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Maybe it's politically motivated, but IMO so is the FAA's certification and nonaction so far. Boeing promised a software fix by January, and the FAA's decision

Maybe it's politically motivated, but IMO so is the FAA's certification and nonaction so far. Boeing promised a software fix by January, and the FAA's decision not to ground the fleet was probably informally based on that promise. Unfortunately the software fix is proving more difficult than anticipated. Regulated, safety-critical software, whose failure leads to a smoking crater full of bodies can be like that. Especially in this case where it's not going to be just a bugfix, but probably a major redesign of the concept of the MCAS. Ultimately though there are over 5000 orders for the 737MAX. The list price is $121 million. That makes the total value of the order book $600 Billion at list prices. That's roughly the market cap of Google or Apple, and the 737MAX is extremely important to the U.S. balance of trade. There is obviously going to be a political component to any big regulatory action on it. The FAA needs to make a major course correction here, because what's even more important long-term than a single, very popular airplane to the U.S. economy is FAA's credibility as a regulator. In most countries, FAA certification means rubber-stamp certification from the local authority. As long as it is, it's a huge advantage to the U.S. aviation industry, because the FAA can write regs that are favorable to U.S. interests. This is only true though as long as the FAA is seen to have integrity. In this case, when it comes to that, by my reading (and I'm not a lawyer or an expert), the MCAS is in violation of FAR part 25.672, and the 737MAX is not airworthy.

taurath 8y ago
Sadly I think it still comes down to lack of real competition - that’s why this is gonna be such a big deal, air travel safety in general is in the balance. Everyone that flys regularly should hope this is a coincidence because the supply chain isn’t there to fill in for grounded 737s - there won’t be enough planes in general. Like the adage about owing a billion to the bank being their problem, a crash is an airlines problem, but 3 crashes of the same plane for the same reason is the air industries problem.
cjbprime 8y ago
I wonder if there's a cognitive bias punishing action vs. inaction here, too, in the decision to delay the software fix -- when they decide to delay the fix again to consider improving it further, are they accurately calculating the consequences of the inaction of having no deployed fix?
- cameldrv 8y ago
  It’s not a cognitive bias except at an organizational level, and that’s the way aviation regulation works. If the regs say that the system must be redundant, the replacement system must pass a lot of tests that it didn’t before. That also means that the previous certification was improper and all 737MAXes should be declared unairworthy. The FAA wants to give Boeing some wiggle room to operate with the current system until the new properly certified one is ready. They don’t want an interim quick fix because that would be a clear violation of regulations, where there is now this ambiguity that the FAA is hiding behind that the system doesn’t need to be redundant by regulation.
xekc 8y ago
FAA can write regulations that are favorable to the U.S. interests as long as it is seen to have integrity so the major course correction needed to save it's credibility as a long term advantage to the national aviation industry? Not credibility in terms of actually avoiding craters full of bodies better than anyone else on the planet to date(737MAX is still 737?), but only as a petty strategic trade war tool? This implies moving from fake news to fake aviation security, it seems.
- cameldrv 8y ago
  No. The FAA has regulations. Other countries trust that they are properly applied as part of the certification process by the FAA, and so they don’t make Boeing do much certification work for each country they’re going to sell to. If the FAA is seen as being lax in enforcement of its own regs in a material way, other countries can’t just outsource the certification oversight work to the FAA because they can’t be trusted.
eecc 8y ago
Well if the fix is difficult to implement, I don’t see how a feature switch can’t be done in a sprint./s Jokes aside, if it’s that difficult I’d be weary of all the rest of the codebase...
whbk 8y ago
Wow, I didn't realize the software fix hadn't been rolled out prior to yesterday's crash. Yikes. Also count me among those who went through the rest of this year's (already booked) flights this morning to ensure I'm not on one of these things.
- rob74 8y ago
  As far as I know, most airlines are seeing the 737-MAX 8 and its predecessor, the 737-800, as interchangeable (or they did until yesterday), so I doubt they will be able to say with certainty which aircraft type will operate a given flight...
  - whbk 8y ago
    Yeah, in my case it was a pretty straightforward situation with 1 airline not having the 8max at all (despite an article saying otherwise?) and my other flights being on 737-700's. I read a fair bit about this whole mess today and saw some posts saying there was a way to use SeatGuru to reliably distinguish between Max 8 / legacy 737-800, but I didn't need to dig that much myself and as you noted especially for flights far out, they can't guarantee equipment won't be swapped.
    - sheeshkebab 8y ago
      The death will be quick - why worry so much?
      - krageon 8y ago
        I'm going to go out on a limb and say they don't want to die.
      - rbanffy 8y ago
        From touching the ground to brain death may be a short time, but from realizing the plane is going to crash to brain death, not so much.
    - inferiorhuman 8y ago
carlmr 8y ago
I think you're right. The FAA needs to act ASAP, otherwise it doesn't look good. Right now I think they still have a good reputation.
ChicagoBoy11 8y ago
Great point, and what is very revealing in this instance, is that some countries regulators in this specific instance diverged from the FAA conclusion and required specific training for crews with respect to MCAS (I'm thinking of Brazil, for instance).
m-s 8y ago
You can safely assume that most airlines pay only half the list price, or even less. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_between_Airbus_and_Boeing#Aircraft_prices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_between_Airbus_and...

taurath 8y ago

Sadly I think it still comes down to lack of real competition - that’s why this is gonna be such a big deal, air travel safety in general is in the balance. Everyone that flys regularly should hope this is a coincidence because the supply chain isn’t there to fill in for grounded 737s - there won’t be enough planes in general. Like the adage about owing a billion to the bank being their problem, a crash is an airlines problem, but 3 crashes of the same plane for the same reason is the air industries problem.

cjbprime 8y ago

I wonder if there's a cognitive bias punishing action vs. inaction here, too, in the decision to delay the software fix -- when they decide to delay the fix again to consider improving it further, are they accurately calculating the consequences of the inaction of having no deployed fix?

cameldrv 8y ago
It’s not a cognitive bias except at an organizational level, and that’s the way aviation regulation works. If the regs say that the system must be redundant, the replacement system must pass a lot of tests that it didn’t before. That also means that the previous certification was improper and all 737MAXes should be declared unairworthy. The FAA wants to give Boeing some wiggle room to operate with the current system until the new properly certified one is ready. They don’t want an interim quick fix because that would be a clear violation of regulations, where there is now this ambiguity that the FAA is hiding behind that the system doesn’t need to be redundant by regulation.

xekc 8y ago

FAA can write regulations that are favorable to the U.S. interests as long as it is seen to have integrity so the major course correction needed to save it's credibility as a long term advantage to the national aviation industry? Not credibility in terms of actually avoiding craters full of bodies better than anyone else on the planet to date(737MAX is still 737?), but only as a petty strategic trade war tool? This implies moving from fake news to fake aviation security, it seems.

cameldrv 8y ago
No. The FAA has regulations. Other countries trust that they are properly applied as part of the certification process by the FAA, and so they don’t make Boeing do much certification work for each country they’re going to sell to. If the FAA is seen as being lax in enforcement of its own regs in a material way, other countries can’t just outsource the certification oversight work to the FAA because they can’t be trusted.

eecc 8y ago

Well if the fix is difficult to implement, I don’t see how a feature switch can’t be done in a sprint./s Jokes aside, if it’s that difficult I’d be weary of all the rest of the codebase...

whbk 8y ago

Wow, I didn't realize the software fix hadn't been rolled out prior to yesterday's crash. Yikes. Also count me among those who went through the rest of this year's (already booked) flights this morning to ensure I'm not on one of these things.

rob74 8y ago
As far as I know, most airlines are seeing the 737-MAX 8 and its predecessor, the 737-800, as interchangeable (or they did until yesterday), so I doubt they will be able to say with certainty which aircraft type will operate a given flight...
- whbk 8y ago
  Yeah, in my case it was a pretty straightforward situation with 1 airline not having the 8max at all (despite an article saying otherwise?) and my other flights being on 737-700's. I read a fair bit about this whole mess today and saw some posts saying there was a way to use SeatGuru to reliably distinguish between Max 8 / legacy 737-800, but I didn't need to dig that much myself and as you noted especially for flights far out, they can't guarantee equipment won't be swapped.
  - sheeshkebab 8y ago
    The death will be quick - why worry so much?
    - krageon 8y ago
      I'm going to go out on a limb and say they don't want to die.
    - rbanffy 8y ago
      From touching the ground to brain death may be a short time, but from realizing the plane is going to crash to brain death, not so much.
  - inferiorhuman 8y ago

carlmr 8y ago

I think you're right. The FAA needs to act ASAP, otherwise it doesn't look good. Right now I think they still have a good reputation.

ChicagoBoy11 8y ago

Great point, and what is very revealing in this instance, is that some countries regulators in this specific instance diverged from the FAA conclusion and required specific training for crews with respect to MCAS (I'm thinking of Brazil, for instance).

m-s 8y ago

You can safely assume that most airlines pay only half the list price, or even less. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_between_Airbus_and_Boeing#Aircraft_prices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_between_Airbus_and...