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> Photos have emerged of a repainted 737 Max in Ryanair colours outside Boeing’s manufacturing hub, with the name 737 Max replaced by 737-8200 on the nose. Now

by gourou 7y ago

> Photos have emerged of a repainted 737 Max in Ryanair colours outside Boeing’s manufacturing hub, with the name 737 Max replaced by 737-8200 on the nose. Now I'm worried about boarding any 737

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jdright 7y ago
This. And I'm starting to be afraid of ANY Boeing. This company is dead.
- dehrmann 7y ago
  Really? I was in a 777 yesterday and felt like I was flying in a well-tested, mostly modern plane built with well-understood technologies. That, and I realized 737s (not Max, obviously) have loud interiors.
  - ken 7y ago
    > felt like I was flying in a well-tested, mostly modern plane built with well-understood technologies Given how much of its functionality is embedded in electronics and software, how can you know? Would a passenger be able to recognize if it suffered from the same flaws as the 737 MAX?
    - NullPrefix 7y ago
      > Given how much of its functionality is embedded in electronics and software, how can you know? Marketing, mostly.
    - PaulHoule 7y ago
      The 777 has a great long-term record. The 737 MAX started falling out of the sky right away.
      - throwaway5752 7y ago
        I generally hate being pedantic, but to really be accurate they started flying themselves into the ground rather than falling out of the sky. I have thought a lot about this for personal reasons, and I increasingly think the biggest failing is not grounding the fleet after the Lion Air crash. The Ethiopia Air should never have happened in any company that prioritized safety and risk appropriately.
  - amyjess 7y ago
    From what I understand, Boeing became toxic when they bought McDonnell-Douglas and absorbed their company culture of "Safety? Quality control? What are those?". The 737 MAX and the 787 Dreamliner were both designed after the acquisition and are full of issues. The 777 predates that, so it's fine.
- retSava 7y ago
  > This company is dead. Doubt it. For you perhaps, but the short memory of the general public, rebranding, and Boeing rebates (probably some generous amounts of heavy wine'n'dine), mean they will definitively show up at an airport near you.
  - djsumdog 7y ago
    The 737 survived one serious design flaw decades ago (the stuck rudder issue). People will forget about this as well.
    - retSava 7y ago
      Wasn't there something with an overheating or leaking fuel tank too?
    - addicted 7y ago
      The argument is that the issue with Boeing isn’t that they had a flaw with the 737 Max, but that their entire culture has moved away from a safety focused engineering one. If that is indeed the case, it’s unlikely the 737 Max’s flaw is the last one (in fact, we know it isn’t, and that the FAA discovered something else, which is why it was sent back to Boeing).
chongli 7y ago
I'm worried about boarding any Boeing aircraft at this point. The revelations paint a picture of an engineering culture deep into the normalization of deviance [1]. [1] https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Diane_Vaughan_and_the_normalization_of_deviance https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Diane_Vaughan_...
- magduf 7y ago
  The planes they built before the current era of management should be ok. I've heard the 777 has the best safety record of any plane flying, but it was engineered before the current management.
  - ulfw 7y ago
    I very much agree with that in terms of the old 777-200(ER) and 777-300(ER). The upcoming 777-8 and -9 don't fill me with confidence though.
    - chongli 7y ago
      Yes and that's the point. As a lay person it's not my business to determine which Boeing aircraft are safe and which aren't. Boeing's conduct has dealt tremendous damage to their reputation for safety and this casts a shadow over the entire fleet. They have to do a lot of work to rebuild that reputation and restore the public trust.
      - ulfw 7y ago
        Boeing is the red wine of the aircraft industry. The older the better.
      - brokenmachine 7y ago
        As a lowly passenger I don't get to choose which plane I am assigned to, also the airline seems to change it on a whim. At this stage I'd be unhappy to be on a modern Boeing but I don't know what I could do about it, except cross my fingers and hope I won't be the next victim. I don't know what rights I'd have to claim a refund or demand a different model plane.
AznHisoka 7y ago
Same here. If this happens, and my company is forcing me to business travel, I'm refusing to travel unless I'm put on an Airbus.
- freeopinion 7y ago
  What fascinating language. "I'm using all my leverage to refuse" doesn't me "I refuse". I wonder how many Boeing engineers used all their leverage to refuse to compromise safety.
  - AznHisoka 7y ago
    Edited. I wanted to emphasize the refuse, but I guess my language portrayed weakness.
- argd678 7y ago
  What company makes it hard to pick your flight that you’d need to resort to leverage?
  - toyg 7y ago
    Some (large) companies have automated processes where you’re forced to book travel arrangements through intranet portals with a limited choice of suppliers.
  - Kiro 7y ago
    What mid-size and above company lets you book your own flights at all?
    - txcwpalpha 7y ago
      I've worked for and know many people that work for very large (F500ish) companies, as well as the large consulting companies (Deloitte, Pwc, Accenture, etc), and booking your own flights/hotel is standard practice at all of the consulting companies and most of the others.
    - 7y ago
skybrian 7y ago
Why? Do you think their safety record is worse than driving?
- benj111 7y ago
  You're comparing apples to oranges. Compare pilots to drivers or cars to planes. I would guess that somewhere north of 90% of crashes are human error mainly or completely.
  - skybrian 7y ago
    I didn't actually do the comparison. I asked a question. You can choose your own methodology. But if you die, it doesn't matter whether it's human error or not, so it might be better to compare overall risk from all causes?
    - benj111 7y ago
      I understood it to be a rhetorical question, apologies if I misunderstood. Driving encompasses both mechanical and human risks. Here we are talking about just the mechanical, so I don't think the comparison is particularly fair.
  - mikepurvis 7y ago
    There are pieces beyond just equipment failure and operator error: things like infrastructure and process. Infrastructure has less of an impact in the sky, where the plane is pretty self-reliant, but process is huge, with maintenance schedules, co-pilots, ATC, etc all making the flying experience safer. On the ground, it's the opposite. There's very little process around driving your car, but there's a lot of infrastructure. How roads and intersections are built, what signage is used and where, how and how much different modes are protected and isolated from each other, all have an enormous impact on road safety. This is one of the key tenets of "Vision Zero", that blaming driver error is not an acceptable answer for why people die on the road. People make mistakes all the time, including while driving, and we have a moral responsibility to design systems and infrastructure that eliminate or minimize human death and suffering, even in the face of human error.
amyjess 7y ago
Ditto. And I'm really sad because after nearly two decades of not flying, I flew again last year (two round trips!) on Southwest, and I loved it and was looking forward to flying Southwest again. And now because of the 737 MAX, I'm going to have to avoid them. What low-cost carriers in the US fly Airbus exclusively? There's Spirit, which is notoriously horrible, and I saw someone mention JetBlue elsewhere in this thread. Any others?
- alexhutcheson 7y ago
  There is Allegiant, which has an all-Airbus fleet, but you're unlikely to fly them unless you're taking a vacation to Vegas or Florida. Spirit also gets an unnecessarily bad rap. Yes, their seats are tight, but they fly very few true long-haul flights, so it's not that big of a deal, and the Big Front Seat is probably the best value "premium economy" experience in the US. Prices for food and drinks in flight are more reasonable than they would be in the airport. In my experience, the only really unpleasant things about flying Spirit are: 1. Long lines to check bags (solution: don't check a bag, just pay the $5 extra to carry it on) 2. Other passengers that disregard plane etiquette (listening to music without headphones, etc.) or just complain a lot.
  - txcwpalpha 7y ago
    Allegiant has one of the notoriously worst safety records of any US airline. I definitely wouldn't recommend them if your goal is to pick a safer flying experience. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/allegiant-air-the-budget-airline-flying-under-the-radar/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/allegiant-air-the-budget-airlin... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegiant_Air#Safety_concerns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegiant_Air#Safety_concerns
    - teslabox 7y ago
      Allegiant started out with old DC-9's/MD-80's, and a few 757's. They were all replaced with Airbus A320's by November 2018. Most of Allegiant's previous safety problems stemmed from using old jets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegiant_Air#Fleet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegiant_Air#Fleet I think the company's startup plan was to use cheap/old fuel-guzzling aircraft to get the business off the ground: it's cheaper to pay for fuel than interest payments on new jets. Now that they've built a stable-enough business they've transitioned to newer planes. Wikipedia says the company's first brand-new jet was purchased in 2017, which was 20 years after the company was founded.
dfeojm-zlib 7y ago
Any Boeing designed, built or remanufactured in the past 20 years is fundamentally risky to the flying public because of the corrupting influence of regulatory capture, i.e., lax oversight of phases of system engineering and manufacturing, self-certification. In 2010, Al Jazeera presented an investigative report about Boeing subcontractor Ducommun's substandard manufacturing practices for critical support structural ribs and door frames that Boeing installed on 737 NG (-600/-700/-800/-900) airframes and management subsequently covered up an internal safety investigation. As a direct consequence of these choices, several 737 NG's have broken up on hard landing and runway overruns, killing passengers, whereas in the past, fuselages survived intact under similar conditions. Also, the 787 is a disaster waiting to happen.. anyone who steps foot on this clusterF deserves what they get.

by gourou 7y ago

> Photos have emerged of a repainted 737 Max in Ryanair colours outside Boeing’s manufacturing hub, with the name 737 Max replaced by 737-8200 on the nose. Now I'm worried about boarding any 737

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

jdright 7y ago

This. And I'm starting to be afraid of ANY Boeing. This company is dead.

dehrmann 7y ago
Really? I was in a 777 yesterday and felt like I was flying in a well-tested, mostly modern plane built with well-understood technologies. That, and I realized 737s (not Max, obviously) have loud interiors.
- ken 7y ago
  > felt like I was flying in a well-tested, mostly modern plane built with well-understood technologies Given how much of its functionality is embedded in electronics and software, how can you know? Would a passenger be able to recognize if it suffered from the same flaws as the 737 MAX?
  - NullPrefix 7y ago
    > Given how much of its functionality is embedded in electronics and software, how can you know? Marketing, mostly.
  - PaulHoule 7y ago
    The 777 has a great long-term record. The 737 MAX started falling out of the sky right away.
    - throwaway5752 7y ago
      I generally hate being pedantic, but to really be accurate they started flying themselves into the ground rather than falling out of the sky. I have thought a lot about this for personal reasons, and I increasingly think the biggest failing is not grounding the fleet after the Lion Air crash. The Ethiopia Air should never have happened in any company that prioritized safety and risk appropriately.
- amyjess 7y ago
  From what I understand, Boeing became toxic when they bought McDonnell-Douglas and absorbed their company culture of "Safety? Quality control? What are those?". The 737 MAX and the 787 Dreamliner were both designed after the acquisition and are full of issues. The 777 predates that, so it's fine.
retSava 7y ago
> This company is dead. Doubt it. For you perhaps, but the short memory of the general public, rebranding, and Boeing rebates (probably some generous amounts of heavy wine'n'dine), mean they will definitively show up at an airport near you.
- djsumdog 7y ago
  The 737 survived one serious design flaw decades ago (the stuck rudder issue). People will forget about this as well.
  - retSava 7y ago
    Wasn't there something with an overheating or leaking fuel tank too?
  - addicted 7y ago
    The argument is that the issue with Boeing isn’t that they had a flaw with the 737 Max, but that their entire culture has moved away from a safety focused engineering one. If that is indeed the case, it’s unlikely the 737 Max’s flaw is the last one (in fact, we know it isn’t, and that the FAA discovered something else, which is why it was sent back to Boeing).

chongli 7y ago

I'm worried about boarding any Boeing aircraft at this point. The revelations paint a picture of an engineering culture deep into the normalization of deviance [1]. [1] https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Diane_Vaughan_and_the_normalization_of_deviance https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Diane_Vaughan_...

magduf 7y ago
The planes they built before the current era of management should be ok. I've heard the 777 has the best safety record of any plane flying, but it was engineered before the current management.
- ulfw 7y ago
  I very much agree with that in terms of the old 777-200(ER) and 777-300(ER). The upcoming 777-8 and -9 don't fill me with confidence though.
  - chongli 7y ago
    Yes and that's the point. As a lay person it's not my business to determine which Boeing aircraft are safe and which aren't. Boeing's conduct has dealt tremendous damage to their reputation for safety and this casts a shadow over the entire fleet. They have to do a lot of work to rebuild that reputation and restore the public trust.
    - ulfw 7y ago
      Boeing is the red wine of the aircraft industry. The older the better.
    - brokenmachine 7y ago
      As a lowly passenger I don't get to choose which plane I am assigned to, also the airline seems to change it on a whim. At this stage I'd be unhappy to be on a modern Boeing but I don't know what I could do about it, except cross my fingers and hope I won't be the next victim. I don't know what rights I'd have to claim a refund or demand a different model plane.

AznHisoka 7y ago

Same here. If this happens, and my company is forcing me to business travel, I'm refusing to travel unless I'm put on an Airbus.

freeopinion 7y ago
What fascinating language. "I'm using all my leverage to refuse" doesn't me "I refuse". I wonder how many Boeing engineers used all their leverage to refuse to compromise safety.
- AznHisoka 7y ago
  Edited. I wanted to emphasize the refuse, but I guess my language portrayed weakness.
argd678 7y ago
What company makes it hard to pick your flight that you’d need to resort to leverage?
- toyg 7y ago
  Some (large) companies have automated processes where you’re forced to book travel arrangements through intranet portals with a limited choice of suppliers.
- Kiro 7y ago
  What mid-size and above company lets you book your own flights at all?
  - txcwpalpha 7y ago
    I've worked for and know many people that work for very large (F500ish) companies, as well as the large consulting companies (Deloitte, Pwc, Accenture, etc), and booking your own flights/hotel is standard practice at all of the consulting companies and most of the others.
  - 7y ago

skybrian 7y ago

Why? Do you think their safety record is worse than driving?

benj111 7y ago
You're comparing apples to oranges. Compare pilots to drivers or cars to planes. I would guess that somewhere north of 90% of crashes are human error mainly or completely.
- skybrian 7y ago
  I didn't actually do the comparison. I asked a question. You can choose your own methodology. But if you die, it doesn't matter whether it's human error or not, so it might be better to compare overall risk from all causes?
  - benj111 7y ago
    I understood it to be a rhetorical question, apologies if I misunderstood. Driving encompasses both mechanical and human risks. Here we are talking about just the mechanical, so I don't think the comparison is particularly fair.
- mikepurvis 7y ago
  There are pieces beyond just equipment failure and operator error: things like infrastructure and process. Infrastructure has less of an impact in the sky, where the plane is pretty self-reliant, but process is huge, with maintenance schedules, co-pilots, ATC, etc all making the flying experience safer. On the ground, it's the opposite. There's very little process around driving your car, but there's a lot of infrastructure. How roads and intersections are built, what signage is used and where, how and how much different modes are protected and isolated from each other, all have an enormous impact on road safety. This is one of the key tenets of "Vision Zero", that blaming driver error is not an acceptable answer for why people die on the road. People make mistakes all the time, including while driving, and we have a moral responsibility to design systems and infrastructure that eliminate or minimize human death and suffering, even in the face of human error.

amyjess 7y ago

Ditto. And I'm really sad because after nearly two decades of not flying, I flew again last year (two round trips!) on Southwest, and I loved it and was looking forward to flying Southwest again. And now because of the 737 MAX, I'm going to have to avoid them. What low-cost carriers in the US fly Airbus exclusively? There's Spirit, which is notoriously horrible, and I saw someone mention JetBlue elsewhere in this thread. Any others?

alexhutcheson 7y ago
There is Allegiant, which has an all-Airbus fleet, but you're unlikely to fly them unless you're taking a vacation to Vegas or Florida. Spirit also gets an unnecessarily bad rap. Yes, their seats are tight, but they fly very few true long-haul flights, so it's not that big of a deal, and the Big Front Seat is probably the best value "premium economy" experience in the US. Prices for food and drinks in flight are more reasonable than they would be in the airport. In my experience, the only really unpleasant things about flying Spirit are: 1. Long lines to check bags (solution: don't check a bag, just pay the $5 extra to carry it on) 2. Other passengers that disregard plane etiquette (listening to music without headphones, etc.) or just complain a lot.
- txcwpalpha 7y ago
  Allegiant has one of the notoriously worst safety records of any US airline. I definitely wouldn't recommend them if your goal is to pick a safer flying experience. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/allegiant-air-the-budget-airline-flying-under-the-radar/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/allegiant-air-the-budget-airlin... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegiant_Air#Safety_concerns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegiant_Air#Safety_concerns
  - teslabox 7y ago
    Allegiant started out with old DC-9's/MD-80's, and a few 757's. They were all replaced with Airbus A320's by November 2018. Most of Allegiant's previous safety problems stemmed from using old jets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegiant_Air#Fleet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegiant_Air#Fleet I think the company's startup plan was to use cheap/old fuel-guzzling aircraft to get the business off the ground: it's cheaper to pay for fuel than interest payments on new jets. Now that they've built a stable-enough business they've transitioned to newer planes. Wikipedia says the company's first brand-new jet was purchased in 2017, which was 20 years after the company was founded.

dfeojm-zlib 7y ago

Any Boeing designed, built or remanufactured in the past 20 years is fundamentally risky to the flying public because of the corrupting influence of regulatory capture, i.e., lax oversight of phases of system engineering and manufacturing, self-certification. In 2010, Al Jazeera presented an investigative report about Boeing subcontractor Ducommun's substandard manufacturing practices for critical support structural ribs and door frames that Boeing installed on 737 NG (-600/-700/-800/-900) airframes and management subsequently covered up an internal safety investigation. As a direct consequence of these choices, several 737 NG's have broken up on hard landing and runway overruns, killing passengers, whereas in the past, fuselages survived intact under similar conditions. Also, the 787 is a disaster waiting to happen.. anyone who steps foot on this clusterF deserves what they get.