Boeing 737 crashes during take-off in Senegal | Hacker News Reader

Boeing 737 crashes during take-off in Senegal

bbc.co.uk

112 pointsthereisnoself82 comments

Unsurprisingly, it's an old airframe (built 1994), operated by a state-owned African carrier: rarely a recipe for good maintenance. It's quite unlikely that Boeing is in any way to blame for this.

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/387749

Boeing is a money maker now for news outlets. We will hear absolutely everything going wrong with a Boeing plane for the foreseeable future. Honestly, I am surprised there isn't more failures given the current narrative.

One, that’s not that old and shouldn’t be crashing on take-off and two, the narrative that it’s shady African carriers that are to blame is getting old.

In fact, it’s exactly what Boeing always says right before they are in fact to blame.

Air travel disaster rates are basically the same across the entire planet except Africa.

You are 15x more likely to die in a plane crash there than anywhere else on Earth.

GP comment is on point.

The same is true for basically everything in Africa.

Just pointing out that Boeing pulled the same trick with the MAX and I think it’s in bad taste to start off with this line of reasoning.

We don’t know. So we don’t know if it’s Africans being shady or not is all I’m saying. Let’s wait.

This was not a 737 Max, but a widely deployed model that is in use for decades. The likelihood that Boeing is at fault here is extremely slim. It is very likely that this was a piloting error or a maintenance issue, or a combination of both.

African probably didn't have 2 whistleblowers die who wanted to expose a certain airplane manufacturer for skipping quality control and using unqualified materials in their planes.

The second 737 Max crash was also an African airline, and the same accusations were floating around right after the crash. Let's better wait for the investigation results before speculating.

Not all African airlines are the same. Ethiopian air - which had the second crash - has a good safety record and their safety practices match what Europe and North America rules require (rules are different in different areas, and so it isn't an exact match). Ethiopian air would not operate a 30 year old 737 because it is past the expected lifespan. Other African airlines will operate airplanes that old - normally they get by with it but that doesn't mean it is safe.

There is no reason to suspect Boeing is at fault here. Boeing does have lots of problems to correct, but that doesn't mean they are to blame for everything.

One of the issues that came up was that Boeing sold 737 MAXs with an optional safety system that would have likely avoided that crash, so it isn't completely uncorrelated (of course, the blame was still on Boeing for not making that system mandatory, or simply not requiring that pilots be retrained to deal with the lower clearance of the new engines).

Source: trust me bro

Boeing designs from 1994 are not the ones that have been in the news for design and manufacturing problems. Boeings built in 1994 are not generally falling out of the sky. They don't have MCAS. They don't have plug doors mis-installed.

Yes, that's not that old. But 30-year-old airframes have 30 years of maintenance, and by then, the maintenance aspects start to predominate over the design aspects as a cause of crashes.

1994 is 30 years ago, not 20.

Yes, we're old. News at 11.

About that...

https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/24650-boeing-737-rudder-i...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_rudder_issues

https://www.flightglobal.com/pilots-get-guidance-on-new-737-...

And some recent rudder related issues on 737 Max

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/ntsb-...

That is very old for a 737. The 737 is designed with metal that fatigues over time. The typical lifespan is around 20 years - of course the exact lifespan depends on how much you fly and what the weather is like when you fly - each owner is expected to track flight hours and retire the plane before the metal fatigue reaches the point where the wings fall off.

Sure there are many Cessna type planes flying that are much older than that, and often used for more hours - but those planes have different materials with different fatigue characteristics and can be used that long. This is a 737 which is not expected to last that long.

For a major US airline, a 30 year old plane would be among their oldest and near retirement. United Airlines has an older fleet by US standards and their oldest airliner is 33 years old. For American Airlines, the oldest aircraft is 26 years old.

Certainly, age is not the only factor. Flight hours and cycles matter as well when evaluating condition.

https://www.planespotters.net/airline/American-Airlines

https://www.planespotters.net/airline/United-Airlines

African airlines apply different standards of maintenance (read much lower), that’s why most African airlines aren’t allowed to fly outside of Africa: they aren’t up to the maintenance and safety standards the rest of the world requires. Ditto some parts of Asia iirc, some airlines operating there aren’t allowed in EU/North American airspace because they aren’t meeting international standards of safety and maintenance. Africa’s air safety record is abysmal.

To be clear, though, Air Senegal specifically currently flies to the US and EU.

In my experience they typically codeshare these flights and use the other airlines planes because theirs… can’t fly out of Africa.

That doesn't appear to be the case here; they have a pair of Airbus A330-900Neos for this purpose.

https://flyairsenegal.com/en/air-senegal-usa-operations-upda...

https://airlinegeeks.com/2021/09/06/air-senegal-flies-to-bal... has a photo of it on the ground at Toulouse, France.

(It is apparently a wet lease, though.)

Nice!

Correct: Air Senegal's flights to the US use wet leased planes from Hi-Fly, a Portuguese charter airline that specializes in this kind of thing.

I never heard anyone complaining that Boeing did shoddy work before the merger with McDonnell Douglas in 1997.

Merger? Let's call it by its name: takeover. Boeing after 1997 should be called McDonell Douglas.

This was a proper Boeing, not a McDonell Douglas.

I have read comments here which indicate that at least some believe Boeing's engineering decline was already underway by the time of the merger. Whether that was reflected in manufacturing, or whether that's even accurate, is beyond my knowledge.

However, it's definitely the case that the accusations exist.

737s are work horses, and generally fly a lot. One built in 1994 probably has a lot of hours on it, and I would bet it was sold from some western carrier used to Africa in the first place after it had too many hours to be workable in the developed world.

Usually these old planes are put into use as cargo planes instead where the consequences of a crash are less severe.

Airlines are strictly regulated by Boeing/Airbus/western institutions, this airlines wouldnt be able to fly to safe countries if their airplanes didnt pass regular official certifications, Boeing and Airbus provide that. The same way as pilots are certified by boeing and airbus to fly their planes

True, but nobody is saying this aircraft's flight schedule ever left Africa. Rules are only rules where they are enforced.

It seems you missed the stories about Boeing using parts made of low quality materials and that the whistleblowers died under mysterious circumstances.

We didn't miss them. We have no reason to think those factors are an issue in this case.

> rarely a recipe for good maintenance

True, and it’s Boing, which is rarely a recipe for good quality of safety.

Such a "state-owned African carrier" is one of the few Airlines I would invest in, if it were possible. (Ethiopian Airlines).

As ever, best to wait and see. Pilot error is a thing, poor maintenance is a thing. This isn’t the MAX variant Boring has had so much trouble with.

Ironic to see this considering planes could land and takeoff by themselves since 60's and the only reason why it's not all of them that can do this is because of greed.

>the only reason why it's not all of them that can do this is because of greed

???

L-1011

You're very much uninformed on what is involved in having AUTOLAND (yes, capitalization was part of the name) happening, or automated takeoff.

Reality is that unless you're landing at minority of airports in the world, you can't use automated landing, and takeoff isn't automated until at least you pass into a SID route or into normal climb.

And it's not just "greed" - deploying and maintaining setup to support automated landing (ILS Class 3b with extensions and DME, among others) is non-trivial technically and to do safely can require over a year of testing.

Aircraft autopilots are also simply said very dumb PIDs 99% of the time.

P.S. L-1011 wasn't even the first plane with AUTOLAND equipped, that goes to Trident 2E

That's a -300, an old model that predates the modern production issues.

More specifically, it's nearly 30 years old, will have been through thousands of flight cycles and multiple rebuilds, and the limited available information suggests an issue with an engine (i.e something which will have been designed, overhauled and refitted by organizations unrelated to Boeing)

In the eighties, I worked on host development tools used for the Flight Management Computer System firmware in the 737-300. Presumably, the hardware, the software, the tools, the language (Ratfor), the host OS (VAX/VMS), the development process, and my life have all been upgraded since then.

On the other hand, the overall project verification team was as big as the development team. I never saw that again the rest of my career.

Can the BBC reign in its news headline writers and reverse a fairly recent (5-10 years?) policy of juicing up what was 'unbiased' news? But in fact, I have a rose-tinted view of the BBC so I should just reign in my reactions instead.

What exactly is "juiced up" about "Boeing 737 crashes during take-off in Senegal"? I'd be hard put to craft a more neutral/factual/boring summary of what just happened.

Update: Apparently "crash" is misleading here since the plane was never airborne, it aborted takeoff but veered off the runway and likely hit something since the wing caught fire.

I’d probably have used “skids off runway” or “leaves runway” instead of “crashes”.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-guernsey-68886071.amp

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-67174117.amp

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42680238.amp

And the referencing the essentially unrelated Max production issues in an article about the fairly routine case of a 30 year old aircraft in a developing country experiencing issues which might be related to maintenance is probably more egregious. It's like suggesting that the stakes in whatever the latest Microsoft scandal is have been raised by someone installing malware on their XP system

Or in this case (1994) Windows 3.1.

I agree this story is a red herring. By and large 737s preceding the MAX variants had a rather amazing reputation, which is part of the reason 737s are so ubiquitous.

The issues today are that the MAX planes are enough different than the previous planes, that they should have likely been sold as a different product with different training. And the second issue is the erosion of Boeing's formerly engineer-led culture through various business / regulatory shenanigans such as outsourcing and self-oversight.

Looks like the BBC title now uses "Boeing 737 skids off runway in Senegal"

Leaving it to look like the HN submitter was the one generating a clickbait headline. Title should probably be changed here if dang is listening.

the brand of aircraft seldom used to be used in headlines. Usually the airline's name was used.

If a car veered off a motorway and hit something then caught fire then I’d be using the word “crash” in the headline.

Cars can't fly. We are mostly concerned with planes falling out of the sky (which is the most common interpretation of a "plane crash") not bumping into something on the ground.

Besides the already mentioned use of the word "crash", the headline could have just said "737-300" right there and been infinitely more helpful and descriptive.

The article itself says “skid off”, yet they use “crash” in the title. Don’t you think they intentionally “juiced up”? Boring summary, really?

Also, they finished the article with a paragraph about current issue despite the fact that there are no evidence whatsoever that link this incident of a 30 year old airframe with Boeing. They could have waited until the incident investigation concludes to make that connection.

When I read "crash" in the context of flight, I think "everybody died". Crash is factually true, but perhaps misleading (at least to my interpretation)

"skids off runway" or "failed takeoff" would have less implication of death.

Plus the out-of-nowhere reference to the door falling off a different plane. How is that related exactly?

They'll get right on that after bolstering their investigative journalism department, overthrowing the Tory cronies at the top, etc

Agree with reigning in your expectations!

> injuring 11 people, four of them severely

(no fatalities)

From the description of the crash either there were some unbelted passengers or the injuries were from people falling off of the emergency exit slide.

Could be other things, too. Unsecured luggage, other loose objects falling on passengers. Injuries can happen to a belted passenger as well.

Sigh, something that would be much less likely to even make it to HN if not for the fact that everyone is hungry to find the next thread to post their pre-canned “damn MBAs!!” rant on. It’s not a Max.

Does the Max have different MBAs behind it?

Some of the MBAs probably weren’t born when this specific plane was made. 737-300s stopped being built twenty four years ago.

Well, that's clear but that was not the question. I'm thinking about maintenance.

The vast majority of maintenance is done by non-Boeing mechanics employed by airlines and their contractors.

They generally cheap out on it as much as they can get away with. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance...

Ok. I'm surprised the Boeing MBAs haven't seen the maintenance aftermarket as a big opportunity but perhaps there are laws in the way.

The laws are more laws of economics. Airlines like to be relatively vertically integrated, especially at their home bases.

How is that more economical? Wouldn't it be much more efficient to have Boeing support personnel on the ground? Also, since when do customers (in this case the airlines) get what they ask for, especially in a quasi-monopoly situation? I would expect the aircraft vendor to control everything.

> Wouldn't it be much more efficient to have Boeing support personnel on the ground?

Absolutely not. Read the Vanity Fair article I linked above; they outsource it to China, El Salvador, etc. where labor is cheap and non-unionized and the FAA can't meaningfully do surprise inspections.

The airline will have approved routine maintenance and repair procedures from Boeing, and reps they can reach out to with questions. When it's a major or unusual repair, they can ask Boeing to handle it; https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/airliner-r...

> I would expect the aircraft vendor to control everything.

It's not dissimilar from cars; most people don't go to the dealership for every repair, because it costs substantially more. Especially not if the plane is based in Senegal.

This has different MBAs behind it because it’s a 30 year old airplane and the design is even older.

The first 737 Max flew in 2016 and most of them are even younger than that, so it’s we’re talking about very different management teams.

The Max is a McDonell Douglas, whilst the old 737-300 is still a Boeing. Big difference!

It’s already obvious from the comments that it’s sensationalism and this is an older plane that didn’t crash. So at least HN is working that way.

The fact that there is a negative sentiment against a company which have degraded their engineering is very understandable on HN. And yes that is due to MBAs and other bean counters, it’s not exactly a secret.

For the last part, pre-canned or lazy responses, yes that’s a problem everywhere, but the most upvoted comments are rarely one-liners unlike eg Reddit. And maybe not cast the first stone if your own comment is a meta-complaint directed at nobody in particular?

Well, beats most other forums where they’d simply be racist instead.

https://avherald.com/h?article=51867a11

> the crew rejected takeoff due to a hydraulic defect but veered left off the runway. The aircraft came to a stop on soft ground next to the Presidential Pavillion (about 2000 meters/6000 feet down the runway), the left wing briefly caught fire. All occupants evacuated via slides

question for a book I'm writing: how easy would planes be to mess up in such a way no issues appear until plane takes off?

Very. Examples:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Airlines_Flight_102

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Airlines_Flight_261

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Air_Lines_Flight_123

The last one was caused by a bad repair from a tail strike seven years earlier.

The harder part would be a way that isn’t traceable afterwards.

Read some NTSB documents about crashes especially ones where “maintenance” appears.

Thank you for this. The plane didn’t “crash” or fall out of the sky. It rejected takeoff and left the runway.

So, a car driving into a ditch, didn't crash, it just rejected the road? A crash is a crash.

A "crash" implies a collision with something. Per your example, a car can leave the road but when it collides with drainage ditch it becomes a crash

In this case there was NO COLLSION with another object and therefore no crash

Very likely a maintenance-related issue, given the age of the plane.

Is that photo possibly the most unrepresentative stock photo of a working 737 aircraft that they could find that actually has a 737 in it?

I have a question on manifold about Boeing's troubles:

https://manifold.markets/VitorBosshard/number-of-major-incid...

I'm only counting incidents where Boeing is at fault, this one might still be bad maintenance or other operator error.

When you've become so bad at quality, they would even find bad cases from when you did real good years before that!

skid off runway. 10 people injured.

not what people consider normally an airliner crash: a plane falling out of air hitting groind or sea hard in a fireball, killing alk/most etc

Reply on news.ycombinator.com