Here’s the ATC communications. It’s interesting to hear the pilot operating the radios slowly get her calm back.
I looked at the map of the flight and it should’ve landed somewhere between Tigard and Lake Oswego.
The door in question is a plug type door which is used in certain configurations that don’t require the extra set of emergency exits (< 179 passengers iirc). It is hinged at the bottom and held in place by cabin pressure pushing against 4 bolts. I’m certain the investigation will look into the bolts – were they installed incorrectly, were they defective, and was the design inadequate?
From the pictures, the doorway itself seems fairly intact, e.g. no fuselage damage.
"Alaska Airlines in a statement said that of the 65 737 Max 9 aircraft in its fleet, crews had inspected the paneled-over exits as part of recent maintenance work on 18 planes, and those were cleared to return to service Saturday. "
and
“As of Saturday morning, inspections on more than a quarter of the fleet were complete “with no concerning findings,” the company said.”
So don’t worry, they’ made sure everything is ok in just one day! Nothing to see here. No danger to anyone.
Joking aside, air travel is one of those things were I think unions, pay, work life balance, ect… are all super important all the way around. I want the engineers, mechanics, techs, and everyone involved in keeping a plane in top shape well paid and well rested. Cause at 40k feet zipping along at 500 mph you can’t exactly just pull off the road.
I think ‘forced’ works in general because very few mergers/takeovers are for product/knowledge/expertise/etc. reasons but much more often than not for financial reasons. Too many mergers involve loading up the company with debt, along with promises of ‘synergy’ and efficiency savings so costs must be trimmed to meet shareholder/lender ‘needs’.
Nevertheless, I do agree that…
…but often that choice is made by the wrong sort of manager, inserted because of the reasons above and with the power (or ignorance) to prioritise financially-based decisions not product, process or engineering/safety reasons.
It’s called late stage capitalism (or at least is a very significant factor in it).
Gone are the says when product superiority and customer focus was a route to making money. Companies are too often merely vehicles for financial engineering these days, not real engineering.
The Museum of Flight in Seattle is a terrific museum and well worth anyone’s time. When I visited (well before the MAX disasters), it made a big thing about Boeing being a company led by engineers who would never do anything that put passengers and crews at risk.
One exhibit was of a film Boeing made showing a test with an axe proving that the fuselage of the 707 was much stronger than that of the DeHavilland Comet which had beaten it into service - only to suffer a series of catastrophic in-flight decompressions.
I wonder how many descriptions have had to be changed following the uncovering of so many compromises with the 737 MAX and the failures of the East Coast plant where tankers and 787s have been leaving the production line with serious defects.
Because it is the only civilian airliner builder in America, and because of its deep tentacles in defence and space, there’s no way any US government will ever let Boeing fold or be taken over by a foreign company - but dear lord the company needs to be shaken up. You’d have thought the fact Airbus has eaten so much of their market would have convinced them to change tack - but apparently not - maybe it will be when COMAC starts mass production of the C919 and they see their Chinese market begin to disappear?
Ironically, there’s a “Cautionary Tales” mini-episode out right now about bad maintenance and bad design allowing the windshield of a plane to be blown out due to the wrong bolts being installed.
Definitely gone from the US. Not sure that’s the case everywhere. I deal with suppliers from all over the world in battery energy storage systems (BESS) and we’ve just had a US company (Powin) more or less commit suicide through a design that looked obviously stupid. I deal with Chinese suppliers where definitely there is a “cut whatever corner you’re able” attitude, and they are generally competing on price. But the German, Finnish, and Spanish suppliers I’ve dealt with seem to have a better long term track record at doing real engineering. There are also some Chinese firms that are surprisingly good.
As Tesla is also in this world, it’s fun that if you extrapolated the kinds of “disruptor” actions that Tesla car and SpaceX make, you’d have a pretty good idea of their approach here also… Let’s just say that people I work with didn’t want me to dig into their fire systems because of their possible litigiousness.
I flew in a virgin 747… from orlando to lhr… and cause I was given the seat next to the entrance door felt a draft a cold draft and ordered a blanket but there was no comment from the stewardess…
Alaska Airlines placed restrictions on the Boeing plane involved in a dramatic mid-air blowout after pressurisation warnings in the days before Friday’s incident, investigators say.
Pilots reported warning lights on three previous flights, said Jennifer Homendy of the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
As a result, the airline prevented the jet from making long-haul flights over water, Ms Homendy said
