Thread: Airline News

Originally Posted by Neverna

There were 18 Canadians on board. Quite a lot for that neck of the woods. I wonder if they were travelling as a group.

Many whites on their way to the UN Climate Meeting in Nairobi.

About Bola airport:
"It is the main hub of Ethiopian Airlines and also for destinations to Europe, Asia, North and South America. It is one of the busiest airports in Africa."

Originally Posted by OhOh

In this case I would be more concerned that the pilots had received adequate type training as that appears to be what Boeing are suggesting about the Lion crash.

Even if a very experienced pilot could have avoided the crashes, a very modern airplane should not require the very best pilots to keep them airborne. Blaming the pilots shows a lack of understanding or accepting the root cause of the problems IMO.

Originally Posted by Takeovers

Even if a very experienced pilot could have avoided the crashes, a very modern airplane should not require the very best pilots to keep them airborne. Blaming the pilots shows a lack of understanding or accepting the root cause of the problems IMO.

Agreed. Expecting pilots to fight misbehaving software is really shit design.

Originally Posted by Troy

Chinese authorities are the first to ground the 737-max.

Apologies for lack of link but several media outlets reporting this.

Personally, I think it would be wise to ground until reason for last accident is clear and if MCS ground until a triple redundant sensor system is fitted. The max appears to be one mod too many for the 737...

Link here:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ian-crash.html

And...

Boeing shares slumped 8.9 percent to $385 in pre-market U.S. trading. The stock could slide in U.S. trading as concerns are increasing over the jet, said Eleanor Creagh, a Sydney-based market strategist at Saxo Capital Markets. Even a 5 percent fall would cut more than 100 points from the Dow, she estimated. When a Lion Air plane of the same model sank into the Java Sea off the coast of Indonesia last year, killing 189 passengers and crew, the shares lost almost 7 percent.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ethiopia-crash

Investigators sifting through the wreckage of an Ethiopian Airlines passenger plane recovered the black boxes Monday, a critical step toward determining what caused the disaster, which killed all 157 on board, among them two Israelis.


“The Digital Flight Data Recorder(DFDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorder(CVR) of ET302 have been Recovered,” Ethiopian Airlines tweeted.

An airline official, however, said that at least one of the boxes was partially damaged and that “we will see what we can retrieve from it.”

The official spoke on condition of anonymity for lack of authorization to speak to the media.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/both-b...ethiopian-jet/

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

at least one of the boxes was partially damaged and that “we will see what we can retrieve from it.

Boeing cheered at the announcement or were the ones who declared the recording would, "highly likely", be ruined?

You really are a window-licking idiot, aren't you ohoh?

Originally Posted by Texpat

You really are a window-licking idiot, aren't you ohoh?

Wait till klondyke and foobar turn up like a pair of panting fucking puppies. It gets worse.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Wait till klondyke and foobar turn up like a pair of panting fucking puppies. It gets worse.

I do not know how foobar but moi is not an airline expert like the one who knows it all (please no names here)...

US regulators on Monday ordered Boeing to make urgent improvements to the best-selling jet involved in a deadly Ethiopia plane crash -- but ruled out grounding the fleet as investigators worked to piece together the aircraft's final moments.




The Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashed minutes into a flight to Nairobi on Sunday, killing all 157 people on board and prompting airlines across the world to begin withdrawing the model from schedules.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it was working with local authorities and the National Transportation Safety Board and may soon share safety information concerning the aircraft.

"If we identify an issue that affects safety, the FAA will take immediate and appropriate action," it said in a statement.



The FAA said it was ordering Boeing to make improvements to anti-stalling software and the maneuvering system, giving the company until the end of April to make the updates.

Investigators have recovered the black box flight recorders from the airliner, which went down near Addis Ababa, just six minutes after takeoff, as the pilot alerted controllers of "difficulties."

image on Twitter

https://www.france24.com/en/20190312...ia-plane-crash

Where Did Boeing Go Wrong?

How a bad business decision may have made the 737 Max vulnerable to crashes.

Thirty-two hours after an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max crashed on takeoff from Addis Ababa, killing all 157 aboard, shares of the plane’s manufacturer, Boeing, traced a similar trajectory, dropping 12 percent at the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange and never fully recovering.


While the cause of the Ethiopian incident hasn’t yet been established, it makes sense that investors would lose confidence in Boeing: The crash came just five months after another involving a 737 Max in Indonesia, Lion Air flight 610, and the dual disasters have spooked airlines and the traveling public. Erring on the side of caution, China and Indonesia have grounded the 737 Max, and 22 individual carriers have done so as well, including Ethiopian and Cayman Airways.


The 737 Max first flew just two years ago, and some 350 are now in service. For such a new type of aircraft to suffer two fatal crashes is extraordinarily unusual, and bad. While the investigation into the Lion Air crash is still underway, a preliminary report suggests that the pilots failed to respond correctly after a faulty sensor led the autopilot to put the plane into a steep dive. We know even less about what happened to the Ethiopian flight. But no matter the causes, the mere fact that a single type of aircraft has had two accidents in swift succession raises questions about the trustworthiness of its manufacturer. Boeing has heretofore enjoyed a sterling reputation; its most recent all-new design, the 787, has never had a fatality, and the one before that, the 777, went 18 years without one. So it’s worth asking: how did Boeing find itself suddenly in this reputational shitstorm?


It all comes down to business strategy. Chicago-based Boeing is locked in a fierce duopolistic rivalry with Toulouse-based Airbus, with whom it roughly splits the $200 billion airliner market. The biggest segment of that market is for short- to medium-range narrowbody jets that typically carry between 100 and 200 passengers. These are the workhorses of aviation, unglamorous and hard-ridden, endlessly bouncing back and forth on routes like Salt Lake-Denver and La Guardia-O’Hare.


Boeing’s entry, the 737, first flew in 1967, and though various improvements have been rolled out over the years, at heart it’s still a creature of the Right Stuff era. Instead of computer-controlled fly-by-wire controls, which guide a plane’s flight electronically, it still has old fashioned mechanical actuators, and it’s made of aluminum rather than modern lightweight composites.


Airbus’ A320 family, meanwhile, took to the skies a generation later, in 1987, but it was a fly-by-wire, composite creature from the get go. In 2014 Airbus rolled out its most recent iteration, the A320neo, a range of jets with engines that were billed as being 15 percent more fuel efficient than the old model.


To maintain its lead, Boeing had to counter Airbus’ move. It had two options: either clear off the drafting tables and start working on a clean-sheet design, or keep the legacy 737 and polish it. The former would cost a vast amount—its last brand-new design, the 787, cost $32 billion to develop—and it would require airlines to retrain flight crews and maintenance personnel.


Instead, they took the second and more economical route and upgraded the previous iteration. Boeing swapped out the engines for new models, which, together with airframe tweaks, promised a 20 percent increase in fuel efficiency. In order to accommodate the engine’s larger diameter, Boeing engineers had to move the point where the plane attaches to the wing. This, in turn, affected the way the plane handled. Most alarmingly, it left the plane with a tendency to pitch up, which could result in a dangerous aerodynamic stall. To prevent this, Boeing added a new autopilot system that would pitch the nose down if it looked like it was getting too high. According to a preliminary report, it was this system that apparently led to the Lion Air crash.


If Boeing had designed a new plane from scratch it wouldn’t have had to resort to this kind of kludge. It could have designed the airframe for the engines so that the pitch-up tendency did not exist. As it was, its engineers used automation to paper over the aircraft’s flaws. Automated systems can go a long way toward preventing the sorts of accidents that arise from human fecklessness or inattention, but they inherently add to a system’s complexity. When they go wrong they can act in ways that are surprising to an unprepared pilot. That can be dangerous, especially in high-stress, novel situations. Air France 447 was lost in 2009 after pilots overreacted to minor malfunctions and became confused about what to expect from the autopilot.


In the wake of crashes like last weekend’s there are always calls for improved training and awareness, and that undoubtedly helps. But it can only go so far. The human brain is fundamentally ill-equipped to work through unfamiliar problems when under high stress. Five years after AF 447, every Airbus pilot should have been hyper aware of how the pilots erred in that case, yet in 2014 the pilots of Air Asia 8501 did almost exactly the same thing, with the same result.


Do I know this is what happened with the Ethiopian Air flight? No. But regardless of how the investigation into that crash pans out, the 737 Max will look snakebit. An obvious analogy is Malaysia Airlines, which the public viewed with misgivings after it lost two 777s in less than five months in 2014. Though it bore no obvious responsibility for either incident—one was shot down by Russia, the second was hijacked—the airline suffered a steep drop in bookings and went into reorganization the following year.


Boeing isn’t facing that kind of financial disaster. The company is too big and too important to global aviation to fail. But the future of the 737 Max is suddenly looking shaky. No one has to buy that particular model when there are others on the market. Boeing’s either going to have to come up with a very convincing fix for whatever caused these two crashes, or think about starting over with a fresh sheet of paper.



https://slate.com/technology/2019/03...e-737-max.html

Singapore bars entry and exit of 737 Max planes.

Singapore's Civil Aviation Authority (CAAS) has temporarily suspended all Boeing 737 Max models from flying into and out of the country.

Singapore's Changi is the sixth busiest airport globally.


BBC

Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) says it is suspending operations of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 plane in Australia after a deadly crash killed 157 people in Ethiopia at the weekend.

https://www.xxx.xxx.xx/news/2019-03-...ralia/10894426

UK joins countries blocking Boeing 737 Max aircraft


The UK's Civil Aviation Authority has banned the Boeing 737 MAX from operating in or over UK airspace "as a precautionary measure".

The UK joins Malaysia, Singapore, China and Australia, in banning the aircraft.

The CAA said the directive would remain in place until further notice.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47536502

Woe betide the FAA if another one of these fuckers goes down before they do anything useful.

Ireland joins the fun.

THE IRISH AVIATION Authority (IAA) has decided to temporarily suspend the operation of all variants of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft into and out of Irish airspace.

This is actually a very clever solution.

It means the airlines are screaming at Boeing and they'll react to that more than they would the Fuck All Administration.

https://www.thejournal.ie/boeing-iri...37391-Mar2019/

Oman and France and Germany join the fun.

It was only a matter of time before baldy orange cunto chimed in, the dopey fucker.

"Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly," the president said on Twitter Tuesday morning. "Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT. I see it all the time in many products. Always seeking to go one unnecessary step further, when often old and simpler is far better. Split second decisions are...."


He finished the tweet about 12 minutes later.

"....needed, and the complexity creates danger," he continued on Twitter. "All of this for great cost yet very little gain. I don't know about you, but I don't want Albert Einstein to be my pilot. I want great flying professionals that are allowed to easily and quickly take control of a plane!"

So we know it takes the wanker 12 minutes to type two lines. Probably asking an aide how to spell the words of two syllables or more.


https://www.businessinsider.com/trum...19-3?r=US&IR=T

I'm surprised Malaysia took so long.

"We're in!"

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com...w/68377963.cms

Watching FOX Business News (it's free where I am!) and the guy who does the first shift (Varney?) was strongly questioning the plane's safety.

Boeing down -6.76% ATM

The cloggies too.

https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/buit...adar-omdraaien

The low cost carrier Norwegian has grounded their 18 737MAX.
One of their planes on its way from Stockholm to Tel Aviv made a u-turn over Romania and returned back home.

The charter company TUI has also stopped using their 737MAX

A very fucking lame response.

#ifitsboeingi'mnotgoing

The European Union and India have banned the Boeing 737 Max from flying over their airspace to ensure passenger safety.


They join a long list of countries in suspending the plane, including the UK.