737 Max

[Marquette Gyros]

Ok - so how do you manage out of this if you're Boeing?

The MAX 8 has already been grounded by 40 countries; and short of pilot suicide, terrorism or some other cause grounded in external forces, your plane isn't going to be completely vindicated in either the Lion Air or Ethiopian cases. 

Admitting a technical fault and pushing through a fix creates massive liability in the case of the two previous crashes... but what happens if a 3rd jet goes down?

MAX 8 orders are already getting canceled by skittish buyers - I'm not sure there's any path they can realistically take to sell more of them in the next 12-18 months.

What's the next step?

[jsglow]

A case could be made for grounding the Max 8, but it would be a very stretched case and very hysterical. The 787 issue was very different on two counts: there were only a handful of those airframes in the commercial fleet at the time and a fire on an aircraft is a demonstrable flight hazard.....there are hundreds of Max 8s in the civilian fleets and if we're talking about a single automated system that pilots can override it's not an immediate flight hazard. As an example, the Airbus 330 had a known issue of pitot tube freezings that they were working to replace the components, however no one called for the grounding of the 330 before or after the Air France 447 crash because while the pitot tube failure initiated the cascade that resulted in the crash it should have easily been overcome by proper crew management, training, and situational awareness. I suspect if this anti-stall system is found to have contributed it'll be a similar cascade.......

My guess (warning that this is both highly speculative and technical in nature with limited direct knowledge) is that since the current Electronic Flight Control System (EFCS) for the anti-stall (fly by wire if you will) depends on a single sensor if that sensor is bad or if it gives conflicting data with other sensors (altimeter, air speed indicator, etc) the EFCS deconflicts by reverting to a different state of operation. What most people don't realize is that in commercial aviation, the fly by wire design the normal flight mode does not allow the aircraft to put itself(auto-pilot) or the pilot(manual control) into a flight configuration that is dangerous or inappropriate. However knowing that situations might occur that would require an aircraft to be in an extraordinary situation they have a secondary flight mode(Boeing) or Alternative Law(Airbus). When the aircraft goes into secondary mode it is more "traditional" flying where what ever input you give the aircraft will happen as opposed to primary control where you give it an input and it'll do it until the max point allowed by the flight envelope protection. What I suspect happened is that the anti-stall system caused a conflict that the aircraft went into secondary mode and the pilots did not realize that they were "overcontrolling" the aircraft which resulted in them chasing stability and given it occured at low altitudes just after they cleaned up the aircraft from take-off they didn't have the vertical space to recover properly.

But a good conspiracy theory makes sense too 

I have 2 observations, my friend.

1) You're super smart and know what the hell you're talking about.
2) How the sam hill could a guy that smart marry and procreate with a Bucky chick!  (Teasing, teasing!!!) 

[Jon]

Lots of mental masturbation here. I caution everyone to let the investigation play out. My bold prediction: this was ultimately human vice system error.

Which means it was a pilot making a bad call or a wrench turner did something stupid.

I am probably the only person on Scoop who has sat on a Class A mishap investigation board. These two events are being investigated by really talented experts. Let them do their job.

The funny thing about aircraft is that they are sophisticated marvels of engineering. A million things can and will go wrong. It is never just one thing but, rather, the cascading effects which terminate controlled flight.

Automated flight systems were designed with one outstanding feature: the flight deck dudes ALWAYS have command override. If a flight control sequence is initiated the two swinging richards up front can and must either accept or abort the sequence.

My personal experience from sitting on Class A mishap investigation boards it is always a series of events, actions, and decisions which put the aircraft into extremis from which controlled flight is no longer possible.

Unfortunately, pilots have a split second in which to make that correct decision to overcome a mechanical failure or faulty avionics. Make the wrong call and you compound an already bad situation.

And let me point something out: speed, thrust, and altitude are life. A mechanical failure at Angels 36 with the wings straight and level is vastly different than one on recovery where sink rate, deceleration, and flying dirty are now a major problem. (I won't even get into how an F 16 or A 10 flying a tactical profile in combat is exponentially more difficult.)

Boeing is an impressive engineering firm. And their safety record is stellar.

Let the mishap investigation play out. Frankly, I take great comfort when reading these reports because, with Boeing gear, though it may involve system issues, at the end of the day it is a human who made the bad call.
 

[mu03eng]

Ok - so how do you manage out of this if you're Boeing?

The MAX 8 has already been grounded by 40 countries; and short of pilot suicide, terrorism or some other cause grounded in external forces, your plane isn't going to be completely vindicated in either the Lion Air or Ethiopian cases. 

Admitting a technical fault and pushing through a fix creates massive liability in the case of the two previous crashes... but what happens if a 3rd jet goes down?

MAX 8 orders are already getting canceled by skittish buyers - I'm not sure there's any path they can realistically take to sell more of them in the next 12-18 months.

What's the next step?

If it truly is at worst a contributing factor and not a total design/implementation flaw that caused the crash, they just have to maintain. Again there is a lot of sensationalism going on right now that will go away as soon as the next shiny object flashes in front of the media. If the way the system works was a contributing factor they will have no more liability than any other aircraft crash that's occurred in the past for both Boeing and Airbus. If the EASA or FAA reports come back with the phrase "due to pilot error" anywhere in them Boeing is well in the clear from a liability standpoint and the media focus will have moved on a year from now and hardly anyone will remember this......again assuming that there isn't some massive design flaw that is crashing the planes.

[mu03eng]

I have 2 observations, my friend.

1) You're super smart and know what the hell you're talking about.
2) How the sam hill could a guy that smart marry and procreate with a Bucky chick!  (Teasing, teasing!!!) 

1) Experience and shouting the loudest don't equate to intelligence, but thanks
2)Clearly she has a character flaw, I mean how can someone as smart and interesting as her choose to go to Bucky school not once but twice??!?!?!

[mu03eng]

Lots of mental masturbation here. I caution everyone to let the investigation play out. My bold prediction: this was ultimately human vice system error.

Which means it was a pilot making a bad call or a wrench turner did something stupid.

I am probably the only person on Scoop who has sat on a Class A mishap investigation board. These two events are being investigated by really talented experts. Let them do their job.

The funny thing about aircraft is that they are sophisticated marvels of engineering. A million things can and will go wrong. It is never just one thing but, rather, the cascading effects which terminate controlled flight.

Automated flight systems were designed with one outstanding feature: the flight deck dudes ALWAYS have command override. If a flight control sequence is initiated the two swinging richards up front can and must either accept or abort the sequence.

My personal experience from sitting on Class A mishap investigation boards it is always a series of events, actions, and decisions which put the aircraft into extremis from which controlled flight is no longer possible.

Unfortunately, pilots have a split second in which to make that correct decision to overcome a mechanical failure or faulty avionics. Make the wrong call and you compound an already bad situation.

And let me point something out: speed, thrust, and altitude are life. A mechanical failure at Angels 36 with the wings straight and level is vastly different than one on recovery where sink rate, deceleration, and flying dirty are now a major problem. (I won't even get into how an F 16 or A 10 flying a tactical profile in combat is exponentially more difficult.)

Boeing is an impressive engineering firm. And their safety record is stellar.

Let the mishap investigation play out. Frankly, I take great comfort when reading these reports because, with Boeing gear, though it may involve system issues, at the end of the day it is a human who made the bad call.

[DegenerateDish]

Interesting that Canada just grounded all Max 8's.

[Jockey]

I also cannot overstate the amount of misinformation and ignorance in this thread. 

Let's refer to Bit #6 of Benny's Bits of Scoop Wisdom:
6-When Air Force and Navy are aligned, play the antagonist at your own peril.

If that's not good enough, consider that Boeing is one of the most sophisticated, technologically advanced companies in the entire world... their reputation is everything.  If something was genuinely wrong with their metal, they would be issuing the grounding order themselves; otherwise, they are putting their entire company at risk.

IOW: A critical oversight and cover-up by the Max 8 team could result in the death of a few hundred, maybe a few thousand... an oversight and cover-up by the team a few cubicles over could result in the death of millions.  Boeing isn't going to risk anything that calls their ability to assess and correct in real time into question.

On 8 different occasions, US pilots reported a problem similar to the one that the crashed planes had when they went down. They were able to compensate manually to deal with the issue. I would "assume" the first crash plus these reports were why Boeing started working on a fix last year.

I don't know how these things work - maybe you or Eng or Crash would know - but would Boeing inform pilots in all countries who flew these jets about the problem and how to deal with it when it happens?

[Jockey]

It's the easy way out to blame the media, but this is from the Wall Street Journal:

'Boeing is making an extensive change to the flight control system in these 737 MAX aircraft, going beyond what many industry officials familiar with the discussions anticipated. The change would mark a major shift how Boeing originally designed a stall prevention feature in the aircraft. The company spokesman confirmed the update would use multiple sensors and data feeds in the stall prevention system instead of the current reliance one one sensor and prompted investigation results indicated that erroneous data from a single sensor that measures the angle of the plane's nose caused the stall prevention system to misfire and a series of events put the aircraft into a dangerous dive. The anticipated software fix from Boeing will limit the extent of the flight control systems downward push on the plane's nose.'


This seems like a design flaw to me, but I would like the opinion of someone who actually knows something about this.

[mu03eng]

On 8 different occasions, US pilots reported a problem similar to the one that the crashed planes had when they went down. They were able to compensate manually to deal with the issue. I would "assume" the first crash plus these reports were why Boeing started working on a fix last year.

I don't know how these things work - maybe you or Eng or Crash would know - but would Boeing inform pilots in all countries who flew these jets about the problem and how to deal with it when it happens?

Yes, they would send out an safety/airworthiness notification to the operators if there was a known impact to flight procedure with instructions on how to work around the issue until a fix could be implemented. These are supremely complicated machines and they aren't going to find every "bug" that exists at the time of deployment, simply because of things like unknown unknowns (never imagined flight scenario, or just the right sequence events that has never happened before, etc) so there is a process to create work arounds/update procedures to avoid issues as they become known, with the permanent fix following up. If there is an issues it would be absolutely normal to not have a "fix" in place for multiple months after the issue is discovered.

I will say it is a little surprising that any system that would impact the flight envelope would depend on a single sensor. Redundancy in data is critical to could control decisions, anywhere, not just aviation. You have to first know if the data you are basing a decision on is good data or not....and using a single "data point" is a bad way to know whether you have good or bad data. We'll see if these early reports turn out to be true in that regard.

[dgies9156]

Let the mishap investigation play out. Frankly, I take great comfort when reading these reports because, with Boeing gear, though it may involve system issues, at the end of the day it is a human who made the bad call.

Could not agree with you more.

Inherently, I believe Boeing will do the right thing, whatever it is. There's too much at risk not to.

I'm reminded of the DC-10 cargo door incident back in the 1970s. The DC-10 had a cargo door that worked, as long as the cargo personnel managed the process of closing the door properly. There was a peep hole and if the pins were aligned correctly, you saw them in a certain position.

When the pins weren't aligned properly, the door wasn't latched. An American DC-10 flying to Detroit one night lost its cargo door over Ontario, blowing a huge hole in the fuselage because the door wasn't latched. An Airworthiness Directive went out to fix the door but the folks at what is now Turkish Airlines (THY) were new operators of the DC-10 and didn't act quickly enough. A fully loaded DC-10 took off at Paris, the door blew out and 346 people were killed.

Between that and the disposable engine problem (which again, was not following maintenance procedures coupled with bad flight manuals), the DC-10 was killed in the market.

Was there a design flaw? Probably not, but McDonnell Douglas kinda figured people would follow instructions.

We'll see if Boeing thought the same thing!

[jsglow]

I thought they totally redesigned that DC-10 door.

[JWags85]

MAX fleet now grounded in the US

[jsglow]

Seems as if the order is directly from the White House.  Reading this correctly?

[dgies9156]

I thought they totally redesigned that DC-10 door.

After the THY incident, yes, it was.

[Jockey]

Yes, they would send out an safety/airworthiness notification to the operators if there was a known impact to flight procedure with instructions on how to work around the issue until a fix could be implemented. These are supremely complicated machines and they aren't going to find every "bug" that exists at the time of deployment, simply because of things like unknown unknowns (never imagined flight scenario, or just the right sequence events that has never happened before, etc) so there is a process to create work arounds/update procedures to avoid issues as they become known, with the permanent fix following up. If there is an issues it would be absolutely normal to not have a "fix" in place for multiple months after the issue is discovered.

I will say it is a little surprising that any system that would impact the flight envelope would depend on a single sensor. Redundancy in data is critical to could control decisions, anywhere, not just aviation. You have to first know if the data you are basing a decision on is good data or not....and using a single "data point" is a bad way to know whether you have good or bad data. We'll see if these early reports turn out to be true in that regard.

Thanks, Eng.

I don't blame Boeing in this - so far. Like you said, "bugs" can slip through. I guess it all depends on what they did after the first crash when they realized the cause. Did they try to hide the cause or did they send out notice to all of the airlines involved?

Apparently, their redundancy was the pilot.

[MU82]

Boeing stock (ticker: BA) has held up quite well despite this, a sign of a very strong company.

Down about 12% since the crash over several days, with more "bad news" coming every day. Its price actually went up today after the plane was grounded in the U.S.

Weaker companies might have seen price plummet 30-40-50%.

[mu03eng]

Boeing stock (ticker: BA) has held up quite well despite this, a sign of a very strong company.

Down about 12% since the crash over several days, with more "bad news" coming every day. Its price actually went up today after the plane was grounded in the U.S.

Weaker companies might have seen price plummet 30-40-50%.

Grounding by order of the president gives them "political" cover that's going to preserve the stock price. With no Max 8s in the air none can crash for whatever cause (assuming the two crashes were related) which means there is no liability risk to price into the stock. Further, since Boeing didn't do the grounding they can explain it away (assuming it isn't a major design flaw) as over precaution by governments that allows them to get it back in the air as soon as practical.

Unless there truly is a significant design flaw, this is the best outcome that Boeing could ask for.

[GooooMarquette]

Seems as if the order is directly from the White House.  Reading this correctly?

Yep.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/13/politics/donald-trump-boeing-faa/index.html

[jsglow]

Whether or not this is overblown, there's few enough of these things flying in US skies that we'll be able to absorb in the short term.  Heck, I can even see SWA getting some 700 series jets back out from the desert parking lot while this gets hammered out.  They only operate 34 Max-8 at this time.  AA drives only 24 and they are #2.

One problem they might have. I wonder if it was Max-8s that were kicking off SWA's Hawaii service next week?  That could leave a little mark.

[MU82]

Grounding by order of the president gives them "political" cover that's going to preserve the stock price. With no Max 8s in the air none can crash for whatever cause (assuming the two crashes were related) which means there is no liability risk to price into the stock. Further, since Boeing didn't do the grounding they can explain it away (assuming it isn't a major design flaw) as over precaution by governments that allows them to get it back in the air as soon as practical.

Unless there truly is a significant design flaw, this is the best outcome that Boeing could ask for.

I actually said something very similar in the comment stream of a Boeing thread on an investing site I visit. People were freaking out that BA was gonna plummet right after today's announcement ... but then the opposite happened.

A big part of it is the reason we both espouse.

Another big part of it is that, even after the crash, Boeing is a very strong company and the better half of a world-wide duopoly.

[muwarrior69]

Boeing stock (ticker: BA) has held up quite well despite this, a sign of a very strong company.

Down about 12% since the crash over several days, with more "bad news" coming every day. Its price actually went up today after the plane was grounded in the U.S.

Weaker companies might have seen price plummet 30-40-50%.

Time to buy!

[MU82]

Time to buy!

BA is still pretty richly valued, but not all that bad compared to some industrials. Plus, the dust obviously isn't settled on what is going on, and what Mr. Market likes the least is uncertainty.

But as far as the quality of the company and the long-term investment thesis of the stock, one could do a lot worse.

[GooooMarquette]

BA is still pretty richly valued, but not all that bad compared to some industrials. Plus, the dust obviously isn't settled on what is going on, and what Mr. Market likes the least is uncertainty.

But as far as the quality of the company and the long-term investment thesis of the stock, one could do a lot worse.

That's how I view it. Kinda like FB during its privacy thing. It was a good deal when it dropped, but it wasn't a "get rich quick" steal either. It just made a solid stock stock just a little more affordable.

BA has been on my watchlist for a little while, and I might pull the trigger soon. Whether I buy or not, I suspect it will continue to be a solid long-term holding for those who own it.

[john59]

I rode a max 8 last evening on American Airlines from Puerto Plata Dominican Republic to Miami...once we landed it took about 15 minutes to have a gate available. The pilot came across the intercom and said this was one of the best airliners he flew and that to have no worries. I read about both crashes on the news but did not put two and two together. I saw today that my same flight today has been cancelled after it was announced they’re grounded.  Makes me feel grateful yet wishing I had another day in 85 and sunny.