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Boeing 737 Max 8 planes: Experts wary of linking Indonesia and Ethiopia crashes

Posted on March 13, 2019 by Writer

Two fatal crashes of Boeing 737 Max 8 planes less than five months apart have raised alarm, but experts are wary of linking the two.

Following the lead of China, countries including Australia, the UK, Singapore, Malaysia, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Oman have temporarily suspended the jets from operating, and several other world airlines have grounded their fleets.

However, Boeing, the United States’ Federal Aviation Authority and New Zealand’s Civil Aviation Authority have maintained the planes are safe.

The head of Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee, Soerjanto Tjahjono, said it was unclear if the cause of Sunday’s disaster in Ethiopia was similar to the still-undetermined reason for a Lion Air crash in October.

Tjahjono said his agency is waiting for Ethiopian authorities to respond to its offer to assist with the investigation into the crash that killed all 157 people aboard.

The Max 8 operated by Indonesia’s Lion Air plunged into the Java Sea on October 29, killing 189 people.

“We have the same model of Max 8 that crashed, but we cannot estimate whether they

Article source: https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/world/111230204/boeing-737-max-8-planes-experts-wary-of-linking-indonesia-and-ethiopia-crashes

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Is It Time to Worry About the Boeing 737 Max 8?

Posted on March 13, 2019 by Writer

So no one knows, yet, what happened in the Ethiopian Airlines disaster, and anyone who feigns certainty now should be viewed with wariness.

But here is an initial guide to the kinds of questions air investigators will be asking.

What’s the (possible) similarity between this crash and the Lion Air disaster in October 2018, in Indonesia, in which 189 people were killed?

The main known similarity at this point is that they both involved the same, relatively new model of airplane. This is a new version of the workhorse Boeing 737, known as the 737 Max 8. Both of the planes crashed shortly after takeoff—not mid-flight, like the Air France disaster over the Atlantic 10 years ago, and not on approach for landing, as with the Colgan commuter-airline crash en route to Buffalo in 2009.

What’s significant or different about this new plane?

The 737 is the most familiar and popular commercial airliner in the world. It’s been in production since the 1960s, and more than 10,000 of them have been in service. If you’ve ever taken a ride on Southwest Airlines, you’ve been on a 737, because it is all that Southwest flies. Complete standardization of the fleet has been an important part of Southwest’s business model since the start. (When I was working for Texas Monthly, back in the 1970s, I interviewed the late Herb Kelleher, a founder of the then-nascent Southwest, who stressed that with a single model of aircraft, everything about running an airline became simpler.

Article source: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/03/et302-boeing-737-max-8-blame/584572/

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Uber-For-Planes Startup BlackBird Raises $10 Million To Replace Road Trips With Flying Private

Posted on March 13, 2019 by Writer

BlackBird wants to replace driving with private airplane travel.@2018 New Revolution Media

If Rudd Davis’ vision comes true, the days of the road trip will be over—or at least massively curtailed. The former USA Today and Groupon executive wants to make flying private as affordable as driving and have it become the go-to option for any 50-to-500-mile trip. The biggest challenge, he says, is getting people to buy into the belief.

“If they think luxury air travel, they shouldn’t think about us. There are no couches on our planes,” Davis told Forbes.

Instead, Davis has spent the last three years building BlackBird, a startup that connects passengers with private planes and pilots. Passengers can join an existing flight plan and purchase open seats on the flight. Or customers can charter a plane to travel from, say, the San Francisco Bay Area to Lake Tahoe, and then pick a pilot from BlackBird’s preapproved list of commercially trained pilots. “BlackBird has become an alternative to driving,” Davis said.

BlackBird founder and CEO Rudd DavisBlackbird

It’s not just Davis who believes in this vision. On Tuesday, BlackBird announced that it had raised $10 million from Silicon Valley venture firm NEA. Jonathan Golden, a partner at NEA and a former Airbnb director, will join the board.

BlackBird’s growth reminds Golden of the early days of Airbnb and Lyft, when people had to learn a new behavior like sharing a car or sleeping in someone’s house. A

Article source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bizcarson/2019/03/12/uber-for-planes-startup-blackbird-raises-10-million-to-replace-road-trips-with-flying-private/

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The Boeing 737 Max 8 crashes and FAA controversy, explained

Posted on March 12, 2019 by Writer

The second deadly crash of a Boeing 737 Max model airplane within months of the first has put flyers around the world on edge. Multiple countries have grounded the planes as a result, though the United States has, thus far, refrained.

Here’s what happened: On Sunday, March 10, Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to Nairobi, Kenya, faltered and crashed soon after taking off, killing all 157 people on board. The incident was, of course, devastating. But making it even more disturbing is that it happened just months after a Lion Air flight taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia, crashed in October, killing all 189 passengers.

The flights were the exact same model of planes, Boeing 737 Max.

The second crash over the weekend sent shockwaves across the world, not only because victims came from 35 countries, but also because there are multiples of the same such jets being utilized globally. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, there are a total of 387 Boeing 737 Max models operating, including 74 in the United States.

The second fatal crash of a 737 Max 8 jet in under six months has raised questions about whether such planes are any longer safe to fly. Multiple countries have grounded the planes since Sunday, including Brazil, China, and India. The European Union on Tuesday suspended all flight operations of Boeing Model 737 Max 8 and 737 Max 9 in Europe.

The US, however, has been

Article source: https://www.vox.com/2019/3/12/18262359/boeing-737-max-controversy-faa-trump

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A decade after entering service, the first A380s are being stripped and sold for parts

Posted on March 12, 2019 by Writer

Fresh doubts have been cast on the future of the world’s largest passenger plane after a German leasing company said it plans to break up two A380s that nobody wants.

Singapore Airlines returned two 11-year-old “superjumbos” – among the very first to enter service – to the Dortmund-based Dr Peters Group in November. However, despite efforts to lease them to a new carrier – BA was among those approached – they will now be stripped and sold for parts.

“After extensive as well as intensive negotiations with various airlines, such as British Airways, HiFly and IranAir, Dr Peters Group has decided to sell the aircraft components and will recommend this approach to its investors,” the company said in a statement emailed to Reuters.

The process will see the two jets – currently in storage at Tarbes Lourdes Pyrénées Airport in France, one of Europe’s biggest repositories for unwanted aircraft – combed for valuable items such as electronics and landing gears, a Dr Peters Group official said. Their engines had already been removed and leased back to Rolls-Royce.

The travails of the A380 have become something on an aviation soap opera in recent years. The model was launched to much fanfare in 2005 with commentators declaring it the future of air travel. But airlines were harder to convince and sales slowly ground to a halt. Just two new orders were received in 2015 and none in either 2016 or 2017. Last year it looked like the production line could be shut down as

Article source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/a380s-stripped-and-sold-for-parts/

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