The New York Times reported that the plane was scheduled for a maintenance check over ongoing concerns, but Alaska Airlines chose to allow flights to go ahead.

  • MrFunnyMoustache@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    This is an interesting development, but Boeing is going to spin it as if they did nothing wrong when it was clear their airplanes are poorly constructed.

    Conclusion: Both Boeing and Alaska Airlines suck, and the lesson is, like many times, greed of corporate executives overrule safety to increase profits.

    I’m no lawyer, but both Boeing’s and Alaska Airlines’ executives need to be investigated and potentially charged with reckless endangerment, and considering the number of people who fly on their planes, I’d hope some of them spend many years behind bars.

  • june@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Well that’s a hell of a development. This whole thing has been laid solely at the feet of Boeing when it was also Alaska’s fault.

    It started with the fucked up aircraft production.

    The finished with Alaska choosing not to perform maintenance it knew it needed.

    The good news is that this has brought to light some major deficiencies in both the aircraft manufacturing and airline maintenance failings. Two things that would not have been highlighted has Alaska done their due diligence and discovered this issue when they should have.

    • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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      8 months ago

      Air traffic safety is done in so many layers, usually when shit starts going visibly bad it means quite a few things have failed simultaneously.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Well that’s a hell of a development. This whole thing has been laid solely at the feet of Boeing when it was also Alaska’s fault.

      it was reported on fairly early on in the saga. it was lost in the whole ‘missing bolt’ thing that was discovered to have been the ultimate cause. I’m not sure how critical the pressurization alarms were- from what I remember, those could have been anything from critical “we need to drop the plane now” to “oh, there’s an increased leak but the pumps are handling it”.

      I also don’t know that the mechanics would have looked at the door plug or not while doing that inspection.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.worldOP
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    8 months ago

    "The plane was scheduled for three flights scheduled to end the evening of Jan. 5, the report continued. The plan was for the plane to fly out without passengers on its way to a maintenance facility located in Portland, but the airline approved the three flights with passengers.

    The door plug then blew out mid-flight after its second flight.

    The airline confirmed the events to the New York Times, but also said “the warnings it had on the plane did not meet its standards for immediately taking it out of service.”

    The scheduling of the maintenance check had not previously been reported."

    So Boeing is not 100% to blame here. Alaska knew the plane had a problem with pressurization and chose to keep it in flight for 3 extra legs instead of servicing it.

  • shalafi@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Engineers at Alaska Airlines wanted and in-depth inspection. Alaska Airlines decided to “take it easy”, but not ground the plane.

    Lemmy: Those Boeing bastards!

    • kobra
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      8 months ago

      It can be both.

      We shouldn’t forget that Boeing is the commonality here while also addressing the other issues the authorities find.

      • gregorum
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        8 months ago

        Problems this massive often have systemic causes and multiple points of failure.

    • jordanlund@lemmy.worldOP
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      8 months ago

      Yeah, the Alaska angle is new. I don’t know if I should be happy or sad they are partly culpable.

  • Copernican@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    This whole fuck show seems to be a series of firewalls and checks not being done because a series of people had KPIs not to do the checks or respond to the results of checks with urgency. Sometimes it is better to have more antagonistic and adversarial parties involved in these processes that have different KPIs.

    • jordanlund@lemmy.worldOP
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      8 months ago

      Alaska mechanics noted the plane kept alerting a pressurization failure and flagged it for inspection.

      Instead of taking it offline, the airline scheduled it for 3 more flights, during which the door plug blew out.