And even then there will be a two-pronged approach - getting the already-owned and grounded aircraft back into service, and also accepting the backlog of new deliveries from Boeing that were supposed to have been delivered after March 2019. I think part 2 is pretty meaningful for WN, not sure about AA, but probably.

An “average” pilot flying a Boeing 737 in the US does not have 300 hours like some involved in the MAX accidents. There are college interns at the majors that have more flight experience and are still years away from getting an opportunity to fly a Boeing 737 per the FAA and realistic, competitive hiring minimums.

Different country, different regulations.

And don't assume that just because the FAA re-certifies it that the rest of the world will accept that and allow it to fly in their airspace

FAA basically trashed it's international reputation with other regulators over the MAX and it will take a heck of a long time to get it back.

Probably for a well-deserved, long overdue bashing from both sides.

I would *guess* that this will be less of an issue for AA than foreign carriers. I know a lot of the MAXes we’re running out of MIA, which means they could be going to Caribbean/Latin America, and of course flying to or over Canada is also a possibility. But wouldn’t surprise me if most of those countries still follow the FAA’s lead. Euro and Asian-based carriers may have a longer delay. But I guess it’s also possible that the FAA wants to save face (to the extent it still can) and unground the planes jointly with at least one other major Foreign agency.

It was a bipartisan bashing. Never would have thought I'd see that in todays climate...

I don't understand why the Boeing board hasn't fired the CEO. They made a sacrificial lamb out of the CEO of commercial aviation but the head of Boeing is Mullenberg and his reaction and statements are abominable. He needs to go, YMMV

Congress flies just like the rest of us. It’s something we all have in common - a desire for safe travel.

Well, planes fall out of the sky all the time. That's why they call it the "final approach." Just they fall in a more controlled manner. The issue here as I read it, is that Boeing took some shortcuts and the FAA turned a blind eye to them, plus not requiring Boeing to train the pilots of the airlines they sold the plane to, as Boeing stated that the system was similar to the previous versions of the 737. Maybe skipping the pilot training to save costs was an airline issue, maybe not. In this age of deregulation, it's hard to trust the regulators. This is one area where it would be necessary to have an independant body of experts review the issues, including both the software and the design issues, as having the industry regulate itself in this area is a recipe for more disasters.

I remember the days of wind shear crashes in the Midwest and TX, and we still have these issues-wind shears of course- fewer crashes with the training of piolts on wind shear avoidance and procedures, though I do remember one aborted approach by a USAir plene at PIT, and the co-pilot who got off right in front of me saying that was the scariest flight he's ever been on.

I'll make a bold prediction, the 737MAX will never return to service anywhere near its current form, not just for AA but for all the rest of the carriers. MAX is like a car that has an engine so powerful that if the gas pedal is pressed all the way it will fly off the ramp, sounds crazy right!!

BTW, this will require a bailout for Boeing, likely through some defense spending boost on useless stuff the Armed Forces don't need.

These were well below average pilots. The PIC had the flu and was called in as a replacement at 4 am. The FO had repeatedly failed checkrides because, among other things, he couldn't find checklists, and on the fateful flight he...wait for it...couldn't find the checklist. The investigation found that had he actually run the full checklist, everyone would have been safe. I believe that the MAX 8 in its previous configuration wouldn't have crashed twice in quick succession with average pilots - it crashed (at least one of the times) with underqualified pilots. In the new configuration it will likely be one of the safest airliners in the sky.

Which investigation was this?

The Lion Air crash investigation.

the NTSC report is out and identified 9 causes, including MCAS, a faulty sensor, inadequate maintenance, poor pilot training, failure to heed lessons from previous incidents, pilot error, errors by lion air management, etc etc

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50177788

http://knkt.dephub.go.id/knkt/ntsc_a...l%20Report.pdf

They didn't just fall; they nosed downwards and accelerated into the ground.

So true. We can talk about how everything is safer and better regulated here in the US, but have we forgotten that the FAA allowed Boeing to do their own checks.

So, in order for this to have not been a catastrophe, the FO would have had to find and run a full checklist in about 5 seconds? Sounds like a design flaw to me...

Runaway Trim is initially a MEMORY ITEM with essentially three items that can be performed instantaneously. After these items are done, only then do you refer to a checklist.

AUTOPILOT - OFF
AUTO THROTTLE - OFF
STAB TRIM CUTOUT SWITCH(s) - CUTOUT

It is most definitely not a design flaw. Nearly every transport category aircraft has some version of RUNAWAY TRIM/TRIM CUTOUT procedure.

Unfortunately, in both crashes the flight crews didn’t properly follow this procedure.

That's great, but at the end of the day, without an MCAS system neither aircraft that did would have crashed as neither event would have occurred. Design flaw.

Where are you getting 5 seconds from?
https://www.businessinsider.com/lion-air-crash-timeline-boeing-737-max-disaster-killed-189-2019-10
The first signs of trouble are at 6:20, first MCAS activation is at 6:25 am, and the plane crashes at 6:31. Plenty of time to run a checklist.

No one is trying to argue that Boeing is completely blameless here. It was a really poor design to have a single point of failure for the MCAS system by having it linked to only one AoA sensor. However, on the question of "would you be willing to fly a 737 MAX" when recertified, my answer is that with a mainline US carrier with qualified pilots, I would have flown it even without the repair. MCAS has activated multiple times before on US flights, and it doesn't make the news because pilots knew what to do.

I'm no pilot or expert here (and apologies for being pedantic), but I'm willing to bet that with a plane that big there was a point of no return somewhere between 6:25am and 6:31am

The interval between repeated MCAS activations.

Personally, I am of the opinion that any pilot of any experience level could make a mistake. I would prefer it if the aircraft they were flying were designed in such a manner that if a pilot takes a few extra seconds to identify and correct a problem, the aircraft does not fly itself into the ground.

Based on my read, the last time the plane descends for good it is at 6:31:31 and it crashes at 6:31:53. I'm not a pilot either, but it seems as long as they are more or less maintaining altitude, there is a possibility of recovery if you know what to do. It seems to me the point of no return is 6:31:31.
(I also acknowledge there is a typo in the article and shows this happening at 6:33:31, after the plane has crashed)

There is nothing to stop them from manually trimming the plane even during an MCAS activation, so the time between is not the only time they could have taken action. They had either 6 or 11 minutes to identify and solve the problem depending on where you count from. The 5 seconds is a red herring.

Yes, pilots make mistakes. That's why airplanes have checklists - they've saved countless lives. An engine failure is also potentially life-threatening, and yet they happen all the time and people are safe, because pilots use their checklists and either restart the engine or land the plane. And I'm not saying that Boeing is innocent here - had they been more transparent about this issue, pilots could have practiced this in a simulator just like they practice engine failures and they would more quickly recognize it as a very specific issue rather than running a checklist about runaway trim more generally. All I'm saying is:
1) An ATP holding pilot who passed all checkrides and who was healthy and on FAA minimum rest could have recovered
2) Once the problem was identified, pilots could recognize the issue and respond appropriately (even the flu and whatever situation) and the plane would be plenty safe given that
3) Once they make these repairs, it will likely not have any false activations anyway
4) Even if none of the above were the case, my back of the hand calculation suggests that if the MAX kept up its existing safety record up until the point of the crash, it is STILL SAFER THAN DRIVING. So if you are saying you would never fly a MAX, you shouldn't be getting in any cars either.

Pilots not properly following procedures is definitely not a design flaw.

It is when the need for the response is because of a faulty system.

We have a QRH full of procedures to address faulty systems. Lots of design flaws I guess.

Engine failures don't point the plane straight down, throwing off the pilot's center of gravity, making it hard to move around the cockpit, let alone fly the plane.

The entire blame for this falls on Boeing. Incorrect training, guided by them, put two planes into the ground. Making a safety critical AoA sensor duplication an option is 100% on them. There should never be a situation where a plane turns itself into an unguided missile, forcing pilots to determine the issue and save the plane in a very short amount of time. That should ONLY happen with mechanical failures, things breaking. The Max airframe is an inherently unstable design, that Boeing forced out the door because the Neo is a more comfortable, stable, superior product. Blaming "foreign pilots" is xenophobic and that is the true red herring here.

with respect, the people qualified to make this judgement, namely the NTSC, have deemed (after exhaustive examination of all of the evidence) that the entire blame did NOT fall on Boeing, not even close.

there is a reason that professionals are employed to make these kind of judgements. Please give them the dignity of having some vague degree of respect for their work

Things (namely, the AoA sensor) broke. It broke before the previous flight and mechanics hid the records that they didn't fix anything.

I agree. That's why I didn't do it. I see where you might have thought that. I had no assumptions about the pilots before this report came out. Let's re-read what I wrote:

Quote:

---

An ATP holding pilot who passed all checkrides and who was healthy and on FAA minimum rest

---

These were specific responses to the pilots in this case, one of whom had the flu and was called in to work and the other who had multiple failed checkrides. It's a straw man argument.

Why was the system ever designed without redundancy in the first place?

Redundancy was made an optional extra, available separately or together at an additional price. Ultimate greed, IMO.

1) (both) Angle of Attack sensor display in Primary flight display

2) Angle of Attack disagree warning (does not operate unless #1 is installed)

Ethiopian, Lion, United purchased neither. Iirc they saved ~$55,000 per aircraft.

Southwest purchased (2), but weren’t told by Boeing it wouldn’t work without (1).

American, to give credit where it’s due, purchased both for their MAX aircraft.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...eb0fa14820.png


QUOTE:

“The 28,000 flight attendants working for American Airlines refuse to walk onto a plane that may not be safe and are calling for the highest possible safety standards to avoid another tragedy,” Association of Professional Flight Attendants President Lori Bassani said in the letter."


Full article https://www.reuters.com/article/us-b...-idUSKBN1XA2JO


Mods - didn't see this posted. Feel free to move/merge. Thanks.

$55,000 an aircraft...that's what I find to be the worst part of this debacle given the loss of life. Clearly Boeing should have never allowed these features optional, and while my initial reaction reading that was to cast some blame on the airlines for trying to save a few pennies - which realistically $55K is couch money when you're buying an 737, but it doesn't seem like Boeing was transparent about the implications of not having these redundancies which brings me back to why were they optional in the first place?!

No one was going to cancel a 737MAX order in favor of a different plane over $55K, when you amortize that over the life of the plane its not even a rounding error. ^ to AA for buying both options, but that also makes me curious was it a case of we want all the options loader up or did AA have some data that showed that not having these options could result in a catastrophic failure? And did Southwest, who bought (2) and was told it wouldn't work without (1) still just buy (2) - cause that just sounds wonky as why buy something you're told won't work?

I believe you're getting 2 similar concepts confused.

The 2 options you mention are for providing AoA info directly to the pilots.
On the other hand, a major flaw (IMHO) of MCAS is that it acted on data only from one of the 2 AoA sensors on the aircraft. I'd imagine the auto-pilot reads from both sensors. MCAS continuously "adjusting" trim for an erroneous readings from a single sensor, with no comparison to the other sensor (and no attempt to validate the data from the sensor it was reading), is the lack of redundancy I think the other poster was referring to. MCAS should have redundant readings irrelevant of the options purchased for pilot indications.

For either of the options to have helped avoid the crashes, the pilots would've needed full training on MCAS including the fact that if the single AoA is giving faulty readings, then MCAS will activate (trim nose down repeatedly) even though it is not needed.
I don't think the optional AoA indicators are common equipment. I've never piloted a plane that had one (granted, I don't fly commercial airliners, but have friends who do). All planes have stall warning systems to indicate you're approaching an aerodynamic stall (your AoA is too high).

I’m not confused at all. :) Artificial horizon is what’s normally used, but Boeing offered AoA indication as an optional extra - and only one of the two AoA sensors is used by MCAS. The AoA indicators in the pri-fly was offered, perhaps because MCAS wasn’t programmed with a data component to compare both data streams. And the AoA disagree warning was as well.

MCAS wasn’t designed to receive and compare both AoA data streams, it seems. And it’s pretty certain on Lion Air the data that was used by MCAS were faulty because the actual indicator was faulty; it had been reported twice, anyway, and apparently wasn’t rectified or properly calibrated. (Not to mention Xtra Aerospace, LLC, of Miramar, FL, the Florida shop that sold it was shut down by the FAA for violations 25 Oct.)

If the US was a true democracy, all these Boeing criminals would have been criminally charged and prosecuted, but because it is a corporate democracy, nobody has even lost their jobs....

Actually someone did lose their job recently, President and CEO of commercial aircraft Kevin McAllister was fired in October. Further as it seems you have access to the Internet you might want to leverage that access to educate yourself, starting with the fact that the US is currently, and has always been, a representative democracy and that "true democracy" tends to end poorly. You also could have learned about the aforementioned firing from the same Internet...

On all of the above, we're in total agreement.
MCAS did not have the redundancy of reading/comparing data from both AoA sensors.

But your original post stated "Redundancy was made an optional extra..." and went on to describe the 2 pilot display options. This suggests that buying these options would've provided redundancy and avoided the crashes.
However :

• the plane has 2 AoA sensors (options purchased or not)
• MCAS only reads from one of these sensors (options purchased or not). Only reading from one indicator, despite 2 being onboard, is a major factor in these crashes.

Option #1 - AoA indication to the pilots
AoA really only means something to the pilot if the angle is too high, they would be approaching an aerodynamic stall ... the airflow over the wings is disrupted to the point of a serious loss of lift.
Basic Airmanship : pilots should be able to note they're approaching a stall situation based on pitch (determined by the Attitude Indicator you mentioned), airspeed, control effectiveness and the stall warning.
Aircraft don't typically have an AoA indicator. The pilot should know aerodynamics and have the stall warning as a backup.

Option #2 - AoA Disagree Warning (the 2 AoA sensors disagree with each other beyond some prescribed/acceptable variance).
I assume the AoA sensors are on the plane to support the stall warning system (and possibly the autopilot).
Despite the faulty AoA issuing a false "nose too high" indication, the stall warning did not activate on either crash (nor the Lion Air crash on the same plane on its previous flight).
Therefore: I assume the stall warning system had some redundancy programmed in. The "other" AoA sensor did not sense "nose high" and based on pitch & airspeed, the "other" AoA's data seemed more logical than the "nose high" data. No stall warning issued.
MCAS read the faulty AoA sensor, thought the nose was too high, thus issued continuous nose down trim inputs.
An "AoA Disagree" light would've only helped if the pilots knew all of the below :

• what an "MCAS" was
• MCAS only reads from a single AoA sensor
• if the 2 AoA sensors disagree, and if the sensor read by MCAS is the incorrect reading, and if that false reading is "too high" then MCAS is going to go crazy

The Lion Air pilots had no knowledge of any of those bullet points.
The Ethiopian pilots should've had knowledge of MCAS, but to what extent I have no idea. It's possible that with an AoA Disagree light they may have recognized that their "control problems" were "that MCAS thing" a little sooner and deactivated the trim switches earlier.
The Indonesian report of the Lion Air crash is out. It lists many factors as contributing to the crash. In my quick scan, it does not list the lack of purchasing the AoA options as a factor.
Your post has lead at least one FTer (ryan182) to believe that the lack of this $55,000 option(s) is what brought the planes down. Not true.

I hope I'm not sounding as if I'm arguing with you. You're one of my favorite and most respected posters here. This is just "casual debate" :cool:
I think we're way more in agreement, with the problem word being "redundancy". Yea, buying the option(s) provides redundancy; but the planes crashed because MCAS lacks the redundancy of reading/comparing/validating data from both AoA sensors.
Oh ... your post that I originally replied to have been moved to the "other thread", but followups to it haven't

Just to clarify, I was not implying that absent all other factors the lack of a $55,000 option(s) brought down the planes. As has been the case with just about every loss of life event since the advent of commercial aviation there's a series of events that ultimately result in catastrophic failure. Its possible that even with said options these events would have still happened, we don't/can't know, but that doesn't change my view that these shouldn't have been optional .

Mullienberg(sp?) should have resigned, as well; during his congressional testimony, he admitted that he didn't receive the alarms from the frontline guys; this is completely understandable, and happens in companies of all sizes, BUT I hold aircraft manufactures to higher standards