‘I want to get off the plane.’ The passengers refusing to fly on Boeing’s 737 Max

Accuweather.com ^ | Mar 4, 2024 | Julia Buckley

[EinNYC]

I don't know if this gross negligence stems from cost cutting measures in quality control, using inferior materials, or hiring less than qualified foreign engineers, but this is really scary.

[Red Badger]

DEI = DIE......................

[DarrellZero]

The Max was designed with disproportionate input from bean counters, with predictable results.

[hillarys cankles]

Refer to the boeing doc on Netflix. They did this to themselves and deserve what is happening. Its too bad it takes people losing their lives to bring about change.

[Tai_Chung]

If there is an incident, you could get $1,500 from the airline. The tricky part is to survive it.

[SaveFerris]

[Boeing 737 Max

He got up and walked off.]

I don’t blame him. I don’t want to fly on an A/C that had to have software correct for the fact that the center of gravity was messed up from installing engines that are too large for the plane and had to be moved forward.

Plus the other problems.

[PAR35]

Would someone ping me to the posts from the Boeing social media team so I don’t have to read through the whole thread this evening?

Thanks.

[plain talk]

“If it’s Boeing, ‘I ain’t going’ ... “It doesn’t matter which model, I don’t want to fly them.” “

Good luck with that ... 43% of the commercial planes flying in the U.S. are Boeing.

[9422WMR]

Design change to increase passenger capacity and not have to design a new plane, which would have required all their pilots to be retrained on a new plane design.
So, they threw these huge jet engines which are too large(by diameter) to fit under the wing. Solution was to move them forward. That changed weight balance and required software to “fly” the out of balance aircraft so it didn’t crash. Well oops it did a few times!

[Grampa Dave]

.

[Nifster]

Sounds like the gobs putting the planes together are lazy

[EVO X]

If there is an incident, you could get $1,500 from the airline. The tricky part is to survive it.

I had a puddle jumper airline flight from the midwest to Dallas a few years ago. The plane had to divert because of pressurization alarms. We had a six hour delay for another plane to show up. I got 10K miles accredited to my miles account. If I was an Alaskan mileage customer I would expect a bit more in the way of compensation..

[Don W]

There was a marked decrease in the quality of Boeing products when the head office was moved from Seattle to Chicago.

This is just a further outgrowth of that corporate decision.

[HandBasketHell]

The move comes as critics have repeatedly said that the aircraft manufacturer is prioritizing profits over safety.

When the Alaskan Airlines thing happened with the door, the story going around on conservative websites was that Boeing had subcontracted a DEI company that manufactured the doors. I scanned the article very quickly and did not see that mentioned anywhere.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

None of those things.

To keep up with its main Airbus competitor (on fuel economy), Boeing elected in 2011 to modify the latest generation of the 737 family, the 737NG, rather than design an entirely new aircraft. The 737 MAX was an updated version of the 737 workhorse that first began flying in the 1960s.

This raised a significant engineering challenge: how to mount the larger, more fuel-efficient engines (similar to those employed on the Airbus A320neo) on the existing 737. The original 737 family used low-bypass engines and was built closer to the ground than the Airbus A320.

To provide appropriate ground clearance, <>the larger, more efficient engines had to be mounted higher and farther forward on the wings than previous models of the 737. This significantly changed the aerodynamics of the aircraft and created the possibility of a nose-up stall under certain flight conditions.

(The Boeing 737 MAX: Lessons for Engineering Ethics, 10 July 2020.)

R. John Hansman, a professor of aeronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology:

...in high angles of attack the Nacelles -- which are the tube shaped structures around the fans -- create aerodynamic lift. Because the engines are further forward, the lift tends to push the nose up -- causing the angle of attack to increase further. This reinforces itself and results in a pitch-up tendency which if not corrected can result in a stall.

This is called an unstable or divergent condition. It should be noted that many high performance aircraft have this tendency but it is not acceptable in transport category aircraft where there is a requirement that the aircraft is stable and returns to a steady condition if no forces are applied to the controls.

Boeing's fundamental design mistake was with the size and placement of the 737 MAX engine because of the potential for aerodynamic instability caused by its engine. This is an appropriate design for high-performance aircraft, but inappropriate for passenger aircraft.

To counter this inherent design instability, Boeing installed the MCAS software that pushed the nose down if it detected an unstable angle of attack...but did NOT tell any airline or pilot about the system.

After the crashes, Boeing proposed to modify the MCAS to require that both AOA sensors deliver similar readings -- they must be within 5.5 degrees -- before triggering the MCAS to tip down the nose. Boeing's fix would also limit how sharply the MCAS can tip the nose down -- to no more than flight crew can counteract by pulling back on the control column in the cockpit. The fix would only allow the MCAS to tip down the nose once, rather than repeatedly -- as the current version does -- thus making it easier for pilots to recover.

Note that the MAX had only TWO Angle of Attack sensors rather than three, so the system was inherently susceptible to AOA sensor failure. If the system gets two different readings from the two AOA sensors, which should it use?

In the October 29, 2018, Lion Air flight JT610 crash, the flight data recorder showed that MCAS forced the nose of the aircraft down TWENTY SIX times in 10 minutes. The pilots fought the MCAS all the way down.

---

Bottom line...Boeing management thought that they could compete with Airbus by installing the large high-efficiency, low fuel consumption engines on the 737 in an inherently unstable location higher up and more forward. They decided to do that rather than design a completely new aircraft. They decided to compensate for the inherent instability through software that was not disclosed or trained to airlines and pilots.

It was executive leadership failure.

[Delta 21]

Boeing has been suckling off the gubmint teat for decades. Its systemic in the most valid use of the word.

[OA5599]

I think I see the problem with the MAX program: Boeing hired idiots like this to work on the program.

He couldn’t tell it was a 737 MAX from the window before boarding? I don’t even work for Boeing or in the aviation industry and can spot a MAX from the window. The engine chevrons (and nacelle size/shape), the winglets and the APU area are quite different than the 737 NG.

I think if I was that terrified to board one these planes, I’d at least learn what they look like and look out the window before boarding it instead of waiting to view the safety card after being seated.

I wonder how many incorrect cars he’s sat in when ordering an Uber. Why check the license plate? Just get into the car.

[jroehl]

The 737 MAX software was written by Indians.

[House Atreides]

“ The 737 MAX software was written by Indians.”
*********************

That wouldn’t surprise me at all.

[OA5599]

No modern passenger airliners have engines directly under their wings. Take a look at the Airbus A320’s and the previous generation 737 NG’s engine placement. They are all forward of the wings.

With the statement you made, I doubt you would be able to tell exactly how much further forward the LEAP engines on the MAX are than the CFM-56 engines on the NG.

MCAS wasn’t in response to weight distribution of the larger engines being moved forward. Think about it. Shifting weight further forward of the center of lift would require trimming the nose up. The MCAS only trims the nose down. So you may wish to work on your logic a bit.

Also, the larger fan diameter is for increased efficiency, not for more passenger capacity. Turbofan diameters have increased drastically over the decades. The original low bypass turbofans on the 737-100/200 look like cigars and actually did fit under the wings.

That generation of 737 (“Jurassic”) was supplanted by the 737-300/400/500 “Classic” series with the high bypass CFM-56 turbofans mounted ahead of the wings… in 1984. And then Airbus put those same engines in the same place a few years later on their new A320 family. That’s where the engines go now, even for the big jets like 777’s and A350’s.