they expected it to last at least three weeks. With the apparently growing evidence of similarities between the two MAX 8 accidents it may be longer, perhaps with improvements like some of the ones being discussed here being added, in addition to software changes already planned. I bet one of the most valuable airplanes right now on the lease market is any 737 that isn’t a MAX, that could be directly substituted into the gaping holes in airlines’ schedules.
If nothing else, this should give more impetus to Boeing’s upcoming 797 - which IIRC is supposed to replace the 737, 757 and 767 all in one.
I don’t think so. 350 MAX 8s have been delivered so far, and there are firm orders for over 4,600 more 737 MAX models of all variants. This is a problem that has to be fixed, and fixed well, once and for all, not written off.
I like that.
I didn’t read the Seattle Times article due to paywall, but others are quoting it as saying Boeing admits there was a flaw in their safety analysis (which the FAA assigned to Boeing due to budget cuts).
This article references the Seattle Times article.
https://moneymaven.io/mishtalk/economics/boeing-737-max-major-design-flaws-not-a-software-failure-rVjJZBVzZkuZLkDJn3Jy8A/
"The safety analysis:
1 - Understated the power of the new flight control system, which was designed to swivel the horizontal tail to push the nose of the plane down to avert a stall. When the planes later entered service, MCAS was capable of moving the tail more than four times farther than was stated in the initial safety analysis document.
2 - Failed to account for how the system could reset itself each time a pilot responded, thereby missing the potential impact of the system repeatedly pushing the airplane’s nose downward.
3 - Assessed a failure of the system as one level below “catastrophic.” But even that “hazardous” danger level should have precluded activation of the system based on input from a single sensor — and yet that’s how it was designed."
The Seattle Times article is the best comprehensive analysis I’ve seen so far.
Beyond all the technical details covered, it pinpoints the ultimate cause of the crash - that the FAA delegated oversight to Boeing itself. It was a failure of regulation and oversight, due to FAA management being in bed with Boeing.
Have to wonder if the “Hands off business - less regulation” theme in government the last few Republican administrations might have been part of that.
We don’t know the cause of the crashes yet, we need to wait for the investigations to finish.
While the Seattle Times article is quite comprehensive and has lots of detail, there is a lot of speculation and inaccuracies, so need to wait for factual reports.
NB
True, of course. The black box information hasn’t even become available yet.
But that report, and others from reputable media, are based on interviews with engineers inside Boeing and the FAA. And it seems like a consensus is emerging about what the problems were, and what likely happened.
Let’s check the facts:
1 - 737 MAX project launched 2011 with FAA certification in 2017
2 - Obama’s admin: 2009 through 2017
Yep, it’s definitely the Republicans.
The crucial question is when did the FAA change their policy and start delegating certification to the manufacturer. And was that change a result of Administration guidance.
2011-2018 Republican controlled House
2015-present Republican controlled Senate
Which party wants less government regulations, less oversight, less intrusion into business?
Uh…according to Wikipedia:
You’re rounding 19-and-a-half days up to 365?
Regarding congress: valid point, repubs in congress can influence FAA funding.
FAA funding was passed in 2012 for a 5 year period and then again in July of 2016 which ran through Sept 2017.
The Obama+congress deal could have been influenced by repubs, but I don’t think they asked Trump for his opinion.
At least one Congressional subpoena has apparently been issued, regarding the FAA’s certification of the 737 Max. As per CBS News:
I mentioned earlier that some pilots had complained about the MAX 8 on a confidential federal database. With the caveat that we don’t know whether any of the issues mentioned are relevant to this accident (or the apparently similar Lion Air crash), nor how common these complaints might be for new aircraft, some of them seem pretty damning for Boeing, such as this more complete version of a quote I cited before, from the 737 MAX captain of an unnamed airline:
“[It is] unconscionable that a manufacturer, the FAA, and the airlines would have pilots flying an airplane without adequately training, or even providing available resources and sufficient documentation to understand the highly complex systems that differentiate this aircraft from prior models. I am left to wonder: what else don’t I know? The Flight Manual is inadequate and almost criminally insufficient. All airlines that operate the MAX must insist that Boeing incorporate ALL systems in their manuals.”
Air Canada announces its MAX 8s will remain grounded at least until July 1. Six more MAX 8s scheduled to be delivered during March and April have been suspended.
Holy cow. I thought FAA regulations REQUIRED that every single system on a plane be thoroughly documented, and that pilots got full training and then refresher training throughout their careers. And that the manuals make it easy to find things, which lead to things like point pages and lists of effective pages (LEP) and even having darn near every paragraph numbered. (That last bit is something I’ve actually been arguing about with a coworker. I say when the doc is long enough, you should at least number all the headings because that makes information easier to find; he says the text is enough.)
This is disturbing, to say the least.
Furthermore, implicit in this statement is the assumption that pilots never complain about other planes on a confidential federal database. If this is true, the issue is relevant. But if complaints are frequent and common, this statement is misleading.
But documenting the system and requiring training would have raised the cost of owning the plane in a very competitive market.
Obviously it’s far better to spend that money on larger executive bonuses.