Ethiopian Airlines: 'No survivors' on crashed Boeing 737 max

[DanWEC]

phillyfan

In addition to buying Boeing stock, buy champagne futures - they are going to be drinking it by the truckload in Toulouse.

Ha!!

Also, part of the FAA's decision apparently came from some input from Boeing actually requesting it. They KNOW they have a problem.

[tsgas]

phillyfan

In addition to buying Boeing stock, buy champagne futures - they are going to be drinking it by the truckload in Toulouse.

the management at BBD will say that it's "Karma Baby".

[Gino Under]

If you think grounding the Max is simply internet hysteria or an emotional knee-jerk response prompted by social media, you haven’t invested much thought on the matter.
In the original AD issued by the FAA on Dec.18, 2018, they referred to the Max as “unsafe”, said the problem could lead to a “loss of control”, even potentially result in an “impact with terrain”. You tell me? Internet hysteria? Depends on your research on the subject. Then this accident happened with strikingly similar indications and the reaction is somehow internet hysteria???

As I recall, the B787 Dreamliner was grounded over a battery fire. No deaths. Yet, somehow, some think because a friend who happens to fly a Max and is perfectly comfortable flying it should somehow be the industry standard, just seems to me too low a bar.

I suspect this Ethiopian crew were confident in the Max last Sunday morning. I have no doubt they were aware of the issue following the Lion Air accident. I suspect they had read the Boeing bulletin and received training on the issue. Don’t you have to wonder what their opinion might be today?

Because of the language in that original AD, I’d say this aircraft’s worldwide fleet should have been grounded Sunday.

Gino Under

[A346Dude]

Because of the language in that original AD, I’d say this aircraft’s worldwide fleet should have been grounded Sunday.

I would agree. People were speculating on the cause (in ways that are likely not far off the mark) within hours of the Ethiopian crash, yet the regulators and airlines assured us everything was A-OK. Why did it take 2-3 days, and then all of a sudden it has to be grounded immediately, with planes being forced to turn around in some cases? If it just has to be grounded today (or yesterday in the case of Europe), it should have been grounded nearly immediately.

[Gino Under]

... and now reports are surfacing on newscasts that Max pilots have confidentially reported problems with nose down trim, even before the Lion Air accident. The airlines they work for are saying they have no knowledge of these reports.
Such is the effectiveness of regulated safety systems.

Can we get a round of applause for SMS?

Gino Under

[FlyGy]

What bugs me about all these groundings is that there isn't even a grace period. Any flights in the air now can complete the trip, but if one is scheduled to leave in an hour? Pax are screwed.

Yes, that's what grounded means.

Yes, I'm only stupid, not a complete moron. I know what grounding means, but it's not as though this is an imminent threat. These planes have thousands of hours on them. Why not allow the airlines a couple of days to arrange to replace the Max rather than @#$! up the travel plans for thousands of people.

Is it a risk? Certainly. But not so great as to cause such disruption. Hell, it took over 24 hours for the airlines to start VOLUNTARILY grounding their fleets. If that's all the time needed to arrange for alternate aircraft, is it still too much?

Asking for a friend.

[ghazanhaider]

What bugs me about all these groundings is that there isn't even a grace period. Any flights in the air now can complete the trip, but if one is scheduled to leave in an hour? Pax are screwed.

Yes, that's what grounded means.

Yes, I'm only stupid, not a complete moron. I know what grounding means, but it's not as though this is an imminent threat. These planes have thousands of hours on them. Why not allow the airlines a couple of days to arrange to replace the Max rather than @#$! up the travel plans for thousands of people.

Is it a risk? Certainly. But not so great as to cause such disruption. Hell, it took over 24 hours for the airlines to start VOLUNTARILY grounding their fleets. If that's all the time needed to arrange for alternate aircraft, is it still too much?

Asking for a friend.

Oh but it IS an imminent threat. What we know so far: there is a possible control issue that far exceeds background failure rates. If the cause is common between the two crashes, any flight can be unacceptably dangerous including the ones that were in the air when the directive was released.

And this is not even going into the optics of "please board this flight, we want to squeeze in one last flight before we're grounded due to an unknown fatal issue".

[boeingboy]

... and now reports are surfacing on newscasts that Max pilots have confidentially reported problems with nose down trim, even before the Lion Air accident. The airlines they work for are saying they have no knowledge of these reports.

Wow Gino....you just love to distort the facts don't you?
You should take your own advise and actually take the time to understand things.

I read the same thing - only they were repoting issues with the autopilot (which is totally different from MCAS) and even those same pilots are saying that not only is it not related to the Indonesia problem - but they aren't even that worried about it

More fear mongering...….

[boeingboy]

By far the biggest threat to the Max is the engines - with all the problems they are having - they should have had their ETOPS certification pulled long ago.

Of course - you don't hear anyone going on about that.

[FICU]

The more I read about this MCAS system the more I wonder why it isn’t handled as a stab trim runaway by disabling it with the stab trim cut off switches. Or does this come down to crew training in other parts of the world on this jet that isn’t adequate compared to the US and Canada?

[telex]

By far the biggest threat to the Max is the engines - with all the problems they are having - they should have had their ETOPS certification pulled long ago.

Of course - you don't hear anyone going on about that.

Do you have the data available to support your theory?

[47north]

Can we get a round of applause for SMS?

Gino Under

SMS works well at most 705 carriers in Canada and very well at Jazz where I beilieve you work Gino. Many other countries, including the ASAP programs in the US are not as evolved as we are in Canada in this regard.

[Diadem]

By far the biggest threat to the Max is the engines - with all the problems they are having - they should have had their ETOPS certification pulled long ago.

Of course - you don't hear anyone going on about that.

ETOPS certification has to do with failure rate, and as far as I'm aware there hasn't been an unusual number of engine failures on the Max. Any issue with MCAS would be just as prevalent in short-haul flights as long-haul, and I fail to see how issues with lift at high AoAs would affect aircraft spending long periods of time in cruise.

[Eric Janson]

ETOPS certification has to do with failure rate, and as far as I'm aware there hasn't been an unusual number of engine failures on the Max. Any issue with MCAS would be just as prevalent in short-haul flights as long-haul, and I fail to see how issues with lift at high AoAs would affect aircraft spending long periods of time in cruise.

The issue is a faulty AOA sensor activating MCAS and driving the stabilser to full nose down. Re-trimming causes MCAS to once again drive the stabilser to full nose down. Lionair FDR data clearly shows this.

Moving the control column opposite to the direction of stabilser trim will not disable MCAS.

Unclear if any Simulators have MCAS built in (I doubt it since Boeing didn't feel the need to tell Pilots about this system).

A full nose down stabiliser cannot be overridden with elevator inputs as shown in several previous 737 crashes (737 Classic and NG).

I've only flown the 737 Classic - my understanding of MCAS comes from what I have been reading.

It appears that there are similarities between the Lionair and Ethiopian crash.

That warrants a grounding imho. Good to see individual Airlines and countries taking the initiative.

As for the 787 battery issues - building a steel box around them with a pipe going overboard isn't a solution imho.

The FAA has a lot to answer for as does Boeing imho. Corrupt Crony Capitalism at its worst.

[Heliian]

For an astronaut/engineer Garneau is a running dog-lackey to the sway of internet hysteria. He did not specify what "new information" he was processing with his engineer or astronaut "chapeau" on. Vertical profile? That was available from the start with Flight Radar. All my Max pilot buddies, including some training captains, don't have a concern flying it but emphasize that like any modern airliner you need to have a good understanding of the systems. And the Lion Air system issues with MCAS are now well known and reviewed in training, with thanks DaviiB for that explanation of this "bogeyman".

Copilot with 200 hrs? Was crew pairing done on a risk-assessed model? Things will go wrong with any machinery, the human interface is, or was, meant to mitigate the fact that every conceivable problem cannot be anticipated. The safety net of punching everything off and then systematically re-engaging after control is regained has now fallen out of favour because of the new religion that only full and complete automation can make an aircraft safer. Combined with pilot skill level that you wouldn't trust to hand fly, so just as well I suppose.

Like the large assortment of slightly different helmets in my closet for every leisure activity, this hypersensitivity to perceived or imagined risk is just a sign of the times. And the power of internet emotion and political interference has replaced the lengthy certification process, engineering analysis, and careful safety management systems.

Very well stated . It seems that man's superstitions and fears override science and technology . In the end , all politicians ever care about, is votes .

Agreed - perfectly phrased karmutzen.

Do you have 3 accounts to bolster yourself? Nobody ever agrees on anything here. You played yourself too.

[MrWings]

By far the biggest threat to the Max is the engines - with all the problems they are having - they should have had their ETOPS certification pulled long ago.

Of course - you don't hear anyone going on about that.

You've downplayed the accidents and defended the MAX saying any MCAS issue the plane may have had was "not unrecoverable" and that grounding is "over-reaction" and "herd mentality".

Now you are saying there are engine problems with the plane that no one is talking about, including yourself, until just now.

Exactly what IS your agenda?

[shimmydampner]

By far the biggest threat to the Max is the engines - with all the problems they are having - they should have had their ETOPS certification pulled long ago.

Of course - you don't hear anyone going on about that.

Probably because it hasn't killed over 300 people in spectacular fashion.

[Diadem]

That warrants a grounding imho. Good to see individual Airlines and countries taking the initiative.

There's a big difference between grounding and pulling ETOPS certification. If there's a satisfactory rectification to the problem such that the aircraft are deemed airworthy again, then I don't see why they wouldn't be allowed to do long-haul flights; the problem isn't with the engines failing, so if the Max is safe to take off and land again then it'll be safe in cruise, and Boeing shouldn't have to go through the whole ETOPS certification a second time.

[goingnowherefast]

Any word on when they're actually going to pull the FDR data?

It would be nice to know anything other than political speculation based on ADS-B/RADAR tracks and ATC tapes.

[BMLtech]

If MCAS were to be activated due to erroneous AOA data I'm curious if other false warnings would be presented that could cause confusion. Is there the possibility of a false stall warning/stick shaker at the same time?