Go Back  FlyerTalk Forums > Miles&Points > Airlines and Mileage Programs > American Airlines | AAdvantage
Reload this Page >

Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashes and effects on AA 737 MAX 8s (NOT reaccommodation)

Wikipost is Locked  
Old Mar 12, 2019, 12:03 pm
FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides
Last edit by: JDiver
This thread is dedicated to the effect on AA from the October 29, 2018 and March 10, 2019 crashes if two Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft in Indonesia and Ethiopia, respectively.

To discuss the probable and limited return of the Boeing MAX to service with AA at the end of 2020 and increasingly in 2021, please see

American Planning 737 MAX Service Restoration (Limited Dec and 2021)

To discuss reaccommodation by AA subsequent to the grounding of all Boeing MAX 8s and 9s by the US Federal Aviation Administration on 13 March 2019, please refer to 737 MAX grounded 13 Mar 2019. What to do if you were supposed to fly on one?

13 March 2019: All US airline Boeing 737 MAX 8 and 9 aircraft are grounded by US Federal Aviation Administration emergency order. AA has removed all 737 MAX 8 from scheduling through...
Based on the latest guidance, the airline anticipates that the resumption of scheduled commercial service on Americans fleet of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft will occur (limited schedule Dec 2020).

WELCOME, MODERATOR GUIDELINES
PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING
If you are new to us, welcome to FlyerTalk!

Who we are: FlyerTalk features discussions and chat boards that covers the most up-to-date traveler information; an interactive community dedicated to the topic of travel (not politics or arguments about politics or religion, etc.)

All travelers are welcome in the community. Just choose a forum: conversing about airlines and their programs, airports, destinations, dining and how to make the most of your miles and points, or visit our Information Desk to start.

We do have some Rules, and everyone agrees to abide by these when they are granted free membership privileges. On a topic that generates a lot of feelings and perspectives, please remember "welcoming, respectful" are key words on FlyerTalk.

As with previous incident threads, please observe the following in this thread:

1. The normal FT Rules apply. (Including not discussing moderation actions on-thread). And please be particularly attentive to "discussing the idea and not the poster" when you have a disagreement. Civility and mutual respect are still expected and are what we owe each other as a community.

2. You are expected to respect our diversity, and therefore refrain from posting inflammatory comments about race, religion, culture, politics, ethnicity, orientation, etc." Do not cite, copy, or report on such.


3. Please do continue to be attentive to the sensibilities of the families of those on the flight. Think about if you were them what you would and would not want to see posted. Reasonable speculation about what happened is permissible; please, though, do not indulge in inflammatory or overly-lurid descriptions or depictions (or links to same) that could well be hurtful.

4. Overly / extravagantly exaggerative posts such as conspiracy theories, posts beyond the realm of science and known facts, etc. as well as posts with information that has been posted several times previously may be summarily deleted. Moderator actions may not be discussed in posts on FlyerTalk.

5. FlyerTalk complies with international copyright agreements. Please do not post full copyrighted articles; summarize the salient points, cite properly and post links. Entire copyrighted articles will be summarily deleted.

6. In addition, those who repeatedly fail to comply with FlyerTalk Rules or the guidelines for this thread may be subjected to FlyerTalk disciplinary actions and have membership privileges suspended, forum masks, etc.


The thread regarding the 10 March 2019 Ethiopian Airlines ET 302 737 MAX 8 crash out of Adis Ababa is Ethiopian Airlines: Boeing 737 Max 8 crashes on way to Kenya [ET302 ADD-NBO 10MAR19]. Link.

The thread regarding the 29 October 2018 Lion Air JT 610 737 MAX 8 crash out of Jakarta is Lion Air flight from Jakarta has crashed
. Link.

The best narrative and information available is probably the Aviation Heralds Crash: Lion B38M near Jakarta on Oct 29th 2018, aircraft lost height and crashed into Java Sea, wrong AoA data, by Simon Hradecky, created Friday, Oct 25th 2019 13:35Z, last updated Friday, Oct 25th 2019 16:05Z. Link.

American Airlines ordered 100 Boeing 737 MAX 8 (7M8) with options for 60 more. The first 737 MAX -8 flew at the assembly facility in Renton, WAshington, USA on 29 Jan 2016. Deliveries to AA commenced in late in 2017, with four delivered in 2017,16 more during 2018, with 20 more to be delivered during 2019. IATA code B38M; AA code "7M8".

Link to the story of how 737 MAX birth in the DFW Admirals Club and the forces that shaped it.

29 October 2018: Indonesian carrier Lion Air Flight 610 on October 29 crashed into the sea soon after takeoff with the loss of all aboard, apparently due to the erroneous data from a faulty Angle of Attack sensor, which caused the MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) to assume the plane was about to stall, which activated the downward force on the Stabilizer Trim to get the nose down. Link to BBC article.

Link to Aviation Herald discussion.

Link to FlyerTalk airline forum thread regarding this incident.

Instead of switching off the Stabilizer Trim the pilots appear to have battled the system. Link

This aircraft had been written up as having a faulty AOA indicator for the previous three flights it had taken. It is unclear if Lion Air had performed adequate maintenance procedures after the reports or withdraw the aircraft from service until the fault could be completely cleared.

7 November 2018: The US Federal Aviation Administration / FAA issued an Airworthiness Directive (AD note) covering the AOA within a few days, giving US airlines 30 days to comply with the AD.

7 November 2018: Boeing issued revised operating instructions covering the revised MCAS used in the MAX 8, updating the MAX operations manual. See the manual update and the switches referenced in this post.

See What is the Boeing 737 MAX Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System?, updated November 17 to explain the MCAS and electric trim override operation, here: link.

10 March 10, 2019: An Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX 8 departing Addis Ababa to Nairobi turned back to the airport soon after takeoff, but crashed with the loss of all aboard.

Link to BBC article.

Link to Aviation Herald discussion.

Link to FlyerTalk airline forum thread regarding this incident.

10 March 10, 2019: The US National Transportation Board / NTSB has dispatched an investigation team, as have Boeing, to Addis Ababa to assist the Ethiopian investigators in determining the cause(s) of the crash. The black boxes (cockpit voice and the flight data recorder have been recovered.

A revised MCAS is in the works, and the FAA is expected to issue an AD note when the MCAS update is done. This is expected to occur in May, 2019.

11 March 2019: China grounded its 737 MAX 8 (not MAX 9) fleet.

11 March 2019: the US FAA stated it would not ground US (AA, AS, UA, WN) 737 MAX aircraft at this time.

Link to FAA Airworthiness Notification for USA registered B38M aircraft PDF.

Link to Wall Street Journal article.

11 March 2019: AA APFA Flight Attendant union spokesperson asked AA to ground the MAX 8s. (TPG)

11 March 2019: AA pilots through their APA union have requested passengers allow the investigators do their work and refrain from jumping to conclusions. We caution against speculation about what may have caused this tragic accident, the Air Line Pilots Association said in a statement. (TPG)

12 March 2019: The nation members of the European Union, the United Kingdom and several other nations ban their airlines operation, and other airlines overflight or flights, of the B38M aircraft. Link to New York Times article.

12 March 2019: Other USA airlines operating 737 MAX aircraft (of all types) are United (UA), Southwest (WN). AS has ordered the MAX 9, but deliveries have not yet been made.

Link to The Points Guy how to tell if youre flying a 737 MAX 8 article

13 March 2019: American Airlines pilots union APA issues statement in support of the AA B38M: The AA APA spokesman says AA's MAX 8s have additional indicators on the planes, which others do not have. He says they're the only ones equipped with TWO AOA displays - one for each pilot. This, I guess, is why AA feels they can keep flying the MAX 8. The spokesman said he felt UA and SW (WN) were getting these added to their MAX planes. - Econometrics

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/03/1...ilot-says.html

13 March 2019: Canada grounds Canadian B38M aircraft. The US is the sole remaining nation to allow operation of the 737 MAX 8. Link to USA Today article.

13 March 2019: US Federal Aviation Administration issues emergency order for immediate grounding all USA airline operated Boeing 737 MAX 8 and 9 aircraft, effectively immediately. Link NYT story.

13 March 2019: American Airlines issues announcement of 7M8 grounding. Link to PDF. According to AA:

On average, American operates 85 flights per day on the MAX 8, out of 6,700 departures throughout the American Airlines system. Our operations center is working to re-route aircraft throughout the system to cover as much of our schedule as we can.
13 March 2019: AA issues policy allowing those scheduled for 7M8 flights through April 4 to refund or change without fees for cancellations, or to make free changes to their flight plans. See the thread linked to at the top of this Wiki for a link.

14 March 2019: It is announced the French BEA will retrieve the data from the Ethiopian Cockpit Voice Recorder and Flight Data Recorder.

Link to Eight things you might not know about black boxes
By Cristen Tilley, ABC Australia

15 March 2019: BBC article states FAA says the MAX will not be cleared for flight at least until May. Link to story.

15 March 2019: On the other hand, CNBC states Boeing will have the anti-stall software update for the MAX ready in ten days, and that the FAA is expected to sign off on the modification on March 25, 2019.

NOTE: Thus Wikipost is locked. Please contact JDiver by PM, or use the report post to moderator button , to request changes or correct errors, etc.






Print Wikipost

Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashes and effects on AA 737 MAX 8s (NOT reaccommodation)

Old Mar 11, 2019, 6:23 am
  #106  
 
Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: CMH
Programs: BA Gold, AA Plat, NK $9 fare club
Posts: 666
Originally Posted by milypan
A reasonable response. Since its introduction in 2017, the MAX has now established a fatality rate that is at least 1,000 times higher than the 737NG and A320ceo/neo over the same period. It has two 100% fatal hull losses in less than 300 aircraft-years of operation. For context, the DC-10, which is widely regarded to have suffered serious safety flaws in the initial design, still made it over 1,600 aircraft-years of operation before its second 100% fatal hull loss. Something is wrong with the MAX.
Taking those facts at face value, I still have no issue getting on the 737 MAX aeroplane. Even if the current safety record continued, it would be incredibly unlikely that I'd get caught up in a crash.

Let's say 30 years traveling at 150k miles a year and 500mph, still comes out to about a 1/200 chance of death via aeroplane. Cars are about 1/100 - 1/300 depending on which country you are in...

Now if I could just quit smoking the cigarettes!

Last edited by Spanish; Mar 11, 2019 at 6:24 am Reason: Punctuation.
Spanish is offline  
Old Mar 11, 2019, 6:45 am
  #107  
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Programs: AAdvantage Exec Platinum, Hertz #1 Club Gold Five Star, IHG Platinum, Marriott Gold, HHonors Silver
Posts: 2,020
This is all eerily reminiscent of the plot of the book "Airframe" by Michael Crichton...Anyone else find it so?
GNRMatt is offline  
Old Mar 11, 2019, 6:56 am
  #108  
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Programs: AA LT GLD 1MM
Posts: 811
Originally Posted by flyingeph12

Need I point out the implication of the part about the crew? Who approved this?
I thought that part was very interesting as well. From what we know about lion air, it's pretty clear that under the right conditions the plane can start making erroneous control inputs. However, there is a procedure for the pilots to disable this system and avert a crash - and all AA pilots were trained on it following lion air. AA clearly has confidence in their pilots that this is sufficient from a safety perspective.

But with a growing number of MAX's in service worldwide, I'm just not ready to bet my life that 100% of the pilots will correctly identify the situation and correctly implement the procedure before the plane becomes uncontrollable.
AZbba is offline  
Old Mar 11, 2019, 7:05 am
  #109  
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 291
That's the thing at low altitudes at takeoff and landing you have very little time to recognize and correct for a malfunction. If it comes out these pilots were trained on how to detect and turn off ECAS problems then what?
maniac78 is offline  
Old Mar 11, 2019, 7:08 am
  #110  
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: MIA
Posts: 298
rhetorical question... These airlines grounding their 737 MAX for inspections, what are they inspecting?

Last edited by SouthernCross; Mar 11, 2019 at 7:18 am
SouthernCross is offline  
Old Mar 11, 2019, 7:09 am
  #111  
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Programs: AA LT GLD 1MM
Posts: 811
Originally Posted by maniac78
That's the thing at low altitudes at takeoff and landing you have very little time to recognize and correct for a malfunction. If it comes out these pilots were trained on how to detect and turn off ECAS problems then what?
Either ground the fleet or give everyone another round of training.
AZbba is offline  
Old Mar 11, 2019, 7:38 am
  #112  
 
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: CHS
Posts: 2,245
Hi Everyone!

Not here to stir the pot, but my family is traveling on a 737-800 TPA-PHL on 3/20. I'm not a nervous flyer at all, but they are. I realize the 737-800 is not a 737 MAX 8, but my question is does AA swap the -800 for the MAX 8 on a regular basis? Not sure if AA has any 737 MAXs in PHL or not.

Any insight you all could provide would be super helpful for me to hopefully get them "over it".

Safe travels,
Chris
geckoflyer is offline  
Old Mar 11, 2019, 7:45 am
  #113  
Suspended
 
Join Date: May 2013
Location: NYC
Programs: DL Diamond, AAdvantage EXP, Hyatt Explorist, HHonors Diamond, Avis First
Posts: 7,344
Originally Posted by flyingeph12


And yet it appears AA has released a statement saying it has full confidence in the 737 MAX. Unless AA has facts that none of us are privy to?

The full statement:


Need I point out the implication of the part about the crew? Who approved this?
Wait theres no out of an abundance of caution from AA on this topic? :/
AANYC1981 is offline  
Old Mar 11, 2019, 8:03 am
  #114  
Suspended
 
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: FIND ME ON TWITTER FOR THE LATEST
Posts: 27,730
Originally Posted by arlflyer


I immensely respect your perspectives and am appreciative of all that you have contributed over the years, but the only fact I need is that two of these ships have fallen from the sky, and the only stepping back that this aerospace engineer will be doing will be stepping back from the doorway of any MAX for the foreseeable future. I dont care to become a data point confirming what is now currently a hypothesis.
Fully respect that.
JonNYC is offline  
Old Mar 11, 2019, 8:08 am
  #115  
 
Join Date: May 2011
Location: DFW
Programs: AA EXP, LT Gold
Posts: 3,143
Originally Posted by geckoflyer
Hi Everyone!

Not here to stir the pot, but my family is traveling on a 737-800 TPA-PHL on 3/20. I'm not a nervous flyer at all, but they are. I realize the 737-800 is not a 737 MAX 8, but my question is does AA swap the -800 for the MAX 8 on a regular basis? Not sure if AA has any 737 MAXs in PHL or not.

Any insight you all could provide would be super helpful for me to hopefully get them "over it".

Safe travels,
Chris
They don't sub the MAX 8 in on 738 routes, usually. The MAX 8 routes are mostly dedicated routes ex-MIA.

I looked at the flight history for AA2766 TPA-PHL. Looks like it's almost exclusively flown by N314PD the past couple weeks... which is a 737-800, and as a bonus, a frame with IFE in every seat.
econometrics is offline  
Old Mar 11, 2019, 8:16 am
  #116  
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Programs: AY+ Plat, Marriott Plat, Hyatt Discoverist
Posts: 2,846
Originally Posted by AZbba
I thought that part was very interesting as well. From what we know about lion air, it's pretty clear that under the right conditions the plane can start making erroneous control inputs. However, there is a procedure for the pilots to disable this system and avert a crash - and all AA pilots were trained on it following lion air. AA clearly has confidence in their pilots that this is sufficient from a safety perspective.

But with a growing number of MAX's in service worldwide, I'm just not ready to bet my life that 100% of the pilots will correctly identify the situation and correctly implement the procedure before the plane becomes uncontrollable.
I'm glad that AA has confidence in its pilots. Frankly, I do too. Maybe I'm reading too much into the statement, but I read AA's statement as basically implying that the ET catastrophe was the result of a crew/pilot error, as well as implicitly endorsing the (in my opinion mistaken) belief that African/Asian pilots are as a whole inferior (i.e., not "the best and most experienced in the industry" — btw, what is AA's basis for making such a sweeping claim?).

I don't think AA meant to convey such a message, but that's how its statement came across to me.
flyingeph12 is offline  
Old Mar 11, 2019, 8:24 am
  #117  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Wesley Chapel, FL
Programs: American Airlines
Posts: 29,757
Not a good day for Boeing stockholders.
enviroian is offline  
Old Mar 11, 2019, 8:27 am
  #118  
 
Join Date: May 2011
Location: DFW
Programs: AA EXP, LT Gold
Posts: 3,143
Originally Posted by enviroian
Not a good day for Boeing stockholders.
I didn't realize the MAX was 1/3 of Boeing's profits until all this happened, wow.

Closing down more than 10% today would be its biggest sell off since 17 Sept 2001, the day trading re-opened after 9/11.
econometrics is offline  
Old Mar 11, 2019, 8:27 am
  #119  
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Beantown! (BOS)
Programs: AA PtPro (2 MM); Hilton Diamond; Hertz President Cr; DL SkyMiles; UA MileagePlus
Posts: 3,426
At this moment I will not go out of the way to avoid 737MAX8, does not mean I believe there is absolutely nothing wrong with 738MAX8. I do think there is something to be looked into 737MAX8 and at this moment we do not know if ET (Ethiopian Airlines) incident was due to auto pilot/flight control issue, not yet.

To be honest my primary concern was I have a flight on 7M8 within a week, involving 7M8 both out bond and return leg, and possibility of my schedule getting messed up. Looks like at this moment AA is not planning to do anything with 7M8 and have not heard anything about FAA. Finger crossed.
AlwaysAisle is offline  
Old Mar 11, 2019, 8:33 am
  #120  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Wesley Chapel, FL
Programs: American Airlines
Posts: 29,757
Originally Posted by AlwaysAisle
At this moment I will not go out of the way to avoid 737MAX8
At this moment I will go out of the way to avoid the 737 MAX.
enviroian is offline  

Thread Tools
Search this Thread

Contact Us - Manage Preferences - Archive - Advertising - Cookie Policy - Privacy Statement - Terms of Service -

This site is owned, operated, and maintained by MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. Copyright © 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Designated trademarks are the property of their respective owners.