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posted by janrinok on Thursday October 10 2019, @02:53PM   Printer-friendly
from the roll-up-roll-up-for-the-ride-of-a-lifetime dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1337

American Airlines says it will resume flights with Boeing's 737 Max jets in January

American Airlines will resume flights with Boeing's 737 Max jets in January 2020. In a statement posted online on October 9th, the airline says it expects software updates to result in the beleaguered jet's re-certification by federal aviation authorities "later this year."

Boeing is expected to submit its final certification package to the FAA later this year. Anticipating this, American says it expects to "slowly phase in the MAX for commercial service" starting January 16th, and will "increase flying on the aircraft throughout the month and into February."

The FAA ordered the grounding of all Boeing 737 Max jets after two deadly crashes in October 2018 and March 2019 that killed a total of 346 people. Both crashes have been linked to a piece of software that Boeing had installed on the 737 Max known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS.

[...]A flight attendants union issued a statement calling on American and other carriers to prioritize safety. "It will be imperative that my members are assured of the complete safety of this aircraft before taking it back up in the air," said Lori Bassani, national president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, which represents 28,000 flight attendants at American Airlines. "Our airline crews and passengers deserve to have the highest level of assurances prior to re-entry into the air space. Our lives and passengers' lives depend on it and our lives are not for sale."

Remind me not to fly in January.

[Sure! "Don't fly in January." =) --martyb]


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Thursday October 10 2019, @04:54PM (2 children)

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 10 2019, @04:54PM (#905282) Journal

    The problem with drill and patch is that it weakens the metal frame. Patching doesn't restore the metal strength, and adds weight.

    Whether this matters or not depends on where it happens. It *can* be deadly. It can also be trivial.

    --
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @05:41PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @05:41PM (#905299)

    You answered the rebuttal for #1.
    #2... The guy that got fired as an auto mechanic was an idiot that got hired as an inspector. The fan blade says 'FRONT' on the front. He put it in backwards and wondered why there was a big hole ground into a brand new radiator. The aircraft industry was going to automotive repair shops looking for workers... They got the worst ones.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by choose another one on Thursday October 10 2019, @07:36PM

    by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 10 2019, @07:36PM (#905355)

    The problem with drill and patch is that it weakens the metal frame. Patching doesn't restore the metal strength, and adds weight.

    Whether this matters or not depends on where it happens. It *can* be deadly. It can also be trivial.

    This is why you have suitably qualified/certified engineers on hand to make the decision on whether the rework (patching) can happen or not and exactly how it should be done.

    You can (and should) get called to the line for something as seemingly trivial as "can we substitute a bolt that's 2mm longer in this location, cos we've run out of the correct bolts" (been there, done that - not at Boeing though) - sometimes the answer is yes (because the only impact is a few grams extra weight) and sometimes it's no you'll have to hold the line until you get the right damned bolts.

    The problem on the NG, allegedly, is that those engineers were overruled by managers who said they were rejecting to many parts and would have to rework them. That shouldn't have been a management decision, period. The part is either to spec or it isn't, it either can be re-worked safely or it can't, it cannot suddenly become safely reworkable because a manager says we're rejecting too many and it's costing us too much $$. But that is what apparently happened at Boeing, and it might be what is now coming back to bite them (as MCAS has on the MAX) - there are a lot of people who tried to blow the whistle and got fired who will have been watching and waiting for NGs to start falling apart, they might be about to feel vindicated.