Ethiopian Max 8 crashes, Canadians on board

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

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.

I am shocked.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

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.

From day 1 FlightAware has had problems differentiating between Max and a regular 800. I don't get what's different about that difference vs any other difference in that it is a unique 4 letter ICAO identifier... B38M vs B738 on the filed flight plan should not cause any greater a challenge than B738 vs B737. Whatever.

[Red]

The Star article refers to Air Canada flight from OGG. They fly the Max 8 on that route. West Jet flies the 800.

[stampsx2]

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.

It’s 8600 flights per week not per day.

[stampsx2]

Listeneing to pilots talk about the max 8 had me convinced it’s an excellent plane. Then i saw a ctv news story indicating many pilots have reported similar dive issues with the plane. Fortunately they were high enough to turn off autopilot and adjust.

Now i have no idea.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/beta.ctv...1_4333197.html

[Acey]

Originally Posted by Red

The Star article refers to Air Canada flight from OGG. They fly the Max 8 on that route. West Jet flies the 800.

Wrong. The idiots there used FlightAware which uses GDS and showed WS1857 OGG-YYC as being operated by 7M8, when it was a 738. WestJet does not operate a 738 typically on this route. It struggles westbound.

It's why I earlier said for everyone here to delete FlightAware from their favourites bar. Even alleged "journalist" don't understand how it works.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1106178824172175362

[stampsx2]

Originally Posted by Acey

Wrong. The idiots there used FlightAware which uses GDS and showed WS1857 OGG-YYC as being operated by 7M8, when it was a 738. WestJet does not operate a 738 typically on this route. It struggles westbound.

It's why I earlier said for everyone here to delete FlightAware from their favourites bar. Even alleged "journalist" don't understand how it works.

[twitter]1106178824172175362[/twitter]

Westjet 738 struggles westbound from OGG?

[Acey]

Originally Posted by stampsx2

Westjet 738 struggles westbound from OGG?

Westbound to OGG. It struggles westbound YYC-OGG as winds are stronger against the airplane flying westbound. So unless winds are highly favourable seats would be restricted or bags bumped, hence MAX flying it typically, or a 767.

[Flacker]

Originally Posted by stampsx2

Westjet 738 struggles westbound from OGG?

Yeah I was confused by that as well. It struggles westbound to OGG from YYC, with a strong head wind, it would be pretty tight for fuel when you account for the required reserve.

[Acey]

A flight goes both ways, right. So yes to clarify the struggle would be westbound (actually eastbound also due to a short runway at OGG)

Whatever, that's irrelevant. Point is the 738 struggles both ways on it and it's tight... and journalists need to stop looking at FlightAware because they used it to accuse WS of flying a commercial MAX leg after the ban when FlightAware is wrong.

[Bigtime]

Air Canada has announced all MAX 8 flights cancelled for the next 3 weeks.


We've got 3 of the AC birds here at YYC, unless they choose to ferry them somewhere else.

[Johnny Makarov]

Sorry out of the loop. Is the Star a Calgary newspaper? How long have they been around?

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

Sorry out of the loop. Is the Star a Calgary newspaper? How long have they been around?

It's the Toronto Star and they're trying to go national.

[stampsx2]

Originally Posted by Acey

Westbound to OGG. It struggles westbound YYC-OGG as winds are stronger against the airplane flying westbound. So unless winds are highly favourable seats would be restricted or bags bumped, hence MAX flying it typically, or a 767.

Bags bumped? Surprised a few bags can make a difference. Wondering what would happen if one day 200 “heavy” people were getting on a plane.

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Air Canada has announced all MAX 8 flights cancelled for the next 3 weeks.


We've got 3 of the AC birds here at YYC, unless they choose to ferry them somewhere else.

Will be interesting to see what happens with the pilot group at AC if the grounding goes on longer than that. It will hurt AC financially (to pay them not to fly) or hurt the pilots (if their contract does not have some sort of provision for a situation like this). Short term Air Canada could swallow it (the pilots not so much) but if it goes longer it will get very interesting. I am guessing that many/most of AC's Max pilots may no longer type qualified?

WestJet won't suffer from that issue as it's a common type rating between the Max and the NG (I think) so other than redistributing some flying it could be simpler. Actually now that I think about it I would imagine April's bids/schedule is probably set or close to it so it will be messy.

Point being is WestJet pilots still have aircraft they can fly, Air Canada pilots may not.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by stampsx2

Bags bumped? Surprised a few bags can make a difference. Wondering what would happen if one day 200 “heavy” people were getting on a plane.

By season/flight, we just assume all adults and their clothes to weigh the same, and all bags to weigh the same. So there's obviously margins for error in either direction given that averaging, but yes when you're right at the limit bumping bags can be the difference in legally making it to Hawaii or not.

[Amethyst]

Originally Posted by 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.

I looked at the WestJet website today and the plane for my flight has changed from a MAX 8 to a 737-700. The price also increased from $280 to $1180, so I'm thinking that they switched to a smaller plane and there are at least a few seats available.

Hopefully it all works out!

[Ryan Coke]

It’s amazing when you know the actual details of something like this how terribly inaccurate the media often is. I’m certainly not a Trump like fake newser, but be careful how much you take as truth because tons is wrong.

I can personally guarantee that it was an NG -800 and not a max that went to and from YYC to OGG. And that it had to do a tech stop in YVR so that no guests were bumped.

This is a good article I was just reading that had some good points on things...
https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/20...pilots/584941/

This part in particular I agree with. Some of these reports were mentioned in this thread and which have nothing to do with MCAS or the accidents.

He begins by referring to some of the ASRS reports I was quoting, including one that is harshly critical of Boeing (and that has been cited in many newspaper reports). This pilot writes:

It seems to me that the media in general has grossly, and frankly irresponsibly, mischaracterized this data.

I believe it is almost certain that the two reports [JF note: among those I quoted] describing a pitch down when the autopilot was engaged are describing the same event; one is from the captain, one from the FO [First Officer — the pilot sitting in the right-hand seat in the cockpit, and with three strips on the epaulet, versus four for the captain]. This is an artifact of the ASRS de-identification structure [i.e., removing personally identifying info from the reports].

In any event, MCAS is not supposed to be operative with the autopilot engaged. Further, when MCAS operates, it will move the pitch trim wheel. Neither report discusses any unwanted trim motion. Ergo, this does not represent an actual MCAS malfunction. It would actually have been useful to know whether this crew made any maintenance logbook entries about this incident.

The report discussing the auto throttle malfunction also has no bearing on MCAS; there is no relationship between them.

I could go on at length about my concurrence with the report discussing Boeing’s failure to include the MCAS material in the [flight manual]; however, that report also does not represent an actual MCAS malfunction. Ditto for the first officer who felt unprepared.

There was an additional report included in the original package put out by various media outlets, which you did not include. I assume that’s because you have done your own homework … This one described an intermediate level off at FL 340 when they had been cleared to FL 360; this occurred because the crew had failed to update the FMC [Flight Management Computer] with the new cruise altitude. Everybody has done that at one time or another. This, too, has no bearing on the MCAS problem.

It has been enormously distressing for me to see material such as these ASRS reports used as proof that there was some kind of hidden problem being covered up by the powers that be. That may still be true (I rather doubt it, but in the accident investigation world, rule no. 1 is never fall in love with your pet theory). We have a real problem here, and its resolution will require accurate, careful and probably very technical analysis. The media firestorm has created a very difficult atmosphere within which to do that work.

 At this point, the principal problem we face in resolving the issue lies in defining the criteria we will use to return the Max to flight status. Unlike the previous groundings of the DC-10, ATR, Concorde and 787, the Max was grounded without any clear technical understanding.

As such, there is no clear technical path to follow in order to restore it to flying. If the Ethiopian accident does indeed mirror the Lion Air case (which I also consider very unlikely, but…) then that path will be clear but very, very painful and arduous.

If, on the other hand, the two are not related, then we will have to develop a technical rationale for returning the aircraft to flight with not one, but two unrelated and still open accident investigations. We are really in uncharted territory….

For example, if, as Simon Hradecky has reported on his Aviation Herald website, the Ethiopian crew encountered an unreliable airspeed situation, then a poor handling of that condition could have actually triggered a genuine, proper operation of the MCAS. The presence of that data point in the DFDR data [Digital Flight Data Recorder, roughly approximating “the black box”] will muddy the waters almost impossibly for the media, politicians, and certainly for Trump. And yet it would represent a scenario very different from what we know so far about Lion Air.

[Red]

Originally Posted by Ryan Coke

It’s amazing when you know the actual details of something like this how terribly inaccurate the media often is. I’m certainly not a Trump like fake newser, but be careful how much you take as truth because tons is wrong.

I can personally guarantee that it was an NG -800 and not a max that went to and from YYC to OGG. And that it had to do a tech stop in YVR so that no guests were bumped.

This is a good article I was just reading that had some good points on things...
https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/20...pilots/584941/

This part in particular I agree with. Some of these reports were mentioned in this thread and which have nothing to do with MCAS or the accidents.

Media is media, they don't intend to lie for most part (is FOX news really media?)
They all use info they gathered from experts or other media outlets. The article you are quoting is an opinion piece. And it may not age well, see bloomberg's article.. I guess it may be to soon to conclude on both ends of the spectrum. Grounding the planes is a responsible thing to do. Even if it hurts some investors or fanboys in that industry. Who can you trust in the meantime?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...as-set-to-dive

[Red]

And where does it say that MCAS doesnt work on auto pilot? All indications point to going to manual mode to override it so it seems logical that it only works in auto. Unless I'm missing something here.