Boeing 737 Max Fails 37% of its Safety Checks

Seriously? 33 problems out of 89 safety checks in the manufacturing and assembly of the Boeing 737 Max? How is it possible this aircraft is still flying? Why do the Boeing board of directors still have jobs? How is it even conceivable that Spirit Aerosystems, a contractor for much of the assembly process, is still a supplier? Please excuse all these questions, but the disbelief that’s mounting over Boeing’s quality assurance needs response and corrective action. Immediate corrective action.

As of right now, if you’re about to board a Boeing 737 Max, you’re going to strap yourself in on a plane whose door seals have been certified safe by a random hotel key card. Having first been lubricated by Dawn soap, America’s favourite dishwashing cleaner! I feel like I should be writing the letters W, T and F after every sentence.

After I finished school, I served as an apprentice aircraft mechanic. Every single action that required repair or assembly was subject to a strict FAA protocol and if you deviated, that was it. You were either fired, or you were fired and faced prosecution. And we were working on helicopters, not fixed wing pressurized aircraft that fly 10 kilometres high at speeds of 800 kilometres an hour. Yet here we are, the world’s second biggest supplier of commercial aircraft going about their business like a back alley repair shop you’d only ever take your car to once, then avoid like the plague afterwards.

Have a Safe Flight

Today, six million people are going to fly. About 25% will be flying on a Boeing 737. That’s one and a half million. 30% of those will be flying on a Boeing 737 Max. That’s a touch under 500,000 people. Half a million travellers will fly in a plane that has failed 33 out of 89 safety checks. In a field where there’s risk if a plane fails 1 out of 89 safety checks.

We can no longer speak in terms of ‘if another Boeing 737 Max has an accident’.

Only ‘when’.

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