Boeing 737 Max to Resume Flying U.S. Passengers Today | Hacker News Reader

Boeing 737 Max to Resume Flying U.S. Passengers Today

nytimes.com

60 pointsmhb77 comments

So the findings in this Senate report are just going to be ignored? ( https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/18/22189609/faa-boeing-737-... )

To quote: ""Boeing “inappropriately coached” some FAA test pilots to reach a desired outcome during the re-certification tests, and some were even performed on simulators that weren’t equipped to re-create the same conditions as the crashes. ""

What are a few hundred lives compared to millions of dollars? /s

Boeing cares, first and foremost, about the bottom line. It doesn't surprise me that money beats safety for them.

“In one particular FAA test performed on the right simulator, a whistleblower says Boeing officials were present and told the test pilots when to hit the switch that killed MCAS.

When these actions were reported by whistleblowers, they were often ignored or retaliated against, according to the report.”

Boeing can’t seem to help itself from disaster

> Boeing can’t seem to help itself from disaster

It obviously can. As long as it has regulators and legislators on a leash all this will always just be the cost of doing business.

Except if another plane crashes.

When another plane crashes.

It's just another expense. If US authorities have shown anything so far it's that they're very forgiving especially with companies with government contracts.

Cash strained airlines that aren't looking for another disaster are not going to be so forgiving.

I would have preferred Boeing to be required to redo the test, and be dinged by the airlines for the delay, just to make it clear that this sort of nonsense is not tolerated.

The fact is, however, that everyone going into the test was aware of what the issue was, so it could only give information about best-case response times (which is not useless information, at least if done on suitable simulators.) For a while, every Max pilot is also going to be primed about this issue.

I still don't understand why the pilots of ETH302 weren't primed about this issue. I seem to recall it being common knowledge within the aviation community that there was a likely trim system fault that downed LNI610. With that backdrop, I'd expect anyone sitting in the front seats of a 737-Max to be aware of the recent crash of the type and reasonably fresh on the systems procedures/memory items to remedy.

It's certainly true today, but I suspect it was also true on 2019-03-10 and being primed wasn't enough.

Boeing just didn’t care about them. The risk of having to re-certify pilots was considered greater than the risk to the passenger’s lives, at least from Boeing’s perspective.

Emergency Airworthiness Directive 2018-23-51 was issued in between the two crashes, essentially at Boeing’s request. That does not strike me as “just didn’t care about them”.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/12/06/2018-26...

The pilots were inexperienced. The right seat guy had less than 250 hours total time in any airplane. At that level of experience, he’s lucky to remember where the landing gear controls are. (He didn’t have 250 hours in the 737, but less than 250 hours in any airplane!) Even the captain had fewer hours than an average United first officer. At those low levels of experience, it’s just unrealistic to expect them to be that good with non-standard situations.

That can't be right, can it? That's the equivalent of me doing my job for 6 weeks.

Here, looks like the legal minimum is 1500:

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

ETH302 was not operated by a US airline. There's a reason why I'll blindly get on a US major and make more checks and be more choosey about boarding airliners operated by countries with far looser training standards.

Even prior to 2013, you could be an SIC ("first officer") for a US operator with just 250 hour minimums required then by the ATP certificate. Colgan Air 3407 ended that.

The left seat was 8000 hours.

I believe the captain was primed - IIRC, did he not, in his position as a senior captain, write a memo to other pilots of the airline about the issue?

Again IIRC, and reading between the lines, I think the Boeing/FAA response to LNI610 was to remind pilots of the existing trim runaway procedure, in keeping with the story that no significant change had been made to the aircraft handling. They were still being cagey about the existence of MCAS, let alone its power and its dependence on a single sensor on any given flight, and the people writing the airworthiness directive were apparently unaware that the power of MCAS had been increased after initial flight testing. Did the directive even mention that, unlike the behavior in previous versions, using the yoke switches to countermand a system-driven trim change did not stop it, if that system was MCAS? It would seem to have worked, but then MCAS would do it again.

I believe the crew had trouble manually re-trimming on account of the load on the stabilizer jackscrew, which in turn was due to how far MCAS had driven it out of trim. I think someone (Blancolirio on Youtube?) said that training rarely, if ever, got that deep into the issue.

At least two things have changed since then: the power of MCAS has been reduced, and pilots have been fully primed about it.

The issue of the second pilot's inexperience in some countries is an issue that goes beyond the Max, as it means that the captain effectively has to deal with emergencies single-handedly, at least if they go 'out-of-book' like this.

I was not planning to fly on a 737 Max for at least a few years without crashes, just because there's no point taking what still seems to be a risk when there are so many alternatives.

Reading the Verge article and the senate report findings (linked in laydn's comment) just confirms that there is still cause for caution.

Edit: I was incorrect

But not only the FAA recertified the plane and the MCAS cutoff seems to be more robust regardless

> So the findings in this Senate report are just going to be ignored?

They certainly are relevant for litigations and judgements against Boeing relating to the accidents.

Did you even look at the link? The Senate report in question concerns the recertifications.

You're right, my bad. I had understood it differently from reading this elsewhere

Congressional hearings rarely make a difference on policy. They are bully pulpits used to inform or persuade the public at large.

Your question is more appropriately directed at us, air travel consumers. Are we still going to board Boeing planes, knowing what we now know?

I would have no hesitancy to fly on a 737-Max operated by any of the US-majors.

Yet another American institution/system that has failed. The FAA has demonstrated that they care about Boeing profits above passenger safety, and Congress has lost the ability to actually use their branch’s prerogatives to bring the executive to heel.

I’ve noticed both Google flights and Southwest both have removed the generation number from the plane description. Now it just lists 737, without -300/700/800/Max etc

I booked Southwest recently and it said Boeing 737-800 for me.

Is that after you’ve paid ? Trying the booking workflow on mobile now I don’t see it anywhere

On desktop you can click the flight number and the pop up shows the scheduled aircraft model.

No, when I was checking out I think. I knew before I paid what the plane was.

This doesn't appear to be true? https://ibb.co/sWTWsnb

Maybe depends on what data the airline provides or desktop vs mobile https://ibb.co/3pdMY7m

Do you have a "before" screenshot to show it used to show this information with mobile? I didn't remember seeing it on mobile before, but again I don't really use it frequently.

This is deceptive, intentionally.

No matter if the vehicle is safe to fly or not, some people may not feel comfortable flying on one. The only justification of overturning 80+ years of airliner industry precedent in eliminating the specific vehicle type from the descriptions is to deceive.

Or maybe it's just some designer fiddling with screen real-estate and negative space.

Or maybe it was some engineer making the point that the data wasn’t accurate or reliable in the first place.

What if both were true? And designers and engineers worked together to clean the UI from possibly wrong and noisy information in the results brief? Teamwork makes the dream-work.

The data was wrong all along but the management didn’t want to remove it until they finally realised that it’s creating a negative revenue pressure.

I don't think anything changed. Is there some compelling evidence that it did?

Here's the a/c type on southwest.com desktop, right now: https://imgur.com/a/B6PxsbB

I don't see it on mobile, but I don't think it's ever been there.

You can avoid the airlines that fly the Max altogether. Unfortunately it looks like Delta is the only major US airline that does not own any. Spirit and JetBlue also do not have any. United, American, and Southwest all operate the Max. I would avoid those airlines for routes that could be serviced by the Max.

Is there a listing or database somewhere where I could look up other airlines? There's a few more regional and discount airlines I'm curious about.

Wikipedia has a list of MAX orders and deliveries by airline. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_737_MAX_order...

How to ID a MAX.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-identify-boeing-737-max-l...

Odd that it doesn't mention the sawtooth pattern on the rear of the engine cowling, or the flat bottom shape of the engine as you look into the intake, versus the normal round shape for non-max/leap engines. Either of those is easy to spot from far away.

I don't think that's right. Didn't several generations of 737 before MAX have that flattened engine bottom? I think I've been seeing it for considerably longer than MAX has been around.

Ah, yes, searching a bit, you appear to be right about the flat bottom. I believe the sawtooth edge is still correct though.

The sawtooth is called a "chevron" and is designed to reduce engine noise to meet FAA standards.

The CFM 56 on the 737 (NG or Classic) also has a flat bottom. E.g., [1] shows a 737-800 with an engine with a flat bottom, and [2] shows a 737-300 with an engine with a flat bottom.

[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CFM_56_Lauda_737.jpg [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Classic_Colors_South...

I don't think Southwest removed anything. From what I recall, it's always been on the flight status pages for both mobile and desktop. For the flight shopping pages, it's always been on desktop, but never on mobile.

You can look up the plane by its tail number.

But you're still at the mercy of the airline. If they do an equipment swap, you're not entitled to change or cancel. You'd only have the option not to fly, forfeiting the cost of your ticket.

As someone else in this thread said, just fly Delta (domestically).

Southwest doesn't have change fees, so long as you cancel at least 10 minutes before the scheduled flight time. Assuming they had all their aircraft flying, the MAX aircraft are about 5 percent of the fleet.

Southwest's service is pretty thin in some places. Highly likely you won't get a flight the same day if you cancel to avoid the 737-HCF. Then, you have to explain to Great Aunt Greta why you won't be at Thanksgiving.

Better just to avoid Southwest.

Your second line is simply not true. Both American [1] and United [2] have committed to waiving change fees if you don't want to fly on a 737 MAX. Southwest is farther away from bringing the MAX back into service, so they have less detail on their site [3], but it sounds like they'll do something similar.

[1] https://www.aa.com/i18n/travel-info/737-MAX-return-to-servic...

[2] https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/travel/inflight/aircraf... (under "What if I don't want to fly on a MAX?")

[3] https://www.southwest.com/737-max/#return-to-service-plan (under "What are Customers' options if they don't want to fly on a 737 MAX?")

A change fee waiver is a very, very small gesture. But you're right, at least it's something.

Well, I mean, we have a critical shortage of airline flight capacity right now, so of course they had to.

Oh, wait...

The 737 Max does not provide additional capacity, it provides cheaper capacity. It has modern engines that use less fuel and wouldn't fit on the existing lineup. Right now the ability to cut costs at the cost of a few hundred passengers a year is probably the kind of news the airlines need to keep investors happy.

> It [737 Max] has modern engines that [...] wouldn't fit on the existing lineup.

That's the problem in a nutshell.

If I had an actual choice, I'd choose to fly in a plane whose airframe was designed around the engines its using.

Out of curiosity - was anyone from Boeing held accountable for the decisions that led to the 737 max catastrophes?

They fired the CEO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Muilenburg

A "criminal probe/investigation" is supposedly ongoing. I haven't heard of anyone being charged.

In fairness, every pilot who's even mediocre should be well aware of MCAS, its issues and how to turn it off.

The real question is what else have Boeing half arsed?

The investigation turned up a few non-MCAS-related things, and required that they be fixed. I don't recall specifics - something about a wire that could become damaged?

It appears they need to change which wires are bundled together to avoid an "unlikely" crossed circuit issue.

I wonder if that is done or if pilots have been warned that "in rare occasions button X can activate system Y and if that happens you must do Z". Or maybe they'll wait to see if there is another crash before highlighting it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/business/boeing-737-max-w...

In a few months time, it will be interesting to see the data showing the differences in bookings for 800-Max vs other planes.

I imagine many people will try to avoid the Max and book other planes.

I'd imagine many people just don't know or don't care what plane they fly on. The number of enthusiasts who want to fly (or not fly) on a particular plane model isn't that large.

Not everyone feels that the Maxes will still be significantly more risky than the alternatives. I suspect that risks from other factors dominate, and few people choose not to fly if the weather is bad. It would probably be more useful to know how long the flight crew has been on duty, or where the airline gets its maintenance done, than what airplane is being used.

I doubt this will be a factor. Some people will care but most people will continue to be unable to tell the difference between an Airbus and a Boeing and generally not have type numbers, incident history, etc. memorized. Most of the bad press is already ancient history for the general public.

Of course, there's not a lot of flying happening currently anyway. So, good moment to do this. By the time traffic picks up again, the fixed model will have months/years incident free flights behind it.

But I agree, it will be interesting of the general public cares at all for anything else than $/flight, which is the reason why cattle class is a thing: people are happy to sacrifice comfort, dignity, etc. to save a few dollars on a flight.

The problem is that carriers don't "marry" equipment to itineraries at booking. You could book something that was theoretically planned for one variant of plane, and then delays or mechanical issues happen and end up on something else.

The revenue management systems will add more discounted fares to underbooked flights to drive bookings. So you would likely have to watch average fare as well. Certainly there's a large portion of the public that don't care or don't know.

How many total 737 MAX MCAS events occurred?

If two ended in crashes, I’d expect there to be twenty or so similar events that the pilots were able resolve.

Or was it a case that there were only two flights with faulty pitot tubes that ended in crashes.

I not a pilot, so I may have glosses over details, apologies in advance.

I haven't seen a definitive count anywhere. It is certain that not all flights involving the MCAS problem led to a crash. The LionAir crash flight was preceded by a flight were the pilots first experienced the MCAS problem due to the failed pitot on the plane; they disabled the trim system and completed the fight manually. It was the subsequent flight the actually crashed.

...and once the pandemic is over and I start flying again, I'm going to fly exclusively with Spirit from now on.

So, death by a thousand cuts instead of by a single blow?

I'd rather punch myself in the face than fly Spirit again. (They're as safe as any other US airline; they just operate like a worse-Ryanair.)

Worse than Ryanair? Ouch!

The 27 inch seat pitch just plain doesn't fit a lot of people's femurs.

What is the situation with aviation safety in general as they return more planes from storage?

One of my best friends is a 20,000 hour 737 captain (and check pilot) at United and spent the past several weeks getting training on the new Max. He says the primary win for the new MCAS is that there is no longer a single point of failure (in the prior version the system only took data from a single AOA source even though there were two AOA indicators already on the airplane. At least on the United versions of the plane.) The new version uses both AOA sources. Additionally, the MCAS system now has limits on the amount of “correction” to prevent extreme compensation by the system. My friend is just a single anecdote, but I trust pilots highly experienced in type more than articles written by journalists who don’t actually fly or even bureaucrats who have never spent significant time with the airplane in real world conditions. If mainline airline pilots are confident in the system, so am I. Even with the old system, no US (or major European) airline ever had problems with the old system because European and US have far higher pilot experience requirements to fly in the bigger jets. For example, at United, you need at least 3000 hours before even being allowed in the right seat of a 737. For RJs, you have to have 1500 hours before being allowed in the right seat. That is a significantly higher standard than Ethiopian which has right seaters with less than 250 total flight hours. At Ethiopian or Lion Air 5000 hours is an “experienced” captain. At United that would be a rookie first officer. I don’t know anyone at Southwest, but they have very high entry level minimums as well. The first 737 Max had flaws, no question, but statistically, why didn’t any American carriers have any crashes despite flying an order of magnitude more hours in the airplane compared to Ethiopian or Lion Air? The US and European airlines are simply far more rigorous in training and pilot requirements as well as maintenance requirements. Fixing the Max is not addressing the bigger, far more significant issue of pilot training in non-US/Euro airlines. I have almost 1000 hours and am commercial and instrument rated but I am barely qualified to fly FedEx feeder Cessna 208s or perhaps right seat in a King Air. If I were outside the US/Canada/Europe, I could be flying 737s with 150 passengers.

We still have the significant issue of “fake pilots” [1] and all sorts of chicanery that has yet to be addressed. Despite flaws inherent in any government agency, the fact is the FAA has made American skies among the very safest in the world, at least according to the data. If US and Euro airlines start crashing, then we can revisit that theory.

[1] https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/680358-why-has-eu-never-ban...

I get what you’re saying, and your friend is likely very trustworthy. But the fact still remains that the previous planes that crashed were flown by pilots too, and people trusted them with their lives.

I won’t trust this plane for a while, especially given the behavior i’ve seen from Boeing.

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