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Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s

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Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s

#31

That was a surprisingly interesting read. I have to admit I was skeptical just because it was hosted on imgur, but both the images/text paint an interesting picture worthy of discussion.

If you want to read more, this is from a series on the subreddit /r/catastrophicfailure, written by Admiral_Cloudberg: https://www.reddit.com/user/Admiral_Cloudberg

I was going to ask if this was his, I always look forward to the new one each week.

Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s

#32
Here we go. Someone uploads an image from Jan and all the sudden whatever it says must be interpreted as fact in some way and true. [1]

We don't know who the poster of this is or even if this is correct:

> Images sourced from The Seattle Times, the NTSB, Boeing, Tails Through Time, the Colorado Springs Gazette, The Times of India, Wikipedia, TribLIVE, The Flight 427 Air Disaster Support League, and Forbes. Video clips courtesy of Cineflix and the Weather Channel. Special thanks to the Seattle Times for its series of articles on the subject in 1996, which brought to light many of the details referenced here.

[1] This reminds me of emails back from the mid 90's on the internet. Those were always a version of (at least) my brother is a Harvard trained doctor and he sent me this!

Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s

#33

Can't you just stop buying airplanes from them? Edit: Do the downvoters also want to throw the executives in jail for life?

As consumers, we do at least have the choice on some routes of whether to buy a ticket on a Boeing or not. While you can't guarantee 100% that the airline will use the equipment claimed at the time of purchasing the ticket, I've found at least for short haul within Europe and on one recent long haul holiday, I was able to make a reasonable choice between Airbus and Boeing machines without having to make significant tradeoffs around price, flight time, choice of airport etc. For instance, wherever Ryanair and Eurowings serve the same route, I have my pick of Boeing or Airbus respectively. For the record, when I have a choice, I tend to fly Airbus anyway.

Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s

#34

Did Boeing executives go to jail for this disgusting cover up? I hope that the diesel cover-up of Volkswagen and the people that went to jail will motivate governments to pursue criminal charges against Boeing and/or Airbus if similar things happen. Fighting blame by lying and deflection at the risk of death should be a criminal offense. It's mass murder.

Why are you assuming what you have just seen is even true? An image, no attribution and you honestly don't even know who cooked it up or why.

Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s

#35
post #12

Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

Maybe _Unsafe at any Speed_ ?

Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. Not to play psychic, but I'm assuming the original poster chose to share this as a friendly reminder that as a general rule, Boeing does not have a track record of placing human lives above their continued corporate profitability. "If Boeing knew about a problem with the MCAS, they'd have told the FAA and corrected it" is not a hypothesis in-line with their past behavior, should anyone be holding that hypoth…

I don't understand this. Each of these scandals is a mortal danger to Boeing. One of them might someday finally put it out of business. Whereas if they reacted to each case by being committed to finding the problem whatever it is, they could greatly reduce their liability by reducing the ultimate number of fatalities due to any one problem.

People don't buy planes though, other corporations that are doing the same thing buy them. Southwest has probably pushed as much on making these things not as clear or as helpful as they could be to avoid having to retrain for a new type. And when this is said and done, they are going to buy more airplanes and people are going to continue to buy flights from them because they are cheap.

Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s

#39

Did Boeing executives go to jail for this disgusting cover up? I hope that the diesel cover-up of Volkswagen and the people that went to jail will motivate governments to pursue criminal charges against Boeing and/or Airbus if similar things happen. Fighting blame by lying and deflection at the risk of death should be a criminal offense. It's mass murder.

Yes, putting it into perspective like this makes the diesel case quite ridiculous. But I guess since Boeing is an American company it gets quite some bonus points before anything will happen. Not to say other countries wouldn't behave similarly...

Re: Rudder issue that plagued the Boeing 737 throughout the 1990s

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. Not to play psychic, but I'm assuming the original poster chose to share this as a friendly reminder that as a general rule, Boeing does not have a track record of placing human lives above their continued corporate profitability. "If Boeing knew about a problem with the MCAS, they'd have told the FAA and corrected it" is not a hypothesis in-line with their past behavior, should anyone be holding that hypoth…

I don't understand this. Each of these scandals is a mortal danger to Boeing. One of them might someday finally put it out of business. Whereas if they reacted to each case by being committed to finding the problem whatever it is, they could greatly reduce their liability by reducing the ultimate number of fatalities due to any one problem.

Boeing is a US military supplier and a strategic US asset in the airspace industry, the US government will ensure that they do not go under no matter how much damage they do (see car industry). Furthermore even if that wasn't the case the people who cause these issues have almost zero chance of facing personal liability. As a result, it's in the personal interest of the people running Boeing to cut corners and extract maximum short term reward (ie: personal promotions, stock grants valuations, etc.).
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