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Ed 737 Max Crashes (was Shutdown caused Boeing crash.)

Passengers in fatal Boeing 737 MAX crashes are ‘crime victims,’ US judge says

A US judge in Texas ruled on Friday that people killed in two Boeing (BA) 737 MAX crashes are legally considered “crime victims,” a designation that will determine what remedies should be imposed.
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O’Connor ruled on Friday that “in sum, but for Boeing’s criminal conspiracy to defraud the (Federal Aviation Administration), 346 people would not have lost their lives in the crashes.”

Paul Cassell, a lawyer for the families, said the ruling “is a tremendous victory” and “sets the stage for a pivotal hearing, where we will present proposed remedies that will allow criminal prosecution to hold Boeing fully accountable.”

Boeing did not immediately comment.
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Apparently the cost to Boeing so far has already exceeded $20 billion.
 
Cheeky, Arrogant bastards!

Boeing Threatens To Cancel Boeing 737 MAX 10


And the reason? Stunning arrogance!

https://onemileatatime.com/news/boeing-cancel-boeing-737-max-10/

In late 2020, Congress passed the Aircraft Safety and Certification Reform Act, requiring planes certified as of 2023 to comply with the latest crew alert regulations mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The 737 MAX is the only new Boeing jet not to feature this technology, given that the plane is based on an aircraft that was designed in the 1960s. So Boeing is in a tricky situation — if the 737 MAX isn’t certified by the end of 2022, the plane will need to feature all new safety technology, which will be costly, further increase the timeline for certification, and will also require additional training for pilots on the jet (and a big selling point of the 737 MAX in the first place was the lack of additional training required).

Of course it’s possible that the plane gets certified before the end of the year, though at this point it seems unlikely.

Aviation Week reports that Boeing CEO David Calhoun has hinted that the aircraft manufacturer would just scrap the 737 MAX 10 project if certification isn’t granted without this updated system. Calhoun stated that “even a world without the -10 is not that threatening,” and “it’s just a risk” that the project may need to be scrapped.

So the message from Boeing is clear — either certify the aircraft with the current technology, or Boeing just won’t bother.​

The bastards are trying to blackmail the FAA into certifying this year so that they can avoid the cost of installing safety features that will be required from Jan 2023. It seems the lessons of Lion Air 610 and Ethiopian Airlines 302 have not been learned.

At this point, you couldn't ******* pay me to fly on a Boeing Max, just on principle alone!!
 
rjh01 said:
The article in the above link is dated 7 July 2022. This is 16 months ago.

Have they walked away?
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I know you are slightly ahead of the rest of the world but hadn't realised by how much.

It is still 2022 for the rest of us.
 
smartcooky said:
The bastards are trying to blackmail the FAA into certifying this year so that they can avoid the cost of installing safety features that will be required from Jan 2023.
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Are they trying to blackmail the FAA? What's their leverage? What does the FAA care if the plane is cancelled?

And BTW, it's only the MAX 10 that's having this certification issue, not the MAX 7, 8, and 9. The article mentions that there's ~600 orders for the MAX 10, but it seems like a lot of those orders could be switched over to MAX 9's pretty easily. There's something like a 10 seat difference between the two, which really isn't much.
 
Cover article in the latest Aviation Week on this. The bigger problem is the Max7, for which they have hundreds of orders.
The root cause of all this is trying to maintain cockpit commonality with a product from 1965.
 
Trebuchet said:
Cover article in the latest Aviation Week on this. The bigger problem is the Max7, for which they have hundreds of orders.
The root cause of all this is trying to maintain cockpit commonality with a product from 1965.
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This person seems to think it's the Max10 which has the laarge order book.



Edit - arghh..

Try this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVus_ePZ9lM So much for trying to use the forum formatting.
 
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Ziggurat said:
Are they trying to blackmail the FAA? What's their leverage? What does the FAA care if the plane is cancelled?

And BTW, it's only the MAX 10 that's having this certification issue, not the MAX 7, 8, and 9. The article mentions that there's ~600 orders for the MAX 10, but it seems like a lot of those orders could be switched over to MAX 9's pretty easily. There's something like a 10 seat difference between the two, which really isn't much.
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Trebuchet said:
Cover article in the latest Aviation Week on this. The bigger problem is the Max7, for which they have hundreds of orders.
The root cause of all this is trying to maintain cockpit commonality with a product from 1965.
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According to Mentour Pilot, Boeing has over 900 orders for the Max 10 (that will be their leverage Ziggurat, disruption of the airline industry) especially for US carriers who make up the bulk of those orders.) If the Max 10 is scrapped, many US carriers may start looking to Airbus for replacements.

I disagree somewhat with Trebuchet. Sure the root technical cause was the cockpit commonalty issue, but IMO, the overall cause was corporate greed.

To quickly recap, Boeing tried to fit an old design (one with short undercarriage legs) into the modern era in which fuel-efficient engines with high bypass ratios were too big to fit under the wings. This meant moving the engines forward and up, changing the aircraft's flight characteristics, leading to them using a cheap software gimmick in the flight control system to make the plane handle like previous models. This was supposed to eliminate the need for costly type-rating training by airlines, making the Max 8 a more attractive option, therefore selling more aircraft and making more money. And that is what it all boils down to, compromising passenger and aircraft safety for the sake of profit.

I find that approach completely unacceptable.
 
smartcooky said:
Just finished watching the Netflix doco "Downfall: The Case Against Boeing"
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I finally got around to watching that recently (on your recommendation). It was quite an eye-opener.

The thing that sticks with me is that basically the pilots and the aircraft were doomed if they did not turn off MCAS within 10 seconds of the fatal malfunction. After that, there was no way to fix the problem because the jackscrew was maxed out and pressure on the elevators would be too much to correct manually. The plane would inevitably fly into the ground at that point.
 
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smartcooky said:
I disagree somewhat with Trebuchet. Sure the root technical cause was the cockpit commonalty issue, but IMO, the overall cause was corporate greed.
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No argument there. It pretty much always is. And it extends farther than Boeing, who went very far out on the cockpit commonality limb at the instance of Southwest Airlines. And it goes back farther than the Max, to at least the 737NG.
The issue of excessive trimwheel forces was known pretty early in the NG days. Boeing COULD have installed a more modern system, but did not for commonality. Unfortunately the new instrument panel was too close to the trim wheels, creating a nasty pinch point. And the new electric trim motor had different start/stop characteristics from the previous hydraulic one, resulting in trimwheel bounceback. The first problem required a smaller wheel, the second a friction damper. Both made the forces worse. But it got judged to be acceptable.* And, I suppose, it was, until yet another kludge made stab runaways inevitable.
*I was there watching as a very fit female pilot struggled to turn the crank on smaller radius wheels on a test rig. And she knew what was coming.
 
Book about this on sale at Amazon at the moment:

Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing - Kindle version 99p

"In this richly reported exposé, a journalist examines the history of the Boeing 737 aircraft and uncovers how the manufacturer’s management choices led to two tragic and deadly crashes — ultimately grounding the plane worldwide. “An authoritative, gripping and finely detailed narrative” (The New York Times)."
 
737Max zombie comes back to life. Loose bolts, missing bolts and a door flying off.
Alaska Airlines found loose bolts on 'many' MAX 9 airplanes -CEO

ASHINGTON, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Alaska Airlines (ALK.N), opens new tab found "some loose bolts on many" Boeing (BA.N), opens new tab 737 MAX 9s during inspections following the Jan. 5 mid-air cabin panel blowout that forced the emergency landing of a new Alaska jet, airline CEO Ben Minicucci told NBC News in an interview that aired on Tuesday.
Alaska Airlines disclosed on Jan. 8 that initial reports from its technicians indicated "some loose hardware was visible on some 737 MAX 9 planes."
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https://www.reuters.com/business/ae...se-bolts-many-max-9-airplanes-ceo-2024-01-23/


https://www.usatoday.com/story/grap...a-flight-lost-door-plug-graphics/72133522007/

https://viewfromthewing.com/boeing-...e-of-defects-bolts-on-max-9-werent-installed/
 
…Because there are so many problems with the Spirit build in the 737, Spirit has teams on site in Renton performing warranty work for all of their shoddy quality, and this SAT promptly gets shunted into their queue as a warranty item. Lots of bickering ensues in the SAT messages, and it takes a bit for Spirit to get to the work package. Once they have finished, they send it back to a Boeing QA for final acceptance, but then Malicious Stupid Happens! The Boeing QA writes another record in CMES (again, the correct venue) stating (with pictures) that Spirit has not actually reworked the discrepant rivets, they *just painted over the defects*. In Boeing production speak, this is a “process failure”. For an A&P mechanic at an airline, this would be called “federal crime”.
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From the last link. Sad.
 
theprestige said:
Conventional wisdom is that McDonnell-Douglas crapped all over Boeing's reputation.
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True, but that merger was almost 27 years ago.... its fish and chip paper now. The company is now Boeing (McDD no longer exists as such) and its descent from engineering excellence to also ran only became publicly apparent in 2018 with the two Max 8 crashes and the MCAS conspiracy

.
 
There were plenty of complaints before then about compromised quality.

What is surprising is that Boeing appears to have learnt nothing since the MCAS debacle. Their biggest customers have stayed loyal but that's in question now.
 
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