Problems Pile Up for Boeing as 737 Max Delays Continue

[brooklynite]

Source: New York Times

The return of Boeing’s 737 Max appears to be slipping. Again.

The plane has been grounded since March after two deadly crashes that killed 346 people. It has disrupted the global aviation industry and plunged Boeing into the biggest crisis the aerospace giant has ever faced.

Yet today, after more than eight months of intensive work by Boeing and aviation regulators, the timing of the return of the 737 Max appears more precarious than ever.

While Boeing has said publicly that it expects the Federal Aviation Administration to begin the process of ungrounding the plane this year, that now appears unlikely, according to a government official familiar with the process. Instead, it is increasingly likely that the grounding will continue into 2020, given the series of tests Boeing must complete before the regulator clears the plane to fly.

F.A.A. officials believe that it could take until late January for the agency to lift the grounding and approve training requirements for pilots. It would then take weeks for airlines to prepare Max jets to operate commercial routes.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/27/business/boeing-737-max-return-to-service.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage

[MyOwnPeace]

1. Really?

We're still waiting?

WHAT THE F**K made this plane "acceptable" a few years ago and now it can't even get to the end of a runway?

I don't care about WHO WAS PRESIDENT at the time - I want to know how ANY GOVERNMENT AGENCY approved this flying death machine to take people off on a possible death ride!

THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!

OUR GOVERNMENT OWES US AN ANSWER!

Do we have agencies that are there to protect US, or the CORPORATE ENTITIES that they cover?

(I'm not even going to begin to speculate how this current misadministration will answer those questions!)

[DENVERPOPS]

4. Our government owes us an answer

sure......when Boeing 737's fly.......LOL

[DENVERPOPS]

5. Another thought

Boeing's biggest problem is people not wanting to fly on them once they are returned to service.
This includes the pilots and flight attendants and their unions....................

[NurseJackie]

9. I wouldn't fly on one.

[Chemisse]

12. I don't think that is its biggest problem.

If it was, then a few software fixes and a PR campaign would solve the problem.

Instead, the basic design of the plane is problematic, with the engines placed farther forward than other planes, causing a tendency for the nose to pitch up in flight. A whole new software system was created to accommodate it, and apparently that is what caused the crashes.

So it's a mess.

[DENVERPOPS]

14. Some insider reports tell a far more realistic story/cause.....

of Boeing waking up one day that their major competitor was beginning production on a plane that would most certainly take over the market from the Boeing 737.........The 737 had been Boeing's extreme cash cow for decades and decades, and their competitor was about ready to start selling a plane in that bracket that had the 737 beat all to hell in a bunch of different ways and features. Boeing had been sitting back, resting on their laurels, arrogantly thinking that that plane's market was in no way threatened and the Zillions of dollars they had made over the years would continue for decades to come.

Once they realized the situation with AirBus, the quickly realized that to develop a new plane would take five plus years/ Soooooo, Boeing tried just putting larger, more fuel efficient engines on their existing 737 air frame. However, the normal 737's engine's and the plane's fuselage sit really low, with little clearance between the engines and the runway. The new engines made that distance even smaller, necessitating a change in the mounting that the front of the engine, which was lower than the rear of the engine, be pointed upward to raise the engine and provide the necessary clearance. Of course this change in the ANGLE of the engine caused a change in the angle of attack and gave the plane a constant force to try to climb. Then, they put the software into the program to continually contradict/compensate/Trim for this climbing. The problem was especially critical on take off where there is a severe angle of attack. The computer system sensed that the normal input to trim for the constant tendency to climb, was not working and told the plane to "dive". The poor pilots not knowing about this system, didn't have a clue of what was going on, much less how to correct for it because Boeing hadn't made sure they were trained for it malfunctioning.

Boeing had conveniently forgotten to mention it to the FAA, each airlines pilot's flight manuals, or to the pilots. A simple warning light on the dashboard that notified the pilot the computer system had been activated and was causing the problem that was happening was an expensive option, rather than standard equipment......Many airlines, not even having been fully notified of what the system even was decided to opt out of the warning light. Boeings propaganda was that this malfunction that could occur was so extremely rare that no one even needed to worry about it or needed to even know about it.....

Now alot of money is being spent by Boeing to shift the cause to Pilot Error, Airlines lack of maintenance, etc etc as they are facing an unfathomable amount of lawsuits and severe loss of profits.........UNFATHOMABLE.....not only all the repairs, but airlines suing for lost profits, cancelling orders and demanding reimbursement/refund for the cost of their 737's and Boeing's future loss of basically all sales to the AirBus aircraft........

In addition, Boeing also installed a part that had quality problems that was the sensor that activated the computer to do what it did........

About the same time, another profit killing thing that Boeing was facing on the 737 was discovered. The Large Structural wing support infrastructure called a wing yoke was showing stress cracks after a certain amount of flight hours. It was not a cheap or easy job to replace them........

[Chemisse]

17. Thanks for that extra detail.

I didn't know that the engines were also pointed upward in the front.

What an incredibly bad idea this whole design was. It's disgusting that so many lives had to be lost in proving that point.

[DENVERPOPS]

18. Pure greed and covering their asses.

The conned the FFA that they could use the same Airframe and Power certification by modifying the existing 737 certification. It would save them from spending 5+ years to develop an entire new aircraft and do all the engineering, certifying, etc to get a new certificate......

If they had just made the warning light standard instead of optional, made higher quality sensors and trained the pilots what to do if there was a malfunction, they could have avoided this entire mess........

[jmowreader]

7. What made it acceptable...

...is the fact that it’s a 737. The way things are now, there’s one approval process for a completely new plane and a different, shorter one for a “modified” plane.

The big problem we’re seeing here: the 737 that went through the initial approval process and the Max 8 are two completely different vehicles.

[KT2000]

2. Shareholder value

The demise of Boeing started with the McDonnel-Douglas merger. The Boeing culture was broken (much like what trump is doing now) and engineers were expected to work for shareholder value instead of rock solid safety. Like minded people are staffing our agencies now.

[DENVERPOPS]

3. yea no crap

How about the Boeing executive with 20+ years with Boeing being appointed to a high up position in Trump's cronies??????

[KT2000]

6. yep - they are hitting

bottom. So sad.

[DENVERPOPS]

10. They will never hit bottom

They have tons of contracts for ton's of military aircraft.....And now that they have installed one of their top executives in the Federal Defense area, between the two of those, they have zero to worry about.

The dictionary defines FASCISM as a merging of Government and Corporations.

The Republicans are on the threshold of installing a Tyrant/Fascist run government.

Don't think they won't do ANYTHING/EVERYTHING between now and the election to guarantee it happening after the 40+ years they have been relentlessly working towards this goal. Twelve short/long months people. You can't even begin to imagine the events that will take place between now and then, or what I think will confront the people of the United States the day of the election, and the day after.....Think about it......

Hopefully, I am wrong.......

[Sherman A1]

8. Scrap them

They should never fly again.

[Aussie105]

11. I've been seeing a therapist.

All my life, I've had the feeling some machines are just cursed, beset by evil, and have the intention to do humans harm.

Only destroying that machine - be it car, motorcycle, lawnmower, whatever - can kill the evil within.

My therapist tells me it's my imagination.

I was starting to agree with him. Then along came the Evil of the 737 Max.

Now I'm back to square one.

Did someone involved in the design of the MAX die a horrible death during the design phase? That would explain a lot!

[Chemisse]

13. Remember, it's the software system that caused the crashes.

It was overly complicated and relatively untested, and the pilots were confused by it. There is no evil in action, just a lot of human error, greed, arrogance, and probably some corruption.

I suppose you could call that evil, but there is nothing supernatural about it. Your therapist is right.

[DENVERPOPS]

15. Hey

Read # 14 above for the skinny on the MAX

[TheFourthMind]

16. Manufactured deathtraps. Can't imagine sitting will make that any better. n/t