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Boeing's upgraded 737 MAX completes first flight with media onboard:
DALLAS (Reuters) - Boeing Co's 737 MAX staged its first post-grounding flight with media on board on Wednesday, as carriers seek to demonstrate to passengers that the redesigned jet is safe after a 20-month safety ban.
[...] Wednesday's American Airlines 737 MAX flight was a 45-minute hop from Dallas, Texas, to Tulsa, Oklahoma. It comes weeks before the first commercial passenger flight on Dec. 29, and is part of a public relations effort to allay any concerns about the aircraft.
Boeing's best-selling jet was grounded in March 2019 after two crashes in five months killed a combined 346 people, marking the industry's worst safety crisis in decades and undermining U.S. aviation regulatory leadership.
Wednesday's flight marked the first time anyone besides regulators and industry personnel flew on the MAX since the grounding, which ignited investigations focusing on software that overwhelmed pilots.
The mood on Wednesday's flight, which included a Reuters reporter, was subdued. Some passengers mingled and chatted before landing, when applause broke out.
[...] Boeing is bracing for intense publicity from even routine glitches by manning a 24-hour "situation room" to monitor every MAX flight globally, and has briefed some industry commentators on details on the return to service, industry sources said.
"We are continuing to work closely with global regulators and our customers to safely return the fleet to commercial service," a Boeing spokesman said.
[...] In an example of how airlines have begun to soft-pedal references to the MAX brand, the safety cards on Wednesday's flight omitted the "MAX" name and just said "737."
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @05:43PM (9 children)
You'd think reporters would be curious about Dominion vote tabulating machines. They're a more immediate terror for the nation and world than the 737-MAX. Nobody has to fly on one of those things right now, but we are forced to live and die by those Dominion disasters.
Both should be open-sourced and open for inspection, immediately. before we trust those things.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @05:47PM (5 children)
On the other hand, the planes may kill people, but the Dominion machines actually bring the dead back to life. At least long enough to vote.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @05:54PM
Hence the name.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @06:03PM (3 children)
The undead don't bother to vote, since it's a waste of time. Instead, they sit around and consume mass quantities of alcohol.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @06:10PM (2 children)
Just like whoever marked this thread as "Offtopic."
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @07:45PM (1 child)
There it goes again, that continuing lack of curiosity about clearly compromised computer systems by what are allegedly nerd-centric places. How many articles did you see about the election four years ago being hooked by foreign agents and ne're-do-wells? But not a squeak, this time. In fact, they bury the story, just like this thread. Just like the post above.
Isn't anybody interested in exactly how the 737-MAX software was un-finished and covered-up? Isn't anybody curious about Dominion?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 04 2020, @03:36AM
Yes, this ^.
I've listened to hours of testimony, in Penna, Nevada, and Michigan. The recurring theme is, Dominion has a direct ancestry to manipulated elections in South America. Multiple persons have testified that with Dominion and related machines, can access those machines for the purpose of "flipping" votes. Giuliani and his colonel friend have asked repeatedly that forensic analysis be performed on Dominion machines - but I've not yet seen any forensics being performed. I've not seen a single headline that machines have been selected for forensic analysis.
If those forensics come back with clear indications that they were NOT manipulated, Trump loses all the wind from his sails. If those forensics come back with clear indications that votes were flipped by the hundreds of thousands, the legislatures in each state can take action as they see appropriate.
But - apparently, no one wants to see the results of any forensics examinations. Are we afraid of the truth?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @07:48PM
I heard those planes crashed because Hugo Chavez was flying them.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2020, @12:04AM
That's just the tip of it. I heard aliens and liberals conspired to rig the whole thing.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Friday December 04 2020, @05:54AM
I can't say I'm terrified by voting machines, as ballots in my country are still cast and counted by hand.
Aircraft, on the other hand, fly overhead on a daily basis. I'd prefer them to stay up there until they reach their destination.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @05:58PM (7 children)
in the hands of a competent pilot, not some third world allah worshiping monkey that shouldn't be allowed to drive a donkey cart
Proper training would also help, don't want any disturbances while the stewardess is putting on her eye shadow
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @07:30PM (6 children)
Bigotry noted. However, even first class pilots from first world nations apparently knew nothing about the special knowledge and skills required to keep the Max aloft after the computer glitched. There was no training, nothing in the manual, not even some kind of errata addendum published for the airlines to sign off on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @09:33PM (5 children)
There's no bigotry, the numbers speak for themselves. There is no way that the only defective planes were in the third world. These people are the only ones crashing anything now. They're worse than Air France!
Competent pilots had no problem with the airplane. These aren't DC-10s they're flying. The 737 is a perfectly cromulent machine, except for the yaw damper maybe. That was fucked up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2020, @01:17AM
The free market disagreed with you.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 04 2020, @03:47AM (3 children)
How do you account for this then? Boeing pilots knew of a "glitch", which customers were not informed of.
https://www.npr.org/2019/10/18/771451904/boeing-pilots-detected-737-max-flight-control-glitch-two-years-before-deadly-cra [npr.org]
Pilot complaints
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/13/us/pilot-complaints-boeing-737-max/index.html [cnn.com]
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-19/how-an-extra-man-in-cockpit-saved-a-737-max-that-later-crashed [bloomberg.com]
Two pilots, following published protocol, failed to get the plane under control. The extra pilot, a fifth wheel with no duties to perform, who was less involved, was able to solve the problem due to his detachment from the problem.
It just doesn't make sense that you want to blame the pilots based on the airlines they worked for, or which countries they may originate from. Pretty much everyone who knows anything about aircraft agrees that Boeing was at fault. Only a few shills here and there seem to want to blame "pilot error" for Boeing's shortcomings.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2020, @08:46PM (2 children)
Your own article says they could have saved it. If you have time to check your QRH, you have more than enough time to execute the memory items. Runaway trim is one of the many failures pilots around the world train in and you are supposed to have those checklists locked in your brain for a reason. Yes, Boeing created the problem at point A. But that doesn't mean that the pilots couldn't have stopped it at point B. Sometimes fault is shared and not all or none.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 04 2020, @09:11PM (1 child)
Agreed. But the share may be very unequal. In this case, Boeing created the situation with inadequate documentation, and inadequate training. Boeing went to great lengths to convince everyone that flying the Max was no different than flying any other 737, knowing full well that it was NOT the same.
Very good and excellent pilots might figure things out all on their own when the situation arises. Merely good pilots might not. Mediocre pilots forget about it - they NEEDED the training that highlighted the differences between the Max and all other 737's.
While I agree on shared responsibilities and shared fault, the lion's share of the fault lies on Boeing, not on the pilots who never got the essential training they required.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 05 2020, @05:58PM
Yes, third world pilots are mediocre at best, taught to push buttons, not fly a plane, and only third world pilots crashed the airplane. Yes, boeing fucked up big time, but as was shown, for competent pilots it was just another squawk to write up.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @06:06PM (4 children)
This would seem to be the first salvo in a PR Blitz designed to resurrect the Boeing brand its ill-fated engineering-blunder of an aircraft.
---
#AOC-2024
(Score: 4, Informative) by DannyB on Thursday December 03 2020, @06:42PM
I would also mention Starliner and SLS.
Long before the Max disasters, Boeing had a history of failing to fix safety problems [washingtonpost.com]
Young people won't believe you if you say you're older than Google. (born before 1998-09-03)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday December 03 2020, @06:50PM (1 child)
It wasn't a "blunder". It was a calculated risk, like the Challenger and the Ford Pinto [wfu.edu]. McDonnell Douglas bean counters took over the whole operation after the merger.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @09:07PM
The fact that they are able to re-certify existing aircraft with minor tweaks to the flight software, sensors and training regimen suggests that the suits were correct that the aircraft design was fundamentally okay. The fact that two of the aircraft nose-dived into the ground shows that there was an engineering blunder either 1) by not predicting that possible outcome, or 2) by not informing the suits that such an outcome was possible. I don't reckon that any manager would sign off on a design that was sure to cause fatalities.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @11:46PM
Too late.
If it's Boeing, I aint going.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday December 03 2020, @06:08PM (6 children)
1 successful flight is not the same thing as extensive testing. And 1 successful flight is not the same thing as fixing fundamental flaws in the plane's design that exist because the suits overruled the engineers in an effort to avoid FAA oversight.
And I also don't consider it a coincidence that they rushed to get this done before Inauguration Day.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday December 03 2020, @06:45PM (2 children)
Software developers consider jiggering one test to pass to be sufficient testing. No need to fix design flaws. Management is happy. So everyone is happy. Even if there is no upcoming coronation.
Young people won't believe you if you say you're older than Google. (born before 1998-09-03)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday December 03 2020, @06:56PM
The design flaws are out of the control of the software engineers. The only thing they can do is to implement the software according to the spec they've been given by the systems engineers. If the spec is crap and doesn't have proper redundancy in the sensor data, there's nothing the software engineers can do about that.
As usual, it all comes down to piss-poor management.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday December 03 2020, @07:07PM
* So long as you exclude the hundreds of people killed on these planes and their thousands of loved ones, plus the airline's insurance company, plus regulators who know what's up and are prevented from doing anything about it, from "everyone", of course.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @07:50PM (2 children)
What is the implication you're making here?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday December 03 2020, @09:01PM (1 child)
That the Republican Party tends to be looser on regulations than the Democratic Party, and thus businesses trying to do something that's only kinda-sorta OK on the regulation front will try to get their thing approved under a Republican-controlled administration.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @09:48PM
Oh please! The Democratic party is corporatist too. They just have possibly a different set of corporations they favor, or even an overlapping set. It's all determined by whoever donates to the politician or does their dirty work for them. See all the Social Media / Big Tech company people who worked for/with Obama's gov, worked against Trump, and are lined up to work with Biden. Do you think Democrats are going to regulate Big Tech?
(Score: 2, Touché) by VLM on Thursday December 03 2020, @07:48PM (2 children)
I heard they used members of the legacy media on this test flight because nobody would mind or notice if the test failed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @08:00PM (1 child)
Cheaper than crash test dummies eh?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @09:17PM
Cheaper than rats, politicians, and lawyers?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2020, @08:26PM (1 child)
Good News! They hired the Dominion programmers to fix the 737 MAX software. Those 346 deaths have now been reclassified as simply arriving late.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2020, @12:16AM
It's all good because they boarded the plane (got posted) on time.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2020, @01:20AM
I hereby name thee Trumpliner.