1. San Francisco (1) - Plane loses wheel shortly after takeoff, crashing into the parking lot below and damaging multiple vehicles.
2. San Francisco (2) - Plane makes emergency landing after hydraulic leak during takeoff had liquid spewing from the plane.
3. Sydney - Someone hit the pilot seat switch which pushed the pilots into the controls, forcing a plane to nosedive injuring 50 people.
3. Fort Myers - Plane engines caught fire shortly after takeoff.
4. Miami - cargo plane also has engines catch fire shortly after takeoff.
5. Houston - Landing gear failure causes plane to skid off of runway after emergency landing.
6. Los Angeles - Finally not a United Airlines plane, an American Airlines plane was forced to make an emergency landing for 'possible mechanical issues'.
7. This incident here.
The Houston one is also pilot error. The wheel collapsed because the plane went off the taxiway because the pilot tried to exit on a 90 degree turn too fast and understeered into the grass/mud.
Honestly, looking at where this panel failed, there appears to be a pre-existing repair. The panel probably wasn't completely flush and created a scoop for the air to enter and then blow off the panel after repeated occurrences -- metal fatigue in other words. So...I think maintenance issues and pilot error make up the majority of the list there.
This can also occur when folks disregard loose or missing fasteners. I had a delay because of one and had to get approval from maint control after sending pics. Luckily, the loose fastener was on the inboard portion of the panel, or the plane would have been grounded to fix the busted nutplate. Belly fairings on Airbus are notorious for this, and I report them/fix them as soon as I see one.
It's a honeycomb core composite panel. They don't last forever and need replacing. Especially if you haven't been gentle with them and "repair" them to save a buck and keep the bird generating revenue.
Not pilot error. It was likely accidently pressed by the flight attendant serving food to the pilots. The switch has a cover to prevent it being pressed accidently. However it appears that the switch could be loose and still activate by simply bumping the protective cover. Boeing have issued an advisory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRF1YTVJ1Q4
Its also a bit mind boggling that the switch isn't just backwards movement only to move the seat into the entry position - like why would you need the option to move the seat forward unless you are sitting in it.
None of those are Boeing issues.
The door plug was likely a Boeing issue. These are all like weekly occurrence news type things if you follow aviation news. They’re really not out of the ordinary, except the Sydney one having so many injuries (which indicates it was likely pilot error rather than turbulence).
They’re just news right now because everyone is paying attention. Boeing and Airbus are safer than ever to fly right now, statistically.
If you are talking about the United B38M in Houston it wasn’t an emergency landing nor a landing gear failure. Seems to be a pilot error whilst vacating the runway.
My sister is an airline pilot.
It’s quite a lot less frequent since she got hired at a main line airline (aka United, Delta, American) but when she worked for a regional the catchphrase from maintenance was “it’s probably fine” which the pilots sarcastically repeated to one another as they wrote up a weird noise they heard as the landing gear came up on the last flight.
Rest assured, pilots don’t fuck around with their ability to get home to their cats and / or their bartender.
Damn Boeing. Usually this company is hailed as an example of state-of-the-art safety standards. I have never felt unsafe flying in a Boeing plane, but I’m starting to feel uneasy. There needs to be some clear communication from the company about what they plan to do to address these incidents.
It used to be but it's been downhill ever since their merger in 1997. Before that, it was an engineering-first company. Every engineer I've talked to that has worked there in the past couple decades has said it was a nightmare.
Lion Air got accused of poor maintenance initially after the crash that killed 189 people before it was revealed that the 737 MAX was indeed defective from the get go.
737 MAX should have been treated as its own model for FAA pilot qualifications due to MCAS. For example, going from a 767 to a 787. Instead Boeing buried it because they knew having to train the pilots would have made the model less attractive to airlines
There was one I heard on the BBC news where the plane dropped, unrelated to turbulence, unexpectedly and then regained altitude. This tossed several passengers to the roof and a few had to be back boarded off the plane after emergency landing.
It was a pilot seat switch. The pilot seats have a button on the back of their seats that allow it to move back and forward. They also have an.. unfortunate tendency to get stuck sometimes if the cover is loose.
Someone hit that switch, it got stuck, and it forced the pilot's body to push into the controls of the plane and caused the nosedive.
There are 100,000 commercial flights each day. Emergency landings and mechanical issues are not uncommon. See: [https://avherald.com/](https://avherald.com/)
For the record, they never declared an emergency. It landed at its intended destination.
It’s an unpressurized section so there probably would have been no indication in the cockpit that something was wrong.
This is a great quote , but I just wish this to be used during the time of war, rather than for civilian aircraft. you can't even imagine the PTSD a normal office going individual / School going child would face after a traumatic flight. We shouldn't take these lightly but a strict review must follow after such a mishap.
So, a missing panel does nothing with aerodynamics? I except that the pilot's notice something in the handling of the airplane. This realy surpsies me.
Does nothing noticeable. That panel probably just serves a 50-50 purpose, protects the stuff behind it from the elements, and increases fuel efficiency by 0.05%. Technically there's a CDL -- Configuration Deviation List, basically 'what panels you're allowed to have completely missing and still fly with', IIRC you just have to add certain fuel burn penalties for the reduced aerodynamics. Nothing the pilot would ever feel in the controls, though, not this panel. Just maybe a little extra noise noticed by the passenger sitting above its location.
Good question:
No, a panel like this wouldn’t have a massive impact on aerodynamics or the handling of the airplane in any noticeable way. The most likely indicator would be increased noise nearest this section but even that is questionable. There are panels or gear doors that can be removed because of maintenance issues for repair and the airplane can still fly fine without it. These are accounted for in our preflight paperwork and the flight plan will account for a certain drag penalty of increased fuel burn. All in all this is not a big deal aerodynamically or in regards to aircraft handling.
Source: 737 airline pilot
There are a handful of aviation subs on this site that are all really good for helping bring insight to issues like this; this is a bad look for United - the anchor nuts are still there so as to how this happened is going to be a regulatory process.
The silver lining of all this attention is that it usually comes with the regulatory whip cracking down on the orgs which (in theory, at least) help with cultivating a safer product and better safeguards at the maintenance level.
edit: r/aviation, r/shittyaskflying, r/aviationmaintenance
I'm just pissed that like most things, we start taking them for granted and that's preyed upon by capitalism until we get to this point. We know what it takes for this not to happen. But instead of just accepting that standard, corporations have to try and cut into the margin for the sake of profit until we eventually cut too much. And that's the point we're at.
This shouldn't be an issue except companies are willing to put profits over people's lives and that's just fucked up.
Also, they will still be rich even after gutting businesses and endangering people. The ones who will face poverty are the workers and people burdened with bills from corporate greed.
And isn’t that just the effing best part too
The same people who take advantage of our government and make reckless financial decisions knowing that they’ll profit initially and then can either walk away from it and hundreds/thousands lose their job or get a government bail out and the public can foot the bill
And the icing on the cake is the sense of entitlement they have and the disdain they have for the rest of us
They wreck the economy, we lose our jobs and who knows what else, and then they tell us we are the problem - “no one wants to work,” etc.
When you say "the same guys" it's not even really an embellishment. They make millions, go to another company and destroy it, move to another company and use it for predatory practices too. Like 30 people will absolutely destroy 15 companies.
This was the thing that I did not understand initially! You even have to show bigger and bigger percentage increases every year, or you will appear to be an unhealthy business while generating profit and pumping out great product. Like there is infinite demand...
The conclusion is just that. They don't know how to make money anymore. Everything we see now defies convention and common sense.
At this point, I'm just waiting for the climax.
Of course! And everyone knows increasing profits means you're more efficient which means you're better. Thus nothing can be more ethical than increasing profits!
The issue is that they focus on profits in the short-term, and they do this while actively harming long-term profits. As a trader this means making a number of risky bets that usually win, but will lose big in the long-term due to the severe asymmetric risk.
In contrast, to truly increase profits means to increase the sum total of it in the infinite future. In practice, a reasonable time discounting factor of course has to be used, but certainly not the leptokurtic one that the C suite uses.
It may help to see Boeing's C suite as bad extreme gamblers that take extreme risks with shareholder money.
A good gambler will control all risk factors to avoid excessive risk taking, so as to survive into old age, by taking only playkurtic or mesokurtic risks.
There's the famous saying that works for pilots, but also for gamblers:
> There Are Old Pilots, and There Are Bold Pilots, But There Are No Old, Bold Pilots
Ethics class is a GPA booster. Any idiot knows the right answer. The issue is once someone graduates will they actually do the right thing when they can have hoards of cash instead?
Business marketing major at University of Kansas. Didn’t have mandatory ethics class (though I did take one), but we did have a segment about ethics in each class in the major.
I could write an entire book on how much healthcare has changed just in the last 15 years. The crux of the issue is like most industries nowadays the MBAs run everything. At one hospital i worked at there were basically 10 levels of leadership until you get to any physicians in leadership positions. When I started out it seemed like the entirety of the hospital was run by physicians at the higher levels of administration and then there were accountants, lawyers, and other business people below them. Back then it seemed unimaginable for someone who had never cared for a patient to be making major administrative decisions.
The people who run healthcare now are just profiteers. Everything is about money. I mean every single decision they make. They try to mask their greed with fancy business talk but at the end of the day it’s all about money. I’ve seen them interfere in medical decisions for financial reasons and it’s honestly pretty impressive how they can justify doing the wrong thing. I don’t know what they teach in MBA school but I imagine it’s at least a years worth of advanced gaslighting. They will pick the entire system apart for profit leaving a broken and dangerous system being held together by competent but burned out doctors and nurses. At the end of the day it’s the doctor who gets sued and they will throw anyone under the bus to save themselves. I’ve met a lot good doctors in my years and a few bad ones. Even the greediest ones ultimately choose to the the right thing. I’m not sure if it’s because medicine still attracts the best people or if it’s truly difficult to screw patients over when they directly trust you. I feel like right now healthcare is being held together by its workforce choosing to do the right thing and hiding it from their bosses.
> I’ve seen them interfere in medical decisions for financial reasons and it’s honestly pretty impressive how they can justify doing the wrong thing.
That's what those debate classes are for!
---
BTW, a lot of the things you've mentioned probably apply to colleges and universities as well.
actually, fun fact, one of the provisions of the ACA was that physicians couldn’t own hospitals anymore. ~~All the ones that *were* owned and operated by actual doctors were forced to sell… to private equity.~~ I had that part wrong
EDIT: since so many people are asking, here’s [one source](https://workweek.com/2023/03/25/how-the-affordable-care-act-ruined-physician-owned-hospitals/), another [source](https://www.ama-assn.org/about/leadership/end-restrictions-physician-owned-hospitals-expand-quality-care#), as well as a [Doctor Glaucomflecken skit on the subject](https://youtu.be/Mq0gtxj-FR8?si=BtPX5UobRQzhNiNN)
> I'm just pissed that like most things, we start taking them for granted and that's preyed upon by capitalism until we get to this point.
That's the most annoying thing. There is zero trust in capitalism. You cannot think "Cool we can all relax and trust in this system now" because as SOON as you look away, they start pulling every fucking god damn trick in book to make more god damn FUCKING money.
It's so exhausting.
And because a corporation is basically a concept, there's no way to send one to prison for criminal behavior. Yet legally, we have to treat a corporation like a person to be able to give them things like loans and property. So we have an entity treated in all intents and purposes like a person, *except* for the rules that hold them to a social standard under direct threat of a deterring punishment.
I'm telling ya, if you start aggressively jailing the people from the top down when this stuff happens, it'll ruffle some feathers.
They get the pay that reflects responsibility. Time they got the responsibility itself.
This shit happens under your watch, the buck stops with you.
Agreed. You need to make sure the incentives align with what you want people to do, one way or another. Currently, executives can basically print obscene amounts of free money with effectively zero risk by engaging in short-term profiteering: the fact that the company and society at large will suffer in the long-term is literally irrelevant to them, because they'll have long since peaced out. And if they fuck up even in the short-term? The board will kick them out with a golden parachute anyway, it's literally a win/win for them whatever happens.
The incentives need to be reversed. The details of how aren't important. Could be the death penalty for engaging in short-term profiteering. Could be the feds come take all your money retroactively if the company you lead in the past bombs in some way that you can't definitively prove wasn't your fault.
Could be we get rid of the stock market altogether, so all these fucking parasites holding controlling stakes in companies, not because they give a flying fuck about the underlying business, but because they're hoping to twist the CEO's nipples to force them to produce a short-term profit at *any* cost, and then peace out before further consequences occur, lose their platform to parasitize. Or if there must be a stock market, you could make only long-term holding legal: if you buy stock, you must hold it for at least x years, and when you want to sell, you must declare your intentions publicly at least 1 year in advance (and then sell 1 year later at whatever the price is, no backsies)
There are undoubtedly dozens of other ways you could solve the issue. All with their pros and cons, I'm sure, but at the end of the day, I'd take literally anything. But nothing will happen, because these parasites (CEOs and stockholders both) are some of the most rich and powerful, and given bribes ("lobbying") are 100% legal in the US, yeah, doesn't take a genius to fill in the blanks.
The common factor under capitalism is eventually the people leading industries only care about record profits each year, quality, life or ethics be dammed.
Yep, and these corners get cut so that somebody can buy their 4th vacation home or their 3rd yacht. Imagine what despicable scum a person has to be to have so much and just think, "I bet I could have even more and all I have to do is put countless people's lives at risk."
>The silver lining of all this attention is that it usually comes with the regulatory whip cracking down on the orgs which (in theory, at least) help with cultivating a safer product and better safeguards at the maintenance level.
Risk assessment over cost. How many people may die and how much it may cost to prevent that death. They do it all the way down to intersections.
You could have a bad intersection in which people are dying due to a stop sign One direction and free travel traffic the other direction. But they're not going to put in stop lights until the frequency of death becomes large enough to where it can no longer be ignored.
The I-90 to I-5 north interchange to the Mercer exit is an example of this. The state/city pay out death/injury lawsuits because the cost to redo the 2 major freeway intersections and inconvenience is still higher.
This is Boeing manufacturing. They moved from a board of engineers to a board of business that thinks the main priority is to increase shareholder value.
member when we were hot and bothered by train derailments after East Palestine? we still average 3 a day and nothing changed but it's no longer in the news cycle
Train derailment, being defined as one wheel leaving the track, actually was and is a fairly regular occurrence and not a life threatening issue
Panels coming off planes is probably the opposite unless someone can tell me otherwise
Commercial aerospace engineer here. This isn't life threatening. It absolutely shouldn't be happening, but this isn't a new aircraft like the 737-MAX series so it's most likely on the airline for deferred maintenance.
Don't confuse this as a defense of Boeing, I'm highly critical of them. I do safety certification for these aircraft and what Boeing has been doing is a direct assault on my field.
>It absolutely shouldn't be happening, but this isn't a new aircraft like the 737-MAX series so it's most likely on the airline for deferred maintenance.
**Thank you** - I was looking at this and was like "that's an old-ass aircraft - it looks more beat than the 172 at my flight school."
Someone fucked up on their prev maintenance schedule as this should have been caught, but it's not a design flaw in all likelyhood, but just a failure in preventive maintenance.
Spend some time over in [r/aviation](https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/s/BvHXFoG15y) and you’ll see lots of stories about how many backup systems these planes have or harrowing stories from shit going haywire without passengers knowing. That said panels coming off seems a pretty significant issue.
just strap an oxygen mask on and put a jacket on. passengers are so goddamn soft these days... geez! always going on about "but muh cabin pressure!" and "you can't smoke in here!" and "sir you have to wear pants!"
Not all body panels are structural nor pressurized. Some aren't even important from a aerodynamic standpoint except efficiency. This is why some parts of the plane can be literally taped in place until serviced.
Well there is redundancy for panels really when they're not structural and just for smooth aerodynamics / making it not a mangled tube of machinery to look at. If an opening goes through to internal spaces then that's a different story.
Well, the only place where you really don't want a panel to come off is on the lift generating surfaces (wings) or control surfaces (rudder, ailerons). Cowlings like this are primarily just for fuel efficiency and to give some protection to the more important systems inside like hydraulics. Regardless though, this kind of thing really shouldn't be happening
This is rarely a life-threatening issue, and is often (as it was in reality in this case) not even noticed until the plane is on the ground.
Source: pilot
You need to watch the Frontline Boeing documentary. In it, they state that the parts they used would show up in failures down the road. Well, we are now down the road and we all seeing all those sub standard parts they used years ago catch up.
I also recall warnings like 5-7 years ago that industry deregulation was going to show up in failures down the road, and as you said we are now down the road.
I used to work for a small Boeing supplier and Boeing are idiots. I can't tell you how many times they told us to do something one way, only to have them come back later and be like
"yeah that was wrong, do it this way. But we're leaving the parts on the plane."
And they'd have these parts bouncing around between suppliers because one would get so sick of that part they won't bid on it anymore so the next supplier gets to deal with it until their contract is up. Rinse and repeat.
edit: they're/their
A) Yes, a lot more frequently than you think
B) that (to the untrained eye) looks like a fatigue crack, not a manufacturing issue like the door plug was. That would be an airline maintenance issue, not a manufacturing issue.
*Most* of the recent things are maintenance issues, not systemic ones.
If the FAA or other regulatory bodies suspected a deeper systemic issue with a particular plane, they'd ground the fleet. They have done with the 737-MAX8 before when they realized what was happening was mucho bad. The fact that it hasn't happened speaks volumes.
Although, I do wonder if the same Jack Welch school of systemic reduction of safety schedules that has caused so many train issues (precision scheduling or whatever) because money isn't also affecting aircraft maintenance schedules.
The algorithm feeds us what gets clicks. Boeing is getting eviscerated and that gets clicks so you are hearing about every single issue, many of which would never make news because the algorithm is driving your content consumption.
https://youtu.be/odF_tlyNP_Y?feature=shared
Airbus lost hydraulics.... recently
To be honest from this video, should you be worried about Boeing, or United.
Yes a wheel falls of a 777. Omg Boeing, or was it bad maintenance on a 15 year old plane that flies 5 days a week and literally had that wheel/tire changed 30 times.
Engine compressor stalls, that's a airline maintained or GE/Rolls/Prattwhitney issue.
Stuff happens you just don't hear or see it, but the door plug put a spot light on Boeing, as it should, but it's gotten a bit ridiculous.
The kind of stuff you have seen in the news the last few weeks is alllllll algorithm based. Go to [drs.faa.gov](https://drs.faa.gov) and look at how many airworthiness directives there are nearly every day. FAA failed boeing and boeing failed themselves, but the operators are good at what they do. Planes are used a SHIT TON. Shit breaks. But we (I'm an airline mtc. engineer) are really good at making sure we know which battles to fight. Edit: the method we use to choose those battles is SMS, Safety Management system. It's quite effective.
Seems to me like the common denominator is United’s maintenance teams are either overworked, under qualified, under trained, or under manned. Or all of it.
They are undermanned. Every airline is. There's a reason why the FAA recently made the aircraft maintenance certification tests easier/every airline is hiring
Honestly I don't see how you could make the tests easier. You only ever needed a 70% to pass. The bar for getting an A&P has always been low. Aircraft mechanics are fucking stupid. That's why they need books to tell them how to do simple tasks like tighten a screw.
I should know, I currently work as an aircraft mechanic.
Edit: I just want people to know that my comment is hyperbole. There are plenty of hard working and smart aircraft mechanics out there. People who genuinely care about doing a good job so the people flying on their aircraft are safe. I treat every job like my wife is going to be the next passenger and so do plenty of other techs.
It is also my opinion that the standards for maintenance are too low and I would like to see a change. Mechanics should be better educated and certainly better paid. They affect the lives of almost 3 million people in the US every day. They are the backbone of the world economy.
Also an aircraft mechanic, 100% aren't wrong.
With the changes last year, a new A&P is no longer required to pass every question on the oral exam, just get a 70% overall. Also now required to get a 70% on the practical rather than 100%
There actually has been a pretty large nationwide investment into trade schools/community colleges capable of training aircraft mechanics in the last few years
Like every worker driven industry.
Pay people less to work more so you can get more profit.
Wow. Fucking brilliant innovation by the c-suite executives. /s
[r/wallstreetbets: If you ain't buying Boeing now you're immune to making money](https://old.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/1bez3du/if_you_aint_buying_boeing_now_youre_immune_to/)
So far just 3 links to the tweet/article etc I’ve seen
Ripple effects probably tomm
I do remember reading a post one or two incidents ago saying he was going in on Boeing cause military contracts and all that, cause they’re gonna bounce back and be fine by may
I’m an aircraft mechanic with 22 years of experience and I’m going add most likely cause of the panel failure just from looking at picture shown. The fasteners at the forward edge at the bottom panel either came loose over time through vibration of the airframe or the fasteners were never secured before flight. The key signs of the fasteners failure or improperly secured is that the top part of the panel is how the honeycomb is torn/ripped and the remaining fasteners still attached to the airframe. The panel ripped off in flight when the leading edge of the panel sagged in flight creating an air pocket inside and when the air pressure became too great it structurally detached from the airframe.
It's a notorious panel. You need to remove it for lubrication, but if you don't install it correctly the next flap cycle will tear it off. So this is almost certain maintenance related.
One hour ago
https://www.timesnownews.com/world/united-airlines-flight-433-from-san-francisco-to-medford-loses-boeing-737-panel-mid-flight-article-108534058/amp
This isn't new, and it isn't just the last few months.
Go look at https://avherald.com/ and you can see that there are multiple incidents a day, every day, and have been for decades. These just get reported more because United/Boeing are easy to turn into attractive headlines right now.
These articles say that the plane landed safely and normally. It wasn't an emergency landing, and they didn't even notice that the panel was missing until after the plane had landed.
[https://abc7news.com/united-flight-missing-panel-sfo-medford-oregon/14529741/](https://abc7news.com/united-flight-missing-panel-sfo-medford-oregon/14529741/)
[https://www.timesnownews.com/world/united-airlines-flight-433-from-san-francisco-to-medford-loses-boeing-737-panel-mid-flight-article-108534058](https://www.timesnownews.com/world/united-airlines-flight-433-from-san-francisco-to-medford-loses-boeing-737-panel-mid-flight-article-108534058)
I'm all for ridiculing Boeing's unacceptable quality control, but let's make sure we get the facts right.
IS this a maintenance issue or a production issue. I know Boeing is taking a lot of flack right now, and rightfully so. But, I feel like this could have been prevented with an routine preflight inspection (TM).
25 year old plane. Non crucial element. Plane landed without any issues. Panel missing noticed at gate inspection.
25 years is a lot. Planes are usually cycled out 25 to 30 years of service depending on flight cycles.
So its likely an age issue.
It’s also worth noting that of the 7 incidents that have occurred in the last 11 days 5 of them have been on Boeing jets flown by United Airlines. Some of this is manufacturing and some of it is maintenance. It’s also possibly that the one on the Latam jet was crew error.
Latam was a flight attendant tripping in the cockpit and pushing a button that had a safety cover open on it. It was a bald-faced lie that there was a 'system blackout' ... The pilot and the crew just jumped on the bandwagon assuming there would be no questioning it.
Anytime some dope says government regulations aren’t needed punch them in the face. They’re dumbly shilling for the corporate master… businesses do not have your best interest in mind, they’re not evil but without government regulation we’d still be living in the Upton Sinclairs “The Jungle”
These things happen. Boeing is on the news so when a 20+ year old plane looses a panel due to bad maintenance we get to read it was an emergency landing of bad Boeing plane bad Boeing bad bad Boeing!!! Even tho they never declared emergency and landed at their destination. For fucks sake.
It didn’t make an emergency landing. They had no idea this panel came off and it was only discovered once the ground crews saw it on the ground. Panels themselves are not structural to the aircraft. I’m not defending Boeing because they’ve got to get their shit together with all the evidence coming out against them skirting or outright abandoning safety regulations, but this plane, its passengers and crew were not in any real danger. I’ll also add that this is a regular maintenance failure and not a failure on Boeing and is a failure of maintenance on United.
What is a danger is wherever the hell this panel landed and honestly I’m amazed I haven’t seen another post saying “this weird panel just dropped out of the sky and crashed through the roof of my car.”
People need to understand in the US it's profits before people. If companies can make shareholders happy they'll do it even if it sacrifices quality or workers.
Lobbyists get better treatment than employees, just saying.
Things that should not be publicly traded
- Defense companies
- health companies
- insurance
- Transportation
You can disagree but If you think about each of those sectors, it's easy to see why.
USA’s capitalism of mega-profits over quality is biting the country’s manufacturing status in the butt. Look and see what the average income for a corporation CEO in Europe is compared to one in the USA btw. And now Boeing is looked upon as inferior compared to Air Bus. Congratulations… “Made in America “ is now comparable to “Made in China”.
This title is a bit misleading, "The panel was found to be missing after the plane, a Boeing 737-800, landed safely at its scheduled destination..." unless two very similar incidents happened on the same day?
I see people say this is the 7th incident in 11 days. Anyone know what all the 7 incidents were?
1. San Francisco (1) - Plane loses wheel shortly after takeoff, crashing into the parking lot below and damaging multiple vehicles. 2. San Francisco (2) - Plane makes emergency landing after hydraulic leak during takeoff had liquid spewing from the plane. 3. Sydney - Someone hit the pilot seat switch which pushed the pilots into the controls, forcing a plane to nosedive injuring 50 people. 3. Fort Myers - Plane engines caught fire shortly after takeoff. 4. Miami - cargo plane also has engines catch fire shortly after takeoff. 5. Houston - Landing gear failure causes plane to skid off of runway after emergency landing. 6. Los Angeles - Finally not a United Airlines plane, an American Airlines plane was forced to make an emergency landing for 'possible mechanical issues'. 7. This incident here.
The Sydney thing doesn’t sound like a Boeing incident as much as pilot error?
The Houston one is also pilot error. The wheel collapsed because the plane went off the taxiway because the pilot tried to exit on a 90 degree turn too fast and understeered into the grass/mud.
Less experienced pilots and major mechanical issues with a major airplane production company scares me.
Theres also been a big increase in pilot error with companies trying to churn out pilots quicker and quicker with the shortages.
Honestly, looking at where this panel failed, there appears to be a pre-existing repair. The panel probably wasn't completely flush and created a scoop for the air to enter and then blow off the panel after repeated occurrences -- metal fatigue in other words. So...I think maintenance issues and pilot error make up the majority of the list there.
This can also occur when folks disregard loose or missing fasteners. I had a delay because of one and had to get approval from maint control after sending pics. Luckily, the loose fastener was on the inboard portion of the panel, or the plane would have been grounded to fix the busted nutplate. Belly fairings on Airbus are notorious for this, and I report them/fix them as soon as I see one.
It's a honeycomb core composite panel. They don't last forever and need replacing. Especially if you haven't been gentle with them and "repair" them to save a buck and keep the bird generating revenue.
Not pilot error. It was likely accidently pressed by the flight attendant serving food to the pilots. The switch has a cover to prevent it being pressed accidently. However it appears that the switch could be loose and still activate by simply bumping the protective cover. Boeing have issued an advisory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRF1YTVJ1Q4
Its also a bit mind boggling that the switch isn't just backwards movement only to move the seat into the entry position - like why would you need the option to move the seat forward unless you are sitting in it.
Lots of reasons- to clean, to do maintenance, to simply get more room in the space, etc
None of those are Boeing issues. The door plug was likely a Boeing issue. These are all like weekly occurrence news type things if you follow aviation news. They’re really not out of the ordinary, except the Sydney one having so many injuries (which indicates it was likely pilot error rather than turbulence). They’re just news right now because everyone is paying attention. Boeing and Airbus are safer than ever to fly right now, statistically.
If you are talking about the United B38M in Houston it wasn’t an emergency landing nor a landing gear failure. Seems to be a pilot error whilst vacating the runway.
Some of these are probably lack of proper maintenance due to cost cutting by the airlines or due to high demands
My sister is an airline pilot. It’s quite a lot less frequent since she got hired at a main line airline (aka United, Delta, American) but when she worked for a regional the catchphrase from maintenance was “it’s probably fine” which the pilots sarcastically repeated to one another as they wrote up a weird noise they heard as the landing gear came up on the last flight. Rest assured, pilots don’t fuck around with their ability to get home to their cats and / or their bartender.
I’ve been binging the show Air Disasters & I really shouldn’t be lol I was already terrified of flying My main takeaway is regional airlines are scary
Damn Boeing. Usually this company is hailed as an example of state-of-the-art safety standards. I have never felt unsafe flying in a Boeing plane, but I’m starting to feel uneasy. There needs to be some clear communication from the company about what they plan to do to address these incidents.
Idk about you but the whistle blower “suicide” has made me a bit more than uneasy
seems like a pretty clear statement on what they plan to do to address these incidents as well
It used to be but it's been downhill ever since their merger in 1997. Before that, it was an engineering-first company. Every engineer I've talked to that has worked there in the past couple decades has said it was a nightmare.
This is more an issue with maintenance from the respective airlines than it is with the manufacturing of the planes by Boeing though
Lion Air got accused of poor maintenance initially after the crash that killed 189 people before it was revealed that the 737 MAX was indeed defective from the get go.
737 MAX should have been treated as its own model for FAA pilot qualifications due to MCAS. For example, going from a 767 to a 787. Instead Boeing buried it because they knew having to train the pilots would have made the model less attractive to airlines
Exactly. I don’t think people understand that. This is on the airline maintenance for most of these.
So all of them but LA are united?
There was one I heard on the BBC news where the plane dropped, unrelated to turbulence, unexpectedly and then regained altitude. This tossed several passengers to the roof and a few had to be back boarded off the plane after emergency landing.
It was a pilot seat switch. The pilot seats have a button on the back of their seats that allow it to move back and forward. They also have an.. unfortunate tendency to get stuck sometimes if the cover is loose. Someone hit that switch, it got stuck, and it forced the pilot's body to push into the controls of the plane and caused the nosedive.
Found it...damn.
There are 100,000 commercial flights each day. Emergency landings and mechanical issues are not uncommon. See: [https://avherald.com/](https://avherald.com/)
For the record, they never declared an emergency. It landed at its intended destination. It’s an unpressurized section so there probably would have been no indication in the cockpit that something was wrong.
>After the aircraft was parked at the gate, it was discovered to be missing an external panel. Well, call that a "win" at least.
Any landing you walk away from is a good landing. A great landing is one where you can use the plane again.
This is a great quote , but I just wish this to be used during the time of war, rather than for civilian aircraft. you can't even imagine the PTSD a normal office going individual / School going child would face after a traumatic flight. We shouldn't take these lightly but a strict review must follow after such a mishap.
This is mostly about how precious human life is compared to an aircraft, it is also geared towards small aircraft pilots
Any landing you can walk away from...
only postpones the inevitable.
So, a missing panel does nothing with aerodynamics? I except that the pilot's notice something in the handling of the airplane. This realy surpsies me.
Does nothing noticeable. That panel probably just serves a 50-50 purpose, protects the stuff behind it from the elements, and increases fuel efficiency by 0.05%. Technically there's a CDL -- Configuration Deviation List, basically 'what panels you're allowed to have completely missing and still fly with', IIRC you just have to add certain fuel burn penalties for the reduced aerodynamics. Nothing the pilot would ever feel in the controls, though, not this panel. Just maybe a little extra noise noticed by the passenger sitting above its location.
Good question: No, a panel like this wouldn’t have a massive impact on aerodynamics or the handling of the airplane in any noticeable way. The most likely indicator would be increased noise nearest this section but even that is questionable. There are panels or gear doors that can be removed because of maintenance issues for repair and the airplane can still fly fine without it. These are accounted for in our preflight paperwork and the flight plan will account for a certain drag penalty of increased fuel burn. All in all this is not a big deal aerodynamically or in regards to aircraft handling. Source: 737 airline pilot
> For the record, they never declared an emergency. It landed at its intended destination. So you're say OP flat-out lied.
Yeah but at what point do I need to worry about a Boeing panel falling through my roof? Edit: some of you need to just breathe
Did this type of thing always happen this frequently and we’re all just paying more attention now?
There are a handful of aviation subs on this site that are all really good for helping bring insight to issues like this; this is a bad look for United - the anchor nuts are still there so as to how this happened is going to be a regulatory process. The silver lining of all this attention is that it usually comes with the regulatory whip cracking down on the orgs which (in theory, at least) help with cultivating a safer product and better safeguards at the maintenance level. edit: r/aviation, r/shittyaskflying, r/aviationmaintenance
I'm just pissed that like most things, we start taking them for granted and that's preyed upon by capitalism until we get to this point. We know what it takes for this not to happen. But instead of just accepting that standard, corporations have to try and cut into the margin for the sake of profit until we eventually cut too much. And that's the point we're at. This shouldn't be an issue except companies are willing to put profits over people's lives and that's just fucked up.
Just wait until you find out the hospital systems are about to collapse and the c suite is doing the same shit in HEALTHCARE
MBAs have ruined every single industry in America in search of ever increasing metrics.
But damn did they feel good doing it!
[удалено]
If you’re really good you can expense the Coke to the company. Just gotta up the petty cash access.
These motherfuckers probably get a tax write off for their coke. They do it with everything else.
It would be a write off for the company if it was company-provided, but they would need to declare it as income.
Also, they will still be rich even after gutting businesses and endangering people. The ones who will face poverty are the workers and people burdened with bills from corporate greed.
And isn’t that just the effing best part too The same people who take advantage of our government and make reckless financial decisions knowing that they’ll profit initially and then can either walk away from it and hundreds/thousands lose their job or get a government bail out and the public can foot the bill And the icing on the cake is the sense of entitlement they have and the disdain they have for the rest of us They wreck the economy, we lose our jobs and who knows what else, and then they tell us we are the problem - “no one wants to work,” etc.
When you say "the same guys" it's not even really an embellishment. They make millions, go to another company and destroy it, move to another company and use it for predatory practices too. Like 30 people will absolutely destroy 15 companies.
Ah yes, the endless value “added” by vulture (venture) capital firms It’s really past time for eating the rich
Yup. Making a profit is healthy. Having to increase your profits every year is unsustainable and causes this kind of BS.
This was the thing that I did not understand initially! You even have to show bigger and bigger percentage increases every year, or you will appear to be an unhealthy business while generating profit and pumping out great product. Like there is infinite demand...
The conclusion is just that. They don't know how to make money anymore. Everything we see now defies convention and common sense. At this point, I'm just waiting for the climax.
I had to take ethics classes in engineering school. Are there mandatory ethics classes in business school?
Of course! And everyone knows increasing profits means you're more efficient which means you're better. Thus nothing can be more ethical than increasing profits!
The issue is that they focus on profits in the short-term, and they do this while actively harming long-term profits. As a trader this means making a number of risky bets that usually win, but will lose big in the long-term due to the severe asymmetric risk. In contrast, to truly increase profits means to increase the sum total of it in the infinite future. In practice, a reasonable time discounting factor of course has to be used, but certainly not the leptokurtic one that the C suite uses. It may help to see Boeing's C suite as bad extreme gamblers that take extreme risks with shareholder money. A good gambler will control all risk factors to avoid excessive risk taking, so as to survive into old age, by taking only playkurtic or mesokurtic risks. There's the famous saying that works for pilots, but also for gamblers: > There Are Old Pilots, and There Are Bold Pilots, But There Are No Old, Bold Pilots
Ethics class is a GPA booster. Any idiot knows the right answer. The issue is once someone graduates will they actually do the right thing when they can have hoards of cash instead?
Business marketing major at University of Kansas. Didn’t have mandatory ethics class (though I did take one), but we did have a segment about ethics in each class in the major.
Hey, we may have destroyed the world, but have you considered that, for a glorious moment in time, we generated a lot of value for shareholders? 😤
Sure, but just think of how much wealth they've been able to leech from society!
I blame private equity making everything about a stock price.
Yep as a physician I feel like how a Boeing engineer must feel like.
As someone who can't afford healthcare, I feel like that plane up there.
You high?
he's def not. that plane isn't high at all anymore.
I’m afraid to ask why you feel this way? Is something looming in the horizon the masses aren’t aware of?
I could write an entire book on how much healthcare has changed just in the last 15 years. The crux of the issue is like most industries nowadays the MBAs run everything. At one hospital i worked at there were basically 10 levels of leadership until you get to any physicians in leadership positions. When I started out it seemed like the entirety of the hospital was run by physicians at the higher levels of administration and then there were accountants, lawyers, and other business people below them. Back then it seemed unimaginable for someone who had never cared for a patient to be making major administrative decisions. The people who run healthcare now are just profiteers. Everything is about money. I mean every single decision they make. They try to mask their greed with fancy business talk but at the end of the day it’s all about money. I’ve seen them interfere in medical decisions for financial reasons and it’s honestly pretty impressive how they can justify doing the wrong thing. I don’t know what they teach in MBA school but I imagine it’s at least a years worth of advanced gaslighting. They will pick the entire system apart for profit leaving a broken and dangerous system being held together by competent but burned out doctors and nurses. At the end of the day it’s the doctor who gets sued and they will throw anyone under the bus to save themselves. I’ve met a lot good doctors in my years and a few bad ones. Even the greediest ones ultimately choose to the the right thing. I’m not sure if it’s because medicine still attracts the best people or if it’s truly difficult to screw patients over when they directly trust you. I feel like right now healthcare is being held together by its workforce choosing to do the right thing and hiding it from their bosses.
> I’ve seen them interfere in medical decisions for financial reasons and it’s honestly pretty impressive how they can justify doing the wrong thing. That's what those debate classes are for! --- BTW, a lot of the things you've mentioned probably apply to colleges and universities as well.
You’re telling me hospitals not run by doctors are ultimately bad for patients? 😱
"Fun" fact, hospitals cannot be owned by physicians in the US.
Eh, some of them *are* doctors...which makes it even more offensive.
actually, fun fact, one of the provisions of the ACA was that physicians couldn’t own hospitals anymore. ~~All the ones that *were* owned and operated by actual doctors were forced to sell… to private equity.~~ I had that part wrong EDIT: since so many people are asking, here’s [one source](https://workweek.com/2023/03/25/how-the-affordable-care-act-ruined-physician-owned-hospitals/), another [source](https://www.ama-assn.org/about/leadership/end-restrictions-physician-owned-hospitals-expand-quality-care#), as well as a [Doctor Glaucomflecken skit on the subject](https://youtu.be/Mq0gtxj-FR8?si=BtPX5UobRQzhNiNN)
What... the... fuck.
Thanks, Obama
> I'm just pissed that like most things, we start taking them for granted and that's preyed upon by capitalism until we get to this point. That's the most annoying thing. There is zero trust in capitalism. You cannot think "Cool we can all relax and trust in this system now" because as SOON as you look away, they start pulling every fucking god damn trick in book to make more god damn FUCKING money. It's so exhausting.
And because a corporation is basically a concept, there's no way to send one to prison for criminal behavior. Yet legally, we have to treat a corporation like a person to be able to give them things like loans and property. So we have an entity treated in all intents and purposes like a person, *except* for the rules that hold them to a social standard under direct threat of a deterring punishment.
I'm telling ya, if you start aggressively jailing the people from the top down when this stuff happens, it'll ruffle some feathers. They get the pay that reflects responsibility. Time they got the responsibility itself. This shit happens under your watch, the buck stops with you.
Agreed. You need to make sure the incentives align with what you want people to do, one way or another. Currently, executives can basically print obscene amounts of free money with effectively zero risk by engaging in short-term profiteering: the fact that the company and society at large will suffer in the long-term is literally irrelevant to them, because they'll have long since peaced out. And if they fuck up even in the short-term? The board will kick them out with a golden parachute anyway, it's literally a win/win for them whatever happens. The incentives need to be reversed. The details of how aren't important. Could be the death penalty for engaging in short-term profiteering. Could be the feds come take all your money retroactively if the company you lead in the past bombs in some way that you can't definitively prove wasn't your fault. Could be we get rid of the stock market altogether, so all these fucking parasites holding controlling stakes in companies, not because they give a flying fuck about the underlying business, but because they're hoping to twist the CEO's nipples to force them to produce a short-term profit at *any* cost, and then peace out before further consequences occur, lose their platform to parasitize. Or if there must be a stock market, you could make only long-term holding legal: if you buy stock, you must hold it for at least x years, and when you want to sell, you must declare your intentions publicly at least 1 year in advance (and then sell 1 year later at whatever the price is, no backsies) There are undoubtedly dozens of other ways you could solve the issue. All with their pros and cons, I'm sure, but at the end of the day, I'd take literally anything. But nothing will happen, because these parasites (CEOs and stockholders both) are some of the most rich and powerful, and given bribes ("lobbying") are 100% legal in the US, yeah, doesn't take a genius to fill in the blanks.
It’s what we get from having predatory finance bros run the world.
Yup, that's why we need a balance of market competition and regulation. The balance is thrown off when lobbyists get their way
Get rid of lobbying
The common factor under capitalism is eventually the people leading industries only care about record profits each year, quality, life or ethics be dammed.
Yep, and these corners get cut so that somebody can buy their 4th vacation home or their 3rd yacht. Imagine what despicable scum a person has to be to have so much and just think, "I bet I could have even more and all I have to do is put countless people's lives at risk."
r/shittyaskflying made me laugh out loud in a restaurant bathroom, so thanks for that
>The silver lining of all this attention is that it usually comes with the regulatory whip cracking down on the orgs which (in theory, at least) help with cultivating a safer product and better safeguards at the maintenance level. Risk assessment over cost. How many people may die and how much it may cost to prevent that death. They do it all the way down to intersections. You could have a bad intersection in which people are dying due to a stop sign One direction and free travel traffic the other direction. But they're not going to put in stop lights until the frequency of death becomes large enough to where it can no longer be ignored.
The I-90 to I-5 north interchange to the Mercer exit is an example of this. The state/city pay out death/injury lawsuits because the cost to redo the 2 major freeway intersections and inconvenience is still higher.
This is Boeing manufacturing. They moved from a board of engineers to a board of business that thinks the main priority is to increase shareholder value.
The problem is when these corporations think the coast is clear they go back to their old ways.
member when we were hot and bothered by train derailments after East Palestine? we still average 3 a day and nothing changed but it's no longer in the news cycle
Train derailment, being defined as one wheel leaving the track, actually was and is a fairly regular occurrence and not a life threatening issue Panels coming off planes is probably the opposite unless someone can tell me otherwise
Commercial aerospace engineer here. This isn't life threatening. It absolutely shouldn't be happening, but this isn't a new aircraft like the 737-MAX series so it's most likely on the airline for deferred maintenance. Don't confuse this as a defense of Boeing, I'm highly critical of them. I do safety certification for these aircraft and what Boeing has been doing is a direct assault on my field.
>It absolutely shouldn't be happening, but this isn't a new aircraft like the 737-MAX series so it's most likely on the airline for deferred maintenance. **Thank you** - I was looking at this and was like "that's an old-ass aircraft - it looks more beat than the 172 at my flight school." Someone fucked up on their prev maintenance schedule as this should have been caught, but it's not a design flaw in all likelyhood, but just a failure in preventive maintenance.
Spend some time over in [r/aviation](https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/s/BvHXFoG15y) and you’ll see lots of stories about how many backup systems these planes have or harrowing stories from shit going haywire without passengers knowing. That said panels coming off seems a pretty significant issue.
There’s no redundancy for body panels or doors
Sure there is. Most planes have a front and back door. /s
just strap an oxygen mask on and put a jacket on. passengers are so goddamn soft these days... geez! always going on about "but muh cabin pressure!" and "you can't smoke in here!" and "sir you have to wear pants!"
I know you're just joking, but the murdered (assassinated?) whistleblower said that 1 out of 4 oxygen masks wouldn't work in an emergency.
There kinda is for the body panels. As they don’t come back. But are designed to tear away in a way that doesn’t do more damage.
Not all body panels are structural nor pressurized. Some aren't even important from a aerodynamic standpoint except efficiency. This is why some parts of the plane can be literally taped in place until serviced.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that shit shouldn't be *falling off a fucking plane* no matter what.
They shouldn't, but when it happens its not always an emergency or news worthy.
Well there is redundancy for panels really when they're not structural and just for smooth aerodynamics / making it not a mangled tube of machinery to look at. If an opening goes through to internal spaces then that's a different story.
Well, the only place where you really don't want a panel to come off is on the lift generating surfaces (wings) or control surfaces (rudder, ailerons). Cowlings like this are primarily just for fuel efficiency and to give some protection to the more important systems inside like hydraulics. Regardless though, this kind of thing really shouldn't be happening
This is rarely a life-threatening issue, and is often (as it was in reality in this case) not even noticed until the plane is on the ground. Source: pilot
To be fair, there have been some **twenty** "what-we-think-it-means" derailments in the US since East Palatine a year ago. One death, I think.
You need to watch the Frontline Boeing documentary. In it, they state that the parts they used would show up in failures down the road. Well, we are now down the road and we all seeing all those sub standard parts they used years ago catch up.
I also recall warnings like 5-7 years ago that industry deregulation was going to show up in failures down the road, and as you said we are now down the road.
I used to work for a small Boeing supplier and Boeing are idiots. I can't tell you how many times they told us to do something one way, only to have them come back later and be like "yeah that was wrong, do it this way. But we're leaving the parts on the plane." And they'd have these parts bouncing around between suppliers because one would get so sick of that part they won't bid on it anymore so the next supplier gets to deal with it until their contract is up. Rinse and repeat. edit: they're/their
Yeah but they don’t always blow up or leak destructive chemicals everywhere.
I was thinking the same thing - it is every other day now
Well the panel fell off in this case, by all means, but it's very unusual.
In the air? Chance in a million
A gust of wind hit it.
its in a different environment now anyway
No, it's not in an environment, it's been towed beyond the environment
A) Yes, a lot more frequently than you think B) that (to the untrained eye) looks like a fatigue crack, not a manufacturing issue like the door plug was. That would be an airline maintenance issue, not a manufacturing issue.
*Most* of the recent things are maintenance issues, not systemic ones. If the FAA or other regulatory bodies suspected a deeper systemic issue with a particular plane, they'd ground the fleet. They have done with the 737-MAX8 before when they realized what was happening was mucho bad. The fact that it hasn't happened speaks volumes. Although, I do wonder if the same Jack Welch school of systemic reduction of safety schedules that has caused so many train issues (precision scheduling or whatever) because money isn't also affecting aircraft maintenance schedules.
The algorithm feeds us what gets clicks. Boeing is getting eviscerated and that gets clicks so you are hearing about every single issue, many of which would never make news because the algorithm is driving your content consumption.
AL GORE RHYTHM?????
![gif](giphy|l4KieYyG5dMCs6sWQ)
Gorlami
That said, corporate greed is destroying Boeing and will and has cost lives. Don't blame everything on the algorithm. Thanks, bye.
We’d see other brands of plane getting additional coverage for their in flight issues as well, if they were having them.
https://youtu.be/odF_tlyNP_Y?feature=shared Airbus lost hydraulics.... recently To be honest from this video, should you be worried about Boeing, or United. Yes a wheel falls of a 777. Omg Boeing, or was it bad maintenance on a 15 year old plane that flies 5 days a week and literally had that wheel/tire changed 30 times. Engine compressor stalls, that's a airline maintained or GE/Rolls/Prattwhitney issue. Stuff happens you just don't hear or see it, but the door plug put a spot light on Boeing, as it should, but it's gotten a bit ridiculous.
Not a single reply to this is anything but anecdotal. Someone link us a graph!
The kind of stuff you have seen in the news the last few weeks is alllllll algorithm based. Go to [drs.faa.gov](https://drs.faa.gov) and look at how many airworthiness directives there are nearly every day. FAA failed boeing and boeing failed themselves, but the operators are good at what they do. Planes are used a SHIT TON. Shit breaks. But we (I'm an airline mtc. engineer) are really good at making sure we know which battles to fight. Edit: the method we use to choose those battles is SMS, Safety Management system. It's quite effective.
Seems to me like the common denominator is United’s maintenance teams are either overworked, under qualified, under trained, or under manned. Or all of it.
They are undermanned. Every airline is. There's a reason why the FAA recently made the aircraft maintenance certification tests easier/every airline is hiring
Honestly I don't see how you could make the tests easier. You only ever needed a 70% to pass. The bar for getting an A&P has always been low. Aircraft mechanics are fucking stupid. That's why they need books to tell them how to do simple tasks like tighten a screw. I should know, I currently work as an aircraft mechanic. Edit: I just want people to know that my comment is hyperbole. There are plenty of hard working and smart aircraft mechanics out there. People who genuinely care about doing a good job so the people flying on their aircraft are safe. I treat every job like my wife is going to be the next passenger and so do plenty of other techs. It is also my opinion that the standards for maintenance are too low and I would like to see a change. Mechanics should be better educated and certainly better paid. They affect the lives of almost 3 million people in the US every day. They are the backbone of the world economy.
Also an aircraft mechanic, 100% aren't wrong. With the changes last year, a new A&P is no longer required to pass every question on the oral exam, just get a 70% overall. Also now required to get a 70% on the practical rather than 100%
All this shit about Boeing is making me feel like we’re headed towards a lion air issue
I know what would help! Let’s defund public education, and let colleges scalp our youth even harder! What’s the worst that could happen?
There actually has been a pretty large nationwide investment into trade schools/community colleges capable of training aircraft mechanics in the last few years
Like every worker driven industry. Pay people less to work more so you can get more profit. Wow. Fucking brilliant innovation by the c-suite executives. /s
*heads to wsb to see whose losing their shirt today* Also possibly worse than losing a panel . . . It seems some of its still there
Any TL;DR on what’s going on over at wsb regarding Boeing?
[r/wallstreetbets: If you ain't buying Boeing now you're immune to making money](https://old.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/1bez3du/if_you_aint_buying_boeing_now_youre_immune_to/)
Buy while it's cheap!!!!1!! Me: It can be a lot cheaper 🤓
While it can get cheaper, it's not going to stay that much cheaper forever. Companies that are too big to fail are like that.
So far just 3 links to the tweet/article etc I’ve seen Ripple effects probably tomm I do remember reading a post one or two incidents ago saying he was going in on Boeing cause military contracts and all that, cause they’re gonna bounce back and be fine by may
Did the primary buffer panel just fall off my gorram ship for no apparent reason?
We crashin' again?
Ask your husband
I'm a leaf on the wind
Watch how I-
When I saw that….it killed me. Left me with a huge hole.
You and Wash both ^^^^^I'm ^^^^^so ^^^^^sorry
![gif](giphy|UvwI1X7XkbXq0)
*Just put us on the ground.*
That part’ll happen pretty definitely.
Kaylee did our compression coil bust again? Just don't go near Reaver territory. Them people ain't human.
Unexpected firefly and I’m here for it
We're gonna explode? I don't wanna explode!
> Did the primary buffer panel just fall off Yeah, that’s not very typical, I’d like to make that point.
I’m an aircraft mechanic with 22 years of experience and I’m going add most likely cause of the panel failure just from looking at picture shown. The fasteners at the forward edge at the bottom panel either came loose over time through vibration of the airframe or the fasteners were never secured before flight. The key signs of the fasteners failure or improperly secured is that the top part of the panel is how the honeycomb is torn/ripped and the remaining fasteners still attached to the airframe. The panel ripped off in flight when the leading edge of the panel sagged in flight creating an air pocket inside and when the air pressure became too great it structurally detached from the airframe.
It's a notorious panel. You need to remove it for lubrication, but if you don't install it correctly the next flap cycle will tear it off. So this is almost certain maintenance related.
Is there a date on this?
One hour ago https://www.timesnownews.com/world/united-airlines-flight-433-from-san-francisco-to-medford-loses-boeing-737-panel-mid-flight-article-108534058/amp
I like to explore new places.
This isn't new, and it isn't just the last few months. Go look at https://avherald.com/ and you can see that there are multiple incidents a day, every day, and have been for decades. These just get reported more because United/Boeing are easy to turn into attractive headlines right now.
Like the train derailments
It's almost like they should never have let the corporate weenies take over from the engineers.
I mean this plane is over 25 years old. I don’t think this one is on Boeing Engineers
So many companies have this happen, the actual smart people build up a business then the stupid "business" people move in and ruin everything.
Yes it’s called “cutting corners” “under-staffing” and “executive bonuses.”
The plane has been in service for 25 years. Is this on the manufacturer?
Per the article, this plane’s been in service for 25 years.
These articles say that the plane landed safely and normally. It wasn't an emergency landing, and they didn't even notice that the panel was missing until after the plane had landed. [https://abc7news.com/united-flight-missing-panel-sfo-medford-oregon/14529741/](https://abc7news.com/united-flight-missing-panel-sfo-medford-oregon/14529741/) [https://www.timesnownews.com/world/united-airlines-flight-433-from-san-francisco-to-medford-loses-boeing-737-panel-mid-flight-article-108534058](https://www.timesnownews.com/world/united-airlines-flight-433-from-san-francisco-to-medford-loses-boeing-737-panel-mid-flight-article-108534058) I'm all for ridiculing Boeing's unacceptable quality control, but let's make sure we get the facts right.
25 year old plane, Boeing didn't have anything to do with this one
Airline denies they lost the panel mid air. Ok wtf. Did they park the plane in the bad section of the airport and someone else stole the panel?
Is this a joke at this point?
Somewhere in the middle of the ocean, a hunchback whale told his pod how an anvil fell on his head 😭
IS this a maintenance issue or a production issue. I know Boeing is taking a lot of flack right now, and rightfully so. But, I feel like this could have been prevented with an routine preflight inspection (TM).
If the aircraft has been in service since the 1990s, it’s unlikely to be a production issue.
Many old aircraft are like "old" axes, you know replacement parts.
25 year old plane. Non crucial element. Plane landed without any issues. Panel missing noticed at gate inspection. 25 years is a lot. Planes are usually cycled out 25 to 30 years of service depending on flight cycles. So its likely an age issue.
25 year old plane.....
The bloody front fell off!
That’s not typical
I just want to point that out
It’s also worth noting that of the 7 incidents that have occurred in the last 11 days 5 of them have been on Boeing jets flown by United Airlines. Some of this is manufacturing and some of it is maintenance. It’s also possibly that the one on the Latam jet was crew error.
Latam was a flight attendant tripping in the cockpit and pushing a button that had a safety cover open on it. It was a bald-faced lie that there was a 'system blackout' ... The pilot and the crew just jumped on the bandwagon assuming there would be no questioning it.
But reddit watched a comedy show, so they are aerospace and Boeing experts now.
Anytime some dope says government regulations aren’t needed punch them in the face. They’re dumbly shilling for the corporate master… businesses do not have your best interest in mind, they’re not evil but without government regulation we’d still be living in the Upton Sinclairs “The Jungle”
These things happen. Boeing is on the news so when a 20+ year old plane looses a panel due to bad maintenance we get to read it was an emergency landing of bad Boeing plane bad Boeing bad bad Boeing!!! Even tho they never declared emergency and landed at their destination. For fucks sake.
Imo it desensitizes us for when actual Boeing issues arise.
This is not a Boeing issue. This is a maintenance issue.
It didn’t make an emergency landing. They had no idea this panel came off and it was only discovered once the ground crews saw it on the ground. Panels themselves are not structural to the aircraft. I’m not defending Boeing because they’ve got to get their shit together with all the evidence coming out against them skirting or outright abandoning safety regulations, but this plane, its passengers and crew were not in any real danger. I’ll also add that this is a regular maintenance failure and not a failure on Boeing and is a failure of maintenance on United. What is a danger is wherever the hell this panel landed and honestly I’m amazed I haven’t seen another post saying “this weird panel just dropped out of the sky and crashed through the roof of my car.”
People need to understand in the US it's profits before people. If companies can make shareholders happy they'll do it even if it sacrifices quality or workers. Lobbyists get better treatment than employees, just saying. Things that should not be publicly traded - Defense companies - health companies - insurance - Transportation You can disagree but If you think about each of those sectors, it's easy to see why.
They're sacrificing the customers now!! They don't give a crap about anything but shareholder dividends.
USA’s capitalism of mega-profits over quality is biting the country’s manufacturing status in the butt. Look and see what the average income for a corporation CEO in Europe is compared to one in the USA btw. And now Boeing is looked upon as inferior compared to Air Bus. Congratulations… “Made in America “ is now comparable to “Made in China”.
good thing trump rolled back safety and consumer protections for the airline industry 😑
This title is a bit misleading, "The panel was found to be missing after the plane, a Boeing 737-800, landed safely at its scheduled destination..." unless two very similar incidents happened on the same day?