... Lots of turgid detail, but in short...

A low cost item is kicked down the aisle...

...or rather a manufacturing or just packing issue?

...because some of the oxygen masks could be faulty and might not work.... the oxygen supply tubing for the masks could be kinked.

That doesn't sounds like a Boeing problem but just negligence of the supplier of these cheap, mass produced masks.

Indeed so...

Except...

It highlights that there is a lack of Quality Control checks or oversight, or that even highlights a lack of conscientiousness on the Spirit/Boeing fitters for not checking safe conformance during assembly.

Further, this deadly suggests that these things are not tested/checked before the plane is finally delivered and put into service...


And so... We have a known safety fault, that will be deadly in circumstances that have happened, and will happen again.

And yet...

Rather than fix immediately before any further flights, there is the gamble that "nothing untoward will happen" for FOUR YEARS...


That's a bit like driving with faulty brakes on your car whereby there is a known faulty brake pedal that will snap off if you try to do an emergency stop...


Fly safe with that!?
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
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... Lots of turgid detail, but in short...

A low cost item is kicked down the aisle...

...or rather a manufacturing or just packing issue?

...because some of the oxygen masks could be faulty and might not work.... the oxygen supply tubing for the masks could be kinked.

That doesn't sounds like a Boeing problem but just negligence of the supplier of these cheap, mass produced masks.

ValueJet 592.

ValueJet 592.

Airlines safety practices is a different topic. There are good ones and less good ones. Professional ones fear a poor safety record so they do everything to prevent incidents.

But from a manufacturer you can expect their new airplanes are in perfect condition.

... Lots of turgid detail, but in short...

A low cost item is kicked down the aisle...

...or rather a manufacturing or just packing issue?

...because some of the oxygen masks could be faulty and might not work.... the oxygen supply tubing for the masks could be kinked.

That doesn't sounds like a Boeing problem but just negligence of the supplier of these cheap, mass produced masks.

Except, the FAA has suggested the quickest way to resolve this issue is to replace rather than repair the existing unit and the kinked cables.

Boeing in the recent news:


Boeing Finally Breaks Silence and Shocks Everyone With 777X Update


So... My reading of that is continuing delays due to safety and design 'lapses' and redesign work... Worse still, Boeing has been, and continues to, string everyone along with their claims of progress...


Boeing business as usual then?


Fly safe with that?
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
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Here is a very good and balanced update on:


What’s HAPPENING With The Jeju Air Crash Investigation?...


Special notes for what unfolded:

• Note that there were bird strikes into both engines. Were the pilots left blinded by this known deadly effect?
  
  
• And the pilots were left with no electrical power for the flaps or landing gear controls... (Whereas emergency power is automatically available on other aircraft...?)
  

Fly safe?
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
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Was it closed and locked in the first place? I think that's not the first time I read about such incidents.

Is this a Boeing issue? I think you can open these cockpit windows in all passenger planes, isn't it?

Sensors???

Since nearly every thing in aviation design flows from Boeing, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing-Stearman_Model_75 of course it is a Boeing problem!

Since nearly every thing in aviation design flows from Boeing, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing-Stearman_Model_75 of course it is a Boeing problem!

Hardly.

Or does Boeing Marketing advertise the acme of arrogance and hubris?

Surely some joke?


Note that Airbus benefits greatly from a clean-sheet design philosophy that takes advantage of decades of learning from the early days of aviation. Especially prominent are ease of use for the pilots, fly-by-wire controls, and multiple layers of redundancy (safety), that all add up to the present day numbers indicating proportionately 1/3rd of the fatal flights compared to Boeing passenger aircraft.

I'm still shocked at the joke of Boeing aircraft flying with critically total reliance on a singular Angle-of-attack air sensor. Unbelievable that was ever allowed in the first place!!! And so people needlessly died.


Fly safe?
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
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I'm still shocked at the joke of Boeing aircraft flying with critically total reliance on a singular Angle-of-attack air sensor.

There are massively more aircraft that are flying with no angle-of-attack sensor as those that have them.

Note that Airbus benefits greatly from a clean-sheet design philosophy that takes advantage of decades of learning from the early days of aviation. Especially prominent are ease of use for the pilots, fly-by-wire controls, and multiple layers of redundancy (safety), that all add up to the present day numbers indicating proportionately 1/3rd of the fatal flights compared to Boeing passenger aircraft.

The latest argument was about an accidentally unlocked cockpit window during a takeoff run.

I assume the design of these windows don't differ much between Boeing and Airbus, isn't it? I'm convinced old British passenger planes before the Airbus era had them too; as did Soviet Tupolev and Ilyushin jets.

Who's at fault? The pilots who forgot to close the window, resp. to correctly work a checklist or Boeing, which still sticks to an (outdated?) cockpit window design without a lock sensor?

On the other hand... if you add more sensors and more computer control... so, more electronic devices that can break down anytime, require maintenance... increase costs... Do more sensors always improve safety?

Where is the optimum between aircraft complexity and safety? I can hardly see electronics should be a solution for cockpit windows; or e.g. to prevent the blowout of a door panel (Alaska Airlines B737Max).

The first (and only) major incident with an Airbus 380, Qantas QF32 on Nov 4 2010: an uncontained engine failure; debris passed through a wing and damaged lots of electric wires, fuel and hydraulic pipes.... Instantly more than fourty ECAM messages occurred... another dozen later on. Pilots were confronted with many pages of fault messages from all these severed sensors. Difficult to prioritize and handle the important ones first within this mess.

If everything works smoothly the Airbus philosophy greatly improves safe operation, prevents human mistakes. But with the added complexity it becomes more and more difficult to imagine what combinations of faults could happen to modern aircraft; and what subset of them should be trained by pilots in a simulator.

I'm still shocked at the joke of Boeing aircraft flying with critically total reliance on a singular Angle-of-attack air sensor.

There are massively more aircraft that are flying with no angle-of-attack sensor as those that have them.

Indeed so.

I've piloted aircraft (non-commercial) that have no angle-of-attack vane/sensor whatsoever. All perfectly safe.

Except...

When an aircraft design has the requirement of an angle-of-attack sensor to be able to give a stall warning...

... And especially so when critically, that angle-of-attack sensor is directly used as part of the flight control systems...

Boeing have killed too many people with that going 'wrong' (as concluded in the USA courts)...


For the aircraft I've flown without any angle-of-attack sensor, there are very deliberate design features of the wings to ensure that any stall is graceful, and that the design physically and inherently gives plenty of warning to the pilot of the stall condition, AND that the design ensures the stall is recoverable. (Except for helicopter flying but then that is a different world...)

Note the Boeing 737 "super-stall" condition that is NOT recoverable by pilot control of the flight control surfaces alone! Ya cannae pull out of that one!! (And a very great height and a long time is needed for any recovery...)


Fly safe?
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
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Re Boeing 737 Max super-stall...


Mentour Pilot mentions this briefly for avoiding the super-stall (deep stall):

{737 Max stick pusher}

... Which is where the reliance upon a singular Angle-of-Attack sensor was fatally overused by the Boeing 737 Max MCAS...


Edit: Better, see:

Boeing 737 Stall Escape manoeuvre, why MAX needs MCAS!!




Fly safe?
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
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Ah, yes the swept wing stall.

Ah, yes the swept wing stall.

Indeed yes...

But...

For the Boeing 737 Max, you have the additional dangerously adverse effects of:

• Oversized engines with oversized engine cowlings that obliterate the airflow into turbulence above and behind them during a deep stall, that render the control surfaces unusable;
  
  
• Oversized and very powerful engines slung way below and way in front of the aircraft centre of mass that PUSH YOU BACK INTO THE STALL IF USED!!
  

So... The pilots have no elevator control effect (no aerodynamic authority), they can't (and mustn't) use the engines... All whilst plummeting downwards. All the more startling if this is from the autopilot suddenly tripping out without prior warning (turbulence or icing or fault/failure?)... Now get out of that?!...


Note that the original 1960's Boeing 737 did not have those particular deadly problems...

Fly safe??...
Martin


(My understanding of the Boeing 737 Max "get out of a deep stall death" is: To counterintuitively REDUCE thrust on the engines, then use the (slow to operate) trim wheels to fly the aircraft until the nose is eventually forced down to regain airspeed (at the great expense of lost altitude), to then regain control and to then immediately frantically pull back the now dangerously adverse trim... MCAS is another Boeing distraction to confuse the very busy pilots and that system might be doing 'whatever'... A prior good high altitude is required to avoid recovery underground...)

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Ah, yes the swept wing stall.

Indeed yes...

But...

The insanely expensive requirements of Government certification and the idiocy of allowing pilots to only fly one type certificate at a time.

It made Being a monopoly for years and now it bites safety. In another twenty or thirty years it will do the same to Airbus.

Your comments about engine placement and impact on the B737 highlights a major difference between the B737 series and the A320 series - undercarriage.
The B737 sits very close to the ground making loading and many service operations easy -you can reach many of the cargo hatches and engine routine service points from the ground.
The A320 undercarriage is taller, which means a lot of things are not accessible standing on the ground - engines, cargo doors being the most obvious.
As engine sizes increased Boeing had to move the engine forward, and ultimately "upwards", so causing issues when high power is applied at low airspeeds. Meanwhile Airbus were able to keep the very similar sized engines in more or the less the initial locations, so reducing the thrust impact.
But why didn't Boeing just install taller undercarriage? Space, structure and weight - longer undercarriage weighs more, and needs more space and the design of the wing/fuselage are of the B737 just hasn't got enough space for taller undercarriage. Meanwhile Airbus, being about an engine generation later to the market they designed the undercarriage to pack away in a more space efficient manner than Boeing were able to do without massive re-engineering of the whole inner wing and fuselage sections.


(And this make me think why didn't Boeing stop enlarging the 737 and scrap the 757 - that's a discussion for another day)

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

(And this make me think why didn't Boeing stop enlarging the 737 and scrap the 757 - that's a discussion for another day)

IMHO because Boeing these days is run by accountants and 'professional managers', in Virginia, and not engineers, in Seattle, as in the past, when they designed and built great aircraft.

Problem on another Air India flight reignites worry about Boeing 787
wrote:

In the interview, Randhawa said the Federation of Indian Pilots had learned the ram air turbine deployed on the flight to Birmingham because there was a “fluctuation” in the plane’s bus power control unit, a system that monitors and manages the plane’s electric systems.

“I have never heard of a RAT getting deployed on any aircraft where everything is normal,” Randhawa said. “This incident should be taken very seriously.”

Incident: India B788 at Birmingham on Oct 4th 2025, RAT deployed

On Oct 5th 2025 the Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP) requested India's DGCA to check and investigate the electrical systems of all Boeing 787s in the country reasoning that the Aircraft Health Monitoring recorded a fault in the Bus Power Control Unit (BPCU) which may have caused the RAT to automatically deploy.

The RAT deployed at 500 feet AGL on approach to Birmingham, the association stated and wrote in their letter:

"It is pertinent to note that incident is another pointer towards the Air India crash of B-787 aircraft. Thus, in the interest of air safety FIP insists that DGCA must thoroughly check and investigate the electrical system of B-787 aircraft in the country."