The airline industry has a strict process for evaluating accidents to prevent future
ones.
Immediately after a crash, a team of investigators observes the aircraft, studies the scene,
and replays the pre-crash commentary from the cockpit.
That’s exactly what happened with two recent Boeing 737 Max crashes, which led to the deaths
of 346 total people.
Want to know about it?
Well, stay tuned to the video And watch the video till the end.
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And in today's video, we are going to discuss “Airlines Are Flying Boeing 737 Max AGAIN.”
So without any further ado, Let's begin.
The first crash happened in October 2018 when Lion Air Flight 610 crashed 13 minutes after
takeoff and killed all 189 people on board.
Then, in March 2019, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed and ended another 157 lives.
Three days after the second crash, the United States government grounded all Boeing 737
Max airplanes.
The crashed China Eastern Airlines plane was a Boeing 737-800.
It's the most common version of Boeing's jets now in service, and it is the workhorse of
many airlines' fleets.
There are 4,502 of the 737-800s now in service worldwide, according to aviation analytics
firm Cirium, making it by far the most common Boeing aircraft in use today.
And it's the second-most-common plane in use worldwide, behind only the A320 made by Boeing
rival Airbus (EADSF).
The aircraft, with 123 passengers and nine crew on board, lost contact over the city
of Wuzhou, China's Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) and the airline said.
Boeing has admitted full responsibility for the second crash of its 737 Max model in Ethiopia,
in a legal agreement with families of the 157 victims.
Lawyers for the families said it was a “significant milestone” for families to achieve justice.
The legal stipulation, filed in Chicago on Wednesday and awaiting court approval next
Tuesday, states the aircraft manufacturer accepts responsibility for the crash of Ethiopian
airlines flight 302 in March 2019, having “produced an airplane that had an unsafe
condition”, and would not seek to blame any other party, specifically including the
pilots.
The Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max crashed soon after takeoff from Addis Ababa for Nairobi.
Investigators identified faults in the sensors and new flight control software that had not
been explained to pilots.
The model was grounded worldwide but has returned to service this year, with airlines including
Ryanair taking deliveries of the aircraft.
A Boeing spokesperson said: “Boeing is committed to ensuring that all families who lost loved
ones in the accidents are fully and fairly compensated for their loss.
The agreement filed with the court today is an important step forward in that process.
By accepting responsibility, Boeing’s agreement with the families allows the parties to focus
their efforts on determining the appropriate compensation for each family.”
Boeing said last year 13% of fatal commercial accidents globally between 2011 and 2020 occurred
during the cruise phase, whereas 3% occurred on the descent, none on the initial approach,
28% on the final approach, and 26% on landing.
In 2016, FAA approved Boeing's request to remove references to a new Maneuvering Characteristics
Augmentation System (MCAS) from the flight manual.
FAA certification of the MAX was subsequently investigated by the U.S. Congress and multiple
U.S. government agencies, including the Transportation Department, FBI, NTSB, Inspector General,
and special panels.
Engineering reviews uncovered other design problems, unrelated to MCAS, in the flight
computers and cockpit displays.
The Indonesian NTSC and the Ethiopian ECAA both attributed the crashes to faulty aircraft
design and other factors, including maintenance and flight crew actions.
The FAA revoked Boeing's authority to issue airworthiness certificates for individual
MAX airplanes and fined Boeing for exerting "undue pressure" on its designated aircraft
inspectors.
In August 2020, the FAA published requirements for fixing each aircraft and improving pilot
training.
On November 18, 2020, the FAA ended the 20-month grounding, the longest ever of a U.S. airliner.
Boeing originally launched the 737 back in 1967 and had twice rolled out updates for
the platform.
They were updates that wouldn’t require retraining for the pilots – a key cost for
airlines introducing new model aircraft.
The newer, larger, turbofan jet technology would offer a 10-15% reduction in fuel burn,
which was very attractive to new customers after Airbus had offered a similar upgrade
of the newer generation jet engines on their A320 platform.
The main difference was the original Airbus A320 design had a lot more ground clearance,
allowing a larger engine to fit under the wing without changing the center of gravity
or center of thrust.
For the aging Boeing 737, closer to the ground, the larger engines were simply unable to fit
under the wing so needed to be located both further forward and mounted higher up on the
wing.
Looking from the front of the plane it is clear that the top of the engine cowling is
now above the wing before it was below.
“The return to service was much better than we were expecting,” Gol Vice President of
Operations Celso Ferrer told Airline Weekly.
The changes mandated by global regulators as part of Max’s recertification took roughly
four days per aircraft including test flights and the pilot training aspect about a day
including mandated simulator time.
After the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in November 2020 cleared the Boeing
737 Max to return to service, other regulators – notably those in Brazil, Canada, Europe,
and the UK – have done likewise.
Brazilian airline Gol was the first to bring the aircraft back into service, launching
the first flight on 9 December, just 10 days after the Brazilian regulator cleared the
type.
Aeromexico, American Airlines, and Copa Airlines followed before the end of 2020; with American
being the first US carrier to return the type to service.
United Airlines, which became the first to take delivery of a new aircraft following
the ungrounding when it received a Max on 8 December, restarted operations with the
type in January.
Transport Canada’s clearance of the twinjet in January allowed WestJet to begin flying
the type again that month, with compatriot Air Canada following suit in February.
Meanwhile, in Europe, it took three weeks between the European Union Aviation Safety
Agency’s re-certification of the Max on 27 January and TUI Group’s Belgium unit
becoming the first airline outside the Americas to return the jet to service on 17 February.
Czech operator Smartwings, Cayman Airways, Kazakh carrier SCAT, and, as of 8 March Icelandair,
have since resumed Max operations.
Southwest was the latest carrier to do so when it resumed flights on March 11.
The plane is now back in service with all US carriers, but Boeing will have to work
vigorously to retain the trust of airlines and the flying public in regard to the Max
family.
The 737 Max can fly farther and carry more people than the previous generation of 737s,
like the 737-800 and 737-900.
It also has improved aerodynamics and a redesigned cabin interior and flies on bigger, more powerful,
and more efficient CFM LEAP engines.
CFM is a joint venture between General Electric and France's Safran.
“I had hoped that this would be a major reckoning,” U.S. House Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio, D-Oregon, said in an interview.
“They would bring in someone new and they would say, ‘No, we’re going to go back
to being what we were — the best aerospace engineering company in the world, and we’re
not going to watch the daily stock price.’
But that didn’t happen.”
The action was taken by both Boeing and the US Federal Aviation Administration in terms
of product redesign, pilot training requirements, commitment to corporate culture change, and
certification.
These seek to ensure that the aircraft model satisfies all regulatory requirements.
Boeing’s 737 Max has its unique market positioning to serve the short-medium haul market.
The aircraft is more economically viable for airlines to use to serve their target market.
The airline had made a financial commitment to aircraft procurement.
The new system had the ability to trigger flight control movements that challenged the
pilots’ command of the aircraft.
In addition, the software operated on input from one of the two sensors externally mounted
on either side of the aircraft’s fuselage (main body).
For the Ethiopian flight, the system triggered four times as a result of false sensor readings,
forcing the airplane into a nose-down from which the pilots were unable to recover.
Faulty sensor data that erroneously triggered the system to repeatedly activate landing
played critical roles in the Max crashes.
Given significant advances in aviation safety over the last two decades, it was extraordinary
for two new airplanes, of a new derivative model, to crash within five months of each
other.
Boeing developed the system to address stability issues in certain flight conditions induced
by the plane’s new larger engines and their relative placement on the 737 Max aircraft
compared to the engines’ placement on the 737 NG.
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