
Canada grounds Boeing 737 Max 8 - found_reading
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/garneau-boeing-ethiopia-crash-1.5054234
======
dang
The discussion has moved to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19381931](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19381931),
since there is new information.

------
yingw787
And then there was one.

I do wonder if we can halt and revert the deterioration of the Civil Service
before the whole "civilization is two days worth of food and water" scenario
arrives. If it does, I think it'll be through something that generates a
disproportionate amount of fear and anxiety in people resulting in a
significant impact to the economy in a sector where middle to upper class
folks are heavily exposed to.

I think back to the government shutdown earlier last year, ended because 10
air traffic controllers couldn't come to work at LaGuardia, resulting in a
domino effect of backlogged air traffic across airport hubs and airspace
restrictions (including for private jets), resulting in POTUS making nice with
House Speaker a few hours later.

So if you're concerned because Boeing's CEO is a Mar-A-Lago member with direct
access to POTUS (who wants his club fees), and the Secretary of Transportation
is the Senate Majority Leader's wife who is also lobbied by Boeing, and the
FAA hasn't had an official administrator for two months, and the FAA can't
approve safety fixes by Boeing due to government shutdowns, and aircraft
manufacturing consolidation means Boeing is "too big to fail", I would just
say "we" do have more power than we think.

~~~
linuxftw
The problem, I think, is there's no established protocol in this situation.
Congress leaves entirely too much decision making up to the executive branch.
How hard is it to write a law such as "If the same (public) commercial model
plane crashes with fatalities more than once in an 18 month period, that model
plane shall be grounded indefinitely until a root cause is established and
mitigated"

This would have some interesting knock-on effects such as maybe airlines would
value diversity in the fleets just a little bit more.

~~~
dragonwriter
> How hard is it to write a law such as "If the same (public) commercial model
> plane crashes with fatalities more than once in an 18 month period, that
> model plane shall be grounded indefinitely until a root cause is established
> and mitigated"

The problem is if you write a law like that, then even if the FAA still
_otherwise_ nominally retains its existing power, the mere fact of the "2 in
18-months" rule in statute will have an effect of _discouraging_ groundings
with less than two crashes, or with 2 crashes more than 18-months apart. So,
unless Congress is going to _replace_ the FAA's decision making role and
manage the details of response to each incident, which I think we can all
agree would be a disaster itself, its probably not a good idea.

EDIT: Which is why Congress' role of _executive oversight and accountability_
is as important as its role of writing legislation; sometimes there is no good
safeguard available through more statutory rules, the best you can do is
assure competence and dedication in the executive and apply consequences if
there are shortfalls.

~~~
linuxftw
> will have an effect of discouraging groundings with less than two crashes,
> or with 2 crashes more than 18-months apart.

I don't see why this is necessarily the case. Clearly, there should be some
established baseline to prevent regulatory capture by the industry.

> Which is why Congress' role of executive oversight and accountability is as
> important as its role of writing legislation

I think it's fair to say that object executive oversight has gone completely
out the window in the last 20 years or so.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I don't see why this is necessarily the case.

It is not _necessarily_ the case in the sense of logical implication. Its just
_almost certainly_ the case, in the way in which laws effect implementing
behavior in the real world.

Legislation which is mindful only of logical implication and not practical
implication is a good way to screw things up.

> I think it's fair to say that object executive oversight has gone completely
> out the window in the last 20 years or so.

It is, and that's a problem that should be fixed. Asking Congress to
micromanage by legislation rather than fixing the problems with executive
oversight is not a solution, however.

------
js2
Having read many commments on HN and elsewhere since the crash, I know I’m in
the minority here when I say this but to me it seems like the US airlines and
FAA are following their procedures, the same procedures that make the US
airlines the safest in the world, while the rest of the world is, I don’t
quite want to use the word panicking, but at least giving into pressure from
people who aren’t aviation safety experts.

I don’t think it’s a simple as saying the US airlines and FAA are simply being
greedy and placing profit over safety. The obvious easy thing to do from a PR
perspective is to ground the planes. That they aren’t doing so in the face of
immense pressure tells me that they base their decision on facts and
procedure, not what-ifs and public scrutiny.

Let the downvotes begin.

~~~
dokein
The level of certainty required for an action changes depending on the
downside risk of action vs inaction. For example, if I am 20% certain that you
have a pulmonary embolism, the correct action is to start treatment
immediately; the risks of treatment are low relative the harm of waiting for
further testing.

The FAA and NTSB are rightly very conservative and cautious with respect to
approving new designs, since the risk of premature approval is high and the
harm of waiting a bit longer for more information is low. But this is the
opposite scenario - the risk of grounding planes is operational inconvenience,
versus the harm of another plane crash.

The correct move here is to act even if they think the certainty is low.

~~~
js2
> the risk of grounding planes is operational inconvenience

Is it possible there is a safety risk to grounding the 737 Max that outweighs
the risk of allowing it to fly?

~~~
mikeash
Yes, if the alternative is even less safe. This is important when the
alternative might be driving, as driving is orders of magnitude more
dangerous. Safety measures that annoy people too much can end up with a net
loss of life because of this.

If there are other airliners that can be put into service to take up the
slack, though, they’re very unlikely to be more dangerous.

~~~
jsharf
By the way, the difference between the safety factors of driving and flying
are not quite so straightforward. This is one of my favorite charts, which
shows that per-mile, flying is safer, but per-journey, driving is safer (which
makes some sense, since flying journeys are much longer, but 80% of accidents
happen in the 5 minutes during takeoff/landing, so really in some sense,
takeoff and landing are more dangerous than driving to work).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Transport_comp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Transport_comparisons)

Also, note the final entry in that table: Space Shuttle. Per-kilometer, it's
hardly that much more dangerous than driving. But per Journey....

~~~
mikeash
Those numbers are for the UK in the 1990s. Commercial aviation is much safer
today.

The fatality rate per journey for US airlines over the last ten years is
approximately 0.14 per billion journeys, several hundred times better than the
number from your link. (Roughly 700 million journeys per year on average, one
fatality during that period.)

Cars have gotten safer too, but not nearly as much.

~~~
rootusrootus
Is there a point at which the statistics are too muddy to be useful? We have
had 1 fatality in the last ten years, but in the last 10 years, 1 month, and 1
day we have had 51 fatalities.

~~~
mikeash
Definitely! If you take the fatalities for the last ten years and convert that
to a risk estimate, the result will have gigantic error bars. We can be
confident that the real risk is greater than zero, and it's pretty clear that
it's small, but the exact number is pretty much impossible to know.

The farther back you look, the less noise you get in your data, but you also
incorporate data that's less and less relevant to the current environment. Ten
years seems like a decent cutoff, although it is a cutoff that happens to have
had a wild swing recently.

My original point still stands if you want to take the data back a bit
further: even if you include Colgan, the resulting number is _way_ below the
117 per billion listed on that Wikipedia page.

------
rfugger
They claim this is based on new "validated" satellite tracking data they
received this morning showing similar altitude fluctuations to the Lion Air
crash. Somehow every internet forum had this figured out within hours of the
crash using public flight tracker data. I find it worrying that it took them
so long to come to the obvious conclusion for lack of "validation" of widely
known information, and that it took so long to validate this information given
the potential risk to every passenger every time one of those planes takes off
in the meantime.

It seems clear that safety is being weighed against level of disruption, which
may be justified, but they haven't been transparent about this calculation.

~~~
nikanj
Canada is extremely tightly tied to the US economy, and the US government is
still taking Boeing’s side on this.

I wish this didn’t have to be about politics.

~~~
TheArcane
> US government is still taking Boeing’s side on this

It's all fun and games until a Max 8 nosedives on US soil

~~~
bilbo0s
It'll still be fun and games. It's just that the game will be "CYA".

~~~
dsfyu404ed
The game has been "CYA" for a few days ago. Grounding the aircraft without
information about the second crash is fundamentally a CYA exercise. It might
be the right action to take but until we have the information we need to see
if we are right or wrong it is a CYA exercise. Just because it's CYA doesn't
mean it's wrong. Just because you turn out to be right later doesn't mean you
didn't initially do it to CYA.

~~~
anigbrowl
CYA generally refers to avoiding responsibility rather than a precautionary
approach - one covers one's own ass (protects one's interests) while leaving
everyone else exposed to risk.

The EU has grounded the Max 8s, accepting the disruption to commerce and
inconvenience to travelers up front as the cost of avoiding an unlikely but
potentially catastrophic accident. It's possible that if this were an Airbus
instead of a Boeing plane that the situation might be reversed, but I'm
inclined to think they would actually take the same action in that
circumstance because EU regulatory culture is rooted in a precautionary rather
than a palliative approach.

------
erokar
If this Reddit comment is true it's pretty damning.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/comments/b08h03/737_max_mega...](https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/comments/b08h03/737_max_mega_thread/eidycdx/)

Claims intermittent fluctuations in AoA can activate the MCAS. So no need for
the AoA indicator to be faulty then, means the risk of falsa MCAS intervention
higher than previously believed.

~~~
breck
I'd bet against that rumor with 50 to 1 odds.

If there really was such a memo going around Boeing that would certainly be
leaked. The leaker would probably due so publicly as well, as they would
literally save lives and easily be free from retribution.

~~~
hu3
I don't know. Leaking dieselgate would arguably have saved more lives yet it
took 6 years to surface.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal)

------
jdsully
This goes beyond aircraft at the moment. The NTSB and America in general used
to lead. Now it seems the world is going to get on without them.

~~~
ncr100
The US Government is sadly conflicted. FAA claiming there is "no evidence" of
this aircraft having a systemic flaw. Meanwhile:

Boeing brought $70B into Washington State's economy in one year.

[https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeingrsquos-
economic-...](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeingrsquos-economic-
impact-on-state-estimated-at-70b/)

Boeing is a major defense contractor, providing transportation, weapons, and
other supplies to the US Military.

~~~
mcv
From what I understand about the issue so far, the systemic flaw is not in the
aircraft, but in the training of the pilots. Or the lack thereof. Boeing
wanted the 737 MAX to be considered just another 737 that didn't require any
new training, but there are apparently significant changes compared to other
737 models that leave pilots feeling ill-prepared.

~~~
jostmey
My understanding is that the Boeing 737 max jet is unstable. Instead of
redesigning a new plane from the ground up, Boeing placed the larger engines
forward and upward on the wings. Boeing then tried to issue a "software patch"
on a bad hardware design. Boeing came up with an automated system to seize
control of the aircraft in the event that the flight became unstable and
neglected to inform pilots of this new automated system. Although not
confirmed, it appears that both crashes may be the result of pilots wrestling
with the plane's automated system, which they knew little about and may have
been faulty

~~~
planteen
You are discounting the possibility of software controlling an aerodynamically
unstable airplane safely. This has been happening for decades (see X-29, B-2,
etc)

~~~
localhost
Sure, but those pilots knew they were flying that kind of aerodynamically
unstable airplane ahead of time. These pilots apparently were thinking "this
is just a 737".

~~~
mcv
Exactly. The plane might well be perfectly safe in properly trained hands, but
it seems rather obvious by now that it doesn't fly the same as a regular 737.

------
mc32
Thd FAA + NTSB need to do something. They need to investigate and review past
investigations and come out with their findings, they can’t just say “we don’t
believe it”. Even if they are right, the right thing to do is thoroughly
review past incidents and issue a finding.

~~~
wyldfire
I have no idea whether the correct default position should be to ground or not
to ground these planes.

But it's clear that the investigation is in-progress and their statement was
not "we don't believe it" but "Thus far, our review ... provides no basis to
order grounding the aircraft ... Nor have other civil aviation authorities
provided data to us that would warrant action."

> Even if they are right, the right thing to do is thoroughly review past
> incidents and issue a finding.

Isn't that precisely what they're doing now? Also from the FAA's statement:
"... if any issues affecting the continued airworthiness of the aircraft are
identified, the FAA will take immediate and appropriate action."

~~~
mc32
I agree that the NTSB doesn’t hesitate to make a call. What I’m saying is that
in this case, a special case in that two aircraft have had similar crashes and
pilots seem to indicate an issue, should prompt the NTSB + FAA to issue
conservative guidance on this, i.e. be super cautious on the side of safety
when there appears to be uncertainty.

------
jonahhorowitz
The FAA hasn't had a confirmed director since the last one's term expired in
January of 2018. I wonder what effect that has on their decision making.

------
jackschultz
Gotta ask, when's the time to buy Boeing stock? It's like all these things
happen, stock gets dumped quickly, but it's not like this hurts the overall
value of the company.

Anyone have other examples of events like this taking down a big company's
stock price for a limited time, but not affecting it overall?

~~~
whttheuuu
this would absolutely hurt the overall value of the company

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
You would think so, but this graphic says otherwise

[https://i.imgur.com/ir65AOr.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/ir65AOr.jpg)

------
jacquesm
And then there were none:

[https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-
news/boeing-737-max-8-eth...](https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-
news/boeing-737-max-8-ethiopia-airlines-crash/index.html)

~~~
anigbrowl
Let's ignore this new information and just carry on our existing arguments -
it's the only appropriate thing to do without a general regulatory theory.

------
eznoonze
The "new information" part is just for face saving.

~~~
sbarre
The meeting with the Civil Aviation Experts Panel was literally yesterday.

It's unnecessary to cast a cynical light on everything.

------
DumbUser123
From a November 29, 2018 story - Southwest airlines were activating a factory-
installed option on delivered aircraft to "guard against any erroneous sensor
data that may activate the jet's controversial stall protection system..."

[https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/southwest-
airlines...](https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/southwest-airlines-is-
adding-new-angle-of-attack-indicators-to-its-737-max-fleet/)

The article notes that the airline has opted for an upgraded avionics suite
that low-cost airlines have, for the most part, forgone.

------
tinyhouse
The right thing is to ground the plane. It's just one plane out of many. It
doesn't matter if nothing is wrong with the plane. Until they have clear
answers it's better to not take any risks with people's lives!. At this point
it's even better for Boeing from every perspective. The plane cannot leave the
US and most of US passengers avoid flying it anyway. I'm sure airline crews
are also very unhappy that they need to fly it. I wouldn't be surprised if
some US airlines would ground it if the FAA doesn't.

------
r-s
Since its a ban on all Canadian airspace, will this effect American flights
which pass over Canada? I imagine quite a few flights cross over the southern
part of Ontario.

~~~
skookum
If it were just southern Ontario that would be one thing. Every flight from
the US west coast to Europe spends half (from SEA) to a third (from SFO or
LAX) of its flight time in Canadian airspace. However all such flights would
likely already be affected due to the widespread European bans. I have no idea
if any of those routes were served by 737 Max 8s.

~~~
tapland
2/3 of the fleet was reported grounded before Canada joined. I doubt many 737s
pass Canada on their way to Europe but I found this:

> When it comes to riskier transatlantic and trans-continental routes,
> Boeing's new narrowbody 737-Max and Airbus's A320neo family can now be
> employed due to tremendous leaps in engine reliability and fuel efficiency.
> That has resulted in a considerable expansion of long-haul routes utilizing
> narrowbody airliners.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/08/16/transa...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/08/16/transatlantic-
in-a-737-the-new-trend-of-narrowbody-airliners-flying-long-haul-infographic/)

~~~
howard941
That's ETOPS. Engines Turn Or People Swim

------
found_reading
Minister is saying that he faced no pressure from US or Boeing.

~~~
johan_larson
We need a _Pants on Fire_ emoji. Or maybe a _Pinocchio Nose_.

~~~
shaki-dora
This lazy cynicism makes absolutely no sense considering the very decision
being discussed here.

------
JumpCrisscross
Let’s say these planes should have never been certified. What’s the financial
damage to Boeing?

~~~
ww520
737 Max is their biggest order backlog. However, there's a lack of competition
to Boeing (Airbus bowed out) so its stock has gone up and up. Not sure what
will happen if 737 Max is sent back to the drawing board.

~~~
hylaride
Lack of competition? The A320neo (which has 6,501 orders) is what caused
Boeing to update the 737 into the 737 Max. Boeing wanted to build a whole new
plane which would have taken years, but Airbus released the neo and would have
gobbled up orders now. What are you thinking Airbus bowed out of?

------
ineedasername
Can someone chime in on the following-- One possible lead in cause has to do
with either software or sensors related to Angle of Attack (AOT).

For such an intermittent bug in a safety-critical application, how do you even
begin fixing it when reproducibility might be a 1 in 500,000 likelihood?
(Obviously I'm not in software testing, but I'm curious how one approaches
this problem.)

~~~
Abott
"Metamorphic testing of driverless cars" is a very related article involving
software testing and sensor problems for safety-critical autonomous vehicles.
The article is available here:

[http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3241979](http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3241979)

and a free copy is here:

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331289445_Metamorph...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331289445_Metamorphic_testing_of_driverless_cars)

------
scottlocklin
Weylp, now the US has done it:

[https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/13/world/boeing-max-8-flights-
su...](https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/13/world/boeing-max-8-flights-suspended-
intl/index.html)

------
smaili
It's very possible the "new information" may be what WSJ just reported:
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/pilot-of-crashed-ethiopian-
airl...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/pilot-of-crashed-ethiopian-airlines-jet-
reported-flight-control-problems-11552473593)

 _tldr - The pilot had reported flight-control problems and wanted to return
to the airport_

~~~
isostatic
Non-paywall: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/13/ethiopian-
airl...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/13/ethiopian-airlines-
pilot-reported-flight-control-problems-before-crash)

> The airline is planning to send the 737 Max 8 plane’s flight data recorder
> to Europe rather than the US for analysis, he said.

That seems to be shocking news. Is it that they don't trust the FAA?

~~~
komali2
Also, why not both? Is the data in some... Non-copyable format? Is the
physical device needed for some reason?

~~~
djrogers
No, once the data is extracted it can be sent to any/everyone. One team has to
be responsible for extracting the data though - it's not simply popping out an
SD card and plugging it in to your MacBook like a DSLR, especially with
potential damage to the device.

------
TheArcane
About time. The transport minister must've had damning evidence given the
stake Canada has in 737 Max 8 continuing to operate.

------
notJim
Is it normal for there to be this kind of obsession about a particular plane
following a crash? I feel like I've never seen this before. I literally saw
someone on Twitter suggesting that you print out a page of the manual and hand
it to your pilot…

~~~
dahdum
The obsession is because the plane is new (<2 years) and there have been two
fatal crashes in the past 6 months, making it by far the most dangerous plane
in the skies today.

~~~
DavidSJ
We don't know that it's the most dangerous plane in the skies today. It may
be, and some of the publicly known facts are suggestive of that but not
conclusive. What we know is that its accident rate is by far the worst, but on
a small enough sample size that statistical anomaly cannot be ruled out.

~~~
dahdum
They continued flying after the first crash for that exact reason, even though
that took the accident rate an order of magnitude above the regular 737 fleet.

After the second crash, it's not worth the risk in lives to carry on before
investigations are complete.

~~~
DavidSJ
I don’t disagree. That’s a separate point though.

------
cmurf
Trump says U.S. and Canada are simultaneously grounding 737 MAX 8 and MAX 9
aircraft, and have been coordinating it. I'm biased so I read that as Canada
did it first and dragged the U.S. into it. Nevertheless, these planes are
grounded once they reach their destinations today. And boy does this hurt
Southwest the most of U.S. carriers.

