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xtruss · 2 months

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What Has Happened to Boeing Since the 737 Max Crashes

— By Priyanka Boghani and Kaela Malig | March 13, 2024

A still from "Boeing's Fatal Flaw," a new FRONTLINE Documentary with The New York Times.

Five years ago, 346 people were killed in two crashes involving Boeing 737 Max planes within the span of almost five months: first off the coast of Indonesia in October 2018 and then in Ethiopia in March 2019.

Boeing’s Fatal Flaw, a 2021 FRONTLINE investigation with The New York Times, examined how commercial pressures, flawed design and failed oversight contributed to those devastating tragedies and a catastrophic crisis at one of the world’s most iconic industrial names.

In recent months, Boeing has come under renewed scrutiny after a door-like panel on a Boeing 737 Max 9 operated by Alaska Airlines blew off just a few minutes after takeoff in January 2024. An updated version of our documentary examines the impact of this latest crisis.

“This was supposed to be one of the most highly scrutinized planes in the world. And here you are with another incident that was risking passengers’ lives,” the Times’ Sydney Ember says in the updated documentary.

Here we take a brief look at what has happened to Boeing since the deadly 2018 and 2019 crashes and the recent Alaska Airlines incident.

Change in Leadership

Dennis Muilenburg had been CEO of Boeing since 2015. In the aftermath of the crashes, he testified before U.S. Senate and House Committees in October 2019, acknowledging the fatal accidents happened “on my watch” and saying he and the company were accountable. He told the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, “If we knew back then what we know now, we would have grounded [the 737 Max] right after the first accident.”

Two months after the congressional hearings, on Dec. 23, 2019, Muilenburg was fired by Boeing. The company described the move as “necessary to restore confidence” in Boeing “as it works to repair relationships with regulators, customers, and all other stakeholders.”

David Calhoun stepped into the role of CEO in January 2020 and continues to fill the position.

A $2.5 Billion DOJ Settlement and Challenges

On Jan. 7, 2021, the Department of Justice announced that Boeing would pay a $2.5 billion settlement, resolving a DOJ charge that the company had conspired to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration’s Aircraft Evaluation Group.

The DOJ’s criminal investigation focused on the actions of two employees who Boeing said in court documents “deceived the FAA AEG” about the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) onboard the 737 Max — a system the DOJ said “may have played a role” in both 737 Max crashes. The DOJ said the employees’ “deception” led to information about MCAS being left out of a key document released by the FAA, as well as airplane manuals and pilot-training materials.

As Boeing’s Fatal Flaw recounts, congressional investigators found internal documents showing that, after Boeing realized the impact MCAS would have on pilot training and FAA certification, some Boeing employees suggested removing all references to MCAS from training manuals.

“Boeing’s employees chose the path of profit over candor by concealing material information from the FAA concerning the operation of its 737 Max airplane and engaging in an effort to cover up their deception,” said David P. Burns, the acting assistant attorney general of the DOJ’s criminal division when the settlement was announced.

The company entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the DOJ, in which Boeing agreed to pay a nearly $244 million fine, to set up a $500-million fund for the families of people who died in the two crashes, and to pay $1.77 billion to airlines that had been affected by the 20-month grounding of the 737 Max that began in March 2019.

Boeing also agreed to continue cooperating with the DOJ’s Fraud Section on “any ongoing or future investigations and prosecutions” and is required to report any alleged violation of fraud laws by Boeing employees when dealing with foreign or domestic agencies, regulators or airline customers.

Boeing declined FRONTLINE’s request to be interviewed for the documentary. In a statement, the company said safety is its top priority and it has worked closely with regulators, investigators and stakeholders “to implement changes that ensure accidents like these never happen again.”

Former Boeing Pilot Found Not Guilty for Fraud

In October 2021, a federal grand jury criminally indicted Mark Forkner, Boeing’s Former Chief Technical Pilot for the 737 Max Airplane, on fraud charges. Forkner, who became the first and so far only individual to face criminal charges after the two fatal crashes, was accused of providing “materially false, inaccurate and incomplete information” to FAA regulators about flight-control software involved in the 2018 and 2019 crashes. Forkner was later found not guilty of all charges in federal court.

Forkner declined to be interviewed for the documentary, but his lawyer told the Times that his communications with the FAA were honest and that “he would never jeopardize the safety of other pilots or their passengers.”

Lawsuits by Families of Crash Victims

By November 2019, Boeing was facing more than 150 lawsuits filed by families of people who had died in the two crashes — over 50 of the suits stemming from the Indonesian crash and about 100 from the crash in Ethiopia, according to the Associated Press’ review of federal court records.

In July 2020, Boeing told a U.S. federal court that claims related to 171 of the 189 people killed in the Indonesia crash were either partially or fully settled, although the settlements were not publicly disclosed.

As of June 2023, cases related to 68 passengers from the Ethiopian Airlines crash were pending.

The Grounding and Return of the 737 Max 8 and Max 9

In the days after the second 737 Max crashed in March 2019, regulators around the world — from China to the European Union and several other countries — grounded the plane. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration followed suit on March 13, 2019, after initially saying the planes were safe to fly.

When the FAA retested and approved the 737 Max 8 and Max 9, ending the grounding in November 2020, it required airlines to take the following steps before putting the planes back into service: installing new flight-control-computer and display-system software; incorporating revised flight-crew procedures; rerouting wiring; completing a test of the “angle of attack” sensor system, which had contributed to both the 2018 and 2019 crashes; and performing an operational readiness flight.

The FAA, in conjunction with aviation agencies from Canada, Brazil and the European Union, also concluded that pilots operating the 737 Max would need to complete special training. It is not clear who would pay for this additional training, which reversed one of Boeing’s original sales pitches to airlines for the 737 Max: that the plane would require minimal pilot training.

A December 2020 Senate committee report criticized Boeing and the FAA’s handling of the 737 Max recertification testing, saying that, based on whistleblower information and testimony, it appeared Boeing and FAA officials had “established a pre-determined outcome,” and that Boeing officials “inappropriately coached” test pilots in the MCAS simulator. The report alleged, “It appears, in this instance, FAA and Boeing were attempting to cover up important information that may have contributed to the 737 MAX tragedies.”

The FAA responded at the time, saying: “Working closely with other international regulators, the FAA conducted a thorough and deliberate review of the 737 Max.” The agency added it was “confident” the issues that led to the two crashes had been “addressed through the design changes required and independently approved by the FAA and its partners.”

“We have learned many hard lessons” from the crashes, Boeing said in its own statement at the time. The company said it took the committee’s findings seriously and would continue to review the report in full.

Following the Senate report, families of the 2019 Ethiopian crash victims wrote to the FAA and the U.S. Department of Transportation in a letter dated Dec. 22, 2020, and reviewed by Reuters, asking for the 737 Max approval to be rescinded and for an investigation to “determine whether the MAX recertification process was tainted.”

A Brazilian airline was the first to fly a 737 Max after regulators there followed the FAA in ungrounding the plane. On Dec. 29, 2020 — a week after the families’ letter — the 737 Max flew paying passengers in America for the first time after nearly two years of being grounded. A month later, Europe’s aviation authority also gave the 737 Max clearance to fly.

On Aug. 26, 2021, India lifted its ban on the 737 Max after “closely” monitoring the plane’s performance elsewhere and noting “no untoward reporting.” China, which was the first country to ground Max jets after the deadly crashes, resumed commercial flights with the model in January 2023.

The 737 Max 10

On June 18, 2021, Boeing’s new model 737 Max 10 took to the skies for its first flight. The Max 10 is larger than the Max 8, which was involved in the 2018 and 2019 crashes, and the Max 9. According to Boeing’s technical specs, the Max 10 is 14 feet longer than the Max 8 and can seat a maximum of 230 people, compared to the Max 8’s capacity of 210.

At the time of the test flight, Boeing was already working on additional safety features in the Max 10 requested by European regulators, according to Reuters.

“We’re going to take our time on this certification,” Stan Deal, who became president and CEO of Boeing’s Commercial Airplanes division in October 2019, said at the time of the Max 10’s first flight, according to The Seattle Times. “We’re committed to make further safety enhancements.”’

The FAA cleared the Max 10 to begin test flights, a step towards certification, last November.

Alaska Airlines Plane Incident

On January 5, an Alaska Airlines jet made an emergency landing in Portland, Oregon, after a portion of its fuselage blew out and left a door-sized hole in the side of the aircraft while it was around 16,000 feet in the sky. None of the 171 passengers and six crew members were seriously injured. The FAA temporarily grounded more than 170 Max 9 jets so they could be inspected.

In the aftermath, Boeing CEO David Calhoun has said, “Boeing is accountable for what happened.”

A Feb. 6 preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board said that the bolts meant to secure the door-like panel appeared to be missing before the flight.

Later the same month, the FAA released a long-awaited report that found that Boeing’s safety culture has been “inadequate” and “confusing.” The FAA gave Boeing 90 days to come up with a plan to address quality control issues.

The FAA conducted a six-week audit after the Alaska Airlines incident, and on March 4 said that it found Boeing had allegedly failed to comply with manufacturing quality control requirements.

Boeing now faces legal trouble in relation to the Jan. 5 event, including lawsuits filed by passengers and shareholders.

On Feb. 21, Boeing told employees that Ed Clark, who led the 737 program since 2021, would be replaced. The memo announcing Clark’s departure and other changes said the company was focused “on ensuring that every airplane we deliver meets or exceeds all quality and safety requirements.”

The Justice Department has also begun a criminal investigation into Boeing in the aftermath of the Alaska Airlines incident, as reported first by The Wall Street Journal.

“Cultural change doesn’t happen overnight, especially at big corporations like this,” David Gelles, one of the Times reporters featured in Boeing’s Fatal Flaw, says. “If Boeing wants to get back to that place of grandeur where it was for so long one of the most important American companies, it’s going to take not four years, but it might take 14.”

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feralnumberfive · 1 year

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WHO WAS GONNA TELL ME N306FE WAS FINALLY RETIRED

#brb gonna cry it was inevitable but still #this plane was the plane involved in FedEx Flight 705 and was kept flying until December 31st 2022 :[#this also goes for all of FedEx's MD-10 fleet but N306FE was special 💔#this is a niche post but it's also my blog and I get to choose what I want to post at this sleepover #as much as they were the 737 Max of their days I love the MD/DC-10 (and the 11s too)#N306FE #fedex flight 705 #DC-10 #MD-10 #aircraft #airplane

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businessbigwigs · 2 years

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Delta Placing Huge Order With Boeing

Delta Orders 100 737s from Boeing

Delta placing an order for 100 new airplanes, as travel demand surges in the wake of pandemic restrictions. The Boeing 737 Max 10 is Boeing’s largest aircraft, with some notoriety after two of them crashed in 2018 and 2019. Both crashes were due to faulty software, and Boeing grounded the entire line to allow the issue to be investigated, retooled, and ruled out. But since then, Airbus, Boeing’s…

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#airlines #Boeing #Boeing 737 Max #boeing 737 Max 10 #Delta #Delta Airlines

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poroussoul · 7 months

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A great side-by-side comparison of the 777-9 and 737 MAX 7, 10 parked at Boeing Field.

Photo by Alberto Hurtado

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vomitdodger · 5 days

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In other news…Boeing 737s continue to fall apart in the sky.

The articles last paragraph is wrong though:

These are not “recent” incidents as the usual media collusion would have you believe with the 737 models. It officially started with two catastrophic crashes in 2018 and 2019:

Granted the 737 Max was the newest model and MOST nefarious but the pattern of intentional abhorrence to safety is manifest throughout Boeing for years if not over a decade as documented in the 2022 movie:

John Barnett who was recently arkancided plays a prominent role in the movie. The guy is brilliant.

And given todays constant barrage of distractions, psyops and coverups most didn’t hear of the latest Boeing whistleblower to testify to congress where he tells of retaliation and covert death threats after documenting the staggering safety violations. He even did this:

He also says he will not let his family fly ANY Boeing plane as the pattern of intentional recklessness is pervasive at Boeing. His testimony to congress was relentless in the violations. And given these problems took a decade or two to fully manifest the problems, it’s going to take a decade or more to address them. Especially since the lifespan of a typical airliner is 30 years.

Curiously, in 2021 the company Avelo was launched. So right about the time Boeing would have had to internally acknowledge they were facing a cosmic anal probe of investigations and it’s eventual consequences. Even if it’s the usual “whoopsie my bad” without any jail time or true consequences…because of the usual secret deals, payoffs and/or compromised investigators. Such as the current Boeing CEO stepping down by the end of the year.

Avelo is the latest in ultra low cost airlines. Basically Spirit but worse. Based out of the Carolinas where of course Boeing is based out of. Where Nikki Haley is based out of. Nikki Haley being a former Boeing CEO has never been question or commented on all of Boeing woes to the best of my knowledge. And she would have been there at the height of the violations. But the best part of Avelo…it’s an ALL Boeing airlines. Ha ha. Talk about your kickbacks and work arounds for pending investigatory anal probes!!! Hard pass on Avelo!

That’s it for now, until the next great and most certain Boeing disaster.

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nakanotamu · 3 months

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ShuPro Awards 2023!

Normally I would post this on Twitter but I don't use twitter any more so now you guys get to deal with me instead! ShuPro dropped their awards for 2023 today so here they are in english. Right off the top, note that these are fan voted awards, so yes they're absolutely biased towards larger companies & popularity. To be clear I am not publishing this to be an unbiased news source I am posting this to be a bitch and tell you everything they got wrong bc I am right all of the time and have incredible taste. The numbers are how many votes they got. Anyway here we go.

Pro Wrestling Grand Prize

Hiromu Takahashi - 1748

Tetsuya Naito - 1516

Kenoh - 1269

Sanada - 915

Tam Nakano - 838

Will Ospreay - 301

Jake Lee - 266

Unagi Sayaka - 233

Yuma Aoyagi - 219

Natsupoi - 182

[Three women all being in the top 10 for the overall GP feels really big to me, especially Tam in the top 5. Also Kenoh in 3rd is very cool. I don't remember for sure but I think women have made top 10 before, but I don't think this many. Also all of them being Cosmic Angels? Oh my heart 🥲]

Best Match

Shinsuke Nakamura vs Great Muta - Noah 1.1 - 1258 [😒]

Tam Nakano vs Giulia - Stardom 4.23 - 1046 [should have won]

Tetsuya Naito vs Keiji Muto - Noah 2.21 - 725

Tetsuya Naito vs Will Ospreay - New Japan 8.12 - 566

Hiromu Takahashi vs Hayato "Jr." Fujita - Michinoku Pro 10.15 - 437

Tetsuya Naito vs Kazuchika Okada - New Japan 8.13 - 411

Kenny Omega vs Will Ospreay - New Japan 1.4 - 355

Katsuhiko Nakajima vs Kento Miyahara - Noah 7.15 - 336

Kentoh Miyahara vs Kenoh - Noah 1.1 - 235

Will Ospreay vs Shota Umino - New Japan 11.4 - 204

[Best Match is always kind of a side eye category that is sometimes kind of just the "which match was the G1 Finals" award and once again it proves Japanese fans are also capable of having bad taste but at least Tam & Giulia got 2nd place.]

Joshi Wrestling Grand Prize

Tam Nakano - 2092 [Holy shit that's a lot of votes. They're right but wow]

Giulia - 1192 [Like seriously stunned Tam swept it by that much. Just wow.]

Suzu Suzuki - 823

Unagi Sayaka - 737

Saori Anou - 563

Mizuki - 548

Iyo Sky - 502

Maika - 323

Rina Yamashita - 279

Sareee - 210

[Tam getting it by such a huge margin is crazy but I'm so happy. Also Tam, Una, & Saori all getting in the top 5 is incredible, Cosmic Angels are unstoppable. I'm really surprised Poi didn't get on the list though, especially after getting 10th in the overall category. Anyway clearly this is the most important category and god willing one day soon this and the overall category will both be all women.]

Best Unit

Cosmic Angels - 1973 [So true bestie. This is the 3rd year in a row Cosmic Angels have won this award which is insane, especially given the 2023 they actually had. They are fucking unstoppable. Girlfriend power is unbeatable.]

Los Ingobernables de Japon - 1361

Good Looking Guys - 1149 [I have a few friends who like GLG and mostly I just like seeing anything other than New Japan on these lists so I'm glad.]

House of Torture - 940 [lmao seriously?? did 940 people just not know who else to vote for or like are you guys really huge Sho fans or what]

United Empire - 418 [If you like UE I'd ask you consider growing better taste thanks]

Pheromones - 404 [Should have been way higher smh]

Just 5 Guys - 386

Free WiFi - 385 [SHOULD HAVE BEEN WAY HIGHER SMH]

Queen's Quest - 262 [SHOULD HAVE BEEN WAY HIGHER SMH]

Donna del Mondo - 209 [Hey good for them!]

Okay honestly 4 of these being women's units AND Free WiFi getting on this list owns.

Best Foreign Wrestler

Will Ospreay - 3487 [God really. Are you guys serious. Always with this shit]

Megan Bayne - 1045 [r u kidding me.]

Max The Impaler - 963

Zack Saber Jr. - 627

Chris Brookes - 599 [Should be way higher]

Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr. - 548

Mariah May - 420(nice) [SHOULD HAVE BEEN FIRST PLACE]

El Phantasmo - 222

Luis Mante - 106

Jack Morris - 105

Best Rookie

Hanako - 1842 [WOW!! It's not ToSpo's rookie of the year award but still very big for her.]

Oleg Boltin - 1673

Wakana Uehara - 1523

Kizuna Tanaka - 944

Zones - 417

Dark Unagi - 316 [LMAOOOOO]

Ryoya Tanaka - 233

Chi Chi - 218

Yu Owada - 198

Mifu Ashida - 181

[7 women on this list & the win going to Hanako is AWESOME but also LMFAO DARK UNAGI GOT 6TH PLACE ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME Una's power is limitless. Kayfabe is alive and well.]

Favourite Pro Wrestler [I always love they do favourite separate from best]

Tam Nakano - 1542 [HELL YEAH WRESTLING FANS GET ONE RIGHT]

Tetsuya Naito - 1384

Natsupoi - 892 [Poi in 3rd overall as well is HUGE]

Saori Anou - 887 [COSMIC ANGELS SWEEP]

Kenoh - 683

Hiromu Takahashi - 597

Hiroshi Tanahashi - 593 [I remember a lot of times this feeling like the Hiroshi Tanahashi award so Tana down in 7th is surprising]

Wakana Uehara - 577 [Honestly Wakana seems crazy popular and they're pairing her with Yuki Arai now right? God that's like a print money combo]

Kazuchika Okada - 533

Mina Shirakawa - 514

Unagi Sayaka - 461

Starlight Kid - 375 [Wow crazy she got 12th place with how out of shape and lazy she is 🙄 THIS IS SARCASM if you don't know what I'm referring to I envy you. Hope 2024 is the year a certain someone finally gets fired Stardom would be better with no subtitles]

Yuki Arai - 364

Mayu Iwatani - 361

El Desperado - 359

Will Ospreay - 343

Giulia - 341

Kento Miyahara - 316

Maika - 290

Sareee - 283

Minoru Suzuki - 273

Taichi - 248

Sanada - 236

Saya Kamitani - 231

AZM - 198

Katsuhiko Nakajima - 183

Jake Lee - 179

Utami Hayashishita - 172 [Not enough lesbians voting obviously]

Jun Kasai - 170

Yota Tsuji - 164

Naomichi Marufuji - 163

Yuma Aoyagi - 154

Rei Saitou - 148

Hayato "Jr." Fujita - 147

Suzu Suzuki - 145

Arisu Endo - 141

Yuki Kamifuku - 137

Mizuki - 131

Hazuki - 130

EVIL - 128

Saki Kashima - 126 [SAKI SWEEP. TOP 10 NEXT YEAR]

Iyo Sky - 125

Shingo Takagi - 122

Great O-Khan - 121

Kairi Sane - 120

Miyu Yamashita - 119

Shinsuke Nakamura - 118

Kaito Kiyomiya - 115

Syuri - 113

Go Shiozaki - 111

Overall these awards are just popularity contests but I still liked a lot of what I saw. The Favourite Wrestler top 50 actually being half women is great and soon enough it'll be all women and we can finally admit we just don't need men's wrestling any more. I can't believe how insanely popular Cosmic Angels are, especially with the let's say rocky 2023 they had, but I guess some things are just so undeniably great people can't miss it.

#long post #my writing

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usafphantom2 · 4 months

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Boeing gains $400 million extension to support and modernize the Australian Super Hornets

600 million Australian dollar contract guarantees local jobs and keeps Australians safe.

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 01/09/2024 - 16:00 in Military

More than 350 local jobs in Queensland will be secured under a new contract of A$600 million (about US$401 million) to sustain and upgrade the F/A-18F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler fleets of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).

The extension of the five-year contract, granted to Boeing Defense Australia, will allow support for the Super Hornet and Growler programs to continue until 2030, ensuring the long-term retention of a highly qualified specialized workforce at the RAAF Base in Amberley.

Australians working in the defense industry will supervise the engineering, maintenance and project management for the maintenance and updating of fleets.

The [Australian] government is firmly committed to supporting Australia's defense industry and workforce. It is important to note that more than 90% of the contract amount will be spent in Australia and mainly in southeast Queensland.

The Air Combat and Electronic Attack Support Contract with Boeing Defense Australia began on July 1, 2016 for an initial period of 5 years. This is the second extension of the contract, bringing the total value of the contract to US$ 1.2 billion.

The extension of the contract occurs at the moment when the EA-18G Growler airborne electronic attack capacity reaches the final operational capacity.

Operated by Squadron Nº 6 at Amberley's RAAF Base, the Airborne Electronic Attack capability consists of 12 EA-18G Growler aircraft, equipped with the ALQ-99 Tactical Interference System and the AGM-88 series of anti-radiation missiles.

Defense Industry Minister Pat Conroy said: "The Amberley government knows that the most valuable defense asset we have is our people. That is why we are investing in more than 350 highly qualified local jobs and fulfilling our commitment to ensure that Australia has a robust defense industry.

"At a time of increasing global tensions, it is essential to maintain first-rate aircraft and a highly qualified local workforce. This extension of the contract strengthens our preparation for any potential challenges.

“A strong defense industry is also crucial to protect Australians and their interests, as well as contributing to regional stability.

"I congratulate Boeing Defense Australia and all defense industry partners involved in the maintenance and support of the Super Hornet and Growler fleets."

Tags: Military AviationBoeingEA-18G GrowlerF/A-18E/F Super HornetRAAF - Royal Australian Air Force/Royal Australian Air Force

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Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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Here are just two of the corporate giveaways hidden in the rushed, must-pass, end-of-year budget bill

Yesterday, Congress finally voted through the must-pass, end-of-year budget bill. As has become routine, this bill was stalled right until the final moment, so that Congressjerks could cram the 4,000-page, $1.7 trillion package with special favors for their donors, at the expense of the rest of the country.

This year’s budget package included a couple of especially egregious doozies, which were reported out for The American Prospect by Lee Harris (who covered a grotesque retirement giveaway for the ultra-rich) and Doraj Facundo (who covered a safety giveaway to Boeing and its lethal fleet of 737 Max airplanes).

Let’s start with the retirement scam. The budget bill includes Rep Richie Neal’s [DINO-MA] SECURE Act 2.0, which gives savers with retirement funds until age 75 to cash out their retirement savings — netting an extra three years of tax-free growth for the lucky, tiny minority with substantial retirement savings. This follows on Neal’s SECURE Act 1.0 of 2019, when the age was raised from 70.5 to 72.

The tax-exempt retirement savings account is a Carter-era bargain that replaced real pensions — ones that guaranteed that you wouldn’t starve or freeze to death when you retired — with accounts that let people gamble on the stock market, to be the suckers at Wall Street’s poker table:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/25/derechos-humanos/#are-there-no-poorhouses

The market-based gambler’s pension is a catastrophic failure. Half of Americans have no retirement savings. Of the half that have any savings, the vast majority have almost nothing saved:

https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scf/dataviz/scf/chart/#series:Retirement_Accounts;demographic:all;population:all;units:have

All in all, America has a $7 trillion retirement savings shortfall:

https://crr.bc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/IB_19-16.pdf

But for a tiny minority of the ultra-rich, tax-free savings accounts like ROTH IRAs are a means of avoiding even the paltry capital gains tax that you have to pay if you own things for a living, rather than doing things for a living. Propublica’s IRS Files revealed how ghouls like Peter Thiel avoided tax on billions in “passive income” by abusing tax-free savings accounts that were supposed to benefit the “middle class”:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/26/wax-rothful/#thiels-gambit

Meanwhile, Social Security is crumbling, thanks to a sustained attack on it by the business lobby and its friends in both parties. Progressive Dems had sought to amend SECURE Act 2.0 by inserting some clauses to shore up Social Security, and none of these were included in the final bill.

One of the fixes that died was the Savings Penalty Elimination Act, introduced by Senators Sherrod Brown [D-OH] and Rob Portman [R-OH]. This act would have tweaked the means-testing for Supplemental Security Income, which supports 8m low-income disabled adults and kids. Right now, you can’t collect SSI if you have $2k in the bank, a limit that hasn’t been adjusted for inflation since the 1980s (adjusted for inflation, $2k in 1980 is $7226.00 in 2022).

The $2k savings cap means that you have to be substantially below the poverty level to receive $585/month in SSI assistance — this being the only source of income for the majority of SSI recipients. Means-testing is a self-immolating fetish for corporate Dems and in retrospect, this betrayal seems inevitable:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/03/utopia-of-rules/#in-triplicate

(Notice how no one proposes means-testing billionaires when they get PPP loans or hundreds of millions in IRS “refunds” — like Trump, who paid substantially less tax than you did:)

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/21/trump-income-tax-returns-detailed-in-new-report-.html

And it was a betrayal: progressive Dems bargained with Neal and co not to publicly condemn SECURE Act 2.0 if they could get some concessions for the 8 million poorest disabled people in America. In the end, Neal rug-pulled them. Of course he did! This is Richie Fucking Neal, the best friend the Trump tax giveaway ever had:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/13/youre-still-the-product/#richie-neal

As with everything Neal touches, this screws poor people in multiple ways. First, it leaves the SSI cap intact. But it also creates a giant unfunded liability in the federal budget. Technically, there’s no reason this should lead to cuts. The US Treasury can’t run out of dollars, and giveaways to the rich are only mildly inflationary, since rich people put their money in the bank and mostly spend it on buying politicians, not goods.

But because of the delusion that currency producers like the US Treasury have the same constraints as currency users like you and me, Congress will need to come up with “Pay Fors” in future budgets to “make up for” the money they’re giving to rich people with SECURE Act 2.0. Dollars to toenail clippings, they’ll do that by hacking away at the tattered remains of the US social safety net.

Fear not, you don’t need to be a desperately poor disabled person or child to get fucked over by late additions to a 4,000 page must-pass bill! If you can afford to get on an airplane, Congress has something for you, too!

Remember when Boeing (the monopoly US airplane manufacturer that squandered $43b on stock buybacks and had to borrow $14b from the US public to survive the pandemic) told the FAA that it could self-certify its 737 Max airplanes, and then killed hundreds and hundreds of people with its defective planes?

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/12/boeing-crashes/#boeing

The 737 Max was unsafe for many reasons, but one glaring factor was the fact that Boeing sold some of its core safety as “extras” — like they were downloadable content for your Fortnite character — leading to multiple crashes in which all lives were lost:

https://apnews.com/article/ethiopia-indonesia-accidents-ap-top-news-international-news-140576a8e9d4449eae646c8c479fdc3a

Boeing was forced to take the 737 Max out of service, but it eventually brought the plane back, “fixing” the problems by renaming the “737 Max” to the “737 8”:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/20/dubious-quantitative-residue/#737-8

Supposedly, Boeing has been diligently working on fixing the problems with its defective jets that can’t be addressed by a rebranding campaign. This wasn’t voluntary: the 2020 Aircraft Certification, Safety, and Accountability Act required Boeing — and every other manufacturer whose aircraft were certified by the FAA — to meet new minimum safety standards by December 27, 2022.

Every manufacturer met that deadline, except Boeing, and someone amended the budget bill to give the company three more years to meet these security standards. Critically, the new security measures, when they come, will be certified by an FAA that Republicans will control, thanks to the House changing hands.

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/government-spending-bill-waives-aircraft-safety-deadline/

Boeing is slated to ship 1,000 new 737 Maxes, which will fetch $50b for the company. Many of these planes will fly directly over my house, which is on the approach path for Burbank airport. Southwest Air flies dozens of 737 Maxes right over my roof every single day.

As Facundo points out, the FAA can ill afford any more hits to its credibility. It was once the case that if the FAA certified an aircraft, every other country in the world would waive any further certification, so trusting were they of the FAA’s judgment. That is no longer the case: today, the European Aviation Safety Agency does its own aircraft testing, holding jets that enter EU airspace to a higher standard than the FAA does for US planes.

It’s just another reminder that the US doesn’t have “corporate criminals” because the US doesn’t have any meaningful enforcement for corporate crimes. In America, we love our companies like we love our billionaires: too big to fail and too big to jail:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/12/no-criminals-no-crimes/#get-out-of-jail-free-card

Image: Ryan Lee (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/190784293@N05/50862532686

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Henry Wadey (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flames_%2858765896%29.jpeg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A living room scene, featuring a sofa in the background and a sofa in the foreground. A man's hand reaches into the frame to lift up the corner of the sofa. A broom enters the frame to sweep a pile of dirt under the rug. Mixed in with the dirt are a crashed WWI biplane with Southwest Airlines livery, and an old lady in a rocking chair.]

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mawofthemagnetar · 1 year

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The 737 MAX crashes are a retread of the DC-10 cargo door failures because history fucking repeats itself and corporations cannot be trusted, in this essay I will

#I will eventually write this essay but not right now

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b737m · 1 year

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Part 4: What do others say?

In regards to what others have said, journalists are not particularly generous with their assessment of Boeing’s choices and their actions relating to the development of the 737 Max, and the subsequent crash and the aftermath thereof.

In one piece on Jalopnik, the author David Tracy expressed how concerning it was that Boeing, a company that makes aircraft would react this way when asked to provide additional safety training on the plane. “This dismissive attitude toward an airline attempting to prepare their pilots to be as safe as possible is incredibly disturbing. Also disturbing is that Boeing’s pressure worked, with Lion Air eventually accepting that it wouldn’t need additional training.” Tracy was dismissive of the response from Boeing’s interim CEO, “These documents do not represent the best of Boeing. The tone and language of the messages are inappropriate, particularly when used in discussion of such important matters, and they do not reflect who we are as a company or the culture we’ve created.”, saying “Yeah, no shit, Greg.” This tone towards Boeing at the time was not uncommon, though perhaps Mr. Tracy was able to say more than other journalists may have said, given the style the Jalopnik is typically written in. While this does seem a touch reactionary, In my view Mr. Tracy makes a going point, that an organization that claims to be concerned about safety, and that safety is one of their primary directives, to reject a request more more training on this jet and to then turn around and mock the very idea of the request, seems antithetical to what the company claims to stand for. The company can refute that all they want, however for those kind of words to be exchanged, there has to be an underlying subculture within the organization that has made saying things like that okay. An organization where safety is a pillar, these types of sentiments should not even be thoughts in the employees minds, let alone exchanged between multiple people.

Another who expressed their dissatisfaction with Boeing was Capt. Mike Michaelis. He is chairman of the safety committee for the Allied Pilots Association, and spoke to the Wall Street Journal. His association represents 15,000 American Airlines pilots. He said “It’s pretty asinine for them to put a system on an airplane and not tell the pilots who are operating the airplane, especially when it deals with flight controls…Why weren’t they trained on it?” in speaking about the MCAS system. As discussed earlier, MCAS at this time was able to provide more nose-down force than the pilots could counteract manually. And in the Boeing 737 (not just the Max), pilots are expected to trim the plane often, especially during take-off and landing. When the AoA sensor gave a faulty reading, unless MCAS was switched off within 10 seconds, catastrophic failure was imminent. But because Boeing did not offer training specific to MCAS until the Lion Air craft, no one was aware of it, and no one knew that the combination of warnings that went off in both Lion Air and Indonesian Airline were an indication of a failed AoA sensor and that MCAS was running as a result. His pilots did not want to fly a plane that could potentially purposefully try to kill them.

When deciding to ground the 737 Max, President Donald Trump said “The safety of the American people, of all people, is our paramount concern,” though he did downplay the severity of the issue, and at least partly explained why the US was one of the later countries to ground the plane. He said “I didn’t want to take any chances. We didn’t have to make this decision today…We could have delayed it. We maybe didn’t have to make it at all. But I felt it was important both psychologically and in a lot of other ways.” The decision to ground the plane was made after data from the flight recorder and voice recorder were recovered from the Ethiopian crash. While I think that this could’ve been conveyed in a more convincing manner, I also recognize that this is the kind of statement that is to be expected from President Trump. There is not the conviction that should be forthcoming from a president, nor about an issue as important as a potentially dangerous plane that has already killed people. It doesn’t seem that he takes the issue seriously, and that it may have been public and global pressure more than anything else that contributed to this decision.

Boeing. "Boeing Statement on Lion Air Flight 610 Preliminary Report." News Releases & Statements, 27 Nov. 2018, https://boeing.mediaroom.com/news-releases-statements?item=130336.

The Seattle Times. "Black-box data reveals Lion Air pilots' struggle against Boeing's 737 MAX flight-control system." The Seattle Times, 27 Nov. 2018, https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/black-box-data-reveals-lion-air-pilots-struggle-against-boeings-737-max-flight-control-system/.

Doherty, Jake and Alan Levin. "Lion Air ‘Idiots’ Sought More Max Training, Boeing Thwarted It." Bloomberg, 14 Jan. 2020, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-14/lion-air-idiots-sought-more-max-training-boeing-thwarted-it?leadSource=uverify%20wall.

Tracy, David. "Boeing Called Indonesian Pilots 'Idiots' For Wanting More Training Before The 737 Max Crashes: Report." Jalopnik, 14 Jan. 2020, https://jalopnik.com/boeing-called-indonesian-pilots-idiots-for-wanting-more-1840999747.

The Wall Street Journal. "Boeing Withheld Information on 737 Model, According to Safety Experts and Others." 13 Nov. 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/boeing-withheld-information-on-737-model-according-to-safety-experts-and-others-1542082575.

BBC News. "Boeing 737 Max: A timeline of two deadly crashes." BBC News, 4 Jan. 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64390546.

Grosz, David. "The Case Against Boeing." The New York Times Magazine, 18 Sep. 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/magazine/boeing-737-max-crashes.html.

Diamond, Jeremy and Gregory Wallace. "Trump announces FAA emergency order grounding Boeing 737 Max planes." CNN Politics, 13 Mar. 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/13/politics/donald-trump-boeing-faa/index.html.

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emphasisonthehomo · 2 years

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The problems w/ the Boeing 737 Max is a lot more complicated than just “plane randomly careens to the ground” but the basic TL:DR of “Boeing ignored and actively downplayed serious safety issues to save money” is true. The airline industry has a long history of that shit. The DC-10 is another prime example.

#aron's opinonion

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bananamanuk · 1 year

Photo

Boeing 737 Max-10 at London Stansted Airport See the video here - https://youtu.be/rHAWLcgRrus #planes #planespotting #boeing #b737lovers #737max #max #boeing737max #followme #photo #instaaviation #airbusboeingaviation #airplanes #aviation #aviationphotography #megaplane #youtube #flying #london #stanstedairport #instagramaviation #spotting #airplanelovers #instaplane #photo #instapic #airplane #avgeeks #stansted (at London Stansted Airport) https://www.instagram.com/p/CpCUjuIMpFO/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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aviaposter · 2 years

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Boeing 737 MAX 8-200 Malta Air

Registration: 9H-VUE Type: 737-8-200 Engines: 2 × CFMI LEAP-1B27 Serial Number: 65876 First flight: Jun 30, 2021

Malta Air is a low-cost airline that operates out of Malta. On 9 June 2019, Ryanair announced together with the Government of Malta that they were to set up a subsidiary airline called Malta Air, which was to consist of an initial fleet of 10 aircraft and the assumption the 61 flights then operated by Ryanair from the island. In July 2021, Malta Air received its first Boeing 737 MAX 200. In July 2021, Malta Air received its first Boeing 737 MAX 200. The aircraft 9H-VUE was the first to be painted in the Malta Air livery and was the first aircraft to be delivered directly to Malta Air from the manufacturer, as its previous Boeing 737-800 aircraft had been transferred from its parent, Ryanair.

Poster for Aviators. aviaposter.com

#aviation #avgeek #plane #aircraft #airplane #posterjetavia #aviaposter #aviationlovers #MaltaAir #Ryanair #Boeing737Max #b737max

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darkimperiumapitocortana · 1 month

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Vertical Takeoff of Boeing 737 Max 10 Aircraft

youtube

Two two

And wing tips readout and build up a prototype shield mid range vtol.

#Youtube

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usafphantom2 · 6 months

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Russian stealth hunting Su-57 is ready for export

Announcement was made by FSMTC employees at the Dubai Air Show.

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 11/14/2023 - 08:31am Dubai Air Show, Military

Russia is ready to receive export orders for its Su-57 poaching after completing its development program.

Officials of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (FSMTC) declared at the ongoing Dubai Air Show that, "if our foreign partners contact us, we are ready to start working on this topic". They noted that several customers are already showing “growing interest” in Su-57 aircraft.

Since the end of 2022, the Russian Aerospace Forces have received three batches of Su-57, most of which are actively involved in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Notably, some of these aircraft have the latest 'Product 30' engine, also recognized as the 'second stage', improving the thrust and super crucing capabilities of the stealth jet.

The Su-57 launches missiles and bombs from its internal compartment - an exclusive feature shared only by a few selected aircraft around the world.

In the field of fifth-generation aircraft available for export, the Russian Su-57 is next to the F-35 as a singular competitor.

Rostec's recent announcement announces the start of the 5ª generation Su-57 serial multifunctional fighter equipment with 2º stage post-combustion turbojet engines, labeled as 'Product 30'. With a post-combustion thrust of 18,000 kgf and a maximum thrust of 11,000 kgf, this advance amplifies the thrust-to-weight ratio of vehicles by 1.2 times (increasing from 1.13 to 1.36 kgf/kg with normal takeoff weight with 63% fuel).

This improvement translates into an increased ascent rate, ranging from 330 to 340-350 m/s, along with an increase in angular velocity during constant curves. In addition, it raises the service ceiling and supersonic cruise flight speed to 2,150-2,200 km/h and the maximum speed to an impressive 2,600-2,700 km/h.

Notably, the engines at the center of this advance were created by the team of the JSC Salyut Gas Turbine Research and Production Center.

Tags: Military AviationDubai AirshowRussiaSukhoi Su-57 Felon

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Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has work published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. Uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.