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I have less ire for Boeing than I do the FAA. There was an interesting comment on airliners.net that the USSR operated new airliners on freight services for se

I have less ire for Boeing than I do the FAA. There was an interesting comment on airliners.net that the USSR operated new airliners on freight services for several years before putting them on passenger services. So far I've confirmed that for the Tu-154 trijet, for example, which flew freight for two years before taking a revenue passenger. But in the West there has always been a tension between certificating for safety versus commercial imperative. Why hasn't the 737Max been grounded pending investigation? Because that would lead to companies losing money. Why would the FAA care about that? Because it considers manufacturers and airlines as 'stakeholders'.

matt4077 8y ago
They have grounded aircraft before, so we know they aren't inherently opposed to that. I would tend to trust the FAA, given the rather impressive track record of aviation. The difference from "Oh, the humanity!" to today, where North America and Europe have entire years without fatalities is astonishing. It's even more impressive considering passenger-miles/p.a. increased by something like 3 or 4 orders of magnitude. So it would seem that the FAA is doing a rather good job with these decisions. And "not considering airlines as stakeholders" may sound sensible, but is actually a phrase devoid of meaning: If you want to consider safety only, you or I or the Russians could come up with the trivial (and only correct) solution, which is to ban air travel. Having flown with regional carriers in Russia during my (and their) wild times in the 90s also makes your praise of their processes suspicious of being parody. I personally saw a pilot take a sip from a suspiciously small bottle of clear liquid. But my seat neighbour reassured me: If you think it's dangerous to fly with a drunk pilot, you should see the way he flies when he's sober!
- sokoloff 8y ago
  > If you want to consider safety only, you or I or the Russians could come up with the trivial (and only correct) solution, which is to ban air travel. This would be a safety failure. Banning air travel is overwhelmingly likely to increase transport fatalities. It would decrease air travel fatalities, but would not represent an increase in safety. "The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) supported the FAA's decision [to not require tickets for pax under 2 years old] based on current FAA and NHTSA studies that show a mandate could result in another 13 to 42 added family member fatalities over 10 years in highway accidents." - [0] [0] - https://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?contentKey=1966 https://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?conte...
WalterBright 8y ago
> Why hasn't the 737Max been grounded pending investigation? Because jumping to conclusions is not helpful. Let the NTSB do their job and find out what went wrong.
- VBprogrammer 8y ago
  I'm almost certain that the solution in this case will be training. Almost exactly as you've said in another comment. The correct response to an commanded stabiliser movement is to set the stab trim switch to cutoff. Pilots will probably experience this failure mode in their next recurrent training. The accident is more than likely to be attributed to a system being added without sufficient guidance being added to the PoH, some degree of maintenance failing on behalf of the airline and finally a failure of the pilots to identify an issue and take appropriate action. It's unlikely that those particular holes in the cheese will line up again in the near term given the emergency AD. No reason to ground the fleet.
  - WalterBright 8y ago
    That does seem likely, but very often the eventual cause discovered by the NTSB was not what people initially thought it was. It's still worthwhile to warn the pilots about uncommanded movement and reiterate what to do about it. At this point I doubt any 737 pilot doesn't know about this. To add to your summation, I'd expect the mechanism's inability to detect a faulty angle-of-attack sensor needs addressing.
- simion314 8y ago
  >Because jumping to conclusions is not helpful. Let the NTSB do their job and find out what went wrong We are used from previous cases that aircrafts will get grounded until we are sure the airplane is not at fault. So why in the past this happened before the investigation was complete but in this case the risk is considered t be minimal? I am not saying that it is right or wrong but I want to understand the algorithm that is used to decide what to do in this cases.
  - ubernostrum 8y ago

matt4077 8y ago

They have grounded aircraft before, so we know they aren't inherently opposed to that. I would tend to trust the FAA, given the rather impressive track record of aviation. The difference from "Oh, the humanity!" to today, where North America and Europe have entire years without fatalities is astonishing. It's even more impressive considering passenger-miles/p.a. increased by something like 3 or 4 orders of magnitude. So it would seem that the FAA is doing a rather good job with these decisions. And "not considering airlines as stakeholders" may sound sensible, but is actually a phrase devoid of meaning: If you want to consider safety only, you or I or the Russians could come up with the trivial (and only correct) solution, which is to ban air travel. Having flown with regional carriers in Russia during my (and their) wild times in the 90s also makes your praise of their processes suspicious of being parody. I personally saw a pilot take a sip from a suspiciously small bottle of clear liquid. But my seat neighbour reassured me: If you think it's dangerous to fly with a drunk pilot, you should see the way he flies when he's sober!

sokoloff 8y ago
> If you want to consider safety only, you or I or the Russians could come up with the trivial (and only correct) solution, which is to ban air travel. This would be a safety failure. Banning air travel is overwhelmingly likely to increase transport fatalities. It would decrease air travel fatalities, but would not represent an increase in safety. "The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) supported the FAA's decision [to not require tickets for pax under 2 years old] based on current FAA and NHTSA studies that show a mandate could result in another 13 to 42 added family member fatalities over 10 years in highway accidents." - [0] [0] - https://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?contentKey=1966 https://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?conte...

WalterBright 8y ago

> Why hasn't the 737Max been grounded pending investigation? Because jumping to conclusions is not helpful. Let the NTSB do their job and find out what went wrong.

VBprogrammer 8y ago
I'm almost certain that the solution in this case will be training. Almost exactly as you've said in another comment. The correct response to an commanded stabiliser movement is to set the stab trim switch to cutoff. Pilots will probably experience this failure mode in their next recurrent training. The accident is more than likely to be attributed to a system being added without sufficient guidance being added to the PoH, some degree of maintenance failing on behalf of the airline and finally a failure of the pilots to identify an issue and take appropriate action. It's unlikely that those particular holes in the cheese will line up again in the near term given the emergency AD. No reason to ground the fleet.
- WalterBright 8y ago
  That does seem likely, but very often the eventual cause discovered by the NTSB was not what people initially thought it was. It's still worthwhile to warn the pilots about uncommanded movement and reiterate what to do about it. At this point I doubt any 737 pilot doesn't know about this. To add to your summation, I'd expect the mechanism's inability to detect a faulty angle-of-attack sensor needs addressing.
simion314 8y ago
>Because jumping to conclusions is not helpful. Let the NTSB do their job and find out what went wrong We are used from previous cases that aircrafts will get grounded until we are sure the airplane is not at fault. So why in the past this happened before the investigation was complete but in this case the risk is considered t be minimal? I am not saying that it is right or wrong but I want to understand the algorithm that is used to decide what to do in this cases.
- ubernostrum 8y ago