Boeing admits full responsibility for 737 Max plane crash in Ethiopia
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Umm, remind me not to fly Ryanair. Even if it is safe now, it just is scary to even think that I am in the air on a model that has crashed twice within months killing 100s of people each time. Does anyone know which other airlines are flying this model ?
Also, "It paves the way for families of all victims of the crash, from 35 countries, to seek compensation in the US under Illinois law, in return for not seeking punitive damages against Boeing, limiting the potential financial liability for the manufacturer."
Of course. That's the fine print. Not seeking punitive damages. In other words "we will pay you cheap so you can shut up"
Maybe after this revelation, airlines should be forced to keep their promise and give customers the plane they ordered?
It's the reason they won't let you get a seat reservation till near the flight date (since different planes might have differing seat layouts)
Taking away this flexibility could easily wipe out their entire margins.
I feel like I have been able to pick seats on all of my flights for the past 10+ years no matter how early I purchase the flight. There is always some language that the airline is not obligated to give you that seat.
Notable mentions in North America: Alaska, United, Air Canada, Southwest. Though I disagree with you, the data exists!
I had planned on making a small website to show that info ( which airlines, routes have the 737 Max), but the main data providers ( Flightradar, Skyscanner) i thought of refused me access to that data. If anyone has another provider they can think of, don't hesitate to respond.
Maybe by cross-referencing with one of the many sites tracking ownership, and the scheduling data FlightAware or others would provide, it could be figured out.
... O’Leary almost choked. “Our booking engine is full of passengers who have sworn they will never fly with us again,”
https://www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2017/sep/23/hate-ryan...
I do no tunderstand the "have to" and your comment about the places you went to - was Ryanair the only option to get there?
It's only fitting they're gonna be buying these planes.
They're cheap and they go to some destinations where there are no other flights.
My work used to take me to smaller cities in Eastern Europe. Ryanair was often the only direct flight.
I don't think the planes are dirty. The lack of seat pocket and the plasticy seats must make it easier to clean.
Luckily, a number of regional players have started to adopt to this in recent years by replacing fleets with smaller planes to offer more flexibility.
I agree with everything you say, however as someone who lives in a smaller secondary city, Ryanair is often the only airline offering direct flights to many destinations. So unfortunately in many cases the choice is a €50 90 minute direct flight with Ryanair or a €250 3-5 hour trip with 1 or 2 changes.
I also like their honesty. You get what you pay for.
Lufthansa on the other hand removed everything (free checked luggage, free drinks, free food) and said that passengers would be much happier to personalise their flight experience by buying everything separately.
Plenty of people disagree with you and I'm one of them. If the upside is paying 10 euros for covering 1500 km I can handle the cattle-like experience for 2 hours.
I mean there is also the whole 'order of magnitude cheaper than some competitors' thing they have going on. For a lot of people, it's worth being in a filthy plane treated like cattle for only an hour if it means they get to save £200.
There is certainly a reason why Ryanair carries more passengers every year than any other airline on earth.
The worst bit isn't even that it crashed - these things are complicated and they can can go wrong, and the setup of the aviation industry is supposed to (and historically did) result in a full blameless post mortem which identified root cause issues and made sure the same thing could never happen again.
That very clearly hasn't happened here, the system is broken, and I'd have difficulty trusting any new Boeing plane at this point
There's a simple way to make it so you don't have to worry about this.
There's a documentary TV series that is available in much of the world. It's called Mayday in Canada where it is produced, but the name gets changed in some other regions and on some channels to Air Crash Investigations, Air Disasters, or Air Emergency.
Find it and binge watch all 200+ episodes over the course of a month or two.
When you are done you will either be fine with the 737 Max 8 or you will have given up altogether on flying on a commercial passenger service. Either way, problem solved!
I mean, I've watched almost every episode of that show but if there are known or covered up design flaws, I'm still scared.
The Max has definitely been bad, especially for the modern era, but unfortunately, lack of training on the system at fault is also a significant factor in the crashes. Had pilots known more about the system, the crashes could have been prevented.
There's speculation that the acquisition of McDonnel Douglas brought in some bad company culture that lead to the Max issues.
It's enough that several their birds fell out of the sky, refusing to admit it was their fault for this long was just salt in the wound for no reason other than legalease bullshit.
Managers aren't paid because their abilities, they are paid for responsibility. In any case it should be QA on the line.
Also, hiring for legit QA, as in, you're getting people who can socially stand up and trade blows with engineers and management is hard. You have to have that unique blend of perseverance, quick thinking and attention to detail that is astonishingly hard to find.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/09/boeing-737-...
It's probably not as simple as you put it, then someone would've done something about it. (Assuming this system wasn't built by a very small engineering team, then they could statistically all be "bad" people).
Note: for me MCAS isn't a problem per se. It would have been better to have a new design from scratch, but that's a whole other issue. Lying about it(chances of failure, risk when it fails), hiding it, and to top it off using a single sensor that is known for occasional failure. And making it near impossible to override even when the pilots knew about it ( which they didn't, thanks to Boeing hiding it from them). That's criminal negligence by tens if not hundreds of people every step along the way. Every single one of them should be tried and have to explain why their manager's or their bonus matters more than human lives.
It's an organizational/economical problem.
I would like to argue that because recertification requirements are as strict as they are, Boeing were forced to do this to get their product flying.
I don't condone Boeings behavior, but it's not hard to imagine why it happened, and it's definitely not the engineers fault. It's just capitalism in action.
It really comes down to failure to cooperate with the regulator. Perception management is often times easier than proactive compliance. I keep dreaming one day I'll end up somewhere where I can get more than platitudes when people say "we're here to do it right, even if it is hard".
One day...
It might have been an exaggeration, but on a certain level responsibility means large amount of pay if you mess up.
So I guess not and this is the reason why they made the deal.
Because the original 737 was low to the ground, the under wing engines have been a design issue since turbofan engines became common. Each time the plane has been updated with newer engines, they have been larger, because higher-bypass engines, which have larger fans, are more efficient. The only way to fit larger engines on the Max, while still having acceptable ground clearance, was to shift the engines forward. This changed the center of thrust.