Boeing has successfully made me mildly anxious about flight for the first time in my life and it only took a couple of months after a lifetime of thinking of it as incredibly safe. Capitalism is awesome.
I asked for a couple of doses of Valium when I had an 18h flight (Taiwan). I drank at the airport bar before boarding. I was so out of it when we landed that my partner had to tell me what to do. If there had been an emergency procedure I would have died for sure, but at least I wouldn't have been panicked about it.
Nationalized is not better. Then you just have an ever larger pool to externalize the losses against, and a simple political appointment to scapegoat to "fix" the problem.
Quality commercial fleets like this take so much more to manage than is captured in "just nationalize it" or "fuck capitalism".
Capitalism is the problem, but I agree that nationalization is not the solution. This is yet another industry where regulatory capture made possible by legalized bribery has become a serious issue. We need to reimplement strong regulations and punishments for companies that don't meet them.
In fairness, I do want to point out that this particular aircraft, N8668A, was built in 2015. This was its first incident. Basically, I’d assume this to be more of a maintenance issue rather than an actual Boeing issue.
Incidents like this now make the news with ‘Another Boeing…’ when usually the media would report ‘Aircraft diverted…’ and not even mention the aircraft type until the second paragraph in. Every Boeing incident now gets put under a magnifying glass.
Don’t get me wrong: Boeing has become a shit company and the people who knowingly put lives at risk for profit need to be lined up against a wall. But this doesn’t really feel like one of those incidents, knowing how often engines are checked and serviced after leaving the factory.
Right, but that's the game you play when you are an aircraft builder. If your record is spotless, people will presume issues with your products are not your fault. If your reputation dips, you get a feedback loop of shit. It's a pretty simple idea that American industry used to understand before they let MBAs take control.
This applies to many things in society, and is generally the entire social construct of "reputation." It's why politicians speak carefully and don't "say it like it is." It's why you don't talk shit about your coworkers. Etc. I feel like a huge portion of our society has completely lost touch with this idea of actions and character having long term consequences.
Yes I believe the current story is "the match made in heaven, Boeing and united, resulted in shit maintenance of a weakly QCed product. Thus, united was running a poor QC program on top of a profitmaxxed airframe. The bill is coming due on all that fuckery".
Basically, I’d assume this to be more of a maintenance issue rather than an actual Boeing issue.
Rather than think this is completely related, shouldn't it instead raise concerns about Boeings maintenance procedures? Extrapolating on their exposed carelessness during engineering and production i don't see it as much of a stretch to say they aren't maintaining their planes properly either.
I'm thinking twice before i fly boeing, period.
As you say, if boeing is getting away with shit maintenance then maybe all companies are and like someone above said, i shouldn't fly at all.
Aircraft maintenance is an important and very complex issue. Most of it is carried out by either the end user or specialist aircraft maintainers. Basically, completely seperate companies. An aircraft rarely goes back to the manufacturer; it just wouldn’t be practical.
Think of it like this: if your BMW needs an oil change and new brakes, your local garage performs that maintenance, you don’t ship your entire car back to Germany.
I feel we need to take a closer look at aircraft maintenance procedures and companies in general. Because it feels like that sector is either overworked, cutting costs or otherwise not doing maintenance to the levels required for safe operation. There have been too many ‘minor incidents ‘ in recent years that feel indicative of a larger problem.
Air travel still is the safest form of transport, but since every incident makes the news, it has a large potential to undermine the feeling of safety in travellers.
Speaking for myself… I’d rather fly on a well maintained Airbus A320 rather than a brand new 737.
I believe I heard somewhere this was started by a bird strike.
And not to defend Boeing, but they don't make the engines. The engine is a CFM56 made by CFM International. The same engines are used on some Airbus a320s, Airbus a340s, and McDonald Douglas DC-8's
No, as I said it WOULD make the news, obviously. But usually they wouldn’t lead with the aircraft manufacturer in the title. News outlets are really only doing that because Boeing is a ‘hot topic’.
Most people really don’t know or care what brand or type of plane they’re flying on. Heck, most news outlets can’t tell a Boeing 747 from a Piper Cub. But every Boeing incident is now guaranteed to get clicks.
There are a few channels on YouTube that play communication traffic between pilots and traffic controllers during emergency situations. Engine failures, fires, bird strikes are not at all uncommon, and almost never made the news before this hyper focus on everything Boeing.
So, I know that access to information has made it seem like violent crime is happening more often even though it's actually been trending down. And I'm just wondering if that same phenomenon is happening with plane problems. Because it feels like there's a new issue with a Boeing plane every fucking day and I'm just wondering if that's due to an increase in reporting or if Boeing planes are actually blowing up more often than they used to.
Well there were some high profile problems with the latest iteration of the 737, problems that are actually Boeing's fault and should be their responsibility to fix.
After that though, any problem with any Boeing aircraft becomes juice news-cycle bait, even if the root of the problem was actually, hypothetically, that Southwest Airlines is cheap as fuck and their underfunded under-fucks-given maintenance crew fucked something up and didn't properly secure an engine cover. All the news outlets will care about was "Problem with another Boeing plane!"
From the stories I've heard from someone who worked as a flight attendant for 16 years in the 70s/80s, engines blowing out was and still is just a thing that happens sometimes. The big planes have multiple engines, so it's not usually a big deal (losing one engine won't cause a crash on its own). I do think this is mostly a case where the media jumps on the trending train, but Boeing should also get their shit together before they become responsible for preventable deaths.
Are you sure? Car jackings are up 37% in Chicago this year already. I would consider armed robbery and armed carjacking to be violent, and those are up, it's homicides that are down it seems.
Yanks, isn't it about time to call in some favours, from New York crime families, MS13 or something, to bypass that corporate captured policies of yours, by going to some of the Boeing execs homes, tying them to chairs and applying car batteries to nipples?
I mean if they're sharks, they're sharks. They don't know no better. But if you start working their thumbs...
Sure but an engine cover falling off is hardly Boeing's fault, that's a maintenance problem. The thing is a lot of these reported failures are maintenance issues, sure Boeing has their problems absolutely, but they also make the most common type of aircraft in the world. Inevitably there are going to be problems and most of those problems will be with the most common aircraft, because, by definition, there are more of them than any other type.
Bro, did you just simp for Boeing, then go off about how government is mafia when they have been twiddled around the thumb of giant corporations? Bro.
Have you read about Boeing? The statements, the fired engineers, the cost cutting, that whistle blower that "had a little accident" whereby he died mysteriously, the history of the company that Boeing acquired that ate Boeing up from inside and turned it into the same shark tank?
Like bro, get off that exec and shareholder jockstrap - I beg you.
The US government maybe, but then again it's been captured by a bunch of oligarchs who thrive off CRT and capture more law than a stenographer at congress. This is why yanks are pretty blind to what a government can be and can't be, and buddy, you've got an enshitified government - which is by design. Nothing like making ordinary people hate government and law, so you can capture said government and law. Hook, line and sinker.
You should just call it the US Government, designed by US corporate, as the whole name, just to be honest with yourself.
The blades are supposed to be contained by the inner cover in case of failure and that's the most dangerous part besides a fire... hundreds of blades suddenly flying out radially, sometimes towards the plane, but mostly away.
Yeah if I have to trade screws, I say engine cover is less important than window or exit door screws.
So I haven't found anything about how recently Southwest acquired this aircraft, but unless it's really very new I'm pretty sure this is going to be more the fault of their maintenance department, and the fact that it's another Boeing 737 is coincidental and unsurprising given how big a percentage of all airliners operating today ARE some version of the 737.
Engines are manufactured by different companies. Boeing certifies its planes to work with such and such engines. Airlines may purchase them separately.