Posted on 01/13/2024 1:21:47 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
A Boeing 737 plane in Japan was forced to return to its point of departure on Saturday after a crack appeared in the window of the plane’s cockpit.
The All Nippon Airways (ANA) domestic flight had left the city of Sapporo en route to Toyama, before turning around for an emergency landing. No one onboard was injured, a spokesperson for the airline said.
John Strickland, an expert aviation consultant said that although the crack was in the outermost of the four-layered window, cracks like it “can be pretty dangerous if not fixed,” according to the BBC.
“The crack was not something that affected the flight’s control or pressurization,” the ANA spokesperson said.
This is the second safety issue with a Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft in as many weeks, after a door panel blew off of an Alaska Airlines flight that was departing from Portland Oregon.
On Friday, the FAA extended the grounding of Boeing 737 Max 9 planes indefinitely.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
I used to follow the original quote but Airbus have made such great strides in recent years, I now love their planes! Did a long haul on Delta’s A350 recently. What a fantastic airplane. Beats Boeing’s Dreamliner (787) imo.
In better news the last crash involving a major American Airline was November 12, 2001. It was an Airbus A300. Like about 90% of crashes it was caused by pilot error.
Except for two 737 Max 8 crashes which the MCAS feature lead to two crashes and 346 deaths.
Dei again?
Probably true. However, present-day Boeing is obviously no longer the premier company that it once was. The MCAS debacle was a shocking failure at every level that still calls into serious question Boeing’s management priorities. They never should have allowed an aircraft to be designed with negative stability, and then tried to quietly paper over the deficiency with (defective) software that they hid from the flight crews. Their priority in that case was clearly not safety, but instead the desire to save time and money by preventing the Max from having to be certified as a new design. Several hundred people are now dead as a direct result of their misplaced priorities. They should have designed an entirely new aircraft. But barring that, they should at least have been transparent about the fact that retrofitting the aging 737 airframe with engines so large that they had to be shifted forward, causing the aircraft to pitch up in turns, was being counteracted through novel software that would control the trim in an unintuitive manner.
And now we have door plugs just randomly departing the aircraft, with subsequent inspection finding many other examples of loose bolts in the same assembly. At this point, I think every new Boeing aircraft either recently delivered or still on the production line should be thoroughly reinspected from nose to tail, because there can be no confidence that other manufacturing defects don’t lurk in other areas. Boeing has flushed its sterling reputation straight down the toilet, likely as a result of substandard management practices inherited from McDonnell Douglas that prioritize bean counting and corner cutting above all else, and insane DEI hiring practices.
I think Boeing is now in the same boat as Disney, a formerly great company that can no longer be trusted.
Eh - Windshields crack. It’s not going anywhere. Multiple layers - things are over an inch thick. Changed a couple.
The crack may expand and spread so you end up with basically a blind driver because he can’t see forward. That’s a problem.
They were right to turn back but not an imminent catastrophe.
They need to start printing this on folks tickets :)
At the very least on the items allowed/not allowed list.
Fine, expected, for fighter.
“They were right to turn back but not an imminent catastrophe.”
No one said it was. It’s indicative of problems at the manufacturer, assuming it wasn’t caused by a bird strike or something else external.
Does anybody yet know who installed that door to window panel that blew out the other day? Seems to me they could know instantly who did what and when as well as who inspected what and when. Story seems to have dropped off a cliff.
Definitely true, but we were discussing Boeing’s commercial aircraft business, so didn’t think that needed to be mentioned. As you said, modern-day fighters are so unstable that they are uncontrollable without the flight control computers. That’s what makes them so maneuverable. But fighter pilots are fully aware of that, while Boeing unforgivably kept pilots of the Max in the dark, because describing the function of MCAS in the operating manual would likely cause FAA to demand a new type certificate for the aircraft.
Just to confirm from the article - this is another 737 Max jet.
We'll never find out.
These are the same cockpit windows used since the 707.
That all women/minority engineering team scores again!
Correction - This article infers it’s the max 9. BBC reports its one of the “older” 737s (but not old enough that this should be expected)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-67968526
Yeah, I wonder why those didn’t come when I made the query.
Artfully worded to return the desired results.
Let's exclude the Boeing 767 that crashed near Houston in February 2019. And the Boeing 737 that crashed near Honolulu in July 2021, the 777 that crashed at San Francisco July 2013, 737 at Chicago December 2005.
But if you include US carriers passenger carriers other than American, you'd need to count the Continental crash at Denver in December 2008 Boeing 737 with 115 on board.
101 Boeing crashes since 2000 can be found here
https://www.1001crash.com/index-page-plane_database-lg-2-aviation-boeing-plane-accident-aeronautical-history.html
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.