Don't fly on a 737-MAX

euan

So part of it will be pandemic related, but it looks like the 737 Max has cost Boeing 40% of its share value. Hopefully this will be an example of how cost cutting harms business…

elstoof

Aye, but a lot of people running got very rich off the over-inflated value at the time so that makes it worthwhile right?

Musical_Mystery_Tour

Door has been found in a back garden in Portland, presumably it'll be a bit dented having dropped 16,000 feet with a horizontal speed of over 400 knots when it blew off.

Haych

Musical_Mystery_Tour said:

Door has been found in a back garden in Portland, presumably it'll be a bit dented having dropped 16,000 feet with a horizontal speed of over 400 knots when it blew off.

At least it's (hopefully) just the door that's dented and it didn't damage property or, worse still, land on somebody's head!

Kittyfrisk

Haych said:

Musical_Mystery_Tour said:

Door has been found in a back garden in Portland, presumably it'll be a bit dented having dropped 16,000 feet with a horizontal speed of over 400 knots when it blew off.

At least it's (hopefully) just the door that's dented and it didn't damage property or, worse still, land on somebody's head!

No-one was injured & apparently an Iphone that also fell was in good condition.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67911193

elstoof

What case was the iPhone in

stickyfiddle

Can someone please let me know what kind of case this is because I want one??

Musical_Mystery_Tour

Presumably the phone case was well hard, probably from Newcastle, which would make it a why-aye-phone.

darthed1981

menamestom said:

Tannin said:

ICBM said:

 Sadly, unless something very major is turned around and the company culture put back to something like how it was 30 years ago, I don't think Boeing has a good outlook.

If they were a normal commercial business in a competitive market, I'd agree with you.  If this was 30 years ago, Douglas and Lockheed would trample them into the dust. 

But now there is only Boeing. No other company makes large commercial  airplanes (sic). (Foreign companies don't count. Not in the USA.) More to the point, the US relies absolutely on Boeing for the majority of its military aircraft. The company simply cannot and will not be allowed to fail. The US will spend whatever it takes to prop them up, and/or hand them massive sweetheart deals on their military contracts (not for the first time!), and/or figure out ways of banning or taxing competing products (primarily Airbus).

Delta and American Airlines, the 2 biggest airlines in the US are pretty much 50/50 Airbus/Boeing, so I wouldn't say they don't count.  Southwest are all Boeing, United mainly Boeing, but they have Airbus and more on order.

Military, I thought that Lockheed Martin would be the main supplier nowadays?  They make the F-35, which is replacing the now phased out F-18 (out of new orders, not service).  That said, LM subcontract some manufacture to Boeing so this is not to say they are not intrinsically linked.

You're probably right that they won't be allowed to fail, but even in the US, the reliance on Boeng doesn't seem to be quite so absolute.

Boeing do seem to have a power over the US government, no doubt.

The decision to cut the F-35 buy (unofficially) in favour of buying more "new" F-15EX fighters, costing about the same, is at best questionable given that as good as they are, the US really does have plenty of 1970s fighters.  I know the official reason is that they didn't build enough F-22s, but, meh.

Tannin is probably right - if it comes down to it the US government will probably try to fuck Airbus to protect Boeing.

Depends on the scandal really, this whole 737-MAX debacle is massively embarassing for US industry in general, which has fallen from the almost infallible giant that won the Second World War, created the F4 Phantom, 707,747. F15 and F16, B52 etc to create a hideously expensive (if very capable) monster in the F-35 and now this mess.

ICBM

There's some interesting speculation on Airliners.net just now that the problem might not have been Boeing's fault - apparently, the aircraft went to an Alaska Airlines service centre in the first week of December to have satellite wi-fi installed - and the satellite transceiver is right above that plugged door. The plane had been in service during November and nothing untoward happened, but the first 'spurious' depressurisation warning occurred the day after it went back into service. No-one on the forum seems to know if the door plug was removed to access the fitting or not.

It may be entirely unconnected... but it may not be.

Musical_Mystery_Tour

Claiming spurious pressurisation warnings is a well known trick amongst aircrews who want to run their hours out so they don't have to fly: What they do is call up and say they think the door seals may have been tampered with and they want an engineer to check it, which takes a while, by which time they can say they are out of hours if they can waste maybe an hour on a pressurisation check.

I had that malarkey the other day with an Embraer 170 (won't name the airline), the skipper said he wanted to do a tactile check on the upper wing to see if it needed de-icing. It was cold, but very dry and since the thing had been refueled, it was unlikely to have much in the way of cold-soaked ice on the wings from chilled fuel already being in the tanks from the preceding flight.

Unfortunately for him if he was trying to pull the out of hours trick (not saying he was), there was a set of BP fueler steps in the equipment bay on the stand, so I dragged them over and the check was done in about two minutes, as opposed to waiting for an engineer to find some engineering steps and get out there with them. That was a thirty minute spin and I was TLing the flight, so there was no way I was going to let them get a delay and me cop for the blame by not providing the necessary equipment, any delay after that was down to waiting for the de-icing rig to turn up and since the pilot called for it and is aware it doesn't happen in five minutes, he then had to do the flight since they had paid for the de-icing!

Kittyfrisk

stickyfiddle said:

Can someone please let me know what kind of case this is because I want one??

It's not the case that helped, it's the Gorilla Glass screen protector.
Does what it said on the tin 

ManWithoutSkin

Danny1969 said:

Also the auto depressurisation fail light has illuminated on 3 separate occasions prior to this event    .   Dec 7th, Jan 3rd and Jan 4th but they never really investigated why, just switched to the alt backup.  Later they just tested  it and basically said not sure what the issue is but lets not let it fly over the ocean as it seems a bit iffy.     

I get planes have redundancy but whole point of redundancy is that it is there when you need it. You can't say oh the normal mode of depressurisation detection is faulty we will use the alt mode .... that's now basically flying without the redundancy.  

I fly a 737 and instruct on one for my day job.  

For reassurance, they would still have redundancy.  

The cabin pressure controller takes inputs from other systems and then drives the outflow valve to the required position to control the cabins pressure using a DC motor.

The 737 has three modes, Auto, Altn and Manual. The Auto system is two identical controllers that alternate between the primary 'Auto' controller and backup 'Altn' controller each flight. Even if you're operating in an Altn mode, you have the redundancy of a Manual mode.

topdog91

As a lot of people here seem to know their wings, just a cheeky off-topic plug for https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/259533/pilot-guitarists-unite for those who haven't seen it.

I now return us to the main topic of would we actually get on board one of these things at the current time...

Adey

Re the original post, how are you meant to know what type of plane you will be flying on when you book a flight or package holiday? 

Even when you get to the airport you aren't told. And if you were, you don't get the option to 'not fly' with no financial penalty.

Danny1969

ManWithoutSkin said:

Danny1969 said:

Also the auto depressurisation fail light has illuminated on 3 separate occasions prior to this event    .   Dec 7th, Jan 3rd and Jan 4th but they never really investigated why, just switched to the alt backup.  Later they just tested  it and basically said not sure what the issue is but lets not let it fly over the ocean as it seems a bit iffy.     

I get planes have redundancy but whole point of redundancy is that it is there when you need it. You can't say oh the normal mode of depressurisation detection is faulty we will use the alt mode .... that's now basically flying without the redundancy.  

I fly a 737 and instruct on one for my day job.  

For reassurance, they would still have redundancy.  

The cabin pressure controller takes inputs from other systems and then drives the outflow valve to the required position to control the cabins pressure using a DC motor.

The 737 has three modes, Auto, Altn and Manual. The Auto system is two identical controllers that alternate between the primary 'Auto' controller and backup 'Altn' controller each flight. Even if you're operating in an Altn mode, you have the redundancy of a Manual mode.

Thanks for that, amazing  to have a 737 pilot chip in on this. 
These things worry me because working in electronics I know how common intermittent faults are and how hard they are to pin down. But I think if a warning light came on ...even on one occasion then it needs to be investigated thoroughly to why it came on because electronically ... it could mean disaster looming elsewhere. 

As a very simple example a mal functioning horn on a car for example can often be caused by a bad earth on the rear light cluster. I appreciate planes has multiple isolated power busses and breakers for different circuits but surely everything on a plane that's related to critical safely should be 100% before it's allowed to fly. 

More bad news this morning ... loose bolts found on more Max 9's. 

Even If I would get on a 8 or 9 in the future I would have no chance of getting the wife on one after this ... just too many incidents to feel safe.

elstoof

Airlines will tell you the equipment when selecting your flight, like this random one I just started. In this case it’s a Bombardier CRJ900 operated by Delta’s regional subsidiary 

They need to plan the aircraft in advance to know how many tickets to sell, and you need to know the seating layout when choosing your seats. Many passengers like to book a specific aircraft because they might want 4 abreast seating for the family, a 787 for example has a 3-3-3 layout while a 777 is 3-4-3, or a business traveller might prefer the airline’s 1st class seats in one type over another. The airline might change the equipment after you book but they generally inform you of this by email, especially if you chose your seat because you’ll need a new seat number if the aircraft type has changed. 

stickyfiddle

You can also look up the flight number on the likes of flightaware and flightradar and see if they’re consistently using the same planes on that route (usually they are)

PC_Dave

This is purely anecdotal based on my own experiences and may not satisfy some, but I used to work for Boeing running the technical support services for Boeings in-house MRO function in Europe, where the biggest customer on the programme at the time was Norwegian with their 787 and 737NG fleet - I can say from my personal experience there that money never, ever overruled safety. There were times when an aircraft would have to be grounded (AOG) due to a suspected fault and this meant that Boeing had to cover costs for the airline for the entire time the plane wasn't flying, sometimes into the hundreds of thousands of dollars (even millions of dollars in one case) just for that one aircraft, but it was always done if passenger safety was at risk - Money was never a factor. The checks made by the engineers replacing parts were checked by other engineers, then senior engineers on-site, then checked again by the Technical Operations Centre here in the UK, then checked again by the TOC in the US before being signed off as fit to fly. It was, at the time, an incredibly robust system. 

This was, of course, while the MAX was being tested and certified and pre-pandemic, so I can't speak for the practices employed by the company after this period with regards to recouping costs from that period, so make of that what you will. Also the US and European functions of Boeing were separate operating entities, and obviously the FAA and CAA have completely different certification requirements with regards to new aircraft types.

Just my two-penneth.

Haych

topdog91 said:

I now return us to the main topic of would we actually get on board one of these things at the current time...

No.  If I was booking a flight and was told at the time of booking that the aircraft would be a 737 MAX then I would simply book a different flight.  I have felt that way since before the latest incident, though.

From the comfort of my chair it's easy of me to state that I would refuse to board a 737 MAX if there was a last minute change of equipment.  If that actually happened in the moment I think it would be a much harder decision to make, especially if other people were relying on you to be on that flight.

It's hard to believe that the fear of offending can be stronger than the fear of pain (or in this case, death), but you know what? It is.