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
#661
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: NYC
Programs: UA 1k
Posts: 144
So, is the United 737Max less safe than AA because it is lacking these safety features? Or is it really true that for UA it's not necessary because their pilots have other systems in place that would detect a malfunction, and would know what to do?
After reading the NYT article just now, I am also surprised that AA (the most penny-pinching airline in the US), would install all the safety features and UA would not.
After reading the NYT article just now, I am also surprised that AA (the most penny-pinching airline in the US), would install all the safety features and UA would not.
#662
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So, is the United 737Max less safe than AA because it is lacking these safety features? Or is it really true that for UA it's not necessary because their pilots have other systems in place that would detect a malfunction, and would know what to do?
After reading the NYT article just now, I am also surprised that AA (the most penny-pinching airline in the US), would install all the safety features and UA would not.
After reading the NYT article just now, I am also surprised that AA (the most penny-pinching airline in the US), would install all the safety features and UA would not.
#663
Join Date: Jul 2009
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Back to the car analogy, do the pilots at UA have any say in which safety options are chosen?
#664
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#665
Join Date: Feb 2008
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Everyone should read this post, as it (a) suggests that even on the "saved" lion Air flight the pilots got lucky, they did not diagnose the issue, and (b) the 737 pilot's response is very honest in admitting that these events don't just happen when everyone is quietly sitting listening to opera, and would be VERY hard to diagnose, let along fix, without a lot of elevation to work with. I will simply say what I have said several times upthread, in the 2010 LH A321 AoA trim issue, the pilots only managed to find/fix the issue because they had 30K to work with. Had they been at take-off, the results might well have been different. This just highlights how Boeing ought to - as part of a TS16949/DFMEA review - identify the issue, and have multiple redundancies to address it.
There is a lot of protective responses on this board that - they/us pilots, etc - would have easily diagnosed the problem. The hard truth is that a lot is going on, and diagnosing the problem on a 737 in particular, and then manually trying to fix the trim, appears to not be so easy.
A key point. Had this happened once, the "pilots should have figured it out" defense might work, but the hard truth is that two sets of pilots (one at a well respected airline, after getting Boeings "new" training, such as it was) did not figure out the issue in time. This is all on Boeing at the end of the day.
I'm going with a few extra cents into the value of each share of UAL, resulting in a few extra $$$ into the value of Jeff Smisik's stake in the airline...
Well then you would be guessing exactly what the Lion Air pilots were looking at, and freaked out about, as they tried to save the plane. So hopefully, UA was relying on more than that.....
Hind sight-bias works in two ways. Here, knowing the problem, one would immediately cut off the system and do the hard physical work of moving the trim (described above by a 737 pilot), but that does not suggest that the failure mode was so easy to determine, particularly right after take off, and for a NEW system that Boeing did not train folks on.
again, this is 100% on Boeing.
There is a lot of protective responses on this board that - they/us pilots, etc - would have easily diagnosed the problem. The hard truth is that a lot is going on, and diagnosing the problem on a 737 in particular, and then manually trying to fix the trim, appears to not be so easy.
But did it really present as runaway trim? Runaway trim presents itself as a constant, continuous increase or decrease in trim. Here it was intermittent. Sure at some point they may have figured out that cutting out the trim was the correct response, but I can see how it might not have been the first thing they thought about, and they didn't have the luxury of altitude to think about everything.
Of course now we have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight to see that the runaway trim procedure would have been the correct response, but I am not sure it is fair to say (at least for the Lion Air pilots) that they should have realized that right away.
Of course now we have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight to see that the runaway trim procedure would have been the correct response, but I am not sure it is fair to say (at least for the Lion Air pilots) that they should have realized that right away.
Well then you would be guessing exactly what the Lion Air pilots were looking at, and freaked out about, as they tried to save the plane. So hopefully, UA was relying on more than that.....
Right. That is why I think it might be unfair to expect a pilot who thinks he may be experiencing unscheduled trim to immediately know to execute the runaway trim procedure.
Eventually he may decide to try that after nothing else is working (and here there was very little time to troubleshoot), but I would think there might be a bit of hesitation about the procedure not being the right one, or even making the situation worse, since it really isn't the procedure for what he appeared to be experiencing.
Eventually he may decide to try that after nothing else is working (and here there was very little time to troubleshoot), but I would think there might be a bit of hesitation about the procedure not being the right one, or even making the situation worse, since it really isn't the procedure for what he appeared to be experiencing.
again, this is 100% on Boeing.
#666
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If the crew was focused on solving the problem that they were previously made aware of, did they fail with CRM (Crew Resource Management) by just being fixated on faulty readings? Additionally, not having enough airspace to work with, only complicated matters. They were fixated on not-crashing. Could they have reached out to their ops teams and asked for help? Or have the ops team reach out to the last crew? We will never know what could have gone through their mind before the crash.
But wouldn't a lot of these questions be answered by the cockpit voice recorder?
#667
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Based on the initial data reported by the CVR, the pilots were frantically scrambling (given the low altitude). Seems like something they did not encounter in sim training and were trying to solve it on the fly.
#668
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Is it correct that we have no data whatsoever from the October 28th incident beyond the brief report by the pilot in charge of that flight? The cockpit voice recorder would have been written over and the data recorder information not retained either, right? What about data from third party tracking and warning systems, such as that which was utilized for the missing MH flight? (Was there a reference to such data for the ET crash that formed part of the basis for Canadian and American authorities to finally ground the MAX?)
#669
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Airbus also has options for additional safety features. You think every airline in the world gets every safety feature available?
#670
Join Date: Jan 2008
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Did someone tell United that the MCAS system only pays attention to one of two sensors and doesn't notice if their outputs don't match so that an indicator to the pilots is necessary?
Seems like the optional safety equipment is only really not optional because Boeing's system design sucks. A critical airline system reliant on ONE sensor?
Thought we learned our lesson after that Air France Airbus 330 broke up over the Atlantic because of Pitot tubes...
Seems like the optional safety equipment is only really not optional because Boeing's system design sucks. A critical airline system reliant on ONE sensor?
Thought we learned our lesson after that Air France Airbus 330 broke up over the Atlantic because of Pitot tubes...
#671
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#672
Moderator: Budget Travel forum & Credit Card Programs, FlyerTalk Evangelist
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#673
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Conversely, we are talking about a form of mass transportation here wherein customers trust that the company and the agencies which regulate it have done what is reasonable to ensure their safety. And what is coming to light is that Boeing and a number of airlines have not done that and instead decided to save money by not fitting what are basically essential features. The question must be asked, why did Boeing even make this an option?
#674
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: USA
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Posts: 1,195
I am suspicious due to the confluence of circumstances but I'm going to disagree with those who emphatically state right now with the information presented on this board and through mainstream media sources that this is definitively 100% Boeing's fault. There's still a lot of information that we don't know yet.
#675
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I certainly WON'T accept that 300 people dead in two crashes five months apart in the same brand new model of plane is somehow "acceptable losses."
I guarantee you that if 100 brand new 2020 Ford Unicorn cars suddenly ran into brick walls and killed their occupants on the same day, every single one of those cars would be impounded and not driven until Ford fixed the problem or took back the cars. That's the closest analogy we have between cars and planes, not the "hey, lots of people die in cars every day, so that makes plane crashes acceptable" ridiculous logic.
Last edited by WineCountryUA; Mar 21, 2019 at 7:55 pm Reason: merging consecutive posts by same member; Discuss the issue, not the poster(s)