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Ethiopian Airlines Crash/ B737MAX grounding

RiseToMe

Reports that an Ethiopian Airlines plane with 157 souls on board has crashed en route to Nairobi

http://news.sky.com/story/ethiopian-airlines-plane-with-157-people-on-board-crashes-11660677

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Tenger

troyzer wrote: »

What, if anything, does this mean for the Neo?

Very little at present. Depending on the length of the grounding we could see a rise in NEO orders. But if its a software issue then it can be resolved, if its a hardware issue then it might need a refit of some level.

Reati

cson wrote: »

Read a comment on Twitter that if it had of been Southwest & American instead of Lion & Ethiopian the MAX would have been grounded on Sunday.

And your opinion is one of... ?

I think we can trawl twitter ourselves if that's ones thing!

cson

Reati wrote: »

And your opinion is one of... ?

I think we can trawl twitter ourselves if that's ones thing!

I think it's probably close to the mark. Boeing has serious enough influence in Washington & had it been 300+ US fatalities from the same model aircraft then yes, I've no doubt the entire fleet would be grounded by the FAA right now.

Look at the snowball effect of groundings/airspace bans in the last 24hrs - there's likely something coming out of the FDR that's precipitating that.

thecretinhop

flying in may to malaga plane is ryanair 737 a8 is that the new one.. gonna be a clusterfk

mickdw

plodder wrote: »

As if Boeing didn't have enough to deal with ....

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1105468569800839169

and

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1105471621672960000

Hard to argue with him on that.
Yes efficiency is the driving force but it does all seem to have gone a step or 3 too far.
When systems are complex and some remain active at all times and pilots have not got a full understanding of how all these protection systems might react to a dodgy sensor input, it would appear to put the pilots in an impossible situation.

I can understand how in darkness, a pilot could get completely disorientated if the instruments were displaying false info. At low level, in day light though, surely even a child can work out whether the plane is nose up / down or over a short period of time, work out that they are decending. With visibility, a pilot I would have thought could then control the aircraft using known power setting etc to maintain safe level flight.

If on the other hand, the pilot couldn't overcome a nose down request from the 'computer', well, the aircraft is a death trap in that case.

plodder

mickdw wrote: »

Hard to argue with him on that.
Yes efficiency is the driving force but it does all seem to have gone a step or 3 too far.
When systems are complex and some remain active at all times and pilots have not got a full understanding of how all these protection systems might react to a dodgy sensor input, it would appear to put the pilots in an impossible situation.

I can understand how in darkness, a pilot could get completely disorientated if the instruments were displaying false info. At low level, in day light though, surely even a child can work out whether the plane is nose up / down or over a short period of time, work out that they are decending. With visibility, a pilot I would have thought could then control the aircraft using known power setting etc to maintain safe level flight.

If on the other hand, the pilot couldn't overcome a nose down request from the 'computer', well, the aircraft is a death trap in that case.

A tad simplistic I would have thought. Twitter is hardly the right place for the president of the US to be speculating (inanely) like that.

mickdw

thecretinhop wrote: »

flying in may to malaga plane is ryanair 737 a8 is that the new one.. gonna be a clusterfk

Ryanair wont be taking them until this is sorted seeing as they are basically grounded now so nothing to worry about.

GM228

French and German airspace now closed, I reckon by the end of the day there will be an EASA ban, but will the FAA follow suit is the big question?

mickdw

plodder wrote: »

A tad simplistic I would have thought. Twitter is hardly the right place for the president of the US to be speculating (inanely) like that.

I agree but he is no stranger to doing that and considering all the stuff he tends to come out with, it is at least a reasonable angle and clearly not just coming out in support of Boeing which would be more worrying from the flying publics view.

Stallingrad

This may be a dumb question but can anyone explain why modern aircraft don't have a last resort fail safe of a spirit level type device in the cockpit that would show the attitude of the plane? No wires, no electronics, just a dumb, foolproof instrument.

When pilots are battling to understand the attitude of the plane at night and the instruments have gone haywire wouldn't this help?

Tenger

GM228 wrote: »

French and German airspace now closed, I reckon by the end of the day there will be an EASA ban, but will the FAA follow suit is the big question?

Its a question of credibility for them, if all other nations are doing so they look like they are bowing to political pressure.

American,United, SouthWest, Westjet and Air Canada account for approx 100 aircraft. (24, 12, 31, 12, 20)
Worldwide about 50% of the 350+ B737MAX are now grounded.
The next largest operator is FlyDubai with 14 in service, most other airlines have single digits

irishgeo

If the easa bans it then fdr initial results will be interesting. Anyone know who is opening the black boxes?

Nijmegen

In the long run automation has probably saved more lives than it has taken. But every time pilot error puts someone in the side of a mountain, it's a fact of life to be endured while training and CRM must improve. Whenever automation is involved, it's the fault of the computer and weren't aviators better in the days when you figured out your airspeed by sticking your head out the window and seeing how fast your scarf fluttered in the wind. Objectively that's not the case. What I think bugs us as humans is that in the case of pilot error, you got yourself into the mess and you can presumably get yourself out. When automation acts weird, it's not fair - some computer put you in a bad situation and you first need to figure that out before you can hopefully save yourself. I think there's a disquiet with that that makes our reaction more visceral.

Now, of course that reaction might be more warranted in a case where (if it transpires to be so) an automation was introduced in order to make for more expedient business to be done, that had poorly understood negative consequences that weren't fixed the first time it put a plane in the drink.

Flydubai 737-9max was due into SNN on delivery tonight won't be happening now..

plodder

Stallingrad wrote: »

This may be a dumb question but can anyone explain why modern aircraft don't have a last resort fail safe of a spirit level type device in the cockpit that would show the attitude of the plane? No wires, no electronics, just a dumb, foolproof instrument.

When pilots are battling to understand the attitude of the plane at night and the instruments have gone haywire wouldn't this help?

I'm probably not using the right terminology, but what really matters is the attitude of the plane relative to the direction of air flow over the wings, not relative to the ground. Eg a level attitude relative to the ground is fine if moving forward fast enough, but if going too slowly, you might be stalled and plummeting to the earth.

NH2013

Stallingrad wrote: »

This may be a dumb question but can anyone explain why modern aircraft don't have a last resort fail safe of a spirit level type device in the cockpit that would show the attitude of the plane? No wires, no electronics, just a dumb, foolproof instrument.

When pilots are battling to understand the attitude of the plane at night and the instruments have gone haywire wouldn't this help?

A spirit level would not work as it'd be effected by acceleration, imagine a bucket of water in a car and then putting the foot down, the water would flow back if not out of the bucket, due to acceleration, even if the car was on level ground. Same with turns, the water would lean side to side even if on level ground. So a spirit level would make for a very poor instrument to measure if the plane was level.

Aircraft have gyro instruments to indicate the attitude, and they're fairly well tested.

Also, this issue wasn't caused by a misleading attitude indicator if what's coming out is to be believed, but rather an automated system putting insidious nose down inputs into the aircraft's elevator trim due to erroneous data from a single sensor.

vicwatson

RiseToMe wrote: »

IAA have suspended departing from or flying through Irish airspace also now

Statement

https://www.iaa.ie/news/2019/03/12/iaa-statement-boeing-737-max-aircraft-temporary-suspension-of-operations

bryangiggsy

This is incredible . I don’t recall this ever happening before. If flights are grounded are passengers entitled to their money back ?

CBCB

bryangiggsy wrote: »

This is incredible . I don’t recall this ever happening before. If flights are grounded are passengers entitled to their money back ?

Yeah, Norwegian are offering a rebook or refund on any cancelled flights

L1011

bryangiggsy wrote: »

This is incredible . I don’t recall this ever happening before. If flights are grounded are passengers entitled to their money back ?

It happened a few years ago with the 787.

GM228

Bans now in Norway, Belgium, Poland and Dutch airspace.

lfc200

EASA have now suspended them from 7pm tonight

GM228

L1011 wrote: »

It happened a few years ago with the 787.

Would I be correct in saying there were only around 50 airframes in service and it was due to battery issues?, the 737 MAX is a bigger issue.

EASA suspending all from 7pm.

GM228

EASA Press Release:

https://www.easa.europa.eu/newsroom-and-events/press-releases/easa-suspends-all-boeing-737-max-operations-europe

smurfjed

re-establishing lift over the wings and returning full control to the pilot allowing them to pull the nose up and to continue flying.

Or hit the ground very hard.

Roger_007

If Boeing and the FAA continue to maintain that the MAX is safe to fly, what needs to happen before the Aviation authorities in other countries allow the plane to fly again?

Inquitus

Roger_007 wrote: »

If Boeing and the FAA continue to maintain that the MAX is safe to fly, what needs to happen before the Aviation authorities in other countries allow the plane to fly again?

Some questions answered by the flight recorders I would think, they have all stated that its the uncertainty that has caused the grounding, along with an abundance of caution.

Tenger

Roger_007 wrote: »

If Boeing and the FAA continue to maintain that the MAX is safe to fly, what needs to happen before the Aviation authorities in other countries allow the plane to fly again?

Those nations that issued grounding orders obviously have concerns. Those concerns will need to be addressed by Boeing.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/03/11/world/boeing-737-max-which-airlines.html

Updated with map of all groundings.
Only Russian, Kazakh, Canadian and US aircraft still flying. I make that 100 aircraft out of 360+.

Pussyhands

cnocbui wrote: »

What are you on about?

From reddit:

The 737 MAX has a different CG than previous 737s with a tendency to pitch up slightly. To compensate there is an auto trim that levels the plane. If for whatever reason the auto trim system malfunctions it will keep going and pitch down. In this case the pilot should reach in between the two seats on the floor to switch the system off rather than attempt to pull back and fight the plane all the way to the ground.

bryangiggsy

From Sky News

Germany's air safety authority has just said 737 MAX 8 and 9 models will be barred from their airspace until 12 June - three months