Boeing 737 Max 8/9

[EACarlson]

Thanks for the explanation. So, this plane, essentially brand new....had pressure issues on Thursday and so instead of figuring it out....Alaska just took the flight off of longer flights to shorter ones? It would seem incredibly dangerous to do that.

And you're saying this has nothing at all to do with the 8....just the 9? Do any of the 8's have these "plugs" in them? I'm just guessing, but now assuming all planes have the possibility of having "plugs" in them....and now for someone like me this is just a new terrifying fact I didn't want to know....lol. I'll know have to scrub the internet for flights I'm taking to figure out if my plane has "plug" rows.

That's what I've been led to believe from other sources. There was a pressurization issue on Thursday that meant the ETOPS certification was pulled. ETOPS is what is need to fly long overwater segments like those to Hawaii.
Max8s do not have plugs. There is no configuration of a Max 8 or Max7 that would accomodate enough passengers to require additional emergency exits. The only two planes that have these plugs are the Max9 and the 737-900NG, sometimes labeled as a 737-900ER.
Only two US airlines fly the Max9 currently, Alaska and United. 739NG I don't know about, but it's a very new type.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

Almost 12,000 737 have been delivered to customers with another 4000 yet to be produced. No other plane type has had more deliveries.

We are not talking about all models of 737s. We're talking about the Max. The number of deliveries of the Max number about 1400. To publish numbers of all 737s when the Max series are the models in question is misleading.

https://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm

The stats are a little out of date but the 737 family has flown over 238 million flights. No other plane type is even close.

Again, to post stats from all 737s when it is just the max that is in question is misleading. The Max series, has made less than 1 million flights. A far far cry from 238 million.

The Max stats do look bad but are skewed by two crashes but investigations into those crashes found a multitude of safety violations that worked to cause the crash.

An understatement. And you're using the word skewed wrong. You cannot say that the crash record of the Max is skewed by Max 8 crashes. The overall record of the 737 is being skewed by the Max series. But given that it's the Max series that is going to be replacing aging 737s, it's crash record is what's relevant as to whether we should be putting more of them into service. And Boeing applying for safety exemptions to get the Max 7 and 10 in service does not inspire confidence.

Here is a summary of the Lion Air findings:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50177788

Some of the most damning non Boeing caused findings:


Does that sound like an airline you want to fly, on any type of plane?


Boeing certainly shares some of the blame for designing a system that had a single point of failure but as the report said it was a sequence of events that if just one had not occured, perhaps the crash would not have occured.

The Ethiopian 737 Max crash report blamed it all on Boeing. The Ethiopian investigation appears to have been less than impartial in their investigation and the NTSB released their own addendum to the report which highlights many misleading elements in the Ethiopian report. The end result is a report very similar to the Lion Air findings that poor training, poor maintenance, poor design, and a multitude of errors led to the crash.

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Documents/Response to EAIB final report.pdf

Nope. Boeing didn't say they shared blame. Boeing admitted it was their fault. Yet here you are still desperately trying to absolve a company that admitted responsibility. I guess you know more about their plane than they do. HAHA. Furthermore, the conflict between the Ethiopian Investigation and the NTSB is over what caused the sensor failure in the first place. The Ethiopians think it's electrical, the NTSB thinks it's an object strike such as a bird. But both are in complete agreement about the failure of the MCAS and its cause of the accident. And the NTSB report that you linked said so in its second paragraph. Did you miss it or conveniently leave it out? . "Overall, the NTSB concurs with the EAIB’ sinvestigation of the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) and related systems and the roles that they played in the accident."
But you keep on telling us how Boeing was going to be cleared and the Max 8 was going to be back in the air in a month (it took over 20)

 

[kdonnel]

Still early in the investigation but this article raises some potential issues with Alaska.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/08/us/alaska-airlines-plug-door-found-investigation-monday/index.html

Alaska had restricted the plane from flying any over water routes because on three prior flights the auto pressurisation failure light had come on. The problem had been reported and maintenance cleared the plane to fly after each event. December 7 and on January 3 and 4.

The plane was trying to tell them something was wrong.

Then despite knowing that the cockpit voice recorder is overwritten after 2 hours, it appears Alaska did not send a maintenance crew out to retrieve the recorder until the data had been overwritten.

 

[dvcgirl67]

Still early in the investigation but this article raises some potential issues with Alaska.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/08/us/alaska-airlines-plug-door-found-investigation-monday/index.html

Alaska had restricted the plane from flying any over water routes because on three prior flights the auto pressurisation failure light had come on. The problem had been reported and maintenance cleared the plane to fly after each event. December 7 and on January 3 and 4.

The plane was trying to tell them something was wrong.

Then despite knowing that the cockpit voice recorder is overwritten after 2 hours, it appears Alaska did not send a maintenance crew out to retrieve the recorder until the data had been overwritten.

That’s enough to keep me from flying on Alaska Airlines. I’d heard about one depressurization event…not three. Very troubling stuff.

 

[kdonnel]

Early reports are United has found loose bolts on the plug doors on 5 of their planes.

No consistency in where the loose bolts were found on the door either.

Spirit AeroSystems is the one that builds the fuselage and would be the one that installed the plug but sometimes the plug is removed and reinstalled during final assembly at the Boeing factory.

 

[dvcgirl67]

Early reports are United has found loose bolts on the plug doors on 5 of their planes.

No consistency in where the loose bolts were found on the door either.

Spirit AeroSystems is the one that builds the fuselage and would be the one that installed the plug but sometimes the plug is removed and reinstalled during final assembly at the Boeing factory.

Ugh....thanks for the update. Well, at least they're reporting what they've found. I have a customer who was due to fly out this morning on a Max 9 to Phoenix. He's not a big news watcher, so I texted him yesterday morning. He was able to rebook yesterday and get out today on a different flight...his original flight was cancelled, so guess it was removed from service and has to be checked. A bit scary for sure.

 

[ChrisFL]

I'm scheduled to fly on a 737 Max 8 via United in late February. I'm a little bit concerned but United immediately jumping to check things makes me feel a bit better...maybe. the 737 Max 8 is a different version but still....

 

[Lumpy1106]

Daily Mail

Seats in front of “window”, which was an emergency door originally - whole panel blew out.
Fortunately no one seated there!

View attachment 823470

What it looks like from outside.

View attachment 823469

The flight had 171 out of 177 seats sold. Two of the unsold seats were the two closest to the blowout. There was a passenger in the aisle seat. No one in a center seat asked to switch to that coveted window seat prior to takeoff - miracle indeed!

 

[EACarlson]

The flight had 171 out of 177 seats sold. Two of the unsold seats were the two closest to the blowout. There was a passenger in the aisle seat. No one in a center seat asked to switch to that coveted window seat prior to takeoff - miracle indeed!

Not the story I heard. I have seen reports that the passengers booked in 26A and 26B missed the flight. Not sure if it was a connection or something else.

 

[Lumpy1106]

Not the story I heard. I have seen reports that the passengers booked in 26A and 26B missed the flight. Not sure if it was a connection or something else.

Could be - unsold, left empty, I happily stand corrected. Point is, that was a very full flight for a window seat to be left empty - THAT window seat. Unbelievable.

 

[china mom]

I'm scheduled to fly on a 737 Max 8 via United in late February. I'm a little bit concerned but United immediately jumping to check things makes me feel a bit better...maybe. the 737 Max 8 is a different version but still....

I'm pretty sure the Max 8 does not have the option to have door plugs

 

[dvcgirl67]

I'm pretty sure the Max 8 does not have the option to have door plugs

I've read the same....the Max 8 do not have the plugs.

 

[Lumpy1106]

Can we talk about the, not 1, but 2 cell phones that were found - undamaged - after falling 16,000 feet out of the plane? What phone case and screen protector are on THOSE phones? I cracked my screen protector dropping my phone as I got out of my car.

 

[sam_gordon]

Can we talk about the, not 1, but 2 cell phones that were found - undamaged - after falling 16,000 feet out of the plane? What phone case and screen protector are on THOSE phones? I cracked my screen protector dropping my phone as I got out of my car.

I heard about 1. The one I read about had apparently fallen through bushes, which brought the speed down and hit earth (not concrete or other hard surface), so I guess it's possible.

 

[BrianL]

Can we talk about the, not 1, but 2 cell phones that were found - undamaged - after falling 16,000 feet out of the plane? What phone case and screen protector are on THOSE phones? I cracked my screen protector dropping my phone as I got out of my car.

I dunno, but it seems like whichever company made the phones or cases has a ready-made marketing campaign!

I used to buy the ruggedized phones, like the kind you take to a dig site or warzone. I really liked those becuase they were practically unbreakable, but the tech inside of them is always a bit outdated and they get obsolete fast. Those would have survived, no doubt.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Can we talk about the, not 1, but 2 cell phones that were found - undamaged - after falling 16,000 feet out of the plane? What phone case and screen protector are on THOSE phones? I cracked my screen protector dropping my phone as I got out of my car.

I heard about 1. The one I read about had apparently fallen through bushes, which brought the speed down and hit earth (not concrete or other hard surface), so I guess it's possible.

And astounding one wasn’t locked and the person who found it was able to see that it was on Airplane mode and view photos of their Alaskan Airways receipts for that particular flight! This was an iPhone.

 

[ChrisFL]

I'm pretty sure the Max 8 does not have the option to have door plugs

right, I was talking more generally since there's been a lot of issues with the 737 Max line

 

[Neapolitan Ice Cream]

Enough to make me prefer Airbus or Embraer.