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

The FAA is known to avoid change

[jd]

They do nothing without clear and compelling evidence. And even then have been known to delay.

There were cases in an earlier Boeing aircraft of metallic particles in hydraulic fluid causing crashes, but the FAA and NTSB held off on action because they couldn't prove that was the cause of the accidents in the lab.

Turned out their lab tests were faulty.

Once upon a time, they were too proactive, demanding changes without proper testing or evaluation. That also caused crashes, which is why they prefer to do nothing over doing too much.

The second aircraft was in flames prior to the flight terminating abruptly on the ground. It has been suggested that overworked controls fighting with an overly aggressive antistall device may have caused that.

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.

Conditions for both crashes are very, very different from those in America, so if it's an environmental factor that triggered the fault, the FAA are likely correct.

If it's a design flaw triggered, as with the 777, by unusual system loads, then it could happen at any time.

If the accident reports are indeterminate and crashes remain in one part of the world, it's environmental.

Remember, unsafe designs don't explode on first use. The DC9 and original 737 were incredibly bad designs. But they only failed occasionally. Even the Comet completed more flights than not.

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:The FAA is known to avoid change

[hcs_$reboot]

The question you might ask is: what would do the FAA if the "problem" was affecting the Airbus fleet?

Re: Southwest still uses 'em

[c6gunner]

System interactions are complex, there is a way to do it but it may not be obvious.

Pulling back on the stick is pretty fucking obvious. Adjusting your trim is slightly less obvious; you would first have to look at the trim indication and realize that it's out of whack. Still well within the abilities of any decent pilot though. Manual trim override is even less obvious, but is the default action once you determine that the trim system is faulty; something all pilots are trained in.

You don't know what happened and are guessing based on having zero information

Zero information other than reading up on how the Boeing MCAS functions, and having experience maintaining and operating multi-engine aircraft, yes.

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.