Posted on 11/18/2020 5:52:54 AM PST by RoosterRedux
The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday cleared the Boeing’s 737 Max to fly again after a nearly two-year ban, a turning point in a protracted crisis for the aircraft giant stemming from two crashes of its top-selling plane that killed 346 people.
“The design and certification of this aircraft included an unprecedented level of collaborative and independent reviews by aviation authorities around the world,” the FAA said in a statement. “Those regulators have indicated that Boeing’s design changes, together with the changes to crew procedures and training enhancements, will give them the confidence to validate the aircraft as safe to fly in their respective countries and regions.”
Boeing shares were up 6% in premarket trading after the FAA ungrounded the jets.
The end of the 20-month flight ban gives Boeing the chance to start handing over the roughly 450 Max jetliners it has produced but has been unable to deliver to customers after regulators ordered airlines to stop flying them in March 2019.
*snip*
Investigations into the crashes and the Max’s development centered around an automated flight control system that was meant to prevent the aircraft from stalling. Pilots on both flights that crashed — Lion Air Flight 610 on Oct. 29, 2018, and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10, 2019 — struggled against the system after it was activated because of faulty sensor data.
Pilots weren’t informed about the system and mentions of it had been removed from pilot manuals when they were delivered to airlines. A House investigation in September found regulatory, design and management problems as the jets were being developed led to the “preventable death” of everyone on board.
Boeing has made the system less aggressive and added more redundancies, among other changes over the past two years.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
Too bad nobody is allowed to fly almost anywhere
Let the first flight from Newark to Miami be filled with Dem pols on a junket.
YOU GO FIRST............I’LL WATCH..............
In other words, more layers of software to monitor the other software.
Aw, you big baby! Flying on the MAX is no more deadly than catching COVID-19.
My first thought exactly.
FWIW, I flew on one of these 737 Max planes out of DFW a year ago and made it home unscathed. I think the problems cropped up with inexperienced flight crews. That said, I'll take an A380 over anything by Boeing. Boeing's made their planes to cram as many people into a flight as possible. There's zero comfort south of business class.
Finally! My prediction was only about a year off...
Or to Atlanta, to vote in the run-off.
Two weeks after the election they come to Boeing’s aid.
Yeah, the timing is not great for Boeing or the operators.
I've given up on commercial aviation - not out of fear of covid but just because it is such a colossal pain in the backside. There's no-where I really want to go that I cannot ride or drive to.
That said, if I was going to fly (eg. for business) I'd have no qualms about flying on a 737-MAX. Do you think there's a max pilot anywhere in the US that hasn't heard about the issue? That doesn't know if it is fighting you, you can disable it with two switches on the back on the center console? Granted, I'm a little concerned they may have introduced other issues with strap-on software fixes to MCAS but those changes hopefully got a lot of scrutiny over the past year.
THAT’S THE PROBLEM!.................
The timing was fantastic for Boeing! Had there not been a pandemic, Boeing would have been liable to all of the airlines operating the MAX, or were scheduled to receive their MAX aircraft during the grounding for lost passenger revenue.
Boeing was looking at financial ruin based on the contractual penalties for late deliveries alone.
COVID allowed Boeing to show that the airlines did not suffer economically because of the unavailability of the MAX, and Airlines didn't have to make payments on aircraft that they would have just let sit idle.
Sort of a win-win.
Very few airlines can afford to make final payment for them, about $100 million each. They want to, but cash is below critical levels right now and financing has been revoked for many airlines. Boeing has about 400 7237 Max aircraft in storage to get rid of. Nothing would do Boeing more good than unloading them for cash.
“I think the problems cropped up with inexperienced flight crews.”
No, it was bad software that even good crews had problems handling.
If you disable it autopilot, that activated the MCAS system which the pilots were not even told existed. Your answer isn’t accurate.
Newsmax, November 10 — "For 2020 through October, the number of MAX orders canceled, or removed from Boeing's official backlog when it applies stricter accounting standards, stood at 1,043 aircraft."
This is especially concerning when you look at their 2020 YTD total deliveries of all aircraft at only 111, down from 321 in 2019.
Two years ago, I flew out of Europe, into Dubai, and onto Sydney, Australia. The four legs were all in Airbus planes, and I will agree with you....it’s better designed and has more comforts. If you have to be in the air for 12 to 16 hours...the Airbus wins each time.
The problem was definitely not crew-related, it was software, and once the software got into the wrong mode, it was impossible for crews to recover.
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