12 ms·

Some other MAX reports: 1583028: B737 MAX-8 Captain reported the engine fuel burn was higher than expected. Maintenance confirms that several 737-MAXs are burn

Some other MAX reports: 1583028: B737 MAX-8 Captain reported the engine fuel burn was higher than expected. Maintenance confirms that several 737-MAXs are burning fuel faster than expected. 1593699: ATIS sheet fell through the slot forward of the center pedestal and the blank off plate. We had Maintenance come out to remove it. We discovered 20 other ATIS sheets mixed into the wiring. The aircraft is only six months old. Severe potential fire hazard! 1538699: B737 MAX pilots reported flying through the final approach course and descending below published altitudes due to confusion with the new style instrument displays.

jrockway 8y ago
1593699 is amazing.
- selectodude 8y ago
  Probably southwest pilots. If it’s not analog it’s too much for them.
  - iforgotpassword 8y ago
    Well this shit doesn't sound any better: 1565207 At cruise flight, our Wi-Fi stopped working. I then saw that I was unable to access the Pilot Mobile app. Since I do not routinely copy the flight plan to iBook or acrobat (we are not required to do this), I was unable to access the flight plan. I've lost Wi-Fi before but not had this problem. Maybe it's a 737max thing. My First Officer had a copy on iBook and airdropped it to me. Later we were able to restore the Wi-Fi and I could login to pilot mobile but the [flight plan] was not there anymore. It's time we make radio with the ATC VoIP. Just run an asterisk on the plane.
    - NikolaNovak 8y ago
      Boggles the mind on several levels: 1. That airlines would use consumer tablets without hard-copy backup as matter of procedure. I remember Air Canada announcing it and how it would save so much weight for both pilots and the airplane, and thinking... I print my Google Maps as a backup for roadtrips, I sure as heck would do it on a flight! 2. Perhaps I'm misjudging, but the tone and perspective of pilot makes me worry for their approach and technical skills. Does not routinely copy to local device before takeoff? "Maybe it's a 737max thing"? Airdropping as a solution? This does not smell off setting up for success... :<
      - addicted 8y ago
        As a non technical person, who is about to fly an 80 ton vehicle for extended distances, local backups of WiFi dependent data is not likely to be a major concern. Especially if (a) it’s not part of your extensive checklists, which would reasonably be expected to be included if it was important, and (b) you’ve lost WiFi in other planes before without losing your flight plan.
        bredren 8y ago
        I’m a technical person and it is a major concern.
        vultour 8y ago
        They were in cruise, which means the flight plan was already set and can be viewed on the MCDU. Sure they lost a fancy map on the ipad but that doesn't mean they suddenly don't know where to go.
        NikkiA 8y ago
        There are a number of situations where the checklist calls for reinsertion of the flightplan during flight, they would be lost in those situations.
      - untog 8y ago
        I'd be curious to know what "WiFi" means here exactly. If it means "my flight plan is stored on the internet and I didn't save a local copy" then yeah, I think that's insane. But if it's a local WiFi network it doesn't seem so weird to me. You should, in the course of day to day operation, be able to expect a WiFi router will work. Of course, it'll fail at some point, but it's not like they were cut off from the world, they could have radioed for the information if the copilot didn't have it, or something.
        kalleboo 8y ago
        > You should, in the course of day to day operation, be able to expect a WiFi router will work. My experience with WiFi routers is the opposite. I will wire anything important.
  - fsloth 8y ago
    The appeal of the 737 MAX for airlines was that it was intentionally made so that you could take crews with a 737 qualification and put them in. I.e the airlines could save money on training. The main design constraint on that bird was that it should pass most of the old paperwork so that Boeing nor airlines would need to go through expensive training and quification. Yet, they modified the plane quite a bit - but they could not modernize several systems since they would have to then go through rigorous and expensive testing. .. Nobody seems to underline this fact. I bet that's the actual reason they didn't put the automatic pitch modification system to any documentation - it would not fit on the description of "just old 737 nothing new here hop in".
    - mcv 8y ago
      > The appeal of the 737 MAX for airlines was that it was intentionally made so that you could take crews with a 737 qualification and put them in. Really? Everything I heard so far sounds like the 737 MAX has a few new, unusual or counter intuitive features that require extra training, and that training material skimped on training for that. > "just old 737 nothing new here hop in" Am I correct in understanding that was a blatant lie?
      - Turbots 8y ago
        wouldnt be surprised if money was handed to the correct person at some point to ignore these facts... Save potentially millions of dollars for less training and more sales by paying off the right guy? Sounds good to us!
      - fsloth 8y ago
        Not an expert, I'm basing my comment on stuff I've learned from third party sources. It does not sound to me like lying, more like a confusion of project constraints. I.e. "make the plane better but don't touch this and this and this arbitrary system".
    - usrusr 8y ago
      In short: the safety requirements for doing it properly are so high that they were artfully avoided. The aeronautical analog to byzantine password requirements that only make people susceptible to post-it password management?
- crooked-v 8y ago
  I have to wonder at the fit-and-finish that would allow full-sized pieces of paper to fall inside an instrument console.
  - simiones 8y ago
    This reminds me of a Romanian joke about the national car maker, going something like this: Some reporter is wondering around the international car expo, discussing with various car makers. Mercedes tells him "our car is the most air-tight ever produced. It scored 24 on the cat test!" The reporter wonders - "cat test? what is that?" ""Oh, it's a novel test! We put the cat in the car, closed all of the windows and doors, and 24 hours later it drew its last breath". Impressed, the reporter moves on to Ferrari. They tell him the same story - most airtight car ever made! He asks them knowingly - "How did the cat test go?" to which they proudly reply - "Oh, very well, very well! We put the cat in the car, closed all of the windows and doors, 12 hours later the poor thing was dead". Next he wonders to the Renault-Dacia stand. They also tell him about the air-tightness of their car, again he asks how the cat test went. The Dacia representative beams: "Oh, wonderful! We put the cat in the car, closed all of the windows and doors, and wherever its head poked out, we quickly plastered over".
  - blattimwind 8y ago
    Maybe Boeing poached the guys responsible for Tesla's panel gaps, who knows?
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      Speaking of panel gaps. <90s Saturn> The panel gaps shrink in warm weather. </90s Saturn> In case anyone was wondering that was actually a thing with early plastic body panels. They eventually refined it to the point where the gaps don't change noticeably and now pretty much every car has some plastic body panels.
      - marcus0x62 8y ago
        Saturn had a lot of fit-and-finish issues, but man the S-series was reliable. I had one for 13 years/250,000 miles and barely put more than tires, brakes, and oil into the car. The oil, though, was interesting. The s-series engine had a design flaw with the oil control piston ring where it would get stuck in its groove due to carbon build-up. The engine would then start burning prodigious amounts of oil — mine burned 1 quart every 500 miles. I put the cheapest oil I could find in as a result and when I did a filter change I’d save the old oil to pour back into the engine (diluted — about 1 qt of old oil and 3 qts of new.). By the time I used up all of the old oil it was time to change filters again.
- userbinator 8y ago
  To me, it's rather scary that even the aviation industry is now seemingly changing the UI and confusing users; HN (and a lot of other people) love talking about how much they hate a redesign of some site or software because it broke their workflow and hid/removed critical functionality, and now it's happening to pilots in life-or-death situations.
  - mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
    I use webflow regularly. Recently they updated the UI but didn't bother addressing the hundreds of other requests for obvious missing features. If anyone here has the capacity to make a dumb webflow - you'll make a lot of money. Include all the basic building like drop-down menus, tabs, carousels etc... And make some freely available premium themes (I can help with this) and you have yourself some loyal users myself included. Nothing is more infuriating than a UI redesign to fix what's not broken.
    - kijin 8y ago
      I'm generally okay with fixing what's not broken. At worst it's a waste of time. What most people hate is intentionally creating breakage by removing and/or shuffling around features they'd been relying on.
    - scoot 8y ago
      Please get in touch. Email in profile.
  - freeflight 8y ago
    It's not just the civilian aviation industry who has this problem, by now it's even an issue with military hardware [0] [0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/uss-mccain-collision-ultimately-caused-by-ui-confusion/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/uss-m...
43920 8y ago
Another one: 1603376: B737 Captain reported the flight recorder light was inoperative, which led to the discovery that the flight data recorder was not installed. Can anyone anyone with more experience with this say whether this is normal for a new aircraft? I get that it's easy to forget parts of the assembly process, but how do you put an aircraft into service without verifying that all the parts (especially important parts like this one) are installed?
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  That's got to be illegal, having no flight recorder? Wouldn't it fail preflight checklists? Depending on the country I'd have thought that's a "lose your license to operate" kinda deal??
  - tapland 8y ago
    The oss ur probably got caught in preflight. We don't know how much the plane was used before that though.
- kayfox 8y ago
  IIRC, The flight recorders are tested by Boeing before delivery to the customer. Planes undergo several weeks to a month of tests by Boeing before delivery and sometimes undergo even more testing by the customer after delivery. Most likely, the part is pulled for maintenance and its not properly recorded. If its not properly recorded, the plane can be put back into service without the part that was removed. Air Canada Flight 143 is an example of maintenance records not being kept properly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider
bananasbandanas 8y ago
1555013: B737 MAX First Officer reported feeling unprepared for first flight in the MAX, citing inadequate training. 1593017: B737MAX Captain expressed concern that some systems such as the MCAS are not fully described in the aircraft Flight Manual. Edit: A CSV of all incidents that include "MAX" in their report text: https://pastebin.com/ezhffWRn https://pastebin.com/ezhffWRn

jrockway 8y ago

1593699 is amazing.

selectodude 8y ago
Probably southwest pilots. If it’s not analog it’s too much for them.
- iforgotpassword 8y ago
  Well this shit doesn't sound any better: 1565207 At cruise flight, our Wi-Fi stopped working. I then saw that I was unable to access the Pilot Mobile app. Since I do not routinely copy the flight plan to iBook or acrobat (we are not required to do this), I was unable to access the flight plan. I've lost Wi-Fi before but not had this problem. Maybe it's a 737max thing. My First Officer had a copy on iBook and airdropped it to me. Later we were able to restore the Wi-Fi and I could login to pilot mobile but the [flight plan] was not there anymore. It's time we make radio with the ATC VoIP. Just run an asterisk on the plane.
  - NikolaNovak 8y ago
    Boggles the mind on several levels: 1. That airlines would use consumer tablets without hard-copy backup as matter of procedure. I remember Air Canada announcing it and how it would save so much weight for both pilots and the airplane, and thinking... I print my Google Maps as a backup for roadtrips, I sure as heck would do it on a flight! 2. Perhaps I'm misjudging, but the tone and perspective of pilot makes me worry for their approach and technical skills. Does not routinely copy to local device before takeoff? "Maybe it's a 737max thing"? Airdropping as a solution? This does not smell off setting up for success... :<
    - addicted 8y ago
      As a non technical person, who is about to fly an 80 ton vehicle for extended distances, local backups of WiFi dependent data is not likely to be a major concern. Especially if (a) it’s not part of your extensive checklists, which would reasonably be expected to be included if it was important, and (b) you’ve lost WiFi in other planes before without losing your flight plan.
      - bredren 8y ago
        I’m a technical person and it is a major concern.
        vultour 8y ago
        They were in cruise, which means the flight plan was already set and can be viewed on the MCDU. Sure they lost a fancy map on the ipad but that doesn't mean they suddenly don't know where to go.
        NikkiA 8y ago
        There are a number of situations where the checklist calls for reinsertion of the flightplan during flight, they would be lost in those situations.
    - untog 8y ago
      I'd be curious to know what "WiFi" means here exactly. If it means "my flight plan is stored on the internet and I didn't save a local copy" then yeah, I think that's insane. But if it's a local WiFi network it doesn't seem so weird to me. You should, in the course of day to day operation, be able to expect a WiFi router will work. Of course, it'll fail at some point, but it's not like they were cut off from the world, they could have radioed for the information if the copilot didn't have it, or something.
      - kalleboo 8y ago
        > You should, in the course of day to day operation, be able to expect a WiFi router will work. My experience with WiFi routers is the opposite. I will wire anything important.
- fsloth 8y ago
  The appeal of the 737 MAX for airlines was that it was intentionally made so that you could take crews with a 737 qualification and put them in. I.e the airlines could save money on training. The main design constraint on that bird was that it should pass most of the old paperwork so that Boeing nor airlines would need to go through expensive training and quification. Yet, they modified the plane quite a bit - but they could not modernize several systems since they would have to then go through rigorous and expensive testing. .. Nobody seems to underline this fact. I bet that's the actual reason they didn't put the automatic pitch modification system to any documentation - it would not fit on the description of "just old 737 nothing new here hop in".
  - mcv 8y ago
    > The appeal of the 737 MAX for airlines was that it was intentionally made so that you could take crews with a 737 qualification and put them in. Really? Everything I heard so far sounds like the 737 MAX has a few new, unusual or counter intuitive features that require extra training, and that training material skimped on training for that. > "just old 737 nothing new here hop in" Am I correct in understanding that was a blatant lie?
    - Turbots 8y ago
      wouldnt be surprised if money was handed to the correct person at some point to ignore these facts... Save potentially millions of dollars for less training and more sales by paying off the right guy? Sounds good to us!
    - fsloth 8y ago
      Not an expert, I'm basing my comment on stuff I've learned from third party sources. It does not sound to me like lying, more like a confusion of project constraints. I.e. "make the plane better but don't touch this and this and this arbitrary system".
  - usrusr 8y ago
    In short: the safety requirements for doing it properly are so high that they were artfully avoided. The aeronautical analog to byzantine password requirements that only make people susceptible to post-it password management?
crooked-v 8y ago
I have to wonder at the fit-and-finish that would allow full-sized pieces of paper to fall inside an instrument console.
- simiones 8y ago
  This reminds me of a Romanian joke about the national car maker, going something like this: Some reporter is wondering around the international car expo, discussing with various car makers. Mercedes tells him "our car is the most air-tight ever produced. It scored 24 on the cat test!" The reporter wonders - "cat test? what is that?" ""Oh, it's a novel test! We put the cat in the car, closed all of the windows and doors, and 24 hours later it drew its last breath". Impressed, the reporter moves on to Ferrari. They tell him the same story - most airtight car ever made! He asks them knowingly - "How did the cat test go?" to which they proudly reply - "Oh, very well, very well! We put the cat in the car, closed all of the windows and doors, 12 hours later the poor thing was dead". Next he wonders to the Renault-Dacia stand. They also tell him about the air-tightness of their car, again he asks how the cat test went. The Dacia representative beams: "Oh, wonderful! We put the cat in the car, closed all of the windows and doors, and wherever its head poked out, we quickly plastered over".
- blattimwind 8y ago
  Maybe Boeing poached the guys responsible for Tesla's panel gaps, who knows?
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Speaking of panel gaps. <90s Saturn> The panel gaps shrink in warm weather. </90s Saturn> In case anyone was wondering that was actually a thing with early plastic body panels. They eventually refined it to the point where the gaps don't change noticeably and now pretty much every car has some plastic body panels.
    - marcus0x62 8y ago
      Saturn had a lot of fit-and-finish issues, but man the S-series was reliable. I had one for 13 years/250,000 miles and barely put more than tires, brakes, and oil into the car. The oil, though, was interesting. The s-series engine had a design flaw with the oil control piston ring where it would get stuck in its groove due to carbon build-up. The engine would then start burning prodigious amounts of oil — mine burned 1 quart every 500 miles. I put the cheapest oil I could find in as a result and when I did a filter change I’d save the old oil to pour back into the engine (diluted — about 1 qt of old oil and 3 qts of new.). By the time I used up all of the old oil it was time to change filters again.
userbinator 8y ago
To me, it's rather scary that even the aviation industry is now seemingly changing the UI and confusing users; HN (and a lot of other people) love talking about how much they hate a redesign of some site or software because it broke their workflow and hid/removed critical functionality, and now it's happening to pilots in life-or-death situations.
- mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
  I use webflow regularly. Recently they updated the UI but didn't bother addressing the hundreds of other requests for obvious missing features. If anyone here has the capacity to make a dumb webflow - you'll make a lot of money. Include all the basic building like drop-down menus, tabs, carousels etc... And make some freely available premium themes (I can help with this) and you have yourself some loyal users myself included. Nothing is more infuriating than a UI redesign to fix what's not broken.
  - kijin 8y ago
    I'm generally okay with fixing what's not broken. At worst it's a waste of time. What most people hate is intentionally creating breakage by removing and/or shuffling around features they'd been relying on.
  - scoot 8y ago
    Please get in touch. Email in profile.
- freeflight 8y ago
  It's not just the civilian aviation industry who has this problem, by now it's even an issue with military hardware [0] [0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/uss-mccain-collision-ultimately-caused-by-ui-confusion/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/uss-m...

43920 8y ago

Another one: 1603376: B737 Captain reported the flight recorder light was inoperative, which led to the discovery that the flight data recorder was not installed. Can anyone anyone with more experience with this say whether this is normal for a new aircraft? I get that it's easy to forget parts of the assembly process, but how do you put an aircraft into service without verifying that all the parts (especially important parts like this one) are installed?

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
That's got to be illegal, having no flight recorder? Wouldn't it fail preflight checklists? Depending on the country I'd have thought that's a "lose your license to operate" kinda deal??
- tapland 8y ago
  The oss ur probably got caught in preflight. We don't know how much the plane was used before that though.
kayfox 8y ago
IIRC, The flight recorders are tested by Boeing before delivery to the customer. Planes undergo several weeks to a month of tests by Boeing before delivery and sometimes undergo even more testing by the customer after delivery. Most likely, the part is pulled for maintenance and its not properly recorded. If its not properly recorded, the plane can be put back into service without the part that was removed. Air Canada Flight 143 is an example of maintenance records not being kept properly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

bananasbandanas 8y ago

1555013: B737 MAX First Officer reported feeling unprepared for first flight in the MAX, citing inadequate training. 1593017: B737MAX Captain expressed concern that some systems such as the MCAS are not fully described in the aircraft Flight Manual. Edit: A CSV of all incidents that include "MAX" in their report text: https://pastebin.com/ezhffWRn https://pastebin.com/ezhffWRn