• China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft
    10 replies, posted
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-airlines-china/china-orders-its-airlines-to-suspend-use-of-boeing-737-max-aircraft-idUSKBN1QS01Z
That seems like a sensible decision given 2 series incidents in less than 12months.
Oh boy, taking a look at both of them it does seem like a serious fault. Both dived into the ground. The preliminary report on the Indonesian crash suggests a problem with their fly by wire systems.
Meh, if its anything I've learned from watching all of those seasons of Mayday, its not to jump to conclusions or assume anything when a crash occurs. It feels like China is just trying to flex some power in the regulatroy department of the aviation industry, since they're not recognized very much by the west.
With how uncommon plane crashes are, two coming from the same model that has only been in commission since 2016 is pretty suspicious despite the small sample size. Yeah there's always the chance that it's a coincidence, but with how rare these are, that does seem somewhat unlikely.
Indonesian Airlines also has a terrible track record though when it comes to maintenance.
Seeing as it has new anti-stall software, it could also be pilots haven't been trained properly with it. It has happened a few times when new safety features on new aircraft come in. They work fine, only to have the pilots fight against it and crash the plane. So while it's easy to jump to conclusions that it's the plane's fault, it could just be as easily accounted to human error.
The 8-MAX is a very new aircraft though, so that becomes less relevant. Boeing have said they're aiming to have a software patch out to address the anti-stall problem. That doesn't mean that is necessarily the cause of this crash, but it looks likely.
There's also a great deal of public image riding on this. Ultimately better safe than sorry, if there is nothing wrong with them, great but if there IS then it looks good that the companies stopped using them at the first reasonable opportunity.
As mentioned above, while it could be an avionics issue or flight controls in general, it could just as easily be human factors. We're stabbing madly at the dark at the moment with just two similar seeming accidents. Luckily ACI is a very well refined science.
Eyewitnesses paint a different picture: Crash witness Gebeyehu Fikadu, 25, told CNN he was collecting firewood nearby when he saw the plane 'swerving'. 'I was in the mountain nearby when I saw the plane reach the mountain before turning a round with a lot of smoke coming from the back and then crashed at this site. It crashed with a large boom. When it crashed luggage and clothes came burning down.' Before it crashed the plane was swe rving and dipping with a lot of smoke coming from the back and also making a very loud unpleasant sound before hitting the ground.' Another witness, Tegegn Dechasa told AFP 'the plane was already on fire when it crashed to the ground. The crash caused a big explosion.'
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