Posted on 01/09/2024 10:09:29 PM PST by Dr. Franklin
Last week, passengers on board an Alaska Airlines flight were rattled by a terrifying incident involving a "door plug" being ripped out of the Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet that was taking them from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California.
The following "violent explosive decompression event," as National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy later described it, forced pilots to return back to the ground — though luckily, nobody got seriously injured.
As regulators pore over the data — the offending door plug has since been recovered alongside a fully intact iPhone from one of the passengers — new questions have arisen over the events that led to the incident.
As The American Prospect reports, the plug door, which was designed to seal a hole in the fuselage that's used in some other configurations as a door opening, was possibly the result of "cost-cutting production techniques to facilitate cramming more passengers into the cabin."
The plug door was a fix to still meet Federal Aviation Administration requirements in the case of high-capacity passenger seat layouts without having to make major changes to the fuselage design. "There are a lot of different ways to configure an aircraft to pack in air travelers like cattle, but it changed the calculus for manufacturers to meet standards," airline industry expert Bill McGee told the Prospect.
Worse yet, court documents obtained by The Lever suggest that former employees at Boeing spinoff Spirit AeroSystems, the company Boeing subcontracted to manufacture these plug doors, told Boeing officials about an "excessive amount of defects."
Instead of heeding these warnings, internal correspondence reviewed ... suggest that officials told these former employees to falsify records.
One employee told a coworker that "he believed it was just a matter of time until a major defect escaped to a customer," per the report.
(Excerpt) Read more at futurism.com ...
Exactly.
It turns out the Unbound Prometheus is bound after all.
The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present
https://www.amazon.com/Unbound-Prometheus-Technological-Industrial-Development/dp/052153402X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=8HV6IKWPLA8C&keywords=unbound+prometheus&qid=1704891228&sprefix=unbound+prome%2Caps%2C87&sr=8-1
"the book discusses the economic boom that has occurred since the industrial revolution began and argues that only through continued industrialization can the world sustain itself economically in the coming years."
Did you catch the last paragraph? Max 9 pilots were instructed not to fly over water. What does that mean?
in other words, the Kolachi had a blowout!
If the plane loses pressurization, it has to fly under 10K feet which uses more fuel. Flying to Hawaii would be out the question if the plane is having pressurization system issues.
There is so much wrong in this article I don’t know where to start.
Most importantly , it is a door plug not a plug door. It’s an option to exclude an exit which reduces maximum capacity.
It is only available on the B737- Max-9.
EC
My understanding of the issue is they plug the emergency door to permit cramming seat rows closer together on that side. So maybe they got 3 extra seats in. So... profits.
Whenever I hear of vendors doing things to reduce costs I always figure the cost of not doing those things is - higher prices.
Everyone got out safe and a chill-thrill for any kids on board. But American women aren’t having kids anymore. They import them.
Mr. GG2 used to work on the line for Boeing. He said those doors have to be installed by certified door mechanics who then put their mark on the paperwork then the QA engineer inspects the plug and puts his mark on it. Its called witness paint. Looking at a picture of the thing Mr. GG2 said there was no witness paint so likely they just let A regular line mechanic install the door. The door installation is highly specialized.
Yes it is done for profits. However they don't need to use that exit with that plane's seating configuration, so they use a plug door. If they cram the plane full of economy class seats, then they need an emergency exit. If they were going to reconfigure the plane on a regular, they would likely put in a deactivated door and cover it up..
There is a door plug on the other side of the aircraft. It was installed correctly according to NTSB. The evacuation requirements calls for evacuating the aircraft within 90 seconds with half of the exits operational.
> This aircraft was logging multiple fail overs of the cabin pressurization system, suggesting the door plug was leaking prior to the event<
That’s only a guess, and doubtful. The noise would have been extremely noticeable.
The way pressurization works - Air is pumped into the cabin at a constant rate by the engines regardless of altitude. The pressure is maintained with outflow values which are nothing more than BIG HOLES IN THE PLANE that are controlled by the system. These holes are bigger than a window.
The pressurization system is very complex with multiple backups and safety features which are constantly monitored. Any single, small fault will generate a “caution” which gets reported. I’m not placing much weight in this reporting.
EC
> More likely, they were cramming more seats into the flight deck.<
It lowers the “Maximium Authorized Seating Capacity”. Each airplane model is certified for a maximum seating capacity when it is designed. The manufacturer must physically demonstrate the ability to evacuate a full airplane in 90 seconds. When that certified number is set, it cannot be exceeded.
EC
What really matters is who installed it: Boeing, Spirit, or the airline maintenance people.
“Boeing quality is going down”
You said it’s because of DEI. The new brand for the old AA crap that’s been a thing for at least 30 years. The longer this goes on, the more dangerous our civilization is. AA doctors, pilots, these people that assemble planes ...
The way I read it is that Spirit built the single component, the plug, for Boeing employees to install. Also, Spirit warned Boeing. The buck stops with Boeing, IMO.
Spirit builds 737 fuselages for Boeing, not just the door plug. It would be a good guess that the fuselage is delivered with the door plug installed.
…unless you compare it to driving.
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