https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/05/business/alaska-airlines-flight-portland-landing.html
The plane made an emergency landing at the Portland, Ore., international airport after losing a chunk of its fuselage, according to passengers.
And here we go again, another bOING 737 Max.
This is the result of corporate America not holding its executives personally accountable for gross negligence, and the unregulated monopolistic nature of a bunch of markets. It is well known in the industry that the whole fiasco regarding the 737 Max is caused by the acquisition of McDonnell-Douglas, and its shitty management that integrated with Boeing.
Who was held responsible for those 300 people dying? Who would have been for these guys? Who will be for the next accident?
Weird that the company used to have a safety culture before the acquisition - I just can't imagine an aircraft company wanting to throw that away when it's so valuable to customer trust.
It’s because the finance chucklefucks ran the numbers, saw data that indicated simply paying out injury and wrongful death settlements and safety penalties appeared to be cheaper than designing a new airframe, and went that route. It’s very literally all a numbers game, and the only numbers that really matter to these idiots are the ones with $ in the front.
I just watched Fight Club again, and this was literally Ed Norton’s character’s job.
a x b x c
If the number for the recall or redesign is higher than the lawsuits, they don’t do it. They let people die.
The only way to fight it is to have an automatic adjustment to all unit and wrongful death payouts times 10, hell 1000. There should be no cost on a human life.
Watch the documentaries, the former MD board basically took over Boeing, moved leadership out of WA to Chicago, set up separate plants (one in Georgia not sure if there are more) to counter union/worker demands in WA, etc. This has been a long process resulting in the rotting of the company from the inside out. The 787 was the first example of their garbage - - even though I like the plane, it had a lot of issues.
Mergers of this type usually have one corporate culture win out over the other. In this case, Boeing's corporate culture lost out and with it, their safety culture.
That's not an inherent problem with capitalism. That's a problem with corrupt and/or lazy government.
Interviewer: This airplane that was involved in the incident off Western Oregon this week...
Senator Collins: The one the door plug fell off?
Interviewer: Yeah.
Senator Collins: Yeah, that’s not very typical, I’d like to make that point.
Interviewer: Well, how was it un-typical?
Senator Collins: Well there are a lot of these airplanes going around the world all the time, and very seldom does anything like this happen. I just don’t want people thinking that 737 max 9's aren’t safe.
...
Senator Collins: Well, some of them are built so that the door plug doesn’t fall off at all.
Interviewer: Wasn’t this built so that the door plug wouldn’t fall off?
Senator Collins: Well, obviously not.
Interviewer: How do you know?
Senator Collins: Well, because the door plug fell off at 20,000 feet and all the air spilled out. It’s a bit of a giveaway. I’d just like to make the point that that is not normal.
Interviewer: Well what sort of engineering standards are these 737 MAX 9's built to?
Senator Collins: Oh, very rigorous aerospace engineering standards.
Interviewer: What sort of thing?
Senator Collins: Well, the door plug's not supposed to fall off for a start.
...
Interviewer: So the allegations that they’re just designed to carry as many passengers as possible no matter the consequences, I mean that’s ludicrous isn’t it?
Senator Collins: Absolutely ludicrous, these are very very strong vessels.
Interviewer: So what happened in this case?
Senator Collins: Well, the door fell off in this case by all means, but it’s very unusual.
Interviewer: But Senator Collins, why did the door plug fall off?
Senator Collins: Well air hit it.
Interviewer: Air hit it?
Senator Collins: Air hit the plane.
Interviewer: Is that unusual?
Senator Collins: Oh yeah. At altitude? Chance in a million!
Yeah reality and satire are getting close enough that I almost wonder if I should add a disclaimer that's more obvious than the video link.
One of my friends thought I was quoting an interview with Susan Collins.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
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Multiple news articles are reporting that this aircraft had its post-production certification only two months ago. For a problem of this magnitude to develop in such a short time is very disconcerting.
That is better than a fuselage failure, but still disturbing if you're correct - surely there are checks for exit door plugs since it would be at higher risk of failure.
exit door plug, which are installed as "blanking plates".
Do you have some more info? I can't find any new detailed info and I'm no airplane mechanic.Afaik, blanking plates are usually cosmetic, and the problem occured due to cabin pressure loss. Also, the plane was supposedly certified, recently.
Thx! And, to clarify the situation I copied this comment from @Sarah link.
It's not a "plug type door". It's a plugged door. They're different things. This isn't a door at all. It doesn't open.
Indeed it's NOT part of the fuselage (plane frame), it was built as an empty socket for the placement of an eventual (extra) emergency door, depanding the seat configuration. In this plane they did a faulty install of a " plug-in "instead.
Just to be clear, US domestic, major carrier flying is still staggeringly safe compared to essentially all other means of travel. The NTSB is not messing around and Boeing will have a lot to explain and answer for and the issue will be corrected.
Even in this exceptional case, nobody was injured.
Also, I hate Boeing as much as the next guy, but with how complex any aviation accident sequence is, I'm inclined to withhold finger pointing until the investigation concludes or at the very least a good amount of information has been released. I support grounding the planes for safety during the investigation, and I also support criticism and scrutiny of Boeing in general since they definitely deserve both, but to say this specific case was definitely Boeing's fault at this stage is being premature.
And it's not like Alaska Airlines has never caused an air accident through shoddy maintenance of otherwise soundly designed aircraft. They should absolutely not get a pass until their involvement is definitively ruled out by evidence.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
And it's not like Alaska Airlines has never caused an air accident through shoddy maintenance
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The entire world around you that you take for granted is built down to a price. Barely anybody makes things to be good, most make things to make money, and when it comes to potentially dangerous things, the risk of harm or loss of life is factored into profit. "How many people can we kill before we are forced to shut this down or spend money to make it better?"
Beware when putting trust in human-created technology. I bet there's more than one engineer in here who wanted to design something the right way, but was then forced to cut some corners by a bean counter. It's everywhere.
Giving an example from my wheelhouse, there are stories of managers going around to engineer's prototype PCBs and snipping off decoupling capacitors one by one until the device barely functions in a stable manner. The manager then declares that that is the appropriate amount of capacitors. Also, if you want a quick heart attack, just take apart any cheap Amazon phone charger and examine it.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Alaska Airlines grounded its fleet of Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft on Friday after a flight operated by the airline made an emergency landing at Portland International Airport in Oregon that evening because of a midair pressure problem that passengers said blew out a chunk of the fuselage.
As yellow oxygen masks dangled above their heads, a powerful wind tore through a gaping hole that showed the night sky and the city lights below.
Her friend Elizabeth Le, 20, said she had also heard “an extremely loud pop.” When she looked up, she saw a large hole on the wall of the plane about two or three rows away, she said.
In 2018, Lion Air Flight 610, a 737 Max 8, crashed into the ocean off the coast of Indonesia, killing all 189 passengers and crew members.
Less than five months later in 2019, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed shortly after leaving Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, killing all 157 people on board.
In 2021, the company agreed to a $2.5 billion settlement with the Justice Department, resolving a criminal charge that Boeing conspired to defraud the agency.
The original article contains 946 words, the summary contains 187 words. Saved 80%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I love it when the passengers are spilling the tea, before Boeing's lawyers can get to them and attempt to smother their words with money. By the time the NHTSA gets to interview passengers, they've "calmed down", it seems. I don't know if that's good for screw ups of this magnitude. Hurrah for a plane of pissed off, uninjured survivors! God bless them.
Protips:
I flew in one to get home from Christmas vacation. The seat was literally the most uncomfortable airplane seat I ever sat in. It was like sitting on a concrete bench. I'm going to need to start bringing a seat cushion...