The airline plans to purchase 41 more Boeing 737-8 Max planes
“Once bitten, twice shy,” doesn’t really apply to Africa’s biggest carrier, Ethiopian Airlines. Amid this year’s Dubai Air Show, the company has announced that it has ordered 20 planes of the Boeing 737-8 Max—the same model that killed 157 people six minutes after taking off from Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa in March 2019.
Five months earlier, a similar plane—the Lion Air 737 Max—crashed in Indonesia’s Java Sea, causing 189 instant fatalities. In both cases, investigators determined sensor malfunctions to be the cause.
Boeing admitted full responsibility for the malfunctions. The accidents led to the grounding of 737 Max models for two years; flights were resumed in June 2021.
Why is Ethiopian Airlines buying 737-8 Max planes?
Most airlines have since avoided purchasing the aircraft, with only 30 out of the world’s 5,000 airlines flying it. But Ethiopian Airlines thinks adding the model to its fleet makes business sense—despite travelers citing fears of flying in the 737 Max since the 2019 accident. “We have renewed our confidence in that aircraft,” CEO Mesfin Tasew told the press in Dubai. “We believe we have checked and confirmed that the design defect of that aircraft has been fully corrected by Boeing.”
Tasew also said Ethiopian Airlines would purchase 21 more 737 Max planes in the near future. It demonstrates, he added in a press release, the company’s commitment “to serve passengers with the latest technologically advanced airplanes.” The airline said in the release it is purchasing the model because it “reduces fuel use and emissions by 20%” while minimizing noise by 50% compared to the planes it will replace.” But returning to the plane hasn’t been without controversy for Ethiopian Airlines in the past, particularly among families of crash victims.
read more: https://qz.com/ethiopian-airlines-boeing-737-max-faa-fatal-accident-1851028514
I’ve met flight crew members that have no issue with flying on 737 MAX. They are senior enough that they could avoid it if they wanted.
Yea supposedly the issue was found and fixed?
At this point the risk should be similar to the risk of buying any new plane model, the risk of the unknown
I watched a documentary about the Max 8. It is now one of if not the most highly scrutinized planes in the world; I would fly on one now. The original issue was twofold. First, a faulty sensor that was convincing the plane software the plane was close to stalling and would thus force the plane downwards which is a problem when you’re rapidly losing altitude. The new models have an extra sensor for redundancy. Second, Boeing essentially lied to the FAA about this system because they feared the system would (rightfully) lead to an extensive testing and validation phase before approval, and thus cost them time and money. So rather than do the right thing, pilots were not adequately trained on the MCAS system at all.
It’s sad to see what Boeing has become post, McDonnell Douglas merger. The MBA ratfucks got a lot of innocent people killed over their balance sheet.
Yep, as one former Boeing CEO lamented, “McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing’s own money”.
Exactly right, MBA ratfucks who only gave a shit about short-term profits, not quality. Everyone in & outside the industry knew Boeing was the right pick because their engineering teens would make the hard, expensive, but correct choice most of the time vs their former competitors. Quality in their parts, products, documentation, training… How the mighty have fallen.
There’s a reason McDonnell was in very real danger of going under before Boeing was urged to buy them.
Line any merger in which a failed company ends up somehow running a successful employee, we see the systematic removal of the very reasons for it’s success in the first place.
You kinda wonder why they even bother, but I guess the generation of business jerks that did it made plenty of money and it’s just one more shitty thing we get to clean up after them.
When i was a kid, a mexican restaurant chain shut down after a bunch of people got sick/died of hepatitis A in my city.
The day they reopened, it was highly publicized on the local news, and my family went there to eat… i asked my dad if he was concerned about getting sick. He stopped, looked me in the eye, and told me with the upmost confidence “i guarantee you that this will be the cleanest restaurant meal you will ever have in your life”…
i feel a similar concept applies to this situation… with all the eyes on the 737 max8, there is no way management is going to sell one if it has outstanding flaws/safety issues.
Similarly to your story, you don’t fire the IT person who makes a grave mistake that costs a lot of time/money/lost data, because you can be damn sure they’ll never, ever do that again.
Unless it was gross negligence and the person is just an idiot, any capable person will learn from their mistakes, and never make the big ones twice.
The old story:
A worker breaks an extremely expensive piece of equipment. he goes to his boss expecting to be fired, but the boss says “fire you, I just spent $3 million training you.”
A mechanic once told me: If its cheaper to pay the families of the dead than fix the issue, then they wont fix the issue.
There wasn’t even a huge issue to begin with. There was a clunky checklist and pilots didn’t get any specific training on it but I would be comfortable flying in an unmodified one with any major US or EU carrier. The planes that crashed were safely recoverable, the pilots just made ongoing mistakes for a very long time in both situations.
Downvoted for the stupid title. Well yeah, it’s not a lie. But it’s unnecessary to create panic around it at this point.
The tremendous amount of issues with the 737 Max and its certification process have already been identified and rectified, and the already manufactured aircraft were also fixed, and the ones responsible for the disasters are (hopefully) punished.
While I’m not a Boeing fan myself, I guess, by now it’s safe to fly.
This one specific issue was addressed. Who knows which other compromises they had to make (and hide)…
Also, what’s the bet they’re getting a great deal on the planes in an effort to regain brand trust & loyalty?
But yeah, safety isn’t a factor now.
“This thing was bad once, therefore it will continue to be bad forever”
Bro really is risking it all
I mean, if you pay attention the issue isn’t really with the plane. It’s with Boeing adding features without notifying the FAA so they don’t have to pay to retrain pilots.
In essence, capitalism strikes again. It’ll be funny if these Ethiopians actually get a great deal because Boeing decided to fuck over countries who paid full price for these.
“If I just double down I’ll win it all back!” - Ethiopian Airlines, probably
If they werent safe to fly Boeing wouldnt be selling them
Yup, that’s definitely what Boeing did the first time around when a singular sensor failure would cause a fatal nose dive.
A sensor issue which was then fixed after a long and thorough FAA investigation. Pilots wouldn’t be flying these things if they thought there was still a safety issue present, nor would the FAA approve Boeing to sell them.
Yeah mate, I understand at this moment, this is probably the most scrutinized and safe plane out there.
But OPs comment was frankly naive. The first time the 737Max was released there were major lapses at both Boeing and the FAA that cost lives. So the mere fact of Boeing selling the planes equating to safe is not established fact nor a logical conclusion.
A single sensor failure did not cause a fatal nose dive. A sensor failure led to a situation where pilots from airlines not well regarded for quality failed to correct it for between 5-10 minutes despite having suitable checklists guidance to do so. Any complex machine can be dangerous if not operated the way it was designed to be and some nations do not take aviation safety as seriously as others, planes are designed and built expecting a certain standard and failing to meet that standard can lead to dangerous situations.
A complex machine that operates significantly differently from previous versions should always require additional training in said system. Not just required reading off a manual or a checklist.
Which is exactly how Boeing lied to the FAA and other airlines. They fought hard and lied to prevent pilots having to spend any time at all in a simulator.
How they even thought a single sensor for critical controls was adequate is beyond me. I mean I’ve worked in buildings where they built in triple redundant sensors for the HVAC system.
Revisions to aircraft designs are nothing new and the amount of detail in the flight manual is often times limited to “sufficient to safely fly the plane.” The procedure for uncommanded stabilizer motion was sufficient to recover the plane in both situations, neither crew executed it properly or in time. Using fly by wire to make handling characteristics standardized is completely normal and being fed from a single sensor isn’t uncommon for a system that itself has backups. Boeing never lied to the FAA, they told them the minimum required and the FAA said it was fine; for a crew from a first world airline it was.
So, why was Boeing selling them until two of them crashed due to zero redundancy on a system capable of crashing the plane that was designed to add control inputs but was kept secret from pilots?
