Jan 4, 2021, 1:37 am
Last edit by: WineCountryUA
This is an archive thread, the archive thread is https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/united-airlines-mileageplus/1960195-b737max-cleared-faa-resume-passenger-flights-when-will-ua-max-flights-resume.html
Thread Topic
The reason for continuing this thread is to inform the UA traveler on the status of the MAX recertification and if / when UA might deploy the MAX aircraft. And UA flyer's thoughts about UA deploying the MAX if that was to happen.
United does not fly the 737 MAX 8 that has been involved in two recent crashes, but it does operate the 737 MAX 9.
How to tell if your flight is scheduled to be operated by the MAX 9:
View your reservation or flight status page, either on the web or on the app. United lists the entire aircraft type. Every flight that is scheduled to be on the 737 MAX will say "Boeing 737 MAX 9." If you see anything else -- for example, "Boeing 737-900," it is not scheduled to be a MAX at this time.
The same is true in search results and anywhere else on the United site.
For advanced users: UA uses the three letter IATA identifier 7M9 for the 737 MAX 9.
All 737 MAX aircraft worldwide (MAX 8, MAX 9, and MAX 10) are currently grounded.
Thread Topic
The reason for continuing this thread is to inform the UA traveler on the status of the MAX recertification and if / when UA might deploy the MAX aircraft. And UA flyer's thoughts about UA deploying the MAX if that was to happen.
READ BEFORE POSTING
Once again many posters in this thread have forgotten the FT rules and resorted to "Personal attacks, insults, baiting and flaming " and other non-collegial, non-civil discourse. This is not allowed.
Posters appear to be talking at others, talking about others, not discussing the core issues. Repeating the same statements, saying the same thing LOUDER is not civil discourse. These problems are not with one poster, they are not just one point of view, ...
As useful as some discussion here has been, continuing rules violations will lead to suspensions and thread closure. Please think about that before posting.
The purpose of FT is to be an informative forum that, in this case, enables the UA flyer to enhance their travel experience. There are other forums for different types of discussions. This thread was had wide latitude but that latitude is being abused.
Bottom line, if you can not stay within the FT rules and the forum's topic areas, please do not post.
And before posting, ask if you are bringing new contributing information to the discussion -- not just repeating previous points, then please do not post.
WineCountryUA
UA coModerator
Once again many posters in this thread have forgotten the FT rules and resorted to "Personal attacks, insults, baiting and flaming " and other non-collegial, non-civil discourse. This is not allowed.
Posters appear to be talking at others, talking about others, not discussing the core issues. Repeating the same statements, saying the same thing LOUDER is not civil discourse. These problems are not with one poster, they are not just one point of view, ...
As useful as some discussion here has been, continuing rules violations will lead to suspensions and thread closure. Please think about that before posting.
The purpose of FT is to be an informative forum that, in this case, enables the UA flyer to enhance their travel experience. There are other forums for different types of discussions. This thread was had wide latitude but that latitude is being abused.
Bottom line, if you can not stay within the FT rules and the forum's topic areas, please do not post.
And before posting, ask if you are bringing new contributing information to the discussion -- not just repeating previous points, then please do not post.
WineCountryUA
UA coModerator
This thread has engendered some strongly felt opinions and a great tendency to wander into many peripherally related topics. By all normal FT moderation standards, this thread would have been permanently closed long ago ( and numerous members receiving disciplinary actions).
However, given the importance of the subject, the UA Moderators have tried to host this discussion but odd here as UA is not the top 1 or 2 or 3 for MAX among North America carriers. However, some have allowed their passion and non-UA related opinions to repeatedly disrupt this discussion.
The reason for continuing this thread is to inform the UA traveler on the status of the MAX recertification and if / when UA might deploy the MAX aircraft. And UA flyer's thoughts about UA deploying the MAX if that was to happen.
Discussion of Boeing's culture or the impact on Boeing's future is not in scope. Nor is comments on restructuring the regulatory process. Neither is the impacts on COVID on the general air industry -- those are not UA specific and are better discussed elsewhere. And for discussion of UA's future, there is a separate thread.
Additionally repeated postings of essentially the same content should not happen nor unnecessarily inflammatory posts. And of course, the rest of FT posting rules apply including discuss the issue and not the posters.
The Moderator team feels there is a reason / need for this thread but it has been exhausting to have to repeated re-focus the discussion -- don't be the reason this thread is permanently closed ( and get yourself in disciplinary problems).
Stick to the relevant topic which is (repeating myself)
The reason for continuing this thread is to inform the UA traveler on the status of the MAX recertification and if / when UA might deploy the MAX aircraft. And UA flyer's thoughts about UA deploying the MAX if that was to happen.
WineCountryUA
UA coModerator
However, given the importance of the subject, the UA Moderators have tried to host this discussion but odd here as UA is not the top 1 or 2 or 3 for MAX among North America carriers. However, some have allowed their passion and non-UA related opinions to repeatedly disrupt this discussion.
The reason for continuing this thread is to inform the UA traveler on the status of the MAX recertification and if / when UA might deploy the MAX aircraft. And UA flyer's thoughts about UA deploying the MAX if that was to happen.
Discussion of Boeing's culture or the impact on Boeing's future is not in scope. Nor is comments on restructuring the regulatory process. Neither is the impacts on COVID on the general air industry -- those are not UA specific and are better discussed elsewhere. And for discussion of UA's future, there is a separate thread.
Additionally repeated postings of essentially the same content should not happen nor unnecessarily inflammatory posts. And of course, the rest of FT posting rules apply including discuss the issue and not the posters.
The Moderator team feels there is a reason / need for this thread but it has been exhausting to have to repeated re-focus the discussion -- don't be the reason this thread is permanently closed ( and get yourself in disciplinary problems).
Stick to the relevant topic which is (repeating myself)
The reason for continuing this thread is to inform the UA traveler on the status of the MAX recertification and if / when UA might deploy the MAX aircraft. And UA flyer's thoughts about UA deploying the MAX if that was to happen.
WineCountryUA
UA coModerator
United does not fly the 737 MAX 8 that has been involved in two recent crashes, but it does operate the 737 MAX 9.
How to tell if your flight is scheduled to be operated by the MAX 9:
View your reservation or flight status page, either on the web or on the app. United lists the entire aircraft type. Every flight that is scheduled to be on the 737 MAX will say "Boeing 737 MAX 9." If you see anything else -- for example, "Boeing 737-900," it is not scheduled to be a MAX at this time.
The same is true in search results and anywhere else on the United site.
For advanced users: UA uses the three letter IATA identifier 7M9 for the 737 MAX 9.
All 737 MAX aircraft worldwide (MAX 8, MAX 9, and MAX 10) are currently grounded.
B737MAX Recertification - Archive
Mar 23, 2019, 2:40 pm
#751
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 7,875
The question is how critical? Clearly not DAL A. The assumption was with existing training and procedures it should be DAL C. And in both cases the crew could mitigate the failure via well established procedure and failed to.
Both crashes were at third world airlines with dismal crash records. Ethiopian has crashed 10% of their 737 fleet in the last decade. This isn't like Qantas is crashing the MAX.
Both crashes were at third world airlines with dismal crash records. Ethiopian has crashed 10% of their 737 fleet in the last decade. This isn't like Qantas is crashing the MAX.
Mar 23, 2019, 2:47 pm
#752
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Or maybe the issue is that these third world carriers need to select airplanes and equipment that are appropriate for the training and experience of their pilots if they're not willing to require (and pay for) more qualified pilots.
BTW, I'm not sure that any regulatory agency like the FAA could prohibit third world airlines (or substandard airlines, however defined) from purchasing *used* Boeing aircraft from any carrier that is willing to sell them a plane. At best the FAA could prohibit such airlines from flying those Boeing aircraft to/over the USA, but many of the substandard carriers are already forbidden to enter USA (and EU) airspace.
ADDED: Unless the aircraft contains restricted high tech defense technology, I don't think the sale of new planes (assuming that they're approved/certified by FAA for sale/use at all) to any or all foreign countries could be denied, unless the country is on some general trade embargo list.
Of course, any country (or the EU as a whole) could deny permission to individual aircraft/flights or entire aircraft types to enter their airspace, land at their airports, depart from their airports, etc. as we saw after the Ethiopian crash.
BTW, I'm not sure that any regulatory agency like the FAA could prohibit third world airlines (or substandard airlines, however defined) from purchasing *used* Boeing aircraft from any carrier that is willing to sell them a plane. At best the FAA could prohibit such airlines from flying those Boeing aircraft to/over the USA, but many of the substandard carriers are already forbidden to enter USA (and EU) airspace.
ADDED: Unless the aircraft contains restricted high tech defense technology, I don't think the sale of new planes (assuming that they're approved/certified by FAA for sale/use at all) to any or all foreign countries could be denied, unless the country is on some general trade embargo list.
Of course, any country (or the EU as a whole) could deny permission to individual aircraft/flights or entire aircraft types to enter their airspace, land at their airports, depart from their airports, etc. as we saw after the Ethiopian crash.
Last edited by MSPeconomist; Mar 23, 2019 at 3:04 pm
Mar 23, 2019, 2:50 pm
#753
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Mar 23, 2019, 3:20 pm
#754
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While 350 hours is still not enough experience, I do wish posters would notice this - it has been posted on several sites (even in this thread) over the last week or so, and reposted that First Officer actually had 350 hours flying experience. Again, NOT enough, but let's at least agree on facts that have been corrected (are correct - if not correct guess it's not really a fact) @:-)
Mar 23, 2019, 3:57 pm
#755
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 7,875
Or maybe the issue is that these third world carriers need to select airplanes and equipment that are appropriate for the training and experience of their pilots if they're not willing to require (and pay for) more qualified pilots.
BTW, I'm not sure that any regulatory agency like the FAA could prohibit third world airlines (or substandard airlines, however defined) from purchasing *used* Boeing aircraft from any carrier that is willing to sell them a plane. At best the FAA could prohibit such airlines from flying those Boeing aircraft to/over the USA, but many of the substandard carriers are already forbidden to enter USA (and EU) airspace.
ADDED: Unless the aircraft contains restricted high tech defense technology, I don't think the sale of new planes (assuming that they're approved/certified by FAA for sale/use at all) to any or all foreign countries could be denied, unless the country is on some general trade embargo list.
Of course, any country (or the EU as a whole) could deny permission to individual aircraft/flights or entire aircraft types to enter their airspace, land at their airports, depart from their airports, etc. as we saw after the Ethiopian crash.
BTW, I'm not sure that any regulatory agency like the FAA could prohibit third world airlines (or substandard airlines, however defined) from purchasing *used* Boeing aircraft from any carrier that is willing to sell them a plane. At best the FAA could prohibit such airlines from flying those Boeing aircraft to/over the USA, but many of the substandard carriers are already forbidden to enter USA (and EU) airspace.
ADDED: Unless the aircraft contains restricted high tech defense technology, I don't think the sale of new planes (assuming that they're approved/certified by FAA for sale/use at all) to any or all foreign countries could be denied, unless the country is on some general trade embargo list.
Of course, any country (or the EU as a whole) could deny permission to individual aircraft/flights or entire aircraft types to enter their airspace, land at their airports, depart from their airports, etc. as we saw after the Ethiopian crash.
mduell is expressing a thought many have, that these occurred in third-world nations, thus it doesn't apply to first-world nations. Notwithstanding whatever that means in the aviation sense (many airports in other countries are nicer than those in the US, as so eloquently put by Joe Biden), the issue is whether or not it is fair to blame the issue on the user.
I think in this particular case Boeing is lucky it didn't happen in a Western country, when so obviously they cut so many corners, never bothered training pilots on MCAS, and also "forged" the FAA accreditation process.
They designed an unsafe aircraft, and are just lucky more crashes didn't happen. You can say it is because the pilots weren't better trained, but the pilots were trained to the necessary capacity already (another poster mentioned "minimum qualified applicant" which definitely is true here).
Mar 23, 2019, 4:19 pm
#756
Join Date: Apr 2015
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Reading through the posts from the last few days, it appears that one pilot is saying that the response to the kind of control deviations experienced is a general one not specific to erroneous MCAS system trim inputs, and well-trained pilots would know exactly what to do to restore control. Another pilot is saying that this kind of control deviation would be a very confusing and unexpected situation and would require figuring out what is going on before knowing what to do to restore control.
Mar 23, 2019, 6:20 pm
#757
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Mar 23, 2019, 6:25 pm
#758
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No, not with the information we have now. Despite the frequent complaints about the product, United is not a third world operator. It's not like the Ethiopian MAX crash was some incredible anomaly; it was the third 737 Ethiopian has crashed in the last decade, from a fleet of only 30 or so 737 aircraft.
United has good training and pilots who will fly the airplane.
Much confusion about this from media who doesn't understand the first thing about aircraft design, much less any details. The high-AoA behavior is aerodynamic from the lift off the nacelle (which is ahead of the CG). The location of the engine isn't moving in flight, so there's no associated CG shift in flight.
Both I and all the various certification authorities around the world disagree with your opinion here; a DAL C system doesn't need redundant sensor inputs on every sensor. The single input at a time AoA has been standard for years on a variety of systems, including the stick shaker. It's a pilot training issue that the pilots are not recognizing runaway pitch trim and following the runaway pitch trim procedure.
United has good training and pilots who will fly the airplane.
Much confusion about this from media who doesn't understand the first thing about aircraft design, much less any details. The high-AoA behavior is aerodynamic from the lift off the nacelle (which is ahead of the CG). The location of the engine isn't moving in flight, so there's no associated CG shift in flight.
Both I and all the various certification authorities around the world disagree with your opinion here; a DAL C system doesn't need redundant sensor inputs on every sensor. The single input at a time AoA has been standard for years on a variety of systems, including the stick shaker. It's a pilot training issue that the pilots are not recognizing runaway pitch trim and following the runaway pitch trim procedure.
That said - I don’t see, honestly, why AoA sensor inputs shouldn’t have redundancy. Even the sump pump float in my basement has a backup. Simply, just verifying AoA inputs and throwing a mismatch light/warning is all I’m suggesting. Not that MCAS needs to be redesigned to take dual inputs, but I’d think at least some onboard system responsible for data sanity would be validating any dual inputs. We do this in HA data systems, so why not aircraft systems?
I’ll use Sun Microsystems as an example. Many moons ago, they had random crashes. Turned out to be alpha particles causing a bit-flip in memory cache. The solution was to mirror the cache; any mismatch and then it could do a simple checksum to see which copy was correct.
Something similar - a system to validate all dual-input systems - seems logical?
Am I off base?
Mar 23, 2019, 6:32 pm
#759
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Probably safer in the air. Lots of bad things happen on the ground....after all most people who die die on the earth and not in the air if we are going to be illogical about risk and statistics.
Mar 23, 2019, 6:34 pm
#760
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Why are we even accepting that runaway stabilizers are a "thing?"
How about a plane made so pilots don't have to worry about that in the midst of the other hundred things they have to worry about during takeoff and landing?
How about a plane made so pilots don't have to worry about that in the midst of the other hundred things they have to worry about during takeoff and landing?
Mar 23, 2019, 6:36 pm
#761
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They ran it off the runway, did substantial damage to the airframe leading to a writeoff, and sent the crew to the hospital; you don't have to kill someone for it to be a crash.
Redundant systems with verification is neither cheap nor easy. An AoA disagree indicator is an option on the MAX; CNBC said it's $80k.
Aircraft have redundant systems where it makes sense to take on the complexity and cost to design and build them right and certify them.
Are your HA data systems certified? Does it cost $80k to put a disagree light on them?
Plenty of things could be done to improve the safety of air transportation, but there's a cost (and schedule) tradeoff for every one of them. It doesn't make sense to gold plate every system on the plane in case the crew throws their training out the window.
That said - I don’t see, honestly, why AoA sensor inputs shouldn’t have redundancy. Even the sump pump float in my basement has a backup. Simply, just verifying AoA inputs and throwing a mismatch light/warning is all I’m suggesting. Not that MCAS needs to be redesigned to take dual inputs, but I’d think at least some onboard system responsible for data sanity would be validating any dual inputs. We do this in HA data systems, so why not aircraft systems?
Aircraft have redundant systems where it makes sense to take on the complexity and cost to design and build them right and certify them.
Are your HA data systems certified? Does it cost $80k to put a disagree light on them?
Plenty of things could be done to improve the safety of air transportation, but there's a cost (and schedule) tradeoff for every one of them. It doesn't make sense to gold plate every system on the plane in case the crew throws their training out the window.
Last edited by mduell; Mar 23, 2019 at 6:44 pm
Mar 23, 2019, 6:39 pm
#762
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And using that data point to construct dubious stats painting the airline's pilots as dullards in an obvious attempt to deflect from the 737MAX's faults is not helping.
Mar 23, 2019, 6:47 pm
#763
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They don't have to kill everyone on board every time to show that they're not an example of a good operator.
Is it really any different if they've merely killed everyone on board only 7% of their 737 fleet in the last decade?
Mar 23, 2019, 6:49 pm
#764
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Why don't we eliminate all of those 100 other things too?
Mar 23, 2019, 6:51 pm
#765
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