Yes.
All of the right.
Sorry guys but this is utter sensationalist BS reporting. That “safety feature” is an optional angle of attack probe disagree indicator (737s have only 2 of these probes, it is supposed to show when one fails) and angle of attack indicator in the cockpit (useful for avoiding stalls).
I have put “safety feature” into quotes because while the indication is certainly useful (and may have possibly prevented some crashes caused by stalls in the past), it is by no means critical to the safety of the flight. The crew doesn’t need its information to safely fly the airplane.
This equipment has been a paid option on all 737s (not only Max) and surprise - most 737s in the world do not have it. Whether this equipment should have been standard or not is another debate but if you want to blame someone here, blame the penny-pinching airlines, not Boeing. And I am not talking some third world poor operators that are unable to afford an option that costs literally peanuts compared to the price tag of the new plane (or even things like in flight entertainment system or seat upholstery) but your regular operators - such as Ryanair or Delta.
If Boeing deserves to be tarred and feathered for something, it is for equipping the 737 MAX with an ill-conceived hack of a system that relies on a single sensor (the angle of attack vane, it uses only one at a time despite the plane being equipped with two) and can interfere with the flight controls to such degree that it makes the control of the plane impossible unless switched off in time. And not telling the crews about it in order to be able to claim that it is identical to the older 737 NG and thus no type conversion training is necessary. That is something that is completely incomprehensible from a safety point of view and someone from both the company and FAA which has certified this should go to prison for it.
Not really, Airbus has their own issues and don’t have any extra capacity for A320s. So they aren’t likely to profit much from this.
You sound very well-informed for a disinterested bystander.
You generalised my statement that was specifically about a plane. I was not
in general. I was gobsmacked that it would be optional on a plane.
There is a world of difference between optional safety equipment on a private car, without which it can still be driven safely by the person who decided not to specify it, and safety equipment on a commercial aeroplane (a public serviec vehicle) without which it appears the pilots are unable to make it do what they need to in order to keep it in the air. Used cars and used planes are not even vaguely comparable, either. Do you really believe that Boeing made these features optional as a marketing defence against customers possibly buying cheaper used planes instead?
Please accept my apologies for not writing “on a plane” at the end of that phrase in my post, even though it was in a sentence specifically mentioning Boeing and about a story regarding plane crashes. I assumed it was pretty obvious what I was talking about, but apparently I misled you as to my feelings on the subject in a wider context.
And thanks to @jan_ciger for clarifying that it is not the presence or absence of the “safety equipment” itself, but about the way things were implemented (a) such that the “safety equipment” was not fully used (“one at a time”) and (b) such that it can interfere with flight controls to a disastrous extent.
With a follow-on question about how the revenue actually generated from their ‘extras pricing policy’ now stacks up against the losses from order cancellations, potential lawsuits and overall reputational damage.
Labeling the “Don’t Crash” button costs extra.
This reminds me of awkward meetings at the end of the process of buying a car when they try and sell you the extended warranty by both praising and impugning their car quality.
There’s a fascinating piece in the Seattle Times that to my mind covers the process failures without the reporter having to demonize the players by inventing unprovable (although quite possibly true) narratives (the facts do the demonizing fairly effectively for themselves).
It’s rather long because almost all catastrophic failures require the holes in each of the Swiss cheese layers meant to prevent catastrophe to line up, and this article details many of those layers (and how the holes in some of the layers became huge).
There is a way to swiftly disable the MCAS; there are switches on the yoke to turn it off. However pilots are trained to do this in the case of elevator runaway, and it wasn’t clear (presumably) to the crash pilots that this was also a solution to the MCAS acting up…
Pilots are trained to handle the situation where their sensors are giving conflicting information. A warning might help in certain situations, but it is not required to fly the plane properly. (As others have mentioned, it seems unlikely that it would have been helpful in these crashes; the situation was too close to the ground and the warning wouldn’t have clearly told them what to do.)
Yes. I don’t understand; why do you think Boeing made these features optional instead of just raising the price of the plane by that amount? They did it as a form of price differentiation, offering a cheap version for price-sensitive customers and optional extras for less price-sensitive customers.
No worries.
Both organisations can afford to offer a handful of scapegoats.
Well, to be fair, from my Euro-pinko viewpoint the Democrats do not qualify as “left” in any way.
Beyond the Fringe was, and still is, spot on in this respect.
Did the math, found out more profitable this way I’m sure.
Maybe someone remembered how good for sales planes considered death traps are. Cf. Lockheed’s Constellation and 1011. (Going by ancient memory; if I recollect, Constellation – or was it Electra? – rolled out around the same time as the 707, 1011 shortly after the 747. Both had trouble with that staying in the air thing. And had commensurate sales.)
You said
I asked if you thought
You replied by saying that
That is not a
answer.
These things are NOT the same. Used vs. ‘different prices of new’ are two quite different things.
You were the one that introduced the concept of used cars as a comparator, and I believe that was a total red herring.
Yes, I do understand the concept of “upsell” to improve margin, and to remove/reduce sticker shock at the price by starting it a tad lower and then upselling add-on features. It may work in car showrooms with unsophisticated private consumers. With corporates, less so - there will be detailed financial (cost/benefit) business cases for every dollar.
In the thread as it was at that time (and in fact my original comment referred to what I had read in The Guardian article linked to there) these upsold items were still stated as safety features and that is what I responded to. Instead of pointing out that in fact they were not critical safety features (as @jan_ciger did later - although this may still be a moot point given how the safety features they augment were badly implemented), rather you introduced a rather crass comparison to how the used vs. new car market works.
Now you fall back on the fact that these upsold features are not safety critical - perhaps you ought to have started there.
Nevertheless, I still do not think it credible that international airlines really ever suffer sticker shock at these levels of cost for their operating equipment. It’s all about the business case, as I noted. No doubt others will be along to correct me, and the fact that Boeing has this pricing policy suggests I may be mistaken, but I do not believe that in this day and age there are many (if any) “less price sensitive” airlines. It would be interesting to know what proportion of sales (and to which airlines) included the extra features in question. (ETA… and what the business case was for those that did specify these extras)
Boeing simply sought to offer extras to augment margin, but did so with a basic plane model spec that was flawed (if I understand jan_ciger correctly). Had it not been flawed then to consider them optional may have been reasonable. As it was flawed, it seems (again IIUC) that these features might have helped overcome that flaw. That Boeing did not understand this may be at the heart of the tragedy. Lots of things can be optional on a plane (and those noting in-flight entertainment and seat quality, etc. are also playing the ‘red herring’ game) but when it comes to safety of operation and reducing risk at an appropriate cost/benefit/profit point, it seems that perhaps Boeing got it tragically wrong. Whilst it may be that in ‘normal’ circumstances all the extra ‘safety’ features are merely unnecessary fripperies enabling slick sales-people to earn more commission, it is still unclear whether in the case of this 737 model normal circumstances pertain.
I understand your view very well. It is unfortunate that you used the used vs. new car markets as a basis for disagreeing with me to start with. I hope this clarifies my views.
Nice talking with you. Bye.
You can’t lump the normal 737 and 737 Max into the same category. The two models use the angle of attack sensor differently according to all of the reporting.
You point out succinctly here exactly what changes the angle of attack disagree indicator from “optional nice to have” to “mandatory safety feature”. The older 737 didn’t have the MCAS system, didn’t rely on the angle of attack probe for flight control, and hence if one was wrong, it was a nice to have to know it. The change to the 737 MAX, addition of the MCAS system, and reliance on a single sensor would seem to elevate the issue to an essential piece of equipment. Or, an equivalent piece of new information to warn of the issue.
The fact that they’re going to include it on all models now along with retro fit older models seems to indicate they realized this.
Now, it’s possible this isn’t trying to save a buck, but a miscommunication somewhere in the entire pipeline. A case of not upgrading the indicator from “optional” to “mandatory” because the it wasn’t clear in different parts of the organization, not realizing the change introduced by the MCAS also created the need to change the standard vs optional parts. This could easily be organizational incompetence instead of malice or profit seeking. In theory, the point of the FAA safety evaluation is to catch this disconnected cross environment impact and elevate something optional to mandatory because of the change. A failure in that process as well.
Lumping it on the purchaser to know that the base model is lacking this, has the cross system impact, and understand that both the marketing material and safety inspection both missed it puts to much on the purchaser’s shoulders. If they can’t believe the marketing and safety report, they shouldn’t buy the plane to begin with, not try to option it in a way to overcome an issue.
“Rancher reverses barn door policy after horses escape.”
“Customers should have upgraded to our optional barn door with latch feature if they didn’t want their horses to bolt.”
Not really. Airlines must have planes to keep running, and there’s really only Airbus as a Boeing alternative at this size. Used planes force Boeing to provide different prices of new.
Airlines don’t suffer sticker shock at hundred million dollar planes? In a free market, cheaper airlines would come in and undercut those airlines, and for all the regulation in the airline market, the death of PanAm and related changes in the airline market seem to indicate that happened. If you’re trying to provide the absolute cheapest tickets to a price-conscious public, you cut corners anywhere you can.
