The Boeing 737 thread redux.

[moth]

It got left behind in the move...


There were shenanigans and collusion going on at Boeing, unsurprisingly. It could get very expensive.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/jDOe2y ... ng-737-max

What were the TRC experts saying about oversight?

[Horse]

http://revtothelimit.co.uk/viewtopic.ph ... ing#p19360



But it's locked

[Lutin]

Boeing in the news again - Boeing's 737 Max aircraft under scrutiny again

Little more than six months after Boeing's 737 Max was cleared to fly again by US regulators, the aircraft finds itself under intense scrutiny once again.

The discovery of a potential electrical problem last month led to the renewed grounding of more than 100 aeroplanes, belonging to 24 airlines around the world.

Deliveries of many more new aircraft have been suspended. Boeing and the US regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration say they are working closely to address the issue.

But the affair has given new energy to critics who claim the 737 Max was allowed back into service prematurely - and that issues which could have contributed to two fatal crashes have not been fully analysed or addressed.

Those critics include a high profile whistle-blower, Ed Pierson, who has already sought to link allegedly poor production standards at the 737 factory with electrical defects on the crashed planes, which he claims may have been implicated in both accidents.

[Lutin]

Boeing in the news again. And once more for all the wrong reasons.

Boeing 737 makes emergency landing off Hawaiian coast

A Boeing Co 737 cargo aircraft with two people on board made an emergency landing in the ocean off the coast of Honolulu, Hawaii, early today, the US aviation safety regulator said.

"The pilots had reported engine trouble and were attempting to return to Honolulu when they were forced to land the aircraft in the water," the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement.

"According to preliminary information, the US Coast Guard rescued both crew members."

[ZRX61]

Today's ditching involved one built in the '80's

[demographic]

So one of the companies that gives huge bribes for military contracts is behaving a bit dodgy?
Weird that innit?

[wheelnut]

A night landing on water with two dead engines and the two pilots survived. Well done to them.

[slowsider]

'Landing'??

[MingtheMerciless]

'Landing'??

Anything you can walk (or swim) away from is classified as a good landing

[David]

And one where the aircraft can be used again is considered Perfect....

[slowsider]

And one where the aircraft can be used again is considered Perfect....

My favourite ARIA from Flight intl was 'the only time you can have too much fuel is when you are on fire'

[Horse]

https://whistleblowersblog.org/features ... -safe/amp/

Excerpts

The grounding lasted for a record-breaking 20 months, the longest in U.S. history of a single airliner. On November 18, 2020, after publishing numerous new requirements for pilot training and changes that needed to be made to the planes, the FAA ended the grounding, allowing 737 MAXs back into the air. But not everyone is convinced that the problems with the planes have been fixed.

Ed Pierson, a former 737 Senior Manager for Production System Support, says that the investigations didn’t go far enough — and that the 737 MAXs may still be unsafe to fly. Since the two fatal crashes, Pierson has launched his own investigation into the events that led up to the malfunctions, and he has contradicted Boeing’s repeated claims that the MAXs are safe to fly. He considers himself a whistleblower, putting aside a comfortable career in the aviation industry to bring attention to what he believes to be an unfixed issue. In a recent interview with WNN, Pierson explains the production issues he saw while working at Boeing, and discusses the toxic leadership culture that pervaded the upper echelons of the company.

Pierson’s flagship report on the issue, “Boeing 737 MAX – Still Not Fixed,” dated Jan 20, 2021, explains that although the MCAS system may very well have caused both planes to crash, system-wide electrical defects that were never fixed during the manufacturing process may have caused MCAS to behave erratically.

... Pierson says that there are almost certainly more electrical issues hidden within the hundreds of 737 MAXs made at the Boeing factory in Renton, Washington.

Pierson knows his way around aviation equipment and personnel. Before joining Boeing as a Commercial Aviation Services Specialist in 2008, he attended Naval Flight School and served in the Navy for 30 years. Although he worked in multiple different roles there, many of them involved the Navy’s flight program and aviation technology. At Boeing, he quickly rose through the ranks to become responsible for “production system support” and “support for manufacturing operations with engineering, quality, tooling, supply chain, facilities and IT organizations.” In 2015, Pierson began working at the Boeing factory in Renton.

[Lutin]

And yet more shenanigans at Boeing - Former Boeing 737 Max pilot charged with fraud

A former chief technical pilot for Boeing has been charged with deceiving federal regulators who were evaluating the company's 737 Max plane.

Following the fatal crashes, investigations found a flaw in an automated flight control system called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS).

Mr Forkner allegedly provided regulators with "false, inaccurate, and incomplete information" about MCAS.

"In an attempt to save Boeing money, [Mr] Forkner allegedly withheld critical information from regulators," said Chad Meacham, acting US attorney for Northern Texas. "His callous choice to mislead the FAA hampered the agency's ability to protect the flying public and left pilots in the lurch, lacking information about certain 737 Max flight controls."

Boeing declined to comment. A lawyer for Mr Forkner had not responded to a request for comment at the time of writing.

Will Boeing ever be rid of the 737Max albatross around their necks?

[Mussels]

That's gonna hurt.

[slowsider]

Boeing have thrown him under the (air)bus

[Lutin]

The 737 Max story never ends - 737 Max: Boeing refutes new safety concerns

It has been called "the most scrutinised transport aircraft in history", but some critics believe Boeing's 737 Max is still not safe.

It was cleared to fly passengers again by US regulators last year, having been grounded following two catastrophic accidents.

Since then, however, a number of potentially serious problems have been reported during 737 Max flights.

Boeing insists the aircraft is both safe and reliable.

On 14 October, a 737 Max took off from Boeing Field airport in Seattle, bound for Brussels. It was a delivery flight, taking the brand-new plane to start work for its owners, the travel group Tui.

But minutes into the 5,000-mile journey, the pilots reported an urgent "flight control problem" and had to turn back. The aircraft landed safely shortly afterwards.

The issue, linked to the autopilot, was rectified relatively quickly. The plane set off for Brussels again the following day, and has been flying regularly since then.

However, this was not an isolated incident.

Whenever a US carrier or repair station discovers any serious failure, malfunction or defect aboard an aircraft, it has to inform the US regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), via a so-called "service difficulty report".

There have been more than 180 such reports since the 737 Max returned to service.

Most faults were found on planes that were on the ground. But on 22 occasions, they occurred in-flight, and on four of those the pilots declared emergencies.

Will this ever end for Boeing?

[wull]

Bugger that. The amount of incidents or 7700 squawks that happen on a daily basis is scary, albeit the majority of the time there is no major incident but it still puts me on edge.

[Horse]

https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/7/22219 ... ne-crashes

Boeing has been criminally charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States by the Department of Justice and will have to pay a $2.5 billion fine for lying to the Federal Aviation Administration before and after the fatal 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019.

[wheelnut]

Bugger that. The amount of incidents or 7700 squawks that happen on a daily basis is scary, albeit the majority of the time there is no major incident but it still puts me on edge.

Yet I remember seeing a video of your riding …..

People are strange.

[Lutin]

https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/7/22219 ... ne-crashes

Boeing has been criminally charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States by the Department of Justice and will have to pay a $2.5 billion fine for lying to the Federal Aviation Administration before and after the fatal 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019.

So, Boeing gets to pay $2.5 billion for lying and only $100 million to the families of the crash victims.

Just goes to show the value of a human life I suppose.