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Comment by huygens6363 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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-...

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