<story><title>China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Max aircraft</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-airlines-china/china-orders-its-airlines-to-suspend-use-of-boeing-737-max-aircraft-media-idUSKBN1QS01Z</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cameldrv</author><text>Maybe it&amp;#x27;s politically motivated, but IMO so is the FAA&amp;#x27;s certification and nonaction so far.  Boeing promised a software fix by January, and the FAA&amp;#x27;s decision not to ground the fleet was probably informally based on that promise.  Unfortunately the software fix is proving more difficult than anticipated.  Regulated, safety-critical software, whose failure leads to a smoking crater full of bodies can be like that.  Especially in this case where it&amp;#x27;s not going to be just a bugfix, but probably a major redesign of the concept of the MCAS.&lt;p&gt;Ultimately though there are over 5000 orders for the 737MAX.  The list price is $121 million.  That makes the total value of the order book $600 Billion at list prices.  That&amp;#x27;s roughly the market cap of Google or Apple, and the 737MAX is extremely important to the U.S. balance of trade.  There is obviously going to be a political component to any big regulatory action on it.&lt;p&gt;The FAA needs to make a major course correction here, because what&amp;#x27;s even more important long-term than a single, very popular airplane to the U.S. economy is FAA&amp;#x27;s credibility as a regulator.  In most countries, FAA certification means rubber-stamp certification from the local authority.  As long as it is, it&amp;#x27;s a huge advantage to the U.S. aviation industry, because the FAA can write regs that are favorable to U.S. interests.  This is only true though as long as the FAA is seen to have integrity.&lt;p&gt;In this case, when it comes to that, by my reading (and I&amp;#x27;m not a lawyer or an expert), the MCAS is in violation of FAR part 25.672, and the 737MAX is not airworthy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>whbk</author><text>Wow, I didn&amp;#x27;t realize the software fix hadn&amp;#x27;t been rolled out prior to yesterday&amp;#x27;s crash. Yikes. Also count me among those who went through the rest of this year&amp;#x27;s (already booked) flights this morning to ensure I&amp;#x27;m not on one of these things.</text></comment>
<story><title>China orders its airlines to suspend use of Boeing 737 Max aircraft</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-airlines-china/china-orders-its-airlines-to-suspend-use-of-boeing-737-max-aircraft-media-idUSKBN1QS01Z</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cameldrv</author><text>Maybe it&amp;#x27;s politically motivated, but IMO so is the FAA&amp;#x27;s certification and nonaction so far.  Boeing promised a software fix by January, and the FAA&amp;#x27;s decision not to ground the fleet was probably informally based on that promise.  Unfortunately the software fix is proving more difficult than anticipated.  Regulated, safety-critical software, whose failure leads to a smoking crater full of bodies can be like that.  Especially in this case where it&amp;#x27;s not going to be just a bugfix, but probably a major redesign of the concept of the MCAS.&lt;p&gt;Ultimately though there are over 5000 orders for the 737MAX.  The list price is $121 million.  That makes the total value of the order book $600 Billion at list prices.  That&amp;#x27;s roughly the market cap of Google or Apple, and the 737MAX is extremely important to the U.S. balance of trade.  There is obviously going to be a political component to any big regulatory action on it.&lt;p&gt;The FAA needs to make a major course correction here, because what&amp;#x27;s even more important long-term than a single, very popular airplane to the U.S. economy is FAA&amp;#x27;s credibility as a regulator.  In most countries, FAA certification means rubber-stamp certification from the local authority.  As long as it is, it&amp;#x27;s a huge advantage to the U.S. aviation industry, because the FAA can write regs that are favorable to U.S. interests.  This is only true though as long as the FAA is seen to have integrity.&lt;p&gt;In this case, when it comes to that, by my reading (and I&amp;#x27;m not a lawyer or an expert), the MCAS is in violation of FAR part 25.672, and the 737MAX is not airworthy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>taurath</author><text>Sadly I think it still comes down to lack of real competition - that’s why this is gonna be such a big deal, air travel safety in general is in the balance. Everyone that flys regularly should hope this is a coincidence because the supply chain isn’t there to fill in for grounded 737s - there won’t be enough planes in general.&lt;p&gt;Like the adage about owing a billion to the bank being their problem, a crash is an airlines problem, but 3 crashes of the same plane for the same reason is the air industries problem.</text></comment>