USA grounds 737 MAX 8 & 9

[purduemom1]

14 hours ago, GeezerCouple said:

Not sure how accurate this is, but CNN is just reporting that the Ethopian pilots (who are reportedly typically well-trained) DID follow the Boeing procedures.  There are now questions about whether something "else" or "additional" went wrong.

 

We'll take a pass on the 737 MAX for while once it is back in service.

Whether it would have been better, in retrospect (*always* easier "in retrospect", eh?) to start over with a new plane.... rather than sort of jury-rig an existing one the way they did...???

 

Well, we certainly aren't the experts, but we do get to choose which plane we will fly on.

We typically do not fly on a brand new model at first, anyway.

 

GC

 

I believe that it has been reported by several sources that the First Officer on the doomed Ethiopian flight had only 200 flight hours. With so few hours he should still have been in training. Certainly not flying a large plane with the lives of so many at stake. 

[Globaliser]

On 4/3/2019 at 5:48 AM, em-sk said:

For the sake of argument, lets assume the probability of one failing is 5%.  The probability of both failing is therefore 5% x 5% or 0.25%.  

 

The point is: It happened. The aircraft crashed. All on board died.

 

It simply illustrates that nothing in this field is ever a panacea.

[dogs4fun]

Like most modes of transportation, flight is always a risk - one that I am willing to take. However, will be avoiding flights on the MAX.

[Globaliser]

On 4/3/2019 at 5:48 AM, em-sk said:

For the sake of argument, lets assume the probability of one failing is 5%.  The probability of both failing is therefore 5% x 5% or 0.25%.  

 

I thought a bit more about this argument and its relationship to that accident.

 

This calculation of risk holds true if the two failures arise from independent causes.

 

However, the problem with that accident is that there was a common cause that failed both of the failed sensors, causing them to fail while they were agreeing with each other. That was why the failed sensors outvoted the remaining good one.

[Despegue]

14 hours ago, purduemom1 said:

 

I believe that it has been reported by several sources that the First Officer on the doomed Ethiopian flight had only 200 flight hours. With so few hours he should still have been in training. Certainly not flying a large plane with the lives of so many at stake. 

Absolute Bullocks.

 

I flew my first jet with 250 hours total. So do military pilots and nearly ALL pilots flying for European Airlines which have standards as high and actually higher than any US based airline.

preliminary report indicates that the First Officer was actually very professional and performing his duties as Pilot Monitoring exempliary.

 

[purduemom1]

3 hours ago, Despegue said:

Absolute Bullocks.

 

I flew my first jet with 250 hours total. So do military pilots and nearly ALL pilots flying for European Airlines which have standards as high and actually higher than any US based airline.

preliminary report indicates that the First Officer was actually very professional and performing his duties as Pilot Monitoring exempliary.

 

Looks like we disagree on this one. However, just to be clear, I did not say the First Officer did not behave in a professional manner. 

[scottbee]

18 hours ago, purduemom1 said:

 

I believe that it has been reported by several sources that the First Officer on the doomed Ethiopian flight had only 200 flight hours. With so few hours he should still have been in training. Certainly not flying a large plane with the lives of so many at stake. 

 

The ECAA stated the captain (29, ATPL, 8122 hours total, B737NG experience 1417 hours, B38M experience 103 hours) was assisted by a first officer (25, license not reported, 361 hours total, 207 hours on 737 NGs, 56 hours on B38M).

 

 

[GeezerCouple]

Apparently Boeing is now taking responsibility for 'bad date', and it appears the pilots (Ethiopian, at least; not sure about other flight) "did the right things", but were fighting the software...

 

GC

[Globaliser]

8 hours ago, GeezerCouple said:

Apparently Boeing is now taking responsibility for 'bad date', and it appears the pilots (Ethiopian, at least; not sure about other flight) "did the right things", but were fighting the software ...

 

Too much commentary on the accident and the report continues to be coloured by binary thinking ("It was the aircraft" vs "It was the pilots"), and by looking for someone to blame and someone to exonerate. Very few airliner accidents are ever so simple.

 

A better and more balanced picture is given by Andrew Blackie (former air accident investigator). He has said that following the Lion Air crash MCAS was “presented as a simple system with easily identified failure characteristics and a relatively easy recovery action for the crew”. However, after the Ethiopian crash and Thursday’s revelation that the pilots followed Boeing’s procedure, “the interaction of the aircraft, the crew and the MCAS has been unpredictable. ... It now appears to be a much more complex problem, one where understanding the individual components does not explain the behaviour of the whole system”.

 

For those who think that the first officer wasn't qualified to be flying an airliner, Jason Goldberg (a spokesman for the AA pilots union) has said “The pilots diagnosed and executed the procedure within 35 seconds — that’s lightning fast”. That's pilots in the plural. The way that I read the charts in the report, the aircraft may have been broadly under control until the last apparent MCAS activation, the end of which also coincided with some other things, such as a sudden reduction in the discrepancy between the two AoA indicators and unexplained fluctuations in the left pressure altitude readings (which diverged from the right pressure altitude readings for pretty much all of the flight).

 

But "under control" would have to be subject to interpretation of the roll angle readings. One thing that this report does not have is a detailed account of what is on the CVR (nor would I expect there to be one). So there is much further work to be done on this.