A lot of people don't realize that the fuselage of this plane isn't even made by Boeing, it's made by Spirit AeroSystems which also makes components for Airbus.
We don't really know who to blame here until the investigation concludes.
We don't really know who to blame here until the investigation concludes.
If I was running a US taxi service and bought a fleet of flawed Indian cars that caused crashes, I think I would be partially responsible.
I assume airlines do some degree of due diligence and, I believe they choose the engine type if there are options available but you probably overestimate the ability of a business whose primary job is to ferry passengers from point A to point B to do a serious design verification of every tiny detail of an aircraft. And those details can be tiny; take the case of the Airbus engine disassembly mentioned elsewhere on this thread.
Car manufacturing is a regulated industry. When I buy a car in the USA, even for my taxi business, I shouldn't need to hire a team of engineers to verify that it was properly designed and won't spontaneously combust. I should be able to assume that if the car is being legally sold to the public in the USA, the manufacturer has demonstrated that it meets some basic safety requirements set out by the government. I obviously have some _operational_ responsibilities (e.g. taking my taxis out of service if they're recalled for a design flaw), but I wouldn't consider myself responsible at all if my taxi happened to be the first 2025 Toyota Camry that spontaneously combusted from some design flaw.
Regulators aren't perfect but this is one reason they exist. The FAA has a set of requirements for manufacturing and selling planes in the USA and they have a set of requirements for operating an airline. If I'm operating an airline and the FAA tells me that the verification of an airplane's design and its assembly is the manufacturer's responsibility and not mine, I don't think it's fair to hold me responsible if my brand new airplane falls from the sky because of a design flaw.
Not that it is relevant to the overall relevance to the aviation argument here, but just in regards to cars in the US -- you often would be held liable for that, depending on which specific liability we are talking about, what the damages are, and in which jurisdiction you are operating in.
- It's the assembler's responsibility to make sure the exit door bolts are properly tightened, and
- It's the manufacturer's responsibility to find assemblers that correctly tighten door bolts, and the manufacturer's responsibility to design doors that don't explode, and
- It's the airline's responsibility to find manufacturers that design planes with not exploding doors, which are assembled by assemblers that correctly tighten door bolts, and checked by the airline's own maintenance teams during regular servicing of the planes.
Everyone should be looking over and double-checking everyone else's work. But that's not how the 737 MAX was designed or built.
The the airliner is called "Boeing 737 MAX" and not "Spirit AeroSystems - Boeing 737 MAX" which makes it pretty clear where overall accountability sits.
Choosing to not to fly on a MAX 8 because a MAX 9 has a part that is failing, is jumping to conclusions. If someone wants to jump that far, maybe they should avoid the Airbus A220 because it has wings made by Spirit AeroSystems. There's a lot of finger pointing going on when nobody knows why the doors are falling off yet.
People are angry, concerned and not willing to wait for NTSB to complete their investigations and see what if anything the FAA will do with the conclusions.
People are applying a heuristic and for many the outcome (correct in my opinion) is that Boeing should not be trusted.
That's how I see it. Boeing has already demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice safety and even human lives in exchange for greater profits and stock price increases. They then showed a willingness to lie and try to cover up their actions after it came to light that they caused the deaths of hundreds of passengers. They've also shown that they'll fight to avoid taking responsibility for the lives they took (https://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-737-max-crash-victims...)
Why should anyone trust them now?
However, you are correct. Until the final NTSB report comes out, we don't know.
"We need to wait until all the facts are in," "investigations take time," "We're still looking at root causes and it is premature to..." These statements may be factually true, but the time it takes allows people to be distracted by something else, passions to cool, and urgency to dissipate.
It's no brainwave for Boeing or anyone else (e.g. the NTSB, on Boeing's behalf) to realize that the slower and more methodical the investigation, the lower the final penalty (of whatever kind) will probably be, at least for one-off incidents. When the track record gets long, the actual quality of the investigations may start weighing against them...eventually.
> "Yes, We Have No Bolts" 9 Jan 737 Max-9 Update
The submission doesn't seem to try to assign blame to either Boeing or Spirit AeroSystems, but tries to just give you a true/false depending on if they airplane you're going with is a 737 Max.
The MAX 8 had the crashes due to MCAS problems. The underlying MCAS issue affected all 737 MAX variants.
Also, first flight number I could find is a 737max according to google but this thing says it isn’t a 737max. AC565, January 9, 2024.
For a different part of the aircraft, yes. I don't think airlines check for every loose bolt ever when the bulletin says something specific.
2 - it's made in a former Boeing plant, that boeing sold to an investment fund and then contract work to, so if your point is "that's not how REAL boeing manufacturing is done" well that's certainly where boeing is heading its manufacturing.
3 - The plane is designed, certified, assembled, inspected and then sold by Boeing. If I buy a ford and the door falls off randomly after two weeks, I don't care which subcontractor made the door, I give ford an angry warranty call.
... on the same type of plane that had the controls wrong enough to cause two crashes?
People can see a pattern there...
Out of the 3 current MAX types, one killed people two times and the other two have unresolved issues (one that make it fail FAA certification, and the other that make it lose parts of fuselage in flight ...). And then Boeing ask for fast track certification on the 4th type, because they've been doing such a great job so far.
The difference between this website existing for MAX and not for others is the repetition of issues though, to the point that now more people have had enough.
When the glass spills, the last drop might be the trigger for the glass finally spilling but it's the accumulation of water that's the issue, not just that one final drop.
This is a relevant topic for regulators to address, with specificity to the actual offending parts, procedures, and processes in place. Avoiding all MAX variants is a very hamfisted attempt to address a very tiny difference in observed safety.
There are regional airlines flying much more sketchy things. Where's "isMyPlaneACessna208BeingFlownByANewPilotInPoorWeather.com"?
Sure it would be. Commercial jetliner incidents are so rare that incidents with zero fatalities are routinely headline stories.
It's the line that's making the news, and this dot forms that line.
True, but the main Spirit Aerosystems factories making Airbus components are in the UK, except for "central section panels" of the A350, which are made in the USA.
The British factories used to be BAE and Bombardier factories, so it's very possible for there to be different working methods, culture etc.
Why would a company with the resources of Boeing choose to contract out such an important part of their planes, rather than vertically integrate that?
Some say this is for union-busting. Others say it's "just" boardroom financial engineering.
Whatever the reason, Boeing clearly hasn't cared about being a manufacturing company for a long time.
So, how then is Boeing rewarded with this website and Airbus not if they are using the same supplier?
Next step will be a plugin that filters these 737max from Kayak.
Boeing bad, mkay. Always has been.