Boeing 737 Max completes first passenger flight since 2019 grounding

I think "Boeing executives" would be sufficient. No need to involve innocent grandkids.

Thank you for my first good heartfelt laugh of the day! You are so correct!

How true too bad he doesnt say anything about Airbust and all the problems they had which also killed people like the frozen pitot tube deal.

Was also said about the DC-10 after Dallas and Sioux City. Design issues ultimately are very hard to overcome.

Go for it...jump on a Max but hopefully you won't come to regret this decision like I'm certain all the passengers were similarly confident of the Max being safe but, know, are no longer with us.

This was not a “demo” flight. All mods and updates have been completed on this aircraft, and the FAA had signed off on it. The CEO, COO, and CFO of AA and their families were onboard

Did someone trip and fall? LOL Sorry, I couldn't help myself with my filter turned off.

No, most of them find the cockpit cramped and loud. The -700 is a good performer, the -800 is fine, but the -900ER is a lumbering pig that rarely hits the upper 30's. The 737 should never haver have been Max'd, but AA twisted Boeing's arm with their neo purchase and here we are today.

pilots actually hate the 900 - Regular or mAx

Are you including those Max pilots who, courtesy of Boeing's criminality, covering up of safety issues, are no longer with us?

Hahaha!

This is the fundamental misunderstanding about the Max and MCAS. It has nothing to do with the aircraft’s stall behavior or response to a stall. MCAS only purpose is to artificially change elevator force based on certification requirements.

The requirement is for elevator control force to increase as AOA increases towards a stall, making it harder to further increase AOA. Most aircraft, including previous 737 models accomplish this naturally through normal aerodynamics. However the Max failed to meet this requirement due to the new engines, the control force approaching a stall was too light. I’m not privy to all the possible solutions but obviously MCAS was the end result. Initially MCAS was only supposed to activate once per “event” and only have limited authority over the horizontal stabilizer. Somewhere in the process those limitations were removed, I haven’t delved deep enough into the investigation to figure out why. So the end result is that in the 2 crashes circumstances were such that the MCAS activated and continued to run the elevator trim to an extreme nose down position that the crews were unable to properly diagnose and correct.

I was wondering this myself. There are some good details on the MCAS Wikipedia page. As Silent Bob said, MCAS isn't about stall, MCAS is about flight control laws. There are multiple moving parts with why MCAS is the culprit or victim here. That the change to the 737 Max center-of-gravity because of larger engine fans placed slightly forward of normal isn't the issue. The issues show up in 1)that creating a flight control law for something previous 737s didn't do should have been brought in front of the FAA. 2)Creating a flight control law for something previous 737s didn't have might have forced the FAA to create a different type-rating for the 737 Max. Type-ratings are a big deal for everyone: the manufacturer, the pilots, the airlines, and require (potentiallY) certification of the 737 Max as a new airplane. Think billions of dollars and a year or two to certify. It turns out that because of the crashes, what Boeing was trying to avoid it had to deal with anyway, and probably would have cost Boeing lost orders anyway, but without loss of lives had they certified and been clear about MCAS upfront. Also, MCAS was invoked in an error situation with the Angle-of-Attack sensors, but in most normal flight scenarios, Angle-of-attack sensors don't disagree, so there wouldn't be an issue with MCAS. With the ET 302 crash, there was a warning. Had the pilots been alerted that MCAS would be invoked if there's a AoA disagree message, then they might have taken the appropriate action. More information here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuvering_Characteristics_Augmentation_System

Well, if this year has taught us anything, it's that some people will go out of their way to be and stay afraid.

Every aircraft type has had its share of issues. Some more, some less. The only way to absolutely ensure your safety is, don't bother getting out of bed in the morning. Just a side note, more people die or are injured just taking a shower in the morning. More people die in a car wreck in the US each year than in airplane crashes worldwide. So, be afraid. That is your choice. You have never been guaranteed your next breath or next heartbeat. You will die someday. It could be today, or tomorrow, or 50 years from now. Only God know the exact day and time of your checking out from this world. It is something that you have no control over, nor is there anything you can do to prevent it.

You're afraid because the media and society have conditioned you to be. It's virtually impossible to get a non biased factual report on anything, not just politics.

The fact is the 737 Max, and commercial aircraft in general, are exceedingly safe when operated and maintained by highly trained and experienced professionals. Unfortunately there are parts of the world where training and experience is hard to come by, and so aircraft have to be designed and operated with that in mind.

Boeing obviously miscalculated the risks and abilities of some underdeveloped countries to operate their aircraft safely, and it didn't help that bad management and poor engineering allowed critical flaws to develop that were not caught by the FAA whose oversight was clearly lacking.

Rest assured the Max will now be arguably the safest aircraft out there as it's been scrutinized with a fine tooth comb, and everyone is now aware of its faults in the unlikely event they reoccur.