Comment by cletus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cletus | Hacker News Reader

I wouldn't be that surprised if the 737 Max never flies again.

So the DoJ has a criminal investigation ongoing. That's one thing.

But the airlines and the families of the victims of the two fatal crashes have standing to sue Boeing over this. This will take a long time to play out. The problem for Boeing here is that these civil suits will have an extensive discovery phase.

All they really need is an exchange like this and to follow the trail. Did a manager bury it? How high did these concerns go? Who was aware of this and signed off on having this system rely on a single sensor?

We're now at the point where single exchange that can be construed as a cover up will kill this plane.

It's absolutely shocking to me that Boeing has played so fast and loose with their reputation in a desperate attempt to compete with the A320neo.

So after all of this, how are we still at the stage this is "jeopardizing" the job of the CEO? Like he should be done. If the ever-ballooning CEO pay packets are justified by the shareholder value they create, doesn't the reverse apply? The CEO is responsible even if he was completely unaware of it because he failed to be aware of it, because he failed to create the culture and management structure that allowed this to happen.

I think it will fly again. I won't be surprised if it takes years and some modifications to the systems before then. It may in fact turn the 737 Max into an overall loss for Boeing due to lower sales and contractual fees owed to the airlines for the planes that have already been sold and re-certifying pilots to fly it

But fixing the 737 is going to be strictly less money than developing a new model for Boeing. The right call here is to fix the issues both in software and possibly with the addition of more redundancies in the sensors. They were definitely bloodied by this but the plane itself is salvageable.

What happens if a 737 MAX crashes? Boeing was confident in their planes when they were falling from the skies, how much more confident are they going to be when they re-introduce it into service? They(Boeing and FAA) weren't even looking into it, they were %100 sure that the plane is fine. How the public is suppsed to know that this time is different?

Okay, they may change the name but if a crash happens the media will roll the ball to point out that this is re-named 737 MAX. Is this still cheaper than developing a new plane?

> They(Boeing and FAA) weren't even looking into it, they were %100 sure that the plane is fine.

Weren’t they looking into it after the first crash already? They had issued the emergency directive with instructions for how to shut down the MCAS system, which turned out to not help in the case of the second crash, but there was already a fix to the software in development after the first crash since the issues with the system were reported at the time.

> but the plane itself is salvageable.

You're probably right. From an engineering perspective.

Would you fly in a 737MAX post-fix? We have an engineering mindset here on HN and so I would expect many of us to answer "Yes". But ask this same question to the general public? How is Boeing going to repair the damage to both it's brand and this plane's reputation, and convince the general public to fly on this model?

One one hand this is probably the most scrutinised plane of this generation, on the other hand its the wrong sort of attention... If they can convince people that the scrutiny is an asset, then maybe it will still be viable.

More scrutiny doesn't help the fact that it's a shitty iteration on a decades out-of-date design, though. A modern airplane that's received less scrutiny is nevertheless still likely to be safer.

the insurers would probably play a significant role here - if insurance rates jump then the plane's profitability and thus airlines' usage of it may be affected.

I wouldn't. That's because I DO have an engineering mindset. A bad platform with tons of hacks to make it work and a severe bug/wrong design hack that has been 'fixed' doesn't imply there isn't more of those we're just not aware of.

I probably would. I'm the kind who looks at the probabilities. I imagine by the time they've fixed this the plane will be pretty safe.

Just ripping out the MCAS and telling the pilots to push the nose down manually at high angles of attack would probably do it for me.

It's possible Boeing would simply rename and rebrand the model, betting that many fliers wouldn't follow the change.

There seemed to be some evidence that they might take that approach based on a 737-MAX delivery to Ryanair earlier this year:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jul/15/boeing-737-...

I don't see how this is unsalvagable, unless there's some other issue with the planes that hasn't leaked yet.

Maybe stuff a third AoA sensor somewhere and add sensor voting. At least read both sensors and complain. But, most importantly, clearly indicate when MCAS is activating and allow the pilots to disable it without disabling electric trim, and train the pilots.

The problem is not to fix MCAS. The problem is are there more questionable design decisions? I personally will try to avoid the plane.

If they're lucky, their legal, HR, and PR teams will manage to contain this before it rises too high in the management chain, throw a few mid to high level managers and engineers to the angry mob, and move on. That's how it's worked in the past.

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