the new Boeing 787s -- don't let them pass you by (in 2008)!

all planes are bad and the aerospace industry has been suppressing carbon-negative teleportation technology for years, ama

I miss the Lockheed L-1011

I basically am only on 737s in the ordinary course of events these days, though I suppose it's possible I'd end up on an A320 post Alaska/Virgin America merger. Not sure what routes they're using those on.

Second 737 MAX 8 crash after takeoff in a few months:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-47513508

The Jakarta one in October prompted Boeing to issue guidance for pilots to ‘address erroneous cockpit readings’.

this seems like a pretty big deal

NB it doesn't take much to scare me off flying for a few months

The Chinese government has grounded all 737 Max planes and a bunch of airlines around the world have done the same.

It’s potentially huge in terms of implications for Boeing but I don’t think there are all that many of them flying at the moment. It’s very new and I think only a couple of hundred are in use - the older 737s are fine.

Kind of scary because my brother works in the coffee business and Indonesia and Ethiopia are two places he visits a lot.

There’s more of these planes flying in the US (for Southwest and America mainly) I’d be more worried there because they haven’t grounded their planes.

Sad connection to the school board I work for.

http://toronto.citynews.ca/2019/03/10/canadians-mourn-as-victims-of-ethiopian-airlines-crash-identified/

There’s a fairly suspenseful close call tale from this one making the rounds, a guy from Greece who missed the flight despite his prior connecting flight being on time, and was desperately trying to convince them to let him board but they firmly refused and put him on a followup flight, then didn’t let him board the next flight because they had to take him aside and gently break the news about the crash, and confirm why he was the only ticketed passenger to not make it onboard.

Can't wait to see his shitty animated series, "Household Dude".

wait why was he the only ticketed passenger not to make it on board

He turned up too late at the gate.

Fuck me running

Why hasn't the FAA grounded these planes yet???

I would think Boeing is doing everything they can behind the scenes with the FAA to keep them from doing that.

I work for a company that supplies some aviation equipment for the 737 and was slightly relieved it didn’t have anything to do with what what we provide them. I will say that based on the stories I’ve been told, Boeing is ridiculously strict with this kind of stuff so the fact that this is even happening is a major fuckup on their end.

UPDATED #FAA Statement regarding @Boeing 737 MAX. pic.twitter.com/HxObBr7qRf

— The FAA (@FAANews) March 12, 2019

(My day job is supporting the FAA. I can only say that some of the responses to FAANews are...interesting.)

Hmm, so the acting administrator of the FAA is a former aircraft manufacturer lobbyist, and the Secretary of Transportation is Mitch McConnell's wife. Sounds like we've got some tough independent oversight.

The industry-to-government-to-industry revolving door continues to turn at full speed.

jfc let's just stay out of step with every other country on every single issue, what could go wrong?

these planes are safe, and until we see the evidence in the form of 9, maybe 10 more crashes, we're gonna let these things fly.

I’m flying american tomorrow and thankfully have learned it’s not on one of these planes. really not sure what I’d do if it were...on one hand it seems incomprehensible that the planes would allowed to continue flying if there really were something wrong and that other countries are grounding them out of an abundance of caution, but...jeez

do Delta or Spirit use em?

https://www.boeing.com/commercial/737max/#/customers no spirit or delta

interesting that the chinese civil aviation admin says: yeah, this problem with angle of attack sensors happens all the time. Carl Liu, a 23-year-old pilot who has been flying 737s since June for a Chinese domestic airline, said the new model would sometimes show that the aircraft was climbing steeply, even though it was climbing by 10 degrees, and automated systems would nudge the plane’s nose down, causing a temporary loss of control. (also damn this pilot is 23 years old??) https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3001428/china-taking-lead-ground-boeing-737-max-signals-challenge-us-authority
i'm not sure i'm convinced it's part of a move against boeing in the ongoing trade war but there's that factor too, i guess.

that sounds sketchy af

I had a grim lol at someone saying that pilots were not informed about aspects of its autopilot and "why not?" "oh we didn't want to overburden them with too much information".

The EU has banned the 737 Max from its airspace now.

A bunch of pilots have reported weird readings and needing to manually compensate to override erratic automatic functions.

The line the airlines still using them seem to be sticking to is that experienced pilots with the appropriate training should be able to manage it ok. I’ve read that the ‘training’ is a 90-minute iPad presentation though.

i'm trying to understand what went on... the mcas gets the wrong reading from angle of attack sensors, thinks it's climbing, nudges the nose down, but does it eventually recover in most cases or does it have to be—and this is where i don't know what pilots do on takeoff—put back under manual control, mcas switched off? and put back into a climb? what role does maximum command limit play in this?

i see that they're updating the software by april: https://qz.com/1570960/boeing-will-update-the-737-maxs-flight-software-by-april/

what's the over/under on the software update introducing another catastrophic bug and/or bricking the plane entirely

they're not allowed to fly in France atm (and the rest of the EU too, I think).

The software fix to solve the unexpected nosedive problem in these planes had been expected in early January but the government shutdown reportedly "halted work on the fix for five weeks." pic.twitter.com/KDFwnuFIuX

— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) March 13, 2019

I'm gonna need some verification of these claims, but if the Federal Government shutdown did delay rollout of a software patch....*laughs bitterly*

Also I don't think there is a head of the FAA right now. Only an acting administrator. An article I saw said that there were 5 complaints logged in a voluntary database against that model type and the plane nosing down. I don't know how relative that is against other complaints.

(CNN) — US pilots who fly the Boeing 737 Max have registered complaints about the way the jet has performed in flight, according to a federal database accessed by CNN.
In one of the complaints, a captain reported an autopilot anomaly which led to a brief nose-down situation -- where the front of the aircraft pointed down, according to the federal database. In another complaint, a first officer reported that the aircraft pitched nose down after the autopilot was engaged during departure. The autopilot was then disconnected and flight continued to its destination, according to the database.

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/03/13/us/pilot-complaints-boeing-737-max/index.html

canada joins ban

US ban now as well.

This is as appropriate a moment as any to revive this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW-pFoYgaUs

update: I’m alive

thank you president donald trump

i had the fun of flying on one of these this afternoon! i, uh, wasn't thrilled about it. looked like about half the southwest planes at lax were 737 maxes.

had to happen and even if the authorities hadn't grounded them, the operations would have to do (by association, individual leisure travellers and corporate travel programs wouldn't fly any of those airlines at all)

Amazing reporting by @seattletimes on the fatal flaws in the Boeing 737 MAX's flight control system—and the regulatory capture within the FAA to hastily approve it. Essentially, this plane could try to crash itself because of a single faulty sensor.https://t.co/LdnnMhN1Gx pic.twitter.com/Z9Iwnz7YBs

— Reed F. Richardson (@reedfrich) March 18, 2019

This still seems completely extraordinary.

i am not aviation engineer, but "this plane could try to crash itself" seems... bad?

No no, the pilots just needed to be told to switch off that part of the plane if/when it decided to crash itself, and if they didn't know how to do that, it was because they didn't buy the optional part of the safety manuals which explained this. Not at all Boeings fault, really.

do you want to turn off The Medusa Touch suicide pilot option yes/no?

it's incredibly horrifying and i mean horrifying.

boeing seems cool

Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air didn't pay extra for Boeing's "upgrades" on communications, navigation, and safety features, so Boeing didn't warn them that the planes were prone to sensor malfunctions that would send them crashing into the ground. https://t.co/2Nvka4tNVI

— Ben Taub (@bentaub91) March 21, 2019

On a plane that was prone misreading the angle of attack (and then overcorrecting), Boeing charged extra for the "angle of attack indicator" and the "disagree light"—features which "could have helped the pilots detect any erroneous readings." pic.twitter.com/DclKa8pOYo

— Ben Taub (@bentaub91) March 21, 2019

And don't think for a second that this was a developing world issue. Major U.S. airlines also didn't buy these safety "upgrade" features, as they were not required by the F.A.A. pic.twitter.com/EhR21vuQMD

— Ben Taub (@bentaub91) March 21, 2019

Boeing even charges extra for back-up fire extinguishers, despite the fact that "a single extinguishing system may not be enough to put out flames that spread rapidly through the plane." And you have no way of knowing which safety features your airline has bought. pic.twitter.com/8j4lV51FXM

— Ben Taub (@bentaub91) March 21, 2019

this all stinks of engineering/business management hell. I wonder how the AoA sensors can be so bad. They look pretty "dumb", which usually means they'd be more robust than a wiimote.

i mean call me old-fashioned but i just don't think paid-for downloadable content should be a business model which should be applied to air safety

new board description ^

please don't put the weird EA-hating tantrum videogame lords upset that they have to pay for extra character outfits while also unable to resist doing so on the same level as this issue. this involves some hardware and has better, older analogues.