I thought they were grounded?
 

From the article

"the FAA grounded the 737 MAX following two fatal crashes since October but has allowed airlines to conduct flights without passengers to move planes to other airports"

Is the EASA allowing the MAX to be re-positioned? There are news of an IG plane unable to leave CAI since the 12th.

It was Southwest 8701, N8712L, a B-737 MAX 8 MCO-VCV.

From FR24:


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....a91b9ae57e.jpg

Victorville is generally where planes go to die. It has no commercial service.

It didn't get too far, returned to MCO following an engine failure shortly after departure..

Southwest is ferrying its 737 Max fleet to Victorville for storage.

https://onemileatatime.com/southwest-737-max-storage/

Southwest making a commercial judgment - looking to store some airframes in Victoriaville as they think this may take a while - or fling for there to check out another issue on this aircraft.

Wow, shortly after takeoff too, would be interested to know exactly where in the flight path the "engine problem" occurred.

Was it while they were banking shortly after takeoff???

WN8701 reported a right engine failure on takeoff, was given a block altitude 2000 to 3000 feet and took vectors for a landing on 36L at MCO.

After the fire crew took a look at the engine and brakes, WN8701 taxied to the gate, not the hangar.

It's just a flight to ferry the plane to its "storage" place while the grounding still takes effect.

But, there's A HUGE ELEPHANT in the room. The Max 8 engine, CFM Leap-1B, seems to have been failing in a very alarming rate lately...

Incidents of MAX 8 engines failure as compiled by AVHERALD:

Incident: Southwest B38M at Orlando on Mar 26th 2019, engine shut down in flight
Incident: TUI B38M near Chania on Jan 29th 2019, engine problem
Incident: Spicejet B38M near Varanasi on Jan 6th 2019, engine shut down in flight
Incident: Norwegian B38M near Shiraz on Dec 14th 2018, engine shut down in flight

Are these incidents are simply showing a normal "growing pain" for this new type of engine CFM Leap-1B?? Or, it shows a major problem with its reliability/durability??

I thought they were grounded?
 

Here we go again ...

Maybe we could save time - could anyone with verifiable proof that airlines are defying the ban and flying passengers on a 737 Max kindly post some evidence?

Thought not.

Southwest corrects the earlier news reports of an engine failure at MCO ;):

Quote:

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Southwest Airlines said the plane returned to the airport after pilots reported a "performance issue'' with one of the engines.

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https://www.usatoday.com/story/trave...ge/3281138002/

If you've ever taken a plane into or out of maintenance at an airline hub you can see why they went back to the gate, not the hangar. The contract ground transportation company and crew skeds always seem to get lost trying to find the right address for the hangar at a large airport. I've had a mechanic take us over to the terminal in the pickup truck after waiting a while for a ride that didn't come.

There were over 300 MAX aircraft in service prior to the grounding. Figure an average of 300 hours per month per aircraft, two engines per aircraft, that roughs out to 180,000 engine operating hours per month.
I doubt anyone is going to get to0 excited over ~1 shutdown per 180,000 hours on a new engine type. That's pretty good rate for a mature engine type..

My local TV indicated that they ingested debris on the runway. Afterwards they showed people picking up debris off the runway. The last shot in the video showed the plane being towed away (not at a gate)

I suspected that they may have used an inactive portion of the field to takeoff that might have collected wind blown debris. Just a curious point not significant to the Max 8 problems