48 ms·

E.U.’s Biggest Economies Ban Boeing Max 8 Jets

350 points by semigroupoid 8y ago

alkonaut 8y ago
So this isn't just banning from airports, this is banning from their airspace? That's then more or less a total grounding of them in Europe. As an example, Norwegian (who has 15 of them) said they weren't grounding them as late as this morning, but now they'll have no choice. They use them mainly for their medium flights between scandinavia and southern europe (Nice, Budapest, Tenerife etc). No way they can do that without flying over Germany and France. It wouldn't be very good optics if they swapped their MAX'es to domestic use to free up regular 737's for flying over the continent either.
- the_mitsuhiko 8y ago
  Austria also closed the airspace for 737 max planes, while not the largest country in Europe together with France and Germany that adds quite a bit of extra detour coming from Norway.
- erokar 8y ago
  Indeed. Norwegian is doing this because the optics now force them to do so, not self-assessment of the risk. They, and the Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority, failed in that regard.
  - dclowd9901 8y ago
    At least it’s not the country bound and determined to prop up the brand at all costs. If it was 2 A320s that went down, you can bet we’d be banning them instantly in the states.
  - jka 8y ago
    Do you have a reference to confirm that this was a knee-jerk/optics reaction, out of interest? (definitely curious to see how airlines/authorities are reaching these decisions) The MCAS system and the way it was introduced sound a little like a patch, and slightly haphazard. While training & runbooks and procedures are important, take-off is a busy time, and the Max-8 is (afaik) intended to operate very-nearly-like a standard 737, so it's not inconceivable that pilots wouldn't have time or intuitively know how to handle this situation. Ultimately any vehicle/software/tool is going to be safest when the responsible designer makes it intuitive and reduces the possibility of failure cases rather than adding workarounds or runbooks to patch over them and/or disclaim the liability. Anyway, it seems like it could be early to strongly assign blame or critique until we know how serious the issue is.
    - Svip 8y ago
      Over 300 people dead sounds pretty serious to me. It's probably safest to ground the plane model until we know more.
      - jka 8y ago
        I should have been clearer here; I was responding to the parent post's assignation of blame towards the airline/air authority. Generally do agree with grounding the Max 8 fleet as a precaution, and also given the poor engineering smell around the MCAS. But not keen to assign blame/failure and damage reputations until there are credible investigation results, or without providing references.
      - bryondowd 8y ago
        I've seen a number of people pointing at this likely being more an issue with untrained pilots than the plane itself. EI, the flight crew on the crashed planes may have had considerably less experience than the minimum requirements most major airlines and all US airlines set for flying these planes.
        AsyncAwait 8y ago
        This seems like corporate PR blaming "3rd world pilots" and am not sure it's such a smart move. If your plane requires substantially different handling & the interface does not accommodate it, it seems to me the problem is not the pilot. It seems more likely that the plane suffers from some elemental design problems that were insufficiently patched over to pass inspection in order to protect the already invested capital.
        dis-sys 8y ago
        Huge number of third world pilots are flying other models of Boeing 737, they obviously didn't crash that often. They are just blaming the victims, trying to let those already killed pilots to take responibility for their faulty designs.
      - 8y ago
  - qw 8y ago
    Norway also closed the airspace 40min ago
- paganel 8y ago
  It looks like Norwegian is already asking its 737 Max flights to return to their departing airports, at least according to this recent screenshot I found on reddit [1] [1] https://i.redd.it/6gtecemacpl21.png https://i.redd.it/6gtecemacpl21.png
  - gizmo385 8y ago
    Yikes. How would ya like to be a passenger on one of those planes: "We're returning to our departure airport because this airplane has been grounded."
    - jsty 8y ago
      Although if you'd realised it was a 737 MAX, you might already be clutching a medicinal gin & tonic ...
      - tivert 8y ago
        > Although if you'd realised it was a 737 MAX, you might already be clutching a medicinal gin & tonic ... I wouldn't, haven't all the problems so far have been during takeoff? So once you're cruising you're safe from them?
        tapland 8y ago
        12 and 6 minutes after take-off.
        dreamcompiler 8y ago
        The MCAS problem cannot occur when flaps are deployed, and it happens when flaps are initially retracted. So if it hasn't happened by now, it's not going to.
        JshWright 8y ago
        It could also happen while resetting after a late missed approach.
- ElBarto 8y ago
  A potentially interesting tidbit from Norwegian's Wikipedia page: > Diversion to Shiraz, Iran December 2018 > A Norwegian Boeing 737 MAX suffered an unspecified technical failure over Iran in December 2018. The pilot made a precautionary landing at Shiraz Shahid Dastgheib International Airport without incident. Spare parts required to make the aircraft airworthy were not available in the world outside the United States, which has prohibited exports of technology to Iran. Two months later, the almost-brand-new aircraft remained stranded in Shiraz and subject to seizure by the Iranian government.[86] > On 22 February 2019 the plane was ferrried from Shiraz to Stockholm as DY8921
  - bfirsh 8y ago
    A good podcast episode about that: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/02/06/692155923/episode-892-the-lost-plane https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/02/06/692155923/epis...
  - benj111 8y ago
    That seems like a disincentive to buy American aircraft. If you're a reasonably sized international airline, it seems like a reasonable possibility that you'd have to (or want to) land in a territory that the US in unfavourable toward. Why take the risk?
    - bengotow 8y ago
      This is somewhat true, but to be fair there are only a few countries the US and it’s allies don’t do business with - as long as you don’t land in Iran or North Korea you’d be in pretty good shape.
      - lostlogin 8y ago
        Not so sure about that. The US Government lists 13 places as “Do not travel” and 15 as “reconsider travel”. Looking at the list, it doesn’t seem unreasonable advice. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories.html/ https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/...
- m2ndpixel 8y ago
  Banned in the entire EU now: https://www.easa.europa.eu/newsroom-and-events/news/easa-suspends-all-boeing-737-max-operations-europe https://www.easa.europa.eu/newsroom-and-events/news/easa-sus...
  - snazz 8y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19370835 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19370835
Areading314 8y ago
Does anyone actually know or suspect what's wrong with these planes? Hardware issue? Software issue?
- sandworm101 8y ago
  All three. It also has to do with pilot training. The general idea is that there is an auto-trim system meant to stop the plane from stalling. But when it gets bad data from a faulty sensor it tries to crash the aircraft (short version). Pilots, all pilots, are trained to recognize this and override the system, but this aircraft requires them to do some things slightly differently. Specifically, they have to shut down the system rather than manually work against it. Difficulties arise where there is a disconnect between what the pilots think is happening, what the systems think and tell them is happening, and what the aircraft is actually experiencing. So this is an interaction between an automated system (software) a potentially faulty sensor (hardware) and pilot training. It is a complex problem that will take a while to fully understand and solve.
  - notfromhere 8y ago
    It's a simple problem: don't dodge training requirements by falsely stating that there's no need to retrain pilots on this aircraft. These crashes happened because Boeing tried to market the plane as not requiring retraining in order to boost sales to airlines.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    This is a very succint explanation of what's happening here (in the Lion Air case, anyway). Not sure why you're being downvoted - perhaps the claim that this is a "complex problem".
    - sandworm101 8y ago
      HN is slowly walking towards facebook culture. People up/down vote things they like or dislike, with the goal of disappearing opinions with which they even mildly disagree. Valid points and thoughtful discussion are increasingly unwelcome. Lol. Thanks for the downvote all below. Thanks for proving my point about the change of behavior.
sheri 8y ago
Does anyone know if there is a material difference between the MAX-8 and the MAX-9? All the banning seems to be specifically for the MAX-8, but should they consider banning all MAX series aircraft? I realize the crashes themselves were MAX-8, but the difference between them seems not significant?
- Xixi 8y ago
  From what I could gather all Boeing 737 MAX have been banned by UK, France and Germany. This is not limited to just the MAX-8.
  - jsty 8y ago
    In the UK at least, it's both 737-8 and 737-9 From the CAA: https://www.caa.co.uk/News/Boeing-737-MAX-Aircraft/ https://www.caa.co.uk/News/Boeing-737-MAX-Aircraft/
- dclowd9901 8y ago
  Given this only seems to be afflicting MAX8 craft in terms of material evidence, my guess is they won’t ground the whole series unless/until another MAX craft goes down.
  - _verandaguy 8y ago
    AFAIK the avionics on both variants are the same. A pilot who is (properly!) trained and type-rated on one should be able to effortlessly use the other. The only difference, again AFAIK, is the passenger and cargo capacity, length, and the range.
    - AWildC182 8y ago
      The 737 type rating (training/licence addon required) covers pretty much the entire family of 737s from the 200 to the max. The avionics are the same but because the planes have substantially different air-frames, the software parameters and possibly some functionality will differ. It's not unreasonable for differences in these flight parameters to be a factor.
bwang29 8y ago
What would financially happen to an airplane company with a fleet of dozens of Max 8s?
- sushibowl 8y ago
  Depends on how big the airline is, what percentage of its fleet consists of max 8s, etc. Generally, planes like this have high operating costs, and usually are kept in the air pretty much constantly to be able to make a profit. Having one grounded potentially means losses of hundreds of thousands of dollars a day.
  - organsnyder 8y ago
    Surely airlines purchase insurance to hedge against this sort of thing?
    - moate 8y ago
      IANAL, but I would not want to deal with the headache of underwriting whatever plan you're thinking about. Who would they be buying this insurance from? What specifically could it be protecting against? Seems much more likely that they'd need to seek restitution against the producer of the planes through civil court channels. "You sold me a faulty plane/didn't explain what your product did well enough and now you need to refund my money" but on a multi-million dollar scale.
      - organsnyder 8y ago
        Insurance for loss-of-use is quite common (edit: in other industries—no idea for aviation), though it's normally (AFAIK) for natural disasters and other random occurrences. I wonder how the purchasing contracts between Boeing and the carriers are structured—perhaps they have a warranty that would do something similar.
- dvdgsng 8y ago
  We'll see, but some companies have ordered hundreds of this model, e.g. Southwest Airlines ordered 245! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_fleet#Current_fleet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_fleet#Curre... Orders & Deliveries of the 737 MAX (all models): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_737_MAX_orders_and_deliveries#Orders_and_deliveries_graph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_737_MAX_orders_...
lb1lf 8y ago
According to the head of the Norwegian civil aviation authority, interviewed live on radio right now, the ban is EU-wide as of a couple of minutes ago.
tibbydudeza 8y ago
When passengers starts wondering what model plane they are going to fly on then you know that you have lost the narrative. No wonder McDonald Douglas changed the DC-10 into the MD-11.
- babuskov 8y ago
  I always wonder what model I'm going to fly, but it's mostly because of noise, seating and overhead baggage space consideration.
- alexis_fr 8y ago
  ...which also crashed. It was bumping because it was too long and the pilots couldn’t feel when they touched down. I think it caused 2 crashes. Which is a lot, considering DC-9 and DC-10 are known for all sorts of crashes, including losing the same door 4 times for the same reason, each time with deaths. Ah, and who doesn’t remember the Concorde crash. Provoked by bursting a tyre on a piece lost by a DC-10. The airplane that literally falls into pieces.
sctb 8y ago
Earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19365108 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19365108.
ajhurliman 8y ago
Why do they bother mentioning Trump in this article? They even followed his tweet with a disclaimer that experts said it wasn't accurate.
VBprogrammer 8y ago
The more I think about it the less likely I think the most recent crash will end up being attributed to the MCAS system. Why? Because with what we know now I could have prevented the Lion Air crash. Any airline flying these planes would have been criminally negligent to have not issued guidance to all of it's crews pointing out the system, the potential danger and the workaround. Any pilots who've gone through their annual sim time will no doubt have had a trim-runaway situation thrown at them. I obviously have no data beyond what has been released to the public but I'd be unsurprised to here this was completely unrelated.
- VBprogrammer 8y ago
  Honestly, I'm not sure what's wrong with that statement. There is plenty of president for aircraft which went through special airworthiness investigations, the MU-2 for example, and came out the other side without fault.
dahdum 8y ago
American and Southwest Airlines are still flying the Max 8/9, and are refusing refunds (Southwest/American) and charging change fees (American) for customers concerned for their safety. I don't understand this logic. They are essentially risking their entire company over the safety of this plane. If something happens now they'll be driven to bankruptcy at record speed.
- Reason077 8y ago
  One thing to note is that both American and Southwest's 737 Max aircraft are configured differently to those flown by most other operators, with regards to the display of AOA indicators and the "AOA DISAGREE" warning light. These features are optional and the fact that they are not present on Lion Air's aircraft may have contributed to that crash. https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/southwest-airlines-is-adding-new-angle-of-attack-indicators-to-its-737-max-fleet/ https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/southwest-airlines...
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    It would still be prudent to ground them anyways until they know for sure they avoid the problem with their solution.
  - dahdum 8y ago
    That would mean Southwest strongly believes the lack of "AOA DISAGREE" caused the crashes, so they are safe to continue flying their fleet. If so, they should come out and say it. Right now, 737 Max Fleet is the deadliest plane per mile that is in the air [1], by a wide margin. Maybe it's an anomaly and the rate is much lower, but by the same reasoning, it could be worse. I'm not flying on one, and my opinion of Southwest and American is at a new low. 1. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-boeing-737-max-is-now-the-deadliest-mainstream-jetliner-203441321.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-boeing-737-max-is-now-the...
    - outworlder 8y ago
      > That would mean Southwest strongly believes the lack of "AOA DISAGREE" caused the crashes No, that only means that they believe this will improve pilot's situational awareness. You don't need that feature to override uncommanded trim. Until the FAA says the aircraft is unsafe, your opinion of these airlines is misplaced. They went beyond what's legally required and added an additional safety feature. Southwest exclusively flies 737s. They have one of the largest pilot corps for that type. The airline has good safety and maintenance records.
eric_b 8y ago
At the gym today, on all the TVs, the media talking heads were crucifying the FAA for being "unsafe" or playing fast and loose with passenger safety (for not grounding the planes). I've always held the FAA in high regard, and think they do a good job. Are they really being negligent here? Or is the media just looking for something to spark outrage? Can anyone with more specific knowledge of aircraft safety weigh in?
- anoncoward111 8y ago
  Two crashes in 6 months and there's only 350 planes in existence is a pretty bad safety record that is probably on par with Tupolev. The US can tacitly blame "third world" pilots all they want, but with 300 people dead already, I think it's important for the FAA and Boeing to say exactly what is going on, especially since the planes are in use in the USA. There is a debate over if the plane's hardware, software, or pilots are at fault-- either the planes should be grounded or the exact protocol should be published all over for the world to know, since it is the passengers' lives at stake.
  - babuskov 8y ago
    From what I gathered so far, it looks like airplane design was made with many compromises that made it complicated to pilot planes properly.
    - anoncoward111 8y ago
      I agree, in my eyes it is debate between "the plane is not safe to fly by anyone" and "the plane is safe to fly with additional training, when given" If the 737 MAX planes remain in the air in the USA, Boeing and US Govt are de facto saying "third world pilots clearly just don't understand how to fly our planes". If they ground the planes, they de facto admit there is an actual safety issue.
      - vorpalhex 8y ago
        -
vkou 8y ago
Just two days ago, people were poo-pooing China for doing the same exact thing, referencing political interference, protectionism, and setting all sorts of other ill deeds at the doors of their regulators.
xucheng 8y ago
EASA has just banned 737 MAX jets throughout Europe. https://www.easa.europa.eu/newsroom-and-events/press-releases/easa-suspends-all-boeing-737-max-operations-europe https://www.easa.europa.eu/newsroom-and-events/press-release...
- cesarb 8y ago
  The official directives seem to be these ones: https://ad.easa.europa.eu/blob/EASA_AD_2019_0051_E.pdf/EAD_2019-0051-E_1 https://ad.easa.europa.eu/blob/EASA_AD_2019_0051_E.pdf/EAD_2... and https://ad.easa.europa.eu/blob/EASA_SD_2019_01.pdf/SD_SD-2019-01_1 https://ad.easa.europa.eu/blob/EASA_SD_2019_01.pdf/SD_SD-201... In particular, ferry flights are allowed with certain limitations.
  - avar 8y ago
    From the notice: > "[...]do not operate the aeroplane, except that a single non-commercial ferry flight (up to three flight cycles) may be accomplished to return the aeroplane to a location where the expected corrective action(s) can be accomplished.". Doesn't this just say the 737 MAX can be flown only to undergo future maintenance that'll resolve whatever the current issue is, unless another notice is posted clearing it?
- YinglingLight 8y ago
  It's a shame there's so much money involved in this (billions), the passengers on that particular Ethiopian flight so shady (russian mob + exotic meat CEO), that rational discourse is guaranteed to take a backburner to politics.
  - cerebellum42 8y ago
    Your comment is the first I'm reading about it, all the news articles I've seen have been focused on the actual issues. So...
    - blattimwind 8y ago
mrdodge 8y ago
How good are Boeing's software engineers? They don't seem to pay very well.
- cal5k 8y ago
  The 777 is the second-safest aircraft in the world, next to the Airbus A340. The 787 is on track to demonstrate a similar safety record (in terms of fatal incidents). So overall, they seem to be quite good.
  - mrdodge 8y ago
    Those were produced pre-FAANG, Boeing probably paid comparatively better then. Do the smartest software engineers flock to Boeing in 2019? I think the relatively low pay and status of software engineers outside of the Bay Area is a huge risk to society. We are going to start seeing it show up in interesting places.
    - vkou 8y ago
      > Do the smartest software engineers flock to Boeing in 2019? Many engineers don't get rewarded for 150 IQ smarts. They get rewarded for hustle. (Whether in a startup, or at FAANG, you can have an incredibly successful, and lucrative career, without being incredibly technically capable.) When you're working on safety-critical aerospace code, Boeing doesn't, and probably shouldn't give two shits about your hustling skills.
    - iforgotpassword 8y ago
      Would like to know why you're being down voted this much, I think you got a valid point there.
    - freyir 8y ago
      Not sure why you're being downvoted. There has been a brain-drain from industry and academia because FAANG and the Bay Area have been providing software engineers with much better compensation, even with the cost-of-living factored in. Some companies can't compete, and many others just refuse to compete.
cmurf 8y ago
How are pilots expected to know how to fly the plane absent a type rating which was obviated by the now disabled software abstraction via setting stabilizer trim to cutoff? And what is this mandatory software update MCAS needs? If it's safe, why does it need an update?
soVeryTired 8y ago
There are a number of aircraft leasing companies who I'd imagine are fairly heavily leveraged. I don't suppose anyone knows if it's Boeing or the purchasers who are left on the hook for this sort of thing? How about for aircraft that haven't yet been delivered, or options?
- user5994461 8y ago
  It's gonna be the hell of a legal battle between Boeing, the leasing companies, the flying companies, the governments, the purchasers, the owners, the loaners and the insurances.
throw7 8y ago
The FAA isn't passing the smell test. If both previous crashes happened with US carriers taking off from US airports, you better believe the FAA would ground these boeing max jets.
- phkahler 8y ago
  >> If both previous crashes happened with US carriers taking off from US airports, you better believe the FAA would ground these boeing max jets. You're not wrong. But do you think the EU banning them couldn't possibly have anything to do with who makes them or the competition between Airbus and Boeing? Even as a secondary factor?
  - Mr_Shiba 8y ago
    How about 300 deaths already, and well know design shortcomings as primary factors ?
sfilargi 8y ago
I urge people to read the discussion by pilots regarding the 737 MAX. https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/safety/120514-ethiopian-737-max-8-crash.html https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/safety/120514-ethiopian-7... It all comes down to this: "There are far too many aerodynamic bandaids that are permitted to pass the current standards. Not just this particular airplane, but a whole bunch of airframes. If the basic aerodynamics won't pass without the pushers, pullers and now AOA induced changes to primary and secondary controls then a new design of the wing platform should come into play." The way I interpret this, is that the plane should never have gotten the green light to fly. More info about the MCAS here: https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/what-is-the-boeing-737-max-maneuvering-characteristics-augmentation-system-mcas-jt610/ https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/what-is-the-boeing...
- Someone1234 8y ago
  Pilots have been pushing back hard on the narrative that this was simply pilot error. The crux is that safety agencies never mandated training on these new systems, and new procedures weren't created with them in mind. Worse still procedures from older models of the same aircraft (such as automatic overriding of auto-trim) were removed without re-training on that either. Lion Air had to repair the AOA sensor multiple times (replace, then flush), but a single sensor failure should not bring down an aircraft; and if the AOA sensor is that safety critical then why did Boeing put two of them instead of three (i.e. for cross-checking readings)? Either it wasn't safety critical and Lion Air's actions are reasonable, or it was and Boeing cut costs on safety. So the justifications blaming either the pilots (who didn't get training, because safety agencies told them it wasn't needed) or maintenance (who were repairing a non-critical sensor that turns out to be safety critical) are weak.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - linuxftw 8y ago
    > Either it wasn't safety critical and Lion Air's actions are reasonable, or it was and Boeing cut costs on safety. This is an excellent point. Boeing can't have it both ways.
deleted 8y ago
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dang 8y ago
Previous big thread on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19365108 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19365108 Other discussions at https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Boeing%20points%3E10&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Boeing%20points%3E10&sort=byDa...
- js2 8y ago
  Here’s a few more from before this crash that I’ve bookmarked: Boeing Withheld Information on 737 Model, According to Safety Experts and Others (wsj.com) 398 points | 3 months ago | 211 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18438607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18438607 What the Lion Air Pilots May Have Needed to Do to Avoid a Crash (nytimes.com) 118 points | 3 months ago | 50 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18471464 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18471464 How the pilots of Lion Air Flight 610 lost control (nytimes.com) 105 points | 75 days ago | 136 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18761830 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18761830
krmbzds 8y ago
Turkish Airlines grounds all 737 Max jets too: https://www.apnews.com/94c19abef66d4a0e977a1286d779ba22 https://www.apnews.com/94c19abef66d4a0e977a1286d779ba22 "Turkish Airlines says it is grounding all Boeing 737 Max aircraft in its fleet until further notice."
jayess 8y ago
I'm getting close to buying Boeing stock or options.
fixermark 8y ago
Regarding the FAA's lack of willingness to ground the Max 8's: Are we looking at a lack of leadership in the org? The current head is acting administrator as a result of a failure of the Trump administration to appoint a new head in the wake of the previous administrator's planned exit on Jan 6 of last year. I don't know anything about Mr. Elwell one way or another, but not all deputies are there with an eye towards taking the top job.
VanPossum 8y ago
If it turns out to be gross negligence by Boeing, I wouldnt like to be the US taxpayer when this blows up and goes to court. Because the US gvt is not going to let Boeing go bankrupt, so guess who's gonna pay in the end b/c Boeing tried to save a few bucks.
runxel 8y ago
UPDATE: The EASA has banned now aviation space for whole Europe.
lgleason 8y ago
The FAA has always been very pro-active about grounding planes that are unsafe. The airlines operating these aircraft do not benefit by continuing to fly them if they are un-safe. Between the cost of the loss, public image etc. it would not make economic sense. Given the trade tensions the US has with both China and the EU and the fact that both are offering competing products (Airbus more so), this sounds like more of a political move. In the case of the EU, the WTO ruled that Airbus was illegally subsidized by the government that has now banned a Boeing aircraft while it has the green light to fly in the US. As swampy as the US government is, the EU has it's fair share of payoffs etc.. I expect this to further heat up the trade war.
- netsharc 8y ago
  To me the more political move seems to be the FAA not grounding them... 2 brand new planes yoyoing after take-off and crashing...
  - jedmeyers 8y ago
    Older 737 crashed in the similar manner as well: - Flydubai Flight 981 - Tatarstan Airlines Flight 363
cmurf 8y ago
I found both of these relevant: https://leehamnews.com/2018/11/07/boeing-issues-737-operations-manual-bulletin-after-lion-air-accident/ https://leehamnews.com/2018/11/07/boeing-issues-737-operatio... https://leehamnews.com/2018/11/14/boeings-automatic-trim-for-the-737-max-was-not-disclosed-to-the-pilots/ https://leehamnews.com/2018/11/14/boeings-automatic-trim-for... Either not widely reported or lost in other confusion, that I find important about Lion Air, from the first article: Indonesian crash investigators have said the 737 MAX involved in the crash has flown with unreliable airspeed information in the last four flights. That very well could make identification and corrective action for the problem more difficult. And then, there is in fact a different behavior in the MAX with MCAS in normal operation that pilots weren't made aware of, and results in this central question in the 2nd article: How should [pilots] know that pulling on the Yoke didn’t stop the trim? In previous 737's, pulling on the yoke does stop trim, but that's contrary to the point of MCAS which is why it has different behavior, but it's a behavior pilots aren't aware of and haven't trained for; and both Boeing and the FAA have been saying 737's all have the same behaviors and flight characteristics. And that becoming clearly not the case is really pissing everyone off.
ehudla 8y ago
What programming language is used for the avionics?
zaroth 8y ago
The black box has been recovered. The data is probably being recovered as we pontificate. Within the next 48-72 hours I expect someone will know definitively if the MCAS system was even active, and if trim was a factor in this crash. Given that this significant data point is hours or just a couple days away, isn’t it prudent to get the data before grounding the fleet? If the jet had been brought down intentionally, should the FAA have grounded the aircraft? Crashes like this are so incredibly rare, and on a new aircraft perhaps the easy decision is to just ground it. But shouldn’t that require actual evidence on the cause of the crash? Witness accounts are of the plane trailing smoke and debris, but I don’t trust those at all. I feel like given that we will know definitively if trim was a factor in the crash so soon, a decision should only be made once that is known.
- butler14 8y ago
  While I see your point, no, I think it's prudent to ground the fleet immediately. Two of the same plane have crashed in 5 months and 346 people are dead.
elcomet 8y ago
Why does the title mentions "EU's Biggest Economies", when it is affecting all the european union ? It is a very confusing title. The original title was : E.U. Suspends All Operations of Boeing Max Model That Crashed
mark_l_watson 8y ago
I may not have this correct, but here is the FAA, a branch of our government not temporarily grounding the Max 8 - looks like the government is protecting a (mostly) US company. Flip this around and we are putting a lot of pressure on allies like Germany to not use ‘dangerous’ Chinese 5G infrastructure. I guess it is natural for governments to promote local industries but the cynical me thinks that corporations have captured our government so they don’t act in the public interests.
dis-sys 8y ago
As of writing, FAA still refuses to protect the safety of passengers flying with American airlines. Completely disregard public safety to just protect the financial interests of a single private company, when this is systematically carried out by a tax funded bureau which was actually created to safeguard the safety of the public, how this is is not corruption? How this is not the text book definition of corruption at the highest level? Will FAA fight so hard to ignore public concerns and safety if the aircraft were built by other countries?

350 points by semigroupoid 8y ago

So this isn't just banning from airports, this is banning from their airspace? That's then more or less a total grounding of them in Europe. As an example, Norwegian (who has 15 of them) said they weren't grounding them as late as this morning, but now they'll have no choice. They use them mainly for their medium flights between scandinavia and southern europe (Nice, Budapest, Tenerife etc). No way they can do that without flying over Germany and France. It wouldn't be very good optics if they swapped their MAX'es to domestic use to free up regular 737's for flying over the continent either.

the_mitsuhiko 8y ago
Austria also closed the airspace for 737 max planes, while not the largest country in Europe together with France and Germany that adds quite a bit of extra detour coming from Norway.
erokar 8y ago
Indeed. Norwegian is doing this because the optics now force them to do so, not self-assessment of the risk. They, and the Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority, failed in that regard.
- dclowd9901 8y ago
  At least it’s not the country bound and determined to prop up the brand at all costs. If it was 2 A320s that went down, you can bet we’d be banning them instantly in the states.
- jka 8y ago
  Do you have a reference to confirm that this was a knee-jerk/optics reaction, out of interest? (definitely curious to see how airlines/authorities are reaching these decisions) The MCAS system and the way it was introduced sound a little like a patch, and slightly haphazard. While training & runbooks and procedures are important, take-off is a busy time, and the Max-8 is (afaik) intended to operate very-nearly-like a standard 737, so it's not inconceivable that pilots wouldn't have time or intuitively know how to handle this situation. Ultimately any vehicle/software/tool is going to be safest when the responsible designer makes it intuitive and reduces the possibility of failure cases rather than adding workarounds or runbooks to patch over them and/or disclaim the liability. Anyway, it seems like it could be early to strongly assign blame or critique until we know how serious the issue is.
  - Svip 8y ago
    Over 300 people dead sounds pretty serious to me. It's probably safest to ground the plane model until we know more.
    - jka 8y ago
      I should have been clearer here; I was responding to the parent post's assignation of blame towards the airline/air authority. Generally do agree with grounding the Max 8 fleet as a precaution, and also given the poor engineering smell around the MCAS. But not keen to assign blame/failure and damage reputations until there are credible investigation results, or without providing references.
    - bryondowd 8y ago
      I've seen a number of people pointing at this likely being more an issue with untrained pilots than the plane itself. EI, the flight crew on the crashed planes may have had considerably less experience than the minimum requirements most major airlines and all US airlines set for flying these planes.
      - AsyncAwait 8y ago
        This seems like corporate PR blaming "3rd world pilots" and am not sure it's such a smart move. If your plane requires substantially different handling & the interface does not accommodate it, it seems to me the problem is not the pilot. It seems more likely that the plane suffers from some elemental design problems that were insufficiently patched over to pass inspection in order to protect the already invested capital.
        dis-sys 8y ago
        Huge number of third world pilots are flying other models of Boeing 737, they obviously didn't crash that often. They are just blaming the victims, trying to let those already killed pilots to take responibility for their faulty designs.
    - 8y ago
- qw 8y ago
  Norway also closed the airspace 40min ago
paganel 8y ago
It looks like Norwegian is already asking its 737 Max flights to return to their departing airports, at least according to this recent screenshot I found on reddit [1] [1] https://i.redd.it/6gtecemacpl21.png https://i.redd.it/6gtecemacpl21.png
- gizmo385 8y ago
  Yikes. How would ya like to be a passenger on one of those planes: "We're returning to our departure airport because this airplane has been grounded."
  - jsty 8y ago
    Although if you'd realised it was a 737 MAX, you might already be clutching a medicinal gin & tonic ...
    - tivert 8y ago
      > Although if you'd realised it was a 737 MAX, you might already be clutching a medicinal gin & tonic ... I wouldn't, haven't all the problems so far have been during takeoff? So once you're cruising you're safe from them?
      - tapland 8y ago
        12 and 6 minutes after take-off.
      - dreamcompiler 8y ago
        The MCAS problem cannot occur when flaps are deployed, and it happens when flaps are initially retracted. So if it hasn't happened by now, it's not going to.
        JshWright 8y ago
        It could also happen while resetting after a late missed approach.
ElBarto 8y ago
A potentially interesting tidbit from Norwegian's Wikipedia page: > Diversion to Shiraz, Iran December 2018 > A Norwegian Boeing 737 MAX suffered an unspecified technical failure over Iran in December 2018. The pilot made a precautionary landing at Shiraz Shahid Dastgheib International Airport without incident. Spare parts required to make the aircraft airworthy were not available in the world outside the United States, which has prohibited exports of technology to Iran. Two months later, the almost-brand-new aircraft remained stranded in Shiraz and subject to seizure by the Iranian government.[86] > On 22 February 2019 the plane was ferrried from Shiraz to Stockholm as DY8921
- bfirsh 8y ago
  A good podcast episode about that: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/02/06/692155923/episode-892-the-lost-plane https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/02/06/692155923/epis...
- benj111 8y ago
  That seems like a disincentive to buy American aircraft. If you're a reasonably sized international airline, it seems like a reasonable possibility that you'd have to (or want to) land in a territory that the US in unfavourable toward. Why take the risk?
  - bengotow 8y ago
    This is somewhat true, but to be fair there are only a few countries the US and it’s allies don’t do business with - as long as you don’t land in Iran or North Korea you’d be in pretty good shape.
    - lostlogin 8y ago
      Not so sure about that. The US Government lists 13 places as “Do not travel” and 15 as “reconsider travel”. Looking at the list, it doesn’t seem unreasonable advice. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories.html/ https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/...
m2ndpixel 8y ago
Banned in the entire EU now: https://www.easa.europa.eu/newsroom-and-events/news/easa-suspends-all-boeing-737-max-operations-europe https://www.easa.europa.eu/newsroom-and-events/news/easa-sus...
- snazz 8y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19370835 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19370835

Areading314 8y ago

Does anyone actually know or suspect what's wrong with these planes? Hardware issue? Software issue?

sandworm101 8y ago
All three. It also has to do with pilot training. The general idea is that there is an auto-trim system meant to stop the plane from stalling. But when it gets bad data from a faulty sensor it tries to crash the aircraft (short version). Pilots, all pilots, are trained to recognize this and override the system, but this aircraft requires them to do some things slightly differently. Specifically, they have to shut down the system rather than manually work against it. Difficulties arise where there is a disconnect between what the pilots think is happening, what the systems think and tell them is happening, and what the aircraft is actually experiencing. So this is an interaction between an automated system (software) a potentially faulty sensor (hardware) and pilot training. It is a complex problem that will take a while to fully understand and solve.
- notfromhere 8y ago
  It's a simple problem: don't dodge training requirements by falsely stating that there's no need to retrain pilots on this aircraft. These crashes happened because Boeing tried to market the plane as not requiring retraining in order to boost sales to airlines.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  This is a very succint explanation of what's happening here (in the Lion Air case, anyway). Not sure why you're being downvoted - perhaps the claim that this is a "complex problem".
  - sandworm101 8y ago
    HN is slowly walking towards facebook culture. People up/down vote things they like or dislike, with the goal of disappearing opinions with which they even mildly disagree. Valid points and thoughtful discussion are increasingly unwelcome. Lol. Thanks for the downvote all below. Thanks for proving my point about the change of behavior.

sheri 8y ago

Does anyone know if there is a material difference between the MAX-8 and the MAX-9? All the banning seems to be specifically for the MAX-8, but should they consider banning all MAX series aircraft? I realize the crashes themselves were MAX-8, but the difference between them seems not significant?

Xixi 8y ago
From what I could gather all Boeing 737 MAX have been banned by UK, France and Germany. This is not limited to just the MAX-8.
- jsty 8y ago
  In the UK at least, it's both 737-8 and 737-9 From the CAA: https://www.caa.co.uk/News/Boeing-737-MAX-Aircraft/ https://www.caa.co.uk/News/Boeing-737-MAX-Aircraft/
dclowd9901 8y ago
Given this only seems to be afflicting MAX8 craft in terms of material evidence, my guess is they won’t ground the whole series unless/until another MAX craft goes down.
- _verandaguy 8y ago
  AFAIK the avionics on both variants are the same. A pilot who is (properly!) trained and type-rated on one should be able to effortlessly use the other. The only difference, again AFAIK, is the passenger and cargo capacity, length, and the range.
  - AWildC182 8y ago
    The 737 type rating (training/licence addon required) covers pretty much the entire family of 737s from the 200 to the max. The avionics are the same but because the planes have substantially different air-frames, the software parameters and possibly some functionality will differ. It's not unreasonable for differences in these flight parameters to be a factor.

bwang29 8y ago

What would financially happen to an airplane company with a fleet of dozens of Max 8s?

sushibowl 8y ago
Depends on how big the airline is, what percentage of its fleet consists of max 8s, etc. Generally, planes like this have high operating costs, and usually are kept in the air pretty much constantly to be able to make a profit. Having one grounded potentially means losses of hundreds of thousands of dollars a day.
- organsnyder 8y ago
  Surely airlines purchase insurance to hedge against this sort of thing?
  - moate 8y ago
    IANAL, but I would not want to deal with the headache of underwriting whatever plan you're thinking about. Who would they be buying this insurance from? What specifically could it be protecting against? Seems much more likely that they'd need to seek restitution against the producer of the planes through civil court channels. "You sold me a faulty plane/didn't explain what your product did well enough and now you need to refund my money" but on a multi-million dollar scale.
    - organsnyder 8y ago
      Insurance for loss-of-use is quite common (edit: in other industries—no idea for aviation), though it's normally (AFAIK) for natural disasters and other random occurrences. I wonder how the purchasing contracts between Boeing and the carriers are structured—perhaps they have a warranty that would do something similar.
dvdgsng 8y ago
We'll see, but some companies have ordered hundreds of this model, e.g. Southwest Airlines ordered 245! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_fleet#Current_fleet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_fleet#Curre... Orders & Deliveries of the 737 MAX (all models): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_737_MAX_orders_and_deliveries#Orders_and_deliveries_graph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_737_MAX_orders_...

lb1lf 8y ago

According to the head of the Norwegian civil aviation authority, interviewed live on radio right now, the ban is EU-wide as of a couple of minutes ago.

tibbydudeza 8y ago

When passengers starts wondering what model plane they are going to fly on then you know that you have lost the narrative. No wonder McDonald Douglas changed the DC-10 into the MD-11.

babuskov 8y ago
I always wonder what model I'm going to fly, but it's mostly because of noise, seating and overhead baggage space consideration.
alexis_fr 8y ago
...which also crashed. It was bumping because it was too long and the pilots couldn’t feel when they touched down. I think it caused 2 crashes. Which is a lot, considering DC-9 and DC-10 are known for all sorts of crashes, including losing the same door 4 times for the same reason, each time with deaths. Ah, and who doesn’t remember the Concorde crash. Provoked by bursting a tyre on a piece lost by a DC-10. The airplane that literally falls into pieces.

sctb 8y ago

Earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19365108 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19365108.

ajhurliman 8y ago

Why do they bother mentioning Trump in this article? They even followed his tweet with a disclaimer that experts said it wasn't accurate.

VBprogrammer 8y ago

The more I think about it the less likely I think the most recent crash will end up being attributed to the MCAS system. Why? Because with what we know now I could have prevented the Lion Air crash. Any airline flying these planes would have been criminally negligent to have not issued guidance to all of it's crews pointing out the system, the potential danger and the workaround. Any pilots who've gone through their annual sim time will no doubt have had a trim-runaway situation thrown at them. I obviously have no data beyond what has been released to the public but I'd be unsurprised to here this was completely unrelated.

VBprogrammer 8y ago
Honestly, I'm not sure what's wrong with that statement. There is plenty of president for aircraft which went through special airworthiness investigations, the MU-2 for example, and came out the other side without fault.

dahdum 8y ago

American and Southwest Airlines are still flying the Max 8/9, and are refusing refunds (Southwest/American) and charging change fees (American) for customers concerned for their safety. I don't understand this logic. They are essentially risking their entire company over the safety of this plane. If something happens now they'll be driven to bankruptcy at record speed.

Reason077 8y ago
One thing to note is that both American and Southwest's 737 Max aircraft are configured differently to those flown by most other operators, with regards to the display of AOA indicators and the "AOA DISAGREE" warning light. These features are optional and the fact that they are not present on Lion Air's aircraft may have contributed to that crash. https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/southwest-airlines-is-adding-new-angle-of-attack-indicators-to-its-737-max-fleet/ https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/southwest-airlines...
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  It would still be prudent to ground them anyways until they know for sure they avoid the problem with their solution.
- dahdum 8y ago
  That would mean Southwest strongly believes the lack of "AOA DISAGREE" caused the crashes, so they are safe to continue flying their fleet. If so, they should come out and say it. Right now, 737 Max Fleet is the deadliest plane per mile that is in the air [1], by a wide margin. Maybe it's an anomaly and the rate is much lower, but by the same reasoning, it could be worse. I'm not flying on one, and my opinion of Southwest and American is at a new low. 1. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-boeing-737-max-is-now-the-deadliest-mainstream-jetliner-203441321.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-boeing-737-max-is-now-the...
  - outworlder 8y ago
    > That would mean Southwest strongly believes the lack of "AOA DISAGREE" caused the crashes No, that only means that they believe this will improve pilot's situational awareness. You don't need that feature to override uncommanded trim. Until the FAA says the aircraft is unsafe, your opinion of these airlines is misplaced. They went beyond what's legally required and added an additional safety feature. Southwest exclusively flies 737s. They have one of the largest pilot corps for that type. The airline has good safety and maintenance records.

eric_b 8y ago

At the gym today, on all the TVs, the media talking heads were crucifying the FAA for being "unsafe" or playing fast and loose with passenger safety (for not grounding the planes). I've always held the FAA in high regard, and think they do a good job. Are they really being negligent here? Or is the media just looking for something to spark outrage? Can anyone with more specific knowledge of aircraft safety weigh in?

anoncoward111 8y ago
Two crashes in 6 months and there's only 350 planes in existence is a pretty bad safety record that is probably on par with Tupolev. The US can tacitly blame "third world" pilots all they want, but with 300 people dead already, I think it's important for the FAA and Boeing to say exactly what is going on, especially since the planes are in use in the USA. There is a debate over if the plane's hardware, software, or pilots are at fault-- either the planes should be grounded or the exact protocol should be published all over for the world to know, since it is the passengers' lives at stake.
- babuskov 8y ago
  From what I gathered so far, it looks like airplane design was made with many compromises that made it complicated to pilot planes properly.
  - anoncoward111 8y ago
    I agree, in my eyes it is debate between "the plane is not safe to fly by anyone" and "the plane is safe to fly with additional training, when given" If the 737 MAX planes remain in the air in the USA, Boeing and US Govt are de facto saying "third world pilots clearly just don't understand how to fly our planes". If they ground the planes, they de facto admit there is an actual safety issue.
    - vorpalhex 8y ago
      -

vkou 8y ago

Just two days ago, people were poo-pooing China for doing the same exact thing, referencing political interference, protectionism, and setting all sorts of other ill deeds at the doors of their regulators.

xucheng 8y ago

EASA has just banned 737 MAX jets throughout Europe. https://www.easa.europa.eu/newsroom-and-events/press-releases/easa-suspends-all-boeing-737-max-operations-europe https://www.easa.europa.eu/newsroom-and-events/press-release...

cesarb 8y ago
The official directives seem to be these ones: https://ad.easa.europa.eu/blob/EASA_AD_2019_0051_E.pdf/EAD_2019-0051-E_1 https://ad.easa.europa.eu/blob/EASA_AD_2019_0051_E.pdf/EAD_2... and https://ad.easa.europa.eu/blob/EASA_SD_2019_01.pdf/SD_SD-2019-01_1 https://ad.easa.europa.eu/blob/EASA_SD_2019_01.pdf/SD_SD-201... In particular, ferry flights are allowed with certain limitations.
- avar 8y ago
  From the notice: > "[...]do not operate the aeroplane, except that a single non-commercial ferry flight (up to three flight cycles) may be accomplished to return the aeroplane to a location where the expected corrective action(s) can be accomplished.". Doesn't this just say the 737 MAX can be flown only to undergo future maintenance that'll resolve whatever the current issue is, unless another notice is posted clearing it?
YinglingLight 8y ago
It's a shame there's so much money involved in this (billions), the passengers on that particular Ethiopian flight so shady (russian mob + exotic meat CEO), that rational discourse is guaranteed to take a backburner to politics.
- cerebellum42 8y ago
  Your comment is the first I'm reading about it, all the news articles I've seen have been focused on the actual issues. So...
  - blattimwind 8y ago

mrdodge 8y ago

How good are Boeing's software engineers? They don't seem to pay very well.

cal5k 8y ago
The 777 is the second-safest aircraft in the world, next to the Airbus A340. The 787 is on track to demonstrate a similar safety record (in terms of fatal incidents). So overall, they seem to be quite good.
- mrdodge 8y ago
  Those were produced pre-FAANG, Boeing probably paid comparatively better then. Do the smartest software engineers flock to Boeing in 2019? I think the relatively low pay and status of software engineers outside of the Bay Area is a huge risk to society. We are going to start seeing it show up in interesting places.
  - vkou 8y ago
    > Do the smartest software engineers flock to Boeing in 2019? Many engineers don't get rewarded for 150 IQ smarts. They get rewarded for hustle. (Whether in a startup, or at FAANG, you can have an incredibly successful, and lucrative career, without being incredibly technically capable.) When you're working on safety-critical aerospace code, Boeing doesn't, and probably shouldn't give two shits about your hustling skills.
  - iforgotpassword 8y ago
    Would like to know why you're being down voted this much, I think you got a valid point there.
  - freyir 8y ago
    Not sure why you're being downvoted. There has been a brain-drain from industry and academia because FAANG and the Bay Area have been providing software engineers with much better compensation, even with the cost-of-living factored in. Some companies can't compete, and many others just refuse to compete.

cmurf 8y ago

How are pilots expected to know how to fly the plane absent a type rating which was obviated by the now disabled software abstraction via setting stabilizer trim to cutoff? And what is this mandatory software update MCAS needs? If it's safe, why does it need an update?

soVeryTired 8y ago

There are a number of aircraft leasing companies who I'd imagine are fairly heavily leveraged. I don't suppose anyone knows if it's Boeing or the purchasers who are left on the hook for this sort of thing? How about for aircraft that haven't yet been delivered, or options?

user5994461 8y ago
It's gonna be the hell of a legal battle between Boeing, the leasing companies, the flying companies, the governments, the purchasers, the owners, the loaners and the insurances.

throw7 8y ago

The FAA isn't passing the smell test. If both previous crashes happened with US carriers taking off from US airports, you better believe the FAA would ground these boeing max jets.

phkahler 8y ago
>> If both previous crashes happened with US carriers taking off from US airports, you better believe the FAA would ground these boeing max jets. You're not wrong. But do you think the EU banning them couldn't possibly have anything to do with who makes them or the competition between Airbus and Boeing? Even as a secondary factor?
- Mr_Shiba 8y ago
  How about 300 deaths already, and well know design shortcomings as primary factors ?

sfilargi 8y ago

I urge people to read the discussion by pilots regarding the 737 MAX. https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/safety/120514-ethiopian-737-max-8-crash.html https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/safety/120514-ethiopian-7... It all comes down to this: "There are far too many aerodynamic bandaids that are permitted to pass the current standards. Not just this particular airplane, but a whole bunch of airframes. If the basic aerodynamics won't pass without the pushers, pullers and now AOA induced changes to primary and secondary controls then a new design of the wing platform should come into play." The way I interpret this, is that the plane should never have gotten the green light to fly. More info about the MCAS here: https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/what-is-the-boeing-737-max-maneuvering-characteristics-augmentation-system-mcas-jt610/ https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/what-is-the-boeing...

Someone1234 8y ago
Pilots have been pushing back hard on the narrative that this was simply pilot error. The crux is that safety agencies never mandated training on these new systems, and new procedures weren't created with them in mind. Worse still procedures from older models of the same aircraft (such as automatic overriding of auto-trim) were removed without re-training on that either. Lion Air had to repair the AOA sensor multiple times (replace, then flush), but a single sensor failure should not bring down an aircraft; and if the AOA sensor is that safety critical then why did Boeing put two of them instead of three (i.e. for cross-checking readings)? Either it wasn't safety critical and Lion Air's actions are reasonable, or it was and Boeing cut costs on safety. So the justifications blaming either the pilots (who didn't get training, because safety agencies told them it wasn't needed) or maintenance (who were repairing a non-critical sensor that turns out to be safety critical) are weak.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- linuxftw 8y ago
  > Either it wasn't safety critical and Lion Air's actions are reasonable, or it was and Boeing cut costs on safety. This is an excellent point. Boeing can't have it both ways.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

dang 8y ago

Previous big thread on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19365108 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19365108 Other discussions at https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Boeing%20points%3E10&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Boeing%20points%3E10&sort=byDa...

js2 8y ago
Here’s a few more from before this crash that I’ve bookmarked: Boeing Withheld Information on 737 Model, According to Safety Experts and Others (wsj.com) 398 points | 3 months ago | 211 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18438607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18438607 What the Lion Air Pilots May Have Needed to Do to Avoid a Crash (nytimes.com) 118 points | 3 months ago | 50 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18471464 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18471464 How the pilots of Lion Air Flight 610 lost control (nytimes.com) 105 points | 75 days ago | 136 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18761830 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18761830

krmbzds 8y ago

Turkish Airlines grounds all 737 Max jets too: https://www.apnews.com/94c19abef66d4a0e977a1286d779ba22 https://www.apnews.com/94c19abef66d4a0e977a1286d779ba22 "Turkish Airlines says it is grounding all Boeing 737 Max aircraft in its fleet until further notice."

jayess 8y ago

I'm getting close to buying Boeing stock or options.

fixermark 8y ago

Regarding the FAA's lack of willingness to ground the Max 8's: Are we looking at a lack of leadership in the org? The current head is acting administrator as a result of a failure of the Trump administration to appoint a new head in the wake of the previous administrator's planned exit on Jan 6 of last year. I don't know anything about Mr. Elwell one way or another, but not all deputies are there with an eye towards taking the top job.

VanPossum 8y ago

If it turns out to be gross negligence by Boeing, I wouldnt like to be the US taxpayer when this blows up and goes to court. Because the US gvt is not going to let Boeing go bankrupt, so guess who's gonna pay in the end b/c Boeing tried to save a few bucks.

runxel 8y ago

UPDATE: The EASA has banned now aviation space for whole Europe.

lgleason 8y ago

The FAA has always been very pro-active about grounding planes that are unsafe. The airlines operating these aircraft do not benefit by continuing to fly them if they are un-safe. Between the cost of the loss, public image etc. it would not make economic sense. Given the trade tensions the US has with both China and the EU and the fact that both are offering competing products (Airbus more so), this sounds like more of a political move. In the case of the EU, the WTO ruled that Airbus was illegally subsidized by the government that has now banned a Boeing aircraft while it has the green light to fly in the US. As swampy as the US government is, the EU has it's fair share of payoffs etc.. I expect this to further heat up the trade war.

netsharc 8y ago
To me the more political move seems to be the FAA not grounding them... 2 brand new planes yoyoing after take-off and crashing...
- jedmeyers 8y ago
  Older 737 crashed in the similar manner as well: - Flydubai Flight 981 - Tatarstan Airlines Flight 363

cmurf 8y ago

I found both of these relevant: https://leehamnews.com/2018/11/07/boeing-issues-737-operations-manual-bulletin-after-lion-air-accident/ https://leehamnews.com/2018/11/07/boeing-issues-737-operatio... https://leehamnews.com/2018/11/14/boeings-automatic-trim-for-the-737-max-was-not-disclosed-to-the-pilots/ https://leehamnews.com/2018/11/14/boeings-automatic-trim-for... Either not widely reported or lost in other confusion, that I find important about Lion Air, from the first article: Indonesian crash investigators have said the 737 MAX involved in the crash has flown with unreliable airspeed information in the last four flights. That very well could make identification and corrective action for the problem more difficult. And then, there is in fact a different behavior in the MAX with MCAS in normal operation that pilots weren't made aware of, and results in this central question in the 2nd article: How should [pilots] know that pulling on the Yoke didn’t stop the trim? In previous 737's, pulling on the yoke does stop trim, but that's contrary to the point of MCAS which is why it has different behavior, but it's a behavior pilots aren't aware of and haven't trained for; and both Boeing and the FAA have been saying 737's all have the same behaviors and flight characteristics. And that becoming clearly not the case is really pissing everyone off.

ehudla 8y ago

What programming language is used for the avionics?

zaroth 8y ago

The black box has been recovered. The data is probably being recovered as we pontificate. Within the next 48-72 hours I expect someone will know definitively if the MCAS system was even active, and if trim was a factor in this crash. Given that this significant data point is hours or just a couple days away, isn’t it prudent to get the data before grounding the fleet? If the jet had been brought down intentionally, should the FAA have grounded the aircraft? Crashes like this are so incredibly rare, and on a new aircraft perhaps the easy decision is to just ground it. But shouldn’t that require actual evidence on the cause of the crash? Witness accounts are of the plane trailing smoke and debris, but I don’t trust those at all. I feel like given that we will know definitively if trim was a factor in the crash so soon, a decision should only be made once that is known.

butler14 8y ago
While I see your point, no, I think it's prudent to ground the fleet immediately. Two of the same plane have crashed in 5 months and 346 people are dead.

elcomet 8y ago

Why does the title mentions "EU's Biggest Economies", when it is affecting all the european union ? It is a very confusing title. The original title was : E.U. Suspends All Operations of Boeing Max Model That Crashed

mark_l_watson 8y ago

I may not have this correct, but here is the FAA, a branch of our government not temporarily grounding the Max 8 - looks like the government is protecting a (mostly) US company. Flip this around and we are putting a lot of pressure on allies like Germany to not use ‘dangerous’ Chinese 5G infrastructure. I guess it is natural for governments to promote local industries but the cynical me thinks that corporations have captured our government so they don’t act in the public interests.

dis-sys 8y ago

As of writing, FAA still refuses to protect the safety of passengers flying with American airlines. Completely disregard public safety to just protect the financial interests of a single private company, when this is systematically carried out by a tax funded bureau which was actually created to safeguard the safety of the public, how this is is not corruption? How this is not the text book definition of corruption at the highest level? Will FAA fight so hard to ignore public concerns and safety if the aircraft were built by other countries?