Another 737 MAX-8 down

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

They aren't all grounded. Roughly half of the airlines operating them have grounded them. The other half have all released statements to the effect of "we're watching the investigation and will take action if necessary".

a reply to: Zaphod58


Oh. From the headline it sounded like "the sky is falling and they are all grounded" but I guess you need a reason for people to click on your story. Which I did not, and thus, not properly informed!

a reply to: Zaphod58

Doesn't help Boeing, or the public's faith, when you have a former FAA Safety Inspector state on CNN today,

"I've never, ever done this. I've never said that, 'hey, it's unsafe to fly a particular model' but in this case, I'm going to have to go there... So yeah I would watch for that airplane,"

www.zerohedge.com...

In addition, the flight attendants union has 'critical safety concerns' and asked the FAA to investigate all Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft. They also told their members that they will not be forced to work on this specific airplane:

Boeing 737 Max crash prompts 'critical safety concerns' from flight attendants union

The union representing American Airlines flight attendants issued a bulletin Monday telling members they will not be forced to work on Boeing 737 MAX airplanes following the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX Sunday, the second of that model to go down in less than six months.

www.usatoday.com... 31002/

The sky may not be falling, but I wouldn't be surprised to see this aircraft grounded for safety concerns. Just a matter of time.

Seems they have retrieved the flight recorder, so that may yield some answers soon.

Noone wants to ground segments of their fleet, but every new carrier that joins the list of fleets grounded makes it easier gor the others to follow suit. Pretty soon you're in a potential liability window: "90% of carriers suspended operations, but you chose to carry on to save money" is a very bad look, both legally and optics-wise. There are enough similarities to the last incident ensuring this is going to be very carefully dissected and looked at. It's going to be more like a single investigation than two separate investigations until they are really confident they are not related. The reports of a fire make interesting. If determined to be reliable, it will spin this off in another direction.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

The guy was an experienced pilot with 8000 miles flying.

a reply to: shawmanfromny

This is a lot of money involved, hundreds maybe thousands of planes!. Earlier on CNBC, they had guests downplaying this and saying things like, no, the stocks not going down, a big lie. The money people are probably afraid here. But people’s lives are more important.

a reply to: shawmanfromny

dp

a reply to: Willtell

The Max has a new system called MCAS that is designed to use elevator trim to lower the nose if the computer detects the aircraft is about to stall. It's the first aircraft Boeing has installed it on, and there was little to no training on it when the Max rolled out.

Another possibility that occurred to me is that if all these people were traveling to a conference they might have had spare batteries in their luggage. So it might have been a lithium ion battery fire, but in the luggage, not an aircraft battery.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
Another possibility that occurred to me is that if all these people were traveling to a conference they might have had spare batteries in their luggage. So it might have been a lithium ion battery fire, but in the luggage, not an aircraft battery.

A new plane with new systems doesn't have a "new" cargo area built to withstand lithium ion battery fires? That would be very surprising to me. You're the guru though so you would know. I appreciate your feedback.

a reply to: TheGoondockSaint

Lithium ion batteries aren't supposed to be transported in the cargo hold. Even spares are supposed to be put into carry on bags, and not transported in checked bags. When the Max entered service, it was thought that the fire suppression system in the cargo hold would be enough to suppress a fire from a small number of lithium ion batteries, if someone forgot they had one in their bag. Later tests, performed last summer showed that the system isn't strong enough to put out even a single lithium ion battery if it caught fire in a hold.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Willtell

The Max has a new system called MCAS that is designed to use elevator trim to lower the nose if the computer detects the aircraft is about to stall. It's the first aircraft Boeing has installed it on, and there was little to no training on it when the Max rolled out.

That sounds pretty crazy...I mean they use to train us on the new servers HP rolled out...Your telling me they don't train pilots on some new tech rollout is abominable...

a reply to: Willtell

In this one case it appears that they didn't. The system is only a real issue if you're flying by hand, and have either a runaway stabilizer or bad AoA data. Normally pilots are climbing out on autopilot, and a runaway stabilizer situation is so rare it's not funny. The AoA system is normally pretty bulletproof. The system was put into the operations and flight manual, but wasn't taught directly to the pilots during transition training.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
The aircraft flew between three and six minutes, with the vertical speed, as reported by the transponder, varying between 1479 fpm and -1920 fpm. There were 157 people on board, from 35 countries. Ethiopian has a fairly new fleet, and a good safety record.

Not sure why people and the media keep pointing out that there was people from 35 countries. Is that some how relevant as to why it crashed?

a reply to: jidnum

It's information. Nothing more, nothing less.

Boeing is preparing to rollout a software upgrade, as a response to the Lion Air crash. Boeing has not linked the Ethiopian crash to this update.

“This includes updates to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) flight control law, pilot displays, operation manuals and crew training. The enhanced flight control law incorporates angle of attack (AoA) inputs, limits stabiliser trim commands in response to an erroneous angle of attack reading, and provides a limit to the stabiliser command to retain elevator authority.”

Facebook link

a reply to: Zaphod58

Aircraft safety bosses have temporarily suspended the operation of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft to and from Australia after the deadly crash in Ethiopia which killed 157 people. While no Australian airlines operate the plane - though Virgin Australia has some on order - foreign airlines will be impacted by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority’s (CASA)

I wouldn't get on one if i was being honest .