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Would you fly on a Boeing 737 Max?

Kenyan Spur said:
Hello,
2 Garbage Airlines with deadhead pilots crashed in similar situations and with the same model of new planes.
That was the reason advanced by some experts on this Board.

Now scores of airlines, with hundreds of planes have grounded their fleets.
There is no time-frame for the resumption of these grounded planes.
( This is because the manufacturer is working overtime to "fix" things which should have been done before the planes were sold. They also don't know how long it will take )
These are not so garbage, pretty good and very good airlines. They also have red hot pilots.
The airlines are from all over the world, including USA, Canada, Europe etc.

Boeing have admitted that some things were not right in their rushed out rollout of the MAX model.

Just go to friendly Google and you will find dozens of articles confirming this fact.

Therefore, it was a Garbage plane with half finished software that was the cause of the crashes.
So SAD that profits come before human lives.
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Of course the Max8s weren't perfect no aircraft is.

Ask anyone with any knowledge about aircraft at all and you'll be told that every single one in the sky has or has had issues that could crash the plane. That's why airlines pay their pilots a lot of money and why the good ones train them really well and only allow them in the driving seat with lots of experience. If aircraft were infallible then they could let any of us fly the things and save a fortune on pilots and training.

MCAS as it was, was a mistake - the kind of mistake that's very, very common when building highly complex machinery. But it should never have been a fatal one in the hands of trained and experienced pilots.

The FO on the fatal Ethiopian Airways flight had 200 hours on his books. That's too few by around a factor of 10 for any decent airline. Most pilots I know wouldn't even consider leaving the ground with such a green FO.
 
scaramanga said:
Of course the Max8s weren't perfect no aircraft is.

Ask anyone with any knowledge about aircraft at all and you'll be told that every single one in the sky has or has had issues that could crash the plane. That's why airlines pay their pilots a lot of money and why the good ones train them really well and only allow them in the driving seat with lots of experience. If aircraft were infallible then they could let any of us fly the things and save a fortune on pilots and training.

MCAS as it was, was a mistake - the kind of mistake that's very, very common when building highly complex machinery. But it should never have been a fatal one in the hands of trained and experienced pilots.

The FO on the fatal Ethiopian Airways flight had 200 hours on his books. That's too few by around a factor of 10 for any decent airline. Most pilots I know wouldn't even consider leaving the ground with such a green FO.
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Planes have issues sure. Boeings previous ones would catch fire. But even a highly dangerous in flight fire is less daunting than software pointing the planes nose into the earth on take off! That is exceptional. It leaves very little time to correct it.

Even following the book the Ethiopia flight pilots could not take full manual control of the to re-trim the plane and gain altitude. It looks like it was impossible. The plane was close to the ground, at full trottel (they probaby should have cut the speed), and even with two turning the manual roter to adjust the stabilizer aand trim, it doesn't look like the pilots were able to turn the wheel with the forces at work, and with so little time and altitude to play with. If you had more altitude you could take the pressure off the tail of the plane dipping the nose, to then adjust the stabilizer maually. It's speculation but it looks like the pilots couldn't do any of these things and in desperation tried to use the automatic assisted trim control which switched the deadly MCAS back on, which then dripped the plane to its final end.

Even experienced pilots in the US felt MCAS was unsafe. It is not pilots. It is a plane design that was rushed. The Max 8 was a work around. Aéroplane is to move forward through air. By increasing the engine size and moving them closer to the body of the plane and higher on the wing, the Max does not fly right. It relies on software to correct the physics of its flight. That this software could take control out of pilots hands and crash the plan on take off when there is little time to act, is a massive issue for Boeing.
 
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SpurMeUp said:
Planes have issues sure. Boeings previous ones would catch fire. But even a highly dangerous in flight fire is less daunting than software pointing the planes nose into the earth on take off! That is exceptional. It leaves very little time to correct it.

Even following the book the Ethiopia flight pilots could not take full manual control of the to re-trim the plane and gain altitude. It looks like it was impossible. The plane was close to the ground, at full trottel (they probaby should have cut the speed), and even with two turning the manual roter to adjust the stabilizer aand trim, it doesn't look like the pilots were able to turn the wheel with the forces at work, and with so little time and altitude to play with. If you had more altitude you could take the pressure off the tail of the plane dipping the nose, to then adjust the stabilizer maually. It's speculation but it looks like the pilots couldn't do any of these things and in desperation tried to use the automatic assisted trim control which switched the deadly MCAS back on, which then dripped the plane to its final end.

Even experienced pilots in the US felt MCAS was unsafe. It is not pilots. It is a plane design that was rushed. The Max 8 was a work around. Aéroplane is to move forward through air. By increasing the engine size and moving them closer to the body of the plane and higher on the wing, the Max does not fly right. It relies on software to correct the physics of its flight. That this software could take control out of pilots hands and crash the plan on take off when there is little time to act, is a massive issue for Boeing.
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Your analysis misses one major function of the 737 - the trim switch on the control stick. It's designed so that it's always under the pilot's thumb when flying.

A pilot that is experienced in hand flying will be constantly trimming all the time his hands are on the stick. That trim switch will always override MCAS. Always.

Plenty of experienced pilots will tell you that there are too many pilots who only know how to fly on autopilot. The actions (or lack of) by the EtA crew suggest they're in that club
 
How does the airline industry work for compensation, if I was an airline and couldn't fly my planes then I'd be expecting some pretty hefty compensation. Does that come from Boeing or is it insurance led?
 
scaramanga said:
Your analysis misses one major function of the 737 - the trim switch on the control stick. It's designed so that it's always under the pilot's thumb when flying.

A pilot that is experienced in hand flying will be constantly trimming all the time his hands are on the stick. That trim switch will always override MCAS. Always.

Plenty of experienced pilots will tell you that there are too many pilots who only know how to fly on autopilot. The actions (or lack of) by the EtA crew suggest they're in that club
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I’m no expert but I think MCAS is on using the stick control. The trim wheel in centre was the only option?


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
 
I've been on two A380 flights that went technical straight away from take off

THink its a case of if you knew all the issues all planes carry you would not fly.
 
SpurMeUp said:
From about 12 mins. Don't have time to watch/check it now.
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If they hand cranked it is because they turned off the electric trim switch - with the trim in an extreme position. Not something that 737 drivers are trained to do.
 
P.D. said:
How does the airline industry work for compensation, if I was an airline and couldn't fly my planes then I'd be expecting some pretty hefty compensation. Does that come from Boeing or is it insurance led?
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Boeing are claiming from their insurers for $500m for business interruption
 
SpurMeUp said:
From about 12 mins. Don't have time to watch/check it now.
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I knew I'd seen this somewhere. I've also read that this briefing wasn't added to the Ethiopian Air training. It will be interesting to see if that's mentioned in the report by the Ethiopian government (airline's owners).

mli-15.jpg
 
SpurMeUp said:
So MCAS is only off if you use the manual trim wheel?


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
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No. MCAS switches off (but will switch back on if AOA is still reading stall) when the thumb trim is used.

The way to permanently switch off MCAS is to flick the trim cut out switches (as will all unwanted trim errors). This also cuts out the thumb trim as it uses the same motor, leaving the wheels as the only way to operate the trim.

Putting the flaps back down also cuts out MCAS
 
...which is why the Ethiopian pilots were (likely) trying and failing to use the manual wheel to adjust the trim. Which is following Boeing’s protocols.

That no pilots had extensive training on MCAS (as the Max 8 was an iteration ensuring Boeing could complete with Airbus) meant the detailed understanding we have now was not something pilots got - therein lies Boeing and the AFFs culpability.

Had there been a full understanding of MCAS - how it worked and some practice with how to override it etc. Maybe the pilots could have reduced the thrust, and acted quicker to save the plane. But also maybe there are more gremlins to MCAS than we understand. Software frequently has bugs, especially when rushed.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
 
So, you aviation / airplane experts.
What is the status NOW ?????
All 737 MAX planes have been grounded for months, and still no confirmed date of when they might resume operations again.
The only info I am getting on this case is from CNN news ( Is that a garbage US news channel? )
- I notice Boeing saying they are putting 2 sensors instead of the 1 they had before. Makes sense.
- Major software upgrades being done now!!! why not before?
The problem that I can see is that Boeing are not coming up with a full report.
They are drip feeding info on a regular basis. Is this intentional. Or they don't really know.

Very worrying scenario.
Would you get on one of these planes if and when they give the green light?
I will not.
 
Kenyan Spur said:
So, you aviation / airplane experts.
What is the status NOW ?????
All 737 MAX planes have been grounded for months, and still no confirmed date of when they might resume operations again.
The only info I am getting on this case is from CNN news ( Is that a garbage US news channel? )
- I notice Boeing saying they are putting 2 sensors instead of the 1 they had before. Makes sense.
- Major software upgrades being done now!!! why not before?
The problem that I can see is that Boeing are not coming up with a full report.
They are drip feeding info on a regular basis. Is this intentional. Or they don't really know.

Very worrying scenario.
Would you get on one of these planes if and when they give the green light?
I will not.
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It's not Boeing's place to put out a full report, it's that of the Ethiopian authorities in charge of the investigation.

Given that they're the same organisation who allowed a First Officer with only 200 hours into a roosterpit and paired him with a pilot of only 100 type hours, I suspect we'll be waiting a long time.
 
the dza said:
In answer to the original question -- If they end up flying again, then I'd guess they will be one of the safest planes about as they surely won't let it go back up without going nuts fixing up any problems. So I'd fly in one I suppose.
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While I'd agree. Boeing have chased $$$ over the past decade, at the expense of safty in some areas. They have outsourced production to third parties, possibly neglected inhouse QA, rushed the Max through to try and deal with Airbus, and it has consquences. Though once the Max is back (maybe by Xmas, doubt it will be in service as soon as this summer) it will be one of the safest planes to be in - it has had that much scrunity. News from today:

Further safety issue found in grounded Boeing 737 Max planes
Airlines told to check aircraft as affected components may be at risk of premature failure
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jun/03/new-safety-issue-boeing-737-max-planes
 
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