Ethiopian airliner down in Africa

[Ghostdancer]

My information is yes, understand BEA has been approached.

[GlobalNav]

Originally Posted by compressor stall

I would suggest that he got wind of the FAAs intentions after they received some data and announced it just before them.

No doubt political pressure to ground the Max fleet from the president congress was considerable, as was commercial pressure not to from Boeing. The new factual evidence was apparently sufficient to make/change the FAA position.

[HarryMann]

Originally Posted by Cows getting bigger

RTM Boy, a great post. I'm wondering whether this will be Boeing's DH Comet moment, whereby a technological solution to a (possible) problem may be overtaken/overwhelmed by public opinion. The 737 Max may be an exceptional aircraft but it would take very little for the mood to markedly swing in the direction of the A321 NEO.

I see where you're going with that analogy...
However, Boeing were not exactly pioneering a whole new technology almost a decade prior to anyone else as de Havilland were...
in fact you could say they were taking retrograde steps, or at least reactive rather than proactive solutions.

[N600JJ]

FDR and CVR will be sent to BEA in Paris, France

[TRW Plus]

I'm wondering if there was any credibility to the earlier eyewitness reports suggesting that debris was falling from the plane, possibly a luggage explosion and breach. But just as a hypothetical, how severe a breach of a luggage compartment could an in flight plane tolerate before loss of control?

[Rated De]

Dennis Muilenburg, president, chief executive and chairman of Boeing, said: "We are doing everything we can to understand the cause of the accidents in partnership with the investigators, deploy safety enhancements and help ensure this does not happen again."

Many corporates bear little resemblance to once robust selves.
Boeing today appears little related to the Boeing of old.

Boeing has been conspicuous by their silence.
Naturally the in house and external retained legal people advised silence.
No doubt numerous PR people are working the phones and media to spin this.
All with an eye on the stock ticker.'

'Partnerships' were the way the new Boeing outsourced the 787.
Partnerships were the way Boeing 'diversified' the development and build costs.

Remember the roll out? The plywood doors?
Remember the battery fires? Route cause unknown. MIT scientists among many others involved in battery technology concerned long term risk not mitigated.

Business schools have pumped out MBA graduates all focused on the 'cost' and financial risk aversion.
When safety and profit compete, it is almost a sure bet that the former loses.

It is possible that 'partnerships' with this aircraft have compromised the design and certification integrity.
With the FAA extremely slow to respond, cut the 'partnership' line Mr Muilenburg and let the investigators investigate.
With the greatest of respect to the many hardworking employees and engineers this corporate is infected.

Mr Muilenburg, it could well have 'happened again'.
Don't worry though Dennis, your lobbyists are working the phones in Washington, you know the guys who used to work for the public service including the FAA.

You Tube

[PuraVidaTransport]

FYI on U.S. Political system

As chief executive, the President of the U.S. does have the statutory authority to order the FAA to ground any plane he wishes. Without good cause, it could be viewed as an abuse of his power and overruled by courts but that would take time. However, in this case, he could probably get away with it in the 'public interest' no matter what the 'experts' at the FAA (Boeing) think.

[Airbubba]

It appears that a WestJet 8 MAX is one of the first to get a ferry back to base permit. C-GDDR was scheduled to operate WS1229 MCO-YYZ this afternoon.

Instead it seems to be ferrying MCO-YVR (or -BFI for a refund?) after departing about 20Z:

[SLFinAZ]

Originally Posted by GlobalNav

FAA needs to require Boeing to remove this "speed bump." That some alert and competent pilots are able to overcome it is wonderful, but still an insufficient level of safety as attested to by hundreds of fatalities. If it turns out that AoA sense system failures are the root cause of the MCAS behavior, then the AoA sensor system needs to be made more reliable (higher integrity), in keeping with potential catastrophic failures.

I am in no way attempting to defend Boeing or the decisions made specific the MAX series of 737 or arguing with the decision to ground the plane. You summed the issue up your self with the following observation "alert and competent pilots"....would you like to fly with anything else? The underlying issue is the continued degradation of minimum qualifications on a global basis. There are simply is not enough information specific the most recent crash to draw any meaningful comparisons with flight 610 (again my opinion) but there is absolutely no question that the events specific to flight 610 are paramount to understanding the potential dangers the plane presents. So...why has a basic overview of the CVR transcript not been released by the Indonesian authorities? The NTSB gave such a summary within a few days of the recovery of the CVR from the Atlas 767 crash. The silence is deafening and a clear indication of the root cause (again my opinion).

[LookingForAJob]

CNN just reported that FAA based decision on 'black box data' that showed similarities to the Lion Air accident.

[romiglups]

BEA will probably analyze flight recorders: (from their twitter account @BEA_Aero) :


⚠️���� 03/10 accident to the #Boeing737Max @BoeingAirplanes ET-AVJ operated by @flyethiopian / Ethiopian authorities have requested @BEA_Aero assistance for the analysis of FDR & CVR / Any communication on the investigation progress is the responsibility of those authorities.

[4EvahLearning]

Too many pages to read to see if this has been asked before but what happens to the crews that work on these planes that have been grounded? Leave without Pay? Standby Pay? I believe I heard the entire global fleet of 371 planes has now been grounded. That is a lot of affected crews and their families.

[Nil by mouth]

Reactivation

With all of these aircraft now grounded, The Mojave Air and Space Port may see a lot of movement in the coming days?

[Longtimer]

Originally Posted by Airbubba

It appears that a WestJet 8 MAX is one of the first to get a ferry back to base permit. C-GDDR was scheduled to operate WS1229 MCO-YYZ this afternoon.

Instead it seems to be ferrying MCO-YVR (or -BFI for a refund?) after departing about 20Z:

That would require a very fast reaction time by the FAA.

[Airbubba]

Originally Posted by LookingForAJob

CNN just reported that FAA based decision on 'black box data' that showed similarities to the Lion Air accident.

Have the ET302 'black boxes' been reviewed on site or is this just more fake news? Supposedly the Germans said they didn't have the software to read the recorders and the Ethiopians said did they not have the equipment.

[WindSheer]

Originally Posted by 4EvahLearning

Too many pages to read to see if this has been asked before but what happens to the crews that work on these planes that have been grounded? Leave without Pay? Standby Pay? I believe I heard the entire global fleet of 371 planes has now been grounded. That is a lot of affected crews and their families.

They'll fly NG instead.

[RTM Boy]

Originally Posted by procede

They probably confirmed that the aircraft has had to come down in a near vertical nose down attitude, similar to the Lion air case.

Surely that was obvious from the first photos of the crash site on day one; the very limited debris field and massive disintegration of the fuselage made it obvious that the a/c hit the ground at not far off 90 degrees to the perpendicular, at high speed considerably in excess of terminal velocity.

There's possibly some other preliminary data and/or information we're not aware of (yet)? Or perhaps it's what they haven't found at the crash site - eg no sign of other causes?

[Magpie32]

In light of the 737 MAX gounding what happens to those pilots who are type rated on only the 737 MAX models?
Nobody knows how long the grounding will last so when does an airline start to make provisions for pilots to get flying again?

Edit: Just seen the question has already been asked but the answer was they’ll fly the NG instead.
I assume then a type rating on the MAX is good for the NG too?
Surely the NG will be fully crewed and therefore bringing MAX crew over will just impact the NG crew who’ve done nothing wrong.

[LeftHeadingNorth]

So what exactly is the problem with the MAX here? Surely, a faulty MCAS design can't be the main reason for the grounding? Did Boeing redesign the alpha vanes/pitot tubes on the max? The erroneous speed readings seem to me to be the main villain in this drama.

[Airbubba]

Originally Posted by Longtimer

That would require a very fast reaction time by the FAA.

Or, maybe they didn't get the message about the grounding.

In years past I've had a Part 91 ferry permit faxed to me within an hour after an aircraft technical problem. In this case they would also need permission from Transport Canada I would think.

Whatever the case, this Canadian MAX 8 has taken off during the grounding.

WJ8982 is also now airborne TPA-YYZ.