We were excited and I booked everything for our holiday, including the flights. This year, my wife and I made the decision to go to Hawaii to celebrate our birthdays. We love the big island as we have had great holidays there a few times before. The Island of Hawaii is not as crowded with people as the other islands in the State. Although we also like the island of Maui very much, unfortunately there are big problems to solve after the big fire that destroyed Lahaina, the historic Town of that island. Anyway, the ink wasn't even dry on our tickets when a Boeing 737 Max 9 plane had an accident.

It was a new plane that was traveling from Portland Oregon to Los Angeles California. The plane was taking off and at 5,000 meters when a piece of the fuselage tore off leaving a hole in the passenger cabin. There was a great draft of air from the cabin due to the air pressure being much greater inside than outside the plane. Fortunately, there were no passengers sitting near the hole, as in that case, there was a high chance that they would have been lost through the hole. The plane had not reached its cruising altitude - (usually at least 10,000 meters) - or things would have been much worse with the air pressure outside only half the amount at 10,000 meters as it is at 5,000 meters. All in all it is a miracle that not even one person was lost in the accident. The crew of the plane were great in dealing with the emergency and the pilot brought the aircraft back to the ground perfectly.

What the hell happened to the aircraft?

To tell the truth, this is not the first time the 737 MAX has been in the news. There were two plane crashes with the 737 MAX 8 in 2018 and 2019. No one survived those crashes and 648 souls were lost. At first Boeing said that pilot error was the cause of the accidents but after investigations by the governments of Ethiopia, France and the United States, it was very clear that there was a fundamental problem with the plane itself. Boeing was well aware of that problem and instead of solving it, they worked around it by using new software, but they didn't inform their customers - the airlines - about it at all. Unfortunately, a new problem was introduced with that software, which relied on input from only one angle-of-attack sensor - despite having two. When that one sensor failed, the software thought the plane was at the stall point and forced the plane nose down. The pilots did not know what was going on and were unable to correct matters in time to avoid the accidents. After the accidents, all Boeing MAX 8 type airplanes were kept on the ground until the end of 2020 when a long recertification process was completed.

Due to the major deficiencies in Boeing from the management point of view, Dennis Muilenburg, chief executive at the time, was fired. David Calhoun was then appointed chief executive of Boeing, a man who is still in the role. Boeing's board of directors said at the time that Calhoun was appointed to implement major changes in the safety of its products and services.

Step back

The latest crash is a devastating blow for Calhoun and Boeing. Boeing and its suppliers still have many difficult questions to answer regarding the manufacturing process and in particular about the tension of the bolts that failed to hold the panel in place as part of the plane. There is a good chance that Calhoun will be scapegoated and resign during the investigation. In my view, Boeing's pattern of bad behavior will continue, without significant changes in the oversight process.

Boeing is a profit making organization and without strong oversight from the regulatory authorities, especially the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) in the United States and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in the EU, Boeing will put its own profit before the safety of passengers! I hope that these same authorities will be closely monitoring Boeing in relation to the manufacturing of their aircraft from now on. If that doesn't happen, Boeing and their aircraft will be back in the news before long.

We were very lucky with our own flight, because United changed the type of aircraft from the 737 Max 9 to an Airbus 320. We were very happy with that, because this amazing aircraft has a high standard of safety! From now on, we will be paying more attention to the type of aircraft we travel on and will avoid the Boeing 737 MAX, if possible!

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