the front fell off, you say?
It's not supposed to do that?
Working for Boeings PR department must be absolute madness right now… imagine having to somehow excuse all those fuck ups and every week there is a new one
Except this one isn't even a Boeing issue - this is a plane Delta has operated since 1992. This is entirely Delta's maintenance's fault. Boeing will still get blamed for it, of course.
I know, but no one cares who’s responsible at the moment. What people care about is that they read a new article about Boeings planes endangering passengers every 3 days. So while Delta is most likely at fault, Boeing is gonna take the hit to the company image. That’s why I was specifically speaking about the Boeing PR team. Those guys and the crisis managers won’t be able to catch a break for a loooong time.
45,000 commercial flights a day in the U.S. 35 deaths in the last 10 years. Thats about 164 million flights.
~115 people dying by car daily, and those numbers have been rising every year...
If planes get their kill ratio up high enough people will stop caring and start saying it is expected/needed.
Clearly more plane crashes are the answer.
I don't think we have enough information to say whether it's a Boeing thing or not. The reason I say that is, that my understanding is some maintenance and repair operations will be performed by Boeing, or Boeing appointed subcontractors. What we may never find out is whether there was any work done on, or requiring access via the nose wheel area, and whether it was performed by Boeing/Boeing subcontracted technicians.
But, as I said in my other comment. This will be an ongoing problem where every Boeing plane issue will be reported now and unless announced by the operator or Boeing themselves, we'll never know whether it was a Boeing maintenance problem or just neglect by the operator.
The thing is, every Boeing plane that has any problem is going to make it to the news right now. So it's very hard to see what is relevant and what is just "one of those things". So, this will make them look worse than they really are.
Having said that, they have problems. My opinion is that cost-cutting has created all their recent actual problems (MCAS, missing bolts, loose bolts etc) and I'd argue that unless the actual location(s) responsible for these problems is identified, the safest thing to do would be to recall ALL aircraft recently (last 3 years AT LEAST) serviced, repaired or had their configuration changed at a Boeing owned or subcontracted location should be reviewed for substandard work.
My reasoning here is that if we have loose/missing bolts on the 737 Max 8/9 and -900ER. It won't stop there, it is going to almost certainly be an institutionalised problem of quality control slippage that could affect any aircraft maintenance, repair, or adjustment operation.
But, I'm not an aviation expert, so my opinion is worth very little.
I agree with your comment, even though I have no idea on the technical aspects. What I can weigh in on is crisis management, especially communication.
Boeing needs to take control of the situation and actively start communicating and showing that they are working on fixing this thing. In Situational Crisis Communication Theory you would call it a rebuild approach. They tried denial, they tried downplaying, it’s not working. A rebuild strategy is usually the last resort, as things like admitting your mistakes and fixing them are rarely appreciated by investors. Furthermore it’s usually a huuuuge cost to do a recall on that scale. But Boeing need to show the public that they are actively working on improving the situation, to earn back their trust. So at least a partial recall should be considered.
You’re exactly right in your first paragraph about the news. The media and the public are very sensitive to Boeing quality issues rn. These articles won’t stop unless one of three things happen. Either Boeing gets their shit together and gets some effective crisis management and communication done, the company goes bust, or something else turns up in the news that replaces this. The third option will be the most likely, but it will also haunt them forever. It’s like that exploding galaxy note 7 situation. There were articles about that for every new generation of Galaxy Note, despite Samsung doing pretty well in investigating the issues. And while the following Note phones sold alright, the whole thing was a significant loss of trust and money for Samsung and enabled competitors like Huawai to catch up.
How is this Boeings issue? This is a maintenance problem with the airline. Tires get replaced by maintenance staff. That plane isn’t brand new.
Well, if proper maintenance was done and the part still failed due to a design or quality issue that was improperly QC’d (missed, skipped, etc) then yeah it could be Boeings fault.
They’re getting extra scrutiny right now because of all the incidents recently, and all the anecdotal stories of former employees talking about how a bunch of suits are destroying it from the inside to make a quick buck.
And frankly, they fucking deserve it.
Sure, but the 757 is a 40 year old design that has been out of production for 20 years.
And frankly, they fucking deserve it.
Except the suits aren't going to be the ones hurt by the company going down in flames.
Careful. Boeing already tried the “but it’s not our job” excuse on a few major incidences with an executive now locked behind bars after pushing bribes to cover it up . They’d be best backing off on taking an attitude about where to assign blame. They got a lot of red spots that will never come out.
If I recall correctly, the aircraft manufacturer writes the maintenance guidelines.
This could be a Boeing issue, if it's due to something that happened at the time the aircraft was built, or due to a foreseeable gap in the maintenance guidelines.
It could be a Delta issue, if they weren't following the maintenance guidelines, or a maintenance contractor working for them wasn't following them and they didn't catch it.
It could also have been (very small but nonzero chance) the result of physical trauma to the plane that wasn't foreseen, back in the 1990s when it was built, as something that might cause an issue of this magnitude. I haven't yet seen any information on whether this particular aircraft has a history of hard landings or running over debris on the runway. Freak accidents do happen.
All of those have precedents in aviation history.
I remember watching this PBS Frontline segment on plane maintenance 10 years or so ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw0b020OFj4
I imagine we still have those problems and the recent news of counterfeit parts entering the market is scary.
Good thing these recent incidents ended up with no serious injuries or death. Perhaps this timing is good in some really weird way as the Supreme Court starts considering powers of regulatory agencies and concerns around government funding to highlight the importance and need for this government role.
The front usually isn't supposed to fall off
It's not very typical, let me make that point.
Some are even designed so the front doesn't fall off.
No worries, it has been towed outside of the environment.
Into a different environment, right?
No, no, no, no, it's being towed BEYOND the environment. It's not in the environment.
Clickbait. The FAA lists the plane number as N672DL and a quick flight registry check says that plane was made in 1992. This is a maintenance issue with Delta.
The title is "Nose wheel falls off Boeing 757 airliner waiting for takeoff" and that's exactly what happened. That's not clickbait, since it's not deceptive, sensationalized, or otherwise misleading. It's just news.
You say and yet we both know if the headline was "nose wheel falls off Delta jet waiting to take off" it'd be identically accurate but would mean something else entirely
Between door bolts missing, virgin airlines missing wing bolts, this nose cone, etc
It almost feels like some kind of related systemic error in the very thorough maintenance documentation required for aircrafts, or a large scale sabotage of some sort.
Any regulatory agencies that enforce this sort of stuff being defunded, understaffed, or de-toothed in the last 4-8 years?
That's what this smells like, and we should really be getting ourselves ready for more of this in other industries.
Maybe Delta should've gotten the input of the focus group from I Think You Should Leave when trying to determine what they should do with their maintenance dollars.
Not during maintenance but while it was waiting for takeoff...
The old saying, "If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going", it just needs slightly tweaked to be accurate today XD
In fairness, the 757 was designed when Boeing was still engineering focused and is one of the best commercial aircraft ever produced. This airframe, N672DL, is 32 years old, so it was almost certainly an issue with Delta’s maintenance. It was also quickly repaired and returned to service the next day.
No one was criticizing Airbus when one of their aircraft was found the other day missing fasteners before a flight: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/nyc-bound-flight-canceled-passenger-31941807.amp
Boeing laid off about 900 QA people back in 2019. Now they are reaping the rewards
Elsewhere: Airbus Christmas party budget doubles.
On some Boeing aircraft, the nose wheel will actually come off when the autopilot system overcompensates during takeoff and crashes the plane straight into the ground. There were aome small news stories about it a few years back.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It happens
is this a new plane or is delta shirking on maintenance (delta's fleet is one of the oldest)
This is an older plane. The last 757 was produced around 2004, so they're 20 years old now. That said, I absolutely love this airframe there an absolute pleasure to fly. The Delta configuration has bathrooms in three spots on the plane. I'm fairly certain the fuselage is a little bit wider than a 737 so you get a little bit more room in the aisle AND there's more exit row seating. The 757 has an interesting wing design to improve efficiency. It's like partially super critical or something. Maybe somebody else can add on to that.
I remember flying the 757 a from Seattle to Detroit during covid and it was basically completely empty. It's a bummer were going to see them start going away.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
