News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Max aircraft.

Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by speedplane on Monday March 11, 2019 @12:39AM (#19356715)
Forget China, think about yourself. If you have an option to fly on a 737 Max or another aircraft right now, which would you choose? I suspect market forces will ground these planes anyway.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by Aloha on Monday March 11, 2019 @01:25AM (#19356881)
Depends on what the other aircraft is.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by em3rgent0rdr on Monday March 11, 2019 @12:46AM (#19356746)
I'd guesstimate flying on a 737 Max is still safer than driving a car.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by cjbprime on Monday March 11, 2019 @01:11AM (#19356843)
The actual option is going to be flying on a Max vs. choosing a different airline or flight number that uses a different model of plane.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by amyjess on Monday March 11, 2019 @10:50AM (#19359372)
Yes, I've been toying around with the idea of booking a flight for later this year when I get paid on Friday, and I'm paying careful attention to the flight numbers on Southwest's website to make sure that whatever I pick won't be a MAX.

(fortunately, the flights between DAL and LGA seem to be mostly 700s, at least during the time of year I want to travel)

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by izzydata on Monday March 11, 2019 @09:42AM (#19358878)
The chance of getting in an accident when calculated by per mile driven and not by per drive is quite low.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by fulafel on Monday March 11, 2019 @01:17AM (#19356860)
Frequent air travelers are becoming self-selected for less planning/foresight than the average person wrt global warming concerns, I wonder if this changes the accident risk aversion of the average flyer.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by toephu2 on Monday March 11, 2019 @04:18AM (#19357434)
Why? Because 2 737s went down in the past few years? Do you know how many successful flights have been completed in the past few years? Would you rather drive? do you know how many people die in car accidents everyday? Over 3000. But it doesn't make the news because by definition it isn't new, it happens every day.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by richardknop on Monday March 11, 2019 @06:40AM (#19357927)
> Why? Because 2 737s went down in the past few years?

In last 6 months, to be more factual.

2 brand new aircraft of the latest model went down shortly after take off in less than 6 months. That is not normal and a proper investigation needs to take place. Until the investigation is done and it is proven that both of these crashes where just freak incidents and not caused by design flaw of the plane the planes should be grounded.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by piva00 on Monday March 11, 2019 @06:30AM (#19357892)
Like other commenters added: it's not the 737 that has been flying for 4+ decades, this is a new update to the 737 that has been flying for less than 2 years, this version has had 2 catastrophic accidents since its first delivery on May 2017.

Flying is safe because we had the time to learn from past accidents and create safeguards around their failures, this could be a new kind of failure we haven't been prepared for and if so there is a potential for risks higher than the usual.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by markdown on Monday March 11, 2019 @05:02AM (#19357571)
> Because 2 737s went down in the past few years?

Because 2 brand new 737s went down in the past 6 months and at least one of them was at least partially due to software.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by magpi3 on Monday March 11, 2019 @06:22AM (#19357857)
If a specific car make and model was presumably more prone to automobile accidents people would have the same reaction towards it.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by rsynnott on Monday March 11, 2019 @05:26AM (#19357676)
The point is that two of this currentlt rather rare 737 version went down in a year or so, for reasons which might be related. Up to you, of course, but personally I might opt for a 737-800 or A32x until the investigation is concluded. Both are plentiful.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by thatswrong0 on Monday March 11, 2019 @03:40PM (#19362092)
2 complete hull losses out of 350 is pretty unacceptable to me.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by bouncycastle on Monday March 11, 2019 @01:20AM (#19356868)
Any aircraft can be stalled fairly easily. I think the problem may be between the yoke and the chair (PBYAC).

Especially when it's a new aircraft, perhaps pilots need time to adjust, same as when you and I get in to a new car, it may have different response when you hit the gas, different mirrors, different sounds, different steering wheel sensitivity, etc.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by SlashmanX on Monday March 11, 2019 @06:27AM (#19357884)
> Especially when it's a new aircraft, perhaps pilots need time to adjust, same as when you and I get in to a new car, it may have different response when you hit the gas, different mirrors, different sounds, different steering wheel sensitivity, etc.

This again pushes the blame back onto Boeing who insisted pilots didn't need to be retrained / trained up against this model aircraft as it would've meant extra expenditure by the airlines.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by cjbprime on Monday March 11, 2019 @01:36AM (#19356915)
General aviation aircraft can be stalled easily. Stalling a commercial airliner takes much more effort, which is why it's so shocking when it actually happens.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by bouncycastle on Monday March 11, 2019 @03:47AM (#19357330)
Exactly, it's "shocking". I guess that's why the pilots reacted the way they did - they didn't expect the stall & it was probably shocking for them, especially if they weren't properly trained for it or thinking that a stall is impossible or takes "much more effort than this".

There's also been quite a few of these type of stalls documented in the past (eg. where the pitot tubes failed).

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by CydeWeys on Monday March 11, 2019 @09:18AM (#19358690)
This discussion is divorced from reality. These two fatal crashes were not caused by stalls. The first was for sure caused by MCAS incorrectly pitching the nose down and the second appears likely to share the same cause.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by bouncycastle on Monday March 11, 2019 @05:59PM (#19363266)
Ok, I probably have no idea what I'm talking about. However, reading the early news reports, stories and comments, I don't think the journalists/commenters know either and some may be biased. Would be great to actually ask an experienced pilot who flies these things. The main thing I don't understand is, when a plane starts diving, first reaction would be to disable autopilot, and put the nose up, no?

Also, pilots should be prepared to experience faulty sensors as they could fail at any time, no matter what model aircraft they are flying, no?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by CydeWeys on Tuesday March 12, 2019 @12:53AM (#19365507)
Yeah, you're missing a lot of background info on this topic. Start by reading here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/03/world/asia/lion-air-plane...

MCAS is not autopilot, and is not affected by autopilot system status. Indeed it is only enabled when the autopilot is off. And typical things you'd do to override autopilot, like applying stick input, do not override MCAS. The pilots did literally what you suggested their first reaction would be, and it wasn't sufficient to prevent fatal crashes.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by erdosnew on Monday March 11, 2019 @11:18AM (#19359577)
I was shocked a couple years ago when I drove a rental car and the engine turned off/stalled during stop at traffic lights, I took the car back to the AVIS and was told this is a feature of the car - a Malibu I think.

if it works, don't change it - sadly nowadays that's not true anymore for tech industry, they change things for the sake of change.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by mikestew on Monday March 11, 2019 @12:03PM (#19359962)
if it works, don't change it

Idling cars at stoplights doesn't work. It adds unneeded pollution and wastes fuel. If there were an efficient way to avoid that, it would be stupid not to. That's why they changed it.

What shocks me is that this is the first you've heard of it. You've never heard the car next to you shut off when they pull up to a light?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Ma... by mikeash on Monday March 11, 2019 @11:23AM (#19359620)
Pilots definitely need time to adjust, but that adjustment is supposed to be done in training, not rolled into scheduled passenger flights.
[ Parent | on HN ]