FAA Says Boeing 737 MAX Planes Are Still Airworthy (cnbc.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: The Boeing 737 MAX, the type of plane involved in a deadly crash in Ethiopia over the weekend, is still airworthy and the Federal Aviation Administration plans to issue a notice to the international aviation community later Monday, a person familiar with the matter said. "The FAA continuously assesses and oversees the safety performance of U.S. commercial aircraft," the FAA said in a statement. "If we identify an issue that affects safety, the FAA will take immediate and appropriate action."

Aviation officials in China and Indonesia ordered domestic airlines to ground their fleets of the popular Boeing single-aisle planes after the deadly crash of one operated by Ethiopian Airlines on Sunday. The 149 passengers and eight crew members on board were killed when the plane crashed shortly after takeoff. The incident was the second deadly crash of the new Boeing planes in less than five months. A Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX 8 plunged into the Java Sea shortly after taking off from Jakarta in October, killing all 189 people on board.

Comments

Re:The FAA is known to avoid change

[chispito]

Moreover, we must remember the 777. It suffered multiple near-disasters with battery packs in flames in the first few flights. This would suggest poor testing procedures.

Your post is insightful, but I believe here you are thinking of the 787.

Re: Southwest still uses 'em

[c6gunner]

That's a pretty shit article, but it did correct one misconception I had, so thank you for that! I had figured the 737 would accomplish trim via tabs on the elevator, but after checking it looks like the entire horizontal stab is trimmable. Cool.

Doesn't change things too much. I didn't say that pulling back on the yoke would override the trim; I said it would still bring the nose up. Trimmable stabs might be a bit more of a problem than elevator trim, but it would still be possible to maintain altitude.

Boeing's comments on the issue seems to indicate as much; they've stated that failing to override the trim would "make the aircraft difficult to control" which is certainly true, but nobody has suggested that it would be impossible to bring the nose up.

Also here is a video of 737 runaway stab trim training from 2015:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=...

You will see that the procedure is the same as what would be required on the 737 MAX; in the video the copilot pulls back on the yoke, while the pilot manually adjusts trim. That's what aircrew should be doing with or without MCAS.

Re: Southwest still uses 'em

[CRC'99]

What I found strange, climb, level out, climb, level out, climb, level out, rapid descent, then recovery, profile climb.

At the first identification of levelling out, the crew should cut off all automatic control and take manual actions to rectify the flight path. You first action should never be "Oh, the autopilot is going something funny, how can we fix it?"

There's a great video that's over 20 years old that is still as relevant today as it was then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Flight aerodynamics hasn't changed in that time - but how we train / respond in both training and procedures have.