Would you fly on a 737 MAX plane?

[yellowblue20]

Booking a flight where the cheapest flight is on a 737 MAX, if I want to fly on another plane It is minimum £120 more.

Given its history, would you feel comfortable flying on a 737 MAX?

I am very anxious

Tbh I’m not breezing over anything. I am perfectly aware of the horrors of crashes. I’ve watched countless videos, with information not available to the general public, about the ways things can go wrong and the effects on real human beings. I’ve flown with pilots who have been in charge of aircraft that were destroyed or heavily damaged, and it is very sobering listening to their stories. One of them was the captain of a very famous aircraft write-off, almost certainly directly as a result of dodgy Chinese fuel - water which should not have been there froze in the fuel lines. He, and all the people on his aircraft were very lucky to survive. But I am not seeing threads full of people baying for Chinese blood and refusing to fly on aircraft that have been in China. There is nothing that anyone can go back and change to prevent the crashes of the MAX from happening. What we can do is change the way we do things and go forward with an approach that ensures the situation which led to a fatal crash does not happen again. And that is what we do. Poring over past crashes, learning nothing from them, and refusing to move forward do not improve anything. I am not sure what you want me to do or say other than apparently a bit of self-flagellation and an acknowledgement that all Boeings are awful and all 737 MAXs are death traps, and I am not going to say that because it is not the case.

Again, I ask the posters who are making statements like “Boeing 737s are absolutely safe and have been flying for decades, it's only the Max I would worry about” and “There have been specific issues with the Max versions of the 737. This does not apply to all 737s” - are you sure? Are you absolutely sure that the other Boeing 737s that ever existed are absolutely free from the all problems? Other 737 variants have had issues over the years, and there have been crashes as a result, but they happened when social media was not around or in it’s infancy and were not gossiped over in forums like this. The problems were addressed, and changes made to the aircraft, and the aircraft continued to fly and did not have any of those problems again. And this is how it will be for the MAX, regardless of how incompetent and negligent Boeing may or may not have been there are other bodies and agencies who have brought pressure on them to resolve the problems that caused the crashes.

Throwing the question back at posters who are certain they will never fly Boeing - what do you want to happen regarding the MAX (and indeed any other Boeings you have taken an irrational fear of?) What do you want to see happen? What do you think will fix it?

@backinthebox

If we take the aircraft where the door fell out as an example. You say that European air worthiness standards are high. Would that fault have been found before the incident if the aircraft had been flying in Europe or could it have happened in mid air between say London and Athens?

As I see it, Boeing management are well on the way to destroying any trust in the company. They have failed to be truthful with their own regulator and any action they take is reactive rather than proactive. Without completely taking to bits and rebuilding the entire fleet, how are passengers to know whether what other failures are about to happen due to corner cutting and poor adherence to policies? If it’s happened once, there is a very good chance there are other problems on different parts of different aircraft.

One pilot says: Tbh I’m not breezing over anything. I am perfectly aware of the horrors of crashes.

Another says: The more recent grumbles over some build quality and management ethos…yes, I agree with those.

But it is the still the same company with the same ethos that popped that MCAS system in (clearly I'm not a pilot!) against internal warnings, and neglected to make pilots aware of it, and then lied about it. Still the same company who agreed to pay over 2.5 billion dollars for fraud.

“The tragic crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 exposed fraudulent and deceptive conduct by employees of one of the world’s leading commercial airplane manufacturers,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General David P. Burns of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

“Boeing’s employees chose the path of profit over candor by concealing material information from the FAA concerning the operation of its 737 Max airplane and engaging in an effort to cover up their deception. This resolution holds Boeing accountable for its employees’ criminal misconduct, addresses the financial impact to Boeing’s airline customers, and hopefully provides some measure of compensation to the crash-victims’ families and beneficiaries.”

“The misleading statements, half-truths, and omissions communicated by Boeing employees to the FAA impeded the government’s ability to ensure the safety of the flying public,” said U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox for the Northern District of Texas.

Office of Public Affairs | Boeing Charged with 737 Max Fraud Conspiracy and Agrees to Pay over $2.5 Billion | United States Department of Justice

To be clear, it is the ethos of the company nowadays - the same ethos behind those crashes - that puts me off trusting Boeing, as I once did.

OK as the fixation is still on the Boeing ethos - have a think about what were the pressures that led to Boeing doing what they did - it certainly wasn’t all down to bonuses for the high rollers in the C-suite.

Then maybe ask yourself if other airframe manufacturers around the world are subject to the same pressures.

They don’t have a product to replace the ageing 737 model. This isn’t going to change anytime soon. They need an airframe which will be designed for the technology they now use rather than trying to retrofit it onto a frame that wasn’t designed for it.

They’ve been caught napping here. They were overtaken by Airbus and decided to compete by cutting corners and some distinctly dubious practices.

They have destroyed the confidence in their brand. It may not be as bad as people now think but that is rather irrelevant. The trust has gone and this isn’t going to go away anytime soon for Boeing.

The Boeing crash that killed a family member was due to pilots being unaware how the 737-400 functioned as they were used to flying older models.
I'm not sure whether it was the duty of the airline or Boeing that should've provided training however the pilots buggered up the emergency landing that was an easy glide into an airport.
When it comes to a computer problem, the like we saw with MCAS, that was on Boeing rushing orders, thinking $$$ & ignoring basic safety checks.

But you want a safe pair of hands on the rudder & a decent pilot can provide that.

I’m assuming Kegworth. Sorry for your loss.

@Elphame,

Fair summation, what I would say is all manufacturers are under pressure to reduce the training footprint (aka time and cost taken to train), and if they can get away with offering the airlines something that requires minimal training they’ll do it and the airline will buy into it..

That’s where the regulator should maybe have stepped in (“hey guys, we don’t like how you are introducing MCAS) but as I guess you might know one big problem in all this was the role of the FAA and the whole subject of regulatory capture.

One straw of comfort that should be taken from this is that with Boeing in the cross hairs they are to some degree a “known known…”

@MenopauseSucks

I'm not sure whether it was the duty of the airline or Boeing that should've provided training however the pilots buggered up the emergency landing that was an easy glide into an airport.

Firstly I’m sorry for your loss…

I don’t want to reopen old wounds but that accident is one of the classics that gets discussed in flight safety training because there was a lot went wrong or was at the very least suboptimal that night (both on and off the flight deck).

If you want a route cause, or the main “buggering up”, it was ultimately was the mis diagnosis of the engine problem (and that it has been argued was down to training), it wasn’t really down to a failure of stick and rudder skills or a mishandled easy glide to an airport.

Just saw this online 😂

If its a Boeing
I'm not goeing.

That was funny 20 years ago as a play on “if it ain’t Boeing, I ain’t going”

OK laughter police 🙄

...so, that recent Boeing plane that dropped in turbulence... was that just a coincidence? or was it due to the plane? Genuine question as I have no understanding

Coincidence. It could have been an Airbus or Ilyushin 🤷‍♀️ Lots of turbulent air around atm.

And are some planes more robust? can a plane be built to weather turbulence better? or to have better sensors so more warning?

Complete coincidence.

For example an Emirates Airbus A380 (I.e. one of the really big Airbus aircraft)went through severe turbulence late last year near Male with resultant injuries, but since there was little to no UK involvement and it wasn’t a Boeing it didn’t make UK MSM.

As for robustness, the Boeing 777 in the Singapore incident sustained a lot of negative g which is really nasty from a structural point of view yet has flown since the event (ferried with no passengers from BKK-SIN about 6 days after the accident), that Boeing type is known throughout the industry as being a tough design….

https://simpleflying.com/emirates-14-injured-passengers-airbus-a380/

I’d have to add to the above..it’s no good the aircraft being tough if passengers are not wearing seatbelts or not wearing them properly.

I was looking at some stats about this very recently (Flight Safety Foundation stuff) and according to them in recent years about 98% of those injured in turbulence incidents/accidents were unrestrained..and of course a high percentage were unfortunately cabin crew, often caught out when doing the cabin secure checks post the seat belt signs going on.

There’s also anecdata out there that one of those injured in the Emirate’s accident I mentioned upthread slipped out from under a very loosely fastened belt…so be a bit cautious about slackening belts off completely.

The turbulence incident (and another one within a week of it) has made me way more aware of wearing a seatbelt. I was never really convinced a seatbelt did much but clearly they do!

Im flying on a 737 max this summer and keep finding myself on flight radar clicking on planes to find one to prove to myself they are going about their business every day and my flight is insignificant 🤦🏼‍♀️