Is airbus also responsible for maintenance failures on 30 year old airplanes or do you feel like only Boeing deserves this treatment?
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.
... 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 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…
Now -that- is a hot take. LOL
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.
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.