Hacker News Reader

Comment by yellow_postit | Hacker News Reader

Given the amount of additional scrutiny these models are getting I wouldn’t be surprised if in the long run of their lifetime they have a better safety record.

View on HN

Do we know or is a reason to believe that FAA checked anything else then the MCAS and the systems related in the crashes? The MAX has probably many differences because is larger so all the new stuff should be put under the microscope since you can't trust the previous tests, measurements or decisions, Boeing guys were proud on how they mind tricked the FAA guys so FAA should now re=review everything then you can be 100% this airplane was scrutinized.

If this already happen and I missed it please link me to it.

> Do we know or is a reason to believe that FAA checked anything else then the MCAS and the systems related in the crashes?

Yes. The FAA's proposal also involves physically re-routing some cables, which is (as far as I can tell) completely non-MCAS-related.

That seems to be related to a rule that FAA added after some other incident but the MAX was not forced to follow this new rule, it is not an issue that was discovered when scrutinizing the MAX.

What I have read indicated that it was a violation that was missed:

> During the original design and certification of Boeing’s 737 MAX, company engineers didn’t notice that the electrical wiring doesn’t meet federal aviation regulations for safe wire separation. And the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) failed to detect Boeing’s miss.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/faa-f...

Boeing did try making the argument that since their 737-NG planes were produced prior to that rule, and they're safe, that the MAX shouldn't either. But it was part of the regulations when the MAX was designed.

The European equivalent of the FAA, the EASA are double checking all of the FAAs working here.

The FAA are highly motivated to get everything correct this time in order to repair their reputation (which was tarnished by their original MAX approval). It would be highly embarrassing for if the EASA find anything the FAA missed.

I think FAA's reputation was more tarnished during in the grounding than the original approval, and their failure to investigate thoroughly after the first crash, the delayed the grounding for two days and doing it only after many other regulators did and put pressure on them was really damaging.

Similarly Boeing actively blaming pilot error after the first crash and ignoring reports from the field is the real issue to me rather than poor design itself.

Every new version of any commercial aircraft is long line of decisions cutting corners, 737's airframe were designed in 1960's for smaller older engines requiring the newer larger engines to placed in the more complex higher position- maintaining the airframe was cheaper than building a brand new model. Keeping the same performance made training/ type certification cheaper etc for airlines. For the most part such decisions do work, developing brand new airplane models is extremely risky financially.

It is plausible that risks were not understood well during design and developement, but their failure to act after the first crash is criminal negligence to me and they deserve all they are getting .

The EASA made some noises about requiring 3 AoA sensors (which all Airbus aircraft have) as opposed the the MAX's current 2 (most newer Boeing aircraft also have 3). There was also some talk about replacing the 3rd hardware AoA sensor with a virtual sensor (maybe an infrared horizon sensor based AoA indicator which would be much easier to add to the aircraft).

I found the article I read about the 3rd AoA sensor.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/europ...

There's every reason to believe EASA are being strong armed by U.S. State Department. This is an administration that thoroughly believes in bribery, extortion, and retribution. I have no more confidence in EASA than FAA.

Curious the FAA comes out with their position before any final crash reports by either country. NTSB usually also reports on accidents involving U.S. made aircraft, and that too isn't released yet.

I've been wondering about that, too. By the time they're allowed to fly, these might be the most heavily vetted and tested airliners in history.

Or the only airliner properly vetted

This has happened with other planes before, like the DC-10.

They didn’t try to fix the DC-10’s design problem (outward-opening doors causing explosive decompression) with a software fix. Also, the aircraft never regained the trust of the flying public, relegating it to freighter duty. That doesn’t seem like a desirable outcome for Boeing or the MAX’s buyers.

For sure, the horses have already left the barn as far as reputation is concerned. But even freighter duty is infinitely better than what they currently -- over-sized paperweights.

Although I'm sure low-cost carriers or developing nations will gladly fly them at the right price.

It may have been turn out different if the pandemic had not happened.

The way international market is today, 737 MAX is probably making money more now on the tarmac for the airlines than their other aircraft. Boeing is going to be forced to pay the airlines for this grounding pandemic or not.

Global travel is also going to be weak next few years, even if vaccine becomes available next few months , the economy will take a lot longer to recover and it will be a while for the current capacity even without MAX to be used, not to mention all the new orders being delivered.

Of course it will depend on each airline, their financial health, leasing agreement and demand, and of course Boeing settlement terms etc

Or the De Havilland Comet ... arguably killed off the nascent UK jet aviation sector until we joined Airbus.

There was the BAC One-Eleven, which BAC sold a modest number of.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com