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Comment by Aqueous | Hacker News Reader

Literally just flew on a United Airlines 737 MAX 9 one week ago. It seems like the craft I flew on has probably been grounded in the week since. I noticed that we were flying on a MAX before boarding and nearly asked to switch flights, but consoled myself that I was being irrational and that the planes were almost certainly fine now. Guess my confidence was misplaced.

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FWIW, it's only the Max 9s which have this issue. The Max 7s and 8s don't have an exit in that location (too few seats) and the Max 10s require an exit door to be installed in that location, not the door plug.

It's only the Max 9s that have the option of the door plug, if the installed seat count is below the threshold where an additional exit is required.

I think the concern is more the attitude that allowed this to happen, despite all the issues Boeing has had.

Yes, this seems like a top to bottom culture rot problem at Boeing sacrificing quality control in exchange for reduced costs.

A few years ago, I had read that certain airlines demanded planes manufacturered in Washington rather than South Carolina, and I wonder if that information actually ends up being a useful signal for better quality planes.

https://www.postandcourier.com/business/airline-surveys-poin...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/production-problems-prompt-broa...

I think the Max 9 are made in WA though, so it would be a much wider scale cultural problem than just SC's non-union vs. WA union factories.

That’s unfortunate, seems like there are no Boeing planes left with the level of credibility they had before.

They’re final-assembled in WA. The plug is installed by Spirit Aerosystems in Kansas.

> A few years ago, I had read that certain airlines demanded planes manufacturered in Washington rather than South Carolina, and I wonder if that information actually ends up being a useful signal for better quality planes.

The one with the blown door plug supposedly came off the Renton assembly line. No one is safe.

7s and 10s aren’t out in the wild yet. Only 8s and 9s.

Correct, but I've seen a lot of confusion that its a systemic problem (ala MCAS) with the Max family. It doesn't look that way. It looks like a manufacturing problem on one particular variant.

The 8 had the great MCAS crashes (boeing solution ? tell the pilot to turn it off when it happens !), the 7 has anti icing that burnout the engine nacelle and make it fall (boeing solution ? being exempted from the certification requirement of your engines not falling off and we will fix it in a few years !), the 9 has doors that fall off (boeing doesn't even have a solution on that one, but they know others bolts are at risk too since they warned to check the rudder bolts on jan 5), ... At this point it's a systemic problem with the MAX overall. The only one without issue is the 10 and it's because it's not out yet, but Boeing want a fast track on certification for it because obviously they're doing so good with these there is no need to fully check it.

And frankly this time we're talking about the worst of the worst, the basic first step of making airplanes : being able to ensure parts of it doesn't fall off for no reason. This is not a design issue, not a cost cutting "they didn't put enough sensors" reason, this is straight up "their manufacturing is bad and their QA is not able to catch it", ... These things have barely started flying and 5 of those are already affected (well, 6 ...), this is absurd.

Sure MBA taking over tends to kill engineering companies ability to make great product, but even Hewlett Packard is still able to make printers that print (they suck, but that's by choice from them)...

Boeing overall.

https://www.thedefensepost.com/2023/08/08/usaf-tanker-aircra...

To be fair to OP, cutting QA to save costs does lead to "their manufacturing is bad and their QA is not able to catch it"

  I've seen a lot of confusion that its a systemic problem

United found loose fasteners in a different locations on each of the five aircraft they found loose fasteners on. This is right on the heels of another emergency AD for the MAX about loose fasteners in a completely different location. That definitely hints at a systemic problem.

If you expand the scope a bit, Boeing's had nasty assembly and manufacturing problems across its whole model lineup. I highly doubt this is a one off problem.

Just had all my connections cancelled. So extra day in San Fran for me which is less than ideal, but probably better than being on the flight if something happens.

It was total bedlam at the airport when I got in this morning however. With almost no flights available to replace the grounded ones.

Another red eye special for me tonight but at least no connections.

I mean, you're here now. Plane did its job.

The safety margins on flying machines is really high, so while Boeing really should figure out what the hell is going on, the plane didn't fall out of the sky after a depressurization incident. It failed to a known state (ideally by design!)

That it didn’t fall out the sky is largely due to the door blowing off at a lower altitude by some fluke or miracle. Had this happened at cruising altitude we’d be telling a different story.

Pretty small potatoes compared to what https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243 survived. These things are actually pretty well built.

What tells you that was by design vs. pure luck?

Given the MCAS thing and other shenanigans Boeing is trying with the MAX certification my bet is on luck.

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