USA_flyer

What that poster has neglected to mention was that, apart from the A320, all the other aircraft had limited production runs.

jrl767

84fiero

Good points!

Agreed, it's not a pretty picture of how things got to this point.

And all of those were before the current level of maturity of the internet and ubiquitousness of social media, which changes things in regards to public perception and the staying power of some stories. Purely anecdotal, but I do still hear the MAX come up from friends and co-workers - typically interest has waned after prior accidents, IME anyway.

I don't see this being the end of Boeing, by any means. How bad it hurts them corporately, and for how long, I think depends on how things play out - not just with the MAX being cleared to fly again, but with the ongoing Congressional inquiries, criminal probes, civil lawsuits, etc. Like I've said before, those activities will inform the public's confidence as well. As to the future of the 737 MAX itself - I think its future is much shakier than the company as a whole.

DenverBrian

For the love of God, Boeing, resurrect those plans for the 757 and start building! Win-win for everyone.

YVR Cockroach

For the above, it was faulty maintenance (or accident during maintenance), improper electrical circuit modifications, improper maintenance (wrong lube), and poor airmanship for the last two.

The Max problem is more akin to BA783,BA781 and SA201. The Comet programme never recovered from these incidents The spacing of crashed (May 1953, Jan. 1954 and April 1954 respectively) is eerily similar except the MAX was grounded. The Comet was grounded after BA 781 for ~3 months, and was recertified for service, and SA201 was lost just 3 weeks after.

Maestro Ramen

Let's not compare these to one-off accidents. For comparison there are other tragic design flaws in the history of aviation.

The comet and square windows as mentioned above, the dc-10 cargo door design (ironically not the pylon issue for which it was grounded - that was a maintenance issue), the 737 classic rudder inversion crashes.

However, correct me if wrong, this is the first one in history which is directly due to cost cutting and intentional corner cutting ?

YVR Cockroach

The door wasn't faulty per se, but not robust enough for improper handling (baggage loaded forcing the door handle to lock position when the door wasn't seated properly). One could extend that analogy UA232 (loss of hydraulics due to another

Certainly seems that way. I don't think any one has ever brought up a similar situation in aviation.

chipmaster

Can you please identify what the cost cutting was? I think you miss-read, there was TTR that was the real driven force, than the functionally silo'd engineering. yes the choice to cut a few corners and sell a add on for big $ make it look like cost cutting, but if BA had a better design integration review process I'd believe they would have identified the risk. Duct tape on duct tape on duct tape engineering with weak program management confluenced with additional bad luck ended up in a tragedy.

Sadly a plane simply can't fail, needs to be failsafe and in this case BA failed

chrisl137

The DC-10 engine fell off because AA (and CO and UA) was using their own procedure for engine removal because it was faster (and cheaper, requiring 200 fewer work hours) than the manufacturer's procedure. It involved a forklift and didn't have good control over engine positioning so it tended to damage the engine mounting pylons.

AS261 was because AS was using a lube procedure that took about an hour, where a properly done procedure would take about 4 hours.

I picked all of those because they could have (or did) implicate an entire aircraft type and there was a great deal of press about most of them, and a lot of speculation about the faults affecting the entire type. The DC-10 in particular looked like it might be done for, but it survived and became the MD-11.

It's not wishful thinking at all - I have no investment in Boeing, and I don't think I've even worked with them for more than a decade (and even then I was just dealing with a small company they Boeing bought), but these things have all played out in the press before, and most at a time when everybody had three news channels (that showed about the same thing) and one newspaper to choose from. Now everybody has a ton of other things vying for their attention.

chrisl137

The MD-80 was essentially a DC-9, and the MD-11 an updated DC-10.

chrisl137

And AA587. Though in the press during the investigation there was a good deal of questioning of whether the materials and/or design of the vertical stabilizer were faulty.

jrl767

absolutely, which further depresses the validity of the "limited production run" statement

osamede

This wont help either.
Boeing as a brand wont go down. However, they've not only pretty much killed the MAX sub brand extension, they might also have inadvertently done what they were trying to avoiding doing, which was the bring the 737 product brand to a close. There will be no more extension of this product brand and thy will have to bring new product in this category with a new name, type and certification.

Maestro Ramen

It can probably be argued whether it was cost cutting or simply trying to beat airbus to the post. Probably a mix of both. Adapting an inadequate engine to an obsolete airframe? Probably more due to time savings. However, trying to skimp on the re-certification and re-training looks like cutting to me. YVMV

chipmaster

My interpretation of the skipping of re-certification and re-training was more schedule and pressure from "carriers" as well as removing the MCAS updates as one huge selling point for the "MAX" was it is the same as the 737-900 and thus nothing extra, boy who ever sold that and crumbled to the customers pressure should be fired all the way up to the CEO. The program manager for the "MAX" as well as the software should both be fired as they job is to oversee and insure all this comes together regardless of the program and executive pressure. Its a failure of the company culture that a place doesn't safely reward people for doing the right thing in places of huge influence!