that Boeing sells as well. For example, GPS software that can ping a plane at any given moment when a flight is traveling out of range of conventional radar over large expanses on water. Remember Malaysia Flight 370, the 777 that went missing? My husband has a boyhood friend that recently retired from Boeing...this guy was THE engineer for the 777 and the Max 8 (I found out just last week). After MH370 went missing, I asked hubs’ friend why they couldn’t ping the plane when it began having issues? Why did no tower know where this plane was when it was over oceans? He told me that that software is available but the the airline did not purchase it when they bought the plane. My blood ran cold because I’d just returned from a round trip to NZ with my then 8 year old son...were we off radar too? We as consumers are not privy to these economic short cut decisions airlines make and we don’t know the risks to our safety as a result.
Fast forward to the present, this engineer acknowledged the nose-down issue with the Max 8 and said there was a software fix in the works that had indeed been slowed down by the gov shutdown but should be up and running by the end of April. He also said that he felt safe flying any Max 8 in the US because pilots were trained at a higher level as a rule. That didn’t make me feel any better as I fly internationally with my child fairly often. Is pilot training is a crap shoot when out of the US?
The engineer had nothing good to say about the current FAA and its lack of a chief...or the acting chief’s cozy relationship with DOT sec Elaine Chao. I could go on and on but one other thing that stuck out to me was the engineer stating that grounding the Max 8 is costing billions...which also made me take pause. When corporate entities are bleeding billions, they’ll do about anything to make it stop. I have no evidence, but with no solid leadership at the FAA, or the DOT could someone be “persuaded” to declare the Max 8 safe? You’d surely hope not but we live in tRump’s America now.
= new reply since forum marked as read