Boeing 737 MAX 8

Lol.

Build an unsafe car and you can kill one person and they can take a handful with them depending on what they run into. Build an unsafe plane and the numbers go way up real fast. But of course building uniformly safe planes requires a lot of “burdensome” procedures and regulations.

Guess what kind of plane he was flying in. Go on, guess.

Man Trapped In Airplane Bathroom Nearly Entire Flight Receives Napkin-Scrawled Apology From Cabin Crew

That detail wasn't in the Indian news article I read, otherwise I would have posted it

But SpiceJet gets points for quickly apologizing and refunding the ticket.

This has the possibility of being real interesting.

Boeing's Latest Problem: A Cargo Plane's Exploding Engine

See, ever since it came out that American Airlines wasn't following proper maintenance procedures in the 1980s, commercial airlines have only been able to lease engines from folks like Pratt & Witney. Those engines are serviced by approved subcontractors. And the engine manufacturers have a final say if a plane can fly or not. You remember some years back when that Icelandic volcano erupted and lots of flights were grounded? It wasn't the airlines who grounded the planes, it was the engine manufacturers. They didn't care if the plane wasn't going to Iceland, they weren't going to take the chance. Which means that the number of folks who could be responsible for this shit happening is larger than just Boeing, the air carrier, or the engine maker.

It wasn't a Boeing plane, but I gotta admit, when I think of Alaska Airlines, I think about this.

Boeing 737-900ER: Second model to be inspected after 737 Max 9 blowout

I watched an interesting CNBC report on "How Boeing Lost it's Way" (it turned up on Youtube) from just after the MCAS crashes. I get the impression that more than 5 years later the same systemic failures are still going strong. The main driver: a conviction that the best ways to improve profitability are fucking over workers and cutting corners in the manufacturing process. There's also the more insidious and slower poison of cutting R&D.

Nose wheel falls off Boeing 757 airliner waiting for takeoff

At least it was during the taxi and not during the takeoff roll

It's something Boeing sure as hell didn't need right now, but it strikes me as something that could be traced to back to a failure in maintenance rather than any kind of design failure. I guess it goes under the category of "shit happens", although in this case for Boeing it's more like diarrhea.

https://www.npr.org/2024/01/24/1226762641/faa-boeing-737-max-9-grounded-inspections-resume

I see the Righties have uncovered the true issue with the airplanes - it's all those damn coloureds!!

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/en...e-accidents-boeing_n_65b2aafce4b04d8995105144

Jesus wept.

Look, I think DEI programs are nothing but a bunch of bullshit so white people at corporations and government agencies can feel good about themselves, but linking them to airline safety is just fucking stupid.

https://boingboing.net/2024/01/27/boeing-lobbied-to-weaken-safety-regulations.html

Has this been posted yet in this thread?

I see that as a maintenance issue, not as a fundamental problem with Boeing's design and/or safety standards. If my recollection is right, the 757 was designed and built well before the McDonnell Douglas mentality took over. I could be wrong about that of course.

Funny, everything I've read so far points to design flaws in a number of the Boeing 737 MAX planes.

Exactly my point. The 757 and origin 737 were designed and built under Boeing’s old “engineering first” culture while the 737 max and 787 were designed and built after the McDonnell-Douglas “profit first” culture. The first two were reliable workhorses. The last two were…not…

I’d say the 787 was what the merger was supposed to be, with some teething issues. The 737 MAX is what it was destined to become.

The 787 Dreamliner had cutting edge ground up design (Airbus has yet to release anything as advanced two decades later, they have just been tweaking older designs) using cutting edge materials with cutting edge manufacturing techniques (Boeing side) but with lots of subcontracting and a just in time supply chain reaching around the world (MD side).

Now brand new design featuring brand new materials using brand new manufacturing techniques with a brand new manufacturing model did produce some initial kinks to say the least but in the end they were (quite expensively) worked out and the 787 is a DAMN fine aircraft.

When it came time for a new gen 737 the original plan was to tweak the above process. Basically do ground up design side again (except now the cutting edge tech, materials and manufacturing processes are known quantities) and keep the just in time supply and subtracting out major systems/components but instead of world wide the suppliers would be required to do major assembly here. Not every little part has to be made here but no more flying wings or tails or fuselages around the world to put together here. You’ll do that at Paine Field or nearby where Boeing can keep a strict eye on you.

That was the plan. But then someone on the board figured that while that was totally a legit option to move forward, had they considered JUST NOT going with a new plane instead stretching out the old plane, put new engines on it and use software to counteract the fact that it is in permanent stall AND then do $24 billion in stock buybacks instead.

Guess which one they went with?

Part of the problem is the new management's decision to emphasize fucking over unionized workers and shipping out work to lower paying areas by outsourcing so much of the work. Since Boeing and Airbus are a duopoly when it comes to commercial airliners, Boeing is probably too big to fail. While the 787 problems do indeed seem to be resolved (watching one of those things take off is a beautiful sight) the MAX program is the kind of thing that could do in a company that's in a truly competitive situation. The problems with the 737 is not good for the marketing prospects of the 777 MAX. The travelling public may not be all that eager to fly on anything with the word MAX attached to it. That also makes me wonder just how viable the grandiose plan to revive the 747 as a twin engine jumbo will be.

As I said earlier in the thread, I purposely avoid flying Boeing 737 MAX planes wherever possible.

I'm flying to the UK next week and there was a really good flight (based on the schedule and five-hour time difference) except the plane was 737 MAX 8. So now I'm taking the shittier red eye.

Thanks, Boeing!

https://apnews.com/article/boeing-7...on-door-plug-7bb30166181034fc07750ded8f072d7f

'I Would Tell My Family To Avoid The Max. I Would Tell Everyone, Really...' Experts And Ex-Boeing Employees Issue Warning On Max

Boeing faces new shareholder lawsuit for putting profits over safety

Shareholder pressure for higher profits helped Boeing decide to out profits over safety in the first place.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/04/business/boeing-737-max-holes-hnk-intl/index.html

Boeing in ‘last chance saloon’, warns Emirates boss

Southwest Airlines Reveals Thinner Seats To Cram More People Onboard
Southwest's new Recaro seats will debut on the carrier's new Boeing 737 Max 8 planes in 2025