Personally I don’t love the idea of flying on one of these at this point, no matter how many tweaks they make. I’m sure many others will feel the same.
At what point is a new airframe the better PR move for all involved?
If Boeing can't afford to scrap 500 jets, it probably can't afford to sell 500 jets at a 95% loss.
Nobody likes a cargo plane falling on them.
I already use sites like seatguru.com to work out the best seats on flights - I guess I'll now be checking to see if it is a boeing plane or not before booking.
Now if the 787 is grounded or loses ETOPS certification, that'll be a much bigger hit for the big US airlines.
4,500 orders (edit: potentially) cancelled, any thoughts what that would do to planned income?
I would rather fly on one of these once they're back in the air.
The alternative to found and fixed issues is not a lack of issues.
An issue can be extremely difficult to identify and understand in the first place. Assuming you can find it anyway, the fix is very costly both in financial and political terms. All things considered, most problems just remain under the carpet.
For a comparable case. Think of the unwanted acceleration in the Toyota car. A software bug that caused multiple deaths. Toyota didn't admit to having any bug. The first audit found glaring quality issues but no explanation for the unwanted acceleration. It's only few years later that another audit identified how to trigger it, well, 10 different ways to make it happen.
If you read the long text and the attached documents, there are multiple software, hardware and design issues detailed. Some deadly ones around acceleration about tasks scheduling and priority inversion, well known aspects of embedded real time software with known solutions to avoid them.
The lead is well buried. That's another obstacle with non-trivial debugging. Nobody has the attention span, the time and the knowledge to understand non-trivial bugs, let alone when they're intentionally kept in the dark and pressured by companies.
Bear in mind that most of the flying public aren't even aware that there's a problem, so the only issue is getting the airplane airworthy. PR is a "minor" issue that only affects the airlines and that segment of business travel that are aware of the problem. Don't forget that people forget stuff quickly because there's always something new to worry about.
And for me, personally? If the corrected airplane is deemed airworthy by the appropriate regulatory bodies, I'll have no problem flying on it.
I disagree, and I think this is really what makes the situation a far larger issue within the aviation community. It was approved by the appropriate regulatory bodies despite the serious failures by Boeing engineers and managers to identify and correct the MCAS problems before it was deployed into the field.
It's not a case of some crazy fluke that nobody knew was going to happen. This was a single sensor (aka a single point of failure) on a system that could nosedive a commercial airliner against the will of any human on or off board. You could ask anyone: "Is it a good idea to put a sensor on this plane that, if it malfunctions, will force the yoke forward and cause the plane to crash?" Not a single soul alive would think it is.
The fact that the FAA had the opportunity to tell Boeing to GTFO with this insane decision but didn't makes them a political body (i.e. pay for play, they wanted Boeing to generate 737 MAX sales even if it killed people) at worst and incompetent (they genuinely didn't realize the MCAS had problems) at best.
The FAA has, so far, miraculously avoided political controversies throughout its history and has always been regarded as a reputable, trustworthy body that deserves the privilege to regulate airways both in and out of U.S. territory. Losing their reputation could hurt air travel safety for decades to come.
Look, I haven't worked in aviation electronics, but I have worked in another Federally regulated industry for a long time. Having "seen the sausage being made" as it were, none of this 737-MAX shenanigans surprises me. Perhaps that informs my opinions!
In general, the industry is extremely quality-focused and would probably be so for a long time even without the oversight. That said, the companies will go to whatever length they can legally to not shoot themselves in the foot economically. So while I can't say that I know of any actual coverups or illegal behavior, I do know of cases where Problem Reports were analyzed to within an inch of their life to ensure that the business could legally and ethically avoid a product recall.
You're building extremely complex systems and even with a sincere commitment to quality, things will go wrong.
Is the 737-MAX fundamentally unsafe or poorly designed? I see nothing that even remotely hints at that.
This might have been true in the first few days after the accident, but the 737 Max has been all over the news since… I would be shocked if a majority of fliers had not heard at least something about issues with Boeing planes.
https://i.imgur.com/lLLeldA.png
Source: https://qz.com/1571820/deaths-on-the-boeing-737-max-8-vs-oth...
The question here is likelihood of fatal accident, which is not addressed by your source.
They had the exact same number of crashes, plus one near-crash. Very similar to me. Planes flew with much lower passenger loads in those days so total fatalities can differ.
I don't know what the exact crash rate (i.e., % flights that end in hull loss) was.
That's just what's on the wiki page [1]
I provided a list of fatalities, you said that was a bad measure and early 737 was a worse plane that crashed more often. Do you have stats for that?
Some design flaws take time to show up, due to life cycle aging. Most of the rudder issues were in 737-300's, which began full production in the mid-1980s. There isn't just a single "737" model, even for the same 737-XXX series.
You can do your own research from here on out. If 6 fatal crashes plus non-fatal incidents due to the same design flaw don't persuade you then perhaps you are not persuadable.
The basic fact, that there are plenty of previous cases of serious design flaws in aircraft that became quite safe, is sound, whether you choose to accept that or not.
Edited to add: the rudder design was "new" to the industry, in that it had a single control surface activated by a single control mechanism with no redundancy (sound familiar?). The rudder control valve in question had been found to malfunction on 747-200's earlier and was replaced in the entire 747 fleet. The 737's were not replaced until after more fatalities.
The point of all this is that there are "incompetence" narratives that can be woven around all major design issues in commercial aircraft. To say "I'll ever fly one" displays a lack of understanding of what makes commercial aviation the safest way to travel, and what the risks actually are.
No right-minded person would ever design a flight control system like that. It's not merely wrong but wrong in such a basic way, as if designed by a child.
Such a situation reasonably makes people question whether the MAX project was managed by competent individuals, which is obviously a prerequisite for many people to fly in one.
The worst case scenario (for Boeing), at this point, is the FAA and/or other aviation regulators, decide that the differences require different type certification for the aircraft and therefore mandate a unique type rating by pilots to fly the plane. That would require they be trained about those differences.
And
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/the...
There are more than enough reasons to reasonably decertify the aircraft. When you start doing things that "fly-in-the-face" of industry best practice, and begin requiring the most liberal interpretation possible of regulations as written, it's time to start dialing back what you're willing to let slide.
Even with these "minor tweaks" to every fuselage, the airframe can reasonably be assumed to have further problems.
As a for instance, what happens if a dual flameout in flight occurs? Does the Ram Air Turbine make enough power to run the Flight Control Computer and all it's dependencies to ensure the MCAS functionality stays intact until the plane can be safely touched down?
If not, will there be simulator training so pilots are prepared?
There is more than enough publicly available information to be cause for concern.
Isn't MCAS a solution to address greater nose pitch-up due to stronger thrust vectoring effects from the new engines? In a dual engine flameout where all thrust is lost, doesn't thrust vectoring cease to be an issue?
That's why this damn kludge of a system is so concerning. It's an active airworthyness hack to counter a passive aerodynamic characteristic of the airframe.
So if a double flameout occurs, killing all power, and killing the Flight Control Computer due to unreliable voltage being supplied from the Ram Air Turbine, the pilots are stuck flying a glider that'll try to pitch into a stall on them if they aren't careful.
Again, normally wouldn't worry about something like this, but they missed/intentionally left out the single AoA sensor...
So...yeah... I have severe concerns about this design, and the effort put into known, unlikely, but highly severe failures.
Maybe you shouldn't post such strong statements about a technology you know very little about.
First: The 737 does not actually have a RAT.
Second: On types that have a RAT (e.g. the A320) it isn't electrical, it provides hydraulic power to operate the flight controls.
If you need emergency electrical power from a RAT equipped aircraft it will be from an haudraulically driven AC generator through a constant speed drive. It will not have voltage fluctuations, only risk is frequency being off and aircraft systems are designed to deal with that.
Also, the thrust change nose-up moment is not much different to a 737 classic or 737 NG; MCAS is required due to the lifting moment of the engines, which are in front of the center of gravity (thus pulling the nose up when in a positive AoA situation).
The article you cite doesn't even mention FAR 25. The strongest statement it makes is this: “to address potentially unacceptable nose-up pitching moment at high angles of attack at high airspeeds,”
For my purposes, that whole statement is rendered useless bullshit by the word "potentially". It's like saying "maybe, maybe not, who is to say?"
That statement in the article implicates the 737 MAX as not conforming specifically with FAR 25.173(c), but does not come right out and say that. Further, no source has said, one way or another, that the FAA permits computers as an aid to certifying airworthiness for designs that without computers would not be certified under FAR 25.
There is not enough public information to decertify the plane. Realize exactly what you're really saying: the airplane should not have been certified airworthy to begin with. You can't really decertify it without, in effect, saying malfeasance has happened. It isn't merely that MCAS wasn't good enough. It's that it should never have been considered appropriate to use software to paper over aerodynamic problems in the first place.
Am I suspicious that's what has happened? Yes. But is my suspicion evidence or a relevant fact that demonstrates it has happened? No. And all we have with articles thus far is speculation and suspicion. Where are the facts that prove this?
I can't account for what pile of fecal matter will be shoveled on the FAR's to justify the MAX, and to be honest cmurf, I believe it was a post of yours that ended up galvanizing for me that something is incredibly wrong with the MAX. The fact is, regulations in the United States seem to become negotiable after a certain size actor starts coming into play, and like it or not, that's the way it's worked since I've been around to see it.
Seattle Times found documented proof of non-compliant curves. You might find 'potentially' magically turns something into 'bullshit', but as someone who works in risk management, and is well versed in the physical sciences, "potentially" means that something is likely enough not to be trivially discounted, and requires an effort to remediate. It means "the potential exists; there is no known law or other invariant that reasonably discludes or prevents outcome X from being the case". If there is anything to being an Engineer, you have to admit that the the word "potentially" means something coming from them.
Seattle Times also broke the story on how Boeing regressed switch functionality in order to make sure the Stabilizer Trim cutout procedure lined up with what was already documented, but failed to provide educative material as to why the change, or also ensuring that pilot's who knew they could isolate the autopilot from the trim motor without cutting out their trim switches no longer could.
60 Minutes reported on active attempts to circumvent FAA scrutiny (decision to go with the single sensor input). I won't go as far to put names on actors, but there is more than enough stink of malfeasance that the poor engineering decisions, the motivations behind changing the focus of the company from high quality aircraft design to shareholder value generator, and the actions of current regulators in dragging their feet to deal with the problems that have been uncovered should stoke righteous indignation at the nerve of people who purport themselves to be responsible stewards of the public's safety to be so sheepishly approaching what is one of the biggest demonstrable breaches of the public trust of our time. These are not suspicions. These are not suppositions. This happened. You want to know where the facts are? Grab a pencil, some paper, and a computer, and crack open a few books on aerodynamics, numerical methods, CFD, and simulations. Then, run down as many dimensions as you can. This will act as the foundation for your coming aerodynamics analysis. Read through some white papers. Reason. Look at different plane designs, understand how different trade-offs effect the machine.
Don't feel like becoming an aerodynamicist in all but the job/paycheck? Then you'll have to live with the outputs generated by the media like everybody else, or say screw it, and do your best to understand the science anyway.
You can wait for the lawyers; I've worked through enough to assure myself that if the rest of the world dropped the issue tomorrow, I'd still not put anyone I cared about on those planes on principle, and on the basis of too many unanswered questions. I have no compulsion to do anything to help Boeing's image, and the shots I fire I ensure have sufficient grounding in what is reasonably deduceable from publicly available information to not be a bad faith hindrance. If they want things cleared up. They can put all the information where God and everyone can see it. The concern with the RAT being deduced from the Gimli Glider iincident; where the electronics getting knocked out ended up leaving pilot's with very few automation aids to land the plane. Just because it happened due to a fuel screwup doesn't mean it's outside the realm of possibility of happening from something else.
Boeing thought suppressing difficult questions would save them money when their product is on the drawing board; they have no right to expect us, the public to accept their 'reasoned gamble' for the sake of their shareholders.
I'd rather get ideas out there and looked at now, while the scrutiny is hot, that nothing else slips through the cracks.
I'm not going to make this personal cmurf. I'm just not.
But I'm not going to stand by idly either and project an image that everything is a-okay, in the air, totally not worth getting in a fuss over. It isn't, and we shouldn't pretend it is. I'm not out to warp words. I'm out to chase every damn thread to see where it goes, or to inspire someone else to do so if there is someone with the means and access to ensure the truth sees the light of day.
60 Minutes https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DaO7_indbfME&ved=2ahUKEwji6...
Culture shift: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-05-09/former-bo...
Switch regression: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boein...
Gimli Glider: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider#History
See the previous article from Seattle Times for the history. Call their investigative reporter if you are truly that concerned w.r.t the provenance of his information.
I don't need to make anything up. Boeing took care of that for us. It's up to us to be informed, and make sure in no uncertain terms is anything remotely like this ever deemed acceptable again.
The actual risk is complex, an airline with more capacity depending on the new model has more risk as they take on new planes and retire old ones, but does the contract reflect that complexity? I have no idea. For all I know, there's generic terms for handling all certification problems that crop up, including airworthiness directives from the FAA that affect A&P's rather than pilots. It might be the two sides split the cost 50/50 for all I know, or maybe they use binding arbitration to keep the airing of dirty laundry as much out of the public view as possible.