Boeing wants FAA to exempt MAX 7 from safety rules to get it in the air
seattletimes.com
seattletimes.com
> If they fail to do so, the system can quickly overheat the carbon composite material and damage the structural integrity of the engine pod.
> The problem is there’s no alert or indication to the crew that the system needs to be turned off. They just have to remember to do it.
> If they forget, or are distracted by other tasks, the overheating can begin to damage the structure after just five minutes.
This is all you need to know to pass judgement on Boeing Management. Whatever happened to Boeing's "Engineering Excellence" ?
McDonnell Douglas happened [1].
More details are in the book "Flying Blind" [2]. It shows how Boeing's culture of Engineering Excellence was gradually replaced with MD's rotten parasitic culture through the process that is better described as "reverse acquisition". Formally Boeing acquired MD, but in reality MD took over Boeing.
[2] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/646497/flying-blind...
Management by accounting ... cost of paying death settlement is cheaper than building a proper airplane.
And they have the temerity to call those societies which still practice "Blood Money restitution" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_money_(restitution)) as "savage, backward and uncivilized".
“Do you know the only value life has is what life puts upon itself? And it is of course over-estimated since it is of necessity prejudiced in its own favour. Take that man I had aloft. He held on as if he were a precious thing, a treasure beyond diamonds or rubies. To you? No. To me? Not at all. To himself? Yes. But I do not accept his estimate. He sadly overrates himself. There is plenty more life demanding to be born. Had he fallen and dripped his brains upon the deck like honey from the comb, there would have been no loss to the world. He was worth nothing to the world. The supply is too large. To himself only was he of value, and to show how fictitious even this value was, being dead he is unconscious that he has lost himself. He alone rated himself beyond diamonds and rubies. Diamonds and rubies are gone, spread out on the deck to be washed away by a bucket of sea-water, and he does not even know that the diamonds and rubies are gone. He does not lose anything, for with the loss of himself he loses the knowledge of loss. Don’t you see? And what have you to say?”
Suits.
MBAs took over, that's what happened. A story as old as capitalism.
It seems Boeing is now set on destroying all reputation and goodwill earned over decades and by extension making American Technology and Management a laughing stock in the World.
I've heard Boeing folks suggest that the 1997 acquisition of McDonell-Douglas (who was having serious financial difficulties at the time) ironically resulted in the latter's MBA-heavy management taking over Boeing leadership. The result has been a less profitable company with a now poor and getting worse safety record: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how-boeing...
For those who still do not understand what unchained captialism looks like. This is a taste of it. The phrase "the market will correct itself" may be true eventually but ignores the hundreds of people that have die before that happens.
Also the airline industry as a whole also has a stellar safety record, Boeing's issues notwithstanding.
That's not to say that your core thesis is necessarily wrong, but airline manufacturers aren't a great vehicle to argue that point.
Like Volkswagen Dieselgate Like Samsung Exploding Phones Like CPU Branch Prediction Idiocy
- Today - "Alaska Airlines grounds Boeing 737 Max 9 planes after mid-air window blowout" (47 comments, so far): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38889774
Boeing is not an engineering culture, it is an MBA culture. This is the result.
It is clear, by deadly example, that Boeing *management* is not capable of running a company that produces a safe plane. It is, after all, difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
All the engineering ethics in the world does nothing against the greed of Boeing's management.
Sure managers are guilty.
But managers did not write the code. "Engineers" did.
As long as there are engineers writing that code (also see VW and #Dieselgate) there will be managers who do this. Engineers need to take a stand and don't do everything. Like professionals. "He made me do it" is not an excuse for hundreds of dead people.
See the Challenger disaster for a high profile example.
The value of a company's equity is based on the net present value of future returns. That means that while short term earnings are important, so are earnings in the moderately distant future. (depending on risk free interest rates)
If a company like Boeing were properly managed, they'd give suitable priority to engineering excellence, at least to the point of not having critical failures like these, because that's core to their ability to compete with Airbus/etc in the future.
The real issue you're concerned about is that it is very difficult to align the interests of corporate managers with the interests of the company. It is relatively easy to align senior management with short term stock prices, but it is difficult for the public to figure out that the gains they see (less engineering cost, faster turnaround time, etc) come at the expense of the longer term viability of the company, so the former gets priced into the short term stock price (and so executive compensation) and the latter does not.
The MBA program should include more ethics courses and perhaps an adapted version of the Hippocratic Oath.
--> MBA Oath : https://mbaoath.org/
I would hope that is also taught in management schools, as they appear to be the ones making these decisions.
I fear that wouldn't matter, because they could end up working (indirectly) for stockholders that find that dollar-to-lives tradeoff desireable.
Considering the MCAS[0] failures were largely software defects in an autonomous system, seems plausible to me...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuvering_Characteristics_Au...
In this case I don't see how you could make the same argument, clearly the new planes were not safer than the old ones or they wouldn't have been grounded.
I can anticipate and avoid a drunk driver in many situations. I’d never expect that behavior out of any human driver.
Except that they never provided hard data to support this argument.
Until they do that I'll consider it the usual Tesla marketing lies and bullshit.
What are you talking about?
What Tesla markets and sells falls into SAE Autonomous Ground Vehicle classifications, just not level 5.
Nothing I wrote spoke to anything Tesla sells being L5 (or any particular level at all).
Edit: On the topic of MCAS, it strikes me as a system akin to around an SAE L2/L3, overriding pilot inputs to prevent a perceived crash/stall risk. This AIUI is well within the autonomy space Teslas operate...
Boeing management --and their flat-out inability to out-innovate the competition at cost-- are the real reason behind the push to certify at all cost.
Comac C919 - First flight: 2017, introduced 2023, number built: 10 (3 in service?)
Sukhoi Superjet 100 - First flight: 2008, introduced 2011, number built: 229
Boeing 737 MAX - First flight: 2016, introduced 2017, number built: 1,376
Airbus A320 NEO - First flight: 2014, introduced 2016, number built: 3,092
They're not even in the same ballpark. It'll take Comac decades to make those inroads and Sukhoi is done for.
The C919 is a decent plane, but by most accounts a decade behind in tech and efficiency. And for short-haul operations, efficiency is the most important thing.
The only real competitor to Boeing today is Airbus. Comac can be one 10-20 years down the line.
FAA approval is only a slam-dunk because it is recognized internationally as a steward of quality and reliability. By asking the FAA to start certifying sub-par planes, Boeing will not only destroy their own brand but will bring the FAA down with them.
Guys from Boeing, here's a free piece of advice: don't. Just don't.
Today I learned that my refrigerator has a more complex anti-icing control that the engine inlet on the 737 Max (by virtue of having a $10 snap switch in the circuit).
The first almost is reasonable, the second is kinda batshit.
The first would be reasonable if there were hundreds of such planes already flying and grounding them would result in huge disruptions. But this plane is not yet certified. How can you go to the FAA with a half-baked product and tell them that you'll get it right eventually? Considering the whole MAX history?
>Boeing would have until mid-2026 to design, test and certify a permanent fix for the engine anti-ice system defect that would then be retrofitted to all MAXs.
Seems like a valid technical solution but a human-factors nightmare. Boeing needs to read the room.
fall off I heard that before.
[Senator Collins:] Well, I’m not saying it wasn’t safe, it’s just perhaps not quite as safe as some of the other ones.
[Interviewer:] Why?
[Senator Collins:] Well, some of them are built so the front doesn’t fall off at all.
I did it on Twitter tho: https://twitter.com/chx/status/1743343104906686673
"The aircraft is a 737 Max 9 and received its certificate of airworthiness on October 25, 2023."
The fact that this issue is present in the existing 737 Max variants, and none appear to have actually experienced a structural failure, suggests the probability is low.
It is easy for a bunch of keyboard warriors here on HN to insist that only zero risk is acceptable. In the real world, everything is a continuum and without knowing quantifiably where on the risk continuum this issue is, any discussion is meaningless.
The fact that the space shuttle flew 60 times without SRB o-rings being a problem suggests that the probability of their failure was also low.
Low probabilty is much too high for this domain, of course. The question is, how low?
In airplane design, almost all catastrophic failures happen only the first time.
Presumably you meant airliners specifically?
> "it cannot be shown that the EAI [Engine Anti-Ice] system meets the probability requirements applicable to this regulation."
In my understanding, Boeing is asking for to be excluded from the risk assessment entirely. They know there is a possibility that the structure could be weakened enough to fail during normal flight.
> "the nacelle inlet structural temperatures during EAI operation may cause the inner barrel to lose sufficient strength such that capability to carry limit and ultimate loads may not be maintained."
> "analysis and engineering flight testing showed there is a potential for structural damage."
Their entire justification for why the risk is acceptable is that no one has had parts fly off yet and surely pilots will follow the flight rules to turn off the deicer:
> "737 MAX has been in service since 2017 and has accumulated over 6.5 million flight hours. In that time, there have been no reported cases of parts departing aircraft (PDA) due to overheating of the engine nacelle inlet structure".
> "Operators [Pilots] must adhere to the mandatory AD [Airworthiness Directive], mitigating the potentially unsafe condition."
Oh, and they petition relief from some of the human factors requirements as well. Which indicates they don't want to be judged based on the probability that pilots will not turn off the EAI.
There are ~100 000 flights per day worldwide. I'd say the conditions described occur all the time
In a large enough dataset and given enough time, a meteor will eventually hit a plane in-flight and destroy it. Should regulation require the airplanes carry anti-meteor armor?
Your qualitative judgement that these conditions described occur all the time actually suggests it's not a big deal, because the currently-flying Max 8 and Max 9 variants have the same issue, and none have experienced a structural failure.
The scenario here is that, if the pilots forget to turn off anti-ice, the nacelle will eventually overheat, weaken, and possibly fail. But clearly that is not guaranteed to happen, or happen immediately. What I'm saying is that actual decision-making here depends on what the statistics of this possible failure actually are, given that the pilots forget to turn off the anti-ice.
You can start with statistics of icing/de-icing a plane vs. statistics of meteors hitting a plane.
That's your rationale?
Have we forgotten when NASA management discounted concerns about O-rings in part because one hadn't catastrophically failed yet? (Until Challenger)
I initially thought she was overreacting but based on what I’m seeing from Boeing here I have to thank her for her diligence.
Airliner crashes always make the news, so many casual observers overestimate their frequency by orders of magnitude. The statistics remain clear as day: airliner crashes are incredibly rare. They're incomparably rarer than road traffic accidents, for instance. Most years, no US airlines have any fatal crashes.
I recommend this YouTube video as a general overview of aviation safety. It's about the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash, but also covers airliner safety and big-picture aviation safety.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpGl2_fVr2Y (Kobe Bryant Crash-- Risk by the Numbers)
"The aircraft is a 737 Max 9 and received its certificate of airworthiness on October 25, 2023."
Boeing 737: 149 accidents
Boeing 747: 49 accidents
Airbus A300: 33 accidents
Airbus A320: 28 accidents
Boeing 737 NG / Max: 27 accidents
Edit for context (thanks /u/janice1999) there are 11,182 Airbus A320s and ~8400 Boeing 737 NG / Max so even pro rated Boeings recent planes are worse and the A320 has been out a few years longer too.
edit:
I found some and put it into a Sheet for convenience of sort-ability.
As far as raw accident per flight data, only Concorde is worse than the Max series. Wow.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FTq3PwQMb83dnNtxwZoY...
Alaska Airlines Flight 1282
The 737 MAX was an unsafe design which Boeing was aware of and failed to address.
I moved on, and I'm glad I did. Boeing sucks. I feel like I dodged a bullet.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSeries_dumping_petition_by_...
What does that mean? Like you sent in a new application every other day?
Why would you re-apply after getting rejected? Don't you need to get more experience on your resume?
Job rejections virtually never get explanations. Even if you've interviewed in person, it's extremely unlikely. That's just how it is. Nothing specific to Boeing.
the point is to make tests not fail. you can’t fail the test you don’t take.
the logic is completely sound. it’s just also removed from reality. which might make it seem a bit mad.
I also think it's important to recognize no one commenting in the article has seen the analysis, knows what is meant by "structural damage" or what went into Boeing saying a failure resulting from it is "extremely improbable". Could be it's a solid analysis, the structural damage they mention is no where approaching a concern, and they think it's extremely improbable for good reason. Or not, I just don't think we know.
That being said, it is hard for me to look at this as something other than another example of poor company culture. You have a component that can be damaged when exposed to temperatures above a certain limit, for a certain length of time, connected to a heater that can heat it above that limit for longer than that time... And no systems to stop this?
This strikes me as being due to someone without an engineering degree saying "We've always used this heating system, there's no need to go through an in depth new analysis or testing regime to validate it's use, that would cost lots of money!".
Yeah, I'm not sure I'd trust Boeing's judgement on the probability of catastrophic events at this point...
Welchian management is just another spin on the old "restaurant fire" mafia scheme: bank up debt on assets before selling the plumbing and torching the place. Like the mob, it makes a handful of cash for some random top guy, and absolutely wrecks everything else, forever.
It's hard to not take stories like this personally, having spent time inside the Boeing mothership. The power of this organization to destroy value rivals that of a small-ish military occupation; the ability of Boeing to do anything meaningful in an engineering context is pretty obviously at an end[1]. It's a testament to past cleverness - and to the knowledge and dedication of line workers, maintenance, and aircrew - that any legacy Boeing product ever works, at all, ever. And that's why we're now fixing deficiencies like this in goddamn flight checklists. Because it's all that's left.
[1] Whatever innovation leaks from the company today is wholly from acquisitions, and those always have all cash choked from their lifeless corpses within five or ten years. Even DoD procurement has put a big red flag on the Boeing RFPs that come in, although that's also related to their increasing inability to estimate costs better than RANDINT.
> In 1963, under Welch’s management of the facility, an explosion at a factory blew off the roof, and he was almost fired for that episode.
Checks out
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/02/books/review/the-man-who-...
That's a very bad example. Boeing failed with the 2707 supersonic transporter because federal funding was cut, and assuming that they'll be left behind by the obvious future of supersonic passenger transportation with the Concorde and the Tu-144, decided to make a plane filling other niches that were going to be left. Like cargo, which wasn't going to need the speed, but needed capacity. The 747 was a dual use cargo and passenger design.
When MCAS led to crashes, they dialled it back, increasing the power of the pilot relative to the computer. That's not a solve. In either case, the aircraft has an additional point of failure that properly designed aeroplanes do not have.
The 788 is great but the 787 MAX, not so much.
Needless to say this new story does not inspire further confidence.
> Boeing wants FAA to exempt MAX 7 from safety rules to get it in the air
I bet they do and the FAA should rightly tell them to fuck off if they're not willing to go through the formal procedure to get their proven-dangerous planes back into commercial aviation.
Did Toyota change their safety culture as a result?
Hah… no.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_unintended_acceleration...
2. In my car, if I step gently on both pedals, they both take effect. (Which is reasonable: starting uphill is a thing.). If I step harder on both pedals, the car chimes at me and the motor output is reduced automatically.
If this event occurs within 10 years of launch he:
* forfeits 10x the compensation he received from boeing including capital gains to the families
* spends 3-5 years in prison for wrongful death
Let's see how confident he is when he has skin in the game
Calhoun makes the decision, reaps the profits regardless of outcome. If things go wrong boeing pays (maybe) and hundreds of people die
"Boeing said..." Why bother asking proven liars anything?
> If it's Boeing, I ain't going.
[1] https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/23039-if-it-aint-boeing-i...
Switching from one airplane to another isn't like switching from a Honda to a Toyota car. It requires lots of training and thus cost.
Southwest as the prim example has many 100s of pilots trained on a 737, they have a huge maintenance network that is trained for the 737. They don't fly any Airbus at all, thus they have 0 experience in their whole operation.
Switching would a monumental task. It was reported that Southwest took a serious look at A220 program, but has since doubled down on 737 for the next couple decades.
Many airlines have switched to higher amounts of Airbus and Airbus has made inroads into the US market. But partly now Airbus has so many orders for 737 Max sized planes that if you order one, your gone have to wait for a long time. So, maybe you still rather get that 737MAX instead.
For a while the market was more like 50/50, now we are trending towards a 40/60 market, or potentially even more. And that doesn't take into account that Boeing lowering prices quite to get some of these contracts.
And partly due to the bombing of Gaza aided by Boeing JDAM systems, I guess.
Shareholders need to suck it up, and Boeing needs to start with a clean sheet of paper and design airplanes the same way their parents did. Enough coasting on re-engines.
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/faa-grounds-some-boei...
Which is terrifying...
https://www.google.com/finance/quote/BA:NYSE?sa=X&ved=2ahUKE...
Pilots are not machines, and can't be expected to have a 0% error rate.
Otherwise stand by for:
- "You don't really NEED that much fuel reserve, it's expensive."
- "You can fly with one of those redundant components failed, stop whining."
- "You don't NEED those inconvenient crew rest requirements. Stop whining, pound some coffee, and fly tired."
- "We don't NEED to do all this expensive maintenance."
- "We don't NEED all these expensive boomer pilots with 10,000 hours of experience and combat time over Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan. Fire them, hire the rookie from the regionals, and pay them $50,000 a year. Pilots are just bus drivers anyway."
Genuinely curious: what aspect of flying an F18 in a hostile environment with a goal of destroying things while trying to stay alive is useful for flying a 400-passenger airliner? You might say "well, the trying-to-stay-alive portion is relevant", but that involves things like high-g turns which airliners are not so good at, and ultimately ejecting is the final option, also not so good with 400 passengers on board. "It's a jet engine!" Ok? So? Does that mean I can't drive an EV if I qualified on gasoline? Does that mean I am qualified to drive an 18 wheeler because I've previously driven a Ferrari? (No, it does not).
It seems to me that F18 flight hours contributing towards Boeing 787 pilot certification is a jobs program for military pilots. Not saying that's not a good idea: we need (for now) a strong human air force.
Unlikely that they will panic and become completely incompetent when something goes wrong.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/extreme-fear/201112/...
"In the case of Air France 447, it appears that Bonin, in his panic, completely forgot one of the most basic tenets of flight training: when at risk of a stall, never pull back on the controls. Instead, he held back the controls, in a kind of panicked death-grip, all the way down to the ocean. Ironically, if he had simply taken his hands away, the plane would have regained speed and started flying again."
To correct your analogy, a career professional Formula One, IndyCar, or NASCAR driver would absolutely have a MUCH greater chance at adapting to driving an 18-wheeler than your average Joe, because they understand things like friction, turning and braking performances of different vehicles, and the visual, tactile, and auditory signs that a vehicle is or isn't being pushed to its limits. Sure, they would have to learn the finer points of driving such a massive vehicle, but they're starting off with advanced driving knowledge most don't have.
The average military jet pilot can perform the routine tasks of an airline pilot, and also handle inflight emergencies, by the time that they're a twentysomething flight student who hasn't even earned their wings yet. I know because I once was one.
They spend the rest of their career layering skills on top of that concerning how to fly in combat and employ their weapons system tactically AFTER they've already proven they can fly from point A to point B and handle inflight emergencies. What airline pilots do for a living is bare-minimum table stakes for what tactical aviators do. The appeal of the airlines isn't a more challenging job; it's not having to deploy away from your family and do dangerous things anymore combined with a union paycheck.
If you enjoy your weekends and are equally grateful kids don't work 12 hour days, and someone didn't die at work today, perhaps you could get off the fence.
Why the triangle shirtwaist factory fire isn't enough to encourage people to like unions, I'll never know:
> Because the doors to the stairwells and exits were locked[1][8] – a common practice at the time to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and to reduce theft[9] – many of the workers could not escape from the burning building and jumped from the high windows.
link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi...
At first, they were really good to the users. Now they don’t care about the users, only care about the shareholders.
This is insane
What are the chances that even a very well trained and experienced major US airline crew would forget to turn of the engine anti-ice within 5 minutes of non-icing conditions? Greater than zero for sure.
[1] Moral Crumple Zones: Cautionary Tales in Human-Robot Interaction by Madeline Clare Elish
Instantly reminded me of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sifa
Slap a temperature sensor on/in/near the heater
Monitor current through the heater for temperature coefficient response
Capacitive sensing of ice on the heater
A timer that shuts off the heater after some time and a buzzer to alert the crew
You could even have a thermal fuse with a manual time-limited override
Honestly there's so many easy ways to prevent thermal runaway that creating a situation where THE ENGINE FALLS OFF is inexcusably negligent.
My space heater has no less than three independent, redundant safeties. As does my clothes iron, my coffee pot, my slow cooker. It really is not that complicated.
Matt Stoller wrote a compelling article asserting that the breakdown at Boeing resulted from the breakdown of the separation between their military and civilian divisions: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-coming-boeing-bailout
If you think about it, civilian standards must be way higher than military ones; you're talking about millions of people per year who can't bail out of a crashing plane.
MCAS is a reflection of their systems integration engineers not being the caliber and experience they need: it was obviously a defective design.
And sensing icing on an inlet isn’t as simple as you make it out to be.
Maybe this is overly optimistic, but I'm confident they could figure out something if they wanted to.
The latest Tesla features manual window wipers and if you don't use them right the car explodes.
Reference?
In its petition to the FAA, Boeing argues the breakup of the engine nacelle is “extremely improbable” and that an exemption will not reduce safety.
“The 737 MAX has been in service since 2017 and has accumulated over 6.5 million flight hours. In that time, there have been no reported cases of parts departing aircraft due to overheating of the engine nacelle inlet structure,” the filing states.
>I fly the MAX. That switch is left on all the time by accident. If it was a catastrophic issue we certainly would already know. https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/18z8mk6/737_max_d...
which I guess is reassuring in a way.
Wow, that's a great phrase. "No reported cases" is a serious weasel-phrase, and "parts departing aircraft" is much easier to take than "things falling off planes."
Read: happens at least twice a week
(I hear from the rumor mill, something similar is happening at Google).
Edit: Also depending on altitude ambient temperature can vary over a range of several hundred degrees - it gets really really cold at 40,000ft.
The problem isn't knowing whether or not you're in possible icing conditions if you think to ask the question, but rather reliably remembering to evaluate it every single time you enter and exit possible icing conditions.
* SAT - static air temp (air temp before the ram rise).
It should be a caution light or something at least.
If it were just a temperature thing, you'd think it could be automated, but I don't think that's really the main thing they're dealing with here.
In theory this means switching the system off when you exit the clouds.
This is usually pretty noticeable, but maybe less so at night, since you might be breaking out into a pocket or a clear layer between other layers, without visibly seeing much of anything outside.
I would hesitate to comment on the feasibility of this beyond what the interviewed persons have said, precisely because they're not clarifying (to the readers in any case) what the actual thresholds here are. And the interviewees don't seem convinced that this is a reasonable/safe requirement.
But easy to forget to check the instrumentation.
The FAA approved a mitigation for an issue in MAX 8 and 9 planes. The MAX 7 has the same issue, so Boeing is asking for the same mitigation to be approved.
If the FAA thinks it’s acceptable for the 8 and 9, I don’t see why asking for the same for the 7 is bad.
On the other hand, if the FAA doesn’t think this is acceptable for the 7, then I don’t see why it would be acceptable for the 8 and 9.
Either it’s an acceptable mitigation and all 3 should play by the same rules, or it’s not and all MAXes should be grounded (FWIW, the mitigation seems ridiculous to me and I’m leaning towards the latter).
Either the mitigation is acceptable to make the plane safe to fly, or it’s not. “Well this one already existed before we knew about the issue, whereas this one is new” doesn’t actually change the risk calculus nor the effectiveness of the mitigation.
It defies how we made it through the first hundred years of commercial aviation with pilots having to deal with more complex tasks than an "up/down" switch.
Please refer to this chart that shows the accidents/incident rates over time and their incredible trend towards zero!
https://i.imgur.com/PVaPAdX.png
That didn't happen just by itself!
Just imagine that automated future. MCAS everywhere! We should start the debate now which language all that automation should be written.
The most obvious example is the button to enable the anti-ice systems. If you don't push that button upon encountering icing conditions then you die. Of course you don't really die in either of these cases. At least not right away. Lots of other things have to go badly first.
This is why aviation relies on checklists. There are myriad things that must be turned on and off in each phase of flight, and checklists ensure that pilots don't forget.
That being said, I'm also on the "this mitigation is ridiculous" camp. They can't even have a humidity sensor that turns the de-icer on and off?
But it doesn’t take a genius to see that in this particular case, there is no evidence (at least none provided in the article, nor none that I’m aware of) that the 7 is different from the 8 or 9 in regards to how the engine icing system works (or doesn’t, in this case).
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/1997-merger-paved-way-boeing-...
"Boeing Military Airplane Company; Hughes Satellite Systems; Hughes Helicopters minus the civilian helicopter line (which was divested as MD Helicopters); Piasecki Helicopter, subsequently known as Boeing Vertol and then Boeing Helicopters; the St. Louis–based McDonnell division of the former McDonnell Douglas Company; and the former North American Aviation division of Rockwell International."
making it not just too big to fail, but too important to US and allies' defense to fail. I guess defense could be split from commercial aviation which could be reduced to producing parts to keep fleets in operation until Airbus can replace all planes over 30 or 40 years. Some of McD-D's commercial planes have a second life as military, though, e.g. the P-8 Poseidon based on the 737-800.
I took a couple of cross-USA flights recently, some on 737-800 and some on 737 MAX 8 and noted that the 800's cruising speed is faster (cf. United's Hemispheres magazine). I suppose the carbon footprint of the MAX is lower, but whatever happened to flying at mach 0.9 ?
Someone made a website showing which airlines have the most delays, so airlines just added an hour of padding to every scheduled flight, and then fly slower / burn less fuel when there aren't delays. We do the same thing with commuter trains. Someone was mad that they were late to work one day during a snowstorm or something. Now trains with a top speed of 80mph take 80 minutes to go 40 miles. But are on time 99% of the time! Look at all the time saved from not being late to work!
Personally, I'd rather be 4 hours late to work once a year and save 1 hour commuting every day. But the masses have spoken and decided the opposite. I work from home, so not my problem, I guess.
Maybe the issue isn't that people complain about shitty service, but the fact that the service is shitty in the first place. At 80mph and at 30mph.
Airlines found out that people, in aggregate, care more about ticket prices than about speed. Flying a bit slower allows planes to be more fuel efficient, and thus allows them to offer lower ticket prices.
The real question in a Boeing breakup, IMHO, would be what happens with BGS, because the org as a whole does an insane amount of hide-the-salami with repair/return/rebuild.
In this world, and that country, it won't happen, and if it did it would be a cure worse than the disease
Your experience with technology is consumer safety systems. These are designed so safety systems can't be overriden: the tech is protecting you from yourself.
If you think this is "bad", you really ought to watch the startup sequence of a large commercial airliner. There are lots of things depend on the crew to do the right thing and it literally happens thousands of times a day, every single day, with an accident record that is far better than consumer safety systems.
In this particular case, the engine anti-ice system needs to be turned off within 5 minutes of icing conditions going away. The pilots union has said they are concerned about this. There needs to be a better system than that.
> The problem is there’s no alert or indication to the crew that the system needs to be turned off. They just have to remember to do it.
Looks like one more armchair commenter has yet to learn about the Airbus flight law system; it's not possible to put the aircraft into an unsafe state in Normal Law.
AFAIK, Boeing has nothing comparable.