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MAX 737 American Flight 2555 from Miami to Newark Engine Shutdown

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MAX 737 American Flight 2555 from Miami to Newark Engine Shutdown

Old 6th Mar 2021, 22:25
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MAX 737 American Flight 2555 from Miami to Newark Engine Shutdown

Possible engine oil pressure switch/low oil pressure.
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Old 7th Mar 2021, 04:20
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Any idea of the aircraft rego? Did it divert? Was it one of the aircraft that has been parked up for sometime?
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Old 7th Mar 2021, 04:46
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N327SK according to avherald

Appears to have been stored for over a year based on planespotters info. Was delivered to AA last December. Couldn’t see how recently it returned to service.

The inflight shutdown rate of the Max was already higher than the ETOPS target before this failure.

Last edited by Dave Therhino; 7th Mar 2021 at 05:15.
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Old 7th Mar 2021, 06:51
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Of course had it not been a Max, an in-flight shutdown due low oil pressure would not be remotely newsworthy.
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Old 7th Mar 2021, 13:06
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Flew Boeing Field to Tulsa 30 Dec 2020. Positioned Tulsa Miami 30 Jan 2021. Began regular operations 01 Feb 2021 based out of Miami. 80 plus sectors since.
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Old 7th Mar 2021, 14:22
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David,
Yes I agree, and the standard of journalism really needs to be improved.
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Old 7th Mar 2021, 20:08
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Give the guys a break it is news for the general public . We in the business , know that engine and airframe are 2 different things , not the average pax for which an aircraft is is a vehicle, a whole entity just like a train or a bus. No-one makes the difference between different parts..
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Old 7th Mar 2021, 23:12
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But....
I can remember headlines such as "terror in the sky" and other such eloquent quotes from the media when a mishap occurs. It is also worth remembering that people believe what they read and see relating to the news.
That said, I agree that us peeps in the aviation sector better understand these events.
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Old 8th Mar 2021, 12:18
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Perhaps, perhaps not. ETOPS itself is under scrutiny, and SWA uses (or plans to use) the MAX to Hawaii.
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Old 11th Mar 2021, 08:48
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I flew on 737 (I believe it was MAX) from Hawaii to LAX 3 years ago. And before that, flew on 737 NG from Christchuch to Fiji, then Samoa, then Hawaii - crossed entire Pacific diagonally on 737. I wondered then how this was possible, but it seems it will become a norm.
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Old 11th Mar 2021, 11:57
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The CFM56 is pretty well proven now despite some early issues. It’s probably the most mature engine on the planet, so I wouldn’t have a problem with ETOPS on the 737NG.

The Leap on the Max is based on it, although it has a fair bit of new tech in it.
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Old 12th Mar 2021, 11:10
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aterpster

Another opportunity to remind ourselves that the driving force behind ETOPS is the bottom line, and requires suspension of scepticism about the notion that catastrophic equipment failures can be precisely predicted and therefore prevented, 100% of the time, by removal "just before they fail".

The fundamental premise of ETOPS is that you maintain an ETOPS aircraft to a higher standard of safety than a non-ETOPS aircraft. I have always been, and remain, astounded that otherwise sensible people look the other way to avoid seeing the fatal flaw in that.

To regard ETOPS as a 100% safe concept, you also need to suspend belief in Murphy's Law. Can the industry afford to do that? No, is the short answer. Murphy is alive and well, as we see every week somewhere in the world.

Now, going back to Boeing's problems, it's quite easy to see that they are the product of the same thought processes as those driving ETOPS.

I retired recently, and so am not up to date. But the notion of a 7-hour allowable single-engine diversion time (across the Southern Ocean, I think it was) is truly terrifying. Did it get approval? I don't know, but I found it amazing that it could be seriously proposed and considered, let alone approved.
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Old 12th Mar 2021, 11:17
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Well said Old Not Bold. I have felt similarly ever since the concept was introduced. The rationale was a little more valid back then but we see the trimming of limits, the drive for self regulation and last cent of savings still increasing and there are limits to everything; we just don't want to find it mid ocean with a few hndred people on board.
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Old 12th Mar 2021, 13:46
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Originally Posted by old,not bold
To regard ETOPS as a 100% safe concept, you also need to suspend belief in Murphy's Law. Can the industry afford to do that? No, is the short answer. Murphy is alive and well, as we see every week somewhere in the world.
Substitute "aviation" for "ETOPS" in the above, and you have a statement that has held true since the dawn of commercial air transport.
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Old 12th Mar 2021, 13:54
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A flight from Auckland to Honolulu with the mentioned stops Fiji and Samoa is (for me) not an issue. If I have my maths correct, the longest stretch is the last one which is approximately 2242 nm. However, in between lies Kiribati (6900ft runway) and Kona (11000ft runway). The longest overwater stretch between possible diversion airports is Kiribati -Kona which is approximately 1678nm. Whether it's a B777 or a B737 makes no difference to me.
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Old 12th Mar 2021, 21:30
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old,not bold

You're making the classic mistake of assuming more engines makes the aircraft safer. That's not a valid assumption.
Statistically (and every part of aviation design and operation is based on probability and statistics - e.g. "no single failure or likely combination of failures"), after you have two engines, adding more doesn't help safety.
Yes, there is a small but finite probability that a twin engine aircraft will suffer a dual engine shutdown or loss of thrust that turns catastrophic - and the probability gets smaller if you add more engines. However, there is also a small but finite probability that a single engine failure can be catastrophic - e.g. an uncontained rotor burst or engine fire - and that probability gets larger if you add more engines.
The basis of ETOPS is that - given a minimum standard of engine reliability (e.g. In-Flight Shutdown rates and Loss of Thrust Control rates) - the probability of a catastrophic accident is the same or less with a twin than with a tri or quad.
It's worth remembering that the closest we've come to a catastrophic accident due to single or multiple engine failures in the last 15 years was Qantas 32 - and that was a four engine A380.

Last edited by tdracer; 12th Mar 2021 at 21:52. Reason: Fixed Typo - wrong Qantus flight
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Old 12th Mar 2021, 21:56
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Indeed TD.
But also noteworthy is this;

4th October 1992

El Al Flight 1862 - Wikipedia
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Old 12th Mar 2021, 23:36
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TD Racer - until a few weeks ago I would have agreed with you, but then I listened to Captain Behnam talking to Juan Browne about his FBO on UA1175. Captain Behnam said that the failure happened at 200 nautical miles from Honolulu - if it was 300 the 777 would have landed in the ocean because with all the drag due to the missing parts, he was not able to maintain ANY altitude. He was able, with full power on the left engine, to reduce his rate of descent so he could make it to Honolulu. He talked of 5 stars aligning making it possible for the flight to finish like it did. One was distance - 200 miles - if it was 300 he wouldn't have made it. He had taken a lavatory break 3 minutes prior to the incident in preparation for the descent and had just got seated and lap belt secured. They had a qualified FO jump seater as the plane was full - the extra person able to handle tasks so the crew could struggle to keep the plane in the air was kind of a miracle. There was a dent in the fuselage with materials identified as coming from a fan blade - a few inches difference and it could have taken out a window with resultant decompression. And I can't remember the 5th. Listening to his nearly 1 hour narrative with Juan Browne was enlightening, and frightening.
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Old 13th Mar 2021, 00:00
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First off, that failure wasn't supposed to happen - the nacelle should not fail due to a FBO (reportedly Boeing had a fix in the works for the nacelle coming apart - which apparently was delayed because of the FAA paperwork - which should have prevented the nacelle failure in the similar UAL event in Denver).
But more to the point - FBO is a rare event - something like 10-7 per flight (which, BTW, is the same probability number used for an uncontained rotor burst failure). And FBO at cruise is extremely rare - nearly all FBO events are during TO or initial climb. So you're talking an event probability that is way out there - the same sort of probability that an uncontained engine failure will cause catastrophic damage. Yes, it happened - but so do many improbable failures that endanger continued safe flight and landing. The statistics are solid - adding engines doesn't improve safety. Quite simply there are better places to spend money if the goal is to improve flight safety.
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Old 14th Mar 2021, 17:56
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tdracer many of the arguments I have listened to about ETOPS could equally be applied to a case for saying that 1 engine is as safe, or safer than 2. And there are many cases where additional engines don't help, eg running out of fuel, to name the most obvious.

But you contradict yourself by asserting that "after you have two engines, adding more doesn't help safety," and then saying "there is a small but finite probability that a twin engine aircraft will suffer a dual engine shutdown or loss of thrust that turns catastrophic - and the probability gets smaller if you add more engines". Exactly.

It is a fallacy that you increase the chance of a catastrophic failure by having more engines. Apart from related failures (ie fuel starvation, volcanic ash etc) each failure is a random event. The probability of the first failure is the same whether your are flying with 2, 4 or 8 engines, as is the probability of a second unrelated failure which is, as you say, small but finite. I do believe that the small probability of a genuinely random second failure is increased by the fact that one engine has failed, due to a number of factors that are hard to quantify. For example; if the failure is the result of a maintenance error because the mechanic was tired, cross and under pressure, did that mechanic also work on the other engine on the same shift, and sign off both tasks?

The limiting factor on allowable diversion times was, if I recall correctly, the longest time that a hold fire could be suppressed, nothing to do with engine failure probabilities, and maybe that's still the case. I often wondered if that figure has ever been really tested in all conceivable types of hold fire. Maybe it has, maybe it hasn't. That's a problem with quads also, of course!

By the way; "
First off, that failure wasn't supposed to happen". There you go, Murphy strikes again. It wasn't supposed to happen, but it did because it could.
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