The US officially grounds the 737 MAX

[D13H4RD]

A bit lengthy at this point but the US has finally decided to ground the Boeing 737 MAX (specifically both the MAX 8 and the stretched MAX 9) after the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which killed 157, and was preceeded by the crash of Lion Air Flight 610, which killed 189.

 

Quote

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered the temporary grounding of all 737 MAX aircraft operated by US airlines or in United States' territory. 

 

 

Ethiopia airlines crash: Families of victims visit site

It said the decision was based on new evidence gathered at the Ethiopia Airlines crash site, near the capital Addis Ababa, as well as "newly refined satellite data".

 

"The agency made this decision as a result of the data gathering process and new evidence collected at the site and analysed today," the FAA said in a statement. 

Boeing is currently working on a fix to the potential MCAS malfunctions and encouraging operators to suspend commercial operations with the type until further notice. 

 

Quote

The new information from the wreckage in Ethiopia and newly refined data about the plane's flight path indicated some similarities between the two disasters "that warrant further investigation of the possibility of a shared cause", the FAA statement said.

 

The acting administrator of the FAA, Daniel Elwell, said he did not know how long the US grounding of the aircraft would last. A software fix for the 737 Max that Boeing has been working on since the Indonesia crash will take months to complete, Elwell told reporters.

 

Source: Aljazeera

[givingtnt]

Side note : Canada did the same today.

[8uhbbhu8]

Finally!!! It took them long enough after almost everyone else did. 

[dizmo]

How is this tech news? 

[D13H4RD]

19 minutes ago, dizmo said:

How is this tech news? 

Because airliners contain a heap of tech that eventually trickles down? 

 

Techquickie did cover them, specifically the traffic collision avoidance system. 

[Nowak]

20 minutes ago, dizmo said:

How is this tech news? 

Airplanes and other vehicles are technology. Not to mention they've been increasingly computerized since the 1980s rolled around.

[Humbug]

25 minutes ago, dizmo said:

How is this tech news? 

how is it not?

 

If you don't consider aerospace engineering as tech...

[dizmo]

22 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

Because airliners contain a heap of tech that eventually trickles down? 

 

Techquickie did cover them, specifically the traffic collision avoidance system. 

 

5 minutes ago, Nowak said:

Airplanes and other vehicles are technology. Not to mention they've been increasingly computerized since the 1980s rolled around.

 

Just now, Humbug said:

how is it not?

 

If you don't consider aerospace engineering as tech...

 

 

It's a bit of a stretch. There's an immense amount of tech in farming equipment, but we don't see posts about that either, do we.

Tech is literally everywhere.

[Fnige]

Just now, dizmo said:

It's a bit of a stretch. There's an immense amount of tech in farming equipment, but we don't see posts about that either, do we.

Tech is literally everywhere.

Techlinked did cover them... so....

[Humbug]

2 minutes ago, dizmo said:

There's an immense amount of tech in farming equipment, but we don't see posts about that either, do we.

Because nobody here is interested enough to talk about it. Not because it isn't tech.

[D13H4RD]

1 minute ago, dizmo said:

It's a bit of a stretch. There's an immense amount of tech in farming equipment, but we don't see posts about that either, do we.

Tech is literally everywhere.

There's also cars, which now feature a lot of technological equipment, specifically those that make it aware of its surroundings and forms the base of driver assist tech 

[Arika]

they will be fine.

 

[xtroria]

First the 787 and now this.

 

I would expect some airlines that are considering to order 777x switching to A350. Heck, some might even cancel their orders of 737 Max and 777x altogether.

[D13H4RD]

2 minutes ago, xtroria said:

First the 787 and now this.

 

I would expect some airlines that are considering to order 777x switching to A350. Heck, some might even cancel their orders of 737 Max and 777x altogether.

I don't think the 777X is all that affected. 

 

It's based off the 777, which itself has been a reliable workhorse and also pretty darn safe. 

[Nowak]

8 minutes ago, Arika S said:

they will be fine.

 

[dizmo]

13 minutes ago, SlimyPython said:

Techlinked did cover them... so....

 

12 minutes ago, Humbug said:

Because nobody here is interested enough to talk about it. Not because it isn't tech.

 

12 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

There's also cars, which now feature a lot of technological equipment, specifically those that make it aware of its surroundings and forms the base of driver assist tech 

 

Yeah, but there isn't anything related to tech here. There's no "this piece of tech failed, this tech is going to stop future issues" etc. It's just that they grounded aircraft.

That isn't really tech related.

[Nowak]

1 minute ago, dizmo said:

Yeah, but there isn't anything related to tech here. There's no "this piece of tech failed, this tech is going to stop future issues" etc. It's just that they grounded aircraft.

That isn't really tech related.

It's likely related to a glitch in the 737 MAX's operating system. So yes, there is tech involved here.

[D13H4RD]

17 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Yeah, but there isn't anything related to tech here. There's no "this piece of tech failed, this tech is going to stop future issues" etc. It's just that they grounded aircraft.

That isn't really tech related.

The type was grounded due to concerns that a piece of technology fitted to the aircraft may not be fully understood by crews and may not be able to take the necessary recovery action should it fail. 

 

Boeing is also working on a firmware fix for the issue. 

 

So while the grounding itself isn't related to tech, the reason for its grounding is somewhat related, alongside the proposed fix. 

[DarIin]

38 minutes ago, dizmo said:

 

 

 

 

It's a bit of a stretch. There's an immense amount of tech in farming equipment, but we don't see posts about that either, do we.

Tech is literally everywhere.

If a rogue tractor killed a few hundred people then we would probably hear about it.

 

That also said most people tend to want to know if a huge flying metal can is going to fall on their heads, kinda scarier than a tractor deciding to drive to New York of its own volition. 

[seon123]

58 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

I don't think the 777X is all that affected. 

 

It's based off the 777, which itself has been a reliable workhorse and also pretty darn safe. 

Just like the 737 Max is based off the 737, which has been a reliable workhorse and pretty darn safe?

[D13H4RD]

15 minutes ago, seon123 said:

Just like the 737 Max is based off the 737, which has been a reliable workhorse and pretty darn safe?

The fatality rate of the 777 is much lower compared to the 737, though that's mostly because the 737 dates back to the late 60s, while the 777 began its commercial service in the mid 90s.

 

A better comparison would be the 777 vs the 737NG

[seon123]

4 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

The fatality rate of the 777 is much lower compared to the 737, though that's mostly because the 737 dates back to the late 60s, while the 777 began its commercial service in the mid 90s.

From the wiki page for the NG, there's been 15 hull loss accidents with the NG, versus 7 with the 777. 590 Vs 541 fatalities. There's a whole lot more 737s, but a whole lot more passengers per 777. Both are definitely safe workhorses. 

[D13H4RD]

3 minutes ago, seon123 said:

From the wiki page for the NG, there's been 15 hull loss accidents with the NG, versus 7 with the 777. 590 Vs 541 fatalities. There's a whole lot more 737s, but a whole lot more passengers per 777. Both are definitely safe workhorses. 

It's also worth noting that a lot of the accidents involving the NG had human error as the primary cause, such as Air India Express Flight 812. However, there were some that involved a systems failure like Turkish Airlines Flight 1951.

 

The 777 had quite a fewbincidents due to systems failure (British Airways Flight 38 and Egyptair Flight 667 alongside a few engine fires) alongside an aircraft that disappeared and a crash landing whose main cause is still debated (crew error vs overly complex automation). As for the 777's worst incident, it was a shoot down. 

 

It's hard to find an aircraft that has numerous safety flaws these days, but already, the one flaw with the MAX is that the MCAS has little redundancy. 

[justpoet]

Meme's aside, this is definitely tech news.  The issue is reportedly the "smart" portion of the plane thinking it knows better and "correcting" for the pilot…much like a Tesla does…except not as successfully.  This is one of the many reasons why having more and more automatic control in vehicles is not really a great thing, and why today's pilots need more specialized training for the new tech if they're going to be using it, to know more fully how to disengage it in these sorts of situations.

[Falkentyne]

You guys know that BBC.co.uk meme'd Boeing so hard today, right?
Just look at this headline.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47562727

Read what it says.

I don't think I've ever seen a major news site meme a company like this before.

If someone forces them to change the title, I still have a picture of the original article/title.