
Indonesia’s Garuda Airlines cancels order for 49 Boeing 737 Max jets - hectormalot
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/indonesias-garuda-airlines-cancels-order-for-49-boeing-737-max-jets/2019/03/22/d7f7de52-4c63-11e9-9663-00ac73f49662_story.html
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ulfw
It's hard to trust just a "software update" with your life. I don't believe
what Boeing is allegedly trying to do to fix the MCAS problems is sufficient.
If they don't read 3 angle of attack sensors, how is this 'software update'
going to solve anything. And all they have is 2 sensors (only 1 of which is
read now)

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hasperdi
If they have 2 AoA's and they disagree, they can indicate that with the light
AoA disagree, disable MCAS and display on the CDU that MCAS is disabled. So
the pilot knows what's happening and take corrective action.

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7e
That light is an upgrade you need to pay for.

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markdown
Not any more. [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-
airplane/boeing-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-
airplane/boeing-to-offer-safety-feature-as-standard-in-737-max-software-
upgrade-sources-idUSKCN1R20CU)

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geogra4
Who would trust Boeing after this? Airbus must be feeling pretty good right
now.

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dingaling
To be cynical, it probably worked out well for Garuda since their finances
aren't strong. And with 5,000+ Max still in the backlog this is 1% of orders,
so not much of a hit for Boeing. About $5 billion at list price, probably much
less in reality.

What would really impress would be if they now ordered 49 COMAC C919
narrowbodies from China. That would send a signal that airlines are fed up
with the A-B duopoly and that they're not prepared to take recycled designs
any longer.

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AlphaGeekZulu
"...that they're not prepared to take recycled designs any longer".

I believe that the use of recycled designs is one of the major guarantees for
aircraft safety! There is nothing wrong with a gradual development process,
where only small modifications are done from one revision to the next. This is
a bit like continuous integration principles in software development. Building
on former experience as much as possible is an important factor of quality
assurance (and also efficient in many other aspects).

I understand your point, though: small modifications can sum up to a point,
where they do not blend smoothly in the base design anymore - as is the case
with the larger engines of the 737 8 max. At some point, designers have to
refactor big.

What went (criminally) wrong with the 737 8 max, in my eyes, is the attempt to
treat a large redesign as a small modification, to save (certification) time
and money. It went horribly wrong, causing loss of lives and trust in the
company.

And obviously Boeing is not able to understand the consequences of the loss of
trust. Last week I thought, the worst thing that Boeing could do now, was to
offer quick fixes (like hot patches for the software), as this would proof
their incapacity to embrace the scale of the problem. But this is exactly what
happened.

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mrhappyunhappy
Indeed, I too was shocked to see them come up with a patch solution vs
recognizing that perhaps the plane design and the oversized engine are the
areas that need attention. Sorry Boeing, some things don’t blow over. I think
the public took note and the damage is already done. The best thing they can
do now is own up to their mistakes. I have a feeling it will take all the
lawsuits combined to make any impact though.

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Waterluvian
Would it be fair to say, "all commercial planes should be safely pilotable
with no computer systems working whatsoever"?

How realistic is that? Where theoretically a single switch is flipped and your
plane flies like they used to.

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baq
computers are the whole reason why air travel is literally orders of magnitude
safer than car travel. airbus is fly by wire, it can't work without computers.
boeing at this point is most likely, too - i don't know about them other than
i read here.

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Waterluvian
For sure. But the pilots exist for a reason. It sounds like we are making it
impossible for them to do their job properly when their intervention is
needed.

