Ethiopian Airlines crash

Second new 737-Max to crash in five months, both in seemingly similar circumstances after take-off. Some serious questions raised by this recent article:

Behind the Lion Air Crash, a Trail of Decisions Kept Pilots in the Dark

It seems Boeing rushed this aircraft out to compete with the new generation Airbus 320. One of Boeing's selling points to the airlines was that no pilot retraining would be required, even though there were some fundamental changes to the flight control system, and there was a risk that pilots could stall the plane in certain conditions.

Was it not the A321 NEO they were competing with Monty?

TransAtlantic to the US East Coast small market destinations.

I see the CAA have pulled the trigger!

Not good for FR with delivery’s due in May

Monty, on mature reflection the Boeing 737-Max 10 was the main competitor for the A321Neo.

Airbus had some problems with their latest fly by wire systems back in the day.

Rest assured these issues will be sorted by Boeing, too much at stake not to.

Sometimes I feel manufactures push the boundaries too far to gain a competitive advantage.
 
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Was it not the A321 NEO they were competing with Monty?

TransAtlantic to the US East Coast small market destinations.

I see the CAA have pulled the trigger!

Not good for FR with delivery’s due in May

It's really the 320neo, not the 321 that got the MAX launched, but they largely compete across the entire product line. Ironically, that is, except the 321LR, which is the one that's really the transatlantic game changer. The LR was a later-announced derivative of the NEO series and realistically it's a far better airplane than the largest MAX frames. The first versions off the line on both sides of the Atlantic and the bulk of production so far on both sides are the 737-8 MAX and the A320neo. The MAX-9 and 321neo are lesser volume. And the 321LR isn't in service yet.

Regardless, the right way to think about the MAX and neo is as aircraft families, where planes that are highly common except for fuselage length and occasionally fuel capacity have different designations. Just as with the prior generation of 320 and 737, the manufacturers do the numbering differently, but the competitive lineups look like this:

737 MAX-7 is approximately equivalent to the A319neo. These are the successors to the A319 and 737-700. They don't sell well.
737 MAX-8 is the A320neo equivalent. Successors to the 737-800 and A320, which are the best selling frames of all time for both manufacturers. In their new versions, the MAX is slightly larger (think 2 seat rows or so, depending on config).

At the upper end it gets a little more complicated. There are two upper-end variants of the MAX (the -9 and -10). The -10 is the same size as the A321neo and A321LR (which are the same size as one another). The -9 is two rows shorter than the -10 but has greater range. It still is not in the same ballpark as the 321LR.

I imagine there will be huge political pressure to keep them flying in the US as grounding them would cause problems for American and Southwest Airlines who have substantial numbers in their fleet. Not to mention the economic effect on Boeing.

It's not a huge headache for AA. They have 24 MAXes in a fleet of more than 700 narrowbody airplanes, and if they're facing a prolonged grounding they can stop pulling the MD-80s out of the fleet to cover the lift. They also have a huge A321neo order rolling in. It's potentially a larger issue for Southwest given their all-737 fleet and the fact that the planes the -8 MAXes are replacing are much smaller, but they're also a huge airline and could cope. If this had happened 2 years from now, it'd be a different story.
 
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Then there's an Amsterdam to Dublin flight that's going to have some explaining to do when it lands.

Word on the PPRuNe forum is that all flights already airborne can continue to their destination. If you're on about the KLM flight it isn't a MAX.

Holland are the latest to ban the MAX 8.

Apparently two Turkish Airline B737 MAX 8's to LGW & BHX have turned round and are heading back to Istanbul. TK1969 & TK
 
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Word on the PPRuNe forum is that all flights already airborne can continue to their destination. If you're on about the KLM flight it isn't a MAX.

Holland are the latest to ban the MAX 8.

Apparently two Turkish Airline B737 MAX 8's to LGW & BHX have turned round and are heading back to Istanbul. TK1969 & TK
The one to Birmingham was over half way there.

:-O
 
Word on the PPRuNe forum is that all flights already airborne can continue to their destination. If you're on about the KLM flight it isn't a MAX.

Holland are the latest to ban the MAX 8.

Apparently two Turkish Airline B737 MAX 8's to LGW & BHX have turned round and are heading back to Istanbul. TK1969 & TK
I think the call-sign indicated a TUI flight.

The explaining would be to do with them flying through British airspace after leaving the French zone.
 
I think the call-sign indicated a TUI flight.

The explaining would be to do with them flying through British airspace after leaving the French zone.

Could be a repositioning flight as there's no Tui flights due into Dublin today according to flight radar. There was a Tui flight to Manchester that was allowed to continue.

It's possible that either flight could've already been in UK airspace before they were banned.

Anyway Tui have now grounded all their MAX 8s.
 
To be honest I find it amazing there aren't more plane crashes.

Up to 20,000 in the air at any one time. Hugely complex machines with a lot to go wrong, certain scenarios where if it does the situation is hopeless (I.e engine failure over water), human error, dangerous weather etc...

And there is maybe 1/2 major events per year. Quite astonishing really.
You have to remember thought, that every important system has redundancy. The vital stuff quite often four fold redundancy.

You have to love how finance and politics can help influence safety decisions.
When you say influence, you mean brush under the carpet aye?
 
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