'Clowns designed the plane': Boeing reveals employees texts on 737 MAX

Current Affairs
Boeing Co on Thursday released hundreds of internal messages that raise serious questions about its development of simulators and the 737 MAX that was grounded in March after two fatal crashes, prompting outrage from US lawmakers.
In an April 2017 exchange of instant messages, two employees expressed complaints about the MAX following references to issues with the plane's flight management computer. "This airplane is designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys," one unnamed employee wrote.
In one message dated November 2015, which appears to shed light on lobbying methods used when facing demands from regulators, a Boeing employee notes regulators were likely to want simulator training for a particular type of cockpit alert."We are going to push back very hard on this and will likely need support at the highest levels when it comes time for the final negotiation," the employee writes.
The planemaker said some communications "raise questions" about Boeing's interactions with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in connection with the simulator qualification process.In releasing redacted versions of what it called "completely unacceptable" communications, Boeing said it was committed to transparency with the regulator.Unredacted versions of the messages were turned over to the FAA and Congress in December.

House Transportation Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio, who has been investigating the MAX, said the messages "paint a deeply disturbing picture of the lengths Boeing was apparently willing to go to in order to evade scrutiny from regulators, flight crews, and the flying public, even as its own employees were sounding alarms internally....Read More

Boeing messages disclose 'very disturbing picture' of 737 Max planes

Election News
A new batch of messages between Boeing Co. employees on the development of the 737 Max paints a “very disturbing picture” of concerns about the plane, according to an aide to a House committee.The documents were turned over to the Federal Aviation Administration on Monday, the agency said in a statement. The disclosure came the same day that Boeing ousted its chief executive officer.
At least some of them were written by the same Boeing pilot whose 2016 messages were released in October and were the subject of sharp questioning by lawmakers, according to a person familiar with their contents who wasn’t authorized to discuss them.The communications haven’t been released publicly. The staff of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee are still reviewing the messages and didn’t provide specific details about what they contain.
“But similar to other records previously disclosed by Boeing, the records appear to point to a very disturbing picture of both concerns expressed by Boeing employees about the company’s commitment to safety and efforts by some employees to ensure Boeing’s production plans were not diverted by regulators or others,” a committee aide said in a statement.
“The committee will continue to review these and other records provided by Boeing as part of the committee’s ongoing investigation,” the aide said.
Boeing brought the emails to the FAA and Congress “as part of our commitment to transparency with our regulators and the oversight committees,” the company said in a statement.

“As with prior documents referenced by the committee, the tone and content of some of these communications does not reflect the company we are and need to be,” the company said. Boeing has made changes to enhance safety, it said....Read More

As Boeing halts 737 MAX production, Airbus can't make jets fast enough

Election News
As Boeing Co. stops generation of its ambushed 737 Max, worldwide adversary Airbus SE is thinking about an altogether different issue: speeding yield of its opponent limited body.
Supposed "stretch" adaptations of the A320neo fly have started a request free for all as carriers gobble them up to supplant expensive twin-passageway planes on longer courses or pack in seats on shorter legs. Be that as it may, to accomplish that adaptability Airbus has brought to the table a wide scope of lodge designs that is made gathering undeniably increasingly intricate.
More slow form rates on the top-estimated A321 variation imply that the European organization needs to lift conveyances 75% this month contrasted with November with meet entire year creation targets. It's an indispensable test for Airbus - not exclusively to solidify its favorable position over a thrashing Boeing, yet in addition to augment comes back from its most costly thin bodies as interest for significantly progressively worthwhile wide-body models moves past its pinnacle.
"The A321 matters in light of the fact that as a stretch it ought to be by a wide margin the most elevated edge airplane of the Airbus thin bodies," said Sash Tusa, an examiner at Agency Partners in London. The expanded notoriety of single-path types on longer courses could mean they come to represent seventy five percent of the complete estimation of planes conveyed in a given year, up from half already, he included.

Airbus is focusing on 860 conveyances over its aircraft extend for 2019, 20 less than the underlying objective after the organization recognized in October that its plants were bogged down. Each missed fly will wipe in any event 10 million euros ($11 million) off benefit, Citi Research investigator Charles Armitage gauges.....Read More

Paris air show: Airbus seals deals with big buyers after Boeing's MAX sale

Company News

Airbus sealed deals with big buyers for its latest passenger jet at the Paris Airshow on Wednesday, battling back a day after a surprise order by British Airways' owner for rival Boeing's grounded 737 MAX jet.
Indigo Partners, the private equity firm of veteran low-cost airline investor Bill Franke, and American Airlines each signed up for 50 of Airbus's new long-range A321neo jet, although some orders were converted from deals on other models.
Airbus, which has not given a list price for the A321XLR, launched the new plane on Monday, aiming to carve out new routes for airlines with smaller planes and steal a march on Boeing's plans for a potential all new jet for the middle of the market.
The deals are a big vote of confidence in the European planemaker, a day after major customer British Airways owner IAG signed a letter of intent to buy 200 of Boeing Co's 737 MAX jets, a model that has been grounded since March after two deadly crashes.
Asked about the IAG deal, Franke, who struck the largest-ever plane deal by number of aircraft with Airbus in 2017, called the A321neo the most efficient single-aisle jet.
Franke's Indigo Partners signed a memorandum of understanding to buy 32 of A321XLR aircraft and to convert 18 existing A320 family jet orders to the larger model.

 The jets will be allocated to Hungary's Wizz Air, US carrier Frontier Airlines and Chile's JetSMART, in which Indigo Partners owns stakes. Industry experts estimate the deal for the 32 aircraft could be valued at around $4.5 billion, based on a slight premium to the A321neo's list price of $129.5 million, although most airlines get significant discounts.

Boeing did not disclose 737 MAX alert issue for more than a year, says FAA

International News

Boeing Co did not tell US regulators for more than a year that it inadvertently made an alarm alerting pilots to a mismatch of flight data optional on the 737 MAX, instead of standard as on earlier 737s, but insisted on Sunday the missing display represented no safety risk.

The US planemaker has been trying for weeks to dispel suggestions that it made airlines pay for safety features after it emerged that an alert designed to show discrepancies in Angle of Attack readings from two sensors was optional on the 737 MAX.

Erroneous data from a sensor responsible for measuring the angle at which the wing slices through the air - known as the Angle of Attack - is suspected of triggering a flawed piece of software that pushed the plane downward in two recent crashes.

In a statement, Boeing said it only discovered once deliveries of the 737 MAX had begun in 2017 that the so-called AOA Disagree alert was optional instead of standard as it had intended, but added that was not critical safety data.

A Federal Aviation Administration official told Reuters on Sunday that Boeing waited 13 months before informing the agency in November 2018.

By becoming optional, the alert had been treated in the same way as a separate indicator showing raw AOA data, which is seldom used by commercial pilots and had been an add-on for years."Neither the angle of attack indicator nor the AOA Disagree alert are necessary for the safe operation of the airplane," Boeing said.


 "They provide supplemental information only, and have never been considered safety features on commercial jet transport airplanes."