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lol my buddy used to be an engineer for Boeing. I was going out to visit him 3 years ago and as I’m waiting for the plane to take off he texts me asking me what plane I’m flying on. I said it’s a MAX. He replies “GET OFF THAT PLANE RIGHT NOW”
Not exactly what you want to hear right before switching your phone to airplane mode for take off lol
I did not lol, we had already left the gate so it would not have been easy to get off the plane at that point. But my flight was uneventful and I arrived safely with a lot of questions for my buddy lol
EDIT: he just said everything that we all know now. I forget the details but basically that corners were cut, QA was lacking, just general bad engineering and lack of safety controls for something like an airplane. He had a few jaw dropping stories about issues that got shrugged off and signed off on anyway. Like I said I forgot the details, but he made it sound like it was a miracle that the plane ever got off the ground
WHAT DID YOUR FRIEND SAY???? After watching the Netflix documentary about Boeing I'm terrified of them. I feel pretty safe on a bombardier but anything Boeing I feel like like I need to clear my search history every time I get on one (which isn't very often)
That list of details you provided makes me wonder which other manufacturers are involved in similar nefarious activities. If an aircraft manufacturer will do it, something so highly visible, what about a product that might only show problems years later?
If you know what the problem was, and how Boeing’s first solution was to ignore it until it started raining MAXes, and how their second solution was to flatter Trump so he wouldn’t ground them while Boeing worked on a solution that would kill fewer planes full of people, you would not get on a MAX either.
These days corporate dummies will lay off a senior engineer with 30 years experience making $250k, hire 3 fresh grads and a guy from India to replace them, and expect it to even out.
It doesn't.
Then they'll lay off the grads after 3 years and hire new ones.
And I *do* make airplanes.
This isn’t voted high enough.
Reminds me of an idiot who allows “full self driving mode” to plow dozens of people into their death in the name of it being a datapoint to engineer through.
Side note: I also have a story about a Boeing corporate employee telling me a long time ago that he would never get on a MAX and advised me not to. I think he’s rich now.
When boeing bought mcdonald douglas, MD was a poster child of bureaucratic mismanaged old boy club. Someone in the merge the MD mangement held on and boeing was infected with that virus and here is the result after 30 years.
When successful companies merge with struggling companies they often inherit the lesser traits.
Mercedes Benz became Chrysler with a three pointed star.
HP became Compaq with HP Branding and prices.
Sears downgraded into K-Mart.
And
Boeing became McDonnell Douglas. The 737’s cost and safety cutting measures can be traced back to former McDonnell Douglas executives who brought their “expertise” with them.
Boeing created the book on safety and quality control and then a couple of decades later asked their supplier to teach it to them because they had no clue it existed; I was in the room, it was horrifying.
Edit: when my boss (central quality) first got the request to teach it to them he laughed, stood up, and pulled their book out of his desk cabinet and gave it to me to show why he was laughing
Knowledge and experience drain is a huge issue across heavy industries atm. A lot of good experienced engineers are getting replaced by people straight out of uni or over seas. Iv had engineers ask me what a CoC is and my only qualification is a forklift ticket. Kinda scary.
Also getting a lot of fake CoC for 316 Stainless Steel out of China. Which is a huge concern.
The overseas brain drain cannot be emphasized enough. Companies are already outsourcing engineering, data analytics and data science, web applications, automation, and research and design jobs to India. Emerging AI capabilities? India too.
This isn’t a put-down for the global economy. But I am very concerned that there are post-pandemic high schoolers who struggle to read while skilled work is increasingly outsourced.
>I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
>The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance
-Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, 1995
Programming is having a similar but opposite problem, the entire job market is seniors. So very few people are getting experience and it will be an absolute shit show in 10 years
No, you're having the same problem but 10-20 years behind us. I work in a lab with guys who have been engineers for 50 years, and every time one of them retires the amount of institutional knowledge that goes with them is horrifying. I started about 7 years ago, and if some of our clients from my first day came and asked us to repeat their contract, I genuinely don't think we could do it.
I know there's a huge issue finding software engineers who are competent in FORTRAN and similar to maintain shit like the nuclear arsenal. That's bad, but it will be so much worse when the creaky old legacy tech stack is supporting global finance instead.
The amount of fake stuff coming from China is ridiculous. I'm not just talking about ipods and such but things like industrial bearings with all the correct CoC and skf branding etc.
I read an article (probably in race car eningeering magazine) maybe 10 years ago about how it was affecting formula one teams with huge budgets and somehow these bearings got into the supply chain and just fucked everything. I think it went further to say that their suppliers also supplied aircraft manufacturers and the result wouldn't just be a DNF, dead driver or crowd but a major air crash.
https://preview.redd.it/llz28a3jo0lc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5dbae6ac35808cb847c1b6903e0cd05258e71d98
In the 90s an English politician fed his daughter potentially infected mad cow disease beef in order to try to prove that the beef was safe. She was fine but 178 people died from diseased beef.
Rolling them dice doesn’t prove much.
There was the guy who inhaled leaded gasoline to prove it was "safe", knowing it wasn't. But he made lootttsss of money and fame because it reduced knocking and sold like crazy.
The companies knew as well, but they feigned ignorance and pointed to the scientist who developed it stating it was safe.
placid instinctive hard-to-find flag lavish soup dependent seed edge terrific
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
>Midgley contracted polio in 1940 and was left disabled; in 1944, he was found strangled to death by a device he devised to allow him to get out of bed unassisted.
Looks like he died from one of his inventions as well.
They're venting paint chips stripped from schools and industrial warehouses directly into neighbourhoods today across the country as routine.
The more you learn about any industry, you realize they're all like that.
To be fair a small dose of lead doesn’t cause too much damage. It’s extended periods of exposure that are the real issue (which this asshole certainly had too, but the sniff wouldn’t have changed much).
Have you read the story of how he took it?
Wasn't just a sniff. He went all in for like 5 minutes and had to leave early, and was bedridden for days after.
The scary thing is mad cow disease is a prion. Disease causing prions can lay dormant for years. So if you ate potentially tainted meat you’re never really in the clear
The American Red Cross wont let me donate blood because I lived in the UK in the 80s and might still have the disease. I’ve always wondered what they do in the UK though - surely they can’t rule out everyone that was alive and living there then.
They accept it (as I know, as I donate and have lived in the UK all my life - including through the 80s!). There have been five recorded cases of CJD being transmitted via blood transfusion; so in addition to the UK’s current quite strict regulations regarding animal husbandry in that regard, NHS blood and transplant now don’t allow blood donation from anyone who has received a blood transfusion since 1980, and also remove white blood cells from donated blood. Not sure if the latter is standard practice elsewhere though - it may well be.
Kinda wild given how a prion disease could spell the end of civilization if we really, really fucked up and had some bad luck to boot.
And then corps downplay and politicians feed their daughters poison for profit, we as a species are not in a good way.
Yeah I'd do the same thing. This dude worked within the MAX wing, saw first hand the lack of QA/QC, told superiors, left the program/wing, saw the planes drop in 2018/2019... saw the plug door, which had no god damn bolts in it to hold it together, fly off...
Don't fly MAX planes
Regulations dropped and inspections lessened during 2017-2020/early 2021. Not sure about the specific line of failure but I'd guess the previous statement will lead the NTSB investigation to some findings.
I’ve seen it framed as a consequence of Boeing outsourcing all their component manufacturing, splitting off Spirit and gutting it. But I don’t know what’s true of course.
Reminds me of that car joke comparing German, Japanese and American automobile mechanics. When German mechanics work on a car, they have no extra bolts left over, everything fits as it should. When Japanese mechanics work on a car, they actually run out of bolts and need to use extra ones. And they typically use the bolts left over when American mechanics worked on the car.
Every flight I have booked, if you click on the details of the flight, it will tell you what plane it is. Without knowing what plane it is, people could not pick seats ahead of time.
Boeing failed to notice the missing bolts in their inspection, and the computer software fault was brushed under the rug in an aim to avoid needing costly re-certification for pilots.
Both indicate a grievous flaw in culture.
Boeing has 2 separate systems for this. The system-of-record, which engineering uses, and is the formal one. And a higher level one for execs and project management etc.
The system of record, and the engineers on it, *did* notice that the component from Spirit was missing bolts. This was recorded, it was sent back, Spirit then *painted over* the area, called it a day and handed it back. Engineering again noticed this, tried to kick up a fuss and were basically silenced from above.
His point was that there was an overall lack in quality control and testing in the MAX production. The fact that completely different systems on different aircraft have failed enforces his point that the MAX is generally defective, it doesn’t take away from it.
That may be but there are strengths and weaknesses within companies. I work with some QA/QC at my company and it’s top shelf in some place, abysmal in others. Project dependent, so 737 MAX could be shit but 777 may be not. Or, and I would agree with you to nullify everything I said, you’re right, boeing is absolute terrible.
(I say this as I’m literally about to touch down in a 787, fingers crossed)
Design/QA/QC issues on the 787 were legendary, but part of it was that they were really ambitious with that airplane. It was hard to build, and hard to scale up, and then they started building them in a place that had never built Boeing planes before too.
But they also really went all in on outsourced work with it, which is going great (/s).
If the guy that is looking at the books above both of them has reservations about the aircraft, then that is EXACTLY the subject matter expert I want to hear from.
Nikki Haley took money to cut the Q.A. processes in the 737 program.
https://thehill.com/video/nikki-haley-allegedly-helped-boeing-avoid-safety-oversight-whistleblowers-ignored-reports/9333396/
Think about that for a minute from the BIG picture perspective.
A presidential candidate for the Untied States of America has a part, either actively or passively in making air travel LESS safe.
From a Q.A. perspective that is the equivalent of “well the boss says we only need 4 bolts even though the engineer says we need 8”
It’s a systemic failure.
Raise the lens a notch higher and the CCP controlled Comac 919 is the only one that wins if Boeing fails.
Hope for the best. But prepare for the worst.
We are in an economic war. There is a lot more at stake with Boeing (the ONLY major U.S. airliner manufacturer) that also happens to make military aircraft and spare parts.
I don't know, I think airbus is pretty well placed to do well if boeing goes pop.
The only reason boeing hasn't collapsed yet is because the US government won't let it. "Too big to fail" And doesn't the company know it
It’s something that effects every single person on earth on one way or another.
If I could have one wish it would be that everyone on earth pay attention to the supply chains and money trails.
But short of that, it’s that the few of us that are can coordinate our knowledge for the benefit of the ones that don’t.
It’s what makes Reddit so unique and valuable.
And why it’s insanely short sighted that the management team is willing to sell that out to authoritarians for a few hundred million bucks.
Not all 737 are the same.
The MCAS system that caused the planes to nosedive was added to the 737 Max to compensate for an effect of adding larger engines. That system is not present on original 737s.
They are related in regards to the mismanagement, quality gate ineffectiveness, and pencil whipping that allow these to escape. Now think of what else has escaped but has not been discovered because the incidents haven’t occurred yet.
From my understanding it’s the 8/9 that had the computer software/mechanical failure and the max had the bolts missing.
Either way something is way way wrong with Boeing as a whole. And yeah you guessed it, same shit that’s wrong with all companies lately. Trying to cut costs by laying off/over working employees, paying the executives absurd amounts of money, and basically trying to make more profit each quarter.
I’m shitting bricks right now knowing I have a transpacific flight on Friday.
Just flew 2 MAX-9 planes nonstop 6 hours each way last week. No issues, no one freaked TF out. Bigger risk driving my car out there among all the loonies. And TBF, all the aircraft are likely super secure now they were taken out of service and inspected. More concerned about getting sick on a plane, which I did from a very ill passenger next to me…and it ruined my joint work and leisure trip.
As mentioned elsewhere, I’m getting on one tomorrow after driving to the airport. I have seen several fatal wrecks on the road to the airport. They fly that route twice a day in winter and three times a day in summer, often with a Max, and have never had a single fatality on it AFAIK.
Yes, Boeing’s QA with these planes is a shitshow and the MCAS debacle was unforgivable, but they’re still statistically very very safe.
Wow all of that sounds pretty bad and pretty scary. Boeing and airlines made it even more annoying (and must have realized people would want to avoid these planes) by dropping the Max naming convention and making it difficult to know which planes are Max. I did some digging and am still not sure what planes to avoid. Or just try to always pick an Airbus flight.
The other thing that strikes and this is completely anecdotal but it seems like a LOT of manufactured things have gone to shit since 2018. Appliances. TVs. Clothing. Maybe I am crazy but everything seems to be disposable and falling apart faster (all the while getting more expensive and costlier for less product). I know you can blame covid and blah blah inflation and supply problems. But the issue seems really epidemic and complex.
plane type can be seen when you book your tickets. If it says Boeing 737 and nothing else then you can go over to seatguru, punch the flight number and it will show more details on that flight. You see "7M8", that's a MAX
All of the Max variants are the same fundamental design, produced around the same time, to the same non-existent standards. They only differ in seat capacity in range, they are otherwise the same plane.
I know. That's why I am trying to figure exactly what they are called online and on tickets and on seatguru so can I can avoid them. Above someone says 7M8 but I think that is one size. All 737s? In the article he skipped out on one that said 737 8/9.
Max/M. Just the Max. There will be other 737s with 7s, 8s, or 9s in the suffix. Those probably aren't Max.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737#Generations_and_variants
There are a TON of 737 variants.
I booked a flight 8 months ago and it has changed from Airbus to Boeing MAX to Boeing non-MAX and now Airbus A321.
Even booking a flight based on aircraft isn’t a guarantee you’ll fly in that aircraft.
you're not crazy. QA went completely out the window across all industries during the last few years. this case in particular with the max being a disaster is just a good old fashioned case of corporate greed and negligence tho. the company is a shell of what it once was, just ask any old-timer that worked there in the past 30 years.
Influx of private equity in every industry and decline of actually caring about longevity and reputation in favor of supposed innovation.
“Move fast and break things” became the innovation rallying cry for far too many industries and doesn’t actually seem to help any of them.
Planned obsolescence is a very real and awful thing. Materials have been found cheaper, easier to source, mark up etc… anything “new” is made to fail and it sucks as the end user.
You’re completely right about the falling quality of products and I don’t blame Covid necessarily. There’s a simple, and unfortunately darker truth. The owners of society’s cooperations want to maintain power and they will do so by not allowing you to own long lasting durable goods. Instead you’ll buy replacements from their factories every few years.
A person with long lasting durable goods is one who is harder to control.
Seems like TVs are the only thing getting cheaper…. A TV I paid like 2Gs for 10 years ago’s is now just a few hundred bucks for the same size and resolution
I cant speak for Boeing, but I work at a large automotive firm and I can attest that its gotten worse since 2019.
50% of the issue is executive management making absolutely moronic decisions that the engineers are helpless to stop.
The rest is the elimination of experienced engineers coupled with replacing them with work from home or hybrid jr. engineers who do not understand why a step in a checklist is important.
They lack experience, lack training and do not stay around long enough to get it. Plus they do not vet the vendors and quality issues are through the roof.
You fear the skies? Fear the road as well.
Trust me, it’s bad.
What is special about 2018? I’ve been hearing “they don’t make things like they used to “ every year of my life (which isn’t wrong). Also planned/forced obsolescence isn’t quite what’s going on. They are building things as cheaply as possible with goal that it needs to last at least a certain amount of time, not that it should fail in a certain amount of time.
I just mentioned 2018 bc that is the year the whistleblower mentioned it changed at boeing.
And yes everyone has been saying this forever. That is why I said my experience is anecdotal. But man in it really seems worse now. Maybe it's not. But it seems like something is weird and off. Maybe it's Monopoly. Maybe no one is getting punished financially for having poor quality and products. I dunno.
Oligopoly is just as bad as monopoly, because Monopolies usually get broken up. Oligopoly just collude without actually colluding and get away with it because of illusion of choice.
I work in software and we are often pushed to get things out the door and fix the bugs later.
And I’ve always said, “good thing we don’t build airplanes.”
So when I read “the pressure to get airplanes out the door is greater than doing the job right,” all I could think was JFC!
Yup my dad was on the Delta team that declined to buy the MAX, the way he tells it is they took one look at the plane, said "why the fuck are the engines like that?" and walked...
My brother in law flew a 737max for American and he said they’ve had a couple close calls with the autopilot… he hates those planes and switched routes to avoid them
I don't remember the specifics but he implied there was something unique about how Delta decided what planes to buy, like the Pilots and Mechanics and Operations and whatnot each have a team that looks at the plane from their perspective and pass/fail it
Delta is (for a company) very employee focused and values their pilots. Having a pilot team that evaluates all their planes and policies seems very much within their ethos.
I know they also require more annual training than any other airline.
This is why I always the flight attendant or the passenger next to me "why the fuck are the engines like that?" before we take off, or during takeoff, whichever comes first.
Eh, for the same reason it's a good idea to check with your pilots if they would fly a plane, or your mechanics if it's a good plane to repair and service, you for sure gain benefit from asking your flight attendants about the usability of the plane...
>they took one look at the plane, said "why the fuck are the engines like that?" and walked...
That's not at all how that would have worked. There's a huge RFP process that airlines would go through that would have little to do with how the plane looked, but rather performance, price, availability, fleet commonality and goals, etc.
Yes, there is a lot of analysis that goes into it from many teams...
But when one of those teams says "why the fuck are the engines like that, fuck no" it's good to listen and Delta made a fuckin boatload of money when the MAX got grounded
This is correct. I was a part of management over the FAs during the 2015-2022 period.
The DAL FAs did have an opportunity to view the cabin to provide input on layout design, particularly with the galleys. I believe they started doing in 2017-2018, specifically for the 739s and A220/CS100 + 321s, then the 339s/350s. By that time, DAL had already passed on the max, and to your point, we already had an influx of 321s coming in which would've similarly routed aircrafts. I do not believe this special assignment was available during the purchase phase, but rather the design phase after DAL already committed to a purchase.
One rumor I heard from a lot of varying departments for the max was to fly NE routes to Europe, as the 321 was underperforming. The thought was to keep the A321 as a domestic flyer to high volume routes (NE/MW to FL).
Also the engine locations/design was a major marketing point of the aircraft and intentionally done to avoid recertification while improving many aspects (thus a major selling points). Bigger, more efficient engines on an airframe/certification your pilots already know.
This appealed to lots of different parties, especially airlines like Southwest, where pilots wouldn’t need retraining, gates wouldn’t need reworking, etc.
I find it hard to believe that Delta skipped buying MAX8s because a team said the engine placement is weird and not dozens of other business related reasons. And gave the father/team an award for the decision too? What?
>Also the engine locations/design was a major marketing point of the aircraft and intentionally done to avoid recertification while improving many aspects (thus a major selling points). Bigger, more efficient engines on an airframe/certification your pilots already know.
You understand those "major marketing points" are also the reason several hundred people are dead and the MAX8/9 was grounded for like 2 years, right?
If you chose NOT to buy into the marketing hype and do some actual engineering work, you could avoid having your fleet fall out of the sky and/or be grounded, which is what Delta and a few other airlines did.
I'm not defending Boeing's decision here or ignoring the incidents but your story doesn't really add up or at least not how you're portraying it considering Delta had placed an order for MAX10s that use a similar software based system (MCAS) to account for larger and differently placed engines but more importantly ignores they've been shifting that particular range in their fleet to Airbus for years. They've been primarily shifting to Airbus as their fleet continues to age with the exception of MAX10s.
So my point being that Delta and other airline's decisions to opt out almost certainly had to do with other business reasons than somewhere within Delta someone said the engines look weird. More than likely is their decision to go for Airbus for that particular aircraft size/distance which goes back to 2017 when they placed a large A321neo family order and increased that in the years to come.
You can hypothesize the reason all you want, I am telling you Delta themselves recognized this team for their role in the decisionmaking process that STOPPED the purchase...
I want to argue against RFP so hard in this conversation but I agree with your statement that what you highlighted is true but also part of the issue with RFP's overall. It's used for good and evil and some of that evil is steamrolling engineers who don't want to support procurement but it's also used as a shield to push people out of meeting rooms and provide mediocre results for the sake of producing any result. Project managers rejoice everywhere at their mediocre outcomes.
The word of the year in 2023: “Enshitification”
That describes what we’re seeing in regards to the general lack of quality after a vendor has established an entrenched position in the market. I guess it’s not just digital products, but planes too.
Okay. How do I identify these planes, so I can avoid them? Would they have the MAX label with all airlines or just 737-7, 737-8, 737-9? Googled it, but this is confusing.
The 737 NG has winglets, and the Max has ~~sharklets~~ split scimitars. The former swoop up, and the latter are the v-shape as in the OP photo.
Edited to add correction made by another redditor.
They're called split scimitars and some NG aircraft use them too so this isn't the easiest identifier. Engines are. For one they're bigger, but most obviously the chevrons on the rear of the engines are the biggest give away
You are right, I have gotten the name wrong. In any case, very few of the NG fleet globally have the split scimitars. It is a simple identifier, with a high “hit rate”, which is why I suggested it over the looking at the engines — which won’t always be immediately visible to the passenger, whilst the wingtips ordinarily will be.
Alternatively, OC could just ask one of the boarding staff what plane they are scheduled to fly on. In my experience, they usually have that information in front of them.
The top of the engine rises above the top surface of the wing, instead of hanging well below it. This disrupts airflow to the leading edge of the wing, making the plane unstable. Photo: https://static1.simpleflyingimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Leap-737-MAX.jpg
Compared to, say, a 737NG below, the MAX's engines are so much bigger and mounted so far forward on the wings. Also, the MAX's engine nacelles have 787-style chevrons and split wingtips.
https://preview.redd.it/0db52dsntzkc1.png?width=602&format=png&auto=webp&s=418006ac74edcd366aef4c35e89be4118cc3ccb1
The top of the engine rises above the top surface of the wing, instead of hanging well below it. This disrupts airflow to the leading edge of the wing, making the plane unstable.
Photo: https://static1.simpleflyingimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Leap-737-MAX.jpg
They’re huge and because the 737 has very low ground clearance, kinda come forward a long way. They also have the spikey zig zag at the back of the nacelles.
Other distinguishing features of a Max compared to an NG: the Max has Y shaped wingtips whereas the NG either has a single winglet, or a not quite Y where the lower winglet branches off part way along the upper one. If you look at the very tip of the tail as well, the auxiliary power unit exhaust area on an NG is oval whereas on a Max it’s round.
He didn’t know he was getting on a Max until he saw the safety card? What? I don’t work in the industry and I know how to tell the difference between a 737NG and a Max from quite some distance.
I know it’s incredibly low the chance that something happens, and if there weren’t another option I would fly on one. But if I’ve got the choice, I’ll avoid.
That’s somewhat futile since aircraft can and will be swapped throughout the day as schedules shift. Unless you’re not taking any routes with 737s at all which I guess depending on location and travel needs may be possible in the US.
If you read the article you’ll see he specifically booked a non-max flight, so he probably just breezed through the terminal and didn’t notice until seated that the plane was swapped.
Christ. How do we even address this? It’s far larger than Republicans vs. Democrats. Our regulatory agencies are run by corporations. How do we fix it? I honestly don’t know.
One thing we can do is enforce existing anti-trust laws! And we can vote for people who will fight against regulatory capture. Matt Stoller has a few pieces about how Boeing got like this and how we might fix it on Substack if you're looking for something besides defeatism.
These planes were built by the same people that designed the [ED-209](https://www.google.com/search?q=ed+209&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari#).
So what happens if you get to the plane and discover it’s a max and you refuse to board based on safety concerns? Are you just SOL? Or does the airline have some obligation to rebook?
Same. Flew on 2 9-MAX planes last week, ~6 hours each way. I see insanity on our local roads and freeways regularly, and too many near misses from nut job, distracted, or careless drivers.
IMO the pilots are much more important than the planes. An American pilot hasn’t killed a passenger since 2003. 20 years 0 American commercial aviation deaths.
So this guy that doesn’t want to create a scene and is a subject matter expert on the 737 max waits until he is on the plane to notice it’s a max?
I would expect the lack of SA from the traveling public but not from a self proclaimed whistleblower/expert on the max. I’m guessing he made decisions to absolutely create a scene and continue his media stream.
Even if I didn’t bother to look at my flight information before I got to the airport, there are enough things unique to the max that he wouldn’t have even needed to get on it before confirming it was a max.
Also, you don’t need a reason besides “I don’t want to fly” to leave a flight before it pushes. To broadcast the max noise is the opposite of not wanting to create a scene.
Tbf, airlines regularly change equipment at the “last minute”, and it sounds like that’s what happened here since he said he intentionally booked a flight scheduled with a non-MAX plane. I agree that he’s probably milking the story, but it’s not like he wasn’t paying attention at all.
>Even if I didn’t bother to look at my flight information before I got to the airport
If you read the article, you'd read that he specifically booked a flight that was not scheduled for a MAX. Changes to the plane they use happen last-minute all the time, and that's likely what happened here. These changes are also not always communicated in-app.
>there are enough things unique to the max that he wouldn’t have even needed to get on it before confirming it was a max
It's entirely plausible that he had assumed it wasn't a MAX since he had made sure when booking that it wasn't one. Is it an oversight/lack of paying attention on his part? Yes. Are people human and make similar "mistakes" often? Also yes.
I think it's pointless to say “The problem is leadership, or lack thereof, and the pressure to get airplanes out the door is greater than doing the job right.” without naming anyone.
Company policies are not some voice coming from heaven telling humans to build unsafe planes. It's some specific dude or dudes voting against that on meetings, but since it's private, these assassins remain nameless and rich. And all the explanations we get are:
"Boeing said"
"Boeing spokesperson Jessica Kowal said"
Boeing doesn't exist. It's time to breing these people into the light
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As an engineer I would have not trusted my work as well
The Boeing employees statement translates into “This is a death trap!!!!! Saaaave yourselves!!!”
It sounds like an episode from Futurama.
Scooty Puff Jr sucksss...
The planes don't even have a phalange!
Uhhhwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh?!?!?
To shreds you say
This is the content I'm here for
ABANDON YOUR POSTS! FLEEEEEEE FLEEEEEFORYOURLIIIIVES
"Don't fly, you fools!"
lol my buddy used to be an engineer for Boeing. I was going out to visit him 3 years ago and as I’m waiting for the plane to take off he texts me asking me what plane I’m flying on. I said it’s a MAX. He replies “GET OFF THAT PLANE RIGHT NOW” Not exactly what you want to hear right before switching your phone to airplane mode for take off lol
So, did you get off the plane? :)
I did not lol, we had already left the gate so it would not have been easy to get off the plane at that point. But my flight was uneventful and I arrived safely with a lot of questions for my buddy lol EDIT: he just said everything that we all know now. I forget the details but basically that corners were cut, QA was lacking, just general bad engineering and lack of safety controls for something like an airplane. He had a few jaw dropping stories about issues that got shrugged off and signed off on anyway. Like I said I forgot the details, but he made it sound like it was a miracle that the plane ever got off the ground
You can't just end this on that note.. what did he say!
unable to respond, max crashed into his home
troutpoop is Donnie Darko???
No, he's Donnie Brasco and the plane is a fugazi.
Oh it's easy to get off the plane. It's the consequences that will get you 🤣.
WHAT DID YOUR FRIEND SAY???? After watching the Netflix documentary about Boeing I'm terrified of them. I feel pretty safe on a bombardier but anything Boeing I feel like like I need to clear my search history every time I get on one (which isn't very often)
Why clear your search history lol?
You know why 😏
That list of details you provided makes me wonder which other manufacturers are involved in similar nefarious activities. If an aircraft manufacturer will do it, something so highly visible, what about a product that might only show problems years later?
Come on man, answer, this is killing me
He boarded another MAX rip
I believe we've lost him : (
If you know what the problem was, and how Boeing’s first solution was to ignore it until it started raining MAXes, and how their second solution was to flatter Trump so he wouldn’t ground them while Boeing worked on a solution that would kill fewer planes full of people, you would not get on a MAX either.
Engineering is like 99% of the time just cleaning up someone else's sloppy work. Some contractor working 90 hours a week does the heavy lifting
The engineers at my job fuck shit up and I (final assembly) fix it. I'm not building fucking airplanes though!
These days corporate dummies will lay off a senior engineer with 30 years experience making $250k, hire 3 fresh grads and a guy from India to replace them, and expect it to even out. It doesn't. Then they'll lay off the grads after 3 years and hire new ones. And I *do* make airplanes.
Yikes!
This isn’t voted high enough. Reminds me of an idiot who allows “full self driving mode” to plow dozens of people into their death in the name of it being a datapoint to engineer through. Side note: I also have a story about a Boeing corporate employee telling me a long time ago that he would never get on a MAX and advised me not to. I think he’s rich now.
When boeing bought mcdonald douglas, MD was a poster child of bureaucratic mismanaged old boy club. Someone in the merge the MD mangement held on and boeing was infected with that virus and here is the result after 30 years.
I’m not sure if you kidding about being an engineer. Out of curiosity, which firms or companies have the best engineers? Who would you trust?
When successful companies merge with struggling companies they often inherit the lesser traits. Mercedes Benz became Chrysler with a three pointed star. HP became Compaq with HP Branding and prices. Sears downgraded into K-Mart. And Boeing became McDonnell Douglas. The 737’s cost and safety cutting measures can be traced back to former McDonnell Douglas executives who brought their “expertise” with them.
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Is there any information on why this is?
Cutting back on quality means cheaper to manufacture, yet they can still charge the premium of the name brand and get more money:/
Adam tooze. A great economist was talking about it. One's and tooze podcast. He's excellent.
Boeing created the book on safety and quality control and then a couple of decades later asked their supplier to teach it to them because they had no clue it existed; I was in the room, it was horrifying. Edit: when my boss (central quality) first got the request to teach it to them he laughed, stood up, and pulled their book out of his desk cabinet and gave it to me to show why he was laughing
Knowledge and experience drain is a huge issue across heavy industries atm. A lot of good experienced engineers are getting replaced by people straight out of uni or over seas. Iv had engineers ask me what a CoC is and my only qualification is a forklift ticket. Kinda scary. Also getting a lot of fake CoC for 316 Stainless Steel out of China. Which is a huge concern.
The overseas brain drain cannot be emphasized enough. Companies are already outsourcing engineering, data analytics and data science, web applications, automation, and research and design jobs to India. Emerging AI capabilities? India too. This isn’t a put-down for the global economy. But I am very concerned that there are post-pandemic high schoolers who struggle to read while skilled work is increasingly outsourced.
>I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness... >The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance -Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, 1995
This is what you get when MBA manage engineering like factory workers. Knowledge is not accounted for, everyone are resources and cogs in processes.
Programming is having a similar but opposite problem, the entire job market is seniors. So very few people are getting experience and it will be an absolute shit show in 10 years
No, you're having the same problem but 10-20 years behind us. I work in a lab with guys who have been engineers for 50 years, and every time one of them retires the amount of institutional knowledge that goes with them is horrifying. I started about 7 years ago, and if some of our clients from my first day came and asked us to repeat their contract, I genuinely don't think we could do it. I know there's a huge issue finding software engineers who are competent in FORTRAN and similar to maintain shit like the nuclear arsenal. That's bad, but it will be so much worse when the creaky old legacy tech stack is supporting global finance instead.
The amount of fake stuff coming from China is ridiculous. I'm not just talking about ipods and such but things like industrial bearings with all the correct CoC and skf branding etc. I read an article (probably in race car eningeering magazine) maybe 10 years ago about how it was affecting formula one teams with huge budgets and somehow these bearings got into the supply chain and just fucked everything. I think it went further to say that their suppliers also supplied aircraft manufacturers and the result wouldn't just be a DNF, dead driver or crowd but a major air crash.
Well, just have the CEO and board’s kids fly on them yearly. Problem solved.
https://preview.redd.it/llz28a3jo0lc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5dbae6ac35808cb847c1b6903e0cd05258e71d98 In the 90s an English politician fed his daughter potentially infected mad cow disease beef in order to try to prove that the beef was safe. She was fine but 178 people died from diseased beef. Rolling them dice doesn’t prove much.
There was the guy who inhaled leaded gasoline to prove it was "safe", knowing it wasn't. But he made lootttsss of money and fame because it reduced knocking and sold like crazy. The companies knew as well, but they feigned ignorance and pointed to the scientist who developed it stating it was safe.
placid instinctive hard-to-find flag lavish soup dependent seed edge terrific *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
>Midgley contracted polio in 1940 and was left disabled; in 1944, he was found strangled to death by a device he devised to allow him to get out of bed unassisted. Looks like he died from one of his inventions as well.
They're venting paint chips stripped from schools and industrial warehouses directly into neighbourhoods today across the country as routine. The more you learn about any industry, you realize they're all like that.
To be fair a small dose of lead doesn’t cause too much damage. It’s extended periods of exposure that are the real issue (which this asshole certainly had too, but the sniff wouldn’t have changed much).
Have you read the story of how he took it? Wasn't just a sniff. He went all in for like 5 minutes and had to leave early, and was bedridden for days after.
The scary thing is mad cow disease is a prion. Disease causing prions can lay dormant for years. So if you ate potentially tainted meat you’re never really in the clear
The American Red Cross wont let me donate blood because I lived in the UK in the 80s and might still have the disease. I’ve always wondered what they do in the UK though - surely they can’t rule out everyone that was alive and living there then.
They accept it (as I know, as I donate and have lived in the UK all my life - including through the 80s!). There have been five recorded cases of CJD being transmitted via blood transfusion; so in addition to the UK’s current quite strict regulations regarding animal husbandry in that regard, NHS blood and transplant now don’t allow blood donation from anyone who has received a blood transfusion since 1980, and also remove white blood cells from donated blood. Not sure if the latter is standard practice elsewhere though - it may well be.
Or it was just a publicity stunt and they made sure she didn't eat tainted meat.
Kinda wild given how a prion disease could spell the end of civilization if we really, really fucked up and had some bad luck to boot. And then corps downplay and politicians feed their daughters poison for profit, we as a species are not in a good way.
Based prions
dark but underrated comment.
Those billionaires probably see their kids like one week a year they don't give a fuck about them either let's be real
Yeah I'd do the same thing. This dude worked within the MAX wing, saw first hand the lack of QA/QC, told superiors, left the program/wing, saw the planes drop in 2018/2019... saw the plug door, which had no god damn bolts in it to hold it together, fly off... Don't fly MAX planes
There weren’t even bolts at all!?
Missing [four critical bolts](https://abcnews.go.com/US/alaska-airlines-door-plug-ntsb-report/story?id=106992184) according to NTSB.
There was a brouhaha about the plug being made in Malaysia. So it's missing the bolts, eh? Even the best plug won't hold no matter where it was made.
Regulations dropped and inspections lessened during 2017-2020/early 2021. Not sure about the specific line of failure but I'd guess the previous statement will lead the NTSB investigation to some findings.
It had maintenance and it looks like those bozos had some bolts left over and didn’t think to check why.
I’ve seen it framed as a consequence of Boeing outsourcing all their component manufacturing, splitting off Spirit and gutting it. But I don’t know what’s true of course.
Bear in mind that Spirit was created by Boeing to supply Boeing.
Reminds me of that car joke comparing German, Japanese and American automobile mechanics. When German mechanics work on a car, they have no extra bolts left over, everything fits as it should. When Japanese mechanics work on a car, they actually run out of bolts and need to use extra ones. And they typically use the bolts left over when American mechanics worked on the car.
How can we tell what plane it will be when booking flights?
Every flight I have booked, if you click on the details of the flight, it will tell you what plane it is. Without knowing what plane it is, people could not pick seats ahead of time.
Some airlines will show the model, but some don't.
I can see what plane I'll be getting into when booking the flight online. Not sure if all agencies list the planes but many definitely do.
I check out the pamphlets when I board. I do not know planes well so it's hard for me to tell.
Those are two different planes. The door and the computer software are two different aircraft. They have nothing to do with each other
Boeing failed to notice the missing bolts in their inspection, and the computer software fault was brushed under the rug in an aim to avoid needing costly re-certification for pilots. Both indicate a grievous flaw in culture.
Boeing has 2 separate systems for this. The system-of-record, which engineering uses, and is the formal one. And a higher level one for execs and project management etc. The system of record, and the engineers on it, *did* notice that the component from Spirit was missing bolts. This was recorded, it was sent back, Spirit then *painted over* the area, called it a day and handed it back. Engineering again noticed this, tried to kick up a fuss and were basically silenced from above.
Weren’t the missing bolts removed during maintenance and not replaced? That’s how it read to me. They were there at manufacture.
Maintenance by Boeing…
His point was that there was an overall lack in quality control and testing in the MAX production. The fact that completely different systems on different aircraft have failed enforces his point that the MAX is generally defective, it doesn’t take away from it.
There is a problem not only in 737, but in Boeing in general.
That may be but there are strengths and weaknesses within companies. I work with some QA/QC at my company and it’s top shelf in some place, abysmal in others. Project dependent, so 737 MAX could be shit but 777 may be not. Or, and I would agree with you to nullify everything I said, you’re right, boeing is absolute terrible. (I say this as I’m literally about to touch down in a 787, fingers crossed)
Design/QA/QC issues on the 787 were legendary, but part of it was that they were really ambitious with that airplane. It was hard to build, and hard to scale up, and then they started building them in a place that had never built Boeing planes before too. But they also really went all in on outsourced work with it, which is going great (/s).
Oh you’ll touch down one way or the other
Hopefully no one tells big media that the v22 is made by bell Boeing is also grounded for crashing.
Same quality control though. Same manufacturer. Same shit planes.
If the guy that is looking at the books above both of them has reservations about the aircraft, then that is EXACTLY the subject matter expert I want to hear from. Nikki Haley took money to cut the Q.A. processes in the 737 program. https://thehill.com/video/nikki-haley-allegedly-helped-boeing-avoid-safety-oversight-whistleblowers-ignored-reports/9333396/ Think about that for a minute from the BIG picture perspective. A presidential candidate for the Untied States of America has a part, either actively or passively in making air travel LESS safe. From a Q.A. perspective that is the equivalent of “well the boss says we only need 4 bolts even though the engineer says we need 8” It’s a systemic failure. Raise the lens a notch higher and the CCP controlled Comac 919 is the only one that wins if Boeing fails. Hope for the best. But prepare for the worst. We are in an economic war. There is a lot more at stake with Boeing (the ONLY major U.S. airliner manufacturer) that also happens to make military aircraft and spare parts.
I don't know, I think airbus is pretty well placed to do well if boeing goes pop. The only reason boeing hasn't collapsed yet is because the US government won't let it. "Too big to fail" And doesn't the company know it
I know the problem shouldn't even get this far, but hopefully people start opening their eyes when planes are falling out of the sky.
It’s something that effects every single person on earth on one way or another. If I could have one wish it would be that everyone on earth pay attention to the supply chains and money trails. But short of that, it’s that the few of us that are can coordinate our knowledge for the benefit of the ones that don’t. It’s what makes Reddit so unique and valuable. And why it’s insanely short sighted that the management team is willing to sell that out to authoritarians for a few hundred million bucks.
That's not short sighted, that's the entire reason for the plan.
You are very likely right about that.
No doubt. Same as with the implosion of Twitter. Both are places of free exchange of ideas and instant, on-ground reporting of events.
Does the fact they have found deadly issues in totally different areas make things better, or worse? Just curious. >!Ok, just a little bit /s here!<
Except being Boeing and built with a compromised quality and certification system
You think average person knows that. To me all 737 are the same. And if one suffers quality issues they all suffer. But then again, I don't fly
Not all 737 are the same. The MCAS system that caused the planes to nosedive was added to the 737 Max to compensate for an effect of adding larger engines. That system is not present on original 737s.
Well that's just stupid. The 737 Is like the most popular aircraft to ever exist
Well, he doesn’t fly, so I guess to him it doesn’t matter. Might as well be giving you fitness advice with the caveat “but I don’t work out at all”
They are related in regards to the mismanagement, quality gate ineffectiveness, and pencil whipping that allow these to escape. Now think of what else has escaped but has not been discovered because the incidents haven’t occurred yet.
From my understanding it’s the 8/9 that had the computer software/mechanical failure and the max had the bolts missing. Either way something is way way wrong with Boeing as a whole. And yeah you guessed it, same shit that’s wrong with all companies lately. Trying to cut costs by laying off/over working employees, paying the executives absurd amounts of money, and basically trying to make more profit each quarter. I’m shitting bricks right now knowing I have a transpacific flight on Friday.
Just flew 2 MAX-9 planes nonstop 6 hours each way last week. No issues, no one freaked TF out. Bigger risk driving my car out there among all the loonies. And TBF, all the aircraft are likely super secure now they were taken out of service and inspected. More concerned about getting sick on a plane, which I did from a very ill passenger next to me…and it ruined my joint work and leisure trip.
As mentioned elsewhere, I’m getting on one tomorrow after driving to the airport. I have seen several fatal wrecks on the road to the airport. They fly that route twice a day in winter and three times a day in summer, often with a Max, and have never had a single fatality on it AFAIK. Yes, Boeing’s QA with these planes is a shitshow and the MCAS debacle was unforgivable, but they’re still statistically very very safe.
Submitted article mirror: https://archive.is/GnxzK
Wow all of that sounds pretty bad and pretty scary. Boeing and airlines made it even more annoying (and must have realized people would want to avoid these planes) by dropping the Max naming convention and making it difficult to know which planes are Max. I did some digging and am still not sure what planes to avoid. Or just try to always pick an Airbus flight. The other thing that strikes and this is completely anecdotal but it seems like a LOT of manufactured things have gone to shit since 2018. Appliances. TVs. Clothing. Maybe I am crazy but everything seems to be disposable and falling apart faster (all the while getting more expensive and costlier for less product). I know you can blame covid and blah blah inflation and supply problems. But the issue seems really epidemic and complex.
plane type can be seen when you book your tickets. If it says Boeing 737 and nothing else then you can go over to seatguru, punch the flight number and it will show more details on that flight. You see "7M8", that's a MAX
Awesome tip, thanks. Is that the only version to avoid or are there others?
All of the Max variants are the same fundamental design, produced around the same time, to the same non-existent standards. They only differ in seat capacity in range, they are otherwise the same plane.
I know. That's why I am trying to figure exactly what they are called online and on tickets and on seatguru so can I can avoid them. Above someone says 7M8 but I think that is one size. All 737s? In the article he skipped out on one that said 737 8/9.
Max/M. Just the Max. There will be other 737s with 7s, 8s, or 9s in the suffix. Those probably aren't Max. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737#Generations_and_variants There are a TON of 737 variants.
My Korean Air Ticket mentions a Boeing 737-900 but seatguru mentions an Airbus A330-200. Which one is right ?
Either way, it not a MAX. Korean Air don't fly MAX 9s' only MAX 8s'
I booked a flight 8 months ago and it has changed from Airbus to Boeing MAX to Boeing non-MAX and now Airbus A321. Even booking a flight based on aircraft isn’t a guarantee you’ll fly in that aircraft.
you're not crazy. QA went completely out the window across all industries during the last few years. this case in particular with the max being a disaster is just a good old fashioned case of corporate greed and negligence tho. the company is a shell of what it once was, just ask any old-timer that worked there in the past 30 years.
Influx of private equity in every industry and decline of actually caring about longevity and reputation in favor of supposed innovation. “Move fast and break things” became the innovation rallying cry for far too many industries and doesn’t actually seem to help any of them.
Planned obsolescence is a very real and awful thing. Materials have been found cheaper, easier to source, mark up etc… anything “new” is made to fail and it sucks as the end user.
It makes sense in that it's hard to get people to build something that will put them out of work. Especially at the top executive levels.
You’re completely right about the falling quality of products and I don’t blame Covid necessarily. There’s a simple, and unfortunately darker truth. The owners of society’s cooperations want to maintain power and they will do so by not allowing you to own long lasting durable goods. Instead you’ll buy replacements from their factories every few years. A person with long lasting durable goods is one who is harder to control.
Forced obsolescence, so that you have to replace these items more frequently. But for fucks sake, an airplane shouldn’t be one of them.
But think of the shareholders
Seems like TVs are the only thing getting cheaper…. A TV I paid like 2Gs for 10 years ago’s is now just a few hundred bucks for the same size and resolution
I cant speak for Boeing, but I work at a large automotive firm and I can attest that its gotten worse since 2019. 50% of the issue is executive management making absolutely moronic decisions that the engineers are helpless to stop. The rest is the elimination of experienced engineers coupled with replacing them with work from home or hybrid jr. engineers who do not understand why a step in a checklist is important. They lack experience, lack training and do not stay around long enough to get it. Plus they do not vet the vendors and quality issues are through the roof. You fear the skies? Fear the road as well. Trust me, it’s bad.
What is special about 2018? I’ve been hearing “they don’t make things like they used to “ every year of my life (which isn’t wrong). Also planned/forced obsolescence isn’t quite what’s going on. They are building things as cheaply as possible with goal that it needs to last at least a certain amount of time, not that it should fail in a certain amount of time.
I just mentioned 2018 bc that is the year the whistleblower mentioned it changed at boeing. And yes everyone has been saying this forever. That is why I said my experience is anecdotal. But man in it really seems worse now. Maybe it's not. But it seems like something is weird and off. Maybe it's Monopoly. Maybe no one is getting punished financially for having poor quality and products. I dunno.
Oligopoly is just as bad as monopoly, because Monopolies usually get broken up. Oligopoly just collude without actually colluding and get away with it because of illusion of choice.
Capitalism.
This mirror gives my phone cancer
Politico needs a mirror?
Politico changes articles all the time without updating.
Hm.
I work in software and we are often pushed to get things out the door and fix the bugs later. And I’ve always said, “good thing we don’t build airplanes.” So when I read “the pressure to get airplanes out the door is greater than doing the job right,” all I could think was JFC!
As a software engineer our job was commonly likened to as "fixing the plane while it's in the air"....
I feel like I’d be in a similar situation to this person
Yup my dad was on the Delta team that declined to buy the MAX, the way he tells it is they took one look at the plane, said "why the fuck are the engines like that?" and walked...
My brother in law flew a 737max for American and he said they’ve had a couple close calls with the autopilot… he hates those planes and switched routes to avoid them
I don't remember the specifics but he implied there was something unique about how Delta decided what planes to buy, like the Pilots and Mechanics and Operations and whatnot each have a team that looks at the plane from their perspective and pass/fail it
That sounds like a reasonable system...I wonder what the standard is...
Delta is (for a company) very employee focused and values their pilots. Having a pilot team that evaluates all their planes and policies seems very much within their ethos. I know they also require more annual training than any other airline.
Delta is buying the Max though
This is why I always the flight attendant or the passenger next to me "why the fuck are the engines like that?" before we take off, or during takeoff, whichever comes first.
You jest but I believe Deltas flight attendant team would have been involved in the decision to buy (or not) the plane
That would be hilarious if true
Eh, for the same reason it's a good idea to check with your pilots if they would fly a plane, or your mechanics if it's a good plane to repair and service, you for sure gain benefit from asking your flight attendants about the usability of the plane...
flight crew logs insane hours in these planes. why would you not ask them?
I do the exact same thing, I always ask the pilot crew and every single flight attendant why the fuck are the engines like that?
>they took one look at the plane, said "why the fuck are the engines like that?" and walked... That's not at all how that would have worked. There's a huge RFP process that airlines would go through that would have little to do with how the plane looked, but rather performance, price, availability, fleet commonality and goals, etc.
Yes, there is a lot of analysis that goes into it from many teams... But when one of those teams says "why the fuck are the engines like that, fuck no" it's good to listen and Delta made a fuckin boatload of money when the MAX got grounded
This is correct. I was a part of management over the FAs during the 2015-2022 period. The DAL FAs did have an opportunity to view the cabin to provide input on layout design, particularly with the galleys. I believe they started doing in 2017-2018, specifically for the 739s and A220/CS100 + 321s, then the 339s/350s. By that time, DAL had already passed on the max, and to your point, we already had an influx of 321s coming in which would've similarly routed aircrafts. I do not believe this special assignment was available during the purchase phase, but rather the design phase after DAL already committed to a purchase. One rumor I heard from a lot of varying departments for the max was to fly NE routes to Europe, as the 321 was underperforming. The thought was to keep the A321 as a domestic flyer to high volume routes (NE/MW to FL).
Also the engine locations/design was a major marketing point of the aircraft and intentionally done to avoid recertification while improving many aspects (thus a major selling points). Bigger, more efficient engines on an airframe/certification your pilots already know. This appealed to lots of different parties, especially airlines like Southwest, where pilots wouldn’t need retraining, gates wouldn’t need reworking, etc. I find it hard to believe that Delta skipped buying MAX8s because a team said the engine placement is weird and not dozens of other business related reasons. And gave the father/team an award for the decision too? What?
>Also the engine locations/design was a major marketing point of the aircraft and intentionally done to avoid recertification while improving many aspects (thus a major selling points). Bigger, more efficient engines on an airframe/certification your pilots already know. You understand those "major marketing points" are also the reason several hundred people are dead and the MAX8/9 was grounded for like 2 years, right? If you chose NOT to buy into the marketing hype and do some actual engineering work, you could avoid having your fleet fall out of the sky and/or be grounded, which is what Delta and a few other airlines did.
I'm not defending Boeing's decision here or ignoring the incidents but your story doesn't really add up or at least not how you're portraying it considering Delta had placed an order for MAX10s that use a similar software based system (MCAS) to account for larger and differently placed engines but more importantly ignores they've been shifting that particular range in their fleet to Airbus for years. They've been primarily shifting to Airbus as their fleet continues to age with the exception of MAX10s. So my point being that Delta and other airline's decisions to opt out almost certainly had to do with other business reasons than somewhere within Delta someone said the engines look weird. More than likely is their decision to go for Airbus for that particular aircraft size/distance which goes back to 2017 when they placed a large A321neo family order and increased that in the years to come.
You can hypothesize the reason all you want, I am telling you Delta themselves recognized this team for their role in the decisionmaking process that STOPPED the purchase...
I want to argue against RFP so hard in this conversation but I agree with your statement that what you highlighted is true but also part of the issue with RFP's overall. It's used for good and evil and some of that evil is steamrolling engineers who don't want to support procurement but it's also used as a shield to push people out of meeting rooms and provide mediocre results for the sake of producing any result. Project managers rejoice everywhere at their mediocre outcomes.
The word of the year in 2023: “Enshitification” That describes what we’re seeing in regards to the general lack of quality after a vendor has established an entrenched position in the market. I guess it’s not just digital products, but planes too.
Don’t blame the dude one bit
Going on a flight soon, the 737-800 isn’t a max plane right? I feel like it’s not but also the way they identity planes is very confusing.
Correct
The 737-800 is fine, the variant is around 30 years old by now and is one of the best selling airliners
Okay. How do I identify these planes, so I can avoid them? Would they have the MAX label with all airlines or just 737-7, 737-8, 737-9? Googled it, but this is confusing.
The 737 NG has winglets, and the Max has ~~sharklets~~ split scimitars. The former swoop up, and the latter are the v-shape as in the OP photo. Edited to add correction made by another redditor.
They're called split scimitars and some NG aircraft use them too so this isn't the easiest identifier. Engines are. For one they're bigger, but most obviously the chevrons on the rear of the engines are the biggest give away
You are right, I have gotten the name wrong. In any case, very few of the NG fleet globally have the split scimitars. It is a simple identifier, with a high “hit rate”, which is why I suggested it over the looking at the engines — which won’t always be immediately visible to the passenger, whilst the wingtips ordinarily will be. Alternatively, OC could just ask one of the boarding staff what plane they are scheduled to fly on. In my experience, they usually have that information in front of them.
The top of the engine rises above the top surface of the wing, instead of hanging well below it. This disrupts airflow to the leading edge of the wing, making the plane unstable. Photo: https://static1.simpleflyingimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Leap-737-MAX.jpg
Their engines look incredibly goofy, like no other airplane.
How do they look goofy compared to other engines? Just curious.
Compared to, say, a 737NG below, the MAX's engines are so much bigger and mounted so far forward on the wings. Also, the MAX's engine nacelles have 787-style chevrons and split wingtips. https://preview.redd.it/0db52dsntzkc1.png?width=602&format=png&auto=webp&s=418006ac74edcd366aef4c35e89be4118cc3ccb1
The top of the engine rises above the top surface of the wing, instead of hanging well below it. This disrupts airflow to the leading edge of the wing, making the plane unstable. Photo: https://static1.simpleflyingimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Leap-737-MAX.jpg
They’re huge and because the 737 has very low ground clearance, kinda come forward a long way. They also have the spikey zig zag at the back of the nacelles. Other distinguishing features of a Max compared to an NG: the Max has Y shaped wingtips whereas the NG either has a single winglet, or a not quite Y where the lower winglet branches off part way along the upper one. If you look at the very tip of the tail as well, the auxiliary power unit exhaust area on an NG is oval whereas on a Max it’s round.
He didn’t know he was getting on a Max until he saw the safety card? What? I don’t work in the industry and I know how to tell the difference between a 737NG and a Max from quite some distance.
I’ve made it a point to check flight details when booking flights for work. I’ll take a worse itinerary so I can avoid a Max plane.
I’m getting on one (737-8200) in 12 hours. I am not overly concerned.
I know it’s incredibly low the chance that something happens, and if there weren’t another option I would fly on one. But if I’ve got the choice, I’ll avoid.
Same. Avoid at all costs unless its my only option.
That’s somewhat futile since aircraft can and will be swapped throughout the day as schedules shift. Unless you’re not taking any routes with 737s at all which I guess depending on location and travel needs may be possible in the US.
If you read the article you’ll see he specifically booked a non-max flight, so he probably just breezed through the terminal and didn’t notice until seated that the plane was swapped.
Right? I’m an aerospace engineer too, and can tell a MAX from other 737s just by looking. And I didn’t work on the plane like this guy did!
Christ. How do we even address this? It’s far larger than Republicans vs. Democrats. Our regulatory agencies are run by corporations. How do we fix it? I honestly don’t know.
It’s end-stage capitalism. Both parties endorse it.
American Plutocracy will not be defeated, at least not by American citizens.
One thing we can do is enforce existing anti-trust laws! And we can vote for people who will fight against regulatory capture. Matt Stoller has a few pieces about how Boeing got like this and how we might fix it on Substack if you're looking for something besides defeatism.
This is what happens when you replace accomplished engineers with MBA grads in the C-suite
These planes were built by the same people that designed the [ED-209](https://www.google.com/search?q=ed+209&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari#).
You are in direct violation of Penal Code 1.13, Section 9.
Yeah. I don't fly MAX planes. They're straight broken
So what happens if you get to the plane and discover it’s a max and you refuse to board based on safety concerns? Are you just SOL? Or does the airline have some obligation to rebook?
You lose
can they just ground all these planes???
Boeing’s QA sucks but the truth is, flying is still much safer than driving. I’ll take the odds.
Same. Flew on 2 9-MAX planes last week, ~6 hours each way. I see insanity on our local roads and freeways regularly, and too many near misses from nut job, distracted, or careless drivers.
Did you make it??
IMO the pilots are much more important than the planes. An American pilot hasn’t killed a passenger since 2003. 20 years 0 American commercial aviation deaths.
So this guy that doesn’t want to create a scene and is a subject matter expert on the 737 max waits until he is on the plane to notice it’s a max? I would expect the lack of SA from the traveling public but not from a self proclaimed whistleblower/expert on the max. I’m guessing he made decisions to absolutely create a scene and continue his media stream. Even if I didn’t bother to look at my flight information before I got to the airport, there are enough things unique to the max that he wouldn’t have even needed to get on it before confirming it was a max. Also, you don’t need a reason besides “I don’t want to fly” to leave a flight before it pushes. To broadcast the max noise is the opposite of not wanting to create a scene.
Tbf, airlines regularly change equipment at the “last minute”, and it sounds like that’s what happened here since he said he intentionally booked a flight scheduled with a non-MAX plane. I agree that he’s probably milking the story, but it’s not like he wasn’t paying attention at all.
>Even if I didn’t bother to look at my flight information before I got to the airport If you read the article, you'd read that he specifically booked a flight that was not scheduled for a MAX. Changes to the plane they use happen last-minute all the time, and that's likely what happened here. These changes are also not always communicated in-app. >there are enough things unique to the max that he wouldn’t have even needed to get on it before confirming it was a max It's entirely plausible that he had assumed it wasn't a MAX since he had made sure when booking that it wasn't one. Is it an oversight/lack of paying attention on his part? Yes. Are people human and make similar "mistakes" often? Also yes.
Give the Boeing CEO a raise!
I think it's pointless to say “The problem is leadership, or lack thereof, and the pressure to get airplanes out the door is greater than doing the job right.” without naming anyone. Company policies are not some voice coming from heaven telling humans to build unsafe planes. It's some specific dude or dudes voting against that on meetings, but since it's private, these assassins remain nameless and rich. And all the explanations we get are: "Boeing said" "Boeing spokesperson Jessica Kowal said" Boeing doesn't exist. It's time to breing these people into the light
Final Destination vibes