While we don’t yet know the cause of the Ethiopian flight 302 tragedy, airlines across the world are grounding their 737 MAX fleets until they know that they are safe. Planes in the air are even being diverted to land as I write this post.
North American airlines are the exception for now, as Air Canada, American, Southwest, United, and Westjet continue to operate them as normal. Boeing and the FAA insist that the airplane is safe to operate, though even Consumer Reports is calling on Boeing to ground the fleet worldwide.
2 fatal accidents within 5 months on a new plane is extremely rare. 3 fatal accidents within a year on the de Havilland Comet in the 1950s grounded that fleet and proved that it was not airworthy as designed.
It is worth noting that the safety standards will vary by country. The captain of Ethiopian flight 302 was 29 years old and had 8,000 hours of flight time. The co-pilot had a scant 200 hours of flight time. In the US you need at least 1,500 hours of flight time in order to fly a commercial flight and you would typically start on a smaller regional plane.
With airlines clamoring for a more fuel efficient version of the 737, Boeing added larger engines onto the decades old 737 design to create the 737 MAX, rather than design a new narrowbody airplane from scratch. This design required that the engines be mounted higher up and further forward than on older 737s.
The problem with the new design is that the planes are more prone to have an angle of attack (how the plane in pointed) that is too high, which can cause a stall. Boeing added angle of attack sensors that automatically point the nose down in order to avoid a stall. This system is called MCAS or Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System.
Faulty sensors in the Lion Air Flight 610 crash caused MCAS to take over and push the nose downward. Pilots typically respond to a situation like that by pulling back on the yoke (which is basically the steering wheel) to point the nose back up, but MCAS kept getting erroneous data from the angle of attack sensors and pushing the nose back down to avoid a stall as the sensors indicated that the nose was pointed too high.
Boeing decided to feed MCAS with data from just one angle of attack sensor, which leaves it vulnerable to a single malfunctioning sensor.
Boeing also failed to tell airlines about MCAS and the FAA signed off on pilots being able to move from the 737 to the 737 MAX without needing to learn about the MCAS in training. Doing so lowered the costs of training, which made the overall cost of the plane lower for airlines, making the 737 MAX more competitive versus the Airbus A320neo.
Boeing maintains that nothing has changed from the emergency procedures that should be followed from older 737s. By switching off two stabilizer trim cutout switches it would stop the plane from pitching up or down against the controls from the yoke. There were other sensors in older 737s that could have gone bad, and like MCAS, pilots are able to override them by following that same emergency procedure. That is the main reason that Boeing maintained that MCAS training is not required.
However the exact MCAS response would be new for pilots without training for it, and especially in an inexperienced young crew, they may not properly follow all of the emergency procedures. On the ill-fated Lion Air flight, the pilots tried more than 2 dozens times to pull the nose up by pulling back on the yoke and by activating switches on the yoke that control the angle of the stabilizers on the plane’s tail. However they never followed the emergency procedure from their checklist to turn off the two stabilizer trim cutout switches, which would have disabled MCAS.
Time will tell if the same problem caused Ethiopian Flight 302 to crash as well.
Pilots from many airlines were furious with Boeing for failing to disclose the MCAS system in order to properly train in how to override the system.
Boeing maintains that the 737 MAX is a safe plane and one would hope that by now all pilots are being trained in overriding MCAS when needed.
In the meantime, Boeing is rolling out new software for the 737 MAX. I’d presume that the new software will receive data from both angle of attack sensors and alert the pilots if one malfunctions. I’d also assume that Boeing will also make it easier to override MCAS.
Should you avoid flying the 737 MAX? Pilot training in the US is excellent and I have confidence in our system and in the FAA. However it’s also understandable if people want to avoid the plane type while these issues are being sorted out.
If you are booked on a 737 MAX and feel uncomfortable about it, I’d suggest that you call or Tweet your airline to express your concerns and request a free change to a flight operated by another aircraft. You may need to ask for a manager or HUCA (Hang up and call again).
It’s not hard to check and see what plane your flight is being operated by. You may need to click details or the flight number when searching for a flight, but it would be obvious if it’s operated by a 737 MAX as it will always say MAX as can be seen in the screenshots below:
United doesn’t fly the 737 MAX 8, but they do fly the similar 737 MAX 9:
Are you booked on any 737 MAX flights? Will you be changing to another flight?
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93 Comments On "The 737 MAX Is Being Grounded Around The World, Except For North America; Here’s What You Need To Know"
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I have a LOT ticket JFK-WAW-TLV this coming Motzei shabbes. WAW-TLV is the Max 8.
If they cancel my flight will they have to put me on another flight to TLV (UA for example)
I’m not an expert, but I somehow doubt that they will put you on UA from WAR to TLV. A penny wise but a pound stupid.
The MAX 8 is grounded in the EU. They will find another plane to fly that route.
It’s not so easy nowadays to have available planes from one sec to another. Let’s hope
I flew Norwegian from Rome to Tel Aviv Feb 27 and Tel Aviv to Rome March 5th how do I know if it was a Max and how much to thank Hashem?
Max has been flying for some period of time. Two fatal crashes are purely tragic and concerning, but I wouldn’t be benching Gomel over it. A lavish kiddush is always nice!
You should thank hashem for the safe flight regardless of the plane model.
relax. 737 MAX is flying hundreds of times a day for year. Don’t get into the hysteria that every 737MAX is bound to fall out of the sky
I think many of the groundings are a political maneuver as well. China as a bargaining chip and EU countries because they prop up Airbus. It’s an unfortunate side of the business iinm.
I think many US carriers can’t afford to ground it if they can avoid it. For example Southwest has so many cancellations due to union bargaining they can’t afford to ground more planes unless absolutely necessary.
Does that mean prices are going to go up as there a less aircrafts to fly?
No. This is a small subfleet.
But if people are scared to fly we can have a 9/11 effect…
Delta 737-900ER a different aircraft?
Yes.
on southwest my flight shows:
Aircraft information
Aircraft type Boeing 737-800
No. of seats 175
Is this the 737 Max?
TIA!
No.
You can see what the MAX looks like in the screenshots in this post.
My brother is on one now he tried calling airline didn’t let him change
Hence the HUCA advice. Agents have a lot of leeway when they want to.
200 hours of flight training to co-pilot a massive airplane?
Dan: Can you make a list of which airlines/countries where pilots don’t have sufficient flight training so we know what to avoid?
It’s quite surprising how few hours that is. That’s got to be under 3 months of flying. I guess Ethiopia doesn’t have regional jets to practice on.
I was surprised by that as well.
Would be quite a task to figure out the requirements for each country in the world.
I know. But it would get you lots of publicity….(not that you need it). There’s a reason Qantas has one of the best flight records. Hint. It’s not the airplane.
https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-advice/flights/inside-the-cockpit-on-qf32-how-the-worlds-worst-aviation-disaster-was-averted/news-story/62f3b73db38751b6ae0b3769058a48da
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-qantas-a380-pilots/qantas-pilots-saved-crippled-airbus-investigator-says-idUSTRE6B215Y20101203
At age 29, Yared Getachew was the youngest captain at Ethiopian Airlines, though he had accrued 8,000 flight hours.
The first officer, Ahmed Nur Mohammod Nur, had logged only 200 flight hours.
Captain – 29 years old
First officer – only 200 hours
Must have been really ugly the last few minutes… R.i.p. all innocent people
With a name like Ahmed Nurse Mohammod Nur…….never know but terrorism always a possibility
With a name like John’s moth it could also be terrorism. Your comment is blatantly racist.
In Israeli airports a person called Ahmed Nurse Mohammod Nur would be questioned much more thoroughly than a person called John Moth. The only reason for that is cultural profiling, which means people of Arab descent pose a much higher risk to airport and air travel safety. This is partly why Israel hasn’t had an airport terror attack for decades now.
Calling this racist and ignoring the problem is wrong in many levels.
Islam is NOT a race. Islam is multiracial. Don’t see how Steve’s comment could be seen as blatantly racial. Morrison is blatantly stupid.
Ten years experience and thousands of flights under his belt isn’t enough for you? Commenting on the fact that the pilot was 29 is pretty stupid.
Was slated to fly on the 737-8 Max in July, TLV-JMB, on Ethiopian. Glad to see that they are grounding the fleet, otherwise I probably would have cancelled and found an alternate airline.
I’d be very surprised if it is still grounded by then.
Most likely things will be back up when Boeing gets the new software to the airlines.
I’d probably be more worried about the 200 hours of experience than the airplane…
Is the 737-800 same as the 737-8MAX ??
No.
You can see what the MAX looks like in the screenshots in this post.
excellent article – well written (better the WSJ’s article, ahem)
Thanks 🙂
I have my kids booked LGA to MIA the Wednesday before Passover on AA, and yes it’s a MAX 8. I literally don’t know what to do. It’s one of the busiest travel times of the year and there is barely availability on other AA flights that are NOT Max 8. I also booked with points and don’t have any points left, so even if they were to switch my flight, how would they charge me?
Can’t hurt to ask what can be done via Twitter DM or a phone call.
But I’d be confident in the US airlines to provide proper training in overriding MCAS. It seems to me that this is a training issue more than a plane issue.
Boeing deciding not to include MCAS in training was a tragic error in judgement though.
Lawsuits maybe
I will call and see what they can do. I do feel like SW and AA have been flying almost 60 of these aircrafts on the regular Since November of 2017 without a single incident, thank God. I’d like to think that US pilots’ training is superior…we hope 🙂
If “they” r switching u’r flight, y should u b charged?
AA Awards tickets are free to switch (if there’s availability).
If you can’t find availability from LGA, try from EWR.
Free even if the “price” is higher now?
I booked with BA and they refused, directed me to BA as expected. That was Sunday, maybe with all this publicity going around maybe they will cave in
I was recently on a 737 max 8 and there were engine issues
Airline? Route?
I won’t fly again with a 737 MAX, unless they provide complimentary parachutes.
We are in the day in age where carry on bags, seat selections, a can of soda, and not boarding the very last- are not complimentary. What are you thinking, of course parachutes will be charged $9.99 to a major credit card! 😛
How much wud u pay to have a parachute for one flight
i bet you if that jet crashed in lower Manhattan the FAA would be singing a different a song
Oh please don’t reminded us of that scary day
twas just a metaphor
Its a restricted airplane zone…
No expert here but if there was previously two ways to override the system (yoke and stabilizer trim cutout) and this new model only supported the latter override, that is a major change and training should be required. The fact that the documented and correct way to maneuver out of the situation was still available doesn’t help. Even if something is not the official method, there needs to be awareness of it retiring. You cannot predict how the mind will operate under a crisis of this sort. Of course had the pilots followed the documented procedure, the outcome would have probably been different, but how does that help us now? Clearly Boeing is also in the wrong. Big time IMHO.
Have a connecting flight late march from mia to lga on a max 8.(booked with mileages) Just Twittered to AA to switch to a different aircraft. They said they couldn’t find other availability so no. 🙁
Personally I wouldn’t be concerned about flying a US carrier.
Many US pilots have said that they were unaware that they could not override the stick pusher by simply pulling back on the yoke.
Correct, that was the case before last October’s Lion Air crash.
The override switch was added to US pilot training after that crash and is common knowledge by now among US aviators.
Excellent article.
Thanks 🙂
I was flying NDJ-IST on Turkish last month and was discussing routing options to/from NDJ with a guy who was was there on a business trip (he works for a US oil company). He said his company does internal checks on different airlines and he was not allowed to fly Ethiopian. I had flown Ethiopian to NDJ and it seems like it has a great reputation, especially in Africa, so that was surprising to me, but so is seeing that a co-pilot would be flying with only 200 hours.
There’$ obviou$ly a rea$on why most of the EU (home of Airbus) and China (trying to break into the aircraft business) would ground, but the US (home of Boeing) isn’t. I wonder what that reason i$.
Hmmm…I ju$t cant think of a good reason why that i$?
If the s key is not working on your laptop you can use an onscreen keyboard to type properly.
the accident happened on a plane from nairobi to kenya, iw onder why it didnt happend from ewr to miami? would anyone here go in on boeing stock?
Most likely, pilot training and experience, as I posit in the post.
Excellent WELL WRITTEN article. Clear and to the point. Thanks!!
I’d like to see a report on how many times pilots had to overide the sensors on this aircraft. This model does thousands of flights a day I assume.
I’d be very surprised if American allows you to change for free. I can see all the others allowing but American……:(
Well articulated, great article.
Wow Dan great article.
Amazing to see your patience on a sensitive topic and answering all the comments relating to people concerned to fly. (And not responding with your typical “read the post?”).
So we’re assuming that us pilots are better trained. These faulty sensors it seems so far triggered twice the mcas system in error and the pilots didn’t know how to override it.
It would be interesting to know how many times this system was deactivated in the past by well trained pilots thereby preventing more disasters
It’s not really a question. In the US there’s no way someone with 200 hours of flight experience would get anywhere close to a 50 passenger regional commercial regional jet, let alone a 200 passenger jet.
Boeing’s MCAS addition made headlines after the Lion Air crash and US airlines advised and trained their pilots in overriding it.
I’m not sure we’ll ever find out how often pilots have had to override MCAS.
The pilot with 8,000 hours is concerning. If you had 2 of them with 8,000 hours, would the crisis have been averted? No way to know, and that’s more relevant for US standards.
An experienced co-pilot is critical in emergency situations and it’s very rare in the US to see someone who is just 29 years old be sitting in the left seat.
What’s more relevant for US standards is that required training is very high and that there has not been a fatal crash on a US commercial airline in the past 10 years.
Until the recent Atlas air cargo plane that flew for Amazon. I assume it’s because of the plane age, was very old.
That wasn’t a commercial airline.
An airplane’s age is not 100% based on how many years old it is, a big factor is how many pressurization cycles it’s undergone.
You’ll see a 20+ year old 747-4 running daily commercial flights…you won’t always see a 20 year old smaller regional jet since the regional jet can typically fly anyware from 3 to 7 (or even more) flights per day while a bigger plane which will fly a longer route will typically only fly 1-2 routes per day.
Every pressurization cycle fatigues the metal of the aircraft which greatly affects its airworthiness and “age”.
Correct
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colgan_Air_Flight_3407
Aircraft information
Aircraft type Boeing 737-700
No. of seats 143
is this the 737 MAX?
No, if it doesn’t say MAX then it is not a MAX.
I think it’s a good time to buy the boing stocks now, cause I think it’s s matter of time till they are going to got back to where they were it even higher up as boing is the leading airplane company in the world today’s days
We can’t find out if our Norwegian flight from Rome to tlv will fly
If indeed the problem was the MCAS system than I wouldn’t be afraid to fly a 737 MAX. By now every commentator knows how to override the MCAS, let alone every pilot.
True story.
You’d think after the lion air crash that souls hVe been the case.
Hey Dan, you’ve been using that line a lot recently
I’ve read several different articles about the crash and they all mentioned the MCAS but none mentioned the reason for adding the new system. Thanks for breaking it down and going through it. Makes more sense now!
Thanks for clarifying Reb Dan. A little bit unrelated- Will you post the latest story of an Orthodox Jew being thrown off a flight for no reason? https://hamodia.com/2019/03/10/jewish-passenger-ejected-united-airlines-flight-alleges-anti-semitism/
Dan!!
How do you get time to educate yourself on all the exact detailed mechanics of this aircraft
The AP has an article about US pilots having the same problem when switching to auto pilot.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/pilots-have-reported-issues-in-us-with-new-boeing-jet/ar-BBUGJmB?ocid=AMZN
When you make a new product, part of that product is ensuring the end users know how to use it as designed. Boeing should have sent their own educators out in the field to educate pilots. Not doing this out of the box was very poor management. Not doing this after the first crash was incredible hubris and stupidity. Stupidity beyond belief. Stupidity beyond human understanding of stupidity. If pilots can’t fly the plane the error is Boeing’s alone. This is a classic poor management move. Boeing will take years to recover.
Nobody knows the reason for the Ethiopian crash yet.
Gary,
Two planes, 6 months with stability control issues? The problem is Boeing’s. They need to make sure the mechanics understand how to repair the plane. Boeing needs to make sure the pilots know how to fly the plane. Otherwise we a filed product.