Boeing 737 Max planes are grounded after a hole blew in one mid-flight::The FAA ordered that 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 planes be inspected before they can return to service following the explosive decompression of an Alaska Airlines flight.
Their fixes don’t seem to have altered the fundamental problems with the Boeing 737 Max:
- the new engines are too big for the frame, so they’ve had to move them up and forward, which makes the plane pitch up at high thrust (which is what the now infamous MCAS attempted to mask with software)
- Boeing self-certified it as safe, claiming that it was a small, incremental change and so didn’t need testing or additional pilot training
- Boeing rushed out an unsafe design because they were scared of losing money to Airbus’s A320neo
I have to fly several times a year and try to choose Airbus over Boeing whenever possible, and I flat out refuse to fly on the 737 Max. This news certainly doesn’t make me feel like I was overreacting.
I find it difficult to know if my flight will avoid 737 Max, so I’ve been avoiding airlines that have them in their fleet. Unfortunately, British Airways recently rebooked me onto an Alaska Airlines, and sure enough, it was a Max 8. Sometimes you just can’t win.
Well, lucky for you, Alaska grounded their 737 MAX fleet a few days ago, so you won’t be flying on them if your trip is anytime soon.
Edit: I didn’t realize they were getting them back into service so quickly… oops 😬
Edit 2: bon chance mon ami
Can someone explain to me why they just give up on this frankenjet and build off the safer (at the moment) 777?
Talk out my ass here, but I thought it was due to the economics. Companies only want to buy the 737s because it’s a fairly known factor. Pilots don’t need to be retrained and, at this point, can be produced cheaper and/or faster.
The incident seems much more serious than an isolated case of a doorplug falling off, I wonder if they are hiding something, another design flaw maybe?
My assumption is that the 737 Max is simply a fundamentally unsafe and unsound design.
I’m sure within 15 years they’ll complete the final retrofit to make it safe and sound, and in the end, it will end up costing 300% of what a new design would have.
But, it’ll actually work out for Boeing executives and shareholders, so it will be taught to future MBA student as a success story about the heroic and stoic leadership that generated record profits for the low cost of a few hundred lives.
I don’t even think it was a door. I watched a video of it on TikTok and it looked like a regular row of seats. I think it was just a piece of the hull.
Have they stated what fell off yet? I can’t imagine how scary that was.
I heard it was one of those emergency exit panels (not a full door, nor just a passenger window) but that could be inaccurate. Either way, not a good look for Boeing.
Door plug means that it’s a spot in the frame where a future door can be installed by removing the “plug”. In the meantime, it just looks like a piece of the fuselage. The plug is what got ripped out midair.
What fell off was a plug filling in an optional emergency exit location. It was a regular row of seats because the plane didn’t have the optional emergency exit installed (it is only required for high density passenger cabin configurations).
They really screwed the pooch with the 737 max9… it’s like the gift that keeps on giving.
I think internal documents and communication should be seized and a federal criminal investigation is in order… someone must have actively fucked with this.
Embrear and Airbus are uncorking the champagne now probably.
someone must have actively fucked with this.
Hanlon’s Razor says otherwise. I’m going to guess this was because of cut corners. Not someone trying to sabotage an entire line of aircraft.
I think he means an executive was actively cutting corners.
This is indeed what I meant. I don’t think that someone was actively trying to make the plane unsafe, but in the eternal quest for more profit engineers, best practices and safety reports where ignored to make the plane as cheap as possible, resulting in the current
flyinggrounded deathtrap.Okay yeah. In that case I agree. I think that still falls more on the side of stupidity than malice, but the line between the two gets blurry when greed is involved
Hot take: if cutting corners to an entire line of aircraft and sabotaging an entire line of aircraft produce the same results then they deserve the same punishment.
The world would be a lot better place if we let the penny pinchers be at fault for the dangerous situations they keep causing.
Man, imagine how much better the world would be if accountants would face consequences when their decision was to blame?
I’m not sure the queue for the 319, 320 and 321 can get any longer. Airbus simply can’t ramp production and it’s not like the C919 is ready for prime time (yet).
Airbus is ramping up. They have had issues with the supply chain, but they should massively increase their production this year. They are opening assembly lines everywhere.
Maybe they can rent some production space in seattle :P
It would be Alabama actually, since you know, labor protections are weak there…
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ordered the “temporary grounding” of 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 airplanes this morning after a section of fuselage separated from the side of an Alaska Airlines flight on Friday, leaving a gaping hole in the plane.
The agency said in its announcement that it will send an Emergency Airworthiness Directive out soon to require an inspection of all of the grounded planes that “will take around four to eight hours per aircraft.”
Prior to the FAA’s decision, Alaska Airlines grounded its own fleet of 65 Boeing 737 Max 9 planes for inspection.
In a 2020 Senate report, the FAA was accused of helping Boeing manipulate recertification tests to get the planes back in service.
Yesterday, The Seattle Times reported that Boeing had petitioned the FAA for a safety exemption for the 737 Max 7, a smaller plane the agency hasn’t certified yet.
Update January 6th, 2024, 3:10PM ET: Added detail from a Seattle Times article about Boeing’s recent petition for a safety exemption.
The original article contains 398 words, the summary contains 169 words. Saved 58%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
