To have 2 fatal air crashes with similar flight patterns so close together in a new model of a plane is certainly suspicious for some sort of mechanical, software or other real problem, not weather, bad luck, human instigated etc.
To not ground the planes until a solution is found is irresponsible and will cause Boeing all kinds of woe. But to not ground them is typical hubris of the modern US that has brought us down in the eyes of the world.
6
United also flies the 737MAX. Just a larger version, the 737MAX9. But I believe it too has MCAS.
Boeing’s problem with the 737 is that it was designed for 60’s fan jets...long thin engines that, in the case of the 737-100 and 200, were practically attached to the wing. The landing gear was similar to that of the 707. For the 737-300 you can see how they flattened the bottom of the engine nacelle. Today’s engines are even fatter and more powerful and Boeing had a hard time fitting them under the MAX wing. Boeing moved the engine forward and changed the nacelle shape which changed the flight characteristics of the 737MAX pitching it up...slightly. Hence the need for software that puts the plane into an un-commanded descent.
But before we assign blame, we should step back and let the investigators figure out what happened. It could have been MCAS problems, an explosion, or any number of other options.
In 1979, a DC-10 crashed almost immediately after taking off from Chicago after losing an engine, its pylon, and part of the leading edge of the wing. 2 days later the NTSB announced the cause: a broken bolt. They were wrong. It was a maintenance procedure that American got from Continental which was fraught with possible problems. Still the DC-10 was damaged goods after that.
I do not think the 737MAX is irredeemable. I do think LionAir is an airline I would never fly. And I think Boeing needs to figure out what happened before their cash cow becomes DC-10 redux.
4
Boeing and FAA are taking the position that "we don't have any clear answers yet so we'll keep flying until we do" and global airlines are taking the position that "we don't have clear answers yet so we'll stop flying until we do." I'm taking the side of an abundance of caution, Because I can.
6
It is prudent to avoid the 737 an fly either Airbus or the Chinese C919.
2
Get a grip people. Two crashes out of tens of thousands of flights. Plus no indication that flight control was involved in the seconds accident. To the contrary the witnesses observed "smoke and unusual noises."
3
@Dick Watson
As noted by others, plane crashes are extremely rare, with flying being our safest mode of transportation. Logic would dictate that the incredibly rare case of 2 (new) planes crashing at a similar time in the flight and in a somewhat similar manner in normal weather conditions within 5 months or each other is exceedingly rare, and perhaps having similar causes. Your 'two crashes out of tens of thousands of flights' logic is exactly why the second one may be related to the first.
12
I believe a key problem with the way MCAS operates is that it intervenes automatically and not transparent to the pilot. If I understand it correctly, MCAS acts without any prior warning (acoustic/optical signals) , which means the pilot now operates a plane that behaves differently than expected, and it's up to the pilot and co-pilot to figure out why the plane keeps pointing down as they try to pull up. MCAS is supposed to prevent stalling due to too steep attack angle or too steep a turn. However, unless the intervention has to take place in less than 1-2 seconds, why not give the pilot a warning first? Basically, give the pilot a chance to essentially say "Thanks, but I got this", and correct it him- or herself, or "I checked, and your wrong, so I'll better turn you off " or, it corrects the plane's angles if the pilot doesn't respond in 2-3 seconds . As it is now, it's automatic and up to the pilot to figure out what's wrong - MCAS malfunctioning or the plane's angle of attack (nose up too high - stalling risk) . And that's unnecessary.
11
The claim that it is "too early" to be "grounding airplanes" strikes me as illogical, precisely because the data AREN'T all in, rather than a wait-and-see definitive cause being the threshold for such grounding. This is especially true considering 2 catastrophic events via the same 737 model in 5 months, the odds of which are themselves seriously problematic, considering the otherwise extreme rarity of such events happening in today's aviation. Coupled with a suspected cause _as per the MCAS system, which Boeing has seemed slow to address, I would think grounding vs no grounding would be the most logical and prudent course.
5
"witnesses described an aircraft that swerved and dipped wildly in its final moments, spewing smoke and making unusual noises before it hurtled into the ground"
As another commenter mentioned, witnesses are not reliable. But if this report claiming the plane was “spewing smoke” while still in flight is verified, then the cause was not MCAS. In any case, I'm staying off that plane until the cause or causes are confirmed, and MCAS is disabled.
My prior "engineer's comment" is at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/10/world/africa/ethiopian-airlines-plane-crash.html?comments#permid=30990361
I'm not an avionics engineer, but the principles expressed there regarding mission-critical systems are valid across disciplines. In particular, it has been suggested that software -- my field -- may have played a role.
2
Why would a software problem result is the plane making loud rattling noises with smoke pouring out the back of the plane?
5
Side stepping regulations and training in order to rush to market and stem losses to a competitor, what could possibly go wrong with that strategy.
9
I've searched the Web, cannot find an answers to what I suggest are critical questions:
When was MCAS first added to the 737 Max 8 software? How many were flying before then? Did their pilots ever report attitude problems that they could not handle that would justify adding this automated function?
Since there are no reports of prior Max 8 crashes, I suggest this was a solution in search of a problem. Did the MCAS developers have nothing more important to occupy their time?
2
@Austin Liberal - The MCAS system was apparently added to correct/compensate for the change in size of the plane's new fuel efficient engines, which hang below the wings. Rather than a clean sheet design, like the 787 'Dreamliner,' the 737 is an aircraft type that Boeing has produced since the 1960s. Think of it as a 'refresh' of an older model, rather than a new aircraft with engines designed in conjunction with the plane. My best guess - this was an attempt to hold down costs, (buy our 'new' plane - it saves you fuel!) and maximize profits, and it has come at a terrible price.
6
If I fly anytime soon, it sure won’t be on a Boeing 737 Max 8!
5
This should not be a PR issue. This should be an engineering crisis. It sure seems something is wrong with the new flight automation software and cryptic Boeing statements about "enhancing safety" seem to confirm this. If enhancing safety means preventing a crash, by all means do it.
4
Dear Boeing,
Please insist that all your executives are conveyed exclusively by the ever profitable 737 since apparently it is skyworthy.
6
To all the airplane safety experts commenting on this article (there are 105 at the moment)
WE STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT CAUSED THE SECOND CRASH
1
Can we please buy Trump a new Air Force One? How about a shiny new 737 Max 8?
17
@Stevie Matthews - Someone should buy you a swift kick in the cajones....
2
The level of ignorance and hysteria in coverage of these accidents is beyond disturbing. Yes, the 737 Max -8 and -9 are complex airplanes, with changes in their automated flight control systems from earlier 737 versions. But in the hands of well-trained mechanics and pilots from technologically advanced countries, they are as safe or safer than previous jets.
The common theme in the Lion Air and Ethiopean accidents is that Third World airlines often have far less skilled and thoroughly trained crews, and as equipment becomes increasingly complex, pilot skill and training becomes critically important.
I would fly on a 737 Max operated by a major US airline tomorrow. I would be reluctant to fly on anything operated by a Third World crew.
6
@sdl701 If the flight automation software works right, even I could fly a 737 max 8 or 9. Your statement is dead wrong. Flight automation should reduce the skill levels required.
5
To say that in this country or that country the training is less effective is actually false. Most major airlines send their pilots to the US for training and to Boing facilities. Let's do a quick analysis, Assume the following is true "US Airlines are safe because the pilots are better trained, so I'll fly the safe 737 Max". Now consider this statement is 100% true and it was pilot error that caused the crash, great your safe, nothing to loose. Now imagine it really is technical problems with the plane, and the statement is really false. Would you risk your life or that of your loved ones flying in this plane? We have to stop caring so much about money and profits. A plane crash is extremely rare, two crashes of the same airplane type with similar chareteristics defining the crash is beyond a coincidence. Ground the plane, do a thorough investigation and then allow them to fly again. If we have another crash of this plane it will be criminal and negligent.
6
@sdl701 This kind of a letter got here faster than I thought it would !
1
Yes it seems that Boeng’s statements that the pilots “should know” how to use the newly installed control system on the planes, and their decision not to train or even inform them or anyone else about it were smug and unconsdering of the potential disasters and loss of life they entailed. A new system involving automatic changes in control of an airplane’s flight path would seem to constitute a fearsome alteration that requires clear communications to the players involved, even if it is considered a brilliant virtually fail-safe one. The availability of a blame-game exit from responsibility of any failures that may occur should not have guided the managers who approved the changed system and its installation, as it apparently did.
1
I just heard a report on NPR during which a former FAA employee opined that the reason the FAA won't ground the Max 8's is that it is the agency that declared the plane airworthy in the first place.
Despite two catastrophic crashes, the FAA us interested in staying on message?
9
@Juvenal451
The FAA has a dual mandate to promote safety and promote the industry. Some believe it's a conflict of interest.
Having worked with a company as it sought certification for a product, I'm not jazzed about splitting those functions into two agencies, each with wildly different standards and procedures. The FAA is plenty tough to deal with. However, in some of these high-profile cases they do seem to get a bit stuck between the powerful poles of their dual mandate.
4
@Juvenal451 It's all about Boeing ! The current king of Wall Street. The FFA represents the same Country.
1
So wise politicians and arm chair experts, most with no skills in aeronautics, avionics or engineering have based on news reports been able to identify the cause, determine the aircraft is unsafe to fly and it is all of the result of corporate corruption. Bring the FAA home, disband the NTSB and shut one of the most successful US corporations down we got this all figured out.
2
I read the New York Times story about the 737 Max 8 crash in Indonesia a few months back. In that article, it was mentioned that Boeing weighed the cost of training pilots with the new anti-stall software upgrade. The story hinted that Boeing settled on not training by rationalizing that pilots "should have known what to do".
In my line of work (investment management), there are few more dangerous words than the phrase "they should have known". If there is something we feel that others should know about, rarely it is beneficial to assume that they should have known. Spending time and money to train the people have saved us many dollars. Fortunately, the consequences for us are measured in dollars, not human lives.
I kept on thinking when reading that article that Boeing, an otherwise reputable titan of a company, is needlessly putting human lives in danger with the contention that "pilots should have known". Even though pilots knew nothing about the software upgrades, particularly in a situation where they have to make split-second decisions while commanding theirs, and many more lives.
Even right now, it seems that Boeing is adamant that all that is required is in place, and the plane is safe. Talk about being tone-deaf; more than 300 people have lost their lives, families have been wiped out, and Boeing can still not come to acknowledge a possible flaw in the way it has managed this crisis, the cost of which is many innocent human lives.
24
@Areeb FarasVery well expressed!!
8
@Areeb Faras
Remember another American titan ignoring an engineers written warning about a faulty o ring. They become arrogant.
2
A previous commentator shared this thought a couple of days ago and it bears repeating:
Boeing (and the airlines) should follow the Johnson & Johnson model of how they handled the Tylenol disaster. Pull the product, completely. Work the problem. Be transparent. Take the financial hit as necessary. Get back on the horse.
Believe me, this approach is preferable to another Max 8 falling out of the sky, for what ever reason.
22
"scrambled to contain the fallout" Is that like the bodies falling out of the aircraft? This kind of business-speak is not appropriate for tragedy like this.
9
Boeing should man up and agree to a temp US grounding of this plane and then gather every aeronautical engineer and consultant in the world and work 24x7 on a fix. This is could be their "Tylenol" moment.
But then most CEO's and execs aren't that forward looking.
11
“Our system is so safe that these things don’t happen today. That is why people are questioning what is going on here.” - Sara Nelson, president of the flight attendants’ union.
“This is not the dawn of aviation. We’ve evolved, planes have evolved.” - Rory Kay, a former top safety official at the world’s largest pilot union and a senior pilot and pilot trainer at a major United States airline.
When key pilots and flight attendants are speaking out publically about these accidents, I would hope the F.A.A. would take their concerns into account and place a temporary ban on this particular aircraft.
16
All hell will break loose if one of those crash here in the U.S. killing scores of passengers. The only ones who would be in a great mood are the trial lawyers.
10
@Wayne Yeah, the shysters are always around fishing to take what people should get and driving prices of everything up to benefit their money-grubbing!
1
@Wayne
Your first sentence is spot on and would have been perfect in and of itself.
2
This airplane failure is awful, but so far I have yet to see the repair and maintenance record for Ethiopian Airline and that plane in particular. Wouldn't that have an effect on the likelihood of problems with the airplane and the predictably of problems? Is this a Boeing problem or an airline maintains issue? I would really like to know!
2
@Joel Egnater Brand new plane.
2
Boeing chief:
“I know this tragedy is especially challenging coming only months after the loss of Lion Air Flight 610,” he wrote, according to a copy of the email reviewed by The New York Times. “While difficult, I encourage everyone to stay focused on the important work we do.”
—make money
20
@JSH
Good grief, this is what he actually said? The word "sociopath" immediately came to mind.
5
The statement by Boeing's President is unsupportable putting business concerns (no matter how understandable) before passenger and crew safety!
In addition, if such an accident happened within a similarily short period of time after take-off over the outskirts of some of the world's big cities with airports close to the inhabited suburban areas the deaths of hundreds more may be at stake!!
Is that any consideration Mr. Muilenburg is willing to take into account?
Anyone who works in IT knows that new software may function in isolation but there is no guarantee that it is ultimately competible with existing software on equipment especially under unforeseeable circumstances and there is no mechanism, where the human element - in this case the pilot or co-pilot - cannot override the software within split seconds.
The obsession with ever more and ever new software in the name of 'progress' is one of the major curses of our age, especially if those who often decide on the use of new software are anything but IT experts.
If the Airlines flying the 737 MAX 8 Boeing had any corporate responsibility to their human client - the passenger - and not just to their shareholders they would ground the planes until Boeing has done everything in its power to eliminate even the smallest chance that the two recent crashes were due to a technical problem.
22
This situation is not entirely unprecedented. There are numerous parallels to the McDonnell Douglas DC-10: a top airliner manufacturer rushes to design a new model to compete with a successful new aircraft from a rival manufacturer (for the 737, the Airbus A320 series; for the DC-10, it was ironically a Boeing, the 747). The aircraft emerges with significant design flaws. There are a number of high-profile and tragic crashes. The public's confidence is shaken.
In the case of the DC-10, the flaws were eventually remedied; unbeknownst to many, dozens of DC-10s are still flying with FedEx, where they have amassed an exemplary safety record. However, McDonnell Douglas's order book never recovered: cancellations crippled the program, which reportedly ended deep in the red even after the U.S. Air Force ordered dozens of KC-10 tankers. The blow to MDD's finances in turn crippled their ability to design a successor, which wound up being a warmed-over DC-10 rather than an all-new aircraft (the MD-11), and it was a commercial flop.
Boeing is truly in the hot seat here. They need to restore the public's confidence in the MAX series and do it fast, or the long-term blow to their order book could set them back tremendously.
12
@C Walton They need to make the aircraft safe. That will restore the public's confidence in it. There is solid evidence that it is not safe.
10
In the software world, performance depends on accurate information from your sensors. In other words, garbage in, garbage out.
The last crash sounds like it was due to a faulty sensor that was feeding the system bad information. While it's too early to tell, it's easy to assume that the same sort of problem still exists in a different subsystem; this sort of problem tend to be endemic in the design philosophy used by the software team.
Time will tell.
9
@Mannyv Outstanding analysis. Time will tell.
2
How astonishingly tone-death is the statement from Boeing's President warning us all not to speculate about the cause of this tragedy so as not to "compromise" their snail-like investigation. I refuse to believe that 48 hours with the flight data recorder doesn't give you a pretty clear idea of what happened. The public isn't going to defer discussion while Boeing execs spend months shaping their PR response to the obvious cause and weigh the relative cost of alternative half-baked responses.
When I viewed after the Lion Air crash the cockpit photos with arrows pointing to steps 1, 2, 3, and 4 required to disable the all-knowing Computer (like HAL in the movie 2001) from controlling the aircraft, I could figure out in 5 seconds what the fix needs to be. If you want to design a plane where HAL controls all, you better have a single ONE lever or ONE button bright line means to disengage HAL in the panicked seconds of a low altitude emergency. There is NO TIME to pull out the checklist and troubleshoot steps 1 through 15.
This situation is eerily similar to the scene near the end of the movie when HAL is telling the human pilot who wants to take over control the ship "I'm sorry Jim, I can't let you do that..."
32
@highway Right on. It is good to see clear thinking in the midst of the slow-witted herd. Boeing had declared that they would never allow automation to run the plane like Airbus had done. This software was against that principle, and their response reeks of political cover. So why did they go against their stated principles? Lawyers? Insurance rates?
17
These pilots are highly trained professionals. I'm sure that after the loss of the Lion Air 737 Max 8 in October every commercial pilot in the world who would be flying the 737 MAX 8 became immediately educated about the potential problems with and the procedure for overriding the MCAS. That being said, there was so little time to correct anything in this situation.
11
@Stephen
All true.
But the fact that Boeing anticipated that the software might malfunction and need to be overridden gives me little confidence in the use of such software.
I'm wondering how many times this failure has occurred before and pilots have successfully overridden the software.
That information would be crucial in evaluating the reliability of the software itself.
15
@Stephen You can get on the airline of a third-world nation anytime you want.
I don't care about the pilots experience or the aircraft.
It's a third-world country for Christ sake.
2
@Jerry Engelbach I recall an incident where I read about another B-737-800-MAX that had a problem with the MCAS software, and the pilots were successfully able to override the software; however, they were trained, and knew the correct procedure on how to do it. The aircraft sensors were likely giving faulty information, because the plane was having problems, shortly after take/off, like these two fatal crashes. The pilots managed to get the plane back under control in that incident, and I think it occurred on a western hemisphere route.
3
Are ALL Boeing executives and employees flying ONLY on the same model of plane as those which crashed? If not, ground ALL of them.
23
FAA please ground this airplane. I speak as a pilot with nearly 40 years in the profession. Never have I, nor will I fly an aircraft that denies me the ability to operate the flight controls by some alternate method.
Let's hope Boeing has not designed such an aircraft. Until we and you FAA, know, keep them out of the air.
To further put my comment into perspective, I like Boeing planes and have flown thousands of hours in several different models.
54
@wmferree
Exactly.
A pilot flies the airplane, and is not a mere caretaker of an automated system.
14
@wmferree,
It takes only a few injuries or fatalities before a car is recalled for adjustments. Now we have more than 300 lives lost on this make and model of plane. Yes, there will be inconvenience and loss of revenue, just like with the car recalls, but these planes must be grounded before one more life is risked. If the FAA won't do it then I'd suggest the pilots and crews refuse to fly the Max 8's and 9's.
11
@wmferree
OK, hysterical pilot. Here is a contrary opinion from one who has over 50 years in the cockpit. The 737 has the ability to disengage the electronic flight control system with the flick of a switch, unlike the F-16 which I flew for a number of years. (The F-16 "denied me the ability to operate the flight controls by some alternate method." Same with the electronic flight controls on the Airbus series. Not true of the 737 Max.) Had the Indonesian pilots followed the Emergency Procedures Checklist, they would have cut out the automatic pitch control and recovered. Had Indonesian maintenance been up to US standards, the problem would have never occurred.
Now let's take a close look at the Ethiopian crash. Ground witnesses observed smoke and noises while the aircraft was in the air. This is inconsistent with a flight control malfunction. Likely conclusion: same model, different causes.
The 737 max has made thousands of flights and two have crashed, both piloted by 3d world pilots, and maintained by 3d world maintenance.
Let's stop the speculation and hysteria before all facts are known.
4
No flying on 737 max 8s for me. Can't trust Boeing, with all their engineering and money, to put in one simple button to stop their computer from crashing the plane. Even after 2 crashes they pretend to act bewildered.
20
This model makes thousands of flights a day, unfortunately, it's very typical of the American public to jump on these rare instances and call for the head of the CEO and everybody who's ever touched the plane on the production line.
If you look at the overall number, the failure rate is practically non existent.
Sometimes you have to look at it for what it is, an accident, either mechanical or human but they happen and we will never have a perfect situation in the air, I'm getting on one of these planes tomorrow. What am I going to do run around the airport looking for, what I perceive, to be the safest model jet?
Walking out of a hotel room, getting in a car or sitting down to a plate of food, life has risk.
4
@There
We don't know the actual failure rate.
For all we know, there may have been hundreds of failures in which the pilot had to override the software.
We don't hear about those.
Life has risks. But I prefer to take those risks myself, not have them imposed on me by greedy corporate executives.
14
@There
Thank you Boeing.
1
@There Go ahead. Risks are relative. It is quite likely that the same failure has occurred many times, and using the procedures that were detailed to the public after the Lion Air crash the pilots were able to override the computer and control the aircraft.
That does not make the risk acceptable. It means the aircraft requires a very unorthodox procedure to overcome a failure that seems to be baked into the software. It also means that every time one of these planes takes off, the entire manifest is at unacceptable risk level.
If I decide to climb El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, I put only myself at risk. If Boeing and XX Airline put passengers on an unsafe plane, that is a different matter.
8
FAA goes by the tested adage that third time’s the charm.
4
While sitting next to an airline executive (in coach), he informed me how marketing studies indicated people would change carriers (on-line) to save $1/flight. A quality control program cannot exist at the lowest possible price and this includes not only the aircraft assembler, but also airline maintenance and crew training.
The "cost of prevention is far less than the cost of failure." The cost of prevention costs money (higher ticket prices) and everyone should remember this before choosing a known reliable carrier and making their next ticket purchase.
10
@Mark
There is an alternative to higher ticket prices.
Lower profits and lower executive compensation.
The reason people count every penny towards expenses is that they don't have the sky-high income of airline executives.
13
@Jerry Engelbach: Speaking of "sky-high income", the wages of their employees need to be high enough so that they can comfortably afford a middle-class income.
1
Like Boeing's much ballyhooed 787 Dreamliner, the 737 Max 8 has become a nightmare that must not be allowed to fly until it is made safe.I certainly will not use any carrier that continues to fly the plane until it is made safe.
18
@James Murphy I don't believe you.
@Fred VonFirstenberg: Why don't you believe him? James M needs to feel safe while flying.
@James Murphy have you checked for all of the safety recalls on any automobiles you own? If not I suggest you do and don't drive them until they are fixed. Better yet, you should not drive at all until you are confident all cars on the road have all had their recall items fixed.....oh and their maintenance records and pilot training meets FAA standards. In other words, I hope you like walking.....
I write software for a living and I won't be flying on any Boeing planes until they sort this out. There is clearly something wrong with the automatic flight control software in this plane and I don't plan to die to save Boeing the money of addressing this problem.
Let the flyer beware.
36
@Jim Dickinson
You write software for a living. You have no understanding of flight control systems, autopilot interface, or how auto flight controls can be engaged or disengaged.
You can't tell me whether this airplane has an electronic pitch control system which can be disengaged by the pilot (like most airplanes) or whether the FCS is totally electronic (Like the F-16 and the Airbus series). Don't throw your "expertise" in my face. Don't criticize what you don't understand.
2
"Southwest Airlines and American Airlines, the only two carriers in the United States that use the jet, both said they would continue to fly the plane."
-- Well, I for one, will not fly with those airlines anymore.
35
@Ichigo Given that those are the two largest carriers in the U.S., you may cut yourself off from some destinations. I will not fly on 737 Max planes. But both airlines are trying hard to alienate passengers by their attitude of profits first.
5
@myself
largest airlines with profits = alienated passengers, interesting calculation. I hope you are not a software engineer
I find the friendly airport security so charming, I take a bus or a train when going under 1,000 km.
1
@TheBackman So you think that my observing that the two largest carriers doing something that alienates passengers so that they may not want to fly with them in the future suggests I am less than bright. Interesting.
BTW, I too have a rule like yours. If I can drive there in 7 hours or less, I don't fly. Six hours is about a minimum for a flight, given everything one has to do and go through on the ground, even if the destination is nearby. And if I drive, I don't have to rent a car.
1
It makes you wonder if anyone in the Executive Branch has their finger on this federal agency, the FAA, trying to protect Boeing from catastrophic economic damage.
23
@srwdm The executive branch has a temporary/acting person in charge of the FAA, likely not qualified (like most of the 'stand-in' administration appointees), otherwise they would have placed someone with the necessary credentials in the position within the last 2 + years). Note that this fact has not been pointed out in the news coverage, especially that of FOX 'news'. Also note that the acting head of the FAA reports to Elaine Chow, the head of the dept of Transportation, who happens to be married to Mitch McConnell. Also, it's interesting that given the 'gift' of the tax breaks last year, Boeing paid zero federal taxes for 2018........
Trump: "Let's not make the FAA look bad, let's not make Boeing look bad, let's not make Elaine look bad, let's not make ME look bad"
1
For 2 brand new airplanes to crash in clear skies in the same manner (after take off, with up and down altitudes and speeds) is very remote. There is something wrong with the plane's systems, ie MCAS that is not being thoroughly vetted and pilots not properly educated.. The Ethiopian airline captain was very experienced, and in general their pilots are well trained.
25
When in doubt, don’t let it fly!
15
Is there no such thing as erring on the side of caution with the FAA? Especially since Boeing itself says that an update(?) will be released in April. Why not ensure all planes have the update first before allowing them to fly.
And one of my future flights is on an Max 8 :-(
AC518
5hr45
Economy A
Operated by:Air Canada | 737 MAX 8
9
@Gino I lost a co-worker in Sunday’s crash. I STRONGLY urge you to change your flight, whatever the cost.
18
@Gino
Don't do it Gino!!!
5
At least no idiots running around saying how air travel is statistically a lot safer than other forms travel! For even if it is true - statistically speaking - accidents like this are too visceral to sweep under the human error rug
In Boeing case, clarifying operating procedure after the Lion Air incident is profile in corporate irresponsibility, an antithesis of McNeil Consumer Healthcare's Tylenol recall back in the 1980s. What now?!
The column mentioned about the 787's lithium problem. Boeing lucked out on that one because no plane fell from the sky. That expose a newfangled global supply chain issue at the time. Boeing was trying to squeeze every dollar out of production ending up in integration disconnect. To be fair, it is not entirely about financial spreadsheets. Politics was probably involved too. Local manufacturing is not just domestic politics but an international one too when you want to market a world plane. The end results are to make integration QA do the heavy lifting
But these two 737 Max 8 cases seem to be very different. Unless there is new revelation, it appears software is at least partially involved. People don't know Boeing has always been a software powerhouse dated back to the mainframe era. Whether it is coincident or not, CNBC reported yesterday it is about to release a major software release to the same plane. You just wonder. Incidentally, remember those Tesla crashes? In terms of public safety, you have to wonder if software is tested enough
11
@Bos
Good points.
And, statistically, the 737 MAX series isn't really that safe at present: In revenue service since March 2017, 350 delivered (226 of them just last year), around 120K miles flown, two catastrophic accidents with 346 souls lost.
In contrast, the first "hull loss" incident involving the Boeing 777 occurred in 2008 -- 13 years after the type entered revenue service. There were no fatalities. Subsequent losses were due to pilot error or sever weather. As far as I know (and some incidents are still under investigation), there have been no lives lost due to design defect on a 777.
13
@Bos
All of this makes me wonder what’s going to happen when we will be surrounded by millions of intelligent, sophisticated devices, some in form of cars, all interconnected and running proprietary software. I’m really not looking forward to that.
15
@Bogdan
Agreed, but we currently are surrounded by cars piloted by the distracted, heavily medicated, and alcohol-impaired, so it may be a toss-up in that case.
8
I have enough information to take action. I won't take that plane and neither should anyone else. For God's sake.
13
@Zappo No, not for God's sake. For your sake, and that of the others who do not take that plane.
1
BOEING DO THE RIGHT THING! Call for a suspension of your MAX 8 737's UNTIL you can definitively say exactly what went wrong on these 2 flights - and MAY occur- on others! Please take this opportunity to be a company with sound values that say, ' We want to ensure safety as our highest factor when sending our planes out to the skies. Therefore, we are choosing to be prudent in this case, to ensure indeed our planes are 100% safe, as best we can'. To this end we are grounding all of these planes until we have had the time to do the background work and research to indeed ensure we can completely stand by our jets'. ......do the right thing and don't endanger more innocent lives. There is no need. Put people before profit! I promise if you do, profits will soar!!!
24
Maybe Boeing does know much more but the rest of us just don’t know enough of why the Ethiopian airlines 737 MAX 8 crashed. It well could be the MCAS but it also could be other things that caused it. Let’s be patient to follow the evidence from the flight data and voice recorders wherever it takes us. If some countries want to ground these planes in the meantime and others don’t, so be it but we need to amp down the frenzied chatter thanks to social media.
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@JJ I agree with you concerning the frenzied chatter on social media.
On the other hand, I will not fly a 737 Max, even when it is given the all-clear
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@tbjAs a practical matter the Boeing 737 Max is rapidly headed for Edsel status.
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@JJ
There is no time to be patient when there is the possibility of the same thing happening again on the planes that are still flying.
4
Shame on Boeing and shame on the FAA. The likelihood that these planes are dangerous is obvious to everyone. This needs a thorough investigation. In the meantime, though, please prioritize life and safety over profits and convenience, and ground these planes while a rapid investigation takes place. It is sad for us that Chinese airlines are willing to take this step but our own Southwest and American Airlines are not.
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What does the soft ware overriding the human operative means?: Is it injecting up ward trajectory when the human operative is steering it on a dangerous down ward course or directing it down ward when it is headed to a dangerously high elevation?, the same thing when it comes to left or right or diagonal manipulation;Is there a display screen that shows the pilot the corrective intervention by the soft ware?,etc..One other thing is certainly Boeing is a deservedly most competent Air vehicles manufacturer.Even for Boeing a plane's type will have,however small,chance of being accident prone.That Ethiopian Airlines has 1 of the best pilots and air crew is well established, last April have taken a round trip to an Inter Conf by 737 M so comfortable.Moreover life needs Air travel.Hence it is not practical to all together get rid of a widely used category of planes with out guaranteeing an accident free other replacement and can that be realistic at all?. However,temporary limited precautionary suspension may or may not be prudent and is hard to tell.What is being done,i.e.figuring out what actually caused this particular accident and proceeding with the effort of further perfecting the 737 Max seems the prudent course.As the common saying in Amharic goes" one doesn't do away with a daily sleep because of fear of encountering a bad night mare" (translation mine). Deeply felt condolences to all who lost family,colleagues,friends relatives and their fellow country men and women.TMD.
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@Tefera Worku
The airplane's sensors went awry and falsely indicated a slow airspeed and nose-up attitude, conditions that if real meant that a stall was imminent.
The airplane's automatic stall avoidance system then reacted by pointing the nose down to increase airspeed and maintain lift.
The pilots tried to fight that situation instead of disabling the automatic systems, and lost.
1
Boeing statement late Monday: the company is developing a “flight control software enhancement for the 737 Max, designed to make an already safe aircraft even safer.”
Listen to this rhetoric from Boeing—"an already safe aircraft"—all designed to protect their bottom line.
Rushed software enhancement while the planes are still flying?
No! The 737 Max 8s should be grounded until they are carefully and methodically proven stable and safe to fly by airlines worldwide.
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When a bottle of Tylenol was tampered with in 1982 and contaminated with potassium cyanide, the company took immediate steps to address the issue very publicly. Now every bottle of medicine has plastic wrap and often a peel off plastic inside cover before you can access your meds because Tylenol did it right. The incompetents at Boeing have not done it right!
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@Machiavelli GREAT POINT!!! If Only Boeing would just do the right thing!!!
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@Betsy From Boeing's perspective, they are doing the right thing-- protecting profit.
Let me begin by saying that my co-worker was lost in the crash on Sunday, so this one hits close to home. While I certainly would not set foot on a 737 Max 8 (or 9, for that matter), and a thorough investigation of Sunday’s crash needs to be completed, it would be much less damaging to its reputation, not to mention safer for flyers, for Boeing to instruct it’s 737 Max customers to ground their aircraft for this reason alone:
“After the Lion Air crash, Boeing was expected to update the software. On Monday night, Boeing said it was working with the F.A.A. on an upgrade to “be deployed across the 737 MAX fleet in the coming weeks.””
So, four months after the first crash, Boeing has still not upgraded the software. The issued a TSB instructing pilots how to override the system, which is another admission it doesn’t work properly. In the Ethiopian crash, the aircraft struggled to gain altitude for the first 6 minutes — the only 6 minutes — of the flight. Which means the pilots had no margin to work with to go thru the procedures in the TSB.
By continuing to act like the 737 Max 8 is “innocent until further proven guilty,” Boeing is recklessly putting its customers, and their customers and employees, at tremendous risk. I don’t know how Mr. Mullenberg sleeps at night. I cannot imagine a pilot, flight attendant or a passenger boarding a 737 Max 8 with even a shred of confidence.
And if Boeing won’t ground the planes, the FAA should step in.
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One report I saw on the news stated that US commercial pilots did not have problems with the aircraft. Based on that, they concluded that, whatever idiosyncrasies there may be in the operation of the aircraft, proper training would address the problem. They also explained that the training was expensive and foreign companies may not have wanted to invest in proper training.
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@Glenn Thomas Ethiopian Airlines says they spent $14 million on a 737 MAX simulator, one of the few airlines that has one.
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@Glenn Thomas
I doubt that the report you saw was accurate. There may have been many incidents that are never reported of pilots having to override the automated systems.
Lack of proper training is no excuse for the installation of faulty software. And Ethiopian Airlines has some of the most pilot rigorous training in the world.
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@Glenn Thomas That is not true...pilots the world over can't fly unless they have a strict number of training hours per aircraft and flight experience and training time on the aircraft they are to fly. If China is going to ground all their 737 8's until the problem is addressed, they would just as well spend that money on training their pilots correctly in the 1st place...don't believe what you are reading..it should have said US Commercial Pilots haven't had a problem as of yet.....
This is a case of crass commercialism choking out technical expertise - and the FAA is responsible in several ways for letting this happen. I wonder how many systems engineers at Boeing are thinking "I told you so!" at this very moment. The 1978 crash of a Boeing 747-237B was triggered by failing attitude sensors, which made pilots add more roll than needed causing the aircraft to crash into the sea. MCAS is the classic case of automation paradox. It is a shame that forty years after that 747 crashed into the Arabian sea, Boeing still hasn't adopted a reliable and standard way to sense the attitude of their aircraft - but managed to remove the human from the already unreliable control loop. In their drive to make the equipment cheaper than the competition, Boeing has created a monster, coupling control software capable of overriding the human operator with primitive flow based attitude sensors. The 737 Max 8 has complex software on it, but unlike earlier models like the 757 or the 777, the Max 8 does not use advanced ring laser gyros, or anything more reliable than mundane vane-based flow sensors to sense the attitude of the aircraft. That's like giving an expert brain surgeon a scalpel and then putting the patient on a wobbly table. I don't want to be that patient.
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There is a feature that has been missing in this discussion about Boeing, the FAA, pilot training, and pilot notification of a new system. All finger pointing. It is not the core issue.
The core issue is the the pilot is a computer programmer not in the cockpit. There is a 'safety system' that has been placed between the pilot and the aircraft. If that 'safety system' receives faulty data, it actively tries to wrestle control from the pilot. And ultimately tries to crash the plane. A pilot must be totally aware, in a highly stressful situation, and remember to turn off the 'safety system'. On BOTH sides of the cockpit. Pull out a notebook ten pound checklist,, find the correct page,,, and read down and run the checklist.
Good luck with that.
Turn off the 'safety system', the MCAS.
Place 600 pounds of lead ballast in the extreme nose. It does the same thing. You hired a pilot, make sure you allow him or her to fly the plane, especially when things go wrong.
The pilot is a computer programmer who may, or may not have ever flown an airplane, of any type.
This is wrong. Turn it off.
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@Deanalfred
Agreed.
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It seems clear that the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) was a poor solution to avoiding potential problems that could have been caused by design changes in the Boeing 737 Max 8 from previous 737 versions. But no one has addressed the issue as to how, why and what could have caused the flight speed indicator(s) to fail on these brand-new passenger jets, which sent false readings and triggered the MCAS? Is this the same instrument failure that caused fatal crashes of an Air France plane and two other passenger jets in the 1990's? Is there no way to check the physical readings from these critical on-board systems against satellite data such as GPS and take faulty systems off-line when they’re obviously producing false data?
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@Dominick Scalcione
I've wondered that, too. But as I understand it (talking to those who know better), GPS measures speed as an outright value (relative to ground, etc) while good old fashioned pitot tubes give a more accurate sense of airflow against the fuselage, wings and control surfaces in real time.
Recently during the crazy arctic weather an Eastbound airliner was clocked at supersonic speeds over Pennsylvania. Obviously it wasn't flying supersonic straight and level. No, it had an unusually strong tailwind. GPS clocked it at 800 mph (or something crazy), but the pitot tube airspeed system no doubt had the more accurate airspeed, in terms of what the pilots needed to know to maintain control of the aircraft.
The tragic Air France flight was in "coffin corner" conditions, where a as little as 5 kts actual (slow or fast) can mean the difference between flying and stalling. Under those circumstances you really don't want to rely on groundspeed.
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@Dominick Scalcione
GPS can't measure the speed of an airplane relative to the wind.
Every airplane has a different speed relative to the ground, depending upon the direction and force of the wind,
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Should software developers be held accountable individually when a software malfunction causes a catastrophe? Given the speed of AI developments, are the developers ready to accept personally this blame and its consequences?
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I'd be more inclined to blame the instruments that sent false data to the software.
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@Dominick Scalcione, the designer and software developer for the instrument?
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@Dominick Scalcione
What is lacking is redundancy.
The software itself should have a check system to verify the accuracy of the data sent to it.
In addition, there should be a voice-activated override for the automated systems, so that if the pilot announces a problem deactivation is automatic.
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"In October, a Lion Air flight crashed under similar circumstances in Indonesia, killing all 189 people on board. While the cause of that crash is still under investigation....." Five months have passed and the first accident is still under investigation! Now this crash is "under investigation". American regulatory agencies like the FAA are riddled with personnel from the very industries they are regulating, leading to compromising analysis and conclusions. Whatever happened to "err on the side of safety"?
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The prudent thing to do is to ground the fleet. There may ultimately be nothing wrong with the 737 MAX. But with two tragic accidents in five months we are erring on the side of caution to ground the fleet. The drawback is a loss of convenience, not confidence.
Arguments about "confidence in air travel" are just silly. This is 2019; we have all the confidence in the safety of air travel. We have a luxury of confidence, given how safe commercial air travel now is. So, let's let the experts pore through the data and find out if there is a problem with the type, or the training procedures, etc.
The worst thing for passenger confidence -- and the very worst thing for the future of Boeing -- would be another 737 MAX crash. We can 100% prevent this from happening by grounding the fleet.
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Pay close attention Southwest Airlines. I love you, but with 34 Max 8 planes IN USE RIGHT NOW, I will not be flying with you now, or anymore. How any airline could risk their passengers and crew until this issue is fully resolved boggles the mind. I have lost confidence in you. I am wondering where else your bottom line takes precedence over my safety. It was nice while it lasted.
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Time for the President to show some leadership on something that matters, that is, order the FAA to ground these aircraft. Other nations have already done so.
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@Joseph leadership? Hahaha.
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@Joseph Well, he has tweeted today that he wants his plane to be flown by a real, human pilot. Let's see if he does anything beyond this. You are right, he is responsible for the safety of the country. Let him act. But don't bet that he will.
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Rushing a software upgrade from Boeing while the planes are still flying is not the way to do this.
The 737 Max 8s should be grounded worldwide until they can be methodically and carefully proven to be safe and stable for all airlines to use.
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Jinx reputations, deserved or not, are usually (if not always) deadly to the success of a new aircraft. If there is a fatal flaw, fixing it doesn't fix the reputation - look at the de Havilland Comet and the DC-10.
Once established, aircraft tend to be able to shrug off safety concerns - look at the original 737; despite a genuine 'fatal' flaw (the abrupt failure of the vertical stabiliser), it maintained its status as the most successful passenger jet of all time.
No human activity is more unnatural, and polluting, than our need to fly. Aviation done for business reasons should become a rarity in our age of advanced telecommunications where it's totally unnecessary to be "there" for "face time." How many tons of carbon would we keep out of the atmosphere if this aspect of commerce were seriously reckoned with? Not to mention the inevitable toll of human error...
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@Tournachonadar While I cannot disagree that flight maybe considered unnatural, you're thought that "face time" is no longer relevant in business and all business can be replaced with 0 and 1 is perhaps even more unnatural. Despite my handle which I am sure gives away my feelings about flight I am not totally "un- green" however planes are not only amazingly safer than ever they are cleaner than ever and business still drives the industry. Take business out of the air and I just want you to imagine the consequences. Not only to the economies of the US but to the World. We would return to pre 60s when only the super rich will be able to travel and I am just betting that even you would prefer your vacation to include face time over a Google Earth trip.
If I can help put your mind at ease people jump to conclusions way too fast when it comes to aviation incidents. If everyone allows the FAA and NTSB to do their jobs this will become the next safest plane in the world if it's not already. I love Computers too, and if no one ever left their offices and their PCs the world would be safer but don't you want to see whats on the other side of the street?
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Why is there known software on a plane that might need to be overridden to avoid a disaster? That seems crazy to me. And how does a pilot figure out within a short window that what they are experiencing is a result of that software malfunctioning (among all the things that could go wrong).
As I see it, this is a design flaw. And until this design flaw is addressed, and tested thoroughly, the planes should be grounded.
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@cosmos I agree with you on grounding the planes, however, I'll wait for NTSB reports before jumping to conclusions it's a design flaw.
3
When the second plane crashed like the first one , inexplicably , my thoughts went to cyber attacks .
Is it possible to put a line of code in the operating software to trigger a fatal malfunction ?
Israel did to the Iranian centrifuges . The centrifuges blew up and killed the operators .
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@cosmos
This, from ARS Technica...
In the case of the Lion Air crash, the MCAS malfunctioned because of a faulty angle-of-attack (AOA) sensor. The sensor caused MCAS' algorithms to act as if the aircraft was entering a stall, automatically pushing the nose of the aircraft down—a condition known as a "stabilizer runaway." A Boeing safety bulletin issued after the Lion Air crash stated, "In the event of erroneous AOA data, the [MCAS] can trim the stabilizer nose down in increments lasting up to 10 seconds."
If such a failure were to occur during level flight at cruising altitude, the air crew would have a reasonable amount of time to diagnose the problem and shut down the MCAS. The procedure to shut down automatic trim control (part of MCAS) remains the same from older 737 designs. But in both the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes, the air crews had relatively little time to determine what was wrong while fighting to keep their aircraft in a climb—in the Lion Air case, the aircraft crashed 10 minutes into the flight.
After the Lion Air crash, American Airlines pilot union spokesperson and 737 pilot Dennis Tajer said, "in the previous model of the 737, pulling back on the control column, Boeing says, will stop a stabilizer runaway.” But he noted that this doesn't work with the new 737 MAX system—the pilots have to disable the stabilizer.
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Again, the FAA has an acting head, he reports to the head of the DOT, who is Elaine Chow, she reports to D.Trump. She is also the wife of Mitch McConnell, leader of the senate. So, the levers of power are all bundled very closely together on this one.
There may be a larger can of worms than just Boeing's future.
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@cfc: Wait, I thought Boeing was headquartered in Washington state. Washington state is not exactly the home of D.Trump's base, is it? And it has almost 100% Democrat representation in Congress, right? Two senators who are Democrats and 7 of 10 representatives who are Democrats. Have any of those guys called for the Max fleet to be grounded? No, of course not. Please stop trying to make this a Republican vs. Democrat thing.
1
@Rupert Don't always believe what you think. Keep reading, there's more news. Boeing Flights Grounded Across the Globe, but Not in the U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/business/boeing-flights-grounded.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
1
Someone was probably using their Huawei phone during take-off.
1
On gauging the response of Boeing and the FAA , in todays America I wonder if it is not more focused on profits rather than safety.
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@WilCuneo
You're right.
This is classic American capitalism—which greeds itself to death, cycle by cycle, unless kept in check.
5
This is a no brainer: ground all these planes until this is sorted out. Why should anyone trust that Boeing is being forthcoming at this point? We should be erring on the side of safety. In the meantime I will rebook any flight where I might be scheduled to fly on a 737 Max 8.
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@Nemesis
It's not a no-brainer. There are a huge number of American jobs riding on the success this aircraft as well as innumerable human activities that depend on the health of Boeing's stock. At the moment there is nothing to suggest that the plane is inherently faulty.
It is to be hoped that Mr Trump doesn't decide to take a keen personal interest in the B737-MAX. Things are bad enough as they are.
1
@nolongeradoc
Poor argument. Of course jobs and profits are at stake. The concern here is that profits, jobs and the commercial future of Boeing will matter more than safety.
Finding and addressing the cause of these accidents may determine the future of Boeing, but it will also determine the reputation of the US regulatory agencies responsible for oversight.
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A third accident should clear up the right course of action .
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Grounding planes, is not a bad idea at this point if it will prevent more deaths, until this new software is tested and fixed.
I work for a hospital and when a death occurs you are required to do a root cause analysis and fix it right away to prevent further deaths. It’s okay to admit any mistake if it can help prevent harm to other patients and timeouts are a normal everyday practice.
I am not an engineer but I could tell after the first crash that they had a software problem which needed to be be fixed quickly. 737s don’t just fall from the air like that. They are sturdy reliable planes.
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@Karen
and I worked for a hospital where RCA was used as a cover for obfuscating management failings and as a useful technique for blaming the front line staff.
2
@Karen you can tell it’s a software problem? Do you have intimate engineering knowledge of this aircraft’s operating systems or because it says that in newspapers? After every crash there is a root cause investigatory analysis by the NTSB.
Boeing has not been forthcoming with respect to the 737MAX. Out of interest for its bottom line, it decided not to brief airlines and pilots on the fundamental changes to aircraft control associated with MCAS. The additional training that would have been required hurt its sales pitch that pilots could seamlessly transition from legacy 737s with minimal cost to carriers. Prior to the 737MAX, automated systems that affected elevator control in 737s could always be overridden by the pilot by manual operation of the yoke. The Lion Air pilots were confronted by an undisclosed system that pitched the nose of the aircraft down for a full ten seconds at a time with no ability to correct the aircraft's pitch by pulling back on the control column.
Now that a second brand new 737MAX has fallen from the sky, Boeing is reaping the bitter harvest of the resultant loss of trust among the public and the flying community.
When pilots of the F-22 were coming back with reports of hypoxia, the Air Force wasted no time in grounding the fleet indefinitely until it got to the bottom of the problem. Yet, after a not insignificant percentage of new 737MAXs in the global fleet have crashed causing well over 300 fatalities, the FAA sees fit to take no action. Will it take the calamity of a third fatal crash to shock Boeing the FAA into action?
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@Hammerwielder
What will it take? When American airline pilots start having the same problems, the FAA will take notice. Until now it has been foreigners, and they can delude themselves that the crashes had to be a pilot error of some sort or another.
8
I thought the stock would decline much more. I'm not selling though.
Interesting that you focus on the financial impact on yourself. I wonder if Boeing is doing likewise and I also wonder whether the bereaved families consider this entirely selfish, money-driven perspective appropriate.
41
If authorities do not act as they should, prioritizing profits over human lives, than passengers should take action by rebooking and cancelling flights on 737 maxes, hurting airlines where they actually care: their profits.
I'm also against implying Boeing's fault before the investigations are concluded, but since 2 crashes in this short timeframe for a brand new aircraft is unheard of in the modern aviation history, the best course of action is not to use this model until the investigations are done.
I'll personally avoid Norwegian with my European flights.
29
Sara Nelson of the Flight Attendants Association has been a leading advocate for the safety of her members. I will have confidence that these planes are safe only when she says so.
Nelson should be a participant in the process to reassure the public (or to pull these aircraft from use).
Meanwhile I will fly Delta.
21
The true test: when CEO Muilenburg and his immediate family members take a flight on a Max 8.
Also: let's hear from the pilots: do they want to fly these planes? Are they being forced to? And what do the insurance companies say? Are they raising their premiums?
65
CEO Muilenburg and family would be safe on this plane because the pilots would be thoroughly briefed on how to quickly disengage the electronic controls to the stabilizer should this problem reoccur. The pilots on Lion and Ethiopian Air were not.
12
@Mike
Although it's premature to draw the conclusions you have, I believe you will be shown to be correct.
As an ex Air Force engineer, I suspect that the answer will eventually be multi-causual; lack of emphasis to pilots about how the new MCAS system affects the flight controls and a defect in some system, likely the air speed measurement system - as I understand it, if the MCAS thinks the plane is flying too slow, it tries to push the nose down to gain speed. It could also be that the MCAS software has a bug in it.
3
@michael cullen Here's what the Southwest pilots said about the Max:
Jonathan Weaks, the president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, says the union is “extremely confident” that the 737 MAX is safe. He says he’s being in discussions with the airline and other unions.
Here's part of his statement:
“I have been in numerous conversations today with Southwest Vice President of Flight Operations Captain Alan Kasher, who informed me that the MAX aircraft has 17,000 recordable parameters and Southwest has compiled and analyzed a tremendous amount of data from more than 41,000 flights operated by the 34 MAX aircraft on property, and the data supports Southwest's continued confidence in the airworthiness and safety of the MAX.”
1
It is very concerning to me that the FAA is not being proactive on this serious issue. There are known problems with the controls of this aircraft and the fleet should be grounded until remediation is complete. Profit before safety?
51
@Joseph, Sorry, what are teh "known problems" withthe controls? Is it known or speculation.
4
Perhaps the "known problems" refer to the need for software augmentation to change the planes' direction due to the change of engine in the 737 Max from the one originally specified for the Boeing 737.
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@David Tagliaferri The known problems are: two horrific crashes with numerous deaths, Boeing updating software so that the aircraft does not go into a nosedive,pilots need retraining. All in the public record.
10