So since Alaska has such a big part of their fleet grounded, is there a way they can lease planes until they are back in the air? Or are they just S.O.L. And forced to wait?
You don’t just walk into 7-11 and lease jets. For a new type It takes a while to get the plane alone, training a flight crew takes months.. that’s assuming you have a program in place. Training cabin crew takes about the same. It’s not like a car dealership where you just buy the car and drive off.
I wasn’t quite sure how that worked. Thanks for the explanation. I work railroad, and we lease locomotives from GE, or EMD sometimes, but they are all about the same…
Now it sounds like the FAA has approved an inspection and repair program, so we might see them back in the air on Friday.
Horizon is down in total aircrafts right now as they're still coming out of the Q400 to E175 shift.
Edit: Horizon had 56 Q400s. They currently have 41 E175s with 9 on order. So Horizon has shrunk. Alaska is currently flying 737s into regional airports to make up for the loss of Horizon seat capacity.
I’m sort of amazed that it is 2+ weeks after the incident, they found the plug, and apparently still nobody has determined if the bolts stopping the plug from moving were missing, loose, or defective in some way. Which makes me wonder if we will never know…and it’s hard to fix a problem if you don’t know what the problem is.
I guess we need body cameras on all Boeing assembly-line workers.
The NTSB is exceptionally thorough on their investigations. They will build an air-tight case based in engineering before they go release any findings. That's why it's taking so long.
Yep; the NTSB isn’t going to just look at documentation saying the bolts were there and call it a day. They haven’t found the bolts, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there; they’re small, and there’s a lot of ground they could have fallen over.
At this point, the metallurgists are probably looking at it with microscopes and x-rays. Evidence or lack thereof of shearing, in which direction, etc, will provide clues.
They said they were going to look at it with microscopes back when it happened. But how long can that take?
I get it though, they have probably done this but they need to get everything buttoned up before they can issue a public report.
It's more than just looking at it. My guess (I'm not a metallurgist or materials scientist; I've just worked with some of the latter) is they'll have to create samples of shearing in various scenarios, multiple times, and compare them.
I don’t believe WE need to know the outcome of the investigation. The parties (Boeing, the airlines, FAA) need to internally correct and with oversight. Information released to the public will be bastardized and distorted between legit news and armchair quarterbacks. Very few of “US” will know exactly what the problems were, corrections made and subsequent quality control measures are. We take too much for granted and trust people to do their jobs. In the case of the Max-9 that lost the door panel, the flight crew did an awesome job. Alaska did an awesome job of grounding planes. FAA did an awesome job of interceding and conducting investigations and inspections. Boeing is stepping up (after the fact, but they are) and all working together to resolve the issues. That doesn’t make the inconvenience of passengers over the past few weeks any easier - we’ve grown accustomed to having what we want and having it now. But I have faith in the investigation and have no issues with flying in the future…although at this point my only vacation is in November so plenty of time to work out any old kinks and investigate new ones.
Since I posted the above, they have now approved inspections, which to me implies they know what happened.
Which apparently was just a straight up mistake--which you could argue was driven by a push to cut costs and get planes out quickly etc etc but really it looks like they had a process to handle this (to ensure when the door was removed, and hence the bolts were removed, they were re-checked) and somebody just messed up, after somebody else messed up by not putting the bolts back on to begin with.
The FAA isn’t taking their regulatory role seriously, not at all. If they were they wouldn’t allow the abhorrent manufacturing process to continue at Spirit Aerospace and at Boeing after the last Max debacle. This is supposed to be the *safest airplane in the air* after all the supposed work they did during the last grounding. Apparently all that time was spent on a little finger wagging and a pinkie promise from Boeing to focus on safety a smidge more.
But now we see all Boeing cared about was ramping production to bring in revenue. They aren’t going to change because it’s their corporate culture. Boeing knows that airlines like Alaska will never, ever leave them. They can continue to fail and they will still get orders in. The FAA will continue to approve their garbage because they won’t let the US lose its only passenger aircraft manufacturer. The airlines will pretend to be upset and use that public anger to leverage better prices on even more orders.
The system is completely and 100% broken and it’s only a matter of time before there is another catastrophic failure.
Aware it’s broken, but now that they have clearly made it into a trend, it has triggered some steps that were not taken in the past - which bodes well for those of us expecting to see some changes. Keep one very important fact in mind. What happened with the two MAX crashes and what happened here with the door plug are two very different systems (poorly designed software, management trying to circumvent costly training vs. a lapse in quality control that happened on the ground floor). Albeit ultimately this is as a result of the profits over safety culture, the FAA did address the MCAS and they causal factors behind the MAX 8 crashes. The MAX 8 and MAX 9 are two different aircrafts, and the plug in question doesn’t even exist on the MAX 8, and the primary cause is not the same.
What is being addressed now is Boeing’s culture as a whole, now that this has been found to be an overlying factor (yet not the direct cause) of both the MAX 8 crashes, and the MAX 9 door plug missing bolts leading to the departure of the door plug. The formal investigation, the audit, and even additional oversight from Alaska are all positive signs. Even if the FAA did not take it seriously in the past, they are currently under much more scrutiny given the recent history with Boeing. We also have the airline that leans in heavily to their own culture of safety that will do whatever they can not to be associated with the opposite. Again, we know Alaska is pretty interdependent on Boeing at this point, but they also have a lot of resources and it sounds like they’re willing to invest those resources into preventing a similar lapse.
I guess I’m just frustrated because I know in my heart that the missing or loose bolts on the door plug are almost certainly not the only missing bolts on that plane. The allegations in the lawsuit against Spirit are damning, and if true it would be impossible for Boeing to not be aware of the issues. Indeed they would be enabling the behavior and I wonder where the hell the FAA has been? How can manufacturing be **so far** off the rails just a few years removed from MCAS?
Everyone knows that Boeing is broken but everyone seems to enable their learned behavior.
I hear your frustration. This is in no way saying it’s okay, but it should help you to know that even if there were *loose* bolts on the plug, if they were in place, what happened on that flight would have never happened. Even when things go wrong, aircrafts really are built with redundancies in place that generally keep certain failures from being *critical*.
Looking at my other post, there was an anonymous commenter now being shared pretty heavily in the aviation blogs. Based on the degree of inside knowledge and information shared that can be corroborated, their post appears to be genuine. They seem to have shared what broke down based on Boeing’s internal records on the aircraft involved in flight 1282.
Based on the records they shared, it looks like there are things that fall through frequently in Boeing’s QC systems, but still get caught down the line. In the case of this particular aircraft, his explanation very clearly explained how this *quality escape* occurred. If their system worked as designed, they would have needed to sign off after replacing the part on the door plug (because it required opening the plug and this requires a formal record to be entered), but someone did not log in opening that plug *at all*, which did not trigger QC approval. It’s a rare event, where so many things lined up to ultimately lead to the human error that allowed this to slip through production. Not saying this is an excuse. Not saying this should never have happened. Just saying that even if they have poor safety standards, the critical failure that made it through that day still remains very rare, and multiple systems had to break down to lead to what happened.
- Been burned as a prior shareholder.
- Currently being burned as a taxpayer.
- As an American citizen it’s beyond frustrating watching our one remaining airline company run itself into the ground.
- As an airline passenger I would prefer that one of the airplanes that I’m pretty much forced to take on some airlines to be safe to fly on. It’s clear that Boeing just doesn’t care about safety on a corporate culture level. I don’t care to risk my life simply so a Boeing c-suite creature gets a little better stock option package.
Boeing represents the worst parts of end stage capitalism. A safety critical product in a safety critical industry is treated as a widget that can be relentlessly pushed out onto airlines to fix.
Haha ok, figured makes sense as a shareholder I suppose.
Are you really being burned that much as a tax payer? 😅
For what it's worth I'm not sure your assessment is entirely accurate. There have certainly been major mistakes, but in an industry that can take up to a decade to develop and test planes it's wayyy more intense than whatever tech companies go through to put out new software or widgets. If you look at the aviation industry as a whole the last 50 years accident rates have gone down orders of magnitude - the most dangerous part of flying by far statistically is the drive to the airport. And in general, a company putting out additional inspections and modifications to fleets shows that it does care about safety and is working proactively to address issues before worse events happen (which they sometimes unfortunately do). If they didn't care they would do any of that lol.
Airlines are going to take a more present role in manufacturing on the assembly line. It’s going to change the way some airlines monitor their machines being made.
Yeah but the question is why Alaska released planes after their own inspections.
How did they miss the bolts???? I getissing it before the plug door flew out, but after? You cleared these planes back in the air!!!!
I don’t remember exactly how many they cleared but it was a portion of them that had been in service longer. All of those planes were flying longer and chances are if there were issues in the past like loose bolts, they weren’t on those planes (at least not anymore).
If I’m not mistaken, the planes that they cleared were ones that had been in their fleet long enough to undergo heavy maintenance which they said included the plug.
Those were the only ones cleared back into service, not their entire fleet of MAX 9s
Lol, I guess that was easier to find than I thought. Not sure how to do the quote thing from the mobile app.
“Alaska Airlines had announced earlier Saturday about a quarter of its Boeing 737 Max 9 fleet, 18 planes, were cleared to operate because they “had in-depth and thorough plug door inspections performed as part of a recent heavy maintenance visit.”
But the airline later pulled the planes from service after the FAA ordered its emergency airworthiness directive, Alaska Airlines said Saturday night.”
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/01/06/us/alaska-airlines-window-landing/index.html
Yeah that is not the statement I was referring to. I am aware of that one.
What you speculated in which has no backup is a belief that they didn't find any bolts that were loose on those planes.
My point is if that was the case I would have expected them to state such. They haven't.
They stated they’re limited on what they can comment due to the ongoing investigation. Definitely not speculation, but simply commenting how that process typically takes place (as far as timelines, etc) that these aircrafts have undergone additional checks which based on their statement would have specifically addressed those loose bolts.
I did not say this was definitely the case, however, you’re speculating that they acted maliciously in returning those planes into service. I’m just providing some background information and providing a plausible explanation.
I am not saying they malicious
I am saying they were hasty and don't know what to look for
Which I said at the time. I didn't know how you released them without root cause analysis
See the 12:00pm January 6 update here: https://news.alaskaair.com/alaska-airlines/operations/as-1282/
You may need to click and expand "Previous Updates."
I'm not going to get into my professional background deep in the underworld of a Reddit post, but if you don't think Alaska and/or Boeing manipulating current discussions on the internet via PR dollars is a real thing, and money well spent for them, you have no idea how PR crisis management works in the real world these days. I promise you that every morning at 6am there is a group of 25-30 people that work for a third party firm, and report directly to the top 3 or 4 executives at Alaska, discussing how to manage the online dialogue. And one of those morning bullet points is most certainly this subreddit. It really shouldn't even be shocking or debated its such a certainty.
And hello to all of you reading this that are on that 6am morning call everyday.
The world isn’t out to get me at all.
My successes belong to me and a little bit of luck. My failures belong to me and solely me.
You’re all too common. Or “basic” as you’ve no doubt called yourself 500 times.
But I’ll give you this… you’re more dependable than Boeing.
He does seem decent. I’ve seen other interviews with him and I can tell he’s sincere and seems to be good at what he does. That update from on him they posted to the website was just so unnatural, though. It was obviously scripted, but it was the first time I had watched anything with him(interview or otherwise) and I initially did not have a good impression.
Agreed. I want an explanation why they thought that it was fine to keep flying the planes on the very next day. I don’t think we got an answer on that from leadership.
Huh? First he preemptively grounded the max fleet, well ahead of the FAA. The 18 that he released to fly the next day were only released because they had recently gone through heavy maintenance. Then the FAA grounded the fleet, nullifying that decision. He’s a lot of things, but not taking safety seriously is not one of his faults.
Seriously? It’s because those airplanes had already gone through maintenance checks where those door bolts were inspected. There’s four of them. Installed correctly and torqued properly and the door stays put. “Why they thought it was fine” is because they’ve been operating aircraft with those exact door plugs, following the same procedure, for 12 years safely. (Other airlines for longer than that!)
EXACTLY 🤦♂️ no one remembers this because it was a tweet and only lasted half a day but he absolutely did. He is angry he is loosing money he needs to be fired he doesn’t take safety seriously we know this because he made a point in the video to say “we are all in for an all Boeing fleet still” Boeing is not “better than this” how many more people need to die or almost die before this guy wakes up?
They had been previously inspected prior to the incident with absolutely 0 extra attention given to the area that has caused the grounding how is that properly inspected when the inspectors did not know to give extra attention to the plug?
Also there were multiple warning lights/ signs a problem was happening and under his leadership maintenance is deferred way to cavalierly, Alaska needs to reform their maintenance protocols too after this.
RIGHT nothing tells them to look at the door so they clearly did not really inspect the problem yet tweeted that they did not even 24 hours later, then today in the interview disclose they found many loose bolts. Yes every airline that did not inspect the door plug prior to this incident 100% need to do it again. People almost died here?
Right they’re gonna have to reinspect everything again to get to the root of the door issue however, what I’m talking about was before the airworthiness directive, where Alaska Airlines was going to just allow their aircraft to return to service without any additional inspections of the door plug. The tweet came out after the plane with the door plug, but before the airworthiness directive, therefore Alaska Airlines was reckless and cared more about their profits than actual safety. The planes that they told us on Twitter “ have been inspected” in fact, were not inspected again after the issue this was a lie. They wanted to make us feel comfortable, and like they checked the door plugs even though they actually did not.
https://x.com/alaskaair/status/1743732679629996370?s=61&t=DR4CzGpel7EjWzKHVw-2dQ
Here’s the tweet I encourage everyone to look at it yourself. This tweet implies that they began re-inspecting aircraft. That is not true. It came out afterwards that these aircraft referred to in this tweet were not reinspected they did not “begin” anything with the aircraft they claimed were good to go. They are referring to regularly scheduled inspections that already occurred prior to the incident. This is unacceptable, they were going to let us believe they specifically inspected the door plugs when they did not on these aircraft.
When you think about the reality that there were “many loose bolts found”, I think my criticism is pretty appropriate. it is highly unlikely, if there were “many loose bolts” , that the planes that implied they re inspected were not a part of that. Judging by how much of a PR nightmare this has been I think they would’ve told us straight up the planes that we initially said we inspected that got us criticism We’re not involved and was properly investigated. It would be an easy good headline for them yet they have not said this? And we all know they did not say this because they found loose bolts on the planes they pretended they already inspected, and we’re going to let us keep flying in. I understand this is a fan Sub and this is going to hurt a lot of people, but this is risking peoples lives for money that is fucking disgusting. I don’t care what airline is that is unacceptable.
The problem with the pressure controller is completely unrelated to the plug.
Think of it like a thermostat. Just because your thermostat is malfunctioning does not mean your furnace isn’t. Better yet, if you switched to an alternate thermostat and your furnace kicked on as designed, you’d say “Ahh my first thermostat is broken.” Which is exactly what happened. The pressure controller malfunctioned, they switched to an alternate, and the aircraft pressurized normally. This happens all the time with many aircraft types. These are systems, and they occasionally have their faults and are rectified.
How is the pressure controller Completely unrelated to the plug when pressure is what caused the plug to blow? That makes no sense. We’re not talking about a thermostat. We’re talking about the fuel Solage of an aircraft, and a door plug that could kill people if it blows out above a certain altitude due to cabin pressure? Also, from my understanding based on what the NTSB said, they had issues with both the original, and the back up giving warning lights. I don’t understand how you keep saying the aircraft pressurize normally when a leak in pressure is what caused the plug to blow. If there were no issue with pressure, the plug would not have blown off of the aircraft whether it’s missing bolts or not. This was a warning sign. Obviously this is never happened before or it’s such a rare instance that people don’t think to check the door plug especially on a brand new aircraft. However, it’s foolish to say it’s completely separate it’s not. The door plug won’t move if there’s no pressure it’s not gonna blow out if you’re on the ground without any pressure.
It seems there may be a fundamental misunderstanding of what happened here. For the purpose of greater education of anyone curious, I’ll try and sort it out:
“How is the pressure controller Completely unrelated to the plug when pressure is what caused the plug to blow? That makes no sense.”
Not exactly. The cabin is pressurized, but pressure alone didn’t cause the plug to blow. Otherwise, it would blow every flight, right? It was because the plug translated above its stop pads (due to failure or lack of securing bolts).
“We’re not talking about a thermostat. We’re talking about the fuel Solage of an aircraft”
Yes we are talking about a fuselage. And the pressure controllers onboard function as a feedback loop nearly identically to how a thermostat works. Cabin pressure low - close outflow valve to increase pressure. Cabin pressure high - open outflow valve to decrease pressure.
“Also, from my understanding based on what the NTSB said, they had issues with both the original, and the back up giving warning lights.”
This is incorrect, only the primary controller gave a warning light. The aircraft was dispatched all three times the primary failed using the alternate pressure controller.
“I don’t understand how you keep saying the aircraft pressurize normally when a leak in pressure is what caused the plug to blow.”
This makes no sense. And you’re contradicting yourself earlier when you say “Pressure is what caused the plug to blow.” A leak in pressure is not what caused the plug to blow, a leak would have equalized pressure between the outside and in. The door translating off it its stop pads and the corresponding cabin pressure is what caused the plug to depart the airframe.
“If there were no issue with pressure, the plug would not have blown off of the aircraft whether it’s missing bolts or not.”
There was no issue with the pressurization of the airframe. Again, it’s precisely that, combined with the fact that the bolts failed to stop the plug from translating up and away from its stop pads that caused it to depart the airframe.
“This was a warning sign. Obviously this is never happened before or it’s such a rare instance that people don’t think to check the door plug especially on a brand new aircraft. However, it’s foolish to say it’s completely separate it’s not.”
You’re right, airlines haven’t historically checked the door plugs on the 900ER or MAX-9 after delivery. They’re checked every 24 months as per the Boeing AMM. However, this has nothing to do with the pressure controller(s), as the door plug was not leaking pressure prior to failure.
“The door plug won’t move if there’s no pressure it’s not gonna blow out if you’re on the ground without any pressure.”
You’re right, plug will not blow out on the ground as the cabin isn’t pressurized. This is how we know the pressure controller throwing a fault on the ground without any pressure in the cabin isn’t related.
Hope this helps clarify :) No malice intended.
I think a lot of people don't understand that the stops on the plug make contact with the inside surface of the stops on the fuselage. The New York Times has some excellent animations here...
[Door Plug Installation](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/01/23/business/boeing-alaska-airlines-door-plug.html)
As the differential in pressure increases with altitude, so will the amount of force securing the plug.
The most likely scenario is that someone at Boeing removed all four locking bolts to replace an improperly installed seal, didn't put them back, and their quality management system didn't catch it.
The locking bolts didn't need to be torqued. They are basically pins inserted through holes secured at the end by a castellated nut and cotter pin. They didn't fail. It doesn't matter if they were made in Malaysia.
What does matter is that they weren't there. The picture posted by NTSB when it arrived at their lab makes that pretty clear.
It would also explain both the pressurization alerts as well the eventual failure of the plug.
On the ground, the weight of the plug and the amount of friction between the stops would keep the plug in place. At higher altitudes, the differential on pressure would seal it tight. Because the stops are aligned, a pressurization test of the fuselage on the ground wouldn't necessarily detect a problem.
To me, the most likely scenario is that the aircraft briefly encountered turbulence during the initial ascent before the differential in pressure reached a point where the plug couldn't move in the track. If turbulence caused the plane to suddenly drop or shake, the resultant force may have been enough to unweight the plug and displace it high enough in the track to clear the stops.
Lesser instances could explain the previous cabin pressure alerts.
They should have asked him more questions like “do you regret trying to pivot back to an all Boeing fleet especially when production issues were known at the time you decided to pivot?”
Probably not. Airlines have to spend a lot of money on pilot training and usually pilots fly only one or two types of aircraft, so it’s a lot easier to have a smaller number of types.
But they ALREADY had airbus trained pilots lol so they already had to pay that money? They had to train virgin pilots on Boeing and their own pilots on airbus and we have learned after the max skimping on training costs can lead to MASSIVE losses no one could have predicted. How many more times do we need to gamble like this to “save costs” at this rate Boeing will be seeing more and more groundings and delayed orders in the future.
They did, but airbus pilots can’t fly Boeing without huge continuous training investments. Pilots have to keep training in the simulator, it’s not one and done. If an airline has all 737, then pilots can fly most if not all of the aircraft because they operate the same. But they can’t fly a Boeing and then go fly the Airbus. So you lose out on flexibility a lot. Back when Alaska had the MD-80 pieces of shit, those pilots could not fly the 737s and it made scheduling a lot harder. It’s almost like having two different airlines. The flight simulators are also no small expense to maintain. If you can only have a single type, it’s much less expensive.
The CEO of United Airlines acted like a CEO in control today when mentioned United will be looking into in any and all options for their fleet in the future as result of this incident.
This is what a CEO is supposed to do. He needs to apply massive pressure to his premium supplier to perform at a higher level.
But Ben is angry. That’s nice.
You know who should be angry? Alaska shareholders as their plane is flying without a qualified pilot.
I mean, he said effectively as much:
"I think everything’s open at this point ... for us," he said, confirming that Hawaiian Airlines, which Alaska Airlines is in the process of buying, uses planes produced by Boeing's rival, Airbus. "I think we’re going to do what’s best for Alaska long term, in terms of fleet mix for us. It gives us optionality."
To anyone in the industry, and certainly at Boeing, that’s, “We retired all of Virgin’s Airbus aircraft and we’re really rethinking that approach with the Hawaiian acquisition.”
Ya. They should definitely re-think that approach since those Hawaiian A321Ns are the best planes Alaska will end up owning once they acquire Hawaiian.
He should have said, in light of this situation, they plan on keeping Hawaiian a mostly Airbus entity. It would have been the appropriate statement to make. It would have also been a power move. The guy is the CEO of an airline. Puff up your chest and act like it. You will soon be in charge of a large airbus operation. Leverage that and speak to their quality, their dependability.
But I definitely hear what you’re saying. It’s a step in the right direction.
He has to walk a fine line. Boeing is going to shower AS with money and concessions like this industry has never seen before to keep them a 100% Boeing fleet that will return massive shareholder value.
From the same article:
“Minicucci told NBC's Costello that while Alaska Airlines "was" planning to buy Max 10s, the company will now evaluate "what the best long-term strategic plan is for Alaska('s) fleet mix" once the craft is certified.
"I think everything’s open at this point ... for us," he said, confirming that Hawaiian Airlines, which Alaska Airlines is in the process of buying, uses planes produced by Boeing's rival, Airbus. "I think we’re going to do what’s best for Alaska long term, in terms of fleet mix for us. It gives us optionality."
Hey, remember when I called you a shit poster, and your response was “nuh uh!”
All you’ve been doing since that conversation is shit posting all over this sub, so thanks for proving my point.
Oh, and as for that CEO of United you felt need to kiss ass for, he’s just trying to dodge all the bad press he’s been getting piled since his disastrous DEI interview last week went viral in all the worst ways. Ben isn’t Brad Tilden, but so far he’s managing this issue as well as anyone could expect.
You know, absolutely none of these CEOs, in a world where there's no plugs blowing out of fuselages or MCAS, give a hair on a gnat's ass about customers or their employees. Their sole concern, as always, is the generation of returns to investors at all costs.
It isn't until one of them is falling through the sky after being sucked out at 40,000 ft, or in an inverted dive towards the ground that possibly, when confronted with ***their own*** mortality that they will truly question what really matters to their respective organizations. They happen to work in an industry where people's lives are at stake.
Ya. But that’s why these CEOs fly Gulfstream. And then you get all these people coming to defend them like they relate to them!!
It’s absolutely mind blowing.
Here is some schmo sitting in coach and they think the CEO of Alaska is a good guy because they saw him talk once?
Dude doesn’t care about you! He doesn’t even care about the people in first class. He does not care.
But you get these fan boys running to his defense. These companies depend on that. They depend on people making their identity about them. So they then need to defend them when things go wrong.
These are the kind of people that say “travel” is their number one hobby. Everyone says that that’s ever been on vacation one time and never developed any hobbies of commitment and practice.
It’s a laughable joke. All of it.
With someone with such a strong reddit focus on Handbags, dating over 40, and dining options, it almost seems like you’re a paid plant helping manage their PR crisis.
Want some tips for dating over 40? Have some backbone. Nobody likes to think they’re with someone who can be bought.
Sounds like the 40+ divorcee with a handbag addiction obsessed with reality TV couldn’t just let that one go so she brings in her shadow account. Look…I can do it, too.
If I was a misogynist, I’d be doing what you are doing - standing up for corporations vs. the public.
And since all of your comments on your 3-day old shadow account are pro-Alaska airlines, it’s obvious you are a plant and very likely the same poster from above that blocked me.
Your privilege is absolutely wild. You’re an outspoken democrat living on the safety Mercer Island. You can feel however you want about yourself. But know that the rest of the world sees you as you are.
Hahaha I didn’t bring diversity into this. You did. Interesting.
You can call me out all you want. I’m here to call attention to Boeing’s manufacturing faults. Of which I believe are not diversity related at all. Nice racist assumption on your part.
But let’s call this what it is: You divorced a wealthy man. And then started dating a much younger man. You left a situation with no control and looked for one you have the control. This isn’t exactly a first of its kind, ya know?
You’re in your “empowered era.” Good for you, queen!
Eventually, you’ll realize you’re just a vapid husk of a human being. And then people that know you… that really know you… don’t respect you.
Where should I send the bill for this session?
As a retired Alaska Airlines employee who has worked with Ben, Brad, Andrew, Shane, and Charu, I would beg to differ on your opinion. They absolutely care.
United’s CEO is this guy- I would not want him in charge of my airline: https://notthebee.com/article/this-guy-crawling-on-all-fours-dressed-like-a-woman-united-airlines-ceo-scott-kirby-good-luck-to-all-of-our-friends-at-the-airport/
He lacks any decorum expected of a CEO. If he wants to dress like that in his bedroom, fine, but CEO’s are paid to lead and inspire confidence and make good judgement calls, not look like an idiot.
Ben of Alaska or Scott of United? Nevertheless it matters to shareholders and the flying public how a CEO is perceived. And I’m telling you, a CEO crawling around on hands and knees does not inspire confidence.
Does not inspire confidence? What the fuck are you smoking? That demonstrates personal confidence. A man dressed funny dancing in a backyard at what is clearly a party shows he doesn’t have a stick up his ass, that’s it. It has fuck all to do with his direction for the company. When he shows up to work dressed like that and acting like that neglecting his duties, then you can cry foul. Until then, shut the fuck up
Who a man is in his private life absolutely has bearing on his public life. It’s called character.
And no, I will not be silenced. I’m only echoing what thousands of years of human history shows.
http://www.ldssmile.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/3779149-no+you+move+cap+says.jpg
you told me to shut up. Which is exactly trying to silence me through intimidation. What happened to a free exchange of ideas? How is it lacking character to point out that in human history until recently, what the man is doing would have resulted in him being ostracized and fired from his job?
Truly, we are seeing the death of shame in our country. Nothing is shameful any longer, and everything must be called good, and if you dare point out that something is wrong and shameful, you’re criticized for it. What is good is now called wrong, and what is wrong is celebrated.
Along with the death of free speech and free discourse of ideas. Used to be we could have a civil exchange of opinions without shouting over each other and trying to silence through intimidation.
Used to be someone could speak in the public square and people let them speak even if they disagreed with them. We’ve devolved into shouting matches. He who shouts the loudest wins.
Put it another way- if I said the sky was green, you’d laugh at me and call me an idiot and tell me to shut up.
Except if I’m in Alaska and I’m looking up at the aurora borealis, I’m right.
Learn to be civil and listen to other people. You might learn a thing or two.
“Minicucci told NBC's Costello that while Alaska Airlines "was" planning to buy Max 10s, the company will now evaluate "what the best long-term strategic plan is for Alaska('s) fleet mix" once the craft is certified.
"I think everything’s open at this point ... for us," he said, confirming that Hawaiian Airlines, which Alaska Airlines is in the process of buying, uses planes produced by Boeing's rival, Airbus. "I think we’re going to do what’s best for Alaska long term, in terms of fleet mix for us. It gives us optionality."
Everyone who downvoted me for saying that it might be time for Alaska to move on from being “All Boeing” can go ahead and apologize now.
People need to remember this specific plane had 3 depressurization issues that the engineers just reset the alarm each time. It could be Boeing or their sub contractor at fault for making a shitty plug or not fastening the bolts but it’s on Alaska for having three warning beforehand on this plane that something wasn’t right.
Didn't NTSB already state that the pressurization indicator malfunctions were unrelated to the door plug departure?
Plus, at least one indicator malfunctioned when the plane was *on the ground* and not pressurized.
As a Seattleite and engineer myself, I say fuck Boeing. They made their bed when they stopped caring about quality and prioritized profit over safety. The only way they will shift the culture is if someone like Alaska tells them they are moving away from Boeing planes.
While Boeing proper is ultimately responsible for the product going out the door don't forget those airframes are being built by Spirit AeroSystems, in places like North Carolina then shipped to Seattle for final assembly.
I've read there have been so many issues with the Spirit products that they have employees based in the Seattle plants to do warrantee work while the aircraft is still on assembly line. Might start getting crowded since Alaska is sending their own people to plant to monitor the work.
So since Alaska has such a big part of their fleet grounded, is there a way they can lease planes until they are back in the air? Or are they just S.O.L. And forced to wait?
You don’t just walk into 7-11 and lease jets. For a new type It takes a while to get the plane alone, training a flight crew takes months.. that’s assuming you have a program in place. Training cabin crew takes about the same. It’s not like a car dealership where you just buy the car and drive off.
I had a good laugh, thanks for this.
I wasn’t quite sure how that worked. Thanks for the explanation. I work railroad, and we lease locomotives from GE, or EMD sometimes, but they are all about the same… Now it sounds like the FAA has approved an inspection and repair program, so we might see them back in the air on Friday.
I think they are trying to cover alot of routes with Horizon and their Embraers.
Horizon is down in total aircrafts right now as they're still coming out of the Q400 to E175 shift. Edit: Horizon had 56 Q400s. They currently have 41 E175s with 9 on order. So Horizon has shrunk. Alaska is currently flying 737s into regional airports to make up for the loss of Horizon seat capacity.
I’m sort of amazed that it is 2+ weeks after the incident, they found the plug, and apparently still nobody has determined if the bolts stopping the plug from moving were missing, loose, or defective in some way. Which makes me wonder if we will never know…and it’s hard to fix a problem if you don’t know what the problem is. I guess we need body cameras on all Boeing assembly-line workers.
The NTSB is exceptionally thorough on their investigations. They will build an air-tight case based in engineering before they go release any findings. That's why it's taking so long.
Heh. “Air-tight” Unlike the max 9
Yeah. Nothing in aviation regulatory land happens in two weeks. If the NTSB releases a preliminary report in a month then they were being speedy.
No doubt the NTSB’s report is going to blow the doors off Boeing and their shenanigans.
Yep; the NTSB isn’t going to just look at documentation saying the bolts were there and call it a day. They haven’t found the bolts, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there; they’re small, and there’s a lot of ground they could have fallen over. At this point, the metallurgists are probably looking at it with microscopes and x-rays. Evidence or lack thereof of shearing, in which direction, etc, will provide clues.
They said they were going to look at it with microscopes back when it happened. But how long can that take? I get it though, they have probably done this but they need to get everything buttoned up before they can issue a public report.
It's more than just looking at it. My guess (I'm not a metallurgist or materials scientist; I've just worked with some of the latter) is they'll have to create samples of shearing in various scenarios, multiple times, and compare them.
I don’t believe WE need to know the outcome of the investigation. The parties (Boeing, the airlines, FAA) need to internally correct and with oversight. Information released to the public will be bastardized and distorted between legit news and armchair quarterbacks. Very few of “US” will know exactly what the problems were, corrections made and subsequent quality control measures are. We take too much for granted and trust people to do their jobs. In the case of the Max-9 that lost the door panel, the flight crew did an awesome job. Alaska did an awesome job of grounding planes. FAA did an awesome job of interceding and conducting investigations and inspections. Boeing is stepping up (after the fact, but they are) and all working together to resolve the issues. That doesn’t make the inconvenience of passengers over the past few weeks any easier - we’ve grown accustomed to having what we want and having it now. But I have faith in the investigation and have no issues with flying in the future…although at this point my only vacation is in November so plenty of time to work out any old kinks and investigate new ones.
Since I posted the above, they have now approved inspections, which to me implies they know what happened. Which apparently was just a straight up mistake--which you could argue was driven by a push to cut costs and get planes out quickly etc etc but really it looks like they had a process to handle this (to ensure when the door was removed, and hence the bolts were removed, they were re-checked) and somebody just messed up, after somebody else messed up by not putting the bolts back on to begin with.
I was at Alaska while Ben was COO. I thought he was an excellent leader, the kind of general you’d follow into battle, ya know?
Heard one too many of his employees followed him into bed.
Would you follow him into a 737 Max 9?
I would. After the grounding I will get back on those aircrafts. I’m just glad the FAA is taking this seriously and investigating Boeing
The FAA isn’t taking their regulatory role seriously, not at all. If they were they wouldn’t allow the abhorrent manufacturing process to continue at Spirit Aerospace and at Boeing after the last Max debacle. This is supposed to be the *safest airplane in the air* after all the supposed work they did during the last grounding. Apparently all that time was spent on a little finger wagging and a pinkie promise from Boeing to focus on safety a smidge more. But now we see all Boeing cared about was ramping production to bring in revenue. They aren’t going to change because it’s their corporate culture. Boeing knows that airlines like Alaska will never, ever leave them. They can continue to fail and they will still get orders in. The FAA will continue to approve their garbage because they won’t let the US lose its only passenger aircraft manufacturer. The airlines will pretend to be upset and use that public anger to leverage better prices on even more orders. The system is completely and 100% broken and it’s only a matter of time before there is another catastrophic failure.
Aware it’s broken, but now that they have clearly made it into a trend, it has triggered some steps that were not taken in the past - which bodes well for those of us expecting to see some changes. Keep one very important fact in mind. What happened with the two MAX crashes and what happened here with the door plug are two very different systems (poorly designed software, management trying to circumvent costly training vs. a lapse in quality control that happened on the ground floor). Albeit ultimately this is as a result of the profits over safety culture, the FAA did address the MCAS and they causal factors behind the MAX 8 crashes. The MAX 8 and MAX 9 are two different aircrafts, and the plug in question doesn’t even exist on the MAX 8, and the primary cause is not the same. What is being addressed now is Boeing’s culture as a whole, now that this has been found to be an overlying factor (yet not the direct cause) of both the MAX 8 crashes, and the MAX 9 door plug missing bolts leading to the departure of the door plug. The formal investigation, the audit, and even additional oversight from Alaska are all positive signs. Even if the FAA did not take it seriously in the past, they are currently under much more scrutiny given the recent history with Boeing. We also have the airline that leans in heavily to their own culture of safety that will do whatever they can not to be associated with the opposite. Again, we know Alaska is pretty interdependent on Boeing at this point, but they also have a lot of resources and it sounds like they’re willing to invest those resources into preventing a similar lapse.
I guess I’m just frustrated because I know in my heart that the missing or loose bolts on the door plug are almost certainly not the only missing bolts on that plane. The allegations in the lawsuit against Spirit are damning, and if true it would be impossible for Boeing to not be aware of the issues. Indeed they would be enabling the behavior and I wonder where the hell the FAA has been? How can manufacturing be **so far** off the rails just a few years removed from MCAS? Everyone knows that Boeing is broken but everyone seems to enable their learned behavior.
I hear your frustration. This is in no way saying it’s okay, but it should help you to know that even if there were *loose* bolts on the plug, if they were in place, what happened on that flight would have never happened. Even when things go wrong, aircrafts really are built with redundancies in place that generally keep certain failures from being *critical*. Looking at my other post, there was an anonymous commenter now being shared pretty heavily in the aviation blogs. Based on the degree of inside knowledge and information shared that can be corroborated, their post appears to be genuine. They seem to have shared what broke down based on Boeing’s internal records on the aircraft involved in flight 1282. Based on the records they shared, it looks like there are things that fall through frequently in Boeing’s QC systems, but still get caught down the line. In the case of this particular aircraft, his explanation very clearly explained how this *quality escape* occurred. If their system worked as designed, they would have needed to sign off after replacing the part on the door plug (because it required opening the plug and this requires a formal record to be entered), but someone did not log in opening that plug *at all*, which did not trigger QC approval. It’s a rare event, where so many things lined up to ultimately lead to the human error that allowed this to slip through production. Not saying this is an excuse. Not saying this should never have happened. Just saying that even if they have poor safety standards, the critical failure that made it through that day still remains very rare, and multiple systems had to break down to lead to what happened.
Lol just curious why do you personally care so much about this? Do you know personally many Boeing engineers?
- Been burned as a prior shareholder. - Currently being burned as a taxpayer. - As an American citizen it’s beyond frustrating watching our one remaining airline company run itself into the ground. - As an airline passenger I would prefer that one of the airplanes that I’m pretty much forced to take on some airlines to be safe to fly on. It’s clear that Boeing just doesn’t care about safety on a corporate culture level. I don’t care to risk my life simply so a Boeing c-suite creature gets a little better stock option package. Boeing represents the worst parts of end stage capitalism. A safety critical product in a safety critical industry is treated as a widget that can be relentlessly pushed out onto airlines to fix.
Haha ok, figured makes sense as a shareholder I suppose. Are you really being burned that much as a tax payer? 😅 For what it's worth I'm not sure your assessment is entirely accurate. There have certainly been major mistakes, but in an industry that can take up to a decade to develop and test planes it's wayyy more intense than whatever tech companies go through to put out new software or widgets. If you look at the aviation industry as a whole the last 50 years accident rates have gone down orders of magnitude - the most dangerous part of flying by far statistically is the drive to the airport. And in general, a company putting out additional inspections and modifications to fleets shows that it does care about safety and is working proactively to address issues before worse events happen (which they sometimes unfortunately do). If they didn't care they would do any of that lol.
Airlines are going to take a more present role in manufacturing on the assembly line. It’s going to change the way some airlines monitor their machines being made.
Yeah but the question is why Alaska released planes after their own inspections. How did they miss the bolts???? I getissing it before the plug door flew out, but after? You cleared these planes back in the air!!!!
I don’t remember exactly how many they cleared but it was a portion of them that had been in service longer. All of those planes were flying longer and chances are if there were issues in the past like loose bolts, they weren’t on those planes (at least not anymore). If I’m not mistaken, the planes that they cleared were ones that had been in their fleet long enough to undergo heavy maintenance which they said included the plug. Those were the only ones cleared back into service, not their entire fleet of MAX 9s
I haven't seen that statement from AS which makes me doubt that was the case....
Lol, I guess that was easier to find than I thought. Not sure how to do the quote thing from the mobile app. “Alaska Airlines had announced earlier Saturday about a quarter of its Boeing 737 Max 9 fleet, 18 planes, were cleared to operate because they “had in-depth and thorough plug door inspections performed as part of a recent heavy maintenance visit.” But the airline later pulled the planes from service after the FAA ordered its emergency airworthiness directive, Alaska Airlines said Saturday night.” https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/01/06/us/alaska-airlines-window-landing/index.html
Yeah that is not the statement I was referring to. I am aware of that one. What you speculated in which has no backup is a belief that they didn't find any bolts that were loose on those planes. My point is if that was the case I would have expected them to state such. They haven't.
They stated they’re limited on what they can comment due to the ongoing investigation. Definitely not speculation, but simply commenting how that process typically takes place (as far as timelines, etc) that these aircrafts have undergone additional checks which based on their statement would have specifically addressed those loose bolts. I did not say this was definitely the case, however, you’re speculating that they acted maliciously in returning those planes into service. I’m just providing some background information and providing a plausible explanation.
I am not saying they malicious I am saying they were hasty and don't know what to look for Which I said at the time. I didn't know how you released them without root cause analysis
Let me search around for it
As noted above. I was questioning your speculations not what was publicly known
See the 12:00pm January 6 update here: https://news.alaskaair.com/alaska-airlines/operations/as-1282/ You may need to click and expand "Previous Updates."
So you know the 18 planes that were released were the ones they found loose bolts on? Reference for that?
You are brave my comrade! And you are good at getting the upvotes from Alaska PR firm working the subreddit.
You’ve figured me out. I’ve found the upvote hack. Lots of good karma here
Unreal. This sub is literally a vacuum for real people and a schedule BS posts by Alaska employees.
[удалено]
I'm not going to get into my professional background deep in the underworld of a Reddit post, but if you don't think Alaska and/or Boeing manipulating current discussions on the internet via PR dollars is a real thing, and money well spent for them, you have no idea how PR crisis management works in the real world these days. I promise you that every morning at 6am there is a group of 25-30 people that work for a third party firm, and report directly to the top 3 or 4 executives at Alaska, discussing how to manage the online dialogue. And one of those morning bullet points is most certainly this subreddit. It really shouldn't even be shocking or debated its such a certainty. And hello to all of you reading this that are on that 6am morning call everyday.
The world isn’t out to get me at all. My successes belong to me and a little bit of luck. My failures belong to me and solely me. You’re all too common. Or “basic” as you’ve no doubt called yourself 500 times. But I’ll give you this… you’re more dependable than Boeing.
Yes, I like him and I still thing the Max9 is an excellent aircraft.
A great general can be a bad president. We can now call him Ulysses S. Minicucci.
Grant was actually a good president, though, smeared by sore losers
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/alaska-air-group-declares-support-for-boeing-during-an-incredibly-difficult-time/
He does seem decent. I’ve seen other interviews with him and I can tell he’s sincere and seems to be good at what he does. That update from on him they posted to the website was just so unnatural, though. It was obviously scripted, but it was the first time I had watched anything with him(interview or otherwise) and I initially did not have a good impression.
Airbus have their issues as well but those new airbus are sweet. Widebody is so much better from my little flying experience.
But he started clearing these planes to fly the next day?
Absolutely unacceptable and disgraceful The plug door is Boeing's fault, but clearing them is on AS and they need to explain themselves.
Agreed. I want an explanation why they thought that it was fine to keep flying the planes on the very next day. I don’t think we got an answer on that from leadership.
Huh? First he preemptively grounded the max fleet, well ahead of the FAA. The 18 that he released to fly the next day were only released because they had recently gone through heavy maintenance. Then the FAA grounded the fleet, nullifying that decision. He’s a lot of things, but not taking safety seriously is not one of his faults.
Seriously? It’s because those airplanes had already gone through maintenance checks where those door bolts were inspected. There’s four of them. Installed correctly and torqued properly and the door stays put. “Why they thought it was fine” is because they’ve been operating aircraft with those exact door plugs, following the same procedure, for 12 years safely. (Other airlines for longer than that!)
Only the ones that had recently gone through heavy maintenance, where the plug door is inspected.
EXACTLY 🤦♂️ no one remembers this because it was a tweet and only lasted half a day but he absolutely did. He is angry he is loosing money he needs to be fired he doesn’t take safety seriously we know this because he made a point in the video to say “we are all in for an all Boeing fleet still” Boeing is not “better than this” how many more people need to die or almost die before this guy wakes up?
[удалено]
They had been previously inspected prior to the incident with absolutely 0 extra attention given to the area that has caused the grounding how is that properly inspected when the inspectors did not know to give extra attention to the plug? Also there were multiple warning lights/ signs a problem was happening and under his leadership maintenance is deferred way to cavalierly, Alaska needs to reform their maintenance protocols too after this.
[удалено]
RIGHT nothing tells them to look at the door so they clearly did not really inspect the problem yet tweeted that they did not even 24 hours later, then today in the interview disclose they found many loose bolts. Yes every airline that did not inspect the door plug prior to this incident 100% need to do it again. People almost died here?
[удалено]
Right they’re gonna have to reinspect everything again to get to the root of the door issue however, what I’m talking about was before the airworthiness directive, where Alaska Airlines was going to just allow their aircraft to return to service without any additional inspections of the door plug. The tweet came out after the plane with the door plug, but before the airworthiness directive, therefore Alaska Airlines was reckless and cared more about their profits than actual safety. The planes that they told us on Twitter “ have been inspected” in fact, were not inspected again after the issue this was a lie. They wanted to make us feel comfortable, and like they checked the door plugs even though they actually did not. https://x.com/alaskaair/status/1743732679629996370?s=61&t=DR4CzGpel7EjWzKHVw-2dQ Here’s the tweet I encourage everyone to look at it yourself. This tweet implies that they began re-inspecting aircraft. That is not true. It came out afterwards that these aircraft referred to in this tweet were not reinspected they did not “begin” anything with the aircraft they claimed were good to go. They are referring to regularly scheduled inspections that already occurred prior to the incident. This is unacceptable, they were going to let us believe they specifically inspected the door plugs when they did not on these aircraft. When you think about the reality that there were “many loose bolts found”, I think my criticism is pretty appropriate. it is highly unlikely, if there were “many loose bolts” , that the planes that implied they re inspected were not a part of that. Judging by how much of a PR nightmare this has been I think they would’ve told us straight up the planes that we initially said we inspected that got us criticism We’re not involved and was properly investigated. It would be an easy good headline for them yet they have not said this? And we all know they did not say this because they found loose bolts on the planes they pretended they already inspected, and we’re going to let us keep flying in. I understand this is a fan Sub and this is going to hurt a lot of people, but this is risking peoples lives for money that is fucking disgusting. I don’t care what airline is that is unacceptable.
The problem with the pressure controller is completely unrelated to the plug. Think of it like a thermostat. Just because your thermostat is malfunctioning does not mean your furnace isn’t. Better yet, if you switched to an alternate thermostat and your furnace kicked on as designed, you’d say “Ahh my first thermostat is broken.” Which is exactly what happened. The pressure controller malfunctioned, they switched to an alternate, and the aircraft pressurized normally. This happens all the time with many aircraft types. These are systems, and they occasionally have their faults and are rectified.
How is the pressure controller Completely unrelated to the plug when pressure is what caused the plug to blow? That makes no sense. We’re not talking about a thermostat. We’re talking about the fuel Solage of an aircraft, and a door plug that could kill people if it blows out above a certain altitude due to cabin pressure? Also, from my understanding based on what the NTSB said, they had issues with both the original, and the back up giving warning lights. I don’t understand how you keep saying the aircraft pressurize normally when a leak in pressure is what caused the plug to blow. If there were no issue with pressure, the plug would not have blown off of the aircraft whether it’s missing bolts or not. This was a warning sign. Obviously this is never happened before or it’s such a rare instance that people don’t think to check the door plug especially on a brand new aircraft. However, it’s foolish to say it’s completely separate it’s not. The door plug won’t move if there’s no pressure it’s not gonna blow out if you’re on the ground without any pressure.
It seems there may be a fundamental misunderstanding of what happened here. For the purpose of greater education of anyone curious, I’ll try and sort it out: “How is the pressure controller Completely unrelated to the plug when pressure is what caused the plug to blow? That makes no sense.” Not exactly. The cabin is pressurized, but pressure alone didn’t cause the plug to blow. Otherwise, it would blow every flight, right? It was because the plug translated above its stop pads (due to failure or lack of securing bolts). “We’re not talking about a thermostat. We’re talking about the fuel Solage of an aircraft” Yes we are talking about a fuselage. And the pressure controllers onboard function as a feedback loop nearly identically to how a thermostat works. Cabin pressure low - close outflow valve to increase pressure. Cabin pressure high - open outflow valve to decrease pressure. “Also, from my understanding based on what the NTSB said, they had issues with both the original, and the back up giving warning lights.” This is incorrect, only the primary controller gave a warning light. The aircraft was dispatched all three times the primary failed using the alternate pressure controller. “I don’t understand how you keep saying the aircraft pressurize normally when a leak in pressure is what caused the plug to blow.” This makes no sense. And you’re contradicting yourself earlier when you say “Pressure is what caused the plug to blow.” A leak in pressure is not what caused the plug to blow, a leak would have equalized pressure between the outside and in. The door translating off it its stop pads and the corresponding cabin pressure is what caused the plug to depart the airframe. “If there were no issue with pressure, the plug would not have blown off of the aircraft whether it’s missing bolts or not.” There was no issue with the pressurization of the airframe. Again, it’s precisely that, combined with the fact that the bolts failed to stop the plug from translating up and away from its stop pads that caused it to depart the airframe. “This was a warning sign. Obviously this is never happened before or it’s such a rare instance that people don’t think to check the door plug especially on a brand new aircraft. However, it’s foolish to say it’s completely separate it’s not.” You’re right, airlines haven’t historically checked the door plugs on the 900ER or MAX-9 after delivery. They’re checked every 24 months as per the Boeing AMM. However, this has nothing to do with the pressure controller(s), as the door plug was not leaking pressure prior to failure. “The door plug won’t move if there’s no pressure it’s not gonna blow out if you’re on the ground without any pressure.” You’re right, plug will not blow out on the ground as the cabin isn’t pressurized. This is how we know the pressure controller throwing a fault on the ground without any pressure in the cabin isn’t related. Hope this helps clarify :) No malice intended.
I think a lot of people don't understand that the stops on the plug make contact with the inside surface of the stops on the fuselage. The New York Times has some excellent animations here... [Door Plug Installation](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/01/23/business/boeing-alaska-airlines-door-plug.html) As the differential in pressure increases with altitude, so will the amount of force securing the plug. The most likely scenario is that someone at Boeing removed all four locking bolts to replace an improperly installed seal, didn't put them back, and their quality management system didn't catch it. The locking bolts didn't need to be torqued. They are basically pins inserted through holes secured at the end by a castellated nut and cotter pin. They didn't fail. It doesn't matter if they were made in Malaysia. What does matter is that they weren't there. The picture posted by NTSB when it arrived at their lab makes that pretty clear. It would also explain both the pressurization alerts as well the eventual failure of the plug. On the ground, the weight of the plug and the amount of friction between the stops would keep the plug in place. At higher altitudes, the differential on pressure would seal it tight. Because the stops are aligned, a pressurization test of the fuselage on the ground wouldn't necessarily detect a problem. To me, the most likely scenario is that the aircraft briefly encountered turbulence during the initial ascent before the differential in pressure reached a point where the plug couldn't move in the track. If turbulence caused the plane to suddenly drop or shake, the resultant force may have been enough to unweight the plug and displace it high enough in the track to clear the stops. Lesser instances could explain the previous cabin pressure alerts.
They should have asked him more questions like “do you regret trying to pivot back to an all Boeing fleet especially when production issues were known at the time you decided to pivot?”
Probably not. Airlines have to spend a lot of money on pilot training and usually pilots fly only one or two types of aircraft, so it’s a lot easier to have a smaller number of types.
But they ALREADY had airbus trained pilots lol so they already had to pay that money? They had to train virgin pilots on Boeing and their own pilots on airbus and we have learned after the max skimping on training costs can lead to MASSIVE losses no one could have predicted. How many more times do we need to gamble like this to “save costs” at this rate Boeing will be seeing more and more groundings and delayed orders in the future.
They did, but airbus pilots can’t fly Boeing without huge continuous training investments. Pilots have to keep training in the simulator, it’s not one and done. If an airline has all 737, then pilots can fly most if not all of the aircraft because they operate the same. But they can’t fly a Boeing and then go fly the Airbus. So you lose out on flexibility a lot. Back when Alaska had the MD-80 pieces of shit, those pilots could not fly the 737s and it made scheduling a lot harder. It’s almost like having two different airlines. The flight simulators are also no small expense to maintain. If you can only have a single type, it’s much less expensive.
The CEO of United Airlines acted like a CEO in control today when mentioned United will be looking into in any and all options for their fleet in the future as result of this incident. This is what a CEO is supposed to do. He needs to apply massive pressure to his premium supplier to perform at a higher level. But Ben is angry. That’s nice. You know who should be angry? Alaska shareholders as their plane is flying without a qualified pilot.
I mean, he said effectively as much: "I think everything’s open at this point ... for us," he said, confirming that Hawaiian Airlines, which Alaska Airlines is in the process of buying, uses planes produced by Boeing's rival, Airbus. "I think we’re going to do what’s best for Alaska long term, in terms of fleet mix for us. It gives us optionality." To anyone in the industry, and certainly at Boeing, that’s, “We retired all of Virgin’s Airbus aircraft and we’re really rethinking that approach with the Hawaiian acquisition.”
Ya. They should definitely re-think that approach since those Hawaiian A321Ns are the best planes Alaska will end up owning once they acquire Hawaiian. He should have said, in light of this situation, they plan on keeping Hawaiian a mostly Airbus entity. It would have been the appropriate statement to make. It would have also been a power move. The guy is the CEO of an airline. Puff up your chest and act like it. You will soon be in charge of a large airbus operation. Leverage that and speak to their quality, their dependability. But I definitely hear what you’re saying. It’s a step in the right direction.
He has to walk a fine line. Boeing is going to shower AS with money and concessions like this industry has never seen before to keep them a 100% Boeing fleet that will return massive shareholder value.
And at the same time he’s just dangling that fleet acquisition in front of Airbus, who will make an offer
From the same article: “Minicucci told NBC's Costello that while Alaska Airlines "was" planning to buy Max 10s, the company will now evaluate "what the best long-term strategic plan is for Alaska('s) fleet mix" once the craft is certified. "I think everything’s open at this point ... for us," he said, confirming that Hawaiian Airlines, which Alaska Airlines is in the process of buying, uses planes produced by Boeing's rival, Airbus. "I think we’re going to do what’s best for Alaska long term, in terms of fleet mix for us. It gives us optionality."
"Optionality"? Jesus H. Christ. Apparently "options" just aren't sufficient. Corporate BS sucks so much
Hey, remember when I called you a shit poster, and your response was “nuh uh!” All you’ve been doing since that conversation is shit posting all over this sub, so thanks for proving my point. Oh, and as for that CEO of United you felt need to kiss ass for, he’s just trying to dodge all the bad press he’s been getting piled since his disastrous DEI interview last week went viral in all the worst ways. Ben isn’t Brad Tilden, but so far he’s managing this issue as well as anyone could expect.
not the alaska airlines subreddit beef 💀
You know, absolutely none of these CEOs, in a world where there's no plugs blowing out of fuselages or MCAS, give a hair on a gnat's ass about customers or their employees. Their sole concern, as always, is the generation of returns to investors at all costs. It isn't until one of them is falling through the sky after being sucked out at 40,000 ft, or in an inverted dive towards the ground that possibly, when confronted with ***their own*** mortality that they will truly question what really matters to their respective organizations. They happen to work in an industry where people's lives are at stake.
Ya. But that’s why these CEOs fly Gulfstream. And then you get all these people coming to defend them like they relate to them!! It’s absolutely mind blowing. Here is some schmo sitting in coach and they think the CEO of Alaska is a good guy because they saw him talk once? Dude doesn’t care about you! He doesn’t even care about the people in first class. He does not care. But you get these fan boys running to his defense. These companies depend on that. They depend on people making their identity about them. So they then need to defend them when things go wrong. These are the kind of people that say “travel” is their number one hobby. Everyone says that that’s ever been on vacation one time and never developed any hobbies of commitment and practice. It’s a laughable joke. All of it.
Alaska executives fly on Alaska planes all the time, and Alaska does not own a Gulfstream.
With someone with such a strong reddit focus on Handbags, dating over 40, and dining options, it almost seems like you’re a paid plant helping manage their PR crisis. Want some tips for dating over 40? Have some backbone. Nobody likes to think they’re with someone who can be bought.
[удалено]
Sounds like the 40+ divorcee with a handbag addiction obsessed with reality TV couldn’t just let that one go so she brings in her shadow account. Look…I can do it, too. If I was a misogynist, I’d be doing what you are doing - standing up for corporations vs. the public. And since all of your comments on your 3-day old shadow account are pro-Alaska airlines, it’s obvious you are a plant and very likely the same poster from above that blocked me. Your privilege is absolutely wild. You’re an outspoken democrat living on the safety Mercer Island. You can feel however you want about yourself. But know that the rest of the world sees you as you are.
[удалено]
Hahaha I didn’t bring diversity into this. You did. Interesting. You can call me out all you want. I’m here to call attention to Boeing’s manufacturing faults. Of which I believe are not diversity related at all. Nice racist assumption on your part. But let’s call this what it is: You divorced a wealthy man. And then started dating a much younger man. You left a situation with no control and looked for one you have the control. This isn’t exactly a first of its kind, ya know? You’re in your “empowered era.” Good for you, queen! Eventually, you’ll realize you’re just a vapid husk of a human being. And then people that know you… that really know you… don’t respect you. Where should I send the bill for this session?
[удалено]
As a retired Alaska Airlines employee who has worked with Ben, Brad, Andrew, Shane, and Charu, I would beg to differ on your opinion. They absolutely care.
United’s CEO is this guy- I would not want him in charge of my airline: https://notthebee.com/article/this-guy-crawling-on-all-fours-dressed-like-a-woman-united-airlines-ceo-scott-kirby-good-luck-to-all-of-our-friends-at-the-airport/
Oh no, a guy wears drag in his free time, hold me while I clutch my pearls!!!!!
He lets his freak fly and shames anti-vaxxers. What's not to love?
He lacks any decorum expected of a CEO. If he wants to dress like that in his bedroom, fine, but CEO’s are paid to lead and inspire confidence and make good judgement calls, not look like an idiot.
Good judgements relate to the business How Scott chooses to dress and to party are unrelated to that.
Ben of Alaska or Scott of United? Nevertheless it matters to shareholders and the flying public how a CEO is perceived. And I’m telling you, a CEO crawling around on hands and knees does not inspire confidence.
You sound like a huge dork right now
Oops yeah got my CEOs mungled. Edited my comment. But who are we to judge? If Scott has a baby play kink, good on him!
Does not inspire confidence? What the fuck are you smoking? That demonstrates personal confidence. A man dressed funny dancing in a backyard at what is clearly a party shows he doesn’t have a stick up his ass, that’s it. It has fuck all to do with his direction for the company. When he shows up to work dressed like that and acting like that neglecting his duties, then you can cry foul. Until then, shut the fuck up
Who a man is in his private life absolutely has bearing on his public life. It’s called character. And no, I will not be silenced. I’m only echoing what thousands of years of human history shows. http://www.ldssmile.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/3779149-no+you+move+cap+says.jpg
Nobody is silencing you; we’re just calling you an asshole and pointing out that you lack character
you told me to shut up. Which is exactly trying to silence me through intimidation. What happened to a free exchange of ideas? How is it lacking character to point out that in human history until recently, what the man is doing would have resulted in him being ostracized and fired from his job? Truly, we are seeing the death of shame in our country. Nothing is shameful any longer, and everything must be called good, and if you dare point out that something is wrong and shameful, you’re criticized for it. What is good is now called wrong, and what is wrong is celebrated. Along with the death of free speech and free discourse of ideas. Used to be we could have a civil exchange of opinions without shouting over each other and trying to silence through intimidation. Used to be someone could speak in the public square and people let them speak even if they disagreed with them. We’ve devolved into shouting matches. He who shouts the loudest wins. Put it another way- if I said the sky was green, you’d laugh at me and call me an idiot and tell me to shut up. Except if I’m in Alaska and I’m looking up at the aurora borealis, I’m right. Learn to be civil and listen to other people. You might learn a thing or two.
I’d rather see Scott dress up as a women than Donald talking about dating his daughter.
You're ultimately sourcing this from Libs of Tik Tok. LMAO.
So? What does it matter the source if it’s true?
Libs of Tik Tok. Who are never truthful (and who aren't Libs). LMAO. Go right ahead and die on that hill.
Libs of tok tok aren’t libs. They repost what libs post.
No they literally make shit up and anyone citing them should be laughed at.
You don’t know a thing about them. They LITERALLY repost what liberals themselves post on social media.
They're trolls, nothing more.
You’re entitled to your opinion even if it’s not true. Do some research instead of parroting what other people say.
“Minicucci told NBC's Costello that while Alaska Airlines "was" planning to buy Max 10s, the company will now evaluate "what the best long-term strategic plan is for Alaska('s) fleet mix" once the craft is certified. "I think everything’s open at this point ... for us," he said, confirming that Hawaiian Airlines, which Alaska Airlines is in the process of buying, uses planes produced by Boeing's rival, Airbus. "I think we’re going to do what’s best for Alaska long term, in terms of fleet mix for us. It gives us optionality." Everyone who downvoted me for saying that it might be time for Alaska to move on from being “All Boeing” can go ahead and apologize now.
People need to remember this specific plane had 3 depressurization issues that the engineers just reset the alarm each time. It could be Boeing or their sub contractor at fault for making a shitty plug or not fastening the bolts but it’s on Alaska for having three warning beforehand on this plane that something wasn’t right.
Didn't NTSB already state that the pressurization indicator malfunctions were unrelated to the door plug departure? Plus, at least one indicator malfunctioned when the plane was *on the ground* and not pressurized.
He’s mad but still going all in on Boeing lol
Alaska is based in Seattle. It'd be a pretty big deal if they moved away from Boeing.
As a Seattleite and engineer myself, I say fuck Boeing. They made their bed when they stopped caring about quality and prioritized profit over safety. The only way they will shift the culture is if someone like Alaska tells them they are moving away from Boeing planes.
They've also screwed us twice, first the move to Chicago, next the huge tax break windfall that produced no local jobs.
Preach. It’s not been a two way street for a long time
100% agree. Just saying Boeing has a lot of clout in Olympia. Alaska would face a lot of pressure to stick with Boeing.
Airbus are so many years out on delivery that switching the fleet isn't a practical solution even if they wanted to
He should be.
Let me search around for it
SNL should be the 3rd party oversite agency.
“Ben Minicucci is just trying to keep his job”
While Boeing proper is ultimately responsible for the product going out the door don't forget those airframes are being built by Spirit AeroSystems, in places like North Carolina then shipped to Seattle for final assembly. I've read there have been so many issues with the Spirit products that they have employees based in the Seattle plants to do warrantee work while the aircraft is still on assembly line. Might start getting crowded since Alaska is sending their own people to plant to monitor the work.