Another brand new 737 Max crashes

Horrifying and scary that now two of these birds have crashed. This look at first to be pretty similar to the Lion Air one, but I thought they had figured out a fix for that.

I left Boeing many years ago after 12 great years, and I still have enormous pride in the people and products associated with that place. This is absolutely devastating to the people who work there, and there will be a lot of folks working around the clock to figure this mess out. I wish them well.

[javadog]

I think Boeing may have a problem on their hands. It may not be that the plane is defective, in and of itself, but I would postulate that some pilots aren’t sufficiently well trained to operate it. I once met a pilot that spent part of his career over in the Middle East attempting to train other pilots and he indicated to me that there were some countries where the culture was such that the pilots had some noticeable limitations on their abilities. His opinion was that it didn’t matter how much time you spent with them, they simply would fail to grasp certain things.

[onewhippedpuppy]

I tend to agree with JR. I don’t think it’s coincidental that both crashes have been in the hands of airlines operating out of countries with questionable safety histories. BUT, it still raises some very serious questions that need to be answered ASAP. Particularly considering that both crashes seem to have occurred in the same phase of flight and under similar conditions.

[URY914]

How many of these planes are flying? Should they ground them?

[jhynesrockmtn]

I had lunch yesterday with a buddy who is a pilot for SW. They've grounded a large chunk of theirs.

[javadog]

Really? I thought I had seen a tweet from SW that indicated they were happy with theirs. I think they have added an AOA indicator to their jets, to give pilots some additional input when things go wrong.

[sc_rufctr]

Awful tragic horrible event but Antonis Mavropoulos was late and didn't make the flight!

https://au.news.yahoo.com/lucky-day-running-two-minutes-late-fateful-ethiopian-flight-spares-mans-life-042200312.html?fbclid=IwAR2Bu3uj_mTpnpQVgkUf73Sa-AdeCqhol4yaqlRFUTLdF0hyZISe0QfCZak

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

Awful tragic horrible event but Antonis Mavropoulos was late and didn't make the flight!

https://au.news.yahoo.com/lucky-day-running-two-minutes-late-fateful-ethiopian-flight-spares-mans-life-042200312.html?fbclid=IwAR2Bu3uj_mTpnpQVgkUf73Sa-AdeCqhol4yaqlRFUTLdF0hyZISe0QfCZak

That's totally believable for me as a Greek friend of mine is always running late.

The 787 Dreamliner has issues with it's Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines (being fixed - Exposing the base material to low-cycle fatigue, the thermal barrier coating on the IP turbine blades was eroded prematurely by “hot corrosion” caused by high atmospheric sulfur due to polluting industries around large Asia-Pacific cities.), so I looked up the 737 Max.

CFM International LEAP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFM_International_LEAP

The LEAP's basic architecture includes a scaled-down version of Safran's low pressure turbine used on the GEnx engine. The fan has flexible blades manufactured by a resin transfer molding process, which are designed to untwist as the fan's rotational speed increases.

I'm not an expert on this, but can spot patterns pretty quickly and know how to use Google. My best guess is that it's a combination of poor piloting as suggested, and as it pertains to interfacing with this new engine technology.

Perhaps they spooled it up or down too quickly and those flexing blades did some kind of weird oscillation - we will have to wait and see.

No point in guessing now.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/lucky-day-running-two-minutes-late-fateful-ethiopian-flight-spares-mans-life-042200312.html?fbclid=IwAR2Bu3uj_mTpnpQVgkUf73Sa-AdeCqhol4yaqlRFUTLdF0hyZISe0QfCZak

Plane ‘swerved erratically’

It’s not clear what brought the flight down but eyewitness Tegegn Dechasa said he saw the plane come down in flames.

“The plane was in flames in its rear side shortly before the crash. The plane was swerving erratically before the crash.”

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/320670435959833388/


Article on the Nov 2018 crash.
New Questions Swirl Over Boeing on Updated 737 Model That Crashed
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/world/asia/boeing-737-indonesia-crash.html

BANGKOK — Boeing faced new scrutiny on Tuesday over the crash of one of its planes into the sea off Indonesia last month, as airlines, pilots and regulators sought to determine whether the company had underplayed the complexity of a new emergency system suspected of having malfunctioned on the doomed jetliner.

Investigators have been focused on whether the plane, Lion Air Flight 610, crashed because the system, which is designed to pull the plane out of a dangerous stall, activated based on inaccurate data transmitted or processed from sensors on the fuselage.

The plane plunged nose down into the sea, killing all 189 people on board. The precise cause or causes of the crash remain unclear.

March 10, 2019
Boeing in Crisis After Second 737 Max Crash in Months
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-10/china-asks-local-airlines-to-ground-boeing-737-max-caijing-says

The disaster in Ethiopia followed the crash of Lion Air’s 737 Max off the coast of Indonesia on Oct. 29. A preliminary report into that flight indicated that pilots struggled to maintain control following an equipment malfunction. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is working with Boeing on a possible software change to reduce the chances that such a failure could cause an accident in the future.

Boeing responded to the earlier crash by advising pilots that the Max’s so-called angle-of-attack sensor can provide false readings, causing the plane’s computers to erroneously detect a mid-flight stall in airflow. That in turn can cause the aircraft to abruptly dive to regain the speed the computer has calculated it needs to keep flying. Pilots could counteract the sudden downward tilt by following a checklist in their training manual, the planemaker said.

Video above says one more 737 crash and it's tied with the Comet for the worst introduction of a new airliner.

[widebody911]

"If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going..." to live?

[sammyg2]

Obviously a point to point issue.


(ducking)

[GH85Carrera]

My first thought was that anti-stall system. One of my "friends of a friend" is an airline pilot, flying the 737 Max. He said they were cruising along in level flight, all trimmed out and just normal flight when the noise started to point down because of the anti-stall system. He had read the manuals, and instantly knew, pull the breaker for that system. Bam, the airplane was acting normal. He of course wrote up the incident. He also said his co-pilot was a "buy the book" guy and the procedure at the time was not to pull the breaker. This was before the first crash. Now the procedure it to pull the breaker, but at the if his time his co-pilot had been in command, they would not have pulled the breaker.

[Chocaholic]

Glen...I believe the two that crashed did so minutes after takeoff, not yet leveled off and cruising along.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

My first thought was that anti-stall system. One of my "friends of a friend" is an airline pilot, flying the 737 Max. He said they were cruising along in level flight, all trimmed out and just normal flight when the noise started to point down because of the anti-stall system. He had read the manuals, and instantly knew, pull the breaker for that system. Bam, the airplane was acting normal. He of course wrote up the incident. He also said his co-pilot was a "buy the book" guy and the procedure at the time was not to pull the breaker. This was before the first crash. Now the procedure it to pull the breaker, but at the if his time his co-pilot had been in command, they would not have pulled the breaker.

Thanks for the information.

Eye whiteness reports such as the one previously posted about a fire are notoriously inaccurate.

..................angle-of-attack sensor..............is this active on take offs and landings or just during level cruise flight?

https://au.news.yahoo.com/lucky-day-running-two-minutes-late-fateful-ethiopian-flight-spares-mans-life-042200312.html?fbclid=IwAR2Bu3uj_mTpnpQVgkUf73Sa-AdeCqhol4yaqlRFUTLdF0hyZISe0QfCZak

The jet’s last maintenance was on February 4, and it had flown just 1200 hours. The pilot was a senior aviator, joining the airline in 2010, the CEO said.

The Ethiopian pilot sent out a distress call and was given clearance to return to the airport in Addis Ababa, the airline’s CEO told reporters.

[Baz]

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by Chocaholic

Glen...I believe the two that crashed did so minutes after takeoff, not yet leveled off and cruising along.

Yea, I know. The point is that the system can go nuts even in level flight. The airplane I mentions was cruising at 30,000 feet so they had room.

If the pilot of the crashed aircraft were not fast on pulling the breaker, they hit the ground in seconds. It is 100% total speculation on my part. The investigations will figure it out with the voice and data recorders. Lawsuits will fly, something will get fixed.

[Seahawk]

I have presided over two fatal military accidents...best to let the professionals do their job.

Even video is often a false narrative.

Speculation at this time is ill advised.

[javadog]

From the limited data that is known at this point, this plane didn’t significantly gain altitude after take off, although it had plenty of air speed. The pilot had reported issues that make me think the sensors were telling him something different about his airspeed than reality.

The captain had a decent number of hours, but was fairly new in this type and I think his type training occurred after the Lion Air crash. The first officer had relatively low hours.

[cairns]

I have presided over two fatal military accidents...best to let the professionals do their job.

Even video is often a false narrative.

Speculation at this time is ill advised.

Completely agree. Let's not turn this into the Covington kid.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

I have presided over two fatal military accidents...best to let the professionals do their job.

Even video is often a false narrative.

Speculation at this time is ill advised.

For sure. The pros will figure out what really happened, and how to avoid it happening again if it is indeed a system problem.

Time will tell.

[URY914]

Seems like pilots in third world countries are like the drivers of cars in third world countries.