
UK has banned all Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft from British airspace - pseudolus
https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-bans-all-boeing-737-max-8-aircraft-from-airspace-2019-3
======
JdeBP
The actual CAA announcement itself is already on Hacker News at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19368030](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19368030)
.

This is already on the list in the headlined article at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19365108](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19365108)
. Lengthier news coverage can be found at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19367871](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19367871)
.

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tracer4201
Why hasn’t the FAA done the same? Are we just better than all these other
countries and our decision makers have some insight that everyone else is
blind to, or is the FAA helping Boeing’s stock since they’re an American
company? Serious question. I’m baffled why the FAA is not acting on this.

~~~
adventured
The FAA has spent five months reviewing the 737 Max post Lion Air. They have
far more information on the real flight worthiness of the plane than any other
agency or organization on the planet outside of Boeing.

What's your premise starting from to claim that the FAA isn't making a better
decision, from vastly more first-hand knowledge, than for example the UK or
other nations?

~~~
king_magic
> They have far more information on the real flight worthiness of the plane
> than any other agency or organization on the planet outside of Boeing.

Well, that worked great... until another 737 Max 8 slammed into the ground.

~~~
borski
Your assumption is that The cause was the plane, but neither Ethiopian nor
Lion Air have great safety records in the first place. Parent’s point is that
the FAA is likely to be more aware of whether the cause in the first crash was
due to the plane, pilot error, weather, or any number of other factors.

[edit] Apparently I’m incorrect about their safety records - my bad, the one
time I trusted a friend and didn’t look into it myself, haha. I still maintain
that it isn’t clear yet that it was the plane’s design, but I retract my
comments on the safety record. Carry on and please quit the downvoting heh. :)

~~~
CydeWeys
You're wrong about their safety records. Ethiopian is the safest and best
operator in Africa.

~~~
earless1
I'm sure Borski saw Africa and didn't even bother to look up the safety
record.

~~~
dang
This comment breaks the site guidelines, such as this one:

" _Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone
says, not a weaker one that 's easier to criticize. Assume good faith._"

Can you please review
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
and take the spirit of this site more to heart? We're trying to prevent
discussion from degenerating here.

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peteretep
Worth noting that like Australia, which also did it, this affects very very
few UK flights, so the cost / disruption is pretty low.

~~~
Svip
Norwegian appears to be one of the two airlines that fly to the UK with the
aircraft, and they have taken the consequence and grounding their 737 MAX-8
fleet as well.

~~~
kareemm
Air Canada flies from Halifax to London on a 737 MAX-8[1]. I flew it in Dec
shortly after the Lion Air crash.

1-
[https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/airlineroute/277713/air...](https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/airlineroute/277713/air-
canada-s18-halifax-london-aircraft-changes/)

------
denzil_correa
Ethiopia, Singapore, China, South Korea, Malaysia and Australia have also done
the same [0].

[0] [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-
asia-47536502](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47536502)

------
varjag
The wonderful times of software defined aircraft.

~~~
LIV2
Agile methodologies come to life critical software, Boeing will be releasing a
patch for the MCAS issue [https://gizmodo.com/boeing-promises-to-release-
software-upda...](https://gizmodo.com/boeing-promises-to-release-software-
update-for-737-max-1833224836)

"Just ship it we will fix the bugs in the next iteration!"

~~~
xvf22
I think that farming out so much of the certification to the manufacturers can
lead to problems as they work to make things "lean" when the easy gains have
dried up.

------
thesimon
No good news for Norwegian, quite impacted by the 787 Trent issue as well.
Probably only a matter of time until EASA acts as well and the TATL flights
are impacted.

~~~
colde
Norwegian approximately at the same time announced they were grounding their
737 MAX 8 fleet: [https://media.en.norwegian.com/pressreleases/norwegian-
tempo...](https://media.en.norwegian.com/pressreleases/norwegian-temporarily-
suspends-flights-with-the-boeing-737-max-following-recommendations-by-
european-aviation-authorities-2846615)

But agreed, Norwegian can't be happy with Boeing at the moment.

~~~
vegardx
Apparently Norwegian has a deal with Boeing that more or less says that they
don't pay for their jets unless they're in the air. But I'm sure they're not
happy. They've had so much problems with their dreamliners as well.

------
losvedir
How does one properly think about a decision like this? It's easy to go
"better safe than sorry", but that sort of thinking leads to the death of
playgrounds and people being afraid to walk around at night when it's the
safest it's ever been.

How do you balance the small chance of a catastrophe against the guaranteed
disruption and inconvenience to huge numbers of people? As a base rate, I
understand that there are hundreds of these aircraft safely making thousands
of trips, so the probability of a crash seems quite low, though, higher than
it should be.

Everyone seems very quick to say the planes should be grounded (I saw a
headline on CNN yesterday "FAA still allows Boeing planes to fly despite
crashes" or something to that effect), but it seems like a tricky decision to
make. It also seems like a technical one probably with a lot more data
available and a history of precedent to those who actually have to make it.
Frankly, I'm a little surprised at the vigor with which the general media and
social media have taken to this situation, with their opinions on the matter.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>How does one properly think about a decision like this?

The three examples I see are some variation on:

a) Don't think about it

b) Proclaim that "better safe than sorry" is the only answer.

c) Keep your mouth shut because you don't fall into either of the former
categories and realize that there's no upside to getting involved.

I agree that it is a tricky decision to make. Considering that the data
recorders of the most recent crash are in hand and not at the bottom of the
ocean somewhere unknown I think that we should probably wait a few days for
some preliminary analysis. If they were lost in the ocean somewhere I'd be
more supportive of the calls to ground the aircraft.

The temptation is to assume that the most recent crash was caused by the "new
MCAS failure mode" that doomed the previous flight. That issue was caused by a
lack of training and pilot understanding of the potential for that failure
mode (because Boeing didn't want to force airlines to re-train pilots). What's
the chance that a 3rd plane will crash now that every pilot not living under a
rock is aware of the new failure mode? If the new MCAS behavior is what's
causing the crashes then the chances should be very low. Maybe not as low as
with proper retraining but still tons lower than before the first crash.

If I were smart I'd have picked option C.

------
stunt
FAA is just putting itself in a very weird situation. They shouldn't be one of
the last aviation to follow.

If they give up now just because of pressure, everyone will panic. If they
don't give up, but something happens, everyone will blame them. If they don't
give up and nothing happens, they still blame them because unlike others
they've accepted the risk.

It would be no harm for Boeing considering their safety records and reputation
to accept and admit there might be a very low chance of a technical issue. I
don't get why don't want to play safe.

------
crazygringo
Somewhere else I saw posted "two's a coincidence, three's a pattern." Right
now we're at two.

I'll be genuinely curious to see what results from the investigation -- if
this turns out to be a knee-jerk reactions from politicians wanting to look
good (when it really is a coincidence), or if this will turn out to truly have
been a failure of the FAA's safety processes, and the US will appear negligent
for not also banning.

~~~
sjburt
Everyone is quick to assume an MCAS malfunction for the Ethiopian Air crash
but eyewitnesses reported smoke and flames coming from the plane, which seems
to indicate something else.

~~~
ceejayoz
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268513973_Reliabili...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268513973_Reliability_of_eyewitness_reports_to_a_major_aviation_accident)

> At an airshow in 1952, a supersonic fighter disintegrated in the air causing
> the death of both crew and 29 spectators (Staff, 1952). Over 100,000 people
> witnessed the accident. A public appeal was put out for witness accounts and
> photographs to help solve the mystery, resulting in several thousand letters
> being collected. Rivas and Bullen (2008) found “many of the accounts are
> touchingly detailed and well intentioned, but the whole of the vast mail was
> of little use” (p. 186). The vital clue that led to determination of
> probable cause was supplied by a cine film. The in-flight breakup happened
> in less than a second, and almost all the eyewitnesses, including
> experienced pilots, gave grossly inaccurate accounts when compared to the
> film record.

------
DrinkWater
Germany also banned them. Source:
[https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/](https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/)

------
Insanity
Hope more of Europe follows

~~~
stunt
Agree or disagree they all have to do it now. Because it is happening in many
countries and no country will take the risk anymore even if it is very low
risk. Peer pressure!

~~~
Insanity
Seems like it happened now

------
dsfyu404ed
The first few times scrolling up and down the page I missed this article out
because my brain has been trained to automatically filter out "UK bans X" as
non-news.

------
dsfyu404ed
I sure hope this second crash turns out to be related to the new MCAS behavior
or a lot of people are going to have some explaining to do.

~~~
ceejayoz
"We prefer to exercise an abundance of caution when hundreds or thousands of
lives are at stake" is a short, easy, and accurate explanation.

------
pastor_elm
Will Airlines just move these to US domestic routes? FAA will never ground
them. Too big of an employer.

------
darkpuma
The FAA seems to be rapidly bleeding international reputation. Their loyalty
to Boeing shareholders seems even stronger than I cynically expected.

