[chriscatoya]

Aside from the gallon of blood and pound of flesh we'll see called for in the public/political arena, I really doubt there's any viable fix that won't require pilot training.

As I understand, the 737-MAX blunder is at the core a result of bad incentive alignment baked into their deal with Southwest: Boeing was trying to avoid any FAA "differences" simulator training requirements to make more money in a fleet sales order to Southwest Airlines. If the FAA required level-D simulator training, Boeing agreed to rebate Southwest $1 million for each MAX bought. The training would have cost Southwest $2000 per head. That's $18M for their 9,000 pilots.

source: https://newrepublic.com/article/154944/boeing-737-max-invest...

[cptskippy]

> I really doubt there's any viable fix that won't require pilot training.

This issue has nothing to do with type ratings and pilot training.

Boeing had delegated authority from the FAA to certify portions of the 737-Max for airworthiness and certified the wiring harnesses based upon the fact that they're identical to the 737-NG's harnesses which were certified in the 90s.

Unfortunately the 737-NG was introduced in 1997, and new regulations introduced in 1998 made that design invalid for new aircraft. The 737-NG is allowed to fly because it's grandfathered in under the old design standard.

Boeing is trying to argue that the 737-Max should be grandfathered in as well since it's similar enough to the 737-NG and the NG has a proven safety record.

[tyingq]

List price for a single MAX8 is $120M. I'd be surprised if $18M total of upside was the primary driver across an initial qty 40 aircraft order. They could have just offered that as an additional discount.

[NikkiA]

The 737-MAX800 is something like $10M more than a A321-NEO, when the A321-NEO meant retraining your pilots and the 737 didn't, that $10M difference closed a lot, now both are going to require retraining.

[rsynnott]

This is nothing to do with the MAX's inappropriate affection for the ground; it's a separate safety issue.

[vinceguidry]

It's not, separate, one drives the other. Their efforts to make the plane "identical" to the 737 in terms of training is what caused them to add these dangerous "features."

It's really quite amazing.

[phire]

This is nothing to do with training. We are just talking about the location of two wires deep within the body of the aircraft.

The 737 has always had wires in this location. The original 737, the 737-Classic, the 737-NG and now the 737-MAX.

But the rules changed after the 737-NG was certified due to two major crashes. All new aircraft designed need to meet these new rules, but old aircraft designs get grandfathered in.