Boeing 737 Max cleared to fly again 'too early' | Hacker News Reader

Boeing 737 Max cleared to fly again 'too early'

bbc.co.uk

255 pointsdustinmoris299 comments

> Investigators believe both accidents were triggered by the failure of a single sensor.

Reminder that the 737 was far, far, far more than a "software failure": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19414775

The entire point of MCAS was to mask the reality that the plane needed a recertification due to its inadequate aerodynamics. How are they still pinpointing MCAS as the root of the problem rather than the plane's physical instability?

Didn't they actually blame the pilots initially?

Yeah. But at least initially maybe things were still unclear to some folks. Why are they still ignoring the root cause now?

The criticism of the pilots on HN was hella racist.

Can you substantiate this statement ?

Sure go back an read the threads after the first and second crashes and half the people were blaming the pilots being incompetent because they were Indian and Indonesian. And then same for the second crash. Specifically saying that the planes were safe in the hands of American and European pilots.

It was very disgusting all around.

Blanket statements are certainly inappropriate, but as it happens, some months later it came to the public, that over half of the pilots in Pakistan had not passed the proper tests for their license. The Airbus crash in Karachi was entirely due to incompetent flying, like way to high approach speed and not checking whether the wheels were down.

While the approach controllers share some blame too, it turns out that Pakistan CAA had recently changed the test scheme and a lot of pilots fully qualified under the old regime hadn’t taken the new set of exams which used to be optional

I remember the criticism of flight training in Asian airlines occasionally verging on racism, but the basic criticism is valid: Asian airlines are faced with market pressures that do not allow them to train pilots adequately, and many don't know how to fly an airplane apart from a checklist; their understanding of piloting is in marginal cases frighteningly superficial.

To be honest that's their default position in every crash.

A quick correct pilot action would have prevented both accidents. The whole reason that MCAS, even in its previous certainly faulty version, was approved was the fact, that there is always the possibility for the pilot to stop a runaway stabilizer by using the cut-off switches. Which was done only just before the second crash, but to late and they were flying too fast, so they struggled to manually correct the trim. While the accidents were certainly caused by MCAS activating in error, there was at least a chance of preventing them.

edit: I was labouring under an illusion. Comment left up as a monument to my hubris

***

>The airframe with the engines mounted differently did not have adequately stable handling at high AoA to be certifiable. Boeing decided to create the MCAS system to electronically correct for the aircraft's handling deficiencies.

While accurate, it omits that part of the certification Boeing were chasing was a common type rating with previous 737s on the basis of it having similar handling characteristics. MCAS did not exist because the 737 Max was unsafe, just different.

The reason they were chasing fleet commonality is because it would massively reduce adoption costs for airlines by making expensive training for existing 737 pilots unnecessary.

> MCAS did not exist because the 737 Max was unsafe, just different.

You're saying the plane is "safe, just different" without MCAS? But Wikipedia says:

"The MCAS flight control law was implemented on the 737 MAX to mitigate the aircraft's tendency to pitch up [...]"

I'm a layman but it sure doesn't sound like safe or normal behavior for a passenger airplane to be fundamentally designed so that it "tends to pitch up"... is it? Are there other airliners that do such a thing?

The placements of the engines affected tendencies at some pretty extreme parts of the flight envelope as far as I understood, and MCAS helped make these tendencies similar to the previous 737. I guess an analogy could be that depending on the weight distribution and drive train in your car, it will have tendencies to oversteer or understeer when you go too fast into a turn in bad weather, or something. All cars have different behaviours and tendencies in these extreme circumstances.

So the 737Max would not "pitch up" in most normal flying, this is under high AoA situations, like a tight overspeed banking turn I think.

All jet airliners have a tendency to pitch up under thrust, because of the low position of the engines. The 737 Max has a whole other issue separate from that, caused by the aerodynamic effects of the engines placed far forward of the wings. Airplanes are not allowed to pitch up more unless the pilot applies progressively more and more backward stick force. The 737 Max has a tendency in certain conditions (high angle of attack) to pitch up even when the pilot keeps applying a constant force.

Some people argue that that behavior, without measures to prevent it, would disqualify the plane from certification completely. Others say that those measures are only needed to keep the Max under the same type rating as previous 737 generations. I'm inclined to the former, but I'm no expert so that's certainly not definitive.

This tendency being different from previous versions.

> The MCAS is intended to compensate in such cases [where the aircraft pitches up], modeling the pitching behavior of previous models, and meet a certain certification requirement, in order to enhance handling characteristics and thus minimizing the need for significant pilot retraining.

With proper training/re-certification pilots would be trained in the _actual_ characteristics of the plane, thus being able to correct for this behaviour.

Except Boeing also aggressively pitched that pilots didn't need to be extensively re-trained for the 737

> MCAS did not exist because the 737 Max was unsafe, just different.

That's arguable:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2019/04/02/mit-exper...

https://www.eetimes.com/software-wont-fix-boeings-faulty-air...

The placement of the MAX's engines due to ground clearance requirements lead to a flight behavior at low speeds which would be, if maybe not outright dangerous, at least very finicky if not for the MCAS.

Fortunately, Boeing's fix will just disable MCAS in several new situations and pilots will be left to figure out how to fly the finicky planes on short notice.

The scenarios where it is disabled without a sensor failure are also outside the flight regimes where MCAS should be activating.

If there is a sensor failure, the aircraft legally should not be dispatched (not meeting MEL), so its on the airline to make sure they don't push pilots into bad situations.

If the sensors are more than 5.5 degrees in disagreement, MCAS is disabled. This could obviously happen after takeoff.

This is a common miss conception, planes can behave quite differently, they already do depending on loading. Then you have common type ratings, e.g. A330, A340 and A350 or 777 and 787 which only requires a short difference training to move between types.

The real reason is that the aircraft does not comply with stick force regulations when approaching stalls.

The LEAP engine nacelles are larger and had to be mounted slightly higher and further forward from the previous NG CFM56-7 engines to give the necessary ground clearance. This new location and larger size of nacelle cause the vortex flow off the nacelle body to produce lift at high AoA. As the nacelle is ahead of the C of G, this lift causes a slight pitch-up effect (ie a reducing stick force) which could lead the pilot to inadvertently pull the yoke further aft than intended bringing the aircraft closer towards the stall. This abnormal nose-up pitching is not allowable under 14CFR §25.203(a) "Stall characteristics". Several aerodynamic solutions were introduced such as revising the leading edge stall strip and modifying the leading edge vortilons but they were insufficient to pass regulation. MCAS was therefore introduced to give an automatic nose down stabilizer input during elevated AoA when flaps are up.

http://www.b737.org.uk/mcas.htm

This is the aerospace equivalent of trying to correct boomy room acoustics with an equalizer: Yeah you can do that, but like painting over a cracked wall it wont fix the underlying issue.

And like the painted cracked wall, it might be okay in 99 out of 100 cases, but that one case where it isn't might kill a hundred people.

There are lots of commercial aircraft that don’t meet certification requirements without some form of artificial stability enhancement (yaw dampers being the classic example). There’s nothing inherently wrong with this kind of thing - you just have to get it right.

Out of curiosity, which airliners are like this?

The Boeing 727 is one example where the yaw damping systems are an important feature.

Yaw dampers in general are very common. Most (all?) airliners have them in one form or another. The reason for this is that swept wings inherently tend to increase susceptibility to Dutch roll. And yet we don't conclude from this that it's inherently irresponsible of aircraft manufacturers to make airliners with swept wings.

Interesting, thanks!

Hundreds (thousands?) of commercial pilots flew the Max and none of them even noticed MCAS until the crashes. It seems to have served its purpose remarkably well. The unforgivable sin was the brain dead engineering decisions around not sanity checking the AOA sensor.

I seem to recall reports of pilots disabling MCAS because it was acting up. They would disable autotrim or something, not sure it they even heard of MCAS.

> Investigators believe both accidents were triggered by the failure of a single sensor.

It is kind of like saying that a person was raped because of wearing revealing clothes. So disgusting.

"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."

"Please don't fulminate."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Yeah. Problem is that it is pretty hard to fix such system problem:

- Plane was bad, so they band-aided it in factory, but band-aid keeps falling off sometimes. So planes stay grounded.

- Sure, they can make better band-aid but everyone knows planes are bad designed so it won't help much (even if super safe band-aid)

- Correct way is to rebuild the plane to make it good, but this is/was out of the table - it was already way too expensive in the first place.

And here we are.

The plane was designed with dual AoA sensors from the beginning.

Boeing management made a decision to sell dual sensors as an option package, cutting the base model down to one single AoA sensor per MCAS. (there are two MCAS systems to provide redundancy)

It was already built adequately, the decision to cut corners on safety to try and leverage a small profit was the problem.

Dual AoA sensors as part of the standard option package and providing adequate training to pilots would have prevented all of this.

Source? My understanding is that all MAX have dual AoA, and all MAX used only one of them for MCAS.

That's correct.

One sensor per MCAS means that only one sensor is used at a time, so if it is installed incorrectly or is faulty. The faulty data is fed into the MCAS. This is what caused the crashes.

The more expensive option packages included dual-AoA sensors. Two AoA sensors per MCAS, and then an AoA disagree alarm that would alert the pilot that the AoA sensors are not in agreement.

AFAIU, there are only two AoA sensor total in both cases. But you only get an AoA disagree alert, if purchase an AoA indicator.

https://boeing.mediaroom.com/news-releases-statements?item=1...

If you purchased the option package, it included an additional AoA vane (sensor).

The AoA sensors on the standard model were meant to be redundant, not work together. Boeings fixes are making the sensors work together, while sacrificing what they originally designed as redundancy.

Boeing is intentionally trying to suggest what you are which frames the problem as a mistake

So, everything would be solved (technically) if they can retrofit AoA disagree alarm? I am not sure what is the price tag for such operation but it has to be fortune otherwise they should included it in the first place.

This is what they are working on and what is referred to as the 'software fix' that was done.

In reality these systems were meant to be redundant, and not linked together, so they're taking a sensor meant for a failover system and combining it into a single system to create this 'workaround'

It never was aerodynamically unstable. It was just at some point if you raised the nose further the force needed on the stick got less rather than more.

Is there a term for this phenomenon? When a collective group is obsessed over a “problem” (mcas) which is actually just a symptom of a much larger issue (bad airframe design). I feel like this is happening more and more in our collective society. People are unable to see the forest through the trees at almost all levels: engineering, politics, etc...

Depends on if you think it's deliberate or not. If you think it's deliberate, then scapegoating? If not, then I think it's either what you mentioned (not seeing the forest through the trees) or mass delusion...

Mass delusional groupthink perhaps?

I think several issues are frequently conflated here.

1. Could the 737 MAX be certified without MCAS?

1b. Could the 737 MAX be certified within the existing 737 family without MCAS?

2. Could the 737 MAX be flown safely under normal circumstances without MCAS?

3. Could the 737 MAX be flown safely under exceptional circumstances by a competent pilot without MCAS?

3b. Could the 737 MAX be flown safely under exceptional circumstances by an average pilot without MCAS?

(Note: By competent, I mean a hypothetical "no human errors" pilot. I don't mean to imply that the real pilots were bad or are to be blamed for the crashes; and I am fully aware that systems must be built taking into account that minor operator error will invariably happen.)

As far as I can tell:

1. No, the MAX would not be certifiable without MCAS, due to the requirement that AoA not increase without stick forces increase in certain flight regimes.

1b. No, if the MAX can't be certified, it can't be grandfathered into the existing certificate.

2. Yeah, the MAX would fly perfectly fine in almost all flight regimes without MCAS.

3a. Yeah, even in exceptional flight regimes, a competent pilot could fly the MAX perfectly fine. He'd have to recognise an uncommanded AoA increase and push the stick forward.

3b. Maybe. A mediocre pilot might struggle with the MAX in certain flight regimes, due to its pitch-up tendencies.

Interestingly, a competent pilot could also deal with the erroneously deployed MCAS (recognise the ran away stab trim condition, pull the circuit breaker), as Boeing explicitly assumed.

> mask the reality that the plane needed a recertification due to its inadequate aerodynamics

That's not accurate, I'd say. There was no "masking" going on. I think the aerodynamics are fine, largely, and MCAS was added to fulfil a certification requirement.

I've never been one of these people before, but I sure as !@#$ won't fly on the 737 Max. I no-longer trust the certification and safety authorities. I believe this is in dangerous realm of, "this company is too big to fail and human lives really aren't worth that much..."

I think we need to let big corporations die on occasion, otherwise important things like safety just become factored into the cost of doing business.

So true...time for new administration to reform the FAA altogether.

> I sure as !@#$ won't fly on the 737 Max

Be warned then, when you book a flight, you get no guarantees of what airplane you'll actually fly on. You can be switched onto a different aircraft at the last moment, making your only choice to refuse to board, lost the cost of your ticket, and have to find another flight with the same risk.

Yup. A very fair warning and unfortunate reality.

Luckily I fly like twice a year and it's never a plane that large.

As for irregular flights, I have had luck picking my route and carrier. It's possible to greatly minimize the chance you'll get a certain plane.

I heard some carriers will make special rules to let you refuse.

All confidence is lost in that plane at this point. The more they keep pushing to get that aircraft back on its wings, the less keen we will all be to fly with anything named 'Boeing'

Ryanair, which is by far the world's safest airline, has ordered 210 of the Max, having recently increased their order by 75 aircraft. So there is confidence in the aircraft in industry, at least.

Some call it confidence, I call it bargain shopping.

Ryanair buying thing is no sign of confidence, but a sign of O'Leary smelling a bargain (and of course, the MAX qualifies at this point). He's counting on this being worked out one way or another, not necessarily the MAX being actually a good plane.

which is by far the world's safest airline

Not even on the list:

https://www.airlineratings.com/news/worlds-safest-airlines-n...

Ryanair has a significantly better safety record than all of the "safest" airlines on that list, and have never had a fatality or serious accident, which is more than most of them.

It's own safety rating system puts Ryanair at the same "7 stars", but their history speaks for itself.

https://www.airlineratings.com/ratings/ryanair/

> Ryanair has a significantly better safety record than all of the "safest" airlines on that list

Qantas has not had a fatality since 1951 (Ryanair was founded in 1984); so that cannot possibly be true.

Qantas has had major accidents and incidents in the the time since Ryanair's founding, including Qantas Flight 32 in 2008. There's nothing like that (or Flight 32) in Ryanair's history, despite having far more aircraft and flights than Qantas.

The only competitor in terms of safety record is Hawaiian, which also has a stellar history, but is an order of magnitude smaller.

You may very well be correct; and Ryanair might be a very safe airline (despite not being listed high on the safety rankings). Although that does beg the question of why they are not, but that's not really the point IMO.

But the Qantas Flight 32 is the point, this is exactly what this story is about. Confidence in an aircraft. Qantas Flight 32 was an Airbus A-380, which is exactly what you would expect to hear anytime you heard about serious accidents or plane crash; the name "Airbus". Boeing used to be the safe over engineered plane, while Airbus was a French/German/Spanish hybrid where the jokes about French cars, carried over to the planes, which led to joke slogans like this:

"Take a chance with Air France"

Boeing was synonymous with safety; but now they seem insistent on destroying their own legacy with that MAX/8 plane.

>Airbus A-380, which is exactly what you would expect to hear anytime you heard about serious accidents or plane crash; the name "Airbus"

This [1] seems to disagree with you, searching for Boeing and airbus, there seem to be many more Boeing incidents than Airbus.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident...

That page list every incident of any kind, including things like bird strikes and hijackings, which aren't think I would expect to affect one brand more than the other.

Crucially, this also doesn't normalize to the quantities of planes flying. If Boeing makes up 70% of the global fleet, but only 65% of incidents, then that would mean they were safer rather than not.

Airbus has delivered more planes than Boeing in the last two years but I'm having trouble finding statistics on overall fleet makeups going back further than that.

But the person I replied to didn't talk about overall safety per mile/per plane, they talked about which company has been in the news more for accidents.

Well not 100%, I was talking about reputation. Most brands have certain attributes associated with them, for Boeing safety was one of those attributes. Just like reliability is an attribute you would associate with Toyota, but perhaps not with Renault..

I'm guessing that Boeing's good safety reputation had some root in reality, just like Toyota probably is a more reliable car than many other brands. Renault could be a very reliable brand now for all I know, but their reputation has already been shot, and that can be hard to recover from. Some brands really never recover, and just change their name; like LG did, GoldStar (their former name) was not associated with quality. The reason Boeing is changing the name of the MAX to 8 is similar, but a name change alone will not resurrect their image.

I'm sure at one point Boeing was a very safe plane, since I associate that brand with safety, but today perhaps Airbus is as safe (or even safer), but it's hard to shake off a reputation.

I thought Qantas was the worlds safest airline by far.

Another explanation: Ryanair is a budget airline and was able to buy more 737-Maxes at a very low price, making their already cheap tickets even cheaper, allowing them to increase profit margins and cementing their status as the cheapest airline around even if that comes at the expense of safety.

Either way, both explanations are speculation and we'll have to see how that turns out.

Ryanair do have a history of taking advantage of industry slumps, having put in an order for 100 aircraft with Boeing in January 2002 when aviation had nearly collapsed.

That said, they take safety extraordinarily seriously and would not risk their reputation if they had doubts about the Max.

So there is confidence in the aircraft in industry, at least.

It's also possible that Ryanair believes that a crash wouldn't damage their business significantly. Ryanair competes almost entirely on price, to the point of removing literally everything they can in order to stay the cheapest option. A decade ago they considered removing the seats from their planes (https://www.theguardian.com/money/2010/jul/01/stand-up-for-r...) as well as plans for things like making passengers pay to use the bathrooms. More recently Ryanair refused to remove middle seats in order to help stop the spread of Corona virus.

I would be very reluctant to believe Ryanair believe in the 737 Max for any reason besides cost. Safety is not a priority for them beyond meeting the absolute minimum requirements necessary to fly.

Ryanair is pretty good on safety (my brother is a pilot with them). However they do absolutely everything to push costs down. MAX is a significant saving in fuel, which is one of the biggest costs.

I also expect Ryanair got a hefty discount on increasing their orders for the max

No offense, but your brother being a pilot with them seems irrelevant on whether they are 'pretty good with safety' or not.

Working there is a pretty big bias

I dunno, there's some jobs you see from the inside you think "wow, this is a disaster" but from the outside it looks fine because that's what the company projects. (Anecdotally, a friend of mine gets horror stories from his brother, who's a mechanic with a very large airline)

In Ryanair's case that bias may run in the opposite direction to that which you imply: https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cqwdgxed80gt/ryanair-pilots-...

Who else (short of the CEO) would you consider more qualified to comment on the safety culture in a company?

Pilots seem uniquely qualified to judge whether a company is prioritizing safety or short-term profit.

For example, a pilot will know whether the company incentivizes pilots to overlook issues to make a flight happen or whether it encourages a safety culture of speaking up and staying on the ground when something comes up, or whether they fly with the absolute minimum of fuel permitted or a little bit more (and whether that is a safety issue or not).

MAX is not the only option to achieve fuel efficiency. In fact, MAX is the failed answer from Boeing to the fuel efficiency problem.

Airbus has NEO:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A320neo_family

"After a year in service, Lufthansa confirmed the 20% efficiency gain per passenger with up to 180 seats, along with reduced noise and CO₂ emissions.[26] Operators confirm the 15% per seat fuel-burn savings even counterbalanced by the added weight on short sectors, which can rise to 16–17% on longer routes and to 20% or more for Lufthansa with 180 passengers up from 168 with two more seat rows"

Ryanair only fly the 737 Type Rating, so the A320neo wasn't a viable option for them.

"Launched on 1 December 2010, it made its first flight on 25 September 2014 and it was introduced by Lufthansa on 25 January 2016."

"On 8 September 2014, Ryanair made a commitment to order 100 new Boeing 737 MAX 8s (plus options for an additional 100) for delivery from 2019.[75]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A320neo_family

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair#Fleet_development

I think you're missing the point. Ryanair have only flown the 737 Type Rating since their inception, not solely the 737-8200s they have on order.

The only non-737 Type Rated aircraft in the corporate fleet are the A320-200s that came with the aquisition of Lauda Air, which are set to be replaced by 737-8200s.

The A320neo was never a viable option for Ryanair.

Michael O'Leary will say anything to drum up press. Those comments were never plans - just free advertising.

> Safety is not a priority for them beyond meeting the absolute minimum requirements necessary to fly.

This is absolute nonsense. Safety is paramount at Ryanair - their reputation in industry is that they have the strictest standards of any airline operating in Europe, low-cost or not.

This is simply your own bias showing through.

It's also ridiculous to state that a crash wouldn't impact their business.

>> Safety is paramount at Ryanair - their reputation in industry is that they have the strictest standards of any airline operating in Europe, low-cost or not.

Source?

This shows otherwise.

https://www.businessinsider.com/the-safest-airlines-in-2020-...

That article is the same listicle from AirlineRatings shared by another poster below. AirlineRatings themselves are just a website, not any authority, but their own rating for Ryanair is equal the same "seven stars" they award to the top 10 in that list: https://www.airlineratings.com/ratings/ryanair/

So there is no other source to back up OPs claim that Rynanair the safest in Europe?

The source is their Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair#Accidents_and_incident...

Compare this to any other airline on the "safest" list. All EU airlines are extremely safe - it's a highly regulated market. None have the record or reputation of Ryanair, especially not at the scale they operate.

I cannot see any comparison there.

>> None have the record or reputation of Ryanair, especially not at the scale they operate.

Again, source?

This is simply your own bias showing through.

Yes. And your post is your bias showing through. That's OK though. That's how opinions work. A post on HN that isn't a strict statement of fact is always going to be affected by the posters biases. Discussion forums simply couldn't work otherwise.

Saying someone is biased is not a damning indictment of how terrible they are. It just means they've been affected by, and formed opinions based on, what has happened to them.

It's also ridiculous to state that a crash wouldn't impact their business.

If you just ignore the "significantly" bit, sure.

The idea that Ryanair don't take safety seriously isn't an opinion - it's simply wrong. Their record and policies on safety are a matter of record.

> If you just ignore the "significantly" bit, sure.

Okay, it's also ridiculous to state that a crash wouldn't significantly impact their business.

Your comments on this are so outlandish that I wonder if they're made in good faith?

Your comments on this are so outlandish that I wonder if they're made in good faith?

I could suggest you're being paid to defend Ryanair online, but I can't imagine Ryanair paying someone to do that. They don't care about their reputation enough. Kind of like how they aren't too bothered about how it looks in the media when their planes catch fire or have to be intercepted by fighter jets.

And we could suggest you’re being paid to spread FUD about Ryanair. I hate flying with them as much as the next guy, but saying they don’t care about safety is demonstrably wrong, their safety record is one of the best around. Just because it looks like they furnished the interior at the local Lidl doesn’t mean they don’t have strict maintenance and operating procedures.

> which is by far the world's safest airline

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/06/what-are-the-safest-airlines...

It seems Ryanair does not make it to the top 20 in terms of being the safest airline. Ryanair comes in at the 7th place for the low-cost-airline safety.

It could mean that Boeing are handing out huge discounts, or that Ryanair bets on these planes never making it to market, forcing Boeing to give them a killer deal on a replacement plane etc.

The thing is that most passengers that have read any of the articles about this plane, will never set foot on one of them.

In one website's subjective ranking. However, their safety record speaks for itself - no fatalities or serious accidents. None of the airlines in the top ten listing in that article come close.

> In one website's subjective ranking.

It may be somewhat subjective, and it is probably hard to compare the many airlines that have had no fatalities or serious accidents (reported at least) in the last 30-40 years; like Ryanair has.

But you said Ryanair were the safest of any airline (by far), which seems strange as there are many airlines with similar safety records as Ryanair. Why should they rank above everyone else?

In the end the customers will decide, but hopefully we can avoid another load of customers hitting the ground in MAX (or 8) crash.

There aren't that many airlines with no fatal or serious accidents or incidents in the last 30-40 years. For example, by that measure, the number 1 on the list linked above, Qantas, doesn't qualify, having had two major incidents in the last two decades.

https://airlinelist.com/

I'm not sure about serious accidents, but there seems to be many airlines with no fatalities in the past 40 years. But perhaps Qantas just stays #1 since it has had no jet-plane crash (and no crash at all since 1951). Or perhaps it's the "Rain man" quote where Dustin Hoffman says Qantas never crashes; that cemented their position as the safest airline in history.

Ryanair certainly seems very safe, but with all those new MAX planes, who knows how long that will last.

I do not know why this is getting downvoted. Simply stating facts.

My confidence in Ryanair is decreasing. The only problem that they got routes that no other European airline has and I am forced to fly with them time to time even though I try to avoid them like plague. If there are multiple flights from A to B and there is Ryanair in the mix, the price difference is usually negligible (5 - 10 EUR) and I am always willing to pay that little extra to an other airline which has a decent CEO (not like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_O%27Leary_(businessman...).

Or they ordered it because they got a great deal and because they're only running 737s and nothing else.

Absolutely agree! I wouldn't feel safe stepping on a Boeing Max today.

They've got you covered. They're going to rename it.

https://onemileatatime.com/boeing-737-8/

Brilliant

Excellent move! Who's gonna know that the next "8" crash is actually another "MAX" crash?

Everybody will know, I think the next crash will be a big story, and the renaming will figure prominently in it.

I was trying to be ironic :-)

Indeed, I would never step a foot in a MAX plane. Even if they switched on me in the last minute. I would rather spend extra cash to buy a new ticket rather than fly with a MAX plane.

They have many years of reliability before I would dare to fly with such a plane.

The aircraft didn't break apart or anything. The crashes had a specific cause. I don't discount the story about the need for further investigation, and the question of the organizational culture at Boeing, but you're being hyperbolic here.

Yes. In particular, if you distrust the MAX because of one isolated incident, then you should consider it safe to fly the MAX now. If, on the other hand, you distrust the MAX because of deep systemic issues with Boeing and the regulator, then there is a whole fleet of planes you shouldn't step in now, including the 787 Dreamliner (or at least those built at a certain plant).

Pieter Levels' https://airlinelist.com has the a filter for 737 Max fleets ...

(See the Airplanes category) The fatality odds bring to mind that correlation does not imply causation. But still useful. Also, MCs surprise me. Space shuttle is a bit sad too.

You can quickly check if your flight is 737 Max on this website: https://maxornot.com

Given the scrutiny on this plane, do you think Boeing would be able to survive as an organisation if another one crashes? I'm surprised they're willing to risk it.

The source of this claim is entitled to an opinion but it does seem in the minority.

The failure at Boeing wasn't just some individual s/w issue. It was an organisational problem that caused them to make decisions to expedite release out of a plane that wasn't safe. The question isn't have they fixed the issue or not. The question is have they made the organisational changes to ensure that their complex hierarchy of management can't overrule technical experts about whether safe procedures have been followed. In my opinion, given the timescales and what people are reporting, the same people who pushed to get the 737Max out the door in an unsafe manner in the first place in order to meet over-ambitious targets, will probably have also been motivated to push through sign-off on these changes too.

The question is less about whether Boeing can afford another crash, it's more about whether all the individuals in the hierarchy can afford to tell their boss the 737Max isn't ready- or as is likely, that it cannot ever be made safe in an economical way.

I'm 100% certain Boeing would be able to survive as an organization. Boeing is an extremely large defense contractor and for that reason alone too big to fail.

Yes, the government created yet another situation where it does not matter what happens on the market the company does not fail. This is why capitalism does not work as people think it works, governments actively circumventing the basic rules of markets.

What do you mean "the government created" - some markets naturally have a tendency to create monopolies because they are winner takes all. Governments have to actively interfere with that process and break them up - just look at bit tech.

Come on, which ones are you talking about FB, Twitter, Netflix, Google, MS, Amazon, Oracle, Intel, AMD, Nvidia and on and on.

How many companies does there have to be for the monopoly record to stop?

Frankly at this stage I'd have to say that word doesn't mean what HN thinks it means.

Do multiple cosecutive indictments by the ECJ not prove to you that Google has a monopily? What does it take to convince you, sacret gospel?

Those are for anti competitive behaviour, it's actually not the same thing.

One may led to the other but that's not equivalency. If you want to say Google and other companies may engage in anti competitive behaviour, sure. It's a somewhat subjective line though because most companies are in competition and trying to take or guard share from others, is that anti competitive?

Them being a defense contractor creates a situation where their airplane business can't be allowed to fail for national security reasons. Even if another business takes their place, it will take time to ramp up, which may not be acceptable.

That's the part the government created. There is a secondary problem in the duopoly that is Boeing and Airbus, but the government didn't necessarily cause that (that I'm aware of).

>governments actively circumventing the basic rules of markets.

Influential companies actively lobby for those circumventions, this is part of capitalism.

I think this is the definition of corruption in any other country other than the USA. Your definition is called oligarchy. It has nothing to do with free markets. It is quite the opposite, how to limit free markets.

https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp

"Oligarchy (from Greek ὀλιγαρχία (oligarkhía); from ὀλίγος (olígos) 'few', and ἄρχω (arkho) 'to rule or to command')[1][2][3] is a form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy

> Given the scrutiny on this plane, do you think Boeing would be able to survive as an organisation if another one crashes? I'm surprised they're willing to risk it.

Did you think that after the first one crashed?

If a third one crashes, will your logic become even stronger in the aftermath of that?

>do you think Boeing would be able to survive as an organisation if another one crashes?

The US government will not let Boeing die, even if it should.

In a pay-to-play industry, where Boeing make things other than commercial aircraft, and knowing that American administration, regardless of political persuation, will keep it alive? Sure.

I will go the extra mile to avoid flying on that plane.

You'd be a negligible minority.

Anecdotally, the people I know who say they won't fly in a 737 max in the future and who know how to check (or ask the staff booking their plane tickets for them to check) for that are also the frequent flyers who fly in first class/business class.

I wonder if it might be a minority that is significant to the bottom line.

If you look at the top of the list of Max buyers, there' a lot of low cost airlines. So at least those won't be affected by this type of customer.

What are you even talking about?

I will do that not to protest against Boeing, but to save my own life.

I don’t care if I am a negligible minority in Boeing’s or yours eyes

We're discussing Boeing as a company and their grounded fleet. Sorry I assumed you sharing this was somewhat relevant.

Off topic but sorry about the job, mate.

We were all backing you, but the Roman army rolls on...

The main issue is that both Boeing and Airline companies who are shady enough to buy this at a discount, will also actively re-brand the airplane so that it is no longer named 737-MAX.

As an example, Ryanair already ordered a batch at a bargain price and relabeled the MAX as a new aircraft '737-8200'.

The 737-8200 designation well predates either of the fatal crashes.

I stand corrected, but arguably the point stands that a different designation will be sufficient to obfuscate the '737-MAX' fligths, from any consumers trying to avoid it.

All of the things so far cited as ways Boeing has been obfuscating the MAX name have been things that Boeing has not actually done. On the contrary many airlines are being clear what they are doing to bring back their MAX aircraft, and not trying to hide it.

The -7 -8 and -9 designations have been used since the beginning. The -8200 is a special high capacity -8 with extra exits for a really high density 200 passenger layout that RyanAir wanted. The MAX name is a generational marketing name like how the -700, -800 and -900 got named "Next Generation" and the previous generation named "Classic" at that time.

Renaming it is not going to work and would not inspire confidence, and Boeing knows that.

Do we need a website isit737max.com? :) I would totally use it.

This article has the usual inaccurate reporting, such as:

> Ultimately each aircraft was pushed into an unrecoverable dive.

This is false. The dives were all recoverable if the pilots had:

1. trimmed the stabilizer back to normal with the thumb switches

2. then turned off the stab trim system

> creating a tug of war between the aircraft and its crew

Which is the reason for step 2.

See Boeing's Emergency Airworthiness Directive:

"Initially, higher control forces may be needed to overcome any stabilizer nose down trim already applied. Electric stabilizer trim can be used to neutralize control column pitch forces before moving the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches to CUTOUT. Manual stabilizer trim can be used before and after the STAB TRIM CUTOUT switches are moved to CUTOUT."

https://theaircurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/B737-MA...

Does it matter? They said pilots could learn the difference with some iPad training.

Two planes full of people were killed due to Boeing wanting to save money on their aircraft design.

If the same pilot error caused their deaths, then maybe the manufacturer is to blame.

Yes, it does matter. If the EA crew had followed the two steps described in the Emergency Airworthiness Directive distributed to all MAX crews, they wouldn't have crashed.

> save money

The problem was the poor design of the MCAS system, not its existence, nor the reason for its existence.

The reason for the 737MAX is it has 15% less fuel burn, which is an enormous savings for airline operations, and a big reduction in CO2 emissions.

> If the same pilot error caused their deaths

Boeing is responsible for the faulty MCAS design. Pilot error is caused by the pilots, their training, or their procedures. The whole point of having pilots on an airliner (rather than having it fully automated) is to respond to emergencies.

Right. The poor design that was as a result of cost saving as well as time to market pressure.

15% less fuel burn than what as well? They competitors? Their older plane? Was the deaths of so many people worth that reduction in CO2 for the period of which it was flown?

This article is about it being cleared to fly too early. That's 100% less fuel burn whilst it's grounded.

I find that there's bit of irony in you of all people defending a safety-critical system that can kill hundreds of people if human error occurs during a high-stress situation.

The way I understand it, the pilots only had less than twenty seconds to perform the two steps you refer to; that's fine if they've been specifically trained to perform these steps enough times that they become second nature, but the very point of the MCAS system was that Boeing didn't want clients to pay for additional training. In a high-intensity situation, when the aircraft does something unexpected and the pilots have no time to consult the manual, it's really easy to forget one bit of the manual if it hasn't been drilled into you.

> the pilots only had less than twenty seconds to perform the two steps you refer to;

The LA crew battled it for 5-6 minutes, bringing the trim back to normal with the electric trim switches 25 times. All they had to do was then turn the cutoff switches.

The EA crew for a couple minutes, bringing the trim back to normal twice. The trim activated again, and this time they turned off the trim while the stab was hard over. I.e. they performed the steps backwards.

> the pilots have no time to consult the manual

This is why stab trim runaway is a "memory item". They're supposed to have it memorized. It's not complex, either. It's bring the trim back to normal, then turn it off.

> if it hasn't been drilled into you

Being a memory item means it's supposed to be drilled into you.

> the very point of the MCAS system was that Boeing didn't want clients to pay for additional training

Stab trim runaway procedure is the same regardless of MCAS causing it or some other reason with the older 737.

> defending a safety-critical system

I'm emphatically not defending a safety-critical system that was far too susceptible to failure. I'm saying that the MCAS failures were recoverable by a crew that followed runaway trim procedure. This is especially true for the EA crew that received an Emergency Airworthiness Directive that laid out the two step process.

Consider an analogous situation. An airplane catches fire. This is NEVER EVER EVER supposed to happen. Even so, the airplane has fire extinguishers aboard and procedures for dealing with fire. I expect crews to be trained in how to deal with the fire, and to be proficient at it.

Every accident has multiple causes. All of them need to be addressed to make flying safe.

Fair enough. This isn't the way I saw it presented before.

The final Indonesian Accident Investigation Report shows that the flight previous to the crashing LA one experienced the same problem. But they trimmed the stabilizer back to normal and then turned off the stab trim system, and landed safely.

http://knkt.dephub.go.id/knkt/ntsc_aviation/baru/2018%20-%20... page 174

That's true, though IIRC there happened to be an extra pilot in the cockpit that identified the issue.

Obviously, that is not something one should rely on.

Furthermore, pinpointing the issue is not trivial. The crew had a whole slew of EICAS messages and callouts to handle. Clearly, the fact that another machine came down even after this accident chain and the Emergency AD was publicised shows that the "revert trim to neutral and activate the stab trim cutout" checklist items were insufficient.

> that is not something one should rely on

Dealing with runaway stabilizer trim is something one should be able to rely on the pilot to do. The cutoff switches are deliberately placed prominently on the center console. They are supposed to be a "memory item", meaning shouldn't need a checklist.

There's clearly a training problem.

> the Emergency AD ... insufficient

Please read the bit I quoted. Neither crew followed that 2 step process. Both the LA and EA crews restored normal trim multiple times. Both failed to cut off the trim system after restoring normal trim. The LA crew that safely landed restored normal trim and then cut off the trim system.

These are not my opinions, they're facts.

I agree that none of these accidents would have happened if the crew had rapidly identified the problem, neutralised stab trim, and then switched the stab trim cutout. Yet the two accidents did occur.

You know enough about aviation to understand that the entire system ought to be analysed in case of accident. Saying “pilot error” and blaming the pilots (who conveniently cannot object) is insufficient in preventing further problems.

Pilots, one of them being Chesley Sullenberger, have a differing opinion:

https://www.npr.org/2019/06/19/734248714/pilots-criticize-bo...

If I had to trust one person to have an honest and balanced opinion in this debacle, it's him.

Edit (added these sentences): from my limited knowledge, the worst problem was that Boeing changed the trim-cutout switches (https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boein...), which rendered past (assumed) knowledge of how to disable MCAS if shit hits the fan obsolete. Imagine you're in panic, realizing you've got the same problem as another plane which just recently crashed, try to disable MCAS by turning those switches and what happens doesn't match what you expect. I'd have a hard time keeping cool.

What I wrote are facts, not my opinion.

I read his opinion. He was not certified to fly the MAX, and hadn't flown a 737 in a decade or so. He was an Airbus pilot.

The dives were recoverable up until they weren't.

Good luck getting the airline industry going after the pandemic with a liability like the 737 Max in their fleets.

Getting the airline industry going again will definitely be tough.

I think that having the 737 MAX on the fleets will really make very little difference to the majority of customers, who book holidays based on destination and price. Many will be concerned about the MAX incidents and Boeing sharp practices, but not enough to hurt the airlines running them

I'm not so sure. I think this depends on the price difference between a flight with a Boeing and any other plane. Almost everybody has heard from the issues with Boeing, and if they can spend a few $ more to "feel safe", quite a few will do so I suppose. And with the already very small margins in the large-volume-budget-price segment, it'll be hard to reduce prices even more to counter that effect.

As soon as Boeing stays out of news for some period of time or if another airliner brand has a significant, newsworthy accident it will be forgotten though, I'd guess.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/westjet-boeing-max-1.588434...

The problems with this jet are institutional. Boeing is a menace to public safety.

It looks like they still have the element of greed in their ranks that lead to this fiasco. At this point I feel that everyone involved in this project from top to bottom should be sacked and they should dispose of 737 Max plans and start over with a completely new team.

I'd love to see the same, but I'd also think that the institutional knowledge and experience this would lose on (safe?) aircraft design and manufacturing would probably be many more steps backwards.

anyone got any details of what changes Boeing needs to make in order to fly a 737Max again ?

I have read SW update, but also ongoing changes. It looks like there are others changes in the pipeline, but the 737Max can fly without these changes.

This is basically scaremongering at this point. The system that failed is well understood now, and the whole aircraft has been scrutinized.

But no, let's dump all these planes. Very ecological.

Let's do a complete redesign using a new parts. Because those won't have any problems.

The system that failed is well understood. Have the mechanisms in the organisation that allowed for such a failure-prone system to be installed and cleared for production been changed?

That's the opaqueness of all of this that bothers most, yeah, as an engineer I can say with some confidence that this specific problem has been thoroughly dissected and analysed. What about the issues that aren't in the engineering-realm but in the business-realm? Have processes that allowed this failure to happen been fixed? Where was the root cause?

> Have processes that allowed this failure to happen been fixed?

I'm pretty sure they also screwed up somewhere else. Most undergraduate engineers would not control a plane with a single sensor.

It's completely ridiculous and it was definitely a management decision to do that (there have to be somewhat decent engineers at boeing, because they build planes after all).

If you do something so fundamentally wrong, chances are you screwed up more than once...

> The FAA, meanwhile, insists it only approved the return to service of the Max, following a "comprehensive and methodical safety review process"

Trust in FAA has been broken so no matter what they say it’s difficult for people to be convinced

a nice trick on your mind, to make your bowels shift when you fly on a Boeing plane. look up it's safety record while you're on the taxi. 777 can be quite a shocker. they usually break in half.

We need a website which will list all airlines which have at least one 737 Max in stock or on order and make it easy for customers to find out what % of the fleet is the 737 Max, so customers can take that into account when booking flights and so that airlines know that having a Boeing 737 Max has a direct negative impact on their sales figures.

Even if Boeing truly fixes the plane, they should never get away with this. The sheer ignorance and negligence which led to the unnecessary death of so many passengers is mass murder in my eyes.

You can usually see the aircraft being flown when booking a ticket.

They can change it last minute and will certainly do so if they know that people look for it during booking. I rather book only with airlines which don't even have a 737 max in their hanger.

Many airlines will have a fleet page like this one [1] so you can tell exactly how many they have of each model/variant.

If somebody less busy than me wants to find all these and scrape them into a "howmany737maxesdoesyourairlinehave.io" app, knock yourself out.

[1] https://www.lufthansagroup.com/en/company/fleet.html

It may be rational to try to minimise your use of the Max, particularly if you fly frequently (though not convinced myself). But I think it is irrational to refuse to board the plane on the rare events when there is a last minute change of plane.

Even before the fixes, the accident rate relative to the flight hours was extremely low. Unacceptably high for the crew flying these all year long, but not something worth worrying about for an occasional flyer. Worrying about it after the fix is worrying about “winning the jackpot at the national lottery” level of low probabilities. There are many other things you will do during that day that carry orders of magnitude more risk to hurt or kill you.

If you fly a few times a year, the flight crew only spend 1-2 orders of magnitude more than you on the plane. That's not enough to move a risk from "unacceptably high" to "national lottery" levels.

"National lottery" is after the fix. "Unacceptably high" was before the fix.

> Even if the odds are low, it's still an unnecessary additional risk of dying. You can't avoid all risks in live but not flying a 737-MAX shouldn't be too hard.

It has the additional benefit of not supporting an obnoxious corporate culture....

> There are many other things you will do during that day that carry orders of magnitude more risk to hurt or kill you.

Indeed, the additional driving you might end up doing (if you reschedule your flight for a different day, for instance) is likely much more dangerous than boarding the plane.

You'll see "737" or "737-8200" or somesuch. There are reports airlines are hiding this info.

Usually airlines fly the same plane on a given route. Just look on any flight tracking website the model of the plane flown the current day or week for that flight number, it will give you a very good indication.

This page already goes a long way to fulfill your requirements: https://www.planespotters.net/special/boeing-737-max-groundi...

...however, if you don't want Boeing to "get away with it", you should boycott all their planes. Not saying we should do that though, because if Boeing goes out of business, we would be left with just one major manufacturer of passenger jets, and that's never a good thing. Already the Max issues are at least in part a result of the existing duopoly and US authorities being too lenient with Boeing because they don't want to disadvantage it against Airbus.

That's a pretty odd take when Boeing airplanes have superior safety ratings than their Airbus counterpars for the most part if we exclude the 737-Max variant. I need to find sources, I am writing from memory.

I understand the situation with 737-Max safety, Boeing entirely deserves it. But, I think we should also look at the data as well and hold off on knee-jerk reactions.

Edit: http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm

Airbus seems safer from your link?

They never had a crash on any of their newer models, A380, A350 and neo variants. The vast majority of flights are performed in 737s and A320 variants and the crash rate is 0.09 for Airbus vs 0.24 for Boeing.

[edit]: actually excluding planes produced before the 737NG in 1984 and the 737 max, the 737 crash rate is 0.11 which is still slightly higher than Airbus.

Your link disagrees with your conclusion?

Do you mean the 0.07 "fatality rate" for Boeing 737-600/700/800/900 vs. the 0.09 for the A320 family? I would say they are both very safe aircraft, but I wouldn't read too much into the 0.02 difference, because that includes accidents like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525 (where the copilot intentionally crashed the plane) or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522 (which was 100% due to human error)

> which was 100% due to human error

Not sure how familiar you are with the airplane industry but nothing is ever "100% due to human error" in these events. We know humans are controlling these planes and the equipment can always gets better. Usually it comes down to UX, checklists and more to have multiple stopgaps to prevent issues. Just a quick scan of the Flight 522 page shows there were in fact many UX issues like why can you take off when the pressure system is turned to manual? Forcing a manual override if so would have helped. Same alert sound was also used for "take-off configuration warning" and "cabin altitude warning", leading to the pilots making the wrong decision. Attributing Flight 522 to only human error is not what the courts did (check the "Lawsuits and criminal proceedings" section in the page you linked) so not sure why you would.

Ok, if you want to get into the details of this particular accident... it can be argued that UX issues made it easier for the pilots to make the fatal mistake they made (and the lawyers representing the victims' families of course made that argument, because going after Boeing is far more promising than going after a small airline which declared bankruptcy soon after the accident), but in the end it was still human error. Aircraft are complex systems which can't be made 100% foolproof, that's why they are flown by qualified and trained pilots who have checklists for things that have to be done before take-off, and one of them was checking the pressurization system ("the flight crew overlooked the pressurization system state on three occasions: during the pre-flight procedure, the after-start check, and the after take-off check").

...and the courts ultimately had nothing to do with it, because the suit against Boeing was settled out of court. Which is not an "admission of guilt" on the part of Boeing, just "give them some money to make this unpleasant thing go away".

I appreciate your point about nothing ever being "100% due to human error", especially in regards to air travel. I recently read "The Design of Everyday Things", a book that devotes a lot of its time to discussing this same principle. We should blame the UX wherever possible before assigning any blame to the individual.

> because that includes accidents like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525

> He had set the autopilot to descend to 100 ft (30 m) and accelerated the speed of the descending aircraft several times thereafter.

That could have been avoided if the autopilot refused to crash the air plane. To be fair, I bet Boeing's autopilot also accepts commands to crash the plane. However this accident could have been avoided if the autopilot had refused to comply with an obviously deadly commands.

I'm skeptical that an AI for airplanes exists that can distinguish between "obviously deadly commands" and "trying to rescue the plane during a mechanical emergency".

A hypothetical system would actually function almost exactly the same as the much derided MCAS. If angle of attack sensors indicate an inappropriate angle of ascent/descent, overcompensate for or override the pilot inputs.

As we've learned at great cost, angle of attack sensors are wrong more often than pilots are homicidal though, which is part of the reason why the form of intelligence used to deter and attempt to prevent obviously deadly pilot actions is a lump of meat called a copilot.

> a lump of meat called a copilot.

Looks like that's how they fixed the issue.

> aviation authorities in some countries implemented new regulations that require two authorized personnel to be present in the cockpit of large passenger aircraft

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525#Regula...

An A320 already does much more crash-prevention than a 737 because of its FBW system. It’s impossible to stop someone who’s determined to crash the plane unless you make it fully autonomous.

You're onto something, keep on thinking about it...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lufthansa_Flight_2904

Please excuse the snark, but there is more to flight safety than a Hacker's "AI's the best"-mentality. We actually have a lot of experience gathered from accidents and non-accidents how these systems should behave in a general sense, and "overriding pilot-input" has proven not to be a good idea.

The discussion above was about details and UX.

I'm much more concerned by the operator than the aircraft on proven planes. Air France for example -- landing in Syria in a civil war due to a backup plan that prioritised money over safety [0], pilots ignoring stall warning for nearly a minute [1].

The Max does concern me about Boeing planes goign forward, but existing airbus and boeing planes are fine.

[0] https://www.independent.ie/life/travel/travel-news/air-franc...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447

If you'd read the website you linked more carefully, you'd see the reason:

>Also excluded are aircraft models have no fatal events involving airline passengers:

>Airbus: A220, A319neo, A320neo, A321neo, A340, A350, A380

A300 and A310 are old planes, not in service in reasonable airlines.

> Not saying we should do that though, because if Boeing goes out of business, we would be left with just one major manufacturer of passenger jets, and that's never a good thing.

This is a strong argument to work with Boeing to correct both the engineering and company cultural issues that produced an aircraft that kills their customers' customers. What's happening now seems like the time elapsed in the penalty box for bad behavior and now they are back on the ice. As you've stated, Boeing is too important to go out of business. Should a crash happen in the western world they'll long for the difficulties and corrective opportunities they face now.

> Boeing is too important to go out of business.

I hear this a lot and I get it, but I'm not so sure it's true. If Boeing dies, their assets don't just evaporate with them. There are half a dozen companies in the US who could take over where they left off - hopefully with better leadership this time around.

> There are half a dozen companies in the US who could take over where they left off

Like who? Lockheed maybe? I'm not sure they'd be willing or able to take over without the US government stepping in with some serious incentives though.

Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, General Electric, Northrop Grumman, and Honeywell all spring to mind. Most of those companies do not presently manufacture entire aircraft, but they're all in a position to do so if they acquired only a fraction of Boeing's assets. Raytheon Technologies in particular already makes engines, avionics, and interior systems. All they'd need is a manufacturing plant to assemble everything onto a fuselage.

Boeing and Lockheed Martin get a lot of name recognition for handling the high-level design and manufacturing of aircraft. But in reality, their planes are an amalgamation of engines, avionics, and interior systems which are often contracted out to other companies like those I listed. Many of them could step up and fill Boeing's shoes if a good deal presents itself - especially if there was extra incentive seeing as it would be a matter of national interest.

> if Boeing goes out of business, we would be left with just one major manufacturer of passenger jets, and that's never a good thing.

Comac is getting to a point where it can give serious competition. This is corroborated by the fact that US has already established sanctions against them [1].

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-comac-military-...

Comac C919 is not even in service yet. Sanctions are probably because of alleged IP theft:

https://www.economist.com/gulliver/2018/11/05/america-accuse...

They are slated to deliver in late 2021. And you and I both know their competitive edge is not coming from being good, its coming from being Chinese. China is a pretty big market and they will definitely favor Comac.

I will reserve my comments about IP theft.

C919 use CFM engine why they try to steal something they buy?

> why they try to steal something they buy?

Because they can’t manufacture it yet but are trying to learn to.

Because China wants to be able to manufacture everything so that they are beholden to no one. Seize the means of production as it were.

Most of China's innovations in aircraft stem from the fact that they lack the advanced metallurgy and engine manufacturing chops to make powerful engines. Their equivalent to the Blackhawk helicopter uses an advanced fly-by-wire system instead of heavy hydraulics systems because they can't produce an engine powerful enough to meet operational requirements and have hydraulic controls.

Comac was worth mentioning, I think. I hadn't heard of it and I appreciate being informed.

However, currently the "third largest producer of civil aircraft, after Boeing and Airbus" (Wikipedia) is Embraer. British Airways uses the Embraer 170 for some European flights: only 76 passengers, but Embraer also sells some larger planes, up to 146 passengers.

> "third largest producer of civil aircraft, after Boeing and Airbus" (Wikipedia)

Is that By number of planes?

JetBlue flys Embraer 190s in the USA for shorter haul trips as well. Single aisle 2x2 type configuration.

I doubt Comac airplanes will be allowed to land in any european or american airports.

Why do you say that? I understand America has sanctions since a week or so ago, do you expect Europe to comply to them?

> if Boeing goes out of business, we would be left with just one major manufacturer of passenger jets

The former US president certainly helped with that, as his misguided tariffs on aluminium killed Bombardier's C-Series plane. Bombardier had to _give_ it to Airbus so it had a chance to see the light of day. It's now known as the A220.

I was under the impression that had more to do with this episode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSeries_dumping_petition_by_Bo... - basically Boeing complained that Bombardier was selling the CSeries at dumping prices, the US International Trade Commission agreed and threatened additional duties on the imported planes, so Bombardier partnered up with Airbus to be able to (partly) build the planes in the USA and thus avoid paying the additional tariffs.

Yeah, Boeing was complaining that Bombardier was receiving subsidies (which it did, at great expense to Québec taxpayers), while it was receiving many times that amount in subsidies as well from the US gov.

> US International Trade Commission agreed

If you think that wasn't from political pressure, I have a bridge to sell you.

The ruling didn't hold up in court.

What's interesting is how Trudeau immediately bowed down to Trump. All he did was to basically threaten to not buy Boeing fighter jets and instead get f35 from Lockheed (which he was contractually obligated to anyways).

I still don't understand why he reacted so submissively to Trump. Having the CSeries sold to Airbus at a huge discount was foolish: The plane already had a profitable amount of orders. Now Europeans are reaping the benefits.

Why didn't he step up?

The tariffs really struck me as contradictory to their intent. They said the tariffs would bring factory jobs back to America, but they seemed specifically designed to make most manufacturing more expensive.

Most finished products weren't taxed but raw materials were. So if someone wanted to setup a TV factory it would cost more to import the necessary parts.

>The tariffs really struck me as contradictory to their intent.

Welcome to the post-1980 Republican party.

> Most finished products weren't taxed but raw materials were.

This is kind of a simplistic summary. The tariffs were targeted to ensure certain industries remain solvent in the US so we're not dependent on foreign imports. In some cases, that meant products farther down the manufacturing chain, and in others, closer to the source.

For example, steel was one of "raw materials" we targeted. We might not be so concerned about finished products using steel at the moment (e.g. cars), but we want to ensure we can create tanks and fighter jets in wartime. So you'd expect we would tariff imported steel, but not cars, because the cost of the steel in a modern car (which is more than half its weight) is not that significant compared to the other components.

Bombardier has a long history of incompetence. Just google "Bombardier delays" or "Bombardier defects". They have been bleeding money for years and sucking up billions in corporate welfare to stay afloat.

Oh, no need to google here; I have some friends that worked there that have confirmed this on multiple occasions. It's just frustrating as a Québec taxpayer to see this plane program bailed out from Bombardier's incompetence with my tax money, only for the US & Boeing to force it to be given to Airbus. I feel like we really got shafted in that saga.

Québec taxpayers actually made money with the deal, strangely enough.

Bombardier basically split the CSeries program from it's main division and placed all assets (factories, IP for the plane) in a separate company. The government then invested in that company and got shares in return. So it's really more like VC.

These shares also get a part of the profits from the CSeries and the government can sell them if it wishes.

Rail or airplanes? The two companies have been distinct for many years now.

Rail projects are a political nightmare, as every buyer is a government (municipal, state, national) and wants their rail equipment to be manufactured in their jurisdiction. So they can make a big announcement that the X millions they just paid is actually creating good jobs. Then a few years later the job dries up for a designated site (project completed) so the local government keeps bailing it out else they'll get voted out for getting rid of all these jobs!

Plus, of course, every project is custom hardware. And is long enough that it will span at least two municipal, state or national administrations so expect a feature creep/change of requirements in the middle.

I'd choose to fly on a 737 Max over any other plane, personally. Because no other plane in operation has ever received the amount of scrutiny the Max has.

I don't like seeing comments like this downvoted, especially with zero comments responding to it.

It seems a totally legitimate viewpoint, even if it's one that many of us disagree with.

Downvoting just to signal disagreement is against the guidelines, isn't it?

Reddit have the same rule and see how that is going. No one should be able to downvote. Only upvotes are needed.

HN is not Reddit

Strawman, no one said HN is reddit.

Very reddit-like comment for someone saying HN isn't reddit though.

Ok, guilty as charged, though I'd say my comment is valid all the same!

It isn't.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314

Ok, now that I've checked, I'm the one who broke the guidelines by commenting on downvoting. Sorry!

I applaud your faith in Boeing and the authorities, but the article we are commenting on gives some pretty believable arguments that the scrutiny may not have been in fact enough...

"Received a lot of scrutiny" != "Is actually safe/problems all fixed because of said scrutiny".

Aviation is like software. "Safe" just means redundancies and failsafes. No plane is 100% safe because no plane has experienced all possible edge cases. Usually when a plane encounters a mechanical failure or experiences an incident (whether that be a crash or something less serious), it's because the plane was operating in a case that had never been considered or encountered before.

So no, I don't think every conceivable problem has been worked out because that's an impossibility. Unknown unknowns of aviation prevent that from ever occurring.

However, this plane in particular has had multiple independent regulators and thousands of independent pilots involved in the process to clear it. Additionally, pilots will receive new Max-specific training on the MCAS software so they'll be more aware of it and its operating modes from now on.

I would fly on a 737 Max and I'd have no problem taking family with me. You're more likely to be in a car accident by a substantial margin.

Safe does not mean redundancies and failsafes.

Back in the days, when we had much simpler systems, and the primary type of safety problem was component failure. Then yes, safety was about redundancies and failsafes. That is actually fairly easy: bring me a list of all components and I can come up with reasonable redundancy schemes for them.

Modern systems (including the operation of commercial airliners) are generally already built with reliable and redundant components. Safety problems tend to arise in the interaction between subsystems. That is a problem that can't be redundancied away.

That is also why it's close to impossible to work out every conceivable problem, as you say. The number of components is comparatively small compared to the number of ways in which subsystems interact. Especially considering some of those subsystems are in fact humans.

>Because no other plane in operation has ever received the amount of scrutiny the Max

From this article(reality might be different) it seems to me that only MCAS related stuff was investigated and issues like the ones reported were dismissed that are not related so we should assume that other investigations were already done for those issues and nothing major was found.

We have no idea if the scrutiny resulted in the plane actually being safe or if the agencies rubber stamped it yet again.

It was tested by thousands of independent pilots, though. That doesn't mean it's "safe" but then you haven't defined what "safe" means to you. To me "safe" means extremely unlikely to encounter any incidents, not impossible.

We have the same definition.

My issue is that the FAA already rubber stamped this once. They've lost any credibility they have with regards to this plane.

As the other agencies I have no idea if they're susceptible to the same influence that caused the FAA to rubber stamp this the first time around.

Nice. And because of people like you boeing gets away with what they did...

PS: I want to add why i think they shouldn't.

Using a single sensor to control a plane is a mistake, which not even an undergraduate engineer would do. There is no way this was just accidentally badly designed.

They made this on purpose to change lives for $$

No. Initially, MACS was conceived with insufficient control authority to endanger the plane. It was therefore classified as insufficiently critical to necessitate redundancy. Later, the scope of MCAS was extended, but the assumptions weren't revisited.

Furthermore, pilots were assumed to quickly identify and fix a "runaway horizontal stabiliser trim condition", providing the necessary backstop in case of system failure.

It's absurd to say that they made this on purpose to save some money. The aircraft already has two AoA sensors, but only one was used for MCAS. How is that saving money?

Rather, it was a convoluted concatenation of circumstances, pressure, occasional lapse in competence that gave rise to the problem.

If they would have used both sensors the plane would have needed recertification, because redundant systems are safety critical. Therefore they only used one sensor and declared the system non saftey critical.

Interesting. Do you have a source for that claim?

You should see some of the taxis at the rank here at Newark airport, they're much more dangerous than the Max.

38,000 people die annually in auto accidents. Car manufacturers should never get away with it. Two incidents with 200+ fatalities indeed is tragic, but automobiles are nearly two orders of magnitude worse in death counts. We should be 100x more serious about automobiles.

How many of them die because the car is malfunctioning?

Some non-zero amount, though not 100%. But if a life is a life, and we can only lobby politicians for so many things, we could probably reduce more deaths by having higher standards for licensing. And our lobbying efforts could save magnitudes more lives.

What really shocked me when speaking to my american colleagues is that you guys have no equivalent of an "MOT". In the UK, for a car to be road legal it needs to hava passed some safety checks. From what I understood, that doesn't exist over there?

Anyone can go, buy a $100 car from some guy on craigslist and drive it around. I'd wager that makes a big difference to road fatalities.

That and the drunk driving. I guess it depends on the place, but in Austin it was awful. I was out drinking with some guys from work, we had maybe 6 beers? Then they all walked back to the office, got their cars and drove home. It made me much more paranoid about crossing the road.

> you guys have no equivalent of an "MOT"

It depends on the state: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_inspection_in_the_Unit...

I'd say a more fair phrasing would be "how many of the die from reasons out of their control"? At first I thought this would even out the car and plane fatalities, but actually you can greatly reduce your risk in plane fatalities by avoiding 737 Max while you cannot know who is going to drive into your lane

Are you saying 38,000 automobile deaths are caused by defects that the manufacture neglected to fix or warn customers about?

Of course not. So that's a false parallel i.e. whataboutism.

Uh, isn’t “whataboutism” more like: replying with a totally different subject that supposedly has more merit to discussion? False parallel feels a different thing to me

I’m not sure. Perhaps one is a descendant of the other?

I think whataboutism is like

She says The storming of the Capitol was wrong because people died and our institution’s citadel was trashed

And he says

What about the BLM protests - xxx people died and yyy buildings were vandalised at a cost of zzz millions

It seems to be some kind of parallel, but not to draw an analogy - rather to excuse an action by making a distraction out of a superficially similar form(?)

Hmm, seems like your take is more correct: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

While the numbers don't lie, your response is in another domain. Are these 38k deaths (which is USA only) caused by manufacturer error, preferably the same model? If not, you're polluting any meaningful discussion.

I think you are conflating causes here. A faulty aircraft where design issues led to a rare incident is something completely different than the quite common traffic deaths mostly originating from asverse conditions an reckless driving of a traffic participant.

Traffic accidents are not mainly caused by a certain car model being sold with faulty breaks, and airplane crashes are incredibly rare occurances.

I don't think it's a conflation because it's a moral question and a judgment of how we view death. I know multiple people that have died in car accidents. I know nobody who's died in a plane crash. Even if the FAA made the wrong call here, why do we give outsized influence and attention to events that cause relatively few deaths?

In other words: what is the greater moral tragedy, losing 40,000 of your fellow citizens at the hands of aggressive or uneducated or unskilled drivers, or 400 deaths largely due to corporate cost cutting? My mental framework suggests we should optimize for addressing maximal number of deaths, but we rarely make that choice.

400 because they grounded the 737 Max. Imagine a car sometimes driving to left if you steer right. Would you blame the driver or the manufacturer. BTW count the hours people drive and compare them to the hours people fly and than look at the death rate.

> Imagine a car sometimes driving to left if you steer right. Would you blame the driver or the manufacturer.

We don't need to imagine this. There's a car called a Tesla which sometimes unexpectedly and fatally decides to steer in a different direction, and its management invariably blame the driver. Weirdly, HNers not only generally don't want Tesla's entire management and design team to be fired, they actually tend towards defending their approach...

Edit: would love it if the people who apparently disagree could make some arguments why Tesla's fatality-inducing electronic driver support system deserves a different response to Boeing's

We had the BMW SUV that hardened the wheel to prevent roll over and that meant lower chances of avoiding heads on collision.

for an analogous situation, it would be a car manufacturer that removed some previously-included safety feature, and made the car autopilot against your command when it malfunctioned

> My mental framework suggests we should optimize for addressing maximal number of deaths, but we rarely make that choice.

Who says we aren't?

Modern cars have much, much better passive safety systems and active safety systems are light years of what was available before, and improving rapidly.

One random example: I have a Volvo V40 and I can barely see around the A pillar. And I see this in all modern cars. I don't remember feeling the same way about cars from 20-30 years ago. I'm quite confident that if the V40 would roll over, even at somewhat high speed, my chances of getting out relatively unscathed would be better than even those in a sports car from, say, 30 years ago.

And if you look at deaths by drowning it dwarfs those numbers. Though people get worked up with terrorism, plane crashes and rare diseases.

Deaths from rare diseases are "fat tailed". Meaning that if you found out there were millions of excess deaths in a given year, then a new disease is a lot more likely to be the reason than car crashes.

Are deaths from terrorism fat tailed? Terrorists can get access to biological weapons, the electricity grid, the water supply, a skyscraper with thousands of people in it, the parliament building of a country... I think it is fat tailed.

If a disease causes millions of deaths it is not a rare disease. There has been a grand total of about 200-ish cases of the mad cow disease cumulatively. Though it terrorized people for years.

Maybe you're right, but I heard similar claims about Covid and Ebolavirus when they were still rare. People were saying early last year that you're more likely to die from a car accident than from Covid. So your earlier comment reminded me of that. Perhaps I misunderstood you.

Are they actually safer?

"In cars, one person died per 5.5 million passenger hours traveled, versus one death per 6 million passenger hours in commercial airline flights-a slim difference at best!"

Also , I can't cross london by plane, so what do I do with that information?

This whole argument smells of whataboutism of sorts 'well if cars kill so many people we shouldn't give boeing such hard time for killing a few"

https://observer.com/1998/03/driving-versus-flying-the-debat...

Do we generally use cars and planes to pass time (if so, measure deaths per hour) or to transport people to a different location (if so, measuring deaths per mile seems a lot more sensible)?

I am approaching it from the scientific standpoint - which of the two measurements is an actual independant variable, and which is an artifact of the measurement? If the planes go twice slower, would their deaths per kilometer stay the same, or would deaths per hour? I am willing to bet it's the latter.

In that case planes have the same chance of failing (mechanically or through human error) as cars do. It is very difficult to increase that safety factor, maybe impossible.

The conclusion to draw from that, is that you can't point at car manufacturers and blame them for producing unreliable / bad quality machines.

On the other hand, measurement per kilometer implies that as a traveller you should use a plane where possible, but obviously they can't replace car in a daily commute.

Airliners rarely crash in cruise, so doubling the hours in cruise is likely to almost halve the crash rate per hour with no significant change in crashes per flight (and therefore per kilometer).

Maybe it makes the crew a little more fatigued on descent and approach to landing, likely partially offset by it making air travel less appealing to pax, resulting in fewer people per fatal accident.

[0] https://www.theglobalist.com/when-do-planes-crash/

Your 'scientific standpoint' misses out the fact an average commercial aircraft has two orders of magnitude more people on board than an average car. Based on your deaths per hour stats we can reasonably assume the chance of fatality-inducing failure from a given flight hour is roughly two orders of magnitude less than an hour in the car.

When I'm boarding an aircraft, I care more about that than how many people would die with me.

I am not clear on that - are you saying that if you were to somehow hypothetically replace all your car travel with plane travel for an equivalens amount of time, your chance of death would go down by 100x? I am just thinking about it, and I don't think that it works out that way.

tbf I'm assuming that what the article calls "passenger flight hours" is more accurately described as "flight hours by a passenger airliner", based on the figure looking very wrong otherwise. Looking at ICAO's figures for that year there were 0.03 fatalities per 100m passenger km from airliners, so dividing through by a sensible average kph figure gives something in the region of 0.2 fatalities per passenger hour, or 30x safer than the car with sober driver. (You get to 100x quite easily by avoiding using airlines based in regions that contribute disproportionately to aviation accidents)

This is of course abstracting away from details like the aircraft travelling 10x further and walking to the airport, but the real problem is aircraft not serving the routes you want to drive. General Aviation is a lot more dangerous than commercial flights, especially when it involves clumsy pilots ;-)

I'm reading the article as an airliner flying for 1 hour and carrying 100 passengers as counting as 100 "passenger flight hours" (not 1).

That would be a use of the term more consistent with aviation norms, but then the quoted figure would be very wrong (or based on a very different category of aircraft than the commercial airliners we're discussing here

> I know multiple people that have died in car accidents.

Did they die because the car had issues or was it some other reason?

Does it matter how they died if the outcome is the same, is the question I wish I would've posed earlier. One was due to drunk driving. The other two, I'm not privy to the full details. It could have been, but statistically I would suppose not; most are human error, I'd presume.

I'd further suppose that simply put, it's easier to stop 400 deaths due to a failure to regulate than it is to change the driving habits of citizens, and that's why --even if one is 100x worse-- it doesn't draw the attention, and it makes me feel like my loss doesn't matter, even though others are far more likely to experience the loss I did, rather than the main post subject, and I will admit that shaped my view entering the discussion.

> Does it matter how they died if the outcome is the same,

That is like saying oranges and apples are the same because they are fruits.

It matters how they died because the car victims died due human error not because the car was defective, the plane victims died because of the plane itself was defective.

If the planes were not ground many more people who have died and people on ground if the plane fell on them.

Would you drive in a car which is known to crash into walls?

The deaths stopped because 'we' demanded that they stop flying. Who would make that choice in your model?

It is not just a numbers game. The suits in the offices of Boeing and FAA wantonly misled and hid data that undermined the safety of a plane which was clearly a bad idea to begin with. If a similar incident is uncovered in the auto industry they should also be held accountable to the same extent. Automakers are constantly forced to recall their cars for faults which are not even deliberate so it looks like that system is at least somewhat working. We cannot excuse Boeing with such whataboutism especially safety is at stake.

Flying on an absolute sense is an insane activity. As Louis CK put it, you're "sitting on a chair, IN THE SKY!" The only reason we take it for granted is the Stellar safety record (which is even better than cars?). If all you do is just match the safety profile of ground transportation, the optics of the combination of perception and real events would just grind this industry down. In some ways it's actually bad for the industry in the long term but these suits and their next quarter bonuses don't care about that! Only the public can.

> 38,000 people die annually in auto accidents...

This argument is nonsensical. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as

The vast majority of car crashes are user error, not manufacturer fault. If it were the latter, you bet there would be inquiries.

That is totally different. Boing did lots of bad decisions to try to fight the Airbus Neo which was much more fuel efficient than their current airplanes.

All of the decisions led to huge changes on the MCAS. But basically nobody was told about it, so pilots didn't know how to react to the changes.

I won't repeat the whole thread, but you can check here:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1106934362531155974.html

> 200+ fatalities

It was 355 people killed plus one on the response dive team for JT610.

Most car accidents are private vehicle use. So it makes sense to compare those against GA (General Aviation, ie not commercial) accidents.

The accidents are much more similar, both in frequency (they happen all the time, with little public interest) and causes.

People fly their planes while drunk or ill, they fly planes that haven't been properly maintained, they fly when the weather is awful and it's recommended not to, they don't have good plans for what they'll do if anything goes wrong, they haven't practised skills they know they might need... and most of the time they came back down safe. But not always.

When people say "Plane crash" they're normally thinking about Scheduled Aviation, at the far end of the safety categories from GA. If you bought tickets to go from one place to another at a particular time, that's scheduled aviation, the aeroplanes used, the crews flying them, even the company operating them is far more closely regulated and as you'd expect the result is far greater safety.

I'd suggest comparing these accidents to bus crashes. A crash in which a greyhound smashes into a gorge and everybody dies would make the TV news, just as a crashed jetliner would. Like the plane, that bus was required to be properly maintained, its driver underwent training including periodic refreshers, and the company operating it is under much more scrutiny than some random guy in a pick-up.

That's funny, i thought about making just that, but there area already a bunch of sites ( planeapotters, flightradar, etc.) which contain the data, so a dedicated website would add little value. I might still make it, especially if more airlines decide to "rename" it ( e.g. Ryanair with their 737-9200).

The sites you mention seem oriented towards discovering what any given plane currently in air is, and who operates it.

What GP is talking about is a site that lists airlines operating that particular plane. A simple, dedicated interface. Drop in an airline, get a probability estimate you'll be flying on a 737 MAX. Or, better, drop an airline, start/stop points and time, get an answer whether you'll be flying 737 MAX.

EDIT: https://airlinelist.com/ has a feature I was thinking about, though not prominently visible. There's a button "No 737 MAX in fleet", which you can use as a filter. So a dedicated website could be just that, with this filter always on.

Perhaps using satellite imagery to count the number of 737 MAX airplanes sitting on the runways of major airports, in addition to traditionally available data.

> sheer ignorance and negligence which led to the unnecessary death of so many

.. has been totally obscured by the ignorance and negligence which led to the unnecessary death of so many from coronavirus. The UK is running at about seven 737-MAX passenger loads of deaths per day.

Really I'm surprised that Boeing hasn't bunged a few dollars to the denialism industry to ask "how many of those passengers would have died within a few years anyway" or to assert that oxygen masks on planes are an unnecessary infringement of liberty that actually makes it hard to breathe.

I'm unsure if your comment is actually serious or sarcastic. If Boeing came out and said "how many of those passengers would have died within a few years anyway" they would be in a much worse situation (PR wise) than today, where they have taken responsibility for the accidents that lead to people dying.

And yeah, the handling of coronavirus around the world is really sad also, but in no way obscures Boeings fucked up handling of the 737 Max and its (re)certifications.

Deeply sarcastic, but I suppose no sarcasm is so obvious that it can't be missed in text. I'm contrasting this with the bizarrely blase approach to far higher death numbers that can be seen everywhere relating to COVID. Even here on HN in the vaccination numbers thread on the front page.

Voting with your wallet is not the way to go when there are actual lives involved. As a consumer, I should absolutely not have to keep up to date with what airline buys which airplane models, and which airplane models are considered safe. That's what regulatory bodies are for. If the regulatory process is broken, it needs fixing, but there does not need to be a second market-driven layer here.

You know if there was a discount for flying on US-based 737 max planes - with american pilots who never had an accident - yeah, market forces would win.

Chesley Sullenberger had a pretty high profile accident but I think I’d still prefer to fly with him at the controls (if he hadn’t retired). I don’t think this is a good metric to measure pilots by.

So I had a friend who was an actuary.

I remember asking if they charged extra for sports cars because they could.

I was told that they were actually pretty accurately priced.

The only time actuarial tables did not reflect reality was after a car accident. Statistically after an accident drivers are much safer, but the insurance fees (have to) go up.

> If the regulatory process is broken, it needs fixing

This is true, but as long it isn't fixed, voting with your wallet is the only thing you can do. And definitely better than supporting boeing to go on with business as usual.

I made that! https://airlinelist.com still in beta but try the filter No 737Max in fleet

Very cool. Nice job!

Does an average passenger have the luxury of doing so? Plane tickets can get quite costly.

Probably not.

When I travel for work, my tickets are constrained by time/location and cost.

When I travel for pleasure, I have more flexibility for date/location, but become much more price sensitive.

That said, I have enough price flexibility in both cases to mostly avoid unreasonable layovers (>1 layover, or >3 hours, roughly).

Even it were not for the MCAS problem, the 737 is the worst plane on the market -- it is hamstrung by 1960s design decisions, struggles to take off under good conditions, is loud on the inside and outside, etc.

Newer smaLl jets like the E195 and A220 are smaller on the outside but feel bigger on the inside the same way Japanese cars felt in the 1970s compared to American 'boats'; in the short term it is easy for airlines to keep with the 737 but because the business is a cosy duopoly passengers will be spending more in the long term, we will get more climate change, more noise at the airport,

Boeing doesnt have a real business plan unless it includes replacing the 737 someday. In particular Low Cost airlnes like Southwest have built businesses around airplanes designed for mainline airlines, if one of them got a plane designed for them it could turn the industry upside down.

Is there somewhere I can check whether a particular flight number is usually served by 737 Max? I would certainly use it for shopping flights.

That's an interesting idea in principle, but IME it wouldn't be as helpful as you might think initially.

This is because airline choice isn't much of a market. I live in a major US city (Houston), with excellent air service available in two airports. However, as with nearly all such cities, we are VERY VERY VERY well served by the carriers that "hub" here (Southwest and United). Choosing them usually means a direct flight, and more options for departure times, and probably lower fares.

There are situations where choosing something else is viable, but usually only if you're picking an airline that hubs in the city you're going to -- for example, choosing Delta to fly to Atlanta, or American to fly to Dallas.

The tl;dr is that avoiding the MAX from here would be hard without creating a materially worse experience. (Of course, crashing is an even WORSE experience, so...)

The US government could be one such organization capable of doing this, and even going one step further - they could bar these companies from operating max in our airspace or they could bar Boeing from selling them. I know this solution may be too likely to succeed, some may call it crazy ...

So nothing about pilot training or maintenance? Ethiopian and Lion Air deserve a non-zero percentage of the blame for “mass murder.” That percentage is debatable. As a commercial pilot (who doesn’t fly 737s) and someone with close friends who are 737 captains for a major US carrier, my opinion is that the airplane itself was not the core problem. The design of the airplane was such that it enhanced the glaring deficiencies in pilot training and maintenance practices.

I guess Ed Pierson had no stock options left to convert. Not to dispute his integrity, on the contrary, it is still a hard call on him being a whistle blower.

If it is Boeing,

I am not going.

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