nudge Posted March 13, 2019 Posted March 13, 2019 3 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said: If they knew about the glitch but didn't do anything, then some Boeing execs and engineers should be going to prison. I've just seen my next business trip is supposed to be on one of these planes … hopefully the FAA removes it's head from it's anus, so I won't be flying on a plane that 45 other countries, including the one I'm from, thinks is too unsafe. That's what actually bothers me most - they are very obviously putting money before safety despite the rest of the world having serious concerns (and I'm not talking about media "scaremongering" or lay persons delving into it; I mean if the majority of aviation experts worldwide is concerned enough to disrupt the entire global air traffic then it's probably safe to say that those concerns are not unfounded...). What I've been hearing is that Boeing's main selling point for those planes was the fact that it didn’t require additional training for someone who was already certified to fly a 737 (otherwise the pilots need to undergo weeks of additional training both in the aircraft and the simulator to get certified to fly it; all that costs airlines a lot of time and money). It wasn't very honest though as due to the changes in the plane design (larger and more powerful engines were moved forward and higher up and the nose was extended), the handling of the jet in certain situations also changed slightly so Boeing added the MCAS (the anti-stall system) to counter those changes. In order to really enforce this sales pitch that flying the new Max doesn't require new pilot certification, they neglected to mention the new MCAS (and the way it can be disabled) in the flight crew operation manual and so a lot of pilots were caught completely off-guard. It is speculated to be the reason behind the previous Indonesian crash as allegedly the MCAS was getting incorrect data from a sensor and kept "correcting" the pitch (i.e. bringing the plane's nose down) so much that the pilots couldn't overcome it with manual controls (and couldn't disable the MCAS as they were not informed of its existence/weren't trained to), leading to complete loss of control and a crash. The Ethiopian crash seems to have happened under very similar conditions and there was a number of similar incidents previously were the pilots were able to correct the issue mid-air. It all makes Boeing look very bad; along with the fact that even after those incidents they still keep on denying any potential safety issues instead of suggesting to ground and investigate the fleet thoroughly. I mean that's 1% of the fleet lost in less than 6 months with over 300 human lives lost; I just can't grasp it. 1 Quote
nudge Posted March 13, 2019 Posted March 13, 2019 10 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said: Hooray the orange moron did something not moronic for once, the planes will be grounded. Canada too! Quote
nudge Posted March 13, 2019 Posted March 13, 2019 Now they are making it look like it's their own decision to ground the planes out of concern for safety and are even trying to take credit for it... Can hardly get any lower than that. 1 Quote
Dr. Gonzo Posted March 13, 2019 Posted March 13, 2019 2 hours ago, nudge said: Now they are making it look like it's their own decision to ground the planes out of concern for safety and are even trying to take credit for it... Can hardly get any lower than that. That's actually fucking hilarious. For anyone to believe Boeing pulled the planes themselves, they'd need people to 1.) not be aware that almost everyone else grounded their planes before this announcement, 2.) not be aware that Trump made the announcement to ground them, 3.) get most of your aviation news from Boeing's twitter 1 Quote
Happy Blue Posted March 14, 2019 Posted March 14, 2019 9 hours ago, nudge said: Boeing 737 Max 8 has been grounded and banned from entering the airspace pretty much everywhere except the US. Two major accidents with massive loss of human life within just a few months, both under very similar circumstances, and numerous reports from other pilots and aviation experts about issues with the anti-stalling software and especially the new complex (and apparently fundamentally broken) MCAS system that the pilots weren't even taught how to operate properly apparently Boeing still refuses to acknowledge that there's a defect, claims it's a "safe airplane" and promises to release a software update some time in April; while Boeing's CEO has personally asked Trump not to ground the 737 Max in the US. I just recently looked for a flight to Europe and was tempted by a relatively cheap one offered by Norwegian; decided against it because of the low price (too good to be true) and the fact that it uses those 737 Max airplanes. Safe to say, after current events and their response to it I will not fly any Boeing plane in the future at all. Boeing have grounded all there 747's too ..they have found out that all there stewardesses have at least a 4inch crack in them Quote
AMG Posted March 14, 2019 Posted March 14, 2019 15 hours ago, nudge said: I will not fly any Boeing plane in the future at all. Good decision. Airbus is just better. 1 Quote
nudge Posted March 14, 2019 Posted March 14, 2019 1 hour ago, AMG said: Good decision. Airbus is just better. I always preferred Airbus as well but wouldn't have declined a flight just because it's a Boeing... That has definitely changed now. Quote
Dr. Gonzo Posted March 15, 2019 Posted March 15, 2019 On 13/03/2019 at 04:50, Happy Blue said: Interesting, I think that's true but it also makes me want to break stuff ..I also train harder while this type of music is playing and some songs like "hammer smashed face" make me think about killing people lol If you haven't listened to it, checkout Bloodbath's album "Nightmare Made Flesh" it's awesome! ..Breeding Death is good too I somehow missed this. Tbf, if you listen to Cannibal Corpse without thinking about killing people at least a little bit, you probably need to turn the volume up a bit. 1 Quote
Administrator Stan Posted March 17, 2019 Administrator Posted March 17, 2019 Russia writes off debt to poorest African countries, worth £20bn https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/03/russia-leads-by-example-pardons-poorest-african-countries-20-billion-debt/ Quote Russia has written off debts to the poorest countries of the African continent in the amount of $ 20 billion, said Russia’s first deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyansky. “Our country is taking steps to alleviate the debt burden of African countries. The debt for the heavily indebted poor countries has been written off by more than $ 20 billion, inclusive of “debt-for-development” programs, ” said Polyansky during his speech at the meeting of the Security Council on the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. - Advertisement - He added that the Russian Federation is allocating funds for the implementation of international assistance programs for African countries through the IMF, the World Bank, WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Food Program and the International Civil Defense Organization. “We also render assistance in the field of healthcare, our country was one of the first to react to the epidemic of the Ebola fever, allocating over $ 60 million for fighting it,” the Russian diplomat noted. Quote
nudge Posted March 17, 2019 Posted March 17, 2019 8 minutes ago, Stan said: Russia writes off debt to poorest African countries, worth £20bn https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/03/russia-leads-by-example-pardons-poorest-african-countries-20-billion-debt/ "Last updated Mar 21, 2018" Quote
Administrator Stan Posted March 17, 2019 Administrator Posted March 17, 2019 1 minute ago, nudge said: "Last updated Mar 21, 2018" Oops! Should probably check the date next time! 1 Quote
nudge Posted March 17, 2019 Posted March 17, 2019 2 minutes ago, Stan said: Oops! Should probably check the date next time! To be fair Russia has been making moves for involvement in Africa recently so that's still kind of relevant! Quote
Harry Posted March 18, 2019 Posted March 18, 2019 On 14/03/2019 at 05:18, Dr. Gonzo said: If they knew about the glitch but didn't do anything, then some Boeing execs and engineers should be going to prison. I've just seen my next business trip is supposed to be on one of these planes … hopefully the FAA removes it's head from it's anus, so I won't be flying on a plane that 45 other countries, including the one I'm from, thinks is too unsafe. Speaking as an engineer its pretty easy to understand how things like this can happen. A potential scenario that appeared to be extremely unlikely by a qualified team up front will be viewed with hindsight as a disaster waiting to happen by the general public if anything ever goes wrong. It comes down to tolerable risk. Most things that get inspected for safety reasons come up with a range of improvement opportunities. Some things are deemed to be critical enough for a recall, others can wait till next major service or other update, and in some cases the solution to the problem takes time to develop and the question becomes what to do in the interim. Quote
nudge Posted March 18, 2019 Posted March 18, 2019 Quote As Boeing hustled in 2015 to catch up to Airbus and certify its new 737 MAX, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) managers pushed the agency’s safety engineers to delegate safety assessments to Boeing itself, and to speedily approve the resulting analysis. But the original safety analysis that Boeing delivered to the FAA for a new flight control system on the MAX — a report used to certify the plane as safe to fly — had several crucial flaws. That flight control system, called MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), is now under scrutiny after two crashes of the jet in less than five months resulted in Wednesday’s FAA order to ground the plane. Current and former engineers directly involved with the evaluations or familiar with the document shared details of Boeing’s “System Safety Analysis” of MCAS, which The Seattle Times confirmed. The safety analysis: Understated the power of the new flight control system, which was designed to swivel the horizontal tail to push the nose of the plane down to avert a stall. When the planes later entered service, MCAS was capable of moving the tail more than four times farther than was stated in the initial safety analysis document. Failed to account for how the system could reset itself each time a pilot responded, thereby missing the potential impact of the system repeatedly pushing the airplane’s nose downward. Assessed a failure of the system as one level below “catastrophic.” But even that “hazardous” danger level should have precluded activation of the system based on input from a single sensor — and yet that’s how it was designed. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/failed-certification-faa-missed-safety-issues-in-the-737-max-system-implicated-in-the-lion-air-crash/ Quote Documents obtained this month by The Seattle Times through a Freedom of Information Act request show the cases revealed a disquieting pattern of falsified paperwork and ignored procedures that created quality issues on the production lines of Boeing and its suppliers. The FAA found that Boeing repeatedly failed to follow protocols designed to guard against production errors that put safety at risk. Some tasks were signed off as completed and checked when they were not. Other work was done without authorization. The result was multiple errors in manufacturing, some of which passed right through the system to airplanes in service. Boeing also failed to take corrective action in a timely way after issues were discovered, the FAA found. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/falsified-papers-sloppy-work-led-faa-to-fine-boeing/ Their own safety analysis acknowledged a potential MCAS failure as "hazardous" yet Boeing and FAA still approved it without any additional training for pilots and even failed to provide details of MCAS and additional procedures to airlines it sold the planes to. They were still denying potential issues of 737 Max and kept on insisting it's completely safe even after the first crash + numerous incidents and complaints last year, and still are after the second crash. So it doesn't look like an unfortunate design flaw that went unnoticed. It's more like a corrupt huge for-profit corporation with a history of shady practices & a complicit regulator (who somehow allowed the aforementioned corporation to essentially self certify their own aircraft for whatever reason) cutting corners to make more profit and outcompete their rivals by completely disregarding safety concerns and potential consequences that may (and that have, as we know it now) result in huge loss of life. Quote
Dr. Gonzo Posted March 20, 2019 Posted March 20, 2019 (edited) On 17/03/2019 at 18:31, Harry said: Speaking as an engineer its pretty easy to understand how things like this can happen. A potential scenario that appeared to be extremely unlikely by a qualified team up front will be viewed with hindsight as a disaster waiting to happen by the general public if anything ever goes wrong. It comes down to tolerable risk. Most things that get inspected for safety reasons come up with a range of improvement opportunities. Some things are deemed to be critical enough for a recall, others can wait till next major service or other update, and in some cases the solution to the problem takes time to develop and the question becomes what to do in the interim. I get what you’re saying, but in @nudge‘s post it seems much worse than what you’re describing. Particular with the falsified papers - that seems no longer like a tolerable risk (although I think with planes, most risks of crashes with no survivors should be considered intolerable). Here we’ve got Boeing and the FAA acknowledging hazardous planes to themselves but deciding to move forward for the sake of profits. Anyone that signed off on this is responsible for over 200 people being killed in those 2 crashes Edited March 20, 2019 by Dr. Gonzo Quote
nudge Posted March 21, 2019 Posted March 21, 2019 Quote Italian driver hijacks and torches school bus full of children A bus carrying 51 schoolchildren was hijacked by its driver and set alight near Milan in Italy. The children, some of them tied up, were rescued through smashed windows at the back of the bus and no-one was badly hurt. Fourteen people suffered smoke inhalation. The driver, a 47-year-old Italian citizen originally from Senegal, has been arrested. "No-one will survive," the driver was alleged to have said. "It was a miracle, it could have been a massacre," Milan chief prosecutor Francesco Greco was quoted as saying. A teacher who had been on the bus said the suspect - named by police as Ousseynou Sy - was known to be angry about Italy's immigration policy and about the deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-47642298 Fucking hell. Fortunately they were able to rescue all the kids on time. Quote
Panflute Posted March 22, 2019 Posted March 22, 2019 Ruh-roh! Quote Dutch populist vote surge costs PM Rutte senate majority The governing centre-right coalition in the Netherlands has lost its senate majority after a populist party surged in provincial elections. The anti-immigration Forum for Democracy won most votes and secured more seats in the upper house than Prime Minister Mark Rutte's party. The election came two days after a suspected terror attack in Utrecht. Addressing supporters, party leader Thierry Baudet bitterly criticised Mr Rutte's immigration policies. "Successive Rutte governments have left our borders wide open, letting in hundreds of thousands of people with cultures completely different to ours," he told the cheering crowd. Mr Baudet, who was criticised for continuing to campaign after Monday's shooting on a tram, said Dutch people were being "destroyed by the people who are supposed to be protecting us". Analysts say he may team up with the anti-Islam Freedom Party, led by far-right politician Geert Wilders. Mr Wilders has seen his party's seats decline from nine to five. With about 98% of the vote counted, Forum for Democracy has become the biggest party with 13 seats. Forum for Democracy had no seats in the current 75-seat upper house. Mr Rutte will now need the support of other parties beyond his own coalition to pass legislation. The 38 seats previously held by his coalition will now fall to 31. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47648086 I expect Wilders to tap out of national politics within the next 1-2 years. Quote
Azeem Posted March 26, 2019 Posted March 26, 2019 Golan Heights officially recognized as part of Israel, Greater Israel might be more closer to reality than i think Quote
nudge Posted March 27, 2019 Posted March 27, 2019 India joins the elite space power club by successfully testing the completely indigenous Anti-Satellite (A-SAT) missile today. Becomes only the fourth country in the world to have demonstrated such capability after the US, Russia and China. @Mel81x @IgnisExcubitor @AMG 2 Quote
IgnisExcubitor Posted March 28, 2019 Posted March 28, 2019 Yep. Great news and mostly it's a show of strength to China. Also, gives us a seat at the big players' table when it comes to the matters of space. Apparently, we had all the plans since the last decade, but the previous govt didn't allow the scientists to go ahead. The present government did. For all the stick that the present govt (and the ruling BJP party) gets (and some of it is justified), when it comes to taking strong decisions they have led the way. May it be the nuclear tests in the late nineties(the last time BJP was in power), or conducting military attacks on terrorist camps in Pakistan and Myanmar, or this. Also, we would have achieved a lot more in our space program if the Kerala branch of the Congress government hadn't imprisoned Nambi Narayanan (a leading scientist) under false spying charges. The man and the country lost more than two decades. 1 Quote
nudge Posted March 28, 2019 Posted March 28, 2019 1 hour ago, IgnisExcubitor said: Yep. Great news and mostly it's a show of strength to China. Also, gives us a seat at the big players' table when it comes to the matters of space. Apparently, we had all the plans since the last decade, but the previous govt didn't allow the scientists to go ahead. The present government did. For all the stick that the present govt (and the ruling BJP party) gets (and some of it is justified), when it comes to taking strong decisions they have led the way. May it be the nuclear tests in the late nineties(the last time BJP was in power), or conducting military attacks on terrorist camps in Pakistan and Myanmar, or this. Also, we would have achieved a lot more in our space program if the Kerala branch of the Congress government hadn't imprisoned Nambi Narayanan (a leading scientist) under false spying charges. The man and the country lost more than two decades. Your space programme is still shaping up nicely. The Chandrayaan lunar exploration programme has been fielding good results in particular, as the probe released by the orbiter has discovered water ice on the Moon a decade ago and now the second phase of the programme is coming up where you'll land a rover there... Really looking forward to it. Then the next step with the crewed orbital spacecraft into low Earth orbit should happen in just two years. Exciting times and you're surely doing well. Quote
IgnisExcubitor Posted March 29, 2019 Posted March 29, 2019 Yep, and then there is the solar mission (Aditya) as well, amongst several others. 1 Quote
Azeem Posted March 30, 2019 Posted March 30, 2019 Vandals, arsonists target French Catholic churches More than 10 churches have been hit since the beginning of February, with some set on fire while others were severely desecrated or damaged. https://cruxnow.com/church-in-europe/2019/03/28/vandals-arsonists-target-french-catholic-churches/ 1 Quote
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