I'm a bit confused by this. From what I've read an "airworthiness certificate" is not a certificate that the aircraft design is good and safe. That would be a type certificate.
The airworthiness certificate is issued for a particular aircraft and certifies that it conforms to the approved design for that type of aircraft, all outstanding airworthiness directives applicable to the type have been applied, no unsafe alterations or repairs have been made, all required documentation and logs are present, the inspector doesn't see any damage, leaks, or other problems that could make it unsafe, and other things like that.
The two 737 MAX crashes had nothing to do with anything that would have been found during their airworthiness inspections. They were functioning exactly as they were designed to, as covered by their type certificate.
So what was the point of suspending Boeing's authority to do those inspections?
> The FAA stopped allowing Boeing to issue airworthiness certificates for 737 MAX airplanes in 2019 during their return to service following the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes, and for Boeing 787 airplanes in 2022 because of production quality issues.
(Looking at a bit more research, I think this bit was revoked because during the investigation the FAA found that Boeing was skimping on these inspections too, but the details are a little unclear)
The main motivation for recertifications comes from commercial pressure where if a aircraft is given a new number and not recertified, then the pilots have to be retrained.
Honestly, back when the 737 MAX debacle happened, a lot of consumers claimed that they would stop flying aircrafts if they ran into 737 MAXs. And I don't think it happened in enough numbers - or even enough to make news. Sales went through the roof, everything kept working.
Recertifications are very common. The issue really is is the aircraft is AS different and untested as the old MAXs, and I really can't see that happening again in the next decade or two atleast.
This is well outside my knowledge domain so I'm not trying to make any statements on whether this was correct, but rather to better comprehend the change.
Is this kind of consumer revolt even really possible?
If you feel strongly enough that you refuse to fly altogether, then of course you can avoid flying on a 737 MAX. But I think most people did not feel the risk was that high. They just want to select "guarantee no 737 MAX" when booking a flight, and as far as I can tell that option doesn't exist.
Even if the flight is not a 737 MAX when you book, they can and sometimes do change aircraft, and as far as I know there's no option to get your money back when they do. If you show up and see it's a 737 MAX...you either get on or you lose your money, and have to find some other way to get where you're going, right?
I lived in Tokyo. I used to spend more to avoid getting accosted at the US border. A lot more.
You can't call it choice when your vendors all offer the same product for the same price.
I don’t want to barter my chickens for your shoe leather.
You as an oncologist: "cells have been dividing for thousands of years and are better off for it. the word is meaningless. I would hate to be a single-celled organism." lmao
Great insight! Therefore there's no such thing as pathological cell division or pathological financialization. Or maybe it's just if someone is super super super smart, they get so smart they somehow lose the ability to distinguish between productive and pathological financialization, and then they get to make asinine comments on HN.
I think a better analogy is "The EU is like a lumbering elephant. You can steer it, but only if you know how. Otherwise it just keeps on lumbering"
Airbus was a bureaucrats wet dream, and by modern Biz Bro standards should never have got off the ground.
Now it rules the skies. Boeing, having drunk the financial Kool Aid is wilting
Tortoise and the hare?
Here, put it into your favorite LLM: "Is there a suspected or established relationship between Boeing's self-certification and the 737 MAX crashes?"
That will almost certainly link to the thousands of pages of Congressional, OIG, FAA testimony, investigation, and reporting.
Does GP think Boeing's self-certification authority was revoked after the accidents just for funsies? By random chance?
The self-certification here wasn’t part of the chain of events that led to the crashes; it appears to have been related to other issues the FAA uncovered as a side effect of their investigation.
One component of that chain of failures is the self-certification process. If the FAA had the resource and mandate to actually understand each aircraft design change, then it's very likely (not guaranteed, but very likely) that the MCAS design having a single point of failure on the AoA sensor would have been flagged as problematic by FAA.
DOT OIG disagrees that this played no role. Here's from Page 2 of their report, i.e. the entire "Findings" summary:
While FAA and Boeing followed the established certification process for the 737 MAX 8, we identified limitations in FAA’s guidance and processes that impacted certification and led to a significant misunderstanding of the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), the flight control software identified as contributing to the two accidents. First, FAA’s certification guidance does not adequately address integrating new technologies into existing aircraft models. Second, FAA did not have a complete understanding of Boeing’s safety assessments performed on MCAS until after the first accident. Communication gaps further hindered the effectiveness of the certification process. In addition, management and oversight weaknesses limit FAA’s ability to assess and mitigate risks with the Boeing ODA. For example, FAA has not yet implemented a risk-based approach to ODA oversight, and engineers in FAA’s Boeing oversight office continue to face challenges in balancing certification and oversight responsibilities. Moreover, the Boeing ODA process and structure do not ensure ODA personnel are adequately independent. While the Agency has taken steps to develop a risk-based oversight model and address concerns of undue pressure at the Boeing ODA, it is not clear that FAA’s current oversight structure and processes can effectively identify future high-risk safety concerns at the ODA.
https://www.oig.dot.gov/sites/default/files/FAA%20Certificat...
Maybe DOT OIG is confused? Big if true!