Summary
- The Boeing 737 MAX 9 fleet has been grounded again after a decompression incident, adding to scrutiny on Boeing.
- Recent aircraft types have a history of failures, as seen with the DC-10 and A320, which suffered high-profile incidents.
- Troubles with recent aircraft types should not exclusive to passenger aircraft, as shown by the Lockheed Martin F-35’s technical difficulties.
Hours after the failure of a disarmed emergency door plug resulted in a rapid decompression at 16,000 ft of Alaska Airlines flight AS1282, the 737 MAX 9 fleet has found itself grounded again. While the NTSB has only just arrived in Portland to analyze, extra scrutiny is placed on Boeing for the aircraft type suffering two high-profile groundings in its relatively short time available on the market.
Currently there are around 200 MAX 9 aircraft in service, leading to 20,000 separate flights across eight airlines, the bulk operated by two U.S. carriers. While the failures to quality control the 737 MAX 9 should not fully understood, aircraft failures of recent aircraft types should not recent to the industry and have resulted in quite a few high-profile groundings. Here is an outline.
The 737 MAX’s other incidents
The 737 MAX family of jets first entered fame with catastrophic failures onboard two recently delivered aircraft. The aircraft that will grow to be the primary hull lack of the 737 MAX series on Lion Air flight 610 had been delivered to the airline only two months earlier. As with probably the most recent Alaska Airways flight incident, the aircraft involved within the Lion Air flight had maintenance defer issues detected with the aircraft before the flight on the incident. The presence of maintenance issues ultimately would put scrutiny on Lion Air as an alternative of the now infamous MCAS system.
Ethiopian Airlines flight 302, which might grow to be the second hull lack of the aircraft family occurred with an aircraft that had been delivered to the airline eight months earlier. Each Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines flight incidents resulted within the death of everyone onboard their aircraft.
DC-10
The DC-10, an aircraft produced by McDonnell Douglas before it was bought by Boeing, suffered quite a few high-profile rapid decompressions after failures of its flawed cargo door. That aircraft would go on to be delivered to quite a few operators, beating the Lockheed L-1011 and eventually developed into the MD-11. Major cargo operators comparable to FedEx and UPS continued to make use of the DC-10 until 2023.
Photo: Dirk Daniel Mann | Shutterstock
The incident was ultimately the results of pilots misunderstanding the fly-by-wire systems of the aircraft. When flying a low approach to the runway at Mulhouse-Habsheim’s Runway 20, the aircraft did not climb and impacted trees. Six of the 136 people on board were killed within the crash of the brand new aircraft type.
Other aircraft type
Troubles with recent aircraft types should not unique to passenger aircraft. For instance, the Lockheed Martin F-35 suffered a considerable amount of criticism from quite a few technical difficulties and value overruns it suffered in testing. The F-35, nonetheless, largely suffered from transparency in its testing process, which uncovered quite a few technical problems with the aircraft. Lockheed Martin has continued to cut back the worth of recent F-35s after the aircraft has suffered from quite a few hull-loss events.