FBI Criminal Investigation Into MAX Certification
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Might this, at the very least, get both sides to accept they receive government assistances in various forms and put an end to the WTO dispute back-and-forth?
My conclusions have been similar to yours. I wonder how much the long haul narrowbody fight played into this. Boeing were faced with the Morton’s Fork of designing a clean sheet aircraft with competitive range, and sitting out of the most profitable category for the best part of a decade, or re-engine the 737 with manoeuvre differences which would make the Max less competitive in terms of fleet integration and training costs. So they bodged it with the MCAS system.
With the triple AoA sensor as standard, and a simulator differences training requirement, is the Max unsafe? Not with those two requirements - which would have made the aircraft non-financially competitive against the A32X Neo. So they bodged it with the FAA’s consent.
Like BP Gulf of Mexico, they just kept milking and milking, with poorer and poorer management and design teams until the back broke. Simple shite management
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I ask myself the question
Can the B737 max be flown safely with the proposed fixes ?
If so
It's still a competitive aircraft in a fleet mix
So what is left to talk about other than a systemic fix in the certification validation?
and I might add a validated requirement to ensure training of the pilots who intend to fly it
Can the B737 max be flown safely with the proposed fixes ?
If so
It's still a competitive aircraft in a fleet mix
So what is left to talk about other than a systemic fix in the certification validation?
and I might add a validated requirement to ensure training of the pilots who intend to fly it
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Second problem is the FBI involvement and DoT inquiry into the certification process. Those two are no longer concerned about the MCAS, they want to know how it got approved. If the investigation finds that rules and procedures were broken, they may simply revoke the type certification. The investigation of both the cause of the crash and possible criminal wrongdoings may take years, and until it's over, the Damoclean sword of type certificate revocation will be hanging over every airline that uses the MAX. Will they take that risk?
And the third and most important problem is the way the certification information and data was transferred to other agencies involved, namely, EASA and Transport Canada. They have been humiliated by this whole affair because they trusted FAA to give them true and accurate information to rubber-stamp the certification of MAX. Will they be willing (or allowed) to trust the FAA again and rubber-stamp the approval of whatever software changes Boeing suggests? Or will they demand complete re-certification of the type? And if that happens, will they recognize the "grandfathered" approvals? Mind you, we haven't heard much from CASA who, by the way, was one of the first authorities to ground the type. And that organization is very well-known for its "conservative" approach to aviation safety. Correct me if I'm wrong, but they don't even recognize ETOPS ratings.
In my humble opinion, anyone who expects "a simple software fix" is set to be very disappointed.
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I ask myself the question
Can the B737 max be flown safely with the proposed fixes ?
If so
It's still a competitive aircraft in a fleet mix
So what is left to talk about other than a systemic fix in the certification validation?
and I might add a validated requirement to ensure training of the pilots who intend to fly it
Can the B737 max be flown safely with the proposed fixes ?
If so
It's still a competitive aircraft in a fleet mix
So what is left to talk about other than a systemic fix in the certification validation?
and I might add a validated requirement to ensure training of the pilots who intend to fly it
And the third and most important problem is the way the certification information and data was transferred to other agencies involved, namely, EASA and Transport Canada. They have been humiliated by this whole affair because they trusted FAA to give them true and accurate information to rubber-stamp the certification of MAX. Will they be willing (or allowed) to trust the FAA again and rubber-stamp the approval of whatever software changes Boeing suggests?
Lawyers across the world will be having a field day lining up to have a piece of this product liability case.
Apart from the damages for those who died in both accidents there is reputational damage for LionAir and Ethiopian Airlines.
Then there are costs for all the airlines with expensive 737 Max aircraft sitting on the ground.
I wonder how many people will be happy to board a 737 Max after this?
The Deepwater Horizon will be cheap compared to the insurance claims on this.
I’ll bet someone is writing the movie script already.
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I'd think the airlines are desperate to get the MAX back in the air. They've got the reputational damage from cancelling flights, the sky high costs from leasing in adhoc aircraft to cover the routes they are flying, and they are run by beancounters these days then just want the pennies rolling into the coffers, safety be damned. And in Europe we're coming into the super busy summer season when they make the money to get them through next winter.
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I'd think the airlines are desperate to get the MAX back in the air. They've got the reputational damage from cancelling flights, the sky high costs from leasing in adhoc aircraft to cover the routes they are flying, and they are run by beancounters these days then just want the pennies rolling into the coffers, safety be damned. And in Europe we're coming into the super busy summer season when they make the money to get them through next winter.
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air!?) realize that reputational damage will be much worse if their planes start falling out of the sky. And they can't be too desperate - the number of planes in the fleet is relatively low and the percentage is even lower. And of course there are lots of used 737NGs waiting in the desert to be deployed for this emergency. I think in this particular case airlines, maybe for the first time in this century, are actually interested in full investigation and finding the root cause. I may be wrong of course.
I'd think the airlines are desperate to get the MAX back in the air. They've got the reputational damage from cancelling flights, the sky high costs from leasing in adhoc aircraft to cover the routes they are flying, and they are run by beancounters these days then just want the pennies rolling into the coffers, safety be damned. And in Europe we're coming into the super busy summer season when they make the money to get them through next winter.
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Here in Asia it is a 12 month flying season and I pax with all the loco’s.
I am off to Hong Kong tomorrow with Air Asia and returning next week with Thai Smile.
Both, I am happy to say ,operate Airbus fleets.
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There is another issue to add to your list though:
If(f) ET showed similar AOA failure (e.g. constant offset reading) then it is likely that the cause of that will need to be found and resolved. If(f) it is a common wiring fault or ADC fault (i.e. its hardware) then we may be looking at fleet-wide testing and repairs before the MAX flies again.
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On March 27, 2019, the Wall Street Journal cited Rick Ludtke, a former Boeing engineer, that midlevel managers told their staff members Boeing had committed to paying Southwest Airlines -- which has ordered 280 MAX aircraft -- $1 million per plane if the 737 MAX ended up requiring pilots to spend more time training on simulators. The engineer said, they had never, ever seen commitments like that before.
(google Rick Ludtke, not allowed to post links)
Motive to keep MCAS under the carpet? 280 mio off the profit is no pocket change, not even for Boeing...
(google Rick Ludtke, not allowed to post links)
Motive to keep MCAS under the carpet? 280 mio off the profit is no pocket change, not even for Boeing...
Last edited by spornrad; 30th Mar 2019 at 23:37.
Well, its not exactly the same in EASA, but I'm not sure it's better. Applicants for type design approval pay for the agency's certification work. I have no details on how the charges are established, but its not trivial. EASA has far fewer certification engineers than the FAA, though.
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Rick Ludtke, a former Boeing engineer who worked on designing the interfaces on the MAX’s flight deck, said managers mandated that any differences from the previous 737 had to be small enough that they wouldn’t trigger the need for pilots to undergo new simulator training.
That left the team working on an old architecture and layers of different design philosophies that had piled on over the years, all to serve an international pilot community that was increasingly expecting automation.
“It’s become such a kludge, that we started to speculate and wonder whether it was safe to do the MAX,” Ludtke said.
Ludtke didn’t work directly on the MCAS, but he worked with those who did. He said that if the group had built the MCAS in a way that would depend on two sensors, and would shut the system off if one fails, he thinks the company would have needed to install an alert in the cockpit to make the pilots aware that the safety system was off.And if that happens, Ludtke said, the pilots would potentially need training on the new alert and the underlying system. That could mean simulator time, which was off the table.
“The decision path they made with MCAS is probably the wrong one,” Ludtke said. “It shows how the airplane is a bridge too far.”
seattle times: a-lack-of-redundancies-on-737-max-system-has-baffled-even-those-who-worked-on-the-jet
That left the team working on an old architecture and layers of different design philosophies that had piled on over the years, all to serve an international pilot community that was increasingly expecting automation.
“It’s become such a kludge, that we started to speculate and wonder whether it was safe to do the MAX,” Ludtke said.
Ludtke didn’t work directly on the MCAS, but he worked with those who did. He said that if the group had built the MCAS in a way that would depend on two sensors, and would shut the system off if one fails, he thinks the company would have needed to install an alert in the cockpit to make the pilots aware that the safety system was off.And if that happens, Ludtke said, the pilots would potentially need training on the new alert and the underlying system. That could mean simulator time, which was off the table.
“The decision path they made with MCAS is probably the wrong one,” Ludtke said. “It shows how the airplane is a bridge too far.”
seattle times: a-lack-of-redundancies-on-737-max-system-has-baffled-even-those-who-worked-on-the-jet
