Ethiopian Max 8 crashes, Canadians on board

[Acey]

They've already freed up a -700 for this Saturday's BZE, presumably next week will be fine as well. Only 124 booked for this Saturday so nobody bumped.

Saturday is the day to worry about the least.

[ernie]

I’m not really sure Boeing should be talking about the fleet flying 88,000 miles over 41,000 hours. I mean the numbers sound big but it’s also 250 flight miles per death at this point. And it could all be coincidence because while you heard looking for a crash every 300 years (previous calc by a poster above) you could have back to back ones and then nothing for 500 years. Unlikely but possible.

But damn 250 miles per death (125 hours) is a shocking number at this point. Multiple deaths of course make that number smaller but that’s the risk and why the standard needs to be exceptionally high.

If it is the same reason Boeing is potentially in big trouble. They will be thoroughly investigated and if there is any whiff of a cover up during design look out (some seem to feel the entire system was a cover up in and of itself from what I remenber reading about the Lion Air crash). This isn’t faking emissions testing.

Sad all around and IF there is a funadamental problem I’ll just count my lucky stars as I’ve flown on a Max 8 about a half dozen times.

[Ped]

Originally Posted by Amethyst

I have a flight to Belize coming up in 10 days. It was supposed to be a Max 8, according to WestJet's website. I wonder what will happen now?

I would imagine they'll find a different plane?

[Amethyst]

Originally Posted by Ped

I would imagine they'll find a different plane?

Hopefully! I just wonder how many flights they can cover with 13 fewer planes.

[Acey]

Completely valid question. They don't just have 13 planes sitting around waiting, just like Air Canada doesn't have 24 just ready to roll. There will be some serious shifting, consolidation, perhaps wet leasing, substitutions... depending on how long this lasts.

The announcement came down at a fairly favourable time for WestJet today, after everything had already headed south. Tomorrow will be a headache, however.

[Wormius]

If the planes stay grounded indefinitely, how long until the airlines get caught up with moving passengers around? We are traveling in a different plane, but wondering if there is a chance people start getting bumped from flights? How big a deal is it logistically for airlines to have x number of planes unavailable for use?

[SebC]

Originally Posted by ernie

I’m not really sure Boeing should be talking about the fleet flying 88,000 miles over 41,000 hours. I mean the numbers sound big but it’s also 250 flight miles per death at this point.

Sounded incredible, so I checked, and those numbers are for Southwest, not Boeing.

[Ryan Coke]

Particularly incredible, since that works out to moving just a little over 2 miles per hour.

It’s hard to taxi that slow.

The numbers are obviously wrong, and so is the 250 miles per death number.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Ryan Coke

Particularly incredible, since that works out to moving just a little over 2 miles per hour.

It’s hard to taxi that slow.

The numbers are obviously wrong, and so is the 250 miles per death number.

Yeah, it's 88,000 hrs over 41,000 flights.

[ernie]

Originally Posted by SebC

Sounded incredible, so I checked, and those numbers are for Southwest, not Boeing.

My fault...it sounded low to me as well but the report I saw did not detail it was for one airline. Though I imagine if you run the real numbers it’s also not going to be a nice number when it come s to airline travel. And yes my brain automatically went to hours (mph) rather than saying flights.

It’s still a design that has the steepest fatality rate in the last 53 years. I’d say that is a pretty strong basis for grounding.

At the time of this latest crash it was flying 8600 flights a day. So even if I took that number and multiplied by the 95 weeks or so they have been in commercial,service (which is a massive over estimate) you are going to see some pretty large numbers for the airline industry. Again it could all be coincidence but given what the FAA said yesterday it’s looking less and less likely that it is.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by ernie

My fault...it sounded low to me as well but the report I saw did not detail it was for one airline. Though I imagine if you run the real numbers it’s also not going to be a nice number when it come s to airline travel. And yes my brain automatically went to hours (mph) rather than saying flights.

It’s still a design that has the steepest fatality rate in the last 53 years. I’d say that is a pretty strong basis for grounding.

At the time of this latest crash it was flying 8600 flights a day. So even if I took that number and multiplied by the 95 weeks or so they have been in commercial,service (which is a massive over estimate) you are going to see some pretty large numbers for the airline industry. Again it could all be coincidence but given what the FAA said yesterday it’s looking less and less likely that it is.

8600 flights a day can’t be right can it? 370 planes is 23 flights a day per plane. That sounds closer to all 737s not just maxes.

[ernie]

Originally Posted by GGG

8600 flights a day can’t be right can it? 370 planes is 23 flights a day per plane. That sounds closer to all 737s not just maxes.

Probably right...the news reports are all over the place with numbers and/or loose sentence construction. Either way the numbers look awful for the max 8 right now. And if it was the same problem I suspect they are going to be grounded for a good long while.

More than 340 of the Max 8 planes are registered, and many more are on order.

An estimated 8,600 flights use the plane in a typical week of travel, according to an analysis based on data from Flightradar24, a flight tracking service.

That was the part I grabbed onto but it was mixed up with a 737 boiler plate precursor so you’re probably correct.

[Bigtime]

Flight Data Recorder picture, pretty beat up but the memory unit looks pretty good:


https://twitter.com/BEA_Aero/status/1106221599735332864

[woob]

When was the last time a certain model of commercial passenger plane was grounded globally due to possible issues? I can't remember anything myself, but I'm not a big AV nerd.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by woob

When was the last time a certain model of commercial passenger plane was grounded globally due to possible issues? I can't remember anything myself, but I'm not a big AV nerd.

The 787 in 2013 and the DC-10 in 1979.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

Originally Posted by woob

When was the last time a certain model of commercial passenger plane was grounded globally due to possible issues? I can't remember anything myself, but I'm not a big AV nerd.

The 787 was grounded shortly after it hit the market. There were issues with the plane's batteries.

I don't recall off hand, but I feel like there weren't as many 787s in the air as there are 737 Maxes, however that could be because Canadian airlines have a pile of 737 Max 8s, and I don't believe Air Canada received any deliveries of the 787 yet (possibly 1 or 2).

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by woob

When was the last time a certain model of commercial passenger plane was grounded globally due to possible issues? I can't remember anything myself, but I'm not a big AV nerd.

B787 grounded in 2013 the one that immediately comes to mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner

[Acey]

Originally Posted by Wormius

how long until the airlines get caught up with moving passengers around? We are traveling in a different plane, but wondering if there is a chance people start getting bumped from flights? How big a deal is it logistically for airlines to have x number of planes unavailable for use?

Already happening. Air Canada has no planes to fly from Toronto to Palm Beach, for example. Anybody saying this is not a big deal must not have access to Air Canada's internal system. Understandable, I guess... the media never knows what they're talking about.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Acey

Already happening. Air Canada has no planes to fly from Toronto to Palm Beach, for example. Anybody saying this is not a big deal must not have access to Air Canada's internal system. Understandable, I guess... the media never knows what they're talking about.

Yeah, like The Star this morning being all over a MAX 8 flying OGG to YYC. Except it was a 800 series NG. Loved WestJet tweeting right back at them on how factually incorrect they were.

[Fuzz]

I sure wouldn't want to be on the team of people responsible for shuffling airframes around. That's be a mega-nightmare.