Is The 737 Max Jinxed?

[ToraToraTora]

https://news.sky.com/story/alaska-airlines-blowout-170-planes-grounded-after-dramatic-mid-air-incident-on-new-aircraft-stuns-aviation-experts-13043399

I am not generally superstitious but I'm starting to think that there is something fundementally wrong with this plane. I ain't getting on one!

[Hopkirk]

I have to agree though, the TriStar was the best aircraft of the time.

I used to work on them as cabin crew.

[New Judge]

The 737 Max has, IMO, a fundamental flaw with the "door" that blew out. It was not a door at all, but a "plug" inserted into the fuselage. The designers decided that a single fuselage design would suffice and on aircraft with a lower capacity (such aas the one involved), the gap is not used as a door at all, but is simply plugged and the inside looks no different to the rest of the cabin. On higher capacity  configurations a standard emergency exit door is used.

The biggest problem is that whilst a door closes in the usual way (the cabin pressure forcing it outwards against the seal) the plug is simply bolted in place from the outside, with the seal simply providing an airtight seal.

[mushroom25]

so far, two mobile phones known to have been on ASA1282 have been found on the ground, and one survived its 16000ft vertical journey. at time of writing, no sign of the missing fuselage panel...

https://twitter.com/SeanSafyre/status/1744138937239822685 ;

[theshedman]

Hopkirk, did you ever get to get to travel in the spare seat in the cockpit.  We used to go up in them to help train the fire crews on the airport in middle east.  They used to come to our airport to train the pilots doing touch and goes so we often went up in them.  Went down in the lifts to the kitchen a number of times too.  At the time it seemed very modern.

[theshedman]

mushroom25, they say they have now found the missing panel.

[Hopkirk]

Not only did I sit in the flight deck jumpseat, I did it for landing into the old Kai Tak airport in Hong Kong. What an experience!

[theshedman]

I sat in that seat once while they were doing touch and goes but nothing like it would have been going into Kai Tak.  I flew into Kai Tak as a youngster in the mid sixties different to say the least.  Flew home on a BA Tristar flight from Jeddah once with only 31 passengers on board cabin crew just said sit wherever I wanted.

[Hopkirk]

&pp=ygUPa2FpIHRhayBsYW5kaW5n

[piggynose]

so were you a flight attendant aka air steward or a pilot, hoppy?

[Hopkirk]

Steward

[youngmafbog]

The problems no doubt stem fro the fact Boing, to cut costs, didnt design from the ground up.  Instead they too an olf fuselage design and 'bolted on'. 

It's not the best plane by a long chalk.  Ryan Air use a 

them I think you will find.

[theshedman]

The Max is based on the original 737 which has been in use for many years and has for the best part been very good in service.

Ryan air is only one of many that use this aircraft.  

[237SJ]

Hopkirk - I did Kai Tak in the f/deck jump seat as well.  I also did a trip there when it closed - we flew into the old airport, and out of the new one.  The new one's not the same!

[mushroom25]

// The Max is based on the original 737 which has been in use for many years //

it is - but the original 737 couldn't accept the new breed of fuel efficient engines as they're too big. Boeing really needed to design a "new" 737 but there was no time for that, as Airbus already had a fuel efficient product in the market place. so they bodged the existing airframe to make the new engines fit, but the unintended consequence of that was the finished aircraft didn't behave or handle like a standard 737, so the airlines' existing aircrew would have needed specific training on the "Max". (the airlines didn't want that, as it would mean operating a split 737 fleet). so cue the correcting software that had all the problems, and subsequently caused the loss of 2 aircraft in 2021.

[237SJ]

Google is a wonderful thing, isn't it

[Ellipsis]

NJ, looks like you are right ...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67919436

Bolts in need of "additional tightening" have been found during inspections of Boeing 737 Max 9s, United Airlines has said.

Inspections began after a section of the fuselage fell from an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 on Friday.

United Airlines said "installation issues" relating to door plugs would be "remedied" before the aircraft type would return to service.

 

[Peter Pedant]

no it is just badly designed !

[237SJ]

I worked on the B737 for many years.  It wasn' t badly designed.  It was a little work horse and I felt very safe on it no matter what  that aircraft had to deal with. I left it to work on the A320 (which to be fair, people had misgivings about) but the problem with the Max was that Boeing tried to use the same airframe instead of starting again. That was their mistake.

[theshedman]

I now see that a passengers mobile phone that went through the hole the panel left has been found.  After falling 16,000 feet it was found by the side of a road and is still working.  I bet the company that makes the phone will be trying to make it sound like their product is so good it can even withstand a fall of that size.

[davebro3]

The height of the fall is pretty irrelevant - it probably reached its terminal velocity after about 4 or 5 seconds. Dropping it off a step ladder would have had the same effect.

It's not the fall that kills you - it's the landing!