Boeing 737 Max set to return to U.S. skies after crashes

[brooklynite]

Source: CNBC

MIAMI — American Airlines on Tuesday is set to operate the first U.S. commercial flight of Boeing’s 737 Max since two deadly crashes prompted a worldwide grounding of the planes in March 2019.

American Airlines Flight 718 is scheduled to depart Miami International Airport at 10:30 a.m. ET for New York’s LaGuardia Airport.

The Fort Worth, Texas-based carrier is operating a once-daily roundtrip flight between the two airports and then plans to increase service to other cities in the coming weeks. United Airlines plans to start Max flights on Feb. 11 from its Denver and Houston hubs. Southwest Airlines has said it would start flying the planes in the second quarter.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/29/737-max-returns-to-the-us-after-deadly-crashes.html

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According to NBC, the flight is sold out.

[Throck]

1. Thank you I'll walk.

[dem4decades]

2. Well it will be a while before I fly again, when I do I'll look for flights with an Airbus thank you

[sir pball]

3. You might want to rethink that; read up on Air France Flight 447

When an Airbus goes beyond the normal operating envelope the computers enter an "alternate mode" with most protections and alarms disabled. AF447 was literally flown into the ocean, with absolutely no mechanical failures whatsoever, because the pilot's inexperience had gotten the aircraft into a position where the computers simply decided that all their inputs were invalid and ceased to provide any feedback. If you don't consider that as egregious a design flaw as MCAS (but unlike MCAS it was never fixed, Airbus just said "don't fly like that&quot , I don't know what to tell you.

[Major Nikon]

5. Airbus uses fly-by-wire, the 737 does not

For Airbus aircraft, control inputs feed directly into computers that ultimately decide how to move the flight control surfaces.

The 737 has a more primitive, but tried and true design. The controls feed cables routed to the control surfaces themselves where they manipulate hydraulic Power Control Units which ultimately move the flight controls. The 737's MCAS operates through the pitch trim system which can be easily disabled by the pilots.

AF447 did have system failures occurring. They had lost some of their airspeed indications which caused the autopilot and the autothrust systems to disengage. As far as the ""don't fly like that" goes, that applies to any aircraft and isn't particular to Airbus. If you pitch up to 40 degrees in a transport category aircraft, especially at high altitude, it isn't going to take long for bad things to happen. At higher altitudes the stall speed rises and the envelope between stall and max structural airspeed narrows. The only time any such pilot is going to get training on how to maneuver without the autopilot is going to be in the simulator as you never turn off the autopilot at high altitudes unless something is wrong. Despite the failures, the AF447 flight had several pilot induced issues. You can't always fix those problems with simply more automation.

[sir pball]

7. Tech can't fix all problems, no, but Airbus' tech is arguably as flawed as Boeing's

It wasn't the fly-by-wire system itself that caused the junior pilot to fly 447 straight into the ocean with no mechanical issues (the frozen pitot tubes had resolved by then), but the alternate-law behavior of shutting down alarms when the flight data is no longer considered valid, was what arguably caused the guy to do it - he was instinctively cranking back on the stick as hard as he could, which of course is the exact wrong thing to do be it an A380 or Piper Cub. As soon as he'd drop the nose a degree, the angle of attack would drop back into the "valid" range, the warning would go off, and he'd yank back again - but rather than being alerted "the aircraft is in an attitude so extreme that the computers are borked", the stall warning would just shut off. Lather, rinse, repeat until you pancake into the Atlantic.

No, it's not an active fault in the system like an MCAS failure, but you'd think at some point somebody would have realized that a silent failure of important alarms MIGHT be a bad idea, even if it would only theoretically happen in a "don't fly like that" situation. Not to mention the unlinked controls, or the multiple OTHER alarms going off that drowned out the Dual Input warning. Point being, while Boeing did rather spectacularly hash up the implementation of MCAS (a single sensor, c'mon), now that it's been done properly it's no more flawed or dangerous than Airbus' fly-by-wire setup.

[Major Nikon]

8. More so if you look at it as flawed

If one were to think of automated flight control systems as "flawed" the Airbus is arguably more flawed as it can't possibly fly without them while the 737 can.

[sir pball]

10. I do view the failure modes as flawed

I have no problems with fly-by-wire, I think it's superior in a lot of ways to mechanical control, but Airbus has four different failure modes, with submodes - that's just too many different variables to be trying to keep track of when things are going wrong.

If the control systems have decided that normal mode is untenable for whatever reason, it should fail to simple direct mode. No protections or restrictions remaining, the stick commands the control surfaces as near to directly as possible. The pilot alone is flying the plane. Of course, then we're relying on the pilot to have the skills to fly a large airliner entirely by hand, but it's certainly possible and should regularly be trained for.

[Major Nikon]

11. I don't know that the pilot has to keep track of any of them

Modern aircraft with CAS are pretty simple. You run the checklist the plane tells you to run for most situations.

For any jet the failure of one thing can cause the failure of many different systems and you have to consult lists to tell you what systems are unavailable. I've never flown an Airbus, but if anything it seems simpler than trying manage cascading failures of the systems in other jets I've flown. For the pusher and shaker you don't even necessarily know those things have failed until you get to the end of a checklist, and for pre-CAS aircraft it was a mental exercise just to figure out which checklist you needed to run.

I don't know that any of those things contributed to the AF crash. Seems more like a simple case of failing to properly recover from an unusual attitude and cross checking instruments.

[EX500rider]

12. I never did understand why the Sr Pilot didn't jump back in a seat and take over at some point...

or the other more experienced copilot who did made sure that the new guy was HANDS OFF.......they let the Jr guy stall it into the sea, quite a feat if you are starting at 38,000 feet and have a functioning plane.

The Sr Pilot Dubios had 11,000hr total w/ 1,700 in AB330's and was not seated at controls.

The copilot not in control in the left seat had 6,500hr/t and 4,500hr/in a 330, he took over but the right seater kept his pulling his stick back and canceled out his nose down input.

The pilot in control in the right seat Bonin had 2,900t and only 800hr in a 330, he's the guy you want looking up check lists, not flying when the shit-hits-the-fan as it did.

Seems like bad crew resource management.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447

[sir pball]

13. The Senior pilot arrived too late.

The junior pilot, in control, kept pulling back on the stick when he got a stall warning - which literally broke the fly-by-wire system and allowed him to continue stalling the plane, until it literally flew into the ocean.

The other copilot didn't know the junior pilot was making the most basic mistake because Airbus doesn't have coupled controls - the junior CP was pulling back, but there was no physical indication to the senior guy that the controls were being moved wrongly. The senior pilot did figure it out upon asking what was happening, but it was too late.

Fly-by-wire is a fine system, but it needs to assume complete incompetence on the operators part.

[LastDemocratInSC]

4. The majority of a flight from Miami to NYC is over water.

I wonder if that indicates that the airline is hedging its bets on the initial flights.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

6. Already flown

First Boeing 737 Max takes to the skies, almost 2 years after jet's worldwide grounding

The first commercial flight on Boeing's troubled 737 Max jet left Miami for New York's LaGuardia Airport on Tuesday morning, almost two years after the aircraft was grounded worldwide.

The Max was banned in March 2019 after a Lion Air crash in October 2018 in Indonesia killed 189 people and was followed five months later by an Ethiopian Airlines crash that caused the death of all 157 people aboard.

American Airlines Flight 718 departed Miami International Airport at around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday. The airline plans to fly the Max from Miami to New York and back through Jan. 4 before adding more routes.

According to CNBC, Capt. Sean Roskey announced over the plane’s PA system, “We’re flying on a Boeing 737 Max,” to some applause from passengers, which included American Airlines’ president, crew and other employees. “We have the utmost confidence in this aircraft. As a matter of fact, my wife is on board,” Roskey said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/first-boeing-737-max-takes-to-the-skies-almost-2-years-after-jets-worldwide-grounding/ar-BB1cjPlh?li=BBnb7Kz

[brooklynite]

9. American Airlines thinks positive...

Link to tweet