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FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

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Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least Airbus seems to be competent in building safe aircraft. Prior to new models released in the last ~10yrs-ish, Boeing made the safest planes in the sky (as measured by passenger miles). Many of those planes are still flying and still doing great. For me the interesting question is what changed in Boeing's design, testing and/or manufacturing processes which is apparently resulting in worse safety performance…

I've heard that when they merged with McDonnell Douglas their new (McDonnell) management pushed out the good engineering culture and dropped their quality standards in a chase for more profit, leading to engineering experiencing the dead sea effect.

in other words: capitalism, the system we've designed our whole society around

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#202

On the other hand we have the proof that an Airbus can hit another plane when landing and deliver everyone fine.

It's honestly astonishing how well the A350 held up for evacuation, which supposedly took 10 minutes. This is the first hull loss, and it actually improves the safety record.

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#204
post #151

How to avoid the 737 Max? Fly only airlines that don’t have it. Luckily there are still a few around in Europe. Since the two fatal crashes I have avoided doing flights with 737s.

In the US, Delta seems to fly a lot of Airbus but unfortunately this is fast changing too based on their recent-ish large Boeing orders.

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#207
post #124

How even does a "plug" door blow out like that? That's a seemingly very robust design where cabin pressure holds the door in place passively, in addition to the latches holding it in place.

It is not a plug door in this case. There was no door - this was a kind of blanker for a space where there could have been a door. A bit like when you buy a car model that doesn’t have all the options installed, there’s a space for the button or switch for the option in the dashboard or whatever but it’s filled in with a fixed bit of plastic - it saves them from having to produce multiple different versions of dashbo…

Are you sure of that? I've read that it is the same or very similar to an emergency exit, except that the interior is covered by an interior panel. It would be uncovered and equipped as an emergency exit in cases where very tight seating would bring the number of passengers above a threshold requiring more emergency exits. And down the rabbit hole I go wondering if this non-equipped exit is new for 737 MAX planes because they can have more rows of seats.

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#208
post #189
post #122

Boeing 737 Max is quite the case study in how to ruin a company via merger

Boeing made the 737 NG until 2019. It also allegedly had issues with the contractor Ducommun making the airframe, including "hammering alignment holes into place". But it wasn't nearly as problematic of a plane. The Max is a desperate attempt to compete with the A320 neo ("new engine option"). It is the aviation efficiency gain equivalent of a die shrink, except these engines get bigger, and while Airbus had space to…

> pilots not having to do an entirely new type certificate

And consequently, their intention seems to be to bend the rules about the validity of the existing certifications to the max (no pun intended). At what point can an agency rule that Boeing no longer follows the spirit of the pilot certification rules?

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't AOL buy Netscape? There's a long list of companies that died by being acquired into a bad culture. OP is talking about the opposite: an acquisition so toxic it rots the parent company.

AOL was borgified by Time Warner management post acquisition the same way Boeing was by MD.

You make it sound like AOL was cool before the Time-Warner merger and people didn't joke about e.g. the free trial CD's

Re: FAA orders grounding of more than 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s

#210

Investigative journalism report into Boeing by Al Jazeera in 2014: https://www.aljazeera.com/program/investigations/2014/7/20/t...

I don't know about this one, but a few years earlier they also reported on the 737 NG, and those claims did not hold up all too well. So I'd take this one with a large grain of salt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_Next_Generation#Str...

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