Sarah Sanders says it's too "early in the process" for US to ground Boeing 737 MAX 8s

[brooklynite]

Source: CNN

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders on Fox News Tuesday said that it’s too “early in the process” for the United States to ground the fleet of Boeing 737 MAX 8s.

Sanders said the decision will ultimately be a process and that the administration will be in constant contact with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Transportation.

“We know a lot of people in the industry have started to voice concerns about the amount of technology and taking the power out of the hands of the pilots,” Sanders said. “You saw the President talk about that in his tweets earlier today,” she added.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/boeing-737-max-8-ethiopia-airlines-crash/index.html

[Sherman A1]

1. Two words for Sarah

Horse Hockey.

Boeing and the Airlines need to put those planes on the ground and do so yesterday.

[NCjack]

2. Show us, Sarah. Book your family on a round-the-world

trip on MAX-8s, making numerous airplane changes.

[SWBTATTReg]

3. F her, for enabling this piece of human garbage. She's one of the enablers that needs to be ...

looked at closely to see what laws she's broken.

[asiliveandbreathe]

4. "Too early in the Process" SHS - what do they consider the line between too early

and too late.....158, or maybe 160 or ….. dead???? Disgusting, and evil.....are they all zombies....

[BamaRefugee]

5. "TOO EARLY" means the dead people are from a shithole country, wait til some white folks are killed

[maxsolomon]

6. For once, she's right.

The FAA doesn't fuck around, and neither does Boeing. They will get to the bottom of the cause as quickly as possible (this weekend?) and act appropriately.

[DrToast]

10. I agree, but man I hope another plane doesn't go down while they're figuring it out.

[maxsolomon]

11. odds are one won't.

but those chances are not 0%. they won't be even after a cause is determined. chances are never 0%.

knowing several Boeing retirees and employees, i'd expect Boeing is scrambling to check and re-check every piece of that automated system.

[DrToast]

12. Even if another plane doesn't go down, if they discover...

...the planes were faulty, they’ll get criticized for not grounding them.

[maxsolomon]

16. they'll get criticized no matter what happens.

this is 2 crashes: October last year and this one.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

24. Bingo.

People tend to be terrified of flying the same flight immediately after one went down, which is beyond dumb. That so rarely happens that it's worth mentioning the only time I know of when something like that happened.

December 24, 1968, Allegheny Airlines flight 736 crashed trying to land at Bradford, PA. Weather was mainly at fault, with some pilot error involved.

Just two weeks later, January 6, 1969, Allegheny Airlines flight 736 crashed trying to land at Bradford, PA. The cause on that one was undetermined, although the possibilities were mainly pilot error compounded by poor visibility.

The airport had no ILS, and so the airline changed rules for visibility requirements when landing at airports without an ILS.

Winter in that part of Pennsylvania can have lousy weather, which was the real culprit here.

Without knowing exactly what is the cause of the two recent crashes, no matter what it turns out to be, notice that these kinds of planes are not crashing willy-nilly. And flying remains, for the very most part, incredibly safe.

[Blue_Tires]

30. Why are the reporters even asking her ass anyway?

They need to chat with the FAA/NTSB instead

[maxsolomon]

32. they enjoy beating their heads against a wall

its stunning that professional journalists can't phrase questions better.

[Docreed2003]

7. Oh we all saw his tweets Sarah

And how ridiculously moronic your boss looks in this disaster.

[TheCowsCameHome]

8. She references Trump's tweets from this morning?

She is a jerk.

[Joe Nation]

9. What number of deaths will not be "too early in the process Sarah?"

n/t

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

13. She's actually right.

Two accidents do not necessarily a trend make.

Unfortunately, people here are all too happy to shoot this particular messenger.

And has already been pointed out, do you really think the FAA and Boeing wouldn't happily ground the planes immediately if they thought there was a fundamental flaw in that aircraft?

We always know that Trump speaks from ignorance, but he so fundamentally does not understand anything, that we can completely disregard anything he says.

[Historic NY]

17. Lots of questions so far not many answers....

[link:https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/03/world/asia/lion-air-plane-crash-pilots.html|]

[DrToast]

25. I agree it's too soon to ground all 737 MAX 8 planes, but....

I wouldn't fly on one just yet.

[Paladin]

14. Yeah, as if I'll count on Sarah Sanders for air safety policy. (nt)

[EleanorR]

15. Is the FAA lead by a trump appointee?

We know Boeing's CEO is buddies with trump.

[maxsolomon]

18. conspiracies everywhere!

a former Boeing exec is now Defense Sec, too.

your theory is that the FAA is not suspending 737-800 Max flights today because of corruption (Boeing asks Trump for a favor and Trump calls in a chit from the FAA administrator who stops his regulatory team from acting), and not because they're evidence-based, cautious and thorough?

have you ever seen the FAA act corruptly before?

[EleanorR]

21. No theory at this point, just asking a question nt

[maxsolomon]

23. it's not even hard to find the answer:

https://www.faa.gov/about/key_officials/elwell/

[mahatmakanejeeves]

26. It's possible he knows a thing or two about flying:

From 2013-2015, as Senior Vice President for Safety, Security, and Operations at Airlines for America (A4A), Elwell was responsible for leading the advancement of commercial aviation safety and security excellence for major U.S. air carriers.

Prior to A4A, Elwell was Vice President of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) from 2008-2013. In this role, Elwell represented civil aerospace manufacturers and led policy development and advocacy for the civil aerospace manufacturing interests of more than 300 AIA member companies.

Elwell was a commercial pilot for 16 years with American Airlines, flying DC-10, MD-80, and B-757/767 aircraft. While maintaining his proficiency as an MD-80 Captain, he served as Managing Director for International and Government Affairs at American Airlines.

Dan earned his pilot wings at Williams Air Force Base in Arizona after graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy with a Bachelor of Science degree in International Affairs. Lieutenant Colonel Elwell retired from military service as a Command Pilot with more than 6,000 hours combined civilian and military flight time in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Air Force Reserve, including combat service during Operation Desert Storm.

[Sgent]

19. Not right now

its led by a interim administrator -- although Elaine Chow (Mitch McConnell's wife) is Sec Trans and would have final call.

[EleanorR]

22. Thanks for the info. nt

[James48]

20. two words- "Government shutdown"

The people all working the Lion Air disaster, both at FAA and NTSB, were all furloughed for six weeks.

That damaged the Lion Air investigation greatly. Six weeks lost in finding the problem, and working on the corrective actions, whatever they may be.

I know exactly whom I think is responsible for what happened after the government shut down occurred.

[gtar100]

27. She's just echoing American values...business before people.

Heck, even our "American values" have been purchased. Because, if I'm not mistaken, a majority of Americans want good oversight over companies doing business here. But that's not what's touted by republicans and their allies in the media. They bought the Business First values package. Your worth as a person is your productivity and usefulness to businesses. If you do anything to get in the way of making money, why that makes you an extremist.

Yet another reason to elect Dems. It's not going to change with republicans in charge. That's for damn sure.

[Don Quijote]

28. Deregulation has consequences

This is one of them.

[Vogon_Glory]

29. Grounding Crash-Prone Airliners: A Reminder For Right-Wing Lurkers And Trolls

Here's an unpleasant historical reminder concerning the Feds grounding airliners thought to be crash-prone: three Lockheed Electra crashes in the 1959-1960 era. Lockheed recalled and fixed them.

Of course that was not only back when Republican Dwight Eisenhower was in the White House, but back when many Republicans believed in responsible government.

Not like today, eh? I suspect that the death toll will have to go much higher in more crashes, but foreign governments will be forced to force the US government to do the right thing.

And that, denizens of Troll-hatten, is why I'm a Democrat and why I don't ever plan to rejoin Club Pachyderm: the Republican Party threw out practicing responsible government over two decades ago.

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

31. WHAT "process"? There is no process - theres just a decision to ground the planes until

the cause is determined and the fix can be done.

I mean - what more needs to happen? The fact that two planes went down for same reason is all the information you need.

[GatoGordo]

33. Why is there this rush to condemn Boeing? Anti-corporate fervor?

When a doctor makes a mistake during surgery, do they shut down the entire surgical suite until the entire mistake is investigated?

While an argument can be made that a piece of surgical equipment may be faulty, a whole suite full of perfectly functional surgical equipment can't be pulled out of service until the source of a rare fault is discovered. Who benefits from that scenario? Who is harmed?

I am a pilot. I used to fly Chinooks for the US Army. When I started (1986), there were a lot of analog gauges in my cockpit that were very handy and did the job. But something better came along. And now most of these cockpits are "full glass", and that is for the better. We progress. We move forward. We can't be stuck with wires and levers and pneumatic tubes because it was low tech... but reliable. I certainly don't want to go back to the TV tube days where we waited a minute for the picture tube to warm up.

[LanternWaste]

34. What leads you to allege Boeing alone is being condemned?

I see a lot of people asking questions. I see a lot of suspicion pointed at the administration.

What I don't see is anyone making the arguments you alone are alleging.

Calm down, fella. You seem hysterical, shrill, and melodramatic.