Russian authorities suspend airworthiness certificate for Boeing 737s

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: bjarneorn

No. The rudder PCU was causing a hard over event. It was caused by several factors, but phones didn't play a role.

Thanks for the info ... looks like boeing is in for a tough time.

a reply to: bjarneorn

This is looking political. The only incidents lately related to 737s have been several suffering landing gear collapses in the last week or two. There hasn't been a rudder issue since the one I posted in 2008.

Completely unrelated to this, it does appear as if a problem is developing with older 737s. On October 23rd a 737-300 landing in Columbia suffered a partial gear collapse. On October 27th in Johannesburg a 737-400 suffered a gear collapse on landing. On November 3rd, in Pakistan a 737-400 suffered a landing gear collapse on landing.

It's almost unheard of to have totally unrelated problems causing landing gear collapses, all on two very closely related models of aircraft.

I almost guarantee that after two plane crashes in a week, Putin's government is just knee jerk reacting to show his people that they care about public safety and are taking steps to ensure a third crash won't happen.

It's about being seen to do something while everyone awaits answers on the Metrojet crash. It also leads people to believe that it was a mechanical error and not an ISIS bomb.

See.. clever little Putin

a reply to: markosity1973

One of them wasn't Russian though. It was built by the Soviet Union, but owned by a company in Tajikistan, and operated by a company in Sudan.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Yeah I know that, but Russians are not very well read. They will see two plane crashes and be like WTH Mr Putin?

So he grounds the 737s and everyone is like GO President, you are looking after Russia.

I think that even in Russia it is well known and accepted that anything Soviet Union era is poorly made and unreliable so even those who know the 2 planes are different will be like, m'ehh 'tis Russian, what do you expect? over the second crash.

The timing on this is interesting. The Irkut MC-21 is on assembly, preparing for first flight next year. The initial model will seat 180, and it will compete directly against the upcoming Airbus neo aircraft, and the Boeing 737 Max.

Things that make you go hmm.

a reply to: Zaphod58

That is very interesting....

Now if we can find a Russian political elite that has a large stake in Irkut, there's our answer.

a reply to: Sammamishman

I'm sure there is more than one. It should be pretty easy to find.

It isn't the rudder it's the elevator system, and they are using Tartarstan 363. Despite extensive tests, including borescope examinations that showed no problems Rosaviatsia withdrew their signature from the accident report claiming the elevator system has a design flaw and must be redesigned.

www.flightglobal.com...

c'mon, do you think Putin wants to tell his people that their airline security is bad?.....or Russia's own commercial airline companies are too cheap to do the proper maintenance on their fleets?.....his reaction is normally called "find the scapegoat".

a reply to: Zaphod58

The Russia's top aviation regulator stated there was no reason for the 737 to have its certificate pulled and everything was retracted today. Apparently no flights were affected. How weird.

a reply to: anzha

It's all over refusal to accept the accident report, despite no evidence that it was wrong. As I said before, political games.