Lootman wrote:airbus330 wrote:That pretty much encapsulates where we are with the MAX (and perhaps shortly with the 787 for different but related systemic failures).
Are you suggesting that the Dreamliner is unsafe? Why? To my knowledge there has never been a crash or major incident with the 787, other than some battery issues early on. Along with the 777 it is the mainstay of many long-haul airlines including BA.
That is not the case with the A330 (taking your handle as my cue there). 13 A330s have had hull loss accidents. I recall an Air France A330 (AF447) dropping into the Atlantic in a manner that reminded me of some of the MAX issues i.e. faulty readings from sensors confusing the pilots.
That said I have flown Aer Lingus, Air Canada, Finnair and TAP A330s regularly and without concern. A fortiori, 787s.
Currently, 8 787 airframes are grounded due to design and manufacture failures where the last section of the rear hull is attached to the tail section. A few weeks ago the investigation has spread into the fin attachments. Currently, Boeing are admitting that they have insufficient recorded manufacturing quality control data (!!) to prove or disprove that this fault will affect anymore airframes. The upshot for the airframes affected is that the aircraft will be unable to tolerate the stated design load limits. i.e, the tail might fall off.
Re. the A330, which I have flown for 16 years. You're quite correct in that it has had hull losses, as has the entire airbus fleet, but that is over a massive lifetime going back to 1984. It is also why I referenced the Airbus in my original post. The failures they have largely experienced are to do with the full authority flight control systems which were cutting edge tech and have largely bedded in to make the airbus series (by seat pax mile) extremely safe and reliable. Aircraft are never designed, built and released into service perfectly developed, the Airbus was no exception. An old Airbus pilot saying was "What's it doing now?" and previous generation pilots were often very anti the addition of the computer between themselves and the aircraft doing what you want it to do. This, together with some poor training, led to quite a few incidents and crashes which were largely down to the pilot intervening from ignorance and exacerbating an issue the automatics could have sorted. If you check the records only 2 of those hull losses were due to faulty tech. Most were terror or pilot handling errors. The tragic Air France event (which I have partially repeated in the flight simulator) would most likely have been recoverable had both (relatively) inexperienced pilots left the flight deck and left the machine to do its thing. What you won't have heard about are the several very close calls where the same misreading instruments caused an upset. What was learnt from these incidents was very comprehensively dealt with by modification of parts and training. It is, after a long period of time in blissful ignorance, acknowledged that over reliance on automation and a great many inexperienced pilots in the system has led to a need degrading of skills. This is being corrected in many parts of the world. In a long winded way, what I'm trying to draw your attention to, is the fundamental difference between Airbus and the airlines learning to adapt to new tech and Boeings willful degradation of its safety culture in order to save money.
The main reason that the MAX's crashed was the saving of a few thousand dollars per airframe by not fitting a 2nd. sensor, which was offered as an optional extra. Naturally enough, the cost accountants in the airlines concerned, elected to not spend their cash on the option. They then exacerbated the problem by not propagating the information to the people training pilots onto these new machines, that the issue was potentially there and what to do about it if it occurred. This was also connected with an attempt to save money on training. Anyway, again, all this is in the public domain. Boeing's reputation stands or falls on the MAX being safe to operate. I'll let others be the guinea pigs for that for a few years. The real bottom line is that Boeing overextended the life of a 1966 design to do too much in the interests of saving money. Their corporate culture prevented them from acknowledging and acting on engineers and test pilot reports of problems, together with a far too cosy culture with the overseeing authority which in itself turned a blind eye to what were unhealthy practices. If Boeing has a complete culture change from the top down, I'd invest in them, but not before.