"If it's a MAX, I ain't a pax."

I too will stay off the MAX for at least a year after it returns, and will never force my team to fly it.

What are they going to say? "This new plane we bought is too dangerous to fly."? That's obviously not how this works. What airlines are almost certainly doing is making contingency plans as to what to do if they determine they can't risk flying the plane.

Having said that, as a legal matter, if this plane is seen as unsafe, no jury or arbitrator will force an airline to pay breach of contract damages for refusing delivery or demanding a refund. So there is always an out.

Like most, I've been following this casually and have talked about this with some friends. I suspect, like most here, the prospects of a plane crash is especially terrifying, especially when our family and friends may pay the ultimate price in our decision making process.

However, this is only my personal view, I'm comforted by the stances some of the pilots on this thread have taken. Again, not trying to persuade anyone, but, in my view, I believe they're being sincere & genuine and would never risk tarnishing a professional reputation that's taken a lifetime to build. More importantly, they're "putting money where mouth is," which is far more than I can say for the media, which I generally ignore as a matter of principle and practice.

Unlike many on FT, I'm not what you'd call a Renaissance man/woman. I'm an expert on one little thing, which is of little importance to anyone other than myself. Anything outside of my narrow scope of professional knowledge, I consult and defer to the pros whom I find credible. Not that I blindly accept counsel, but a word from a trusted professional expert, for me, supersedes all of the press & social media combined.

Much of the press has been written by hacks who have no technical experience, which is a problem when the subject matter is very technical. It’s unfortunately part of the world these days, but it is some of the cause of the misinformation that permeates the conversation.

And yet the A320 has CG limitations forcing seat blocking due to pitch safety issues.

After a series of tests, the A320neo is susceptible to angle-of-attack protection weakness. Under certain conditions and maneuvers, the aircraft’s aileron, elevator, and the elevator and aileron computer (ELAC) software compensator showed a defect. (source)

Let us be clear: The current MAX 8 and 9 without MCAS is not certifiable. MCAS is not the only path for a MAX-without-MCAS to be certified. One example of an alternative to MCAS would be a stretch; for example the MAX 10, which is certifiable without MCAS. There are others, including but not limited to taller landing gear.

The FAA, through the regulations it has promulgated, wants the aircraft to have certain behaviors. In some cases the FAA does not prescribe how that behavior is achieved, and, at least relative to some other regulations, does not prescribe an exact metric value for the behavior MCAS is intended to address, only a general behavior.

Right out of 14 CFR § 25.143 (g):
When maneuvering at a constant airspeed or Mach number (up to VFC/MFC), the stick forces and the gradient of the stick force versus maneuvering load factor must lie within satisfactory limits. The stick forces must not be so great as to make excessive demands on the pilot's strength when maneuvering the airplane, and must not be so low that the airplane can easily be overstressed inadvertently. Changes of gradient that occur with changes of load factor must not cause undue difficulty in maintaining control of the airplane, and local gradients must not be so low as to result in a danger of overcontrolling.

The American and European airlines took delivery of more MAXs and operated more flights than the incident airlines. Pair that with the information the United pilots have contributed to this thread and conclusions are left to the reader.

That is the case, with limits. See the description in 14 CFR 25.143 above, as well as the FAA's general and oft-used language "without exceptional piloting skill, alertness, or strength."

While I agree with you wrt "press hacks", there have been some pretty egregious pro-Boeing articles that somewhat counterbalance the fear mongerers; it's a two way street. I'd like to think that the FT audience has sufficient intelligence to see through the fluff on both sides; most of us lack knowledge about the technical stuff, but we aren't stupid either. That having been said, some of my colleagues and/or their parents are just plain scared of MAX, and I do suspect that the media has influenced their opinions. I will also admit that some of the "MAX is bad" articles have certainly made an impression on me, and even the "Airmanship" article (which pinned the blame on bad pilots/airlines) played a role in my personal decision to steer clear of MAX until it has a chance to prove that it is a safe airplane.

I don't think that is what is happening at all. The media has gotten this story almost completely right.

What is actually happening is that Boeing is a very powerful company, with a lot of money and a lot of friends and fans. They are also basically the only relevant American manufacturer, which inserts a nationalism issue. I lived through the 1970's and 1980's, when many car and motorcycle enthusiasts, as well as prominent voices in the automotive press, refused to admit the inferiority of American cars and motorcycles as compared to the imports. I mean, it's obvious now, and in fact very few people care where a car is made anymore, but during that time period, there were a lot of prominent people assuring consumers and the media that what everyone actually knew to be true was in fact not true.

I think the notion that Boeing released an unsafe plane which may end up seriously harming or even destroying its commercial airliner division is unthinkable for a broad segment of people. This is what is happening, and standing by the safety of the MAX and assuring everyone that consumers will, in fact, get on this unsafe airplane (because they won't pay attention to what plane they are booked on, even with the massive publicity given to the MAX), that Boeing will, in fact, fix the problem, that the FAA will in fact recertify it, and that this was not a design defect that was built into the plane but was a mere problem of some lines of code, is what is necessary to avoid confronting the unthinkable, that this plane could massively injure the sole American producer of commercial jetliners.

I have spoken with airline executives and employees who have no vested interest in lying to me. While there is a great deal of anger and frustration, I’ve heard zero concern from anyone who feels the MAX will be unsafe. By and large, many pilots believed the MAX could be flown safely in the original configuration.

Once the FAA and other authorities recertify the MAX, there will be no basis to claim the plane is unsafe. An airline could cancel, but Boeing would keep the deposits and may be able to pursue damages.

The MAX is the sole path to growth for many airlines right now. No other viable options for them. So I don't trust the idea that airline executives and employees have "no vested interest" in shading, coloring, or biasing their statements.

Of COURSE they want the MAX back soon. MAX = more flights, more cities, more need for additional employees, more growth.

Those same experts, as represented by their pilots union, call the MAX as delivered by Boeing unsafe:

https://www.seattletimes.com/busines...ax-was-unsafe/

I have a lot of respect for the UA pilots participating in this thread and am grateful for their insights here and in many other threads. What I have read here is (my interpretation) that the accidents could have been avoided if the pilots operating those fateful flights had just done X, Y and Z. It seems other experts (pilots) disagree with that assessment.

I don’t really know which expert to believe. But it probably isn’t uncommon that subject matter experts disagree.

So as a passenger I will have to make decisions when the MAX is flying again. I will deliberately avoid flying the MAX for a while. I generally have choices (one of the benefits of free agents, which I have used to optimize my travel comfort), and if I impose an “observation period” of one year on the MAX, it will likely impact less than a dozen individual flights for me.

However, I will not “panic” when a MAX gets substituted for another aircraft I selected; the risk overall with experienced pilots will be relatively small and likely smaller than the risk of the shuttle ride from the hotel or car rental center to the airport (I recently observed a UA pilot put on the seat belt as a pax on a hotel shuttle, no other pax did). If a schedule change to a non-MAX flight is possible for me, I will request a change. If not, I will fly.

(I will also continue to minimize my use of airlines that likely will have pilots with less experience than bigger western carriers and less rigorous maintenance procedures)

What I am mostly concerned about is that we learn from this mess for the future. How could it happen that Boeing got approval for one behavior of MCAS and then was able to change it? And what are the FAA and Boeing doing to prevent this from happening again? How could it be that a single point of failure AoA sensor was considered good enough? How could it be that FAA tests found additional severe bugs in Boeing’s software that introduced the need for additional changes; why did Boeing’s QA not find them? What are Boeing and the FAA doing to prevent a reoccurrence? Chrisl137 said that the delays in recertification are because the FAA is cutting Boeing no slack. As it should be. Every. Single. Day. The FAA’s job isn’t to cut slack to anyone. Boeing should not ask for slack. That’s exactly the road to the mess they are in.

I care a lot about where my cars are made. I'm not buying some piece of junk made in the USA or mexico; I made sure my Mazda was built in Hiroshima..

Indisputably, Boeing made several critical mistakes in designing the MAX. That doesn't mean that its unfixable(its not an iPhone.. they can take it apart/make chanes..), but certainly more complex. More than the specific MCAS problems, which should be solvable, the joint approach of Boeing and the FAA in certifying the plane has made it much more difficult to recertify. The FAA certainly didn't like getting caught with its pants down and they are going to be doubly sure that the plane is safe during this process. They probably let a lot of things slide that they won't now. I expect the 777X will experience a much more rigorous certification than it would have if they didn't mess up the max.

It would be a massive mistake for Boeing to pursue damages if any airline sought to cancel a purchase of these planes. You have to understand that outside the aviation industry, nobody thinks it's OK to force airlines to buy planes that crash and kill people. Indeed, any competent lawyer could easily not only make the jury, judge or arbitrator hate Boeing, but make the public hate them too.

I acknowledge there is no trust for facts or opinions of a differing perspective.

I don’t think any airline executive is willing to sacrifice safety for profits. While there is a desire to get the planes that have been ordered, I can’t believe that anyone in the industry - including at Boeing - would allow an unacceptable level of risk in exchange for a buck.

1. There's a concept called motivated reasoning, where people believe what they want to believe. So it isn't that people are necessarily deliberately making false statements about safety, but rather they are expressing what they want to be true because the contrary possibility is unthinkable to them because it would require enormous costs to the business while they switch to a Plan B.

2. I also think there's a big difference between Boeing and airlines. Legacy airlines definitely do not want to allow any level of risk to human life as a result of design defect, mechanical problems, or human error. (I can argue that maybe some airlines back in the day, like Valujet, allowed unacceptable risks, but I think the legacy airlines shoot for no passenger deaths from defects or human error and mean it.)

However, I am not at all sure that applies to Boeing. I think the fact that they released this plane with an obvious design defect, which was clearly produced by a MARKETING concern (being able to certify this plane and train pilots under the 737 branding), already establishes that they were, indeed, willing to put lives at risk for profits. And at this point, obviously, the way to get the plane recertified is to convince everyone is safe, so Boeing's incentives are better aligned now, but at the same time, that also means Boeing has an incentive to put out plenty of public spin about how it's just a software glitch, there's nothing defective in the design, the plane is safe, etc.

I think this entire course of events says extremely bad things about Boeing.

Anyone who cares about integrity of sensor data would have used three sensors and would have had the computer flash an alert even if one disagrees with the other two, while taking data from the other two to continue operating. And, they would have told the pilots about the system, as well as what to do if it fails, even if that scenario is unlikely (two bad sensors on the same plane before one gets replaced). That they used only two AoA sensors, had the computer take its input from just one, and made the AoA disagree light optional says all you need to know about their priorities.

The software on these planes, especially if a failure can kill everyone on board, deserves the same scrutiny as the software that runs nuclear power plants. But the FAA allowed Boeing to self certify it, and furthermore, apparently didn't even conduct the proper checks to make sure Boeing was doing the right thing. And then even after JT 610 went down, it allowed the MAX to keep flying, after data started to come out that MCAS had a problem, instead of immediately grounding all of them and erring on the side of caution, as it is their job to do. And then even after ET 302 went down, it dragged its feet and was one of the last major regulatory bodies in the world to ground these broken planes. That should tell you all you need to know about their priorities.

I think the FAA should require all existing MAX planes to be outfitted with three AoA sensors as a condition of ever being able to fly again, and all new planes should of course be produced the same way.

As for what I'm going to do, well, I'm not getting on a MAX even after the FAA says it's safe. The FAA is like a mechanic who told you the car was safe to drive and then 5 miles later you're on the freeway and the wheel comes off or the brakes fail. Why would you trust that same mechanic the next time he says the car is safe to drive?