
Boeing 737 Max Grounding Could Stretch into 2020 - JumpCrisscross
https://www.wsj.com/articles/boeing-737-max-grounding-could-stretch-into-2020-11563112801?mod=rsswn
======
lisper
I think it's possible that the Max will never fly again. Its entire design was
based on the assumption that it is possible to "undo" the effects of moving
the engines with a "minor" software tweak and end up with an airframe that
flies the same as a regular 737. That may not actually be possible. Boeing may
have been aiming for a point in the design space that does not actually exist.
But the business model for the 737 depends on its existence. So when the new
software comes out, there will be two possibilities:

1\. They got it right this time

2\. They didn't get it right (because it's not possible to get it right), but
they are going to insist that they did because admitting that they were
chasing a chimera all along would be the end of the company

The problem is that it will be very hard for anyone without very deep
knowledge to determine which of these is the case. I don't see any way to tell
a convincing story [1] about how the Max can be flown safely that does not
involve re-training pilots to fly the plane "raw", i.e. where a human pilot is
capable of flying the plane when the automation has failed, without any
software covering up its native handling characteristics. That will require a
new type certificate and re-training. That can make the plane safe to fly, but
it will utterly destroy its economic model, so that is an unacceptable
solution.

Boeing has already destroyed all of the credibility it once had. It insisted
that the Max was safe to fly when it manifestly wasn't. They will again insist
that the Max is safe to fly whether or not it actually is because their
survival as a company depends on it. The problem is not that the plane may be
unsafe. The problem is that, under the circumstances, there will be no way to
know whether or not it is until the next one crashes.

~~~
nolok
> I think it's possible that the Max will never fly again.

Call me cynical, but I believe this is not possible. It may be upgraded,
rebranded, recertified, and they may retrain everyone who may come anywhere
near its cockpit, but they can't just drop the plane for three reasons:

1\. They already sold too many. Those customers will want a refund, and will
have a major loss of faith into Boeing. Unless there is a replacement plane to
give but ...

2\. They don't have any replacement. They don't have anything to put in that
slot. And it's already a plane they had to rush because a) it's the main
seller, and b) the competition (A320 Neo) is a very good plane in that slot.

3\. Like said above, it's the major seller. It has how many thousands of
orders and how many years of wait to get your planes already ? And nobody
cancelled to move to airbus because they're just as backlogged. So neither
Boeing, nor the airlines, nor the US government want it / can afford for it to
disappear, they want it fixed, anyway possible.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in a perfect world it should be grouded forever
and be remembered as a huge warning lesson, but this will never happen.

The real question is, why aren't Airbus and Boeing massively increasing their
production capacity for those lines ? Feels like they've been been backlogged
since forever, and it's only getting worse. I get that you can't create a new
set of factory and their trained workers overnight, but we're talking decade
here.

~~~
yummypaint
Alot of these problems seem to ultimately trace back to overconsolidation of
these manufacturers. The possibility that passengers will be subjected to
unsafe aircraft because Boeing is too big to fail is unacceptable. If they are
unable to move fast enough to cope with the changing market, pethaps they
should be split up.

Ultimately we may be moving toward a taxpayer bailout of Boeing. Instead of
doing that why not take that money any fund grants to help rediversify the
market?

~~~
mrep
They are only "too big to fail" because the safety standards for airline
travel are so high especially considering their market size. Compare it to
driving: the global airline market in 2019 is expected to be 856 billion USD
[0] while the US new car sale market alone was 956 billion USD in 2019 [1]
which does not include other markets, the energy to power cars, nor the labor
costs for driving so the car industry is way bigger. This table [2] says
airlines are 62 times safer per km traveled.

I don't see how you could have a competitive market like cars when the safety
standards are an order of magnitude higher than driving and yet probably an
order of magnitude smaller in size.

[0]: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/278372/revenue-of-
commer...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/278372/revenue-of-commercial-
airlines-worldwide/)

[1]: [https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-trends/market-research-
re...](https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-trends/market-research-
reports/retail-trade/motor-vehicle-parts-dealers/new-car-dealers.html)

[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Transport_comp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Transport_comparisons)

~~~
HarryHirsch
Deaths per kilometer is not a good metric when comparing safety between
methods of transportation. You'd rather look at deaths per journey, and
suddenly car travel looks very safe.

It's also worth considering that car crashes are disproportionately caused by
drunk and teenage drivers. If you are between 25 and 70, drive in the daytime
and don't drink yourself you can beat the safety record of airlines! There's
no need to argue for laxer airworthiness standards using bad statistics.

~~~
Retric
Deaths per journey is absolutely dominated (edit: aka very low) by walking
which is also completely uninteresting.

You can slice the numbers in many ways, but in truth you can only substitute
similar distances between modes of transit. Aka you can’t substitute a 1km car
trip for a 10,000 km aircraft trip. Making deaths per passenger distance the
only meaningful metric.

~~~
distances
> Deaths per journey is absolutely dominated by walking

I can't see how you came to this conclusion, I'd expect walking to be the
safest by far on this per-journey accounting.

~~~
Retric
Re reading I see it’s ambiguous. I meant denominated in a positive light.

------
ronnier
Would any of you refuse to fly in a 737 max once it returns? I think I’d have
a hard time getting on one, rational or not. I’d probably want to wait a year
or more to see how things go and then maybe I’d feel ok. This had made me
nervous flying the Dreamliner as well. Hard to get over these fears.

~~~
thatswrong0
Absolutely. After the first crash I made sure none of my future flights were
on one, and all of the articles that continue to come out about the 737 MAX
seem to indicate that Boeing is a cost-cutting safety-skirting company that
can’t be trusted to not kill people. I’d gladly pay an extra $50 to not be a
guinea pig for their fixes.

~~~
fred_is_fred
What would you do if your plane was swapped out? It's fairly common if one is
late or maintenance issues, etc.

------
hodder
I’d hope so given the clusterfuck of problems with these machines.

~~~
Pfhreak
Right? The concern shouldn't be the timeline. I don't care about how long it
takes, I care about how safe it is.

All this hand wringing about costs and stock performance and grounded planes
seems like chasing the wrong goal to me.

~~~
tjr225
> All this hand wringing about costs and stock performance and grounded planes
> seems like chasing the wrong goal to me.

It would be great if we could apply this same logic to longer term issues that
also threaten our safety, such as climate change.

------
a3n
This all came out of Boeing wanting to maintain "type identity" (my own term)
of the Max with previous 737s, to reduce Boeing's certification cost and
schedule, and airlines' retraining costs and schedules.

I wonder how much of those "savings" has already been eaten, and at what date
they are surpassed.

~~~
SahAssar
> "type identity" (my own term)

Isn't it just called "type certification"? Why create a new term for it?

~~~
a3n
Because I don't know the actual term, and I wanted to convey the thought and
move on.

~~~
Tuxer
"common type" is what people usually use.

------
dredmorbius
An aspect of this story I've not seen addressed (and if it has, please point
me to references): commercial large-aircraft aviation has achieved an
impressive safety record through a process of continued incremental safeety
refinements, but in doing so it seems to have created several notable path-
dependencies both locking in old designs and strongly resisting new ones,
particularly in larger aircraft. The Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner are
notable exceptions, and each has proved problematic -- the A380 being
discontinued in 2021 (238 presently built), and cost overruns, delays,
andconcerns with both aircraft. The 737 series has seen over 10,000 aircraft
built since 1968 (compare against 1,551 for the 747, introduced the same
year). Boeing's jet airframes fundamentally trace back to designs from the
early 1950s (367-80), and its first cemmercial passenger jet, the 707, was
only retired _this year,_ having seen first service in 1958.

Airbus's 737 MAX competitor, the A320 neo/ceo, is based on the A320 series
first introduced in 1986, with about 8,900 aircraft built.

Looking at development cost for these aircraft over the years (and considering
failures including Boeing and Concorde SST) is instructive, all prices
~2001-2019 dollars (or other currency), launch date in parenthesis:

    
    
        367-80: $149 (1954)
        707: ? (1958)
        737: ? (1968)
        747:  $7.2 billion (1968)
        Boeing 2707 SST: ? (cancelled 1971)
        Concorde: £7.67 (1976)
        A340: $3.5 billion (1986)
        A340neo: >$1.3 billion (2012)
        787 Dreamliner: $32 billion (2007)
        A380: €25 billion (2003)
        737 MAX: $3 billion (2014)
    

The possible exceptions are smaller aircraft development scaling up 9Embrar
and Bombardier, notably), and possible entry by Chinese manufacturers (COMAC),
each of which skewers the path-dependency risk from different angles

~~~
dredmorbius
Clarifying; R&D budgets were _million_ for the 367-80 and _billion_ for
Concorde.

------
joefife
I don't really care if it's flying in 2020. I'm not getting on one, and won't
be flying any airline where there's a possibility of me ending up on one.

------
cmurf
FTA: _pushing back training for some current Southwest co-pilots on track to
upgrade to captain_

That means delayed wage increases for pilots as an additional consequence for
this debacle.

And there's still no suggestion in followups to this issue, including in this
article, that the MAX will get different type certification that requires a
separate type rating for pilots. It's restricted to software fixes/changes,
and possibly a physical processor replacement.

------
garg
And they wanted to keep this plane in the air and the CEO was making calls
assuring high level people of its safety instead of immediately recalling it
and starting an independent investigation. With this many problems, it's
frightening that they wanted to continue risking the lives of the crew and
passengers.

------
londons_explore
Presumably Boeing will be compensating all airlines for the loss of use of
these planes.

Do we have any clues to the magnitude of this compensation? How long can it
continue and Boeing stay solvent?

------
davidu
My comments back in January (before the 2nd crash):
[https://twitter.com/davidu/status/1085881783319699458](https://twitter.com/davidu/status/1085881783319699458)

""" Semi-related, they also found the 737MAX cockpit voice recorder from the
downed Lion Air plane. My guess is that this will turn into an indictment of
the new anti-stall software. You couldn’t pay me any amount of money to board
a 737MAX-8 until that system is improved. """

------
rolltiide
I think whats different about the 737 Max versus other past troubled models of
planes is the lack of empathy.

Prior troubled models are reflown or rebranded and flown - of course after
addressing the critical flaw.

The 737 Max’s flaw is that it doesn't really fly well and needs software to
regulate it, and a human to override the software, which is just odd.

But the company’s complacency, self regulatory status, lack of empathy -
probably because saying sorry has legal consequences for them, or they’re
leadership really are sociopaths, or both - is what damns this line for good.

Will consumers really be so gullible this time or have more pressing needs for
the cheaper flight that they ignore the model being flown?

I’m really curious

~~~
eCa
> The 737 Max’s flaw is that

> it doesn't really fly well

Actually, no. It's flaw is that it doesn't fly like previous 737's, and they
need to make it do that.

~~~
msbarnett
Actually, if you’re going to correct someone with “Actually,”, you should
understand the issue.

The MCAS exists to prevent stick forces from inverting as the nose pitches up
towards the stall angle. If the stick forces invert, it becomes easier to
continue into a stall angle than to move away from it. Commercial airframes
are required to never exhibit this characteristic as a condition of
certification.

MCAS was Boeing’s idea of a solution to this; command the stabilizers down to
provide counter force against the stick, making it harder for the pilot to
pull into the stall than pull away from it at every point.

Even if previous 737s had never existed and the 737MAX as it exists today were
for some reason an all new design, it would need the MCAS counter-force to get
certified as air worthy no matter how much new training pilots got. It (claims
to) solve a fundamental airworthiness requirement; it is not just there to
“fly like previous 737s”.

The behaviour of the airframe is simply not considered commercially airworthy
without it.

~~~
LaserToy
That is my understanding as well. Not sure why a lot of folks are sticking to
pilot certification idea.

IMO, removing G-force sensor from the system should be looked into. I just
can’t see any sane engineer agrees to do so. They used it to make sure system
only engages on high G but will limited authority, now the system needs to
engage with low G, but higher authority - they should’ve introduce another
signal (air speed?), not remove one.

It is either incompetence or greed.

~~~
msbarnett
It reads like broader organizational incompetence to me. From what I’ve seen:

1\. They did safety analysis based on the original design: what needs to
happen for MCAS to misfire (both the g-sensor and the AoA need to be
incorrect) and what happens if it does (it runs once, to maximum authority of
0.6 degrees). They concluded from this that the issue was “major failure”
rather than “hazardous” or “catastrophic”, and that the design met the reqs
for “major” (2 sensors involved here, and major only requires 1).

2\. Much later, with the analysis already rubber stamped by the FAA, they
discover the low speed issue with stick forces and decide they can modify MCAS
to resolve this as well, by radically increasing its authority over the
stabilizers (more deflection needed to generate the same force at lower
speeds) and removing the gsensor (which wouldn’t trip at low speeds). (This
also seems to be where they introduced running it in a loop? Although some
things we’ve seen out of Boeing seem to indicate that they might have not
understood at any point that this was the way the system was written, or at
least anyone involved in any analysis never knew to consider that)

3\. Again later, someone concludes that the changes meet their initial
analysis classification requirements, because they’ve already done a safety
analysis and concluded “major”, which allows for 1 sensor with no redundancy,
which they continue to have.

Nobody seems to have noticed that they’ve now fallen into a circular reasoning
loop — the system must be safe to “major” level because we previously decided
the system was safe to “major” level. They look at whether or not the changes
still meet the requirements for “major” failure, but neglect to re-open the
analysis and decide whether “major” is still the correct classification of
failure in the first place.

Probably this means 1, 2, and 3 were being done by multiple groups of people
with poor visibility and communication between them. Someone was asked to
check whether the new setup met the requirements for the failure analysis the
FAA had approved, but there was nobody looking at the bigger picture question
of whether the validity of that analysis still applied.

------
kd5bjo
Even if this debacle drives Boeing out of business, all of the expertise,
factories, tooling, and designs still exist. Is there a realistic path forward
that has Boeing ceasing operations, but transferring the assets to a new
company with new management that can at least manufacture and support the
airframes that don’t have massive problems?

------
darkhorn
Doesn't matter. I'm not going to fly with any 737.

------
AnotherGoodName
A question I've been meaning to ask. I've always heard flight critical systems
have to be at least doubly or triply redundant. Why was there only 1 pitot
tube? It's clearly flight critical.

~~~
aftbit
There are actually 5 pitot tubes on the Boeing 737[1]. There was only one
Angle of Attack sensor. I don't know why for sure, but armchair speculation is
that it was considered non-critical before the introduction of MCAS and nobody
re-evaluated after.

1: [https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/50797/why-
does-...](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/50797/why-does-the-
boeing-737-have-a-pitot-tube-on-the-tail)

~~~
gbjw
There were actually two AoA sensors (on either side of the aircraft) each
connected to different sides of the panel. The issue was/is what to do when
they disagree (with respect to MCAS).

EDIT: Source: [https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/61011/how-
many-...](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/61011/how-many-aoa-
sensors-does-the-737-max-have)

~~~
salawat
The MCAS subsystem in the active Flight Control Computer was only taking input
from the AoA vane on that FCC's side of the plane, and not cross-checking with
the other instrument.

The triple redundancy only comes into play with systems with a severity of
failure rated as catastrophic.

The MCAS system as originally designed was rated as merely hazardous. Which
doesn't require redundancy. The decision to feed off of only one vane was
intentional to avoid having to have pilots undergo level D simulator training
as part of their type certification. Multi-sensor systems generally require
Level D training.

See the 737 MAX Expose by 60 minutes, where the whistleblower testimony is
first presented.

~~~
CydeWeys
Wow, so they could've easily made it safer with the hardware they already had
onboard, but chose not to because money?

Somewhere inside Boeing there are decision-makers that lack ethics (or even
long-term financial thinking). They need to be fired.

~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
Yes.

Specifically, because airlines wanted to save money on pilot training.

~~~
acqq
Rather because Boeing wanted to remain "competitive" against Airbus' superior
alternative by selling something that didn't exist, namely the factually
different plane which would be certified as "the same".

[https://leehamnews.com/2019/03/20/boeing-didnt-want-to-re-
en...](https://leehamnews.com/2019/03/20/boeing-didnt-want-to-re-engine-
the-737-but-had-design-standing-by/)

------
salex89
IAG must be very proud of their order by now...

------
Wingwalker
How to put a positive spin on the 737 MAX disaster. The reason it 'll take to
2020, if ever is no-one would want to ride in one.

“Boeing Co’s 737 MAX planes are unlikely to be ready to carry passengers again
until 2020 because of the time it will take to fix flight-control software
and”

Will this include giving back control of the stabilizer trim to the pilot.

