Can someone tell me if this is just confirmation bias or is Boeing really going down this hard? I mean management was obviously tanking since the McDonnell Douglas takeover, but did it really take almost 30 years for this to shine through? Or were these things underreported in the last decades?
The 1997 McDonnell Douglas acquisition led to their arrogant management culture replacing Boeing's, represented symbolically by the reference to The Economist cover September 10th-16th 1994 of camels fucking.
There have been many other safety defects and scandals swept under the rug, but they rarely make the news because they're detailed and complicated and corporate "news" isn't interested. Also, US presidents have defended them and US regulators run PR interference for them too.
The biggest one is the fact that unknowable 737 NG -6xx/-7xx/-8xx/-9xx structural fuselage elements including bear straps manufactured grossly out of spec by subcontractor Ducommun, declared "airworthy", and pounded into place on the Boeing fuselage assembly line on orders of management present greater risks of fuselage breakup during severe turbulence, runway overruns, and hard landings. There have already been fuselage breakups of NG airframes that 737 Classic aircraft survived more intact in similar circumstances. Most worryingly, there has been extensive retaliation against whistleblowers.
I used to bring up issues in good faith regarding Boeing because it needs to improve. But it seems like HN is taking out anti-Americanism sentiment and a bit of Euro pro-Airbus, so I kinda stopped because it went from productive to attempts to create a false narrative.
It's mostly, but not entirely, a combination of biases working in a feedback loop. Because of the 737 MAX crashes, which were legitimately at least partially Boeing's fault, stories about incidents involving Boeing planes are more likely to get covered in the media and become popular on social media, essentially selection bias. Confirmation bias means both the media and readers are more likely to view it the new story as Boeing's fault whether or not that's accurate, and this first impression becomes solidified in peoples' minds, anchoring bias.
This is very important because aircraft accident investigations take time and few aviation incidents generate enough attention that there is much if any follow up once the full cause is known. This first impression is what people remember the next time there is a Boeing story, further strengthening the confirmation bias. It's a self reinforcing feedback loop.
Which is not to say that Boeing doesn't deserve some bad press. The MAX story, the door plug blowout, and some others are legitimate evidence of issues at Boeing. But the bias feedback loop ensures that every Boeing story is treated that way, significantly distorting the reality of the issue.
So a plane which has withstood probably countless landings, had its nose gear collapse while sitting statically at a gate of all times and places? Weird.
There's a story that during the testing of a fighter plane - I think the F-35 but not sure - the "developers" claimed the new computer systems made most pilot errors all but impossible.
QA engineer's first check was, what happens if I try and retract the wheels while the plane is sitting on the ground and not moving. Oops.
Each time has been on different aircraft models, but there's not a lot of variation in nose wheel retraction design on airliners. There's a myriad of ways something could go wrong to make it happen, but considering how many flights there are per day, it's still an extremely rare event.
"Yeah, let's sabotage a competitor's plane, I'm sure it won't cause a major scandal and millions of dollars of lawsuits if one of them falls out of the sky and kills ~300 people, and they caught us as the cause...".
What the hell dictionary are you using where you're asking if the word "reasonable" could apply to this idea? Is your hovercraft full of eels?
Collapsed while it was sitting at a gate, with no passengers yet on board - meaning the the gear was under far lower loads than during a landing.
While slowly-failing gear could have collapsed anyway just then, the obvious question is whether the nose gear had just been serviced. By mechanics who (say) forgot to re-install the bolts holding everything together.
Same thing happened to British Airways a few years ago on a 787, a misplaced security pin that was inserted in the wrong place during a maintenance operation. There are two very similar holes next to one another that can receive the pin, there's a picture at the bottom here : https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/318989
I don't understand how that caused several injuries among a pretty small group (staff)?
Google says front wheel is about 1.68m. High but not crazy high. Plane body and people fall at same speed and it would be slower than actual freefall since the plane is vaguely balance-ish on rear wheels
I'm sure the reporting is right but feels counterintuitive to me
"Lufthansa operates the 787-9 variant" and "is planning to gradually phase out less efficient jets and simplify its fleet."
Do the efficiencies come from not having to burn fuel for it to crash into the ground?
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 49.4 ms ] threadThere have been many other safety defects and scandals swept under the rug, but they rarely make the news because they're detailed and complicated and corporate "news" isn't interested. Also, US presidents have defended them and US regulators run PR interference for them too.
The biggest one is the fact that unknowable 737 NG -6xx/-7xx/-8xx/-9xx structural fuselage elements including bear straps manufactured grossly out of spec by subcontractor Ducommun, declared "airworthy", and pounded into place on the Boeing fuselage assembly line on orders of management present greater risks of fuselage breakup during severe turbulence, runway overruns, and hard landings. There have already been fuselage breakups of NG airframes that 737 Classic aircraft survived more intact in similar circumstances. Most worryingly, there has been extensive retaliation against whistleblowers.
https://christinenegroni.com/boeing-workers-warn-of-737-ng-s...
This is very important because aircraft accident investigations take time and few aviation incidents generate enough attention that there is much if any follow up once the full cause is known. This first impression is what people remember the next time there is a Boeing story, further strengthening the confirmation bias. It's a self reinforcing feedback loop.
Which is not to say that Boeing doesn't deserve some bad press. The MAX story, the door plug blowout, and some others are legitimate evidence of issues at Boeing. But the bias feedback loop ensures that every Boeing story is treated that way, significantly distorting the reality of the issue.
QA engineer's first check was, what happens if I try and retract the wheels while the plane is sitting on the ground and not moving. Oops.
Each time has been on different aircraft models, but there's not a lot of variation in nose wheel retraction design on airliners. There's a myriad of ways something could go wrong to make it happen, but considering how many flights there are per day, it's still an extremely rare event.
How insane do you want to sound?
"Yeah, let's sabotage a competitor's plane, I'm sure it won't cause a major scandal and millions of dollars of lawsuits if one of them falls out of the sky and kills ~300 people, and they caught us as the cause...".
What the hell dictionary are you using where you're asking if the word "reasonable" could apply to this idea? Is your hovercraft full of eels?
While slowly-failing gear could have collapsed anyway just then, the obvious question is whether the nose gear had just been serviced. By mechanics who (say) forgot to re-install the bolts holding everything together.
Wondering if the same mishap is behind it again.
edit: actually, how did that happen? The apostrophes show up correctly, they’re just all preceded by a  that doesn’t seem to represent anything?
(It also says this happened to Boeing in 2018 and they ignored it, of course)
But, fucking hell, apparently Boeing "engineers" are so dumb they never learned about Murphy's law.
Google says front wheel is about 1.68m. High but not crazy high. Plane body and people fall at same speed and it would be slower than actual freefall since the plane is vaguely balance-ish on rear wheels
I'm sure the reporting is right but feels counterintuitive to me