Technology

Their fixes don't seem to have altered the fundamental problems with the Boeing 737 Max:

• the new engines are too big for the frame, so they've had to move them up and forward, which makes the plane pitch up at high thrust (which is what the now infamous MCAS attempted to mask with software)
• Boeing self-certified it as safe, claiming that it was a small, incremental change and so didn't need testing or additional pilot training
  • and that the FAA can't be trusted to oversee Boeing
• Boeing rushed out an unsafe design because they were scared of losing money to Airbus's A320neo

I have to fly several times a year and try to choose Airbus over Boeing whenever possible, and I flat out refuse to fly on the 737 Max. This news certainly doesn't make me feel like I was overreacting.

The incident seems much more serious than an isolated case of a doorplug falling off, I wonder if they are hiding something, another design flaw maybe?

Time to buy some Boeing stock, cause the US govt won't let their defense dept darling fail

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ordered the “temporary grounding” of 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 airplanes this morning after a section of fuselage separated from the side of an Alaska Airlines flight on Friday, leaving a gaping hole in the plane.

The agency said in its announcement that it will send an Emergency Airworthiness Directive out soon to require an inspection of all of the grounded planes that “will take around four to eight hours per aircraft.”

Prior to the FAA’s decision, Alaska Airlines grounded its own fleet of 65 Boeing 737 Max 9 planes for inspection.

In a 2020 Senate report, the FAA was accused of helping Boeing manipulate recertification tests to get the planes back in service.

Yesterday, The Seattle Times reported that Boeing had petitioned the FAA for a safety exemption for the 737 Max 7, a smaller plane the agency hasn’t certified yet.

Update January 6th, 2024, 3:10PM ET: Added detail from a Seattle Times article about Boeing’s recent petition for a safety exemption.

The original article contains 398 words, the summary contains 169 words. Saved 58%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Can someone explain to me why they just give up on this frankenjet and build off the safer (at the moment) 777?

I'm interested to learn what changes were made to the 737 max fuselage compared to earlier versions of the 737.