FAA Orders Grounding of 171 Boeing 737 MAX 9 Aircraft Following Alaska Airlines Incident
FAA Orders Grounding of 171 Boeing 737 MAX 9 Aircraft Following Alaska Airlines Incident
In the last few moments, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ordered the temporary grounding of 171 Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft operated by U.S airlines or in U.S territory.
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This generation of 737 seems cursed. The MCAS scandal (and it was a scandal), just before the new year there were warnings to operators to check for loose nuts and now this.
Boeing are not having a good time.
They exist solely to increase shareholder value. Planes are just a method for doing so. Now the corner cutting is showing consequences.
There never should have been a “this generation” of 737, at least not how it was designed. It basically should have been an entirely new designation but they kept trying to shoehorn upgrades into it so pilots wouldn’t have to get recertified.
I entirely agree, But I also kinda understand it. Without the new engines they could not compete with the A32x product line. But they wouldn't fit without the tricks they pulled. It should have been a new airframe designed to take those engines.
That re-design and certification would take too long though, and they'd lose huge market share to airbus.
Now, I say I understand their actions, this does not mean I agree with them!
Well, that's on Boeing as well. They slacked off in the R&D department for too long and allowed Airbus to one-up them. Then they tried some convoluted way to play catch up and failed epically...
You'd think they'd take a page from American auto makers in the 1970s. They were king through the 60s and Japanese was economical trash that had no place on our open roads. Then the gas crisis crushed land yacht sales, Japan had more cash flow from their little cars, and they made their cars way more competitive in the US market. Meanwhile, US manufacturers just sat at the bar in their varsity jackets saying they're not worried.
Oh no it would take too long better make planes that will crash instead.
It also minimizes tooling costs.
It's almost like the 737 was obsolete decades ago and Boeing chose to zombify its corpse instead of lay it to rest and develop a better narrow body!
I’ll wait for the investigation to release its findings. But door plugs are a common feature on most commercial airline body’s.
More than likely this is due to bad manufacturing and QA processes. The 737 is manufactured in a non union shop in the South that is known for poor quality compared to Boeings Seattle facilities.
Look up documentaries about Boeing and their culture after the MD merger.
Ironically enough MD covered up a fatal door blowout risk in the DC-10 which killed hundreds of people. We don't yet know if this current incident was actually caused by a design fault, but the DC-10 door accident definitely was.