Alaska Airlines grounded all of its Boeing 737-9 aircraft late Friday, hours after a window and piece of fuselage on one such plane blew out in midair and forced an emergency landing in Portland, Oregon. No one was seriously hurt.
The incident occurred shortly after takeoff and the gaping hole caused the cabin to depressurize. Flight data showed the plane climbed to 16,000 feet (4,876 meters) before returning to Portland International Airport.
If a time machine is ever invented, after the obvious, a prime mission will be to determine who the hell at Boeing thought that it was a good idea to merge with McDonnell-Douglas and whack them.
ETA: Boeing--Making Amtrak Look Good Since 1997.(tm)
7 comments:
I still want to know and understand how Mc D went bankrupt and got bought out by Boeing, but Mc D somehow ended up in all the management positions. Which is why Boeing is all fucked up since.
Or, as it is said, how McDonald Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing's money....
There are probably some Ph.D.-level B-school theses about that transaction.
The upshot of it was that Boeing was transformed from a company run by engineers to a company run by accountants who likely knew less about how to build an airplane than the average pilot (and certainly the average homebuilder).
From One Mile at a Time "An Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX had a major incident last night, whereby a part of the fuselage (a deactivated emergency exit) blew out inflight. "
Piece of fuselage sounds a lot better than the an emergency exit door. . . Thankfully deactivated, as a chute getting caught up in the wing / engine would make things. .. difficult. . . Geez
Maybe you should pressure test door before paneling over it?
I am pretty sure that the merger of the two companies was urged on by the Pentagon Brass and the Bush 2 admin, with lots of help from Republican and Democrat corporatists. Pretending that the merger would "save money" by not having two teams building competing models...Free market only works with competition. Monopolies have no incentive to achieve "most bang for the buck"; with no bid, no overrun penalties, they are rewarded for the "most bucks for the bang."
A family member cancelled their ticket on this very flight. It was for work reasons and not any particular insight. Will fly again, but not Boeing aircraft.
I don't fly anymore because I frankly don't trust airline companies to put safety and quality first and foremost.
This seems to be reflective of Boeing's attitude:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/boeing-still-hasnt-fixed-this-problem-on-max-jets-so-its-asking-for-an-exemption-to-safety-rules/ar-AA1mwDed
And it doesn't get any better:
"The auto pressurisation fail light was triggered on 7 December, 3 January and 4 January, but she said it was unclear if there was any connection between those events and Friday’s near-disaster.
The airline had, however, decided to restrict the plane from long flights over water in case the warning reappeared, Homendy said."
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/08/boeing-shares-fall-door-plane-mid-flight-spirit-aerosystems-737-max-9
Are functions working as intended? No.
Is there a flight risk or hazard? Yes to both.
Should inspections, root cause analysis, and remediation have already been done? Yes to all.
If you're restricting the plane from overseas flights, you've admitted to the above.
A complete cluster fuck and heads should roll.
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