RCyyz

My opinion is rather different. I think the Finance guys at Boeing made the decisions to save $$$ and now we have a plane the relies on one sensor to move the horizontal stabilizer sans pilot input. All this just so that any 737 pilot can watch a PowerPoint on differences with the Max then suddenly be qualified on that type.

When the nose suddenly points down (on take off no less) with no pilot input, when the stick is shaking, when the alarms are going off, no pilot is ever going to think to turn off stabilizer trim and crank the wheel. The natural inclination will be to haul back on the yoke and adjust power. i.e The natural inclination will be to fly the damn plane. Maybe the Boeing-approved procedure is in the QRH but it takes time to run through that. In the case of ET and probably in the case of Lion, there just wasn't enough time to get to the appropriate step in the manual.

Boeing blew it with MCAS and now 300 or so people are dead. It's clear that Boeing is not going to advertise the extent of problem so it's incumbent on governments to keep people safe. Grounding the 7M8 fleet is not an easy choice, but I think it's the prudent one.

The Lev

Thanks for sharing. Still think they could have decided that from the get-go.

the industry shouldn't have to be still speculating as to the degree of similarity with Lion Air.

RangerNS

The cold hard reality is that the MAX had a short-cut approval process based on being a minor modification of a certified design.

The Lion Air crash proves that the minor modification wasn't that minor. The burden is on the OEM to prove their aircraft is safe, not for the regulators to prove that it is not.

This particular minor change/fix may be mitigated by a redesign of the tail, and/or better sensors & software, and/or better training material. Pending those, the aircraft isn't airworthy.

Furthermore, this proven particular failure would indicate that the regulatory choice to not require a full approvals process itself was a failure. The regulatory process missed one problem; what else did the regulatory process miss? We do not know what other "minor" changes might trigger similar problems. We do know that the process in getting "minor" approvals into an aircraft was flawed.

We need to fix this problem, an we need to fix the system that allowed it.

The MAX needs a full regulatory test process to be considered safe enough to fly.

sunzi

Unless you can provide documentation otherwise, the MCAS was not documented in the FCOM before the Lion Air crash as referenced in the links below.

https://www.seattletimes.com/busines...ion-air-crash/

https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-s...em-mcas-jt610/

eigenvector

No, I disagree. As a professional engineer who works in a safety-critical operations environment and many times has had to be the one to make the decision to 'shut it down'. Yes, detailed analysis of failures is critical and informs design changes and changes to procedures. However, if you have a catastrophic failure, the root cause of which has been identified and not yet remedied and then a short time afterward another catastrophic, mass loss of life failure with similar characteristics on its face, the fact that it takes time to complete a detailed analysis is not a reason to avoid a precautionary shutdown.

The decision to take precautionary action is one that runs in parallel with the design team's root cause analysis, and is based on different factors. The very fact that the cause is unknown is itself one that tends toward precautionary shutdown since if the cause is unknown it cannot be mitigated. In this decision process, the fact that a plane crashed is a data point and so is the fact that the cause isn't known.

You are reversing the onus that an employer, operator or regulator has to protect safety. It isn't "keep running until it's proven not safe". It's to take all reasonable measures to ensure safety.

Perhaps you think that because Transport Canada originally certified the aircraft, that means it has been positively proven to be safe and until a full failure investigation challenges that it should continue to fly. So tell me: why are you willing to rely on Transport Canada's certification decision but now believe their decisions are from an "irrational emotionally charged perspective"?

The Lev

The funny thing is that Boeing aircraft have always been considered "pilot's" planes where Boeing put the final decisions in the hands of the pilot as opposed to Airbus which was seen as taking some control away from pilots through automation. Looks like with MCAS Boeing took a leaf from the Airbus playbook that resulted in something that is counter-intuitive to what long-time Boeing pilots would expect.

From an irrational perspective this is clearly the "right" decision. While I get what you are saying from a "data" perspective, I'm not sure I agree. Here are the data I see: 0.5% of the airframes have now been lost within a period of six months under what appear at first blush to be similar circumstances. Aircraft operate under much tighter safety constraints than other industries. Until it can be shown that these two incidents are not in any way related, the right decision is to ground the fleet. Hopefully the preliminary analysis of the black boxes can be done very quickly and a decision can be made whether the incidents are in fact similar in which case the aircraft need to remain on the ground until a fix is in place. If this latest crash was something completely unrelated, then let the birds fly again in a couple of days. Obviously YMMV.

The industry is fortunate that this is happening when there are only 350 hulls out there. It can absorb (with some inconvenience) the short-term grounding of the fleet.

sunzi

Really?! You can disagree with the decision by Minister Garneau but is there a need to be condescending to third world airlines. Don't act as if first world countries hasn't had their airplane accidents.

Also, the report from both the Lion Air and Eithopian Air crash has not come out yet but from what we do know, the two crashes share similarities. In addition, given that the MCAS functioned erroneously in the first accident and the pilots of the second crash was trained for a situation like this and other pilots have mentioned of the plane diving down when not needed during the takeoff stage, there is nothing wrong to er on the side of caution for the time being.

canadiancow

On a lighter note, I wonder if they'll take the grounding as an opportunity to complete the wifi installation.

Jebby_ca

That'd be too logical for AC.

ffsim

Absolutely.

But isn't that what pilots are there for? To do what they're supposed to regardless of their "natural inclination"?

I like how you put that ^

Symmetre

There are many, many posts in this thread that are incredibly revealing, and for all the wrong reasons.

It's fine to disagree with governments and the decisions they make. But the needless, disparaging remarks about third world airlines and such ... wow. That's truly eye-opening. And, shameful.

The reality is that none of us has anywhere near enough technical knowledge to be able to determine what caused these accidents or provide a qualified opinion on whether these aircraft are safe or not - regardless of how much we fly or how large our respective egos may be. But what is beyond dispute is that two serious accidents in a span of five months is too many.

Garneau's announcement really screws up my own travel schedule over the next few weeks. But I'll take being inconvenienced over being dead any time.

And besides, maybe Cow's right and they will at least get the wifi installs done.

ChrisA330

I don't think logic comes into the equation when they wouldn't be able to reposition the aircraft to where the installations are occurring anyway.

RangerNS

The NOTAM says ferry flights are allowed

yhzflyer

I take it you will now follow your own advice....

lcohen999

A bunch of 737s on the 401 heading to get them installed

That would be a sight to see