Gunfighter

The 737MAX disaster will be distilled down to a Wikipedia article in another decade. Air France 296, an A320 flew into the trees because the FBW "thought" it was landing. A quick software fix followed by a few years of amnesia and we are buying the A320 100 at a time.

unit monster

As a long time DL Connection pilot (decade +) and longer DL Connection commuter I could give easy half a dozen personal JS situations where I have had serious questions about the Skywest crews decision making. I do not know how long you have been gone, PM me and I would be happy to give anecdotes I won't post publicly.

dera

You haven't read the report, have you?

That's not what happened with AF296. The FBW was a very minor thing in that. They were making 30 degree banks at 90(!!) ft, trying to realign themselves with the runway they finally realized they were supposed to fly over. They were 200 feet too low from the planned flyover height, at max alpha, and when they realized it, they were on idle so they didn't have enough time to spool up the engines. They tried to pull up, but alpha protection saved the day and prevented them from stalling and killing everyone on board.
It was 100% all crew actions. If they were in a Boeing, they would've killed everyone.

Bergman

That’s funny right there. The could polish any turd to a high sheen.

jamesholzhauer

You probably need to go reread the details of AF296. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_296
https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19880626-0

Only 3 deaths, at an airshow, screwing up a demonstration of alpha floor at less than 100’ AGL and below the height of the trees, at an unfamiliar airport not in the database, over a 2100 foot grass runway. The plane did what it was supposed to. The pilots got convicted of manslaughter. I don’t believe they made any changes to the airplane as a result of that crash.

“PROBABLE CAUSES: "The Commission believes that the accident resulted from the combination of the following conditions: 1) very low flyover height, lower than surrounding obstacles; 2) speed very slow and reducing to reach maximum possible angle of attack; 3) engine speed at flight idle; 4) late application of go-around power. This combination led to impact of the aircraft with the trees. The Commission believes that if the descent below 100 feet was not deliberate, it may have resulted from failure to take proper account of the visual and aural information intended to give the height of the aircraft."

There are zero similarities between AF296 and the 2 MAX crashes. One was pilot error in a low speed, low altitude flyover where the plane operated exactly how it was commanded by the pilots and resulted in 3 deaths. Two were a result of a massive design flaw in a plane that pitched over uncommanded, became uncontrollable, and killed over 300.

The MAX story will go down as a very long and enduring black mark on the reputations of Boeing and the FAA. It won’t be soon forgotten. People generally forget crashes. But the issues with the MAX’s design and certification are now exposed as pretty bad (hence the long grounding), and with social media, it isn’t just a sliver of the population (av guys) who know about it. In the end the MAX issues will cost boeing at least a billion, probably a decent amount more.

sailingfun

Airbus has however like the max had several sensor driven failures that resulted in fatal accidents including two aircraft stalled at high altitude with the crews unable to recover. In one of those crashes Airbus was very aware of the possibility of the pitot icing issue but chose to keep flying the aircraft with a slow roll of the fix. There is a third yet unexplained A320 accident in the Med. Both companies have plenty of warts.

forgot to bid

No. Nope. And no.

No. No.

No.

Are you saying Air France and the Max crashes were the same???

Stalled and not able to recover??? Which ones were not able to recover from the stalls? We need to know this one since we are doing full stall training now, didnt know there were some stalls we couldn't recover from.

Are you talking Air Asia 8501? What are you talking about?

sailingfun

They were very different but in each case the manufacturer new of the potential for a bad outcome. From a company leadership perspective they were uniquely alike.
They also shared commonality in the perceived performance of the pilots.

forgot to bid

No they really weren't. Perfectly good A330s got a bad sensor design, if there was a problem there was a solution and easy to follow. The airplane was never in jeopardy from it, but it was in jeopardy from bad piloting.

The 737max is a different animal, it's probably not a good airplane. Sensor issue made it obvious and Boeing is in cya mode.

sailingfun

I also omitted the Qantas A330 that was saved only buy superb crew action but still resulted in a large number of critical injuries. There was also the Lufthansa test flight that crashed killing the crew after 2 AOA vanes malfunctioned.
MCAS was designed to make the MAX handle like the NG in one particular corner of the flight envelope never normally approached in airline operations. There is nothing inheritantly wrong with the airframe and the fix will take care of the malfunction. If you feel as you appear to by your post I would avoid the A330-900 since it has a similar problem corrected by software. Both designs moved the engines forward and up for ground clearance.