Is the 737MAX safe?

Is the 737MAX safe?

I will give my vision, i repeat, only my vision and opinion because we do not have any type of investigation completed yet and if we are sure if there was a connection between these two regrettable accidents, I am also a 737 Max pilot , and will not even be the expert on duty. An accident is always regrettable and taking away the feeling about and analyzing only the fact become a very difficult or even impossible task. Are the two accidents with the MAX model similar? Undoubtedly, they are indicative of loss of control in flight, ie, the airplane crashed in good weather, both short flights and low takeoff weight, the crews had been trained within the SOP of the companies involved. The 737 MAX is an stretched model with more powerful engines and every pilot who has ever flown an stretched plane misses the original version, in the MAX they have kept the wings of the 737 NG and the focus was to operate the airplane in commonality system between the NG and the new MAX, or be, who flies 737NG does a ground training and after start flying the new model. The MAX is not a fly by wire model, where through adjustments in the software of the flight commands, one can replicate the behavior of the all the models, that is, the computer simulates to the pilot the same reactions without having any different feeling from one model to the other. And what did MAX do? A system of adjustment (already done somehow in MD11, a stretched DC 10), creating a pitch damper, which automatically adjusts the pitch in case of erroneous indications of angle of attack (and I believe also if some AOA value is exceeded), this system is automatic and works without intervention, knowledge or warning to the pilots. It works on the back ground, like the ABS system of your car, it's there and it works when you need and period. There is the first problem, they only told that it existed for maintenance crew and not for the pilots who would fly that type of airplane, this only came to the public after the Lion Air accident. Having something that works in extreme situations and not telling who is in the operation and who needs to understand what is happening is not at least clever. Both accidents seem to have had more than the downs and lows from the nose of the plane, a series of alarms and that alarms should and do happen in a situation as the one described in both accidents. Pilots are train this kind of situation, turn everything off and fly the plane in manual mode, based on thrust and attitude and with tables (charts) for flight situations. In other words, it is a very basic aviation, super basic, with a lot of alarms playing simultaneously, then just in the scene (from the first accident) the nose rising and going down for no reason , it is very difficult to see (the pilots) in time able to understand what is happening. In the case of the second accident, the system was already well known and the procedure is to turn off the automatic system from the scene.So what happened there? If I knew I would fill a lottery winning ticket and move to the Maldives, but the question is whether to stop the entire 737 MAX fleet? It depends! The plane is insecure? It depends! The situation of the plane is secure or not is out of the question if the pilots have specific knowledge and training for the problem in question and if possible train the scenario in a 737 MAX simulator, and then the problem starts , not all the airline companies have access to a simulator of these , has pilots available for training , have the $ to make the investment / training in the model while keeping the same model economically viable. Is the 737 MAX dangerous? It is NOT, as long as these two previous premises are fulfilled effectively.

Michael William Graham

Digital Flight Instructor Beech 1900 / PA31 / Training and Standards / Human Resource Management / Safety Management Systems / Regulatory Compliance

5y
Giulio Savini

Line Training Captain at easyJet

5y

Lots of words to say?? Nothing. I agree: wait for the final report of (both) accidents.

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