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Comment by credit_guy | Hacker News Reader

This idea is so stupid that I don't really know how I can follow the HN guidelines to try to find a charitable interpretation.

Guys from Boeing, here's a free piece of advice: don't. Just don't.

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Normally when I read a comment like the above on an internet forum, it's blowing some issue way out of proportion. In this case, I think it's a fair comment.

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).

It wasn't clear to me if Boeing was asking for a exception such as "allow the planes to fly, but beat the pilots about turning the 'melt engine' feature off until we can design and build out a fix for this" or a "let's never fix it and pretend it won't happen".

The first almost is reasonable, the second is kinda batshit.

The article suggests the first

>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.

That's much more reasonable, more like whatever it's called when you can mark a system as known inoperational but still fly the plane.

"Minimum equipment list" - notably, that's used to allow a certified plane to fly with some temporary reductions in operable equipment, rather than to allow a design to proceed through certification with known defects.

So we let the planes fly between Southern California, Las Vegas and Phoenix and never above 15,000 feet.

Or Boeing can keep the planes grounded, fix the problems, and recertify later.

I'd suggest because this is a new plane model, they simply don't let it fly, so there is no need to "beat the pilots about turning the 'melt engine' feature off until we can design and build out a fix for this".

Airplanes are not the latest video game: we try to avoid a bunch of downloadable software patches required for a brand-new airplane (just as I think should be the case for video games, too).

Also... continuing to have a 737 rating for decades, all in the interest of saving pilot retraining hours and making it cheaper for airlines to purchase these new aircraft, is partially why we're in this problem in the first place. Boeing needs to suck it up and truly claim a new airplane is, well, new, and requires new training.

> 737 MAX 7 — the still-uncertified smallest member of its newest jet family

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?

And how does this not apply to the bigger ones? Or does it and they already got that exemption? Many questions, few answers.

The FAA is free to apply different standards to planes already in operation than to planes not yet built. To a certain extent, that's the only sane way to make forward progress on the standards (the other two choices involve airlines continuously retrofitting their fleets or the standards never changing).

> How can you go to the FAA with a half-baked product and tell them that you'll get it right eventually

That's the beauty of it, Boeing until recently certified themselves, with minimal FAA oversight. It's precisely because of the MCAS fiasco that there is actual scrutiny from the FAA, and much more importantly, from the actually competent people at EASA that will actually check things instead of trusting Boeing's bullshit. Note that this is actually unprecedented, normally air authorities trust each other, but FAA dropped the ball so bad with Boeing that EASA had to step in and insert itself into the process and stop automatically assuming the FAA did it's job.

The long term effects are potentially pretty bad for the US (and it's aerospace industry generally), if the FAA is no longer trusted then that's a loss of prestige and a business cost because anyone wanting to sell abroad can expect local regulators to get involved, FAA and EASA have had a bilateral agreement for a while to basically cover a "you do yours and we'll do ours" approach.

As I understand it, the real problem isn't that the pilot is expected to turn off the deicing heater after X minutes, but that the pilot will then have to remember to turn it back on when needed later.

Seems like a valid technical solution but a human-factors nightmare. Boeing needs to read the room.

"Boeing: If I can blame it on pilot error it's not my fault"

if it's a human factor nightmare, it's not a valid solution, because there are humans involved.

The problem is, if they drill it in their heads too much, pilots will err on the side of caution and could ice the engine. The system is there for a reason.

"You mean you want us to make this a new type and now pilots have to get re-trained and re-certified?!"

Clothes dryers start an enormous number of fires every year, and this could surely be mitigated with better temperature sensing and limits.

Yeah I'm surprised they are still cowboying around after the max scandal. Do they really need to put more lives at risk before the message becomes clear that safety trumps profit?

That's happening precisely because Boing didn't suffer any consequences after the last scandal.

Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing's former CEO, left the company with $80.7 million in pay and benefits, after being fired over two aircraft crashes that killed 346 people in total. His compensation dwarfs the $50 million set aside for families of the crash victims.

That doesn't sound like a consequence. That sounds like party.

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