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Boeing 737 Max Jets Grounded By FAA Emergency Order (nbcnews.com)
President Trump announced an emergency order from the Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday grounding Boeing 737 Max jets in the wake of an Ethiopian Airlines crash Sunday and a Lion Air accident in October that together killed 346 people. The emergency order comes two days after the FAA said the Boeing 737 Max planes are still airworthy. NBC News reports: Trump's announcement came as the FAA faced mounting pressure from aviation advocates and others to ban flights of the planes pending the completion of investigations into the deadly accidents. Sunday's crash killed 157 people and the one in Indonesia in October left 189 dead. "We're going to be issuing an emergency order of prohibition to ground all flights of the 737 Max 8 and the 737 Max 9 and planes associated with that line," Trump announced, referring to "new information and physical evidence that we've received" in addition to some complaints.
The FAA said it decided to ground the jets after it found that the Ethiopian Airlines aircraft that crashed had a flight pattern very similar to the Lion Air flight. "It became clear that the track of the Ethiopian flight behaved very similarly to the Lion Air flight," said Steven Gottlieb, deputy director of accident investigations for the FAA. United States airports and airlines reacted to the order Wednesday, acknowledging that it will lead to canceled flights. American has roughly 85 flights a day on the Boeing Max 8 and Max 9 jets. United Airlines has about 40 such flights. Southwest Airlines has the most, about 150 flights per day on these types of jets out of the airline's total of about 4,100 flights daily.
The FAA said it decided to ground the jets after it found that the Ethiopian Airlines aircraft that crashed had a flight pattern very similar to the Lion Air flight. "It became clear that the track of the Ethiopian flight behaved very similarly to the Lion Air flight," said Steven Gottlieb, deputy director of accident investigations for the FAA. United States airports and airlines reacted to the order Wednesday, acknowledging that it will lead to canceled flights. American has roughly 85 flights a day on the Boeing Max 8 and Max 9 jets. United Airlines has about 40 such flights. Southwest Airlines has the most, about 150 flights per day on these types of jets out of the airline's total of about 4,100 flights daily.
While you can compensate for a poor design in software, the best way is to not make the poor design in the first place.
There is a 'neutral' point for the engines to be located such that a large amount of thrust causes the body to remain mostly neutral.
I posted this 5 months ago: Reasons Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg should be replaced.
And it's only been in service since May 22, 2017.
Considering the extreme safety of air traffic in general that's one freakishly unsafe plane.
It makes me glad I'm not the engineer/developer responsible for building that subsystem.
I stole this Sig
The MCAS system was implemented because the 737-MAX engines are placed more forward of the wing which will tend to induce a nose up pitching moment particularly at high angles of attack near stall. This would've probably been a certification issue.
It would have been a certification issue because it changes the handling characteristics of the aircraft, not because it's inherently unsafe. The MCAS is meant to automatically counter the changes so that the aircrew can fly the aircraft the same way they would a legacy 737. It has to do with Boeing being able to sell the aircraft without excessive certification requirements for pilots, rather than anything to do with safety.
This was like fitting a V-12 engine into a model T.
That's a horrible comparison. The fact that the engines are more powerful has nothing to do with anything. The placement and shape of the engine cowlings is the issue.
Because it would cost too much - the MAX series was Boeing *reacting* to Airbuses launch of the A320NEO family. Boeing had had a study ongoing for years about launching a clean sheet 737 replacement, and were going down that road for introducing in the mid 2020s, but then Airbus launched the NEO and airlines started their fleet renewal processes as a result.
Boeing was caught so off guard that, when a customer no one thought would ever buy Airbus again (due to bad blood after a crash - AA wanted Airbus to take all the blame, Airbus said nope, your pilots were to blame, AA didn't place another order with Airbus as a result) placed an order for the NEO and split it by also placing an order with Boeing, they ordered "130 Airbus A320NEO aircraft AND 130 Boeing aircraft (whatever Boeing comes up with as a 737 replacement)"...
Make no mistake, the MAX is a reaction - otherwise they would have lost a lot more of the market than they already did by the procrastination they did over the A320NEO launch.
Sorry, but this is bullshit. In the "good old days" the airplanes crashed far more often because neither the manufacturers nor the airlines gave a shit about safety. DC10 had a flaw with the cargo door the manufacturer knew about from the start. Took two crashes and a lawsuit for them to do something about it. The manufacturers only started to add hydraulic fuses to their aircraft designs after at least a thousand preventable deaths (DC10 and two 747, and that is just from the top of my head). Airlines generally only started hiring hiring better pilots and stopped skimping on the maintenance after a bad crash. Nowadays the aircraft is so expensive and the margins so tight that the airlines themselves started to insist on safety.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
MCAS has only a limited authority - only up to 2.5 degrees if I remember correctly. And as for the switch, it actually is present on the 737 NG since it doesn't switch off (just) the MCAS, it completely switches off electrical trim assist.
Here: http://www.flaps2approach.com/...
See that stab trim panel? That's the one. It is actually already present in the 737 classic. Even the original 737-100 from 1967 have that two switches at the same place, but the stab trim panel looks a bit different and is much narrower because it came directly from the 707 (where it also was at the same place).
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap