FAA investigating after Delta Boeing plane loses front nose wheel before takeoff
abcnews.go.com
abcnews.go.com
- a Swiss Air Bombardier C-Series "crew declared emergency reporting steam in the cockpit" [1]
- a LATAM 767 "needed to shut one of the engines" [2]
- a Lufthansa A320 "decided to divert to Amsterdam reporting a smokey smell in the cabin" [3]
- an American 737-800 "initiated a go around advising their flaps did not fully extend" [4]
Within that scope, the Delta 757's "nose wheels separat[ing] and roll[ing] away," an incident which caused "a delay of about 5:15 hours," is amusing but unremarkable [5]. (In contrast, today, Wednesday 24 January (EDIT: 2 January), a Japan Airlines A350 "collided with Coast Guard DH8C on runway and burst into flames" [6]. No souls lost.)
Every day, these issues come up [7]. (Do not click if you're a nervous flier.) Something is wrong with the 737 Max 9, possibly the entire Max series. Modern aviation is safe not because we never have malfunctions, but because we prepare for and learn from them. If you filter for Boeing-specific news, you may not appreciate how much noise is in what you see as signal.
[1] https://avherald.com/h?article=51403e71&opt=0
[2] https://avherald.com/h?article=513fed6d&opt=0
[3] https://avherald.com/h?article=5140aea1&opt=0
[4] https://avherald.com/h?article=5140b1b8&opt=0
[5] https://avherald.com/h?article=5140ab01&opt=0
The only incident that could a priori be related to the airframe is [4], and funnily enough it happened on a Boeing. What is demanded from Boeing is that 1) they train maintenance personnel properly, or if not in scope release proper documentation for said training, and 2) they design systems so that maintenance is reduced to a minimum and safety is not compromised.
It’s not about “Boeing didn’t plug a door properly”, it’s about “this airplane requires you to tighten the bolts every 300h (came-up numbers here)”. There is the technology to make bolts secure so that they don’t pop out, if you defer safety of the system to maintenance accidents are bound to happen.
On a 757 classic? The plane is over 30 years old. Everything about it is maintenance. (To say nothing of a terrific track record.)
I'm also not sure which pilot would not prefer a nose wheel detaching, which is a known and limited (albeit expensive and uncomfortable) failure, to something like smoke or steam in the cabin, which could be innocuous or catastrophic. Particularly if it's coming from something like a battery fire, which is both a critical issue and something the manufacturer designed into the plane.
Nose wheels shouldn't detach. But it happens, last I believe during Covid on a Turkish Airlines A320. Drawing conclusions about Boeing's current fleet from a 757 Classic is exactly the sort of overfitting I'm talking about.
Every plane is equipped with a fire extinguishing box (for lack of the proper term) where you drop your battery and gets extinguished, air crew are trained on it. If you don’t have any warnings on the cabin, telling you that other systems are failing, you do not declare an emergency, you declare a fault (PanPan)
757 has a stellar record, but as you say, it’s showing its age. And that means more paperwork on Boeing releasing proper maintenance procedures, revising inspection intervals, releasing TNs, etc. which are mostly on program management, an area where Boeing has been lacking lately…
At no point I draw any conclusions, I am just putting in doubt (which is nothing bad, is just not assuming something as by default given) that Boeing has been doing everything by the book. And of course that’s something that will be investigated by the FAA, and I hope they have been doing everything well :)
Whatever this is it probably has absolutely zero to do with the current state of Boeing.
Starting with the CoM being inherently unstable due to the choice of oversized bypass on the engine.
I mean, having an autopilot that pretty much just pulls up because the trim isn’t enough? It could work, but it was arguably irresponsible to make a custom package with premium training for _taking off safely_.
They tried to make a plane to jam into a certain market segment, made it very customizable, and seem to be gluttons for bad PR.
EDIT: I misremembered the CoM problem. The MCAS was introduced on the max 8 to push the nose down because the plane tends to stall on takeoff.
Engineering problem for sure, and we solve those; yet still a tradeoff in cost that made a plane unstable. Just kinda smells of a mismanaged program over and over again.
Where did you get that idea? The airworthiness certificate is issued by the FAA and is conditioned on maintenance, among other things.
I'd guess you're thinking of the type certificate.
Delta has its own CAMO (Delta TechOps), which I assume has done the maintenance of this aircraft, but it is yet to be seen whether they followed everything to the T or is there something missing from Boeing’s part.
As I said in another comment, I doubt everyone here (which is not bad, it’s just not assuming by default that everything is well done everywhere) and will wait for the FAA report.
No. Boeing deserves total criticism of production and design problems with the 737MAX, but does not deserve random unrelated things being added to the criticism because they're timely.
This should all come from Boeing _before_ it reaches the FAA. That’s the meaning of self-certification through AMCs.
I’m assuming here however that there are no TNs associated with this particular issue with the landing gear.
I will wait for the FAAs final report, I’m definitely not blaming Boeing here yet, but their bad press is surely a bias point against them and giving a second thought about whether they are doing things right…
But at the same time, if you had a running processor with a known side channel vulnerability, and you know the manufacturer doesn’t release a mitigation or doesn’t really care that much about security, would you still use it? Is the manufacturer liable for not releasing mitigations or not caring that much about security?
If the airframe is not airworthy after inspections and there is no maintenance remedy that can be applied to it at an economical cost, then that airplane shall be scrapped… Even before it reaches the FAA. So in a way yes, if you can’t apply maintenance the way it is supposed to be, then it is not airworthy, and if the manufacturer does not release proper TNs to mitigate design flaws, then it is also not airworthy. I will wait to the report from the FAA and see what they find out.
There's a thousand of these aircraft, and they've each been through multiple D checks where all of this is completely disassembled and put back together; then there's other maintenance that causes disassembly and reassembly, too. In tens of thousands of opportunities, it looks like one time a wheel assembly was not fastened adequately.
It's possible procedures can be improved to make this even less likely. But maybe not: people make mistakes. Sometimes someone signs the line saying that something was torqued and didn't realize they had torqued something different.
Doubting, and scrutiny in safety-critical environments is not a bad thing, it is what makes things safer. I won’t defend Delta nor Boeing until the FAA sees the t’s crossed and the i’s dotted, and neither should you.
Now -that- is a hot take. LOL
... or, you know, sometimes mishaps happen that are not the manufacturer's fault and aren't likely to be mitigated by more manufacturer documentations. You presume a lot.
I will wait for the FAA report on that :)
I see that there was a tire problem with an Airbus A350 when it was landing. And the plane was only 2.9 years old! DAMMIT AIRBUS!
And then there was an A321 that had an engine shut down in flight. On a 2.4 year old plane! DAMMIT AIRBUS!
It gets better. A young (11.8 years) A321 with pressurization problems. Along the same lines, an A330 (just 18 years old!) failed to pressurize. Then a more scary incident, the brakes failed on a 13 year old A319 in Brazil. Wow!
Why didn't Airbus pull the airworthiness certificates for those planes? This is just an awful look for Airbus, and it might be worth more investigation.
...
Or, you know, things break, and maintenance is important. A 30 year old plane will require pretty intensive maintenance to keep it in safe flying condition.
Things break on planes constantly, all the time.
Sometimes, rarely, pilots need to declare an emergency.
Most of the time, almost always, they land without incident.
Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39124754