United Airlines pilots said pedals that control rudder movement on the plane were stuck as they tried to keep the plane in the center of the runway during the Feb. 6 landing.
The pilots were able to use a small nose-gear steering wheel to veer from the runway to a high-speed turnoff. The rudder pedals began working again as the pilots taxied to the gate with 155 passengers and six crew members on the flight from Nassau, Bahamas, according to a preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Boeing said this is the only rudder-response issue reported on a Max, although two similar incidents happened in 2019 with an earlier model of the 737 called NG or next generation, which has the same rudder-pedal system.
The manufacturer said the issue was fixed by replacing three parts. The plane has made dozens of passenger-carrying flights since then, according to data from FlightAware.
Holy dick bags Batman. Cold environment testing is normal stuff. Coupled with cycle testing, and this shit ain’t supposed to happen.
Cold environment testing? Isn’t it like -40°C to -80°C at cruising altitude anyways?
Yes, and we have machines to do these things. Ours could easily fit 4 flight computers for a 4, 8, 12 or 24 hour test at -70C to something crazy like 50C
when I was a kid, my dad worked at Lockheed… they had the coolest Take your Kid to Work Day. The basement was where the fun was- specifically the prototype testing lab with the 50 pound hammer that they were constantly knocking around mock ups of computer cabinets, the ginormous vibration table, and, yes, a cubical-sized refrigerator to do just that. The sound isolating chamber was also kinda cool… and spec sheets of the x33 demonstrator.
Thinking back on what I worked with, it was far more impressive than I realized at the time. We had 15 foot custom cables to connect the 125+ pin flight computer (four of them) to our test system. The test system also controlled the environment chamber, which had like 90 minute cycles from -70C to 50C but it also had a vibration table that has incredible acceleration. I believe it could reach near vacuum, and pressurize, I don’t remember how much.
Cubicle size - yeah that checks out. The other thing I remember about ours that it was extremely tall. And blue
… so your machine could probably cool my GPU nicely is what you are saying …
Yes. And it could change the temperature very quickly too. Unfortunately I can’t remember how fast.
Ohh, rapid tem changes testing too, nice, probably with some active heat transfer system (… I mean a fan).
Specialised machines/tools/machine-tools are great to nerd out for a bit.
Like I said, I didn’t appreciate how cool it was at the time. I was also paid a third of what I make now, that might have something to do with it.
Oh, I recognise that feeling of not being able to enjoy or be proud of work that you dont dislike, just because you know how unfairly you are compensated.
I think Boeing should rethink their strategy. How are their Stockprices not at the bottom of the ocean yet? Cutting so many corners and risking so many lifes should not be legal. This should definitely be prosecuted. Either ban all the current executives or ban the planes.
That’s what I don’t get, their stock goes down for a while but then people think it’s a good time to buy and it goes back up. Like it doesn’t affect them at all. Casually kill 400 people and barely anything happens.
The stock market is pretty damn efficient at processing all the information related to the stock price. Stock goes up because realistically Boeing isn’t going anywhere.
They are still going to make money.
Every time there’s a bad-news dip in Boeing’s stock price, traders are treating that as a discount to buy the stock because they don’t think the US government would ever allow Boeing to fail. Sadly, they’re probably not wrong. If Boeing’s financials get into deep trouble the US government would likely bail them out because they’re a large employer and a strategic component of US economic hegemony.
and a strategic component of US economic hegemony.
Not to mention, they build a lot of the toys the military plays with.
They are an arms manufacturer, too. I think this helps hedge their position(even though that side is having some issues also.)
Mostly I think it is because there is no competition.
Because they’re busy buying back their stock, causing the stock price to go up.
I don’t think public companies should be able to do this, but they seem to do it all the time.
I’m pretty sure it was made illegal after the stock crash, or at least way more tightly regulated. Then Reagan made it cool again.
It is one of the annoying side-effects of capitalism. Many companies start in a good place with quality setting them apart from others, and they then experience natural organic growth. Then they go public, go through some merger/takeovers, the original owners are either forced out, retire, or die, and at that point, the focus is shareholder profits and not what got them there.
Their lack of QA eventually catches up with them, people die, bad things happen. They’ll up their quality, hire QA engineers again, claim they are doing the best for quality for a few quarters until the public eye is off them. Then they’ll just start cutting quality back again.
Publicly traded companies eventually never care about quality, or safety, or human lives. It is in their nature.
Last week’s John Oliver had a great episode on how Boeing backslid after merging with McDonnell Douglas.
Yeah, Soviet Russia never had an aereal accident.
Hilarious. We either let corporations kill people or we live in Russia. There’s nothing in between there. Nothing at all.
In the latest Boeing news (door plugs, bolts, this rudder thing) there have been 0 deaths. Nothing at all.
This time. Nobody went to prison for killing 400 people with MCAS or for lying about it after. And the documents that have come out prove they knew it was a deathtrap. Their own test pilots reported it was unrecoverable.
That’s what I said.
No it isn’t. You pointed out that the recent news has zero deaths. But it’s just a matter of time until something critical fails and a Boeing falls out of the sky. If we don’t hold them accountable for previous failures, they will not change.
The prevalence of incompetence in large organizations and institutions is independent of economic and political systems, and is more so from the dilution of talent and accountability as it grows.
Well, that’s not what the guy above said, it’s all capitalism’s fault, apparently.
One of my favorite activities, as someone who had to actually read both Adam Smith and Karl Marx in college, is to ask AnCaps and Tankies (and pretty much every other political and economic pontificator) to strictly define capitalism and socialism. Then I ask them if they think “pure” versions of those systems have ever existed.
No true scotsman?
Last week John Oliver essentially said it is both, with capitalism (stock buybacks and cost cutting) being primary.
So is Airbus also equally bad? Also capitalist economy…
Or is it maybe greed, which exists in any system, and in this case has cough up with Boeing and the drop in share price is exactly what they wanted to prevent?
Boy what a straw man argument lol
I agree.
Because the stock market knows the US government would never let Boeing fail. Ever since the 2008 crisis investors have been acting on the assumption that every company that is too important for the US economy will be bailed out (as in, given low interest loans, not nationalised like a sane government would do).
Boeing doesn’t need to fail. They’re not going to, government assistance or not, they are still a profitable company of their own right. This isn’t a case of bad investments like in 2008. So unless every company buying aircraft cancels their orders, which they won’t, Boeing will continue to be fine. Besides, simple fact is Airbus doesn’t have enough production capacity to replace Boeing.
That said, I would love to see their stock price tank. That doesn’t bankrupt the company. It will fuck up their investors though. And those investors are the ones who would demand new management and, if they act collectively, can actually force new management to happen within a year. Any shareholder can put forward a shareholder resolution. A shareholder resolution could replace any or all of the company management. And if a majority of shareholders vote for it by proxy at the next annual meeting, then that’s what happens.
If I were a Boeing shareholder, I would put a shareholder resolution that upper management must step down within the next 8 months, and the company headquarters must move from Washington DC back to Seattle where they build airplanes. Furthermore, the company charter would be amended to say that only someone with an engineering background may serve as CEO or in certain other upper management roles.
Boeing is a national strategic asset, even if its commercial airliners ended up in the toilet the DoD would keep it alive on gov contracts alone
Then the USAF should be given control over those parts.
Thinking about it, it’s not just peacetime military contracts, the entire company is a national security asset
I doubt the gov would ever actually let Boeing’s domestic commercial airliner market share decline too far because they need the engineering capabilities and the production capacity left intact just in case we ever suddenly find ourselves at war, they’d just place tariffs on Airbus airframes until production is where they want it
That’s why you nationalize the parts you need. Someone else will rise to make commercial planes.
That’s what I’m saying, they need all of it, they’d have to nationalize the entire company if that’s what they were going to do
Don’t threaten me with a good time.
I was wondering the same thing about one of these planes and the ocean, tbh.
I think there’s a few execs over at Boeing who haven’t seen All My Sons yet
Well when you have a habit of not installing bolts it means anything on the plane can fail…
You’re probably right but can you explain your logic?
You plant shit seeds… you get shit weeds randy…
If you don’t maintain your fleet, eventually they’ll all fall out of the sky
Fleet maintenance is an airline responsibility.
The bolt situation was a Boeing responsibility.
These don’t really reflect on each other well.
The whole industry is structured to hold individuals accountable but not ownership… Think of the standards ATCs have to maintain. Pilot training hours. Why is that level of scrutiny not being applied to assets?
Yea, but that’s also an entirely different issue…
Inspecting equipment is a different issue than fleet maintenance or manufacturing QA?
Are you high or a dumbass?
Let’s see:
We started by talking about manufacturer QA vs fleet maintenance. I called out that those are different things handled by different people.
Then you went on to talk about individuals being held responsible instead of execs.
Now, we’re talking about inspecting equipment vs fleet maintenance vs manufacturer QA. Which I agree inspection and maintenance go hand in hand and are the responsibility of the airline, but they are still different.
You’re muddying things quite a bit.
Boeing isn’t to be blamed for poor maintenance. They don’t do that, the airline that owns the plane does. But Boeing is under significant scrutiny to we’re seeing all these stories about problems that old jets are having that can be chalked up to poor maintenance. That was my point to begin with.
It’s another conversation entirely to discuss who should be held accountable (see: execs) for these poor practices.
Not sure why we’re resorting to name calling but… ok.
