This is the correct move. Airline crashes are so rare that two crashes of a new model within 6 months of each other must be cause for grounding flights.
The fact that Boeing cut as many corners as they did to bypass mandatory training just adds more smoke to the fire. When the dust settles on this episode I won't be surprised to learn that Boeing (and FAA regulators) is found completely at fault for engineering shortcuts to save costs on re-training.
They had no choice. When no other major regulator would stand with their position, and the public didn't wish to fly on the Max 8, the position became untenable.
After the flight data recorders are recovered from the Ethiopian Airlines accident they could reevaluate if it turned out to be something else. But this seems like a rational safety first position given what we know today.
Hopefully Boeing's April patch and mandatory additional training mitigates the issue well enough to resume normal flight operations.
Something is terribly wrong when the regulator that's supposed to keep people safe is less willing to do that then the company that stands to lose the most from the bad image of a product.
I certainly couldn't have been the only one to look at the airline I'm about to fly on and check that they didn't have any of the Max 8 variants in service.
I bet American and Southwest were receiving phone calls from customers cancelling their flights.
Supposedly the profit margins for discount airlines are pretty slim, so if they can't fill all the seats what's the point? What's bad is that they had to wait for that to happen before they took action. It just makes it look like they'd choose profits over safety every time... as long as they can keep making profits.
Not sure if thats all to it. It seems rather curious that US grounding the aircraft (and Boeing advising to do so) right after about a day or so after black boxes being found. Also, Ethiopian authorities issued a statement about the pilots reporting flight control issues rather than any external factors. I wouldn't be surprised if they already have priliminary evidence that there's an issue with the aircraft.
Good lord, this has been such a disaster for the FAA’s image. Slower than everyone else to ground the plane and they project the appearance of being susceptible to political winds. Not a good look.
An interesting point was made by an airline pilot in one of the plane forums. It appears that Max 8 with full trim deflection down doesn't have enough controls authority to recover (at least in the syms). Thus, the trim issues followed by disabling the trim can lead into a situation when pilots can not recover the plan from steep descend. Of course, this is not necessarily what have happened in real life and we need to see the data.
Pilot here. Correct, in most aircraft that incorporate a trimmable horizontal stabilizer, elevator authority will be insufficient to counteract the aerodynamic effects of a the entire tailplane having deflected through a certain point. Thus it is important to quickly recognize and correct a runaway trim situation.
Of even more significance is that is currently unclear if it is even possible for a pilot, once it has disengaged the trim motors (following faulty commands from MCAS) to manually correct the trim as per Boeing procedure [1].
The problem lies in the fact that it makes a lot of sense to haul back on the yoke as hard as you can if the nose starts dropping. Elevator upwards deflection loads the tailplane aerodynamically in such a way that it becomes harder to trim the tailplane in the required direction. Called colloquially a yo-yo maneuver, you are then require to "offload" the tailplane (think - push yoke forward..) in order to be able to manually correct the runaway trim.
Plane going nose down, push yoke forward at 500ft? I do not envy the crews at the pointy end of those flights. My heart breaks just thinking about it.
The Lion Air pilots must have been pulling back on the sticks until their tendons break, to no effect. I hope there is a special place in hell for Boeing execs.
[1] 737 Flight Crew Training Manual, chapter Non-Normal Operations/Flight Controls, sub heading Manual Stabilizer trim:
"Excessive air loads on the stabilizer may require effort by both pilots to correct mis-trim. In extreme cases it may be necessary to aerodynamically relieve the air loads to allow manual trimming. Accelerate or decelerate towards the in-trim speed while attempting to trim manually."
This was recently brought to the attention of members of a certain pilots forum that does not welcome lurkers, hence not adding a link.
Most airliners with jackscrew activated horizontal stabilizers don’t have enough elevator authority to counter a fully deflected tailplane. I don’t think that’s in any way abnormal to the -Max. What is abnormal is the failure mode that seems like it can deflect to full nose down from stability augmentation.
Even if this is true (which I suspect it's not, I think being able to override trim in all positions is a certification requirement, but I could be wrong), disabling the trim just disables automatic trim. It's still possible for the pilots to manually move the trim wheel to trim back up.
The current "industry standard" is 1 accident per 10 million flights. I think the MAX 8 has racked up something around 150K flights with 2 accidents. So yes, the statistics represent an anomaly.
On Mar 13th 2019 the FAA announced shortly after the President had signed the executive order, that they were probibiting Boeing 737 MAX aircraft to operate in US airspace and stated: "On March 13, 2019, the investigation of the ET302 crash developed new information from the wreckage concerning the aircraft’s configuration just after takeoff that, taken together with newly refined data from satellite-based tracking of the aircraft’s flight path, indicates some similarities between the ET302 and JT610 accidents that warrant further investigation of the possibility of a shared cause for the two incidents that needs to be better understood and addressed. Accordingly, the Acting Administrator is ordering all Boeing 737 MAX airplanes to be grounded pending further investigation.”
I have to admit that after reading the tweet and thinking about the gravity of what happened, of the horrible end the innocent passengers went through, I choked up... It's just unimaginable.
I hope they find out the cause & make sure it never happens again.
> In a statement, Boeing said it recommended to the Federal Aviation Administration that the 737 Max be grounded "out of an abundance of caution and in order to reassure the flying public of the aircraft's safety."
A company is recommending to their regulator that the regulator take action against them. That is a pretty solid indicator that the lawyers have a rough idea of potential liability and are now trying to mitigate damages.
What's the current status regarding analysis of the black box data recorder? The only source I've seen [0] states that Germany lacks the software to analyze it. "This is a new type of aircraft with a new black box, with new software. We can't do it," BFU spokesman Germout Freitag said.
This shouldn't be Trump announcing the ban. Either FAA or Secretary of Transportation should be announcing the grounding of flights. Its just odd to me that Trump would be involved...
Does anyone have any idea WHY the US was the holdout here? I'm not well-versed, but my understanding is that aviation safety is generally very good, and that the US is not an outlier on the bad side. While grounding a plane at this point is premature from the stance of conclusion, it seems reasonable from the standpoint of excessive caution that seems to be the norm for the industry.
I can conjecture about Boeing being a big US manufacturer, etc, but is there any evidence at all for why the US held out on this one? My initial reaction was that there must be a good reason for the holdout, given our safety record, but on reading more about it, I've not seen one. (Again, relative to the stance of excessive caution).
Also see @salawat above on nacelle lift-induced pitch instability. We now have airliners that begin to resemble the F-117 in their dependence on computers for controllability in flight.
There's nothing wrong with unstable airframes. Military craft have required computer assisted flight for decades.
What's problematic with 737 MAX is that the stability assist was obviously installed as an after thought, and even worse, it's dependent on instrumentation that does not have several layers of fault tolerance as would be the case if it was actually built with the care that planes actually require to be as dependable as they are.
So the instability is not a problem. That boeing tried to get around it with a cheap patch of jury rigged software that is depending on input from non-fault-safe instrumentation, is.
As I understand it, this effect is only noticeable at very high angles of attack, and is not present in normal flight regimes. (Which is why the MCAS system only activates near the stall.)
Having an unrecoverable stall mode is not a desirable flight characteristic, for sure, but I don't think it's unheard of. For sure it's nothing like inherently unstable airframes as used in fighter jets.
IT wasn't inevitable. There's nothing that's found to be unsafe about the aircraft. If anything it shows that airlines in other countries don't train their pilots properly. MCAS can be disabled by an easily visible switch directly in the cockpit and you can override it with manual trim control as well. The Lion aircraft that crashed before was having MCAS problems _FOUR_ flights repeatedly before the one that crashed. Third world aircraft maintenance combined with poor pilot training and non-idiot proof software made these disasters happen. It's not something that would happen in the US or any other first world country.
All of this news has prompted me to see where Boeing stock is at. Beyond the expected decline in price, I was more interested to find out how parabolic BA's price rise has been in the last 5 years.
Side note: I tried finding a site that would let me link out to a chart showing the full price history of BA. It's surprisingly difficult to find.
Basically they bet right on where the future of commercial aviation is going: more direct flights rather than hub-and-spoke connections, smaller jets that the airlines can fill completely, fuel efficiency is critical, and the air travel industry as a whole would recover after a pretty miserable first decade of the millenia. Their main competitor, Airbus, bet wrong, investing heavily in the A380 which hasn't found much of a market. That's been reflected in their profits lately: 787 and 777 sales have been quite robust, while A330/A350/A380 orders have been anemic.
Make sure you use a log Y-axis when looking at historical data. Steady compound gains (even just from inflation) will make any chart look like a 'hockey stick' otherwise. You're almost always more interested in relative price movement, not absolute.
Gains from 2016 have been good, but that likely reflects the clear success of the Boeing over Airbus's new aircraft.
BA went up a lot in last couple years because there weren't any competition left and the demand for air travel has skyrocketed. They got 5000+ backorder for 737Max alone for regional. Then Airbus bowed out of the long distance market, leaving it to Boeing's 787.
The current fiasco certainly will put a damper to their stock，but there's simply no other choice for new planes. They will bounce back.
In this list of 737 accidents, correct me if I'm wrong, seems that the crashes for similar reasons (shortly after takeoff) are 3 , not 2. There is other one (May 18, 2018 ) involving a 737-100/200 that seems strictly related to the other two by time and dynamic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident...
It sounds like what you really need are flawless automated systems because humans will not always be able to compensate if the system errors are serious enough. And in this case they tacked on a kludgey flight control subsystem without adequate testing to see how it impacted the overall flight control, and did not bother telling the pilots. The executives probably did this to save money even though engineering told them it was unethical.
I'm curious to know how much civil disobedience there's been at airports once passengers realized they'd be flying a 737 MAX. With well over 100 people on a typical flight, and it only taking one dissenter to cause a disturbance that can ripple out to many more passengers, it may have been untenable to continue flying these anyway.
Honestly, this is tantamount to negligence by the FAA. This plane should've been grounded immediately and all of them checked for maximum safety. But the US, as dumb as always, just goes "nothing to see here", "we're waiting for data despite the data being 2 crashes where everyone died in 5 months".
I asked yesterday on Aviation stackexchange https://aviation.stackexchange.com/q/61069/11524 whether the EASA and the FAA has disagreed on the airworthiness of a plane before. I doubt they did.
The FAA is ordering the temporary grounding of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft operated by U.S.
airlines or in U.S. territory. The agency made this decision as a result of the data gathering
process and new evidence collected at the site and analyzed today. This evidence, together
with newly refined satellite data available to FAA this morning, led to this decision.
The grounding will remain in effect pending further investigation, including examination of
information from the aircraft's flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders. An FAA team
is in Ethiopia assisting the NTSB as parties to the investigation of the Flight 302 accident. The
agency will continue to investigate"
Their previous one, less than 24 hours ago, had: "Thus far, our review
shows no systemic performance issues and provides no basis to order grounding
the aircraft. Nor have other civil aviation authorities provided data to us that would
warrant action."
[+] [-] 40acres|7 years ago|reply
The fact that Boeing cut as many corners as they did to bypass mandatory training just adds more smoke to the fire. When the dust settles on this episode I won't be surprised to learn that Boeing (and FAA regulators) is found completely at fault for engineering shortcuts to save costs on re-training.
[+] [-] Someone1234|7 years ago|reply
After the flight data recorders are recovered from the Ethiopian Airlines accident they could reevaluate if it turned out to be something else. But this seems like a rational safety first position given what we know today.
Hopefully Boeing's April patch and mandatory additional training mitigates the issue well enough to resume normal flight operations.
[+] [-] _lbaq|7 years ago|reply
I know I will look twice next time going on a trip which plane I end up on, I'm not sure I will go with a 737 Max anytime soon.
[+] [-] mtgx|7 years ago|reply
https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/13/boeing-requests-faa-ground...
Something is terribly wrong when the regulator that's supposed to keep people safe is less willing to do that then the company that stands to lose the most from the bad image of a product.
[+] [-] paranoidrobot|7 years ago|reply
I certainly couldn't have been the only one to look at the airline I'm about to fly on and check that they didn't have any of the Max 8 variants in service.
[+] [-] halfjoking|7 years ago|reply
Supposedly the profit margins for discount airlines are pretty slim, so if they can't fill all the seats what's the point? What's bad is that they had to wait for that to happen before they took action. It just makes it look like they'd choose profits over safety every time... as long as they can keep making profits.
[+] [-] smadurange|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dclowd9901|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gdubs|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tiles|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mlindner|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lsh123|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clon|7 years ago|reply
Of even more significance is that is currently unclear if it is even possible for a pilot, once it has disengaged the trim motors (following faulty commands from MCAS) to manually correct the trim as per Boeing procedure [1].
The problem lies in the fact that it makes a lot of sense to haul back on the yoke as hard as you can if the nose starts dropping. Elevator upwards deflection loads the tailplane aerodynamically in such a way that it becomes harder to trim the tailplane in the required direction. Called colloquially a yo-yo maneuver, you are then require to "offload" the tailplane (think - push yoke forward..) in order to be able to manually correct the runaway trim.
Plane going nose down, push yoke forward at 500ft? I do not envy the crews at the pointy end of those flights. My heart breaks just thinking about it.
The Lion Air pilots must have been pulling back on the sticks until their tendons break, to no effect. I hope there is a special place in hell for Boeing execs.
[1] 737 Flight Crew Training Manual, chapter Non-Normal Operations/Flight Controls, sub heading Manual Stabilizer trim:
"Excessive air loads on the stabilizer may require effort by both pilots to correct mis-trim. In extreme cases it may be necessary to aerodynamically relieve the air loads to allow manual trimming. Accelerate or decelerate towards the in-trim speed while attempting to trim manually."
This was recently brought to the attention of members of a certain pilots forum that does not welcome lurkers, hence not adding a link.
[+] [-] sokoloff|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lutorm|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clon|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] avip|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foobarbazetc|7 years ago|reply
This is more revealing than they’d like, I think.
[+] [-] foobarbazetc|7 years ago|reply
https://www.faa.gov/news/updates/media/Emergency_Order.pdf
[ sound of stampeding lawyers intensifies ]
[+] [-] mzs|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] holler|7 years ago|reply
I hope they find out the cause & make sure it never happens again.
[+] [-] elliekelly|7 years ago|reply
A company is recommending to their regulator that the regulator take action against them. That is a pretty solid indicator that the lawyers have a rough idea of potential liability and are now trying to mitigate damages.
[+] [-] kregasaurusrex|7 years ago|reply
[0] https://www.dailysabah.com/africa/2019/03/13/ethiopia-cannot...
[+] [-] dragontamer|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ergothus|7 years ago|reply
I can conjecture about Boeing being a big US manufacturer, etc, but is there any evidence at all for why the US held out on this one? My initial reaction was that there must be a good reason for the holdout, given our safety record, but on reading more about it, I've not seen one. (Again, relative to the stance of excessive caution).
[+] [-] laythea|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaronbrethorst|7 years ago|reply
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/13/18263719/b...
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/03/13/...
[+] [-] everybodyknows|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fsloth|7 years ago|reply
What's problematic with 737 MAX is that the stability assist was obviously installed as an after thought, and even worse, it's dependent on instrumentation that does not have several layers of fault tolerance as would be the case if it was actually built with the care that planes actually require to be as dependable as they are.
So the instability is not a problem. That boeing tried to get around it with a cheap patch of jury rigged software that is depending on input from non-fault-safe instrumentation, is.
[+] [-] lutorm|7 years ago|reply
Having an unrecoverable stall mode is not a desirable flight characteristic, for sure, but I don't think it's unheard of. For sure it's nothing like inherently unstable airframes as used in fighter jets.
[+] [-] wazoox|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ousta|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paxy|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mlindner|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SomeHacker44|7 years ago|reply
What new information??? Or maybe “the taste of egg on our face?”
[+] [-] kaycebasques|7 years ago|reply
Side note: I tried finding a site that would let me link out to a chart showing the full price history of BA. It's surprisingly difficult to find.
[+] [-] nostrademons|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Obi_Juan_Kenobi|7 years ago|reply
Make sure you use a log Y-axis when looking at historical data. Steady compound gains (even just from inflation) will make any chart look like a 'hockey stick' otherwise. You're almost always more interested in relative price movement, not absolute.
Gains from 2016 have been good, but that likely reflects the clear success of the Boeing over Airbus's new aircraft.
[+] [-] ww520|7 years ago|reply
The current fiasco certainly will put a damper to their stock，but there's simply no other choice for new planes. They will bounce back.
Disclosure: I shorted/put BA yesterday morning
[+] [-] gabrielblack|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pravda|7 years ago|reply
NYSE: BA $373.96
Seems to be 'discounted'.
[+] [-] anonu|7 years ago|reply
Source: Career spent as a Wall Street Trader
[+] [-] alttab|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitxbit|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ilaksh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CydeWeys|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jshowa3|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chx|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acqq|7 years ago|reply
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D1j5YuBXQAATWlk.jpg
"March 13, 2019 | 3:00 p.m. ET
STATEMENT FROM THE FAA ON ETHIOPIAN AIRLINES
The FAA is ordering the temporary grounding of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft operated by U.S. airlines or in U.S. territory. The agency made this decision as a result of the data gathering process and new evidence collected at the site and analyzed today. This evidence, together with newly refined satellite data available to FAA this morning, led to this decision. The grounding will remain in effect pending further investigation, including examination of information from the aircraft's flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders. An FAA team is in Ethiopia assisting the NTSB as parties to the investigation of the Flight 302 accident. The agency will continue to investigate"
Their previous one, less than 24 hours ago, had: "Thus far, our review shows no systemic performance issues and provides no basis to order grounding the aircraft. Nor have other civil aviation authorities provided data to us that would warrant action."