Talk:Boeing 737 MAX groundings/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

lead to long ~

@Marc Lacoste:, Hi nice to meet you! Which one do you thing we should move further down the article? ~mitch~ (talk) 18:10, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

I think the shortening edits to the lede made today by me and another editor were reasonable and efficient. If you have specific suggestions or objections to the edits, this is the place for them. Otherwise, your reverts seem to place a virtual roadblock to bold but reasonable edits. DonFB (talk) 01:40, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

@DonFB: So where do you improve the Whole article by removing pertinant information that the readers would like to still be informed ~ did you add anything further down the article? ~ Also reverting is not talking ~mitch~ (talk) 01:49, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

I removed: a) 'FAA deflects blame' -- that info was not in the body of the article; b) Expectation of revised software is in the Timeline section and need not be in the Lede; c) No need to mention Covid; it's not in the article; d) removed unnecessary lede detail about names and route of airlines resuming service--the info is in the Timeline. In short, only thing removed from article is 'FAA deflects blame', which was not present before shortening; in the Timeline section, there is text about a Congressman who suggested U.S. pilots would not have crashed. DonFB (talk) 02:13, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

First week of grounding, the main point is that FAA defended the aircraft while others took precautionary measures, breaking convention. Dates, Ethiopian Airlines, and China are in the Infobox. Agreed?Shencypeter (talk) 07:45, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

All I did ([[1]]) was to make the content fit four paragraphs. Post-grounding, we're focusing delivery and resale of some 400 aircraft, not how they were stopped or slowed i.e. out of date information. Shencypeter (talk) 04:16, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

---

Hi Mitchellhobbs, the rule of thumb is four well-composed paragraphs. There were five when I added template:lead too long, and even now there are only four but not very "well-composed". I would follow the WP:LEAD advice: summarize the body of the article with appropriate weight. To achieve this, I propose to summarize the body sections : 1. Timeline, 2. Groundings, 3. Accident investigations, 4. Type certification and return to service, 5. Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, 6. Reactions, 7. Financial and economic effects; in one sentence each, maybe two if it can't fit.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 08:10, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Marc: I will stipulate that the lede is full-figured, so to speak, but not overweight. I think the paragraphs are, in fact, "well-composed", so I don't agree with your perception that they're not. The multiple sentences about investigations are an area where further tightening might be done. One of the problems with moving text out of the lede and into the body is the hellish strait-jacketing effect of multiple sections that consist of transclusions, rather than easily-editable text. That structure forces an editor to make changes to both this article and one of the transcluded articles, which I did, by moving a sentence out of the lead and into the Maneuvering Char Aug Syst article, because its intro forms a section in this article. I believe the lede as it now stands is an acceptable length and would benefit from some benign quietude without yet another tag about its size. Shencypeter: I think the Infobox is itself too overstuffed already. I'm not a fan of removing essential narrative text from the lede and putting it into the infobox, which forces readers to visually jump around the page to get the basic story. DonFB (talk) 11:18, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Clearly DonFB is not here to build consensus. He will insist on having the page edited his way and he has a long history of accusing other Wikipedians edits as unconstructive [2]Shencypeter (talk) 07:25, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

This Special:Diff/993134729 tells editors all they need to know about your contempt for them and for collaboration on Wikipedia. DonFB (talk) 07:52, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

You're the one to speak of contempt when your edit summaries regularly proclaim superiority to all of our edits. Shencypeter (talk) 11:27, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Special:Diff/993134729. DonFB (talk)

@DonFB and Shencypeter: Firstly, please could both of you take a little time out to read WP:CIVIL. Secondly, you both have some interesting points in your recent edits to the lead. Try to be constructive, stop taking things personally, and a better article will prevail. Rosbif73 (talk) 15:31, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Removal from backlog

The last sentence of the lede refers to the "cancellation or removal of some 1000 aircraft from its order backlog". What is meant by removal from the backlog? 80.6.81.198 (talk) 15:05, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Before grounding Boeing had 4800 aircraft pending delivery, many airlines cancelled because Boeing Delayed by more than 12 months. So Boeing's accounting statement projected that several hundred orders won't be fulfilled because banks won't lend to those airlines. Shencypeter (talk) 15:43, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. So what you're saying is that they are aircraft which are still on order, but which Boeing expects will be cancelled? Can we make that clearer in the article, 'cos at the moment it reads like a bit of banking jargon. 80.6.81.198 (talk) 20:41, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Boeing recently introduced "additional criteria for recognizing contracted backlog with customers beyond the existence of a firm contract" or the ASC 606 Adjustment This means the removal of "weak" or "uncertain" orders from the order backlog.87.200.125.145 (talk) 04:10, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Missing anchors

Hi, I'm new to editing so I apologize in advance for any bunglings I commit. I notice that there are two links in the Accident Investigations => United States section of the article that appear to link to on-page anchors that no longer exist. The text "fifteen more crashes" links to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_groundings#MCAS_and_MAX_safety_risk_analysis and, in that same paragraph, the text "unsatisfactory" links to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_groundings#House_hearing_with_FAA. I assume these were previous sections that have been removed, yes? If so, it seems like we should just unlink the two. A username can have spaces? (talk) 04:25, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

• Agree with A username can have spaces?, the links are certainly broken. I tried to remake them but could find no target on this or related pages. Link removal requires a dated 'citation needed' - added. If not cited within a reasonable time suggest deletion of paragraph. But I remember the statements as being documented once. Ex nihil ^(talk) 10:36, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

November 2018

Why not develop November 2018 details within Boeing 737 MAX certification? The most relevant events of this article is limited to March 2019 grounding and November 2020 recertification. And that Boeing tried to disassociate the two crashes while everyone else was quite concerned. Shencypeter (talk) 11:32, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

There is an informative timeline of MCAS in the House final report, page 100.Pierre5018 (talk) 14:24, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Duplicate material

Shencypeter, we should use information from the Investigation section of the main Lion Air crash article to make a decent Lion section in the Groundings article. Right now, in the Lion section of the Groundings article, the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs are mostly about the U.S. and should be removed. The content of those paragraphs already exists, properly, in the United States and MCAS sections of the Groundings article. The Lion Air main article Investigations section has a wealth of info that can be condensed and (re-) used to make a better, but brief, Lion Air section of the main Groundings article. Also, currently, in the United States section of the Groundings article, after the first paragraph, there is text about the Indonesia investigation and a quotation from NTSC about the "nine factors", and then the next para starts with a sentence about sharing the Indonesia report. So, all that Indonesia material should be removed from the United States section. In its place, we can use material from the main Boeing 737 MAX Certification article, which contains a vast amount of info about the U.S. investigations that can be used as a source to build about two paragraphs to nicely fill out the United States section of the main Groundings article (after removal of the improperly located Indonesia/Lion Air material). DonFB (talk) 12:01, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

manual of style recommended reducing sections. I was attempt to build a consecutive flow between two related accidents and aftermath instead of flying around headings. Shencypeter (talk) 12:39, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Much of the material you have also insisted on having in the lead section. As I've tried to point out before, the aircraft was grounded long after MCAS was defined. But the November 2018 paragraph over several sentences tried to dodge the MCAS terminology just as it happened in the FAA documents. That's making it longer than necessary. Shencypeter (talk) 12:52, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

The problems that I see exist in some of the sections now, because some text is in the wrong place, or duplicated, and some basic information about the investigations (especially U.S.) is missing. I think that's where editing improvements are needed. The idea is to make the sections keep to the topics of their headings, without duplicated or irrelevant text. We can use material from the sub articles, as I described above, to help achieve that. This may well require eliminating more transclusions, which I favor, because they severely hinder effective editing. This can be collaborative work.

The lead section is full, I'll agree. Little or nothing new is happening related to the actual groundings, so the lead should be stable and not need updating, unless there's a significant new development directly related to the grounding. You say the plane was grounded after MCAS was defined. Not clear if you think that's a problem with the article, or why, or what you mean by MCAS "was defined". I don't know what you mean by "the November 2018 paragraph" and that "sentences tried to dodge the MCAS terminology". (Unless you mean not using jargony, engineering-speak in the lead, which I've pointed out serves general readers poorly and goes against multiple guidelines about how the lead should be written in plain, non-jargony English.) DonFB (talk) 14:07, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

I've moved NTSC to the appropriate place since this Talk started. Let's work from there. Shencypeter (talk) 14:55, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Let's post this diff here for discussion [3]. It's backed by citation, revealed/reported during the groundings, that pilots first learned and angrily confronted Boeing, and it calls MCAS a stabilizing system. And it failed. The FAA predicted it will fail 15 more times. It's more direct, not too technical, than the convolution "Pilots weren't aware until then because Boeing did not provide any information in the flight manuals."

Your recent rewrite successfully shortened the lead, but at the cost of clarity and informativeness. First, you misreported the terminology CNN used, which was "stabilizing system", not "stabilizer system". In that same report, CNN also used the phrases "computerized anti-stall system" and "flight-control system", so "stabilizing system" was not the only available descriptive choice. More problematic is the loss of continuity in the revision. The second sentence says Boeing/FAA advised pilots to follow procedure "in certain situations", an excessively fuzzy way of saying that pilots should take action in response to an emergency. The third sentence reads like a non-sequitur by saying pilots "learned of the omission". The omission was mentioned back in the first sentence, not the immediately preceding one, so the meaning of omission is far from clear, and the sentence also fails to make any connection between MCAS and the accidents. Next, pilots did confront Boeing in the Texas meeting, but that was after they learned about MCAS. The actual important point for the lead to make clear is that pilots did not know about MCAS before the first crash, not that they got angry when they heard about it. Next, mentioning that pilots filed complaints about airplane behavior is a backward step to breathless headlines of more than two years ago, about events which never became especially significant in the ensuing investigations. I have not seen any source which says those pilot reports were definitively connected to MCAS malfunction. The pilot reports factoid does not deserve any space in the lead. On a matter of style, the phrase "several have filed complaints" gives the impression that the issue is still on-going, not definitively in the past, as it is. One way to keep the lead from needlessly growing is to avoid adding secondary information, such as problems with the 777x and the 737 electrical problems, both of which are not related to the basic narrative of the MAX groundings. I have removed those pieces of text in the interest of maintaining brevity. In the absence of significant new events relating directly to the groundings, the lead should be stable, not needlessly and inaccurately rewritten in a misbegotten effort to make it shorter. DonFB (talk) 08:43, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

I appreciate you for tediously keeping what's been added while fitting into the page the way it was, but not you policing the article with your opinion, which you are entitled to have. The emphasis should be how FAA saw the risks and still defended the plane (information revealed by the investigation). Recent additions emphasize that 50 regulators did not believe FAA's defense of the aircraft, and the audio clip of the November 27 discussion (revealed May 2020) shows pilots reactions learning that MCAS existed for the first time. In fact, there should be information where Boeing and US senators tried to paint a picture of pilot error, for not flipping two switches. Or the fact that this is a blatant CYA stunt by Boeing and FAA, compared to typical groundings where the Boeing 787 Dreamliner battery problems were unforeseen design flaws, or Qantas Flight 72 where two AoA sensors registered and confused the computer. The additional 777X certification scrutiny is a consequence of these accidents. You have no right to moderate content or require discussion for any edits, pretending that any consensus exists for an ongoing dispute. Shencypeter (talk) 11:22, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

It's been known since virtually day one that FAA defended the plane while other regulators were grounding it. That's mentioned prominently in the first paragraph. Yes, pilots were angry when they heard about the hidden MCAS--that belongs in the article too, but it's not critical to the lead. For the record, that meeting in Texas is not when pilots first learned about MCAS; if that's what you think, you're mistaken. The multi-operator message from Boeing revealing MCAS went out on November 10; the Texas meeting was November 27--so pilots already knew about it, and gave Boeing a piece of their mind in that meeting. Are you fully aware of that timeline? Also, the article should include that Boeing and some politicians wanted to blame pilot error. And the 777x follow-up can also go in the article. But all that stuff cannot go in the lead. The lead now covers the basics about what happened: crashes, FAA resistance, groundings, FAA/Boeing bulletin/EAD, MCAS/its effect revealed, pilots previously unaware, Boeing admits culpability, investigations, NTSC/ECAA findings, requirements for ungrounding, ungrounding, and costs. I don't see any of that as expendable from the lead. I believe the lead in its current state gives readers a good overview of the story and needs no rewrite. You are the only one chronically re-writing the lead, and I will respond each time as I think appropriate, so the lead can remain clear, informative, and free of errors in content and grammar. In the past, you have virtually never discussed proposed changes to the lead in advance, and you're not required to. But you might try it and see if you can make a case for removing something or adding something or changing something. Better that discussion takes place here than that the public-facing lead gets torn apart and patched back together every other week, or more often. DonFB (talk) 12:37, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

There is undue weight on the reveal of MCAS, which is served by its own and certification articles. The broken trust in the FAA is affecting other airliners. My good faith editing is now regarded by you as tearing apart a perfect copy. We need an outside opinion on your conduct here. Shencypeter (talk) 13:52, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Could you take up some of your proposed cleanup of MCAS? It seems you are only interested in editing the lead section because that's all Google lifts up in its search summaries. Shencypeter (talk) 13:55, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

You're hardly in a position to criticize others' conduct after your own harrowing experience at ANI. I recommend you drop those types of repeated off-base comments and make an effort to focus just on the article. Now...two sentences in the lead make reference to the reveal of MCAS. They might be consolidated into a single sentence by saying: "Pilots wanted more information, and Boeing revealed the MAX had a new automated flight control, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), which could repeatedly force down the nose of the airplane and had not previously been disclosed to pilots by Boeing." (Eliminating the sentence: "In 2016, the FAA had approved Boeing's request to remove information about MCAS from crew manuals and training, so pilots were unaware of the system.") You said: "broken trust in the FAA is affecting other airliners". Other regulators (not airliners) have said they'll be more independent in certifying U.S. planes. That information would be appropriate for the Reactions section. (Other airliners' broken trust in Boeing is shown in the lead's text about canceled orders.) I am very interested in the lead section; that is and will remain my priority. Learn to focus on the article, not editor personalities. DonFB (talk) 15:15, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Smug as always Shencypeter (talk) 15:44, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Y'oughta try some constructive collaboration. I took time to think about your comment and made a real suggestion to address one of your concerns, and your response is...to continue sulking. Nice one. "Comment on content, not on the contributor." DonFB (talk) 15:59, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Inappropriate graphic with nonsensical caption

Under Accident Investigations, graphic is a plot of vertical speed of each airplane, therefore shows rates of climb and descent; doesn't actually show altitude loss as specified by caption "Vertical airspeeds of both flights, showing altitude loss in 20 second intervals." (Actually, area under the curve looks like more gain than loss… strange eh?) User could mentally integrate the fluctuating and reversing V/S over the time period to compute the relative altitude at any given time, or visualize vertical g-forces (which are not very remarkable) by mentally computing the derivative of the V/S, but placing such mental burden on the reader is poor practice from a human factors perspective. Intent seems to have been to show absolute altitude gain and loss over time—presumably to show risk of terrain impact—so replace graphs with plots of altitude vs. time. And caption to match. Pete.pereira (talk) 13:56, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Quick facts: Cause is false

States "Airworthiness [sic] revoked after recurring flight control failure." Source? Presumably Type Certificate was meant rather than Certificate of Airworthiness? The former is certification that the design complies with the design and performance requirements in the FARs, the latter is certification given to each article built and maintained to the design specs and FARs. AFAIK, neither was ever revoked. The FAA issued a "Notice of Prohibition" to ground the airplane because data "indicates some similarities between the […] accidents that warrant investigation of the possibility of a shared cause for the two incidents [sic] that needs to be better understood and addressed." Apparently they never found anything wrong that was worth revocation of the Type Cert. Maybe Cause: Unknown, as none of the other aviation safety agencies around the world gave a valid reason for grounding the airplane either, even though a reason is required by ICAO convention. Pete.pereira (talk) 14:51, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

The 737 MAX is covered ('Grand-Fathered') by the original 737-100 type certification dating back to 1967. Revoking this certificate would therefore have grounded all 737s of any model number. The Certificate of Airworthiness for each individual MAX aircraft as issued by the FAA was in fact deemed temporarily invalid in countries that grounded the MAX and meant in effect that the airworthiness certificate for each 737 MAX was suspended in these countries until such time as the aircraft could be shown to meet internationally-agreed safety standards.

The other aviation authorities grounded the 737 MAX over doubts as to the safety of the aeroplane after two strikingly similar fatal accidents which is sufficient and 'valid' enough reason considering the response of both the FAA and Boeing to these two accidents, and the revelation of the hitherto unknown MCAS system (and the allegations made) which was implicated in the accidents, and the existence of which was with-held from the type's pilots and airline customers. Subsequent investigations into the MAX design and certification proved these groundings to have been both prudent and justified.

BTW, the groundings of the 737 MAX in the countries that grounded it caused these countries' citizens and airlines considerable inconvenience and expense. The decisions to ground the Type in these countries was therefore not taken lightly.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.8.126.91 (talk) 09:21, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Would "Boeing 737 MAX crashes" be the better title?

"737 MAX crashes" delivers 10x more google hits than "737 MAX groundings". Grounding was a (time limited) major discussed consequence of the crashes because during the groundings it was a daily discussed issue how long it would endure. But in retrospective after a couple of years it doesn't stick out anymore so much as the most important part of the whole incident.

The Space Shuttle was also grounded for almost three years after the Challenger incident but one would not describe it as the grounding issue being more important than the crash (or in this case the explosion) Betternews (talk) 08:39, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

No the article is about the groundings not the crashes. MilborneOne (talk) 17:23, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

In May 2019, you stated that a “crash article” and a “groundings article” in parallell would be overlapping too much so that you redirected the “crash” title to this “groundings” article. You wrote:

Just to note that a new article Boeing 737 MAX crashes has been created which duplicates this article. Although a merge request to this article was started I have been WP:BOLD and redirected it here. As far as I can see it provides no new information. MilborneOne

I also agree that both articles in parallell would be too overlapping. Because of your 2019 redirection all edits for a (potential) "crash" title have gone into this "grounding" article. Now, a couple of years later, there is the siutation that “737 MAX crashes” would make more sense, also according to Google search “737 MAX crashes” has 10x the hits of “737 MAX groundings” --Betternews (talk) 02:06, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Moving the article from "Boeing 737 MAX groundings" to "Boeing 737 MAX crashes”

After waiting for more than one month there seems to be no arguments against moving the article, the contents is anyway so much overlapping that the articles for both titles would be "duplicates”, at least according to MilborneOne and me.--Betternews (talk) 19:09, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

I support this decision. I think the word groundings is far too neutral for what occurred here. Looking at the structural factors within Boeing which led to these tragedies, we cannot whitewash the reality of what happened. In the future, of course, I'd propose moving towards a more investigative tone within the article which examines, and assigns the ultimate cause appropriately similar to the challenger report. It's too early to start pointing fingers, but perhaps in the future we can move towards that. Theheezy (talk) 19:29, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

I have started this procedure, however following the instructions on WP:MOVE, specifically WP:SWAP in the classic sequence requires administrator help or letting it go through automatically after 7 days. Stay tuned. Theheezy (talk) 19:41, 1 July 2023 (UTC)