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Boeing 737 Max: the saga continues…


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On 1/17/2020 at 1:55 AM, mikegarrison said:

The assumption that was important to 737 MAX was that pilots would turn off the trim motors within three seconds after the airplane started putting in trim without being commanded to do so. This was why a mistaken MCAS activation was assumed to be only "hazardous". In the fatal Lion Air flight, the pilots never turned off the trim motors. In the Ethiopian flight, they turned the motors off but eventually turned them back on again.)

So, the very presence of a human being in the process of piltotage is a critical disadvantage which overcomplicates the system and makes its behavior indeterminate.

The empty cabin should be sealed all the time except maintenance, the backup pilot should seat among the pax and read papers, to allow the computer do its work without interference.

Spoiler

Also this makes the plane terror-proof, as on any terrorist ultimatums the autopilot will keep answering: "So wut? I'm AI & i h8 u humanz!"

 

Edited by kerbiloid
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The problem with autoland and autotakeoff systems is that they, unfortunately, just don't work very well, especially the former. Autoland is much less efficient (and therefore less safe) than a trained pilot, has significant limits to weather it can be used in, requires ILS and using it slows down traffic at the airport due to more stringent spacing and taxi requirements. A properly trained human pilot is just straight out better at flying. If you could find a reliable way for ground controllers to datalink their directives (squawk code, altitude, any deviations from designated course) straight to the autopilot, then enroute navigation could be possibly be fully automated, but autopilots aren't quite good enough for large volumes of unpiloted traffic. Autonomous aircraft are a thing, but they way they're handled is that piloted planes are told where to expect one of these in order to keep out of its way. 

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2 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

The problem with autoland and autotakeoff systems is that they, unfortunately, just don't work very well, especially the former. Autoland is much less efficient (and therefore less safe) than a trained pilot, has significant limits to weather it can be used in, requires ILS and using it slows down traffic at the airport due to more stringent spacing and taxi requirements. A properly trained human pilot is just straight out better at flying. If you could find a reliable way for ground controllers to datalink their directives (squawk code, altitude, any deviations from designated course) straight to the autopilot, then enroute navigation could be possibly be fully automated, but autopilots aren't quite good enough for large volumes of unpiloted traffic. Autonomous aircraft are a thing, but they way they're handled is that piloted planes are told where to expect one of these in order to keep out of its way. 

As I understand an auto land system is better than manual landing outside some edge cases like bad weather or especially an damaged plane. In short if you fly on instruments only the autoland wins.
So the main reason to have an pilot is if you get technical issues, as technical issues also often affect communication and that you have much less situation awareness then remote controlling. This has been shown in the large loss rate of UAV. 
Granted they tend to be smaller planes who is used hard and is new technology. 
Boeing work on an project to only require one pilot, second pilot will be remote and assist during takeoff and landing. 

Now the idea of locking out the cockpit from the controls is insane, it has not been much issues with people trying to take over planes since 2001, and that was only possible because procedures was not to resist an skyjacking but land and let special police deal with it. 
However many planes has been lost because of technical issues. 

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56 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

As I understand an auto land system is better than manual landing outside some edge cases like bad weather or especially an damaged plane. In short if you fly on instruments only the autoland wins.

Then you understand wrong. Go look for some YT educational series run by actual airline pilots (MentorPilot, I think, covered that). What autoland does is allow you to land when you otherwise couldn't, due to low visibility. A human pilot can, usually, put the plane down with a much gentler flare, flare lower, use less runway and, most importantly, a human pilot can do it by eye, not needing the ILS. This means ILS restrictions on taxiway positioning don't need to be observed when autoland is not in use, which lets airplanes wait for takeoff closer to the runway. Not to mention a human pilot can land when the ILS is broken, acting up or was never there in first place. Most airports in the world don't have one, and most of those that do only have Category I ILS, which means you can only use it for approach, not for actual landing. 

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With next gen GPS and GBAS (Ground based augmentation systems) - the above mentioned limitations of the older current gen ILS (instrument landing system) really no longer applies. GBAS can land aircraft with a margin of error measured in centimeters and does not have the spacing or signal interference issues of an ILS, as it no longer requires line of sight between the ground transmitter and the aircraft reciever.

The global hawk RQ4 UAV uses a mobile, self contained version of GBAS, and landings are fully automatic - in fact there are no provision for controls at all for manual intervention.

Just as the manual skills of holding a precise altitude for cruise, tuning a radio by ear, or adjusting mixture and spark by feel has much been taken over by automatics, so will go the skill of landing a airplane using stick, throttle and rudder - eventually.

However, takeoffs and landings are just a small part of what being a pilot entails. - From the stories of various mishaps and failures I've heard so far from RQ4 operators due to their lack of an onboard operator for real time decision making and logic check - a manned presence for ultimate decision making onboard flights with live human cargo will be prudent for years to come.

Because computers can still be incredibly stupid if you let it.

Edited by mrfox
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15 hours ago, mrfox said:

With next gen GPS and GBAS (Ground based augmentation systems)

Which is another way to say, "in a few large airports in the richest parts of the US and Europe". Granted, this number will increase over time, but considering that even Cat I ILS (which is, quite frankly, a very simple system) is hardly universal, I just don't see airports other than the busiest ones shelling out for it. That alone will keep the pilots in business for a long time, at least in air taxi and regional airlines. And I'm still not convinced about an autopilot being able to land as gently as a human, or to handle severe crosswinds as well (an UAV won't care, but passengers appreciate a smooth ride). The thing here is experience, a computer will always land, more or less, the same way, while an experienced human is capable of optimizing for the actual conditions. Programming this into a computer would introduce a huge amount of complexity and machine learning isn't reliable enough to trust it with passenger airplanes. 

Enroute problems are a thing, too (and generally worse in UAVs than in manned aircraft), but landing is where the most complexity is. Anyone can fly an aircraft, and most people could get one to take off, too (although there's some finesse involved in doing it smoothly), but it's the landing that takes a real pilot.

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23 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

Then you understand wrong. Go look for some YT educational series run by actual airline pilots (MentorPilot, I think, covered that). What autoland does is allow you to land when you otherwise couldn't, due to low visibility. A human pilot can, usually, put the plane down with a much gentler flare, flare lower, use less runway and, most importantly, a human pilot can do it by eye, not needing the ILS. This means ILS restrictions on taxiway positioning don't need to be observed when autoland is not in use, which lets airplanes wait for takeoff closer to the runway. Not to mention a human pilot can land when the ILS is broken, acting up or was never there in first place. Most airports in the world don't have one, and most of those that do only have Category I ILS, which means you can only use it for approach, not for actual landing. 

Watched some MentorPilot videos but not this. Probably over-inflate automation as I saw the rise of self driving cars with the first darpa challenge flop. back 20 years ago I said that any sort of autopilot on cars outside of adaptive cruise control and lane assist was more than 50 years ahead. 
 

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3 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Watched some MentorPilot videos

He's pretty good and quite watchable. He's not always 100% on when he tries to explain engineering, but he's not bad. I don't know enough about piloting to be sure about that part of it, but he certainly sounds like he knows what he is talking about.

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8 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

Which is another way to say, "in a few large airports in the richest parts of the US and Europe". Granted, this number will increase over time, but considering that even Cat I ILS (which is, quite frankly, a very simple system) is hardly universal, I just don't see airports other than the busiest ones shelling out for it. That alone will keep the pilots in business for a long time, at least in air taxi and regional airlines. And I'm still not convinced about an autopilot being able to land as gently as a human, or to handle severe crosswinds as well (an UAV won't care, but passengers appreciate a smooth ride). The thing here is experience, a computer will always land, more or less, the same way, while an experienced human is capable of optimizing for the actual conditions. Programming this into a computer would introduce a huge amount of complexity and machine learning isn't reliable enough to trust it with passenger airplanes. 

Enroute problems are a thing, too (and generally worse in UAVs than in manned aircraft), but landing is where the most complexity is. Anyone can fly an aircraft, and most people could get one to take off, too (although there's some finesse involved in doing it smoothly), but it's the landing that takes a real pilot.

GBAS equipment is actually lower cost compared to current ILS arrays - both in terms of initial investment, and on-going mainteniance. ILS tech is based on old school analog signals that requires large, power hungry antennas and frequent recalibration. GBAS and GLS tech are firmly in the digital age with their associated advantages of signal consistancy and power efficiency.

Whether an autopilot can be "smoother" is debatable - they work through the same control surfaces as a human pilot - and fly-by-wire can actuate certain combinations of control movements to achieve things that are not available to a operator using traditional controls - gust alliveation being a example of this - where alierons on both sides are driven up to unload the wings to reduce gust loading. I can tell you through personal experience that the autoland functions in the current gen airliners can land as smoothly as any human given the right conditions. My current airplane's crosswind limit for autoland is the same as its crosswind limit under manual flight.

What automation excels at, however, is consistancy. Where you state "a computer will always land, more or less, the same way" - this is the very advantage of an automated system. The reason they can feel "rough" is because the software is designed to land the airplane in a defined touchdown zone. A human pilot might decide on the day to let the airplane float a bit to achieve a smooth touchdown, whereas the autoland will drive it down to keep it within tolerances.

The problem arises when human pilots do this and land long, they miss a high speed turn-off or two, resulting in longer runway occupancy times, increasing seperation, and causing the occasional go-around for aircraft following behind. A fully automated system using GBAS/GLS can actually reduce seperation requirements even beyond current limits.

An example of this performance consistency can been seen when the MQ9 UAV (which unlike the RQ4, have conventional remote controls fitted) went full autoland - the runway requirements went down by 1000 ft due to the consistancy the autoland was able to achieve.

As much as I personally enjoy landings and manual handling - at the end of the day - the autopilot is a more consistant performer.

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  • 5 weeks later...

More trouble for Boeing.

Debris found in several of 737 MAX fuel tanks: 

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/19/business/boeing-737-max-fuel-tank-debris/index.html

In this context, debris could mean pretty much anything, but's it's usually something left from production, like a misplaced and lost tool, a cleaning rag or similar, and is actually a serious issue that can lead to all sorts of dangerous scenarios.

What this means is that all the 737s have to be checked. Somehow I don't think airlines will have patience with Boeing for much longer and will start complaining, loudly.

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I don't mean to sound like a conspiracy idiot or anything, but if I had to store all those aircraft, I'd be leaving all that FOD in the tanks rather than paying employees to work on a plane that is not making money. Then I would make a maintenance card to rectify it later, and store the plane (which is a maintenance task unto itself).  And keeping with this thought, if I had the FAA breathing down my neck, I'd like to have some things for them to find (such as FOD) that can be easily rectified, because lets be honest, the FAA is in as much hot water as Boeing and they need to look like they are coming down hard on Boeing with headlines like "FOD Found in Fuel Tanks." Now I know what I just said is probably ridiculous, but I suspect Boeing and the FAA are behind the scenes working together even though publicly they appear at odds, because the real issue here isn't the MAX itself, its the public's confidence that they can get on a plane that works, and if the plane doesn't work, the regulating body never lets you fly on it.

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This is worse than I thought.

Out of 400 planes that are sitting in the Boeing parking lot, waiting for the green light to be delivered, 50 planes were inspected. Debris (tools, rags, boot coverings) was found in 35. That's just insane.

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2 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

This is worse than I thought.

Out of 400 planes that are sitting in the Boeing parking lot, waiting for the green light to be delivered, 50 planes were inspected. Debris (tools, rags, boot coverings) was found in 35. That's just insane.

Link?

 

Found it. Wow.

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/debris-found-fuel-tanks-70-inspected-737-max-69145033

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On 1/19/2020 at 4:03 PM, Dragon01 said:

Then you understand wrong. Go look for some YT educational series run by actual airline pilots (MentorPilot, I think, covered that). What autoland does is allow you to land when you otherwise couldn't, due to low visibility. A human pilot can, usually, put the plane down with a much gentler flare, flare lower, use less runway and, most importantly, a human pilot can do it by eye, not needing the ILS. This means ILS restrictions on taxiway positioning don't need to be observed when autoland is not in use, which lets airplanes wait for takeoff closer to the runway. Not to mention a human pilot can land when the ILS is broken, acting up or was never there in first place. Most airports in the world don't have one, and most of those that do only have Category I ILS, which means you can only use it for approach, not for actual landing. 

I'm not clear on how a gentler flare, less runway,  etc. is necessarily "safer" than a human pilot, assuming that they can be done within safety margins and the plane is refurbished more often to deal with the extra wear and tear from such landings.  A better question is if the autolander can detect an aircraft on the runway (a far too common error).  Can it detect an aircraft on the runway with a disabled transponder?  How about a car on the runway (this might require a pilot on the upper end of eyesight, but military pilots are often chosen for exceptional eyesight)?

Adding an autolander likely increases safety when the margins are thin enough that it is safer to come in blind than to try another airport.  But I can't imagine that taking the pilot away from the controls in general is going to be the safer solution.

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  • 2 weeks later...

:facepalm:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-737max/boeing-proposal-to-avoid-max-wiring-shift-does-not-win-u-s-support-idUSKBN20W018

FAA found an issue with some wiring that they consider not to be compliant with safety standards and believe could lead to short circuit and catastrophic failure; Boeing disagrees, so we could see even more delays with 737.

 

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5 hours ago, Shpaget said:

:facepalm:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-737max/boeing-proposal-to-avoid-max-wiring-shift-does-not-win-u-s-support-idUSKBN20W018

FAA found an issue with some wiring that they consider not to be compliant with safety standards and believe could lead to short circuit and catastrophic failure; Boeing disagrees, so we could see even more delays with 737.

 

that's boeing

 

Edited by Dirkidirk
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4 hours ago, Shpaget said:

:facepalm:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-737max/boeing-proposal-to-avoid-max-wiring-shift-does-not-win-u-s-support-idUSKBN20W018

FAA found an issue with some wiring that they consider not to be compliant with safety standards and believe could lead to short circuit and catastrophic failure; Boeing disagrees, so we could see even more delays with 737.

 

This issue has been around for months.

For those who don't know, there are many thousands of 737NGs flying around with the exact same wiring configuration, and nobody is saying they need to be fixed. The rules were changed between the time of the 737NG cert and the Max cert. If the issue had been noticed during the Max cert, it would have almost certainly been accepted as a deviation due to demonstrated safety record on the 737NG. But it wasn't noticed, so they didn't get that deviation.

Now Boeing did notice it and asked for the deviation, but the FAA has been hammered on the Max by the press and the politicians, so they don't want to stick their necks out again. The problem is not just cost; the problem is that the wires are already installed, and trying to reroute them is actually more likely to cause shorts and breaks in the wiring than just leaving them in place would. There is a legit argument that the "fix" would be more dangerous than just leaving the wires in the exact same place that thousands of 737NGs have them.

But, well, politics and PR. They may end up requiring moving the wires.

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The article says

Quote

The FAA said Sunday it “continues to engage with Boeing as the company works to address a recently discovered wiring issue with the 737 MAX. The manufacturer must demonstrate compliance with all certification standards.”

I understood this as Boeing changing something (procedure/material/path/whatever without certifying that change). I could be wrong of course.

It wouldn't be the first time they made changes without the green light:

https://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=24716

Quote

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) proposes a $19.68 million civil penalty against The Boeing Co. for allegedly installing equipment on hundreds of the company’s 737 aircraft containing sensors that were not approved for that equipment.

 

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16 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

I understood this as Boeing changing something (procedure/material/path/whatever without certifying that change). I could be wrong of course.

It wouldn't be the first time they made changes without the green light:

https://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=24716

 

No, the problem was they *didn't* change something. There were a couple of crashes caused on other airplanes (not 737s) due to a specific wiring design issue where certain kinds of wires were too close to each other. The rules were changed so that those kinds of wires hard to be separated. But it was not retroactive to old designs, which is why it didn't apply to the 737NG because the rule was made after the NG was certified.

When the Max was designed they just reused the NG wire design in this area, and no one (not Boeing, not the FAA) noticed the problem. During the recent Max design reviews, Boeing noticed that the wires didn't meet the new rules. So they self-reported to the FAA and requested that they be exempted on the grounds that a) the 737NG safety record suggests this particular design is not actually a problem, and b) moving the wires after they have already been installed could damage the wires and lead to the exact issue that the rule was supposed to prevent.

From reports in the press, however, it sounds like the FAA is refusing to accept this argument.

Edited by mikegarrison
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https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/faa-faces-dilemma-over-737-max-wiring-flaw-that-boeing-missed/

Quote

The wiring vulnerability creates the theoretical potential for an electrical short to move the jet’s horizontal tail uncommanded by the pilot, which could be catastrophic. If that were to happen, it could lead to a flight control emergency similar to the one that brought down two MAX jets, causing 346 deaths and the grounding of the aircraft.

Because this danger is extremely remote, the FAA faces a dilemma over what to do about it. The issue has complicated the return of the MAX to service after a grounding that is edging close to one year.

Modifying the wiring would be a delicate and expensive task, and Boeing this week submitted a proposal to the FAA, arguing that it shouldn’t be required.

Yet allowing the wiring to remain as is will be difficult at a time when both Boeing and the FAA are under tremendous scrutiny.

Boeing’s argument rests on the long service history of the earlier model 737, which has the same wiring. That earlier 737 NG model didn’t have to meet the current wiring-separation standards because they came into force long after that jet was certified.

“There are 205 million flight hours in the 737 fleet with this wiring type,” a Boeing official said. “There have been 16 failures in service, none of which were applicable to this scenario. We’ve had no hot shorts.”

In addition, Boeing says pulling out and rerouting wires on the almost 800 MAXs already built would pose a potentially higher risk of causing an electrical short, because insulation could chafe or crack in the process of moving the wires.

However, an FAA safety engineer familiar with the issue, who asked not to be identified because he spoke without agency permission, said agency technical staff have been clear that the wiring doesn’t comply with regulations and have told their Boeing counterparts it has to be fixed.

A second person familiar with the FAA’s thinking said the agency has communicated to Boeing that despite the safe service history of the wiring on other 737s, it will be difficult to convince regulators that they should do nothing.

“Our people have to weigh that against the regulations and the political and public opinion risk of appearing to give Boeing a break on a regulation that’s there for a reason,” the second person said.

This is a very real engineering issue. It has been identified that this wiring configuration is potentially dangerous. But on the other hand, 205 million flight hours is a very definite "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" argument. It would be terrible if public and political pressure to "not give Boeing a break" forced rework that actually damaged the wiring and led to an incident. On the other hand, as the anonymous FAA official said, the rule is there for a reason.

However, that "reason" doesn't seem to be important enough to require the same rework on the thousands of 737NGs that are currently flying with the exact same wiring.

Edited by mikegarrison
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3 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

It would be terrible if public and political pressure to "not give Boeing a break" forced rework that actually damaged the wiring and led to an incident.

This would be terrible but, they built the aircraft after the spec had changed. Regardless of the reason it is entirely on Boeing to comply with the law because they were not given permission to use the old spec before they built the plane. They should have to fix it even if it is an edge case and they should be responsible for the quality of that repair. I have a hard time believing they can't make these repairs without damaging something but, if that is the case, perhaps the need to manufacture all new wiring. Sure, that is costly but they should have paid more attention to the safety regulations before they built the MAX. The auto industry has to put up with the NHTSA changing rules then eating the cost of fixing hundreds of thousands of cars. Boeing should have to eat this cost too. And all that leads to the question of how the FAA missed this to begin with but, regardless of how much blame you want to put on the FAA it is still Boeing's problem to remedy.

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From Boeing's perspective this is a huge unplanned cost for marginal, or no benefit at all. I understand that their track record with NG is decent, but like already mentioned, that rule came into existence for a reason. They will of course try their best not to do this.

From legal side of things, FAA should not give a damn about the cost and amount of work Boeing would need to do. If they have to take the the plane apart and rewire from scratch, that's what is going to happen in order for that plane to ever fly again. If there is a risk of damaging the existing wires, then rip the old ones out and put in the new ones. This is entirely on Boeing and their failure to follow the rules. The fact that Boeing came forward and admitted the issue, instead of waiting to be caught could perhaps get them off the hook from being criminally charged, not as a green light to not do the repairs.

I'm also confused by the part that says  “There have been 16 failures in service, none of which were applicable to this scenario. We’ve had no hot shorts.”. Were those unrelated failures, or 16 failures of wiring (the sort FAA is talking about) that just happened to not crash a plane? If latter, than there is no dilemma in my mind - take the MAXs apart and rewire them, and while they're at it, do the same with NGs.

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Yes, I understand what you guys are saying, but I'm not sure you understand what I am saying. Cert rules get deviations a lot. Not just to save money, but because this is engineering. There are trade-offs involved. One of the most important trades is that it is risky to change a known, proven, safe design to something else, even if that something else potentially has benefits. Many engineering aphorisms apply here, mainly the one that says "if it works, don't mess with it".

There is no question that the FAA has the right to force this outcome. The question is whether they should exercise that right. If it is OK that thousands of older airplanes are flying with the exact same wires, why is it not OK that these newer airplanes keep flying with them? Yes, there is a rule and it came into effect on a certain date, and the Max design was applied for after that date so the rule applies to it. But physics is still physics, and if the wires work in NGs they should work in the Max. If they don't work in the Max then they shouldn't work in the NGs. (And it's not just the 737s, there are many other airplanes currently flying that would likely also have to reroute their wires.)

This sort of thing happens, and it happens a lot to all airplane manufacturers. Decisions are usually made based on safety considerations and reasonableness. It's disconcerting that this particular decision might be made more by political pressure than technical safety considerations.

I do agree that it is Boeing's responsibility to move those wires safely if they need to be moved. But do they *really* need to be moved? Have any of you actually analyzed this? I expect not. These calls are hard precisely because either way might actually be the wrong call. It is inappropriate for the manufacturer to be placing their own cost issues above safety considerations, but it is also inappropriate for political pressure to be placed above safety considerations too.

I wish I knew for sure that neither was going on.

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2 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

I do agree that it is Boeing's responsibility to move those wires safely if they need to be moved. But do they *really* need to be moved? Have any of you actually analyzed this? I expect not. These calls are hard precisely because either way might actually be the wrong call. It is inappropriate for the manufacturer to be placing their own cost issues above safety considerations, but it is also inappropriate for political pressure to be placed above safety considerations too.

Yeah, to put it in a "space" context (given where we are), it's like testing via launching stuff. The aircraft already in service, with huge numbers of flights and flight hours tell us a lot about actual, not predicted risk. If you take apart a few of the oldest aircraft with the wiring in question, and the wires look great, and you've seen no issues with actual malfunctions caused by those same wires, what's the point of changing them? If they were changed, is there a non-zero chance that doing all the work doesn't add a new problem (unintentionally)?

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2 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

If it is OK that thousands of older airplanes are flying with the exact same wires, why is it not OK that these newer airplanes keep flying with them?

That is a good question. I'm not actually saying it's OK for NGs to fly. I'm freely admitting that I don't know the details of the issue; I would imagine that the full truth is not public, nor would I be perfectly content in claiming I know it without investigating it personally (as in crawling through the fuselage, opening every service panel, and a few that were not intended to be opened) along with examining the 16 previous cases of "failure in service". I'd like to see the cables in question taken from a plane with high number of flight hours and a lot of takeoff/landing cycles.

It would not be unheard of to pull the product from the market after certification because certain issue arose in exploitation and was not foreseen. Not doing the recall just because there are too many units out there is exactly the wrong reason to not do it. As to why is NG allowed to fly and MAX is (likely) not going to be with this wiring is another question I don't have an answer to, but I would not be surprised at all if it turned out it was a result of a lobbying effort.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/business/boeing-737-max-crashes.html

Quote

With a few short paragraphs tucked into 463 pages of legislation last year, Boeing scored one of its biggest lobbying wins: a law that undercuts the government’s role in approving the design of new airplanes.

For years, the government had been handing over more responsibility to manufacturers as a way to reduce bureaucracy. But those paragraphs cemented the industry’s power, allowing manufacturers to challenge regulators over safety disputes and making it difficult for the government to usurp companies’ authority.

 

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