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Ethiopian has ~100 planes flying around on any given day, and hasn't had a serious crash in 9 years. Presumably the skill of their pilots and maintenance crews
by tuna-piano 8y ago
Ethiopian has ~100 planes flying around on any given day, and hasn't had a serious crash in 9 years. Presumably the skill of their pilots and maintenance crews is pretty similiar across MAX and non-MAX planes.
If their maintenance crew and pilots were solely to blame, I would expect to see a good deal more Ethiopian planes crashing.
Of course, it could be (and maybe even is likely) that a properly trained maintenance crew won't let the AoA sensor fly in a bad state. And of course it could be (and maybe even is likely) that a properly trained pilot will be able to correct the issue in flight.
But that doesn't pass the blame. The truth is that Ethiopian pilots and maintenance crews seem totally capable of keeping the rest of their planes in the air. Why has Boeing made a plane that is so much harder for them to fly safely? Is there any argument that the MAX is easier or safer to maintain/fly than the other planes Ethiopian flies?
- crowdpleaser 8y agoMaybe the ethopian air crews are deficient but the inferiority is only apparent when tasked to fly advanced planes?
- balaji_raghavan 8y agoShouldn't a more advanced plane be easier to operate?
- HarryHirsch 8y agoThe selling point of the 737-MAX was that for purposes of type rating it was a plain old 737, no retraining required. So on paper it wasn't advanced at all.
- jackhack 8y agoThe same chassis, but with larger engines, placed higher on the wing giving rise to different handling characteristics, especially at the edges of the performance envelope. The instrument layout is different and center panel control locations differ. Both of these changes lead to different instrument scan procedures and in the event of a high-stress condition --when seconds count, as instincts and muscle-memory kick in-- it feels like a different aircraft.
- CydeWeys 8y agoIf "advanced" means "harder to operate and more prone to fatal errors", is that really actually an "advancement", or is that a step back?
- ams6110 8y ago> Ethiopian has ~100 planes flying around on any given day, and hasn't had a serious crash in 9 years They had one last week. Southwest, by comparison, has been flying since 1967. They operate over 700 aircraft, all of them 737s including the new MAX variant. They've never had a serious crash and in their history have had 3 deaths as a result of accidents or incidents.
- dubbel 8y agoSouthwest was fined 10.3 million US-dollar (later reduced to 7.5 million) in 2009 by the FAA, because they didn't properly check their 737-300 for material fatigue. It was the largest amounted the FAA ever fined an airline. https://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/the-national-today-newsletter-southwest-airlines-erdogan-1.4623418 https://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/the-national-today-newsl...