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Comment by torgian | Hacker News Reader

"""On the matter of parts being lost, in early 2017 a review by the Federal Aviation Administration upheld Mr Barnett's concerns, establishing that the location of at least 53 "non-conforming" parts was unknown, and that they were considered lost. Boeing was ordered to take remedial action"""

That's not just bad; this is really, _really_ bad. In my eight years of the Navy, working on aircraft, parts and tool accountability was 100% the most serious part of our day. You went to and left the aircraft with everything accounted for. If _one_ part or tool was missing, everything would shut down for that aircraft until it was found.

The fact that tools and parts were/are missing tells me that either supply didn't do its job right, or someone left a loose nut in a compartment somewhere, just waiting to kill people.

People _die_ because of this shit.

View on HN

Just last week i heard a story from an older friend about a fighter jet crash investigation he was involved in, where the cause basically was that an engineer wired down some bolts (as required) but trimmed the ends of the wires without recovering the trimmed part. That little piece eventually found its way into the main stick mechanics, causing enough resistance at the wrong moment, preventing the pilot from recovering from a tight dive and killing him.

This is one of the reasons we never trimmed the ends of cut wire when we tied bolts down. We just twisted them and bent them inward. No excess cuts needed, and no tiny bits of FOD that you have to dig out.

What is FOD in this context?

Foreign Object Debris

We always called it "Foreign Object Damage" but yeah, "Debris" would technically be more correct.

Gotta keep the FOD out of the aircraft and the flight lines!

Both are kind of correct. If it's laying where it shouldn't be it's debris, but if it's plowed through the windshield it's damage.

This is really interesting to me, how are the crash investigators able to pinpoint the exact cause of failure in such circumstances? I'd imagine a small piece of wire would be just another miniscule piece of debris at a crash site, and unlikely to still be in the location that caused the crash.

Starts with data logging, everything is logged. Then you inspect that area and look for anomalies in the metals in that area. At 5Gs, a little piece of wire becomes a razor blade and leaves evidence. A lot of odd nicks in an avionics bay will lead to testing, interviews and more testing. A worker has no reason to hide details, it would be criminal, so the interviews look at all the possible anomalies and then narrows down to the root cause.

Really amazing work, read NTSB crash reports and they outline the methods used

Thanks, yes, I've heard that NTSB crash reports are mind blowing in their attention to detail. A follow on question: how do they ensure people honestly answer questions, is the person not inviting personal liability by answering?

In my experience there has always been a _deep_ culture of mutual respect between industrial aviation players and the NTSB.

Everyone knows that the investigative body is there to help figure out what went wrong and to provide guidance on how to avoid similar mistakes in the future. It’s not about assigning blame, and there’s an understanding that if it were to become about that then the industry would be worse-off as a whole.

(Slightly off-topic, but this is precisely why Tesla’s reaction to the NTSB investigation in their Model X crash was so concerning. Any player that defects here runs the risk of poisoning the process for everyone else.)

Thank you both for the answers!

Look at the original metal fatigue investigations that lead to round windows.

They pressurized and depressurized an airplane (inside of a water tank) 50,000 times until it failed.

I am really impressed that we are able to fly safely at all if a tiny little piece of debris like this can cause plane crashes. Debris is a fact of life. Things fall apart, small pieces come off whatever substance or piece they were attached to. Are maintenance crews constantly just taking aircraft apart and vacuuming every surface they find?

Military aircraft are designed to be unstable, so that they can perform fast, odd combat maneuvers. The flight computers are the only think keeping those things flying.

Civilian aircraft are designed to be super stable.

This isn't necessarily true. Without stability you can't perform certain maneuvers. And the large aircraft are super stable.

That said, we take FOD and tool control very seriously. And the aircraft had 30 / 60 / 90 /365 day inspections that varied in detail

And aerodynamic stability would not have prevented the accident described in grandparent.

Do you think the pilot had any idea what happened or did he simply die never knowing?

Its lack of relevance to the matter at hand not withstanding, I admit to be a bit bewildered by your question and thus feel the need to ask: what makes you think the pilot could possibly have any idea that trimmed parts from a bolt is what caused the stick resistance, or that he would spend the time thinking about that instead of recovering the aircraft in the few minutes he had at the most ...

Pilots have loads of checklists, many of them committed to memory. If there's a problem, there's a checklist for it and following the checklist should lead you to a solution or at least tell you what is wrong. The downside is that checklists can't account for every possible thing going wrong. A little piece of wire jamming a hydraulic system is going to be a hard fix. Even if you have the tools and access to the component, do you have time while the plane is nose down?

Planes have to be predictable, they can have massive failure states but the solution must be repeatable. Unknown failures, regardless of the severity, are a major problem and should always be tracked and investigated. A small unknown failure could be a symptom or precursor to a much larger problem.

Everyone hates paperwork but it's what saves lives.

You’re actually not supposed to memorize checklists, it leads to complacency.

For those emergencies that demand quick action, commercial pilots do have to memorize the relevant checklists.

He or she would spend time mentally running through the avionics system to think of what to trouble shoot. Experienced pilots know how their craft works just like you know how to debug a failing drive and not waste time looking at your network cable.

My neighbor is a pilot and I asked him completely off hand how to troubleshoot non responsive flaps and he went into detail about the hydraulics system, where the pumps are and the steps he would take to troubleshoot. This was off the top of his head without a checklist.

I think at the speeds we are talking about here, it's just an "the plane is not reacting to control input" and nothing else. Probably not enough time to think about what exactly went wrong (and will kill you in seconds).

Almost certainly the latter. :-(

How is it possible to make that determination after the crash ...?

I would say, as european, that all this storm of shit is good news for Airbus, but I hop on Boeing planes too, and I think competition is good news.

Boeing is maybe too big to fail, but the reputation hit they are taking may lead to companies not buying their planes, thus pushing for least competition, which is bad news for everyone.

Airbus being the kind of behemoth company it is, I am convinced that without Boeing's competition, over time, they would end up with the same practices, convinced that their aircraft sell themselves.

Airbus is no better. Investigation report about an incident in 2018 was just released: https://avherald.com/h?article=4b57c3dd/0000&opt=0

What happened there: wrong kind of oil was used in elevator and it went unnoticed because maintenance guides did not require any inspections of affected parts. Wrong oil caused delays in sensor triggering, which led to primary computers shutting down, believing that there was a problem with elevator.

Backup computers didn't detect gear compression correctly when the aicraft bounced on the runway (one computer believed it was on the ground, the other that it was airborne) and also shut down and locked the elevator in neutral (zero) position as a safety measure.

This happened during a touch-and-go landing on a training flight. The A320 touched down, bounced, elevator got locked, the aircraft climbed a bit, then fell down on the runway scraping and damaging engines (due to loss of control), then took off again (not enough runway left for stopping) and was now flying with no elevator and with engines about to shut down. It's a miracle that pilots managed to turn around and land safely.

In 1993, Lufthansa A320 crashed under similar conditions: landed in poor conditions, computers didn't think it was on the ground and didn't allow braking until it was too late https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lufthansa_Flight_2904

Shit is always going to happen, there is no magic trick. However what these companies can do, is being extremely diligent about implementing fixes as soon as an issue is reported and not cutting corners on the certification processes and safety features.

What has surfaced in the last few months, is that Boeing is willing to cut corners, and is not being diligent. It's completly possible that the same thing is happening at Airbus, but I have not personnally seen or heard evidences of that. At the very least, Airbus is not certifying it's own planes.

For example, for the crash you mentionned, was Airbus aware of that potential issue sooner but didn't update the maintenance guide for some ulterior motives?

> Airbus is no better.

Maybe, but the report you linked does not show that. The issue with Boeing is not that a plane crashed but that planes crashed despite earlier reports that people considered these planes unsafe. No such reports came out of Airbus about the A320 as far as I'm aware. Also the regulators did not delegate certification to Airbus.

Airbus has similar long-standing issues. On ground / airborne detection logic was broken in 1993 and is still broken in 2019, to a point that it can cause loss of flight controls.

Boeing, in contrast, uses simple radar altimeter. Whenever altitude reads 10 feet or less, the aircraft is considered to be "on ground" and things like thrust reversers become available.

I personally avoid praising or preferring Airbus when bashing Boeing. Who knows what else is under that rock too.

Boeing, in contrast, uses simple radar altimeter.

Which is problematic and has killed 134 people.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/easa-cautions-737...

things like thrust reversers become available.

Boeing rather famously had a problem with in-air thrust reverse deployment (not on the 73 though).

> Which is problematic

Not at all. Its malfunctions are clear and obvious. If autothrottle starts moving thrust levers in unexpected ways, you turn the autothrottle off and assume manual control.

Thrust levers, reversers, braking or any other systems were not blocked or deployed unexpectedly. The aircraft simply reduced thrust too much while in control of speed, which is something one should always look out for, it's an expected failure, a known unknown.

The Turkish airplane crashed because the crew was flying an unstable approach and did not pay attention to warnings because their style of flying was expected to trigger warnings. This obscured the malfunction.

They came in too fast and too steep, ignored aural warnings, let thrust levers move to idle (which they expected because of high speed), failed to monitor airspeed and didn't notice last minute warnings because they were occupied with checklist that they should've already been through.

No-one was actually flying the airplane, despite the fact that there was an extra third safety pilot in the cockpit who was tasked with observing the flight.

Not at all. Its malfunctions are clear and obvious.

While the FAA seems to agree with you EASA, Transport Canada, Australia's ATSB, and Senegal's BEA seem to disagree.

Of course alerting could and was improved, but the Turkish accident wouldn't have happened if pilots had done the bare minimum of what's expected of them and monitored airspeed and altitude while they were flying close to ground and preparing to land any minute.

As said, autothrottle malfunction is a known unknown (with or without radio altimeter), something one can reasonably expect to happen, unlike the recent Airbus case where a bumpy landing led to loss of flight controls, something no pilot was trained for nor could reasonably expect to happen.

What's also important to stress is that loss of radio altimeter and autothrottle did not restrict Boeing pilots in any way. They had full control over the aircraft.

The TAM wreck wouldn't have happened had the pilots flown the plane either. vOv

unlike the recent Airbus case where a bumpy landing led to loss of flight controls, something no pilot was trained for nor could reasonably expect to happen.

That was quite a bit more than a bumpy landing. The Lufthansa pilots touched down far past where they should've. That's not a flaw with the aircraft. There's a reason the formal conclusion was pilot error and not because nationalism came into play.

What's also important to stress is that loss of radio altimeter and autothrottle did not restrict Boeing pilots in any way. They had full control over the aircraft.

Don't forget that in some of these cases, the autopilot didn't disconnect because the autopilot couldn't determine that one of the RAs had failed.

And what of the Lauda Air wreck? How much control did the pilots have when the reversers deploy in flight on a 76?

How about asymmetric flap deployments on a 75? Capt. VanderBurgh already discussed that scenario — another one where Boeing said that could never happen and pilots shouldn't train in the sim for it. Turns out it can happen and you're basically SOL.

Or what of the rudder hard overs in the NG?

How about the Helios Air wreck where the alarm for takeoff config and pressurization problems was (and still is) the same? How much awareness do you think a hypoxic crew will have?

How about the AoA disagree annunciator on the MAX that was too buggy to work unless you paid for additional features? Plenty of low quality crap comes out of Boeing these days…

> The TAM wreck wouldn't have happened had the pilots flown the plane either.

Pilots were actively engaged, made a minor mistake by setting wrong thrust lever position on one engine, which caused the aircraft to disregard any other input and assume the aircraft to be airborne even when it was on the ground, spoilers and auto-braking armed, brakes manually slammed and one engine in reverse.

> That was quite a bit more than a bumpy landing.

I was referring to the 2018 incident. Pilots did everything by the book, yet lost elevator control.

> Don't forget that in some of these cases, the autopilot didn't disconnect because the autopilot couldn't determine that one of the RAs had failed.

Again, completely irrelevant as it did not prevent pilots from taking full control of the aircraft.

The rest of the examples you've thrown at me are also all malfunctions and have nothing to do with A320 incorrectly determining its state and overriding correct input from pilots.

I was referring to the 2018 incident. Pilots did everything by the book, yet lost elevator control.

You mentioned LH2904 and TAM3054. In both cases the pilots fucked up. Full stop.

Both flights were deemed pilot error by the respective investigative agencies. In the Lufthansa flight, they touched down too far down the runway.

A320 incorrectly determining its state and overriding correct input from pilots

The A320 pilots did not provide correct inputs.

> You mentioned LH2904 and TAM3054.

This whole thread started from description of the 2018 SmartLynx accident.

> The A320 pilots did not provide correct inputs.

They did. Read the 2018 report. Simple touch-and-go's on a training day led to loss of elevator due to timing of a single light bounce after touchdown.

> Both flights were deemed pilot error by the respective investigative agencies.

Both reports also concluded that design of the aircraft contributed to the accident (instead of preventing) and recommended revising it.

In addition, the 2018 SmartLynx crash showed that the A320 still can't tell whether it's on the ground or not. This time pilots did everything by the book, and found themselves locked out of elevator control due to poor design of A320 SEC computers.

This doesn't change the point you're making, but thankfully it was only 9/134 people according to the article's tagline. The mix of the word "nine" and the number "134" makes it hard to spot

This doesn't change the point you're making, but thankfully it was only 9/134 people according to the article's tagline. The mix of the word "nine" and the number "134" makes it hard to spot

Yeah I'm familiar with the accident in question in passing so I just skimmed the article itself (whoops). RA failure on the 737 isn't unheard of:

https://avherald.com/h?article=4924e9ea (2015)

https://avherald.com/h?article=48c031e2 (2015)

https://avherald.com/h?article=4bc252c2 (2018)

https://avherald.com/h?article=417e726c (2009)

https://avherald.com/h?article=41e84cb5 (2009)

The in-flight thrust reverser deployment killed everyone on the plane, thankfully Niki Lauda took Boeing to task.

Airbus has similar long-standing issues. On ground / airborne detection logic was broken in 1993 and is still broken in 2019, to a point that it can cause loss of flight controls.

So you're claiming that Airbus knowingly leaves a critical defect in their planes, which may cause the loss of flight controls and which they refreain from fixing for almost 30 years?

Either come up with a reliable source for this statement (which is extremely hard to believe) or allow me to call bullshit!

NTSB already notes long-standing issues with all aircraft, all you need to do is read. Airbus for example has a flaw in the A300-600 line where the tailfin can get ripped off due to bad rudder manufacture, that's been around and still exists since the turn of the millennia. My pal consistently bitches about having to do constant preventative work on that section of that line of planes (he's an Airbus engineer.)

> So you're claiming that Airbus knowingly leaves a critical defect in their planes, which may cause the loss of flight controls and which they refreain from fixing for almost 30 years?

A320's computers monitor gear for uncompression of 1 second or longer. Computers are not in sync. If landing gear decompresses due to bouncing for long enough to be seen for 1 second by one computer, but short enough to get missed by the other, computers will produce different outputs and the system will shut down, freezing important flight control at a dangerous phase of flight and leaving pilots in a situation they have not been trained for.

Given the very obviously flawed and incredibly poor design that's easy to understand even for laymen, I would have very hard time believing that no-one at Airbus ever noticed, no-one ever spoke up. I think this would reflect even more poorly on Airbus.

Especially so considering that there have been multiple hull-loss accidents with fatalities (LH2904, TAM3054), where air/ground detection has been a contributing factor. Throughout the years, the aircraft has been unable to tell whether it's on the ground or in the air.

With the Lufthansa flight the problem was not the aircraft design but rather that the pilot remained on only one main gear for too long. The Airbus design requires weight on both wheels (this had nothing to do with computers being out of sync) in order to prevent things like the Lauda Air (Boeing 767-300ER) crash where the thrust reversers deployed in flight causing the plane to drop out of the sky, killing everyone.

Same deal with the TAM flight. For whatever reason the pilots didn't properly position the thrust lever on one engine. That had nothing to do with computers being out of sync and had absolutely nothing to do with ground detection.

Meanwhile with the Boeing 737, a single (unreliable) radar altimeter (RA) is used as part of the ground detection and a single failed RA caused a Westjet 737 to start pulling back on the throttles.

http://avherald.com/h?article=41e84cb5

As far a the Turkish 737 crash:

http://avherald.com/h?article=41595ec3

During the accident flight, while executing the approach by means of the instrument landing system with the right autopilot engaged, the left radio altimeter system showed an incorrect height of -8 feet on the left primary flight display. This incorrect value of -8 feet resulted in activation of the ‘retard flare’ mode of the autothrottle, whereby the thrust of both engines was reduced to a minimal value (approach idle) in preparation for the last phase of the landing.

...

The problems with radio altimeter systems in the Boeing 737-800 fleet had been affecting several airlines, including Turkish Airlines, for many years and were known to Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States of America.

...

Despite the fact that Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States of America had been aware for many years that the radio altimeter system was causing many problems and was affecting the operation of other systems, this situation was not designated as a safety risk. Reports of problems with the radio altimeter system that could not be resolved by Boeing justified an effort to analyse the radio altimeter system and other related systems. Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States of America could have recognised the fact that the problems caused by the radio altimeter system, especially the potential for activating the autothrottle retard flare mode, posed a safety risk.

That sounds a lot like the engineering that went into MCAS - using only one input for something safety critical.

In TAM and LH cases, pilots were locked out of using full braking capabilities of the aircraft because they found themselves in a situation that didn't satisfy the conditions defined as "landing" by aircraft designers. The had wheels on the ground, but program logic evaluated to onground = FALSE.

Westjet and Turkish incidents are irrelevant. Westjet malfunctioned, pilot took control and landed safely - that's what pilots are there for. Turkish airplane also malfunctioned and gave multiple warnings over several minutes, but pilots didn't pay attention to what the aircraft was doing until stall warning activated at 460 feet, by which time it was too late. Had they paid attention, they would've also recovered and landed safely.

In contrast, Airbuses systems didn't malfunction. They worked as designed and made the already difficult situation (landing in bad weather) deadly due to not responding like a pilot would expect. The design was deeply flawed, just like MCAS.

The had wheels on the ground, but program logic evaluated to onground = FALSE.

Nope. The Lufthansa bird had one bogie on the ground and one off. With the TAM flight the pilots left one thrust lever at climb power and one at idle, pure pilot error.

The Westjet and Turkish incidents are irrelevant. Westjet malfunctioned, pilot took control and landed safely - that's what pilots are there for. Turkish airplane also malfunctioned and gave multiple warnings over several minutes, but pilots didn't pay attention to what the aircraft was doing until stall warning activated at 460 feet, by which time it was too late. Had they paid attention, they would've also recovered and landed safely.

Unfortunately the 737s were functioning as designed, the computers took invalid input and ran with it instead of cross checking it.

> Nope. The Lufthansa bird had one bogie on the ground and one off.

Which is to be expected from a crosswind landing (especially with a lot of lift from higher-than-usual speed), but it took 900 m of runway before enough weight was detected on both of them to activate thrust reversers and spoilers. And even after all wheels were on the ground, it took another 300 m before wheel brakes became active. The accident investigation report recommended introduction of emergency override to cover the whole range of conditions in which airplanes fly.

> With the TAM flight the pilots left one thrust lever at climb power and one at idle, pure pilot error.

The aircraft was firmly on the ground, with one thrust lever in reverse position. Spoilers and auto-brake did not activate because position of the other lever lever was prioritized over actual condition of the aircraft. Critical data was derived from a thrust lever, which has no safety features to prevent inadvertent wrong positioning. Furthermore, lever positioning suppressed aural reminders to bring thrust levers to idle (the famous "RETARD").

> Unfortunately the 737s were functioning as designed, the computers took invalid input and ran with it instead of cross checking it.

Which is irrelevant on the 737, because its design philosophy expects pilots to monitor and (if necessary) override automation, which hundreds of attentive crews successfully did before the Turkish crash. A320, on the other hand, lacks emergency override, as the LH2904 investigators noted in their report. It cannot reliably tell whether the aircraft is on the ground or not, and stops pilots from taking the correct action.

>which may cause the loss of flight controls and which they refreain from fixing for almost 30 years?

And, that as far as we know, hasn't caused

Actually, there as an argument that it is not good for Airbus at all because it will risk the stability of duopoly between Boing and Airbus. The idea is that now Boing will be forced to actually invest tens of billions in new aircraft design, forcing Airbus to do the same instead of milking the current designs for as long as possible. Also, apparently the aircraft manufacturing is not a very flexible business and Airbus already produces as many planes as possible so other manufacturers(especially the Chinese) may actually use this as an opportunity to grab market share and destroying the comfortable duopoly.

> Actually, there as an argument that it is not good for Airbus at all because it will risk the stability of duopoly between Boing and Airbus.

I like thinking about this in a sort of hypothetical Sparta. Sparta had two kings from two different royal lines.

Suppose you're one of two kings, and the other royal line experiences some sort of dynastic hiccup. This inevitably happens to everyone.

A popular strategy throughout history is to capitalize on that hiccup by exterminating the existing royal line, or at least driving them out of power so you can take it yourself. As a king, you are ideally positioned to do this. Maybe you can take both thrones and be the double-king. Maybe you can put your cousin on the second throne. Maybe you can put a flunky on the second throne. Maybe you can get rid of the second throne, leaving yourself as sole king.

But once you do that, a precedent has been set. Your line will eventually stumble too, and it is likely to suffer whatever fate befell the other line the first time. Another strategy you have, back when the rival line first shows weakness, is to stake everything you have on your commitment to upholding the Spartan way of life as expressed in the dual kingship. Give rousing speeches on how unthinkable it would be for anything about the current setup to change. Throw all your considerable resources into supporting the king on the other throne, no matter how weak his position might look.

If that sticks, the other line is likely to remember that you were there when they needed you. But even more than that, you've just established that the dual kingship, and the two families who fill it, are an integral part of the culture, never to be questioned. That tradition may ultimately prove more helpful to you than any personal support. And it has such obvious benefits to the other royal line that, going forward, they will likely support it just as strongly as you do.

On this analogy, the problem with disturbing the Airbus / Boeing duopoly isn't that Boeing might start to compete with Airbus, provoking an arms race. The bigger problem is that (as you mention) some other company might start thinking they can make airplanes too, and who knows what could happen then.

We'd be a lot better off with a 3rd maker of large passenger aircraft. Duopolies are never good for the market, and markets seem to do a lot better when there's 3 dominant players: with only 3, the players have very good economies of scale, but because there's 3 (and not 1 or 2), there's still a good amount of competition, while still having a lot of stability, so it balances out. Too many competitors means too little stability and too little economy of scale, too few competitors means too much power in the hands of those companies and too little competition.

Personally, I'd like to see Mitsubishi get back into the passenger plane business. They're already starting, but with a smaller regional jet.

The E195-E2 is much larger than a typical regional jet, and it even has the range to go coast-to-coast in the U.S. It seems to have been overshadowed by the A220, though, perhaps for good reason.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_E-Jet_E2_family#E195-E...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A220#/media/File:CSerie...

I think what's missing in the Airbus-Boeing debate is an appreciation for the role of engine manufacturers. The A220, E195-E2, and Mitsubishi SpaceJet are all built around P&W's new geared turbofan engines.

It seems to me that at this point in the evolution of the industry everybody effectively builds their planes around the capabilities and limits of available engine technology. The immediate cause of death of the A380 was the refusal of any engine manufacturer to design and sell a more modern engine. The A380 became inefficient because its engines were at least 1.5 generations behind, not because there were 4 of them. (Of course, the reason nobody wanted to invest in a newer engine was because the market was too small to make it worth their time, especially considering their struggles with existing commitments.)

I imagine any aerospace engineering company could design a state-of-the-art and competitive body around the available engines. Aircraft manufacturers seem to self-select into market niches not because of engineering costs and difficulties, but simply because the global markets aren't large enough to support a third wide body manufacturer and only barely large enough, if at all, to support another 737/A320.

Will airlines go multi-supplier again or will they specialize in particular manufacturers? The cost to an airline to keep certified personnel on staff capable of supporting planes from different manufacturers is probably greater than the unit savings they could realize in a situation where price competition exists ...

Embraer is pretty large. Not Airbus or Boeing large but they make passenger aircraft for medium and shorter routes.

Embraer is pretty large. Not Airbus or Boeing large but they make passenger aircraft for medium and shorter routes.

Embraer's commercial business is owned by Boeing now — the subsidiary is called BBC.

Was not the problem with MAX in part due to Boeing trying to milk the old design?

More due to airlines demanding a new 737 instead of a new plane. Boeing already made a new 737, it’s called the 757 and nobody bought it.

This. The consternation and blame direct at Boeing, while appropriate, distracts from the real source of the problem: airlines. And Southwest Airlines was possibly one of the largest sources of the 737 MAX negative incentives, by having a contract reportedly require $1 million per airplane if a certain threshold of pilot training was exceeded. And to this day Southwest still doesn't think MAX specific simulator training is necessary for pilots.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-airplane-southwest...

https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2019/07/29/southwest...

That's especially incredible considering Southwest pilots' union says in a lawsuit that the 737 MAX is unsafe.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/in-sc...

The consternation and blame direct at Boeing, while appropriate, distracts from the real source of the problem: airlines. And Southwest Airlines was possibly one of the largest sources of the 737 MAX negative incentives, by having a contract reportedly require $1 million per airplane if a certain threshold of pilot training was exceeded

Well, in this case I'd argue that it was totally Boeing's responsibility to communicate to such customers that they couldn't do it.

Instead they nodded their heads, demanded the impossible from their engineers, demoted or fired people that questioned it and in the end offered a hacked solution, which killed over 300 people.

I don't think that your argument excuses their culpability in any way, shape or form.

In no possible reading of what I wrote is there an excuse for Boeing's culpability. I'm suggesting split culpability.

If I offer you $1 million to shoot someone, and you go do that, two crimes have been committed. Pointing out that I'm also culpable in no way excuses your culpability. I would be the real source of the crime, as the instigator, having set out a strong incentive to commit the crime against your otherwise better judgement.

It's actually a bit worse than that. American Airlines actually announced the "new" 737 variant before Boeing was even thinking of it[0]. At which point Boeing needed to figure out how to make the next 737 happen.

[0] http://news.aa.com/news/news-details/2011/AMR-Corporation-An...

Boeing was all in on building a clean-sheet replacement for the 737 up to like 2011 until American said basically "we're not buying any new planes unless they're 737s and we'll re-standardize on Airbus". Boeing still shouldn't have built it (you don't need to be an aerospace engineer to see where the issues were going to be) but talk about being put into a "coffin corner" (ha ha).

The 757 was made to replace the 727 and serves a different market segment than the 737.

I think you're missing the point, here. The 757 was a 727 replacement because the 737 was never meant to be flying the routes and carrying the pax that it is today. The 737 MAX 10 has become, pax wise, a direct competitor of the 757-200. Airlines are demanding a 757 that doesn't require a new type rating, which is how you get this frankensteins monster of an airplane.

Now, now, frankensteins monster could hold its ballance and had two sensors to sense the pitchfork wielding crowd.

Yes, the Airbus did the same but in their case the a320 did not have a problem fitting larger engines under the wings. The problem is, if Boeing decides to make a brand new design that is more efficient than a320, Airbus will have to match it instead of milking the a320 despite not having its planes falling of the skies.

Provisionally the A320neo's replacement is expected to be a clean-sheet redesign, despite the basic design being two decades newer. Of course, we'll see whether even a common type rating (not type certificate) is sufficient for airlines to not baulk at the idea.

I don’t quite follow your train of thought. Isn’t it normal for companies to compete and evolve their designs? I am sure Airbus is capable of doing that.

Why would Airbus spend 10 Billion on RD for a new plane if they can only spend 1.5 Billion on RD to modify an existing design? In their current form, Airbus and Boing don't really compete, which is bad for the customers but good for the shareholders of these companies. They already produce almost all of the passenger aircrafts and they would love this to continue.

The 737 MAX fiasco threatens this arrangement.

> Why would Airbus spend 10 Billion on RD for a new plane if they can only spend 1.5 Billion on RD to modify an existing design?

Because that's what manufacturers always did? If you only do iterative changes then eventually you run into a wall. Boeing engineers also knew that. The disagreement between what engineers wanted and what management wanted has been a point of contention for many years.

See, that wall is not a problem when you are in a duopoly. You will need to jump the wall only if your competitor jumps and why your competitor would jump if you can pocket the 8.5 billions and sell the regular stuff?

That was what Boeing and Airbus supposed to do: Sell the a320Neo and 737MAX for as long as possible and stay away from the wall. Now that Boeing screwed up, they may be forced to jump the wall and Airbus will have to follow. On the other side of the wall, they will sell the same number of planes.

Full-scale redesigns require more than a ton of capital to build the new plane. It will cost your customers a ton of capital to buy the new plane and change their entire setup (pilots, mx) to use the new plane. The airlines want new jets even less than the manufacturers want to pay to design them.

It is worthwhile mentioning that the Airbus A320 wing was designed 35 years ago for a 70t platform, and has remained the same on all versions, from the A318 through to the A321.

While unchanged, the wing has seen a steady loading increase: to 83t on the first A321, then 89t and 93.5t, and is finally expected to go up to 101t on the A321XLR. This increased wing loading has meant higher take-off speeds, reaching close to the maximum tire speed limits, and a lower safety margin at altitude – in other words, a tighter “coffin corner”, and lower stability protection.

Airbus just hasn't had it's day yet.

>, but the reputation hit they are taking may lead to companies not buying their planes, thus pushing for least competition

If the company doesn't suffer for such failures then competition doesn't matter.

You shouldn't have anymore confidence in them then Boeing.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2923861/Airbus-whistlebl...

Everything’s coming up Bombardier?

Haha.. oh...

After the demise of the a380 project i doubt airbus will ever think again that the aircraft can sell themselves.

A380 is an amazing business case. Ask anyone who has flown on one what their favourite commercial plane is and I would bet the majority will say it's the A380. Despite that it was still a commercial failure.

My wife surely wouldn’t. The upper deck lav leaked on our heads for half the flight from Sydney to LA. What’s worse than a 16 hour flight? A 16 hour flight where you have to stand in the aisles.

I've frequently seen condensed water from the air conditioner leak in an A380 (sometimes quite voluminously during take-off), are you positive it was the lavatory?

(FWIW, I think the A380 has superb pax comfort.)

So it's ok to have water dripping on your head as long as it's vapour condensation?

Certainly better than hot piss.

Is that what happens on the lower decks? :-)

Just rename it steerage, and you're resurrecting fine old nautical tradition.

I generally spend most long haul flights standing in the aisle. It's much better for your back and butt.

Good luck when the turbulence comes. I've seen people suddenly up against the ceiling. It is rare, but extreme turbulence sometimes happens very suddenly.

I remember this on a flight to an airbase in Catania, Sicily. Overnight flight, we were given drinks, then turbulence hit with the hand of Thor.

I'm pretty sure we dropped about 500 feet straight down, but all I remember was being amazed how my cup of pepsi stayed on my tray and didn't fall over.

If the pepsi was still in your cup, you were still at some degree of positive "g". Anything below about 0.5 will cause people to start screaming. True falling is 0g. But things suddenly get very bad at even the slightest negative g. At -0.1g your pepsi is levitating out of the cup, the 100lb drink cart is now airborne, and a second later it all comes crashing down.

I remember having some sort of feeling "negative-g" at that time (and plenty of people were screaming!) but we probably did have some amount of positive G. Probably not much though.

It has crossed my mind on occasion.never been in truly violent turbulence yet but generally wary when flying over the Indian Ocean. Can be quite rough.

Have some empathy.

I think you’re confusing value proposition for business case. The value proposition for widebody is over Singhal I’ll is simple. The business case is nonexistent whenever they’re in competitive situations. The lower cost of unsold seats makes al the difference.

As for favorite plane, the lower pressurization and higher humidity of a 787 makes all the difference.

Exactly. A good airplane isnt enough. The manufacturer has to follow the market, not expect that thier new aircraft will create that market.

You can't just follow when R&D and production for a new aircraft take decades. First feasibility studies for a A380 type aircraft were done in the 1980s, expecting the market in the future. The first delivery to a customer was MSN 003 to Singapore Airlines in 2007.

You need to plan ahead.

The A380 might actually live the destiny of the 767 or 757.

Sure, it was a handful for the manufacturer, luckily pulled it off, kinda broke even after some time. But it will be long gone when it will be really needed, when large hubs become even more congested or certain P2P lines heavily overgrow on themselves.

Good riddance. Despite being so big, its fuel efficiency is unimpressive. Something must be wrong with the design.

It's engines are old, at least 1.5 generations behind the latest engines in production. Fuel efficiency only looks low when compared to aircraft using more modern engines. Unsurprisingly, Emirates canceled their order only after Rolls-Royce rescinded their plans for an engine upgrade. That's why there was the one year of waffling; Airbus and Emirates were trying secure a commitment from Rolls-Royce as everything turned on an upgraded engine.

Even with the engine handicap the A380 was still generally competitive if fully loaded. And if not fully loaded it could still be competitive, as described by a recent story about the outsized role of the Dallas-Sydney route to Quantas' bottom line: https://simpleflying.com/dallas-sydney-qantas/ (see also https://www.dallasnews.com/business/airlines/2019/10/28/this...)

Considering that engine efficiency is perhaps the biggest contributor to financial viability, that says something very positive about the A380 approach and design. But as engines continued to advance the A380 would have lost even that edge.

Yeah, the A380 designed for a longer fuselage so it's inefficient in the -800 variant.

Makes sense. It looks too bulky, and not slender enough.

Can you expand on that?

Good for Airbus for putting out safer aircraft.

> the location of at least 53 "non-conforming" parts was unknown

Just to make things clear since I also work in the field.

Non conforming parts are not a problem, at least not from a safety perspective. It just means that the part is damaged (ex: scratched) or not up to specs, and that some analysis is required. A typical result is that the part is usable but with more frequent inspections and a reduced service life. It is more of a problem for the company because they are losing money fixing stuff instead of doing it right the first time.

Not knowing where each part is, conforming or not, is a really big problem, as mentioned by other posters.

The US Air Force has/had problems with the KC-46 (767) being delivered from Boeing with FOD and tools left in the aircraft. So they could use some improvements in the quality control area.

I remember something similar happening to my squadron; an unopened can of oil was sitting in the engine compartment and we found it during our acceptance inspection.

We were all like, WTF. Photos were taken and sent; I really hope someone got fired.

This also led us to taking the aircraft completely apart and checking every nook and cranny. Found FOD and such in random places.

Usually people don't get fired for stuff like that. It can almost always be traced back to a process, documentation, or training issue. It sounds insulting but you need to treat humans like dumb lazy animals that require strict guidance on how to get things done. Having safeguards like toolbox checks and FOD checks reinforce processes. Expecting technicians to police themselves is ridiculous so you need people who's sole job is to check paperwork and keep everyone else in line. When there are lives and loads of money on the line, there's little room for being lazy about things. There is just likely a culture of laziness at Boeing's plant that leads to things like this happening.

""It sounds insulting but you need to treat humans like dumb lazy animals that require strict guidance on how to get things done.""

As a vet, this frustrates the hell out of me. We are trained to look out for one another and, especially in the case of aircraft maintenance, we are trained to police ourselves and each other.

Yes, we also had strict guidance and checklists, and we followed them (sometimes only as best as we could depending on the situation, like combat zones, lack of supplies, etc). But, paramount above all that was safety and making sure whatever we did impacted safety in a positive way.

Going into the civilian world, it frustrates the hell out of me how lazy everyone could be with things that could literally kill somebody if maintained incorrectly.

And honestly it really surprises me a little how much of this about Boeing is coming out into the lime light. I thought their standards would be higher.

There has already been reporting on people leaving ladders and other tools inside delivered 787s. I'm not sure what Boeing is good at anymore besides gaming regulatory systems.

This is what happens when engineering decisions are ceded to marketing wanks and MBA bros.

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