Aviation

The Boeing and FAA sins in the 737 MAX design and certification program continue to grow in number, severity, and consequence. This may now include criminal charges, as the US DOJ and DOT Inspector General begin investigations with a grand jury, preservation requests and plenty of media hysteria. This is not the first time that a new Boeing airplane program has had incidents caused by poor system safety design and certification, with Boeing and FAA…

American Eagle Flight 4184’s crash in a rainy soybean field in Roselawn, Indiana, on Halloween night, Oct. 31, 1994, was the culmination of years of ATR turboprop airplane icing incidents and deadly crashes. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation into Flight 4184 and all the prior ATR icing incidents and crashes revealed an airplane manufacturer determined to outsell the competition via numerous aggressive design and marketing efforts, including a highly-leveraged, marginally stable lateral control…

Amidst the media reports accompanying the worldwide grounding of the 737 MAX, concluding with the reluctant Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounding, were mentions that the investigative team on the ground in Ethiopia had found “airplane configuration evidence” similar to the Lion Air Flight 610 accident. This evidence, along with the Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADSB) altitude data, were strong enough evidence to indicate the likelihood that the 737 MAX’s new Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS)…

On March 11, 2019, Boeing posted a news release in its online media room (which can be read here). Included were the following two sequential paragraphs: “Safety is a core value for everyone at Boeing and the safety of our airplanes, our customers’ passengers and their crews is always our top priority. The 737 MAX is a safe airplane that was designed, built and supported by our skilled employees who approach their work with the…

An Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max8 crashed shortly after takeoff on March 10, 2019, killing all 157 aboard after the pilots reportedly lost control of the new jet on its first flight of the day. An experienced Ethiopian Airlines pilot was at the controls as the airplane took off from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, heading to Nairobi, Kenya. Shortly after takeoff, the crew contacted Air Traffic Control (ATC) to report a problem with the…

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that officials are investigating the cause of equipment that failed on a jet bridge at Gate E-10 at the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport on Saturday, December 29th, 2018. Seven people were taken to area hospitals with injuries following the incident. It was reported that a sick passenger on Southwest Flight 822 from Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, was being taken off the plane by medics at about 7:45 p.m….

Following the crash of the Indonesia new Lion Air jetliner that crashed into the Java Sea killing all 189 people on board, Boeing is now reporting that a crucial sensor that is the subject of a Boeing safety bulletin was replaced in that aircraft the day before and possibly worsened other problems with the plane, Indonesian investigators said Wednesday (Nov. 7, 2018). The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is developing an Airworthiness Directive to require implementation…

A brand-new Boeing 737-800 aircraft crashed Monday (Oct. 29, 2018) into the Java Sea shortly after takeoff from Jakarta, Indonesia. Lion Air Flight 610 had just taken off when three minutes into the flight the pilot requested to return to the airport. It was at an altitude of about 5,200 feet. Although the flight reportedly was cleared to return, the aircraft plunged into the sea minutes later. The National Search and Rescue Agency conducted an…

Emirates Flight 203 from Dubai had to be quarantined at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York for several hours Wednesday morning (Sept. 5, 2018) after reporting that dozens of people felt ill. Emergency vehicles and medical personnel met the plane on the runway when it landed. The plane sat on the runway for hours as medical personnel assessed each of the 520 people aboard the commercial airliner. At least 19 people were confirmed sick…