DenverBrian

Agree completely.

True, but non sequitur.

An auto crash has very bad consequences for that person or persons, but in the universe of possible outcomes, death is relatively uncommon in such an incident.

In the air, if you crash, you and 150 to 400 other people are dead. It is quite uncommon to escape a plane going into the ground at 300+mph. And your families are affected. And their friends and families. And their work colleagues and companies. Air crashes are kind of the atomic bomb of preventable mass casualties in our world. Their effects are orders of magnitude more destructive to human and social structures than the unfortunate car crash killing one or three or five. I know that every single life has worth and meaning, but it is our own intelligence that has created situations where it's even possible to kill hundreds of people outside of war or terrorism in one fell swoop.

So, to paraphrase Uncle Ben, with great intelligence and power comes great responsibility. If the associated people and companies making up the airline industry are going to profit as they do from this glorious transportation option, then they absolutely must be relentless and focused and deferential to safety at every single turn. Every second of every day. Not a damn platitude that says "safety is our number one concern." You had damn well better actualize that in absolutely everything you do.

It's my opinion that Boeing took their eye off the ball, focusing on how to get another several billion dollars out of a 60-year-old airplane design rather than starting from a clean sheet. Could the MAX be just as safe as any other plane? Certainly. But only with a relentless, focused, absolute deference to safety at every single turn. I think we'll find that there were at least a couple of turns in which Boeing decided they could settle, or get away with, or "make it work." That is not a relentless, focused, absolute deference to safety at every single turn. That's greed.

Nothing about this is new. See Titanic, 1912. It was the glorious transportation option at the time. Hubris by the shipbuilders in that case. I strongly suspect hubris by Boeing in this case.

The very fact that we have extremely safe air transportation does not and cannot mean that you can lean back and relax. Relentless. Focused. Deferential to safety at every single turn. It's the only way to not only keep us extremely safe, but to not slide backward even an iota.

kimChee

I received the most incredible "A message from American Airlines" this evening, which says, in part, "...be assured the safety and security of our customers and team members is always our top priority and we will never operate an unsafe aircraft."
With a statement like that, I cannot believe ANYTHING coming from this company.
I do believe they would never intentionally operate an unsafe aircraft, but it seems to me the eventual discovery of what has happened with these crashes is that the 737 Max truly is, and was, an unsafe aircraft.
Similar words from Boeing, about wanting to make a "safe" aircraft even safer are similarly tone-deaf to reality.

All I can say is those who have defended Boeing, the FAA, and the US airlines who chose to continue flying should count their lucky stars no US-operated airline crashed a Max. It would only have been a matter of time.
And, the pilots who denigrate anyone who cannot handle a computer that is determined to put the plane in a fatal nose dive during the first minutes of flight - you should thank your lucky stars you didn't actually have to test your theory with a runaway plane.

As more details come out about what happened to the Ethiopian flight, I suspect we'll find that before the crash, the plane may have hit the ground damaging the airframe and contributing to the smoke and debris observers saw before it went nose-down into its horrific finale.

JDiver

bchandler02

I think this is the key. It has bothered me greatly from day 1 that Boeing continues to milk such an old design. At some point, they need to design from scratch. I don't think the MAX designs and concepts are bad. I just feel that they used too many bandaids to apply it to an old design, and that's why we are seeing issues.

econometrics

That's what happens when you start losing $billions of orders to your rival... you scamper to get pieces of that pie as quickly and cheaply as you can.

3Cforme

Boeing 748s have origins that date to the original 747 of the late 60s. Airbus A330-900s have origins that date to the first Airbus, the A300 of the early 70s. It seems they both fly just fine. Let's leave aerospace engineering to the professionals.

MSPeconomist

DenverBrian

The 777 was a clean sheet design, and it's been outstanding in terms of safety. @:-)

cmd320

Same can be said for the A380.

nk15

Interesting article here about the 737 modifications over the years:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/new...cid=spartanntp

Austin787

I remember Boeing was considering doing a clean sheet narrowbody to respond to A320NEO. But airlines wanted an updated 737 sooner rather than a clean sheet airplane later. When AA placed that massive Airbus order in 2011, I think it forced Boeing to scramble and rush the 737MAX design to maintain share.

econometrics

That seems to be the catalyst, yes.

https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-s...n-the-737-max/

LAS2

I read this morning they found a trim jackscrew at the accident site set in the 'dive' position, which was a big reason for the US to ground the fleet:

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/piec...o-dive-2008100

exwannabe

Not exactly a big surprise. I think everybody though it was always highly likely that the automated controls had pushed the stabalizer trim down. The real question is how and why the pilot reacted. One article notes this:
AFAIK, this is wrong. The trim switches on the yoke will override the autopilot pushing the stabalizer on other 737s, but will not override the MAX's MCAS system. The pilot has to completely shutdown electronic control via a switch then use a hand crank to adjust it.

Presumably the pilot did not mechanically override the system (else the jackscrew would have been screwed back "up" via the cable he would have cranked).

So why?

The bigger question is this. The MCAS system was added because the MAX is not stable w/o it. If the system can not be relied on, is the plane safe?

As far as the software fix, call me a skeptic until and unless it is proved out. If it is no more that basically an emergency shutoff of the system, then you are back to the issue of potential stalls it was designed to avoid.

I think reactions to crashes are generally way oevrblown. But this one could be really bad for Boeing consider how large the order book is for the MAX .

nk15

It sounds like a complex scenario, and if the patch is also complex, pilots would be prone to mess it up. Regardless, the patch would need to be tested for a while in real life. I am starting thinking that either way the Max would likely remain a problematic a/c that needs to be avoided. And if this becomes complex to manage, probably switch flying to DL to solve most of the problem would be the answer, for those who can.

Take-off and climb are the most stressful and dangerous phases of flying anyway, I don't need more stress....Even if they are only "incidents", I'd rather not experience any unexpected nosedives and traumatize myself, I will pass...