The U.S.-based Boeing, however, has said it has no reason to pull the popular aircraft from the skies
The Max8 is the latest version, and not out in that large numbers, so I doubt that version is very popular. Planes with a reputation for crashing seldom are.
Southwest has some, and a lot of the older version.
Norwegian has grounded their 18 planes.
When all is said and done, I wonder if the leaning will be toward pilot error.
Based on professional pilot flight forums I’ve read, the general consensus of 737 MAX captains is the first crash (Lion Air) was avoidable. The appropriate action was a “stabilizer trim cutout” and then fly the aircraft manually back to the airport with one hand on the controls the other on the trim wheel. The Lion Air captain either didn’t know or didn’t attempt the procedure. It’s considered a “memory item” - something all 737 pilots should know how to do when faced with the emergency.
We still have no idea what caused the Ethiopian accident.
You can bet your 401K on that. Boeing is going to make sure that is the case.
possibly lack of training for the pilots or the mechanics, who perform the maintenance on the planes?
The plane that had the engine explode was a 737 too. Seems like that might have been a maintenance issue.
The best article I’ve read on the situation is a recent NY Times article regarding the earlier crash. Link may be behind paywall.
Essentially, it sounds as if there may be multiple factors, including an FAA decision that pilot training was unnecessary for the new aircraft, despite changes to the trim control system and, specifically, to emergency procedures in case of failure. If that is the case, pilot error may indeed be cited, but it still points to a failure of the system whose reason for existence is to prevent tragedies when new aircraft versions are introduced. And the two accidents coming shortly after deployment of the new fleet make one wonder if there may be an instrumention issue as well. Perhaps the automated trim system is reacting to erroneous readings?
Note - the article also includes an informative video, explaining how the trim system is intended to work, and what may happen when it fails.
Possibly. But when the plane requires you to do the opposite of what every other plane does in the same situation, is that pilot error or bad design?
That’s the purpose of the “automated” trim control is to avoid aerodynamic stalls. Apparently the Lion Air pilot got into a tug of war with the software. As I said above he should have “turned it off” and flown the aircraft manually.
The last two fatal accidents in the US (Colgan Air and the Lexington KY crash) were pilot errors. In the Colgan Air accident the software would have flown the aircraft out of the situation if the captain had done nothing but monitor his instruments then manually increase the air speed.
The Lexington crash was caused by the flight crew taking off on the wrong (too short) runway.
No one likes to blame the dead but pilot error again and again is the primary cause air accidents.
Should Boeing take the blame if an accident is shown to be a result of the pilots actions?
From what I’ve gathered from various interviews, Boeing will need to go back in and retrofit these planes so that they can be easily put under manual control.
Pilots know how to fly planes. They need to be able to easily and completely disconnect all the software and fancy control systems and simply fly the plane when something is out of whack.
It looks like Boeing jumped the shark in its zeal to provide a plane to use little energy, including during take-off. We’re hearing about a software update to the trim control system? What? Software? Woah. Give the pilots a work-around.
It will be interesting to learn the extent to which pilots were involved in the design decisions for this plane, as well as results of test piloting. Does Boeing have a simulator that takes software and other such issues into account?
You’re joking?
The press will be asking these questions and nobody will be laughing.
Of course not. My point is that the wings could have come off, and it will still be a pilots error.
I can’t help but wonder if the planes are still in the air in the US because of money? Both donations to politicians and to keep the money flowing into the airlines. I am a hard core cynic these days.
It is not just the MAX8, the similar systems are on the MAX9 (stretched version, also flown by AS and UA), and on the MAX10 (which has not yet been delivered), and these planes make up about 70% of Boeings deliveries by $$$$, so there is a huge impact on American Jobs.
I was NOT avoiding the MAX’s (other than that they are sucky aircraft from a passenger standpoint, narrow tight seats and horrible bathrooms) on safety grounds, but this crash has me, and my family, on hold flying them.
It appeared - and Boeing claimed - that the Lion Air crash was a result of a failure of training on a new fly-by wire trim system for the nose trim. Boeing made a change, and did not update the training. But there is now a lot of discussion that this is actually the result of a system put on because the fundamental dynamics of the 60 year old air frame are now less stable than is optimum, which requires automated systems work well for flight.
The problem is that McDonald-Douglas (lets just call a spade a spade, the company is really in its management and approach now McDonald-Douglas, it is no longer the Boeing that built the best, safest aircraft, and was pilot focused until 2000) - focused on doing in its unions and ofshoring design work to sub-contractors to reduce its expenditures - did not invest in a new airframe. The 737, launched in 1967, was designed to carry 85 passengers on a relatively short (max range 1500 nm or so) stage length.
A combination of massively stretching the air-frame, stretching the range, along with engines that are much, much larger, heavier, and bigger (due to larger fans for lower fuel burn) resulted a plane that wants to stick its nose up in the air and stall when in the air, and wants to put its tail down on the ground when at rest. And I’m not kidding on the last one. The MAX9 (and the 737-900 before it is so tail heavy that some have tipped over striking the tail on the ground when at the gate).
Now it may be nothing, but I have a nagging suspicion that Boeing has compromised fundamental characteristics of the original air-frame, so that it is not good rugged design any longer, and their efforts to fix what the air frame no longer naturally gives, via fly by wire fixes, is not working out so well.
Given that I am mostly airline agnostic at this point, and am willing to pay more to fly the airline that I want, and also that I love the A321, including its neo version, its a much nicer plane than the MAX, I am letting the precautionary principle come into play.
totally different aircraft. That was a 737NG (which had a compressor disk failure as I recall) the plane at issue now is the 737MAX, which has a new turbo-fan engine built by a joint venture of GE and Safran (France). The engine is not only different, but it is much better in diameter. Given the profile of the 737 was from 1967, it is too low to the ground to be able to put these new engines under the wing, so they are mounted slightly higher, which created issues with nose trim (the nose wanted to go up) which in turn, along with a desire to claim that no new pilot training was needed, caused Boeing to put on the new fly by wire system for nose trim that was at issue in the Lion Air crash, and may be at issue here.
Center of gravity issues are a real problem with the bigger stretchier 737s.
Boeing should have put that effort into the upsizing the 757. But the pilots would have to be re-trained and it would piss off Southwest because they are the largest 737 user (it’s their only aircraft).
I have the suspicion that international regulators are being extra tough on Boeing. That’s part of all that respect that Donald Trump has earned us.