“Ok Google, what is the terminal velocity of an iPhone?”
I am always a bit jealous of those metal shells… But never enough to want an iPhone.
The lack of an indicator is obviously a huge issue. The ground crew listens for the electric actuator to stop, then locks the handle. It took some force, but it locked - despite the door not being locked; without the pins in position, the handle wasn’t supposed to lock. So are you going to blame the ground crew for failing to close the door properly when there’s no indication if the door is closed properly or not other than the handle, and the handle shows locked?
McD’s test rig during the investigation showed that the handle / lock assembly was too weak, and allowed the handle to be closed without the pins in place. There was also not a means to equalize pressure between the passenger compartment and the cargo deck in the aft fuselage in case of a sudden decompression, which caused the floor to blow out; this is required on aircraft now because of the DC10s btw.
Sounds like (multiple) bad designs to me.
To compound all that, an airworthiness directive was not issued when the cargo door blew off the AA DC-10. A gentlemen’s agreement was reached on a golf course between the FAA and McD to just have a service bulletin. The AD grounds all aircraft until the problem is solved but a SB lets the aircraft fly until the operator finds the time to fix it. This action killed all the people on the Turkish Airlines flight DC-10.
Sure, planes that crash a lot get fewer orders. Not shocking. The doors didn’t kill it though. It had a decent run after the crashes.
20 years for the passenger aircraft, almost 30 for the full line.
Eh. Should.
Except for the explosive decompressions, losing engines, etc, it was really safe!
32 hull losses for 446 DC-10s.
10 hull losses for 250 L1011s.
64 hull losses for 1574 B747s.
Many will say the McD bean counting culture took over Boeing and that was the start of them going downhill.
That’s it. I’m bringing my own parachute from now on.
New ad
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Well at least we know the door will automatically open in flight.
Here we go again. A report from Bloomberg, accessed here via the Taipei Times:
Guy
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that headline provides incorrect info.
Yes that does look like lazy headline writing.
From the actual report:
“This won’t be back to business as usual for Boeing,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said in the statement. “We will not agree to any request from Boeing for an expansion in production or approve additional production lines for the 737 Max until we are satisfied that the quality control issues uncovered during this process are resolved.”
That’ll learn them! Or maybe not.
Guy
looking like Boeing most likely removed the plug and reinstalled without 4 bolts. 
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How did such a great company turn into such a shambolic mess?
Guy
It’s what happens when bean counters run companies. Cost cutting everywhere while they’re making ever more profit, while quality goes down the shitter.
They do not make money
Just because they are not making money, doesn’t mean management isn’t acting like bean counters. Because cost cutting plans do not always work, and when quality decline because of bean counting, it can often backfire.
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The CBC has a detailed feature looking at the damaging legacy of the 737 MAX—and what one Canadian family is trying to do about it.
Guy
Agree, they moved HQ a few times, each move staff leaves.
Boeing gives Alaskan Airlines over a billion NT$