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United Plane Veers Off Runway in Third Boeing Incident This Week (bnnbloomberg.ca) 132

A United Airlines Holdings aircraft ran off the taxiway into a grassy area after landing at Houston Friday, the third incident this week involving the airline's Boeing planes. From a report: United Flight 2477, with 160 passengers and six crew, had just landed at George Bush Intercontinental Airport about 8 a.m. local time Friday when it veered into the grass on a turn. No one was injured, and passengers left the plane on a set of stairs before being bused to the terminal, the airline said.

The incident follows the mid-air loss of a tire from a United Boeing 777-200 Thursday, just after the plane took off from San Francisco on a flight to Osaka, Japan, and an engine fire on a United flight from Houston to Fort Myers, Florida, earlier this week. The plane in the Houston-to-Florida flight had to make an emergency landing after one of its engines burst into flames 10 minutes after takeoff. The 21-year-old aircraft was also a 737 -- but an earlier version than the Max, according to FlightRadar24.

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United Plane Veers Off Runway in Third Boeing Incident This Week

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  • by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 ) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Friday March 08, 2024 @02:08PM (#64300515) Homepage

    It's obvious that Boeing has some incredible and perhaps criminal quality control issues, but it seemed like the tire incident was more likely to be some maintenance staff didn't replace a tire correctly.

    I feel like having a hair trigger to blame Boeing for things like this risks diluting the seriousness of the claims actually attributable to them.

    • by postbigbang ( 761081 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @02:19PM (#64300555)

      I'm no fan of Boeing, but airlines are responsible for maintenance. Pilots are who fly the plane. Nothing in these stories alludes to this being a Boeing problem.

      It's OK to heap on Boeing for other problems, but this is just click-bait and likely not a Boeing problem.

      • We don't yet know if a defective part was at fault, so we don't yet know which corporation's executives to blame. I notice that doesn't stop people around here, though.

        • There is no evidence so far of a defective part. There might not even be any, a maintenance or other problem. People will leap to conclusions, the correlation==causation myth.

        • Official Boeing response:

          "It is important to note that no engines, doors or other parts fell off this plane . . . err . . . well, at least it stayed on the runway, that is."

        • We don't yet know if a defective part was at fault

          All the more reason not to make assumptions or assign blame to a vendor, especially given that none of these aircraft were newly delivered.

      • Nothing in these stories alludes to this being a Boeing problem.

        Exactly right. Falling off the runway is almost always pilot error. Engines are a distinct part that is neither engineered nor built by Boeing. Tire problems are almost always a maintenance issue.

        Correlation is not causation. Absent additional evidence, none of these issues should be attributed to Boeing.

      • Yeah, the common thread here really seems like United Airlines here... and Boeing hasn't owned United for 90 years.

      • I'm no fan of Boeing, but airlines are responsible for maintenance.

        Maintenance eats into profits. The activity isn't worth doing if it does not bring in greater than 10% pure profit. Even then, if it is not at least 20% profit, it will still likely be dropped.

        Long story short, you can have airlines, or you can have profit, but in the long run, you can't have both.

        • That's pretty binary thinking. Insurance companies pretty much demand that maintenance cycles are honored, and the FAA will toast you if you deviate too far from them.

          Yes, they eat into profits, but that new, higher bag fee makes up for the difference.

          This is not to defend their practices, rather, to target your "long story short" fallacy. It's just not that simple. Nonetheless, we agree that the airline (and their many contractors) are responsible for the astute and logged maintenance. It keeps fliers aliv

          • That's pretty binary thinking.

            Yes. Yes it is.

            Insurance companies pretty much demand that maintenance cycles are honored, and the FAA will toast you if you deviate too far from them.

            That used to be true, that the FAA would toast you; however, if the FAA can't see the problem, they can't toast you. Which is what started all of this shit to begin with. They, Boeing, were granted the ability self-certify.

            Long story short, your belief in your theory was subverted by the company getting itself granted self-certification status.

            Logic says everything should be working fine, so you trust in it. The real world along with LOTS of binary thinking, has subverted that.

            I will never ch

    • by drnb ( 2434720 )
      And the maintenance was probably a contractor not United. And it may have been a foreign based contractor, there's at least one large contractor in Mexico which US planes are flown to for maintenance. Well, at least for things more involved than changing tires.
    • by Megane ( 129182 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @02:28PM (#64300589)

      There's just not much you can blame Boeing for here.

      Tire: airline maintenance
      Engine: Boeing doesn't make or maintain the engines (though they presumably do only support a limited number of models)
      Runway: could be pilot, tower, weather conditions, etc.

      Also, with big jets, there's only two companies now: Boeing or Airbus. It's kind of hard for it not to be one of the two, unless it's a mid-size regional jet or smaller. As much as I am not impressed with Boeing these days (with their space stuff as much as their jets), I can't really put any special blame on them for this.

      • It's probably similar to how all sorts of ATC related issues started being widely reported for a while when all sorts of mistakes and close calls happen occasionally. Now all eyes are on Boeing (and it's their own damn fault) so anything related to their plane gets picked up.

      • Also, with big jets, there's only two companies now: Boeing or Airbus. It's kind of hard for it not to be one of the two, unless it's a mid-size regional jet or smaller.

        I also blame Boeing for this, not because they're a strong competitor, but because they had to whine to the US government to break trade law to drive a small competitor out of the market [wikipedia.org].

        As far as I'm concerned they can continue to suffer until they're forced to sell of their aerospace division to a company that isn't run by amoral bean counters.

      • by hey! ( 33014 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @04:46PM (#64301091) Homepage Journal

        We'll have to wait for the accident report to determine who was to blame for the runway departure. Clearly the pilot *can* be to blame for some runway departures. The maintenance crews *can* be to blame for some runway departures. The airplane manufacturer *can* be to blame for some runway departures.

        As an example of the latter, the MD-80, a trijet with engines mounted near the rear of the aircraft, has a design flaw where engaging the thrust reversers drastically reduced the control authority of the rudder. When a pilot lands on an icy runway, the nose steering wheel can't steer the plane effectively so he relies on the rudder to keep the aircraft on the runway, but in the MD-80 if you put the thrust reversers on the rudder no longer works. Eventually Boeing (the successor of McDonnell Douglas) issued directives saying that thrust reversers should never be used on an icy or snowy runway, which is of course exactly when you most need thrust reversers.

        While it's *probable* that Boeing is not responsible for either tire or runway incident, it's *possible* it could be responsible for either or both. This is why the NTSB does investigations. You can't jump to conclusions.

    • There are some interesting Youtube channels featuring air traffic controller communications to airplanes. You'd be astounded at how many things can fail catastrophically with no casualties. Engines catch on fire. Landing gear doesn't deploy. Tires explode on landing. Radios stop working. Electricity fails entirely. It could be manufacturing defects, or maintenance issues, or pilot error, or generic random problems that plague any piece of technology. The amazing thing is that, in the vast majority of cases,

    • Yeah, to me this has all the marks of the media part of a stock price manipulation scheme. None of the three incidents have any significant bearing on Boeing.
    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Well, maybe. The thing is that the manufacturer sets the standards. Hence some maintenance people may have felt inspired to do shoddy work by Boeing obviously doing shoddy work these days.

    • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      The problem is, no one knows. It's usually always a combination of factors - a Boeing design issue, coupled with aircraft maintenance issues, coupled with pilot error and that combination in that one specific case can lead to an undesirable result.

      Unfortunately for Boeing, no one really knows until it's investigated. It may not be Boeing's fault, but given how Boeing is in the news, well what are you going to do? It could also be Boeing's fault in a being a design flaw that lead to the incident. All we kno

  • something bad may happen and you lose it all
    nothing may happen and you come out even.
    or some may happen and you hit the jackpot payout!

  • How many incidents have involved Airbus planes this week? Now express that as a percentage of the fleet. I know Boeing has problems, but does every issue with a Boeing plane have to be Boeing's fault?
    • Re:Perspective (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @02:15PM (#64300545) Journal

      This isn't a whole lot different than the mad rush of Tesla fire stories we saw a couple years ago - every single one had to be reported nationally all of a sudden, even though there are orders of magnitude more car fires every single year from ICE cars.

      This led to a perception that EVs were unsafe and about to burst into flames at any moment, as if carrying tens of gallons of highly combustible liquid hydrocarbons around with you never led to fires.

      This feels the same.

      • This isn't a whole lot different than the mad rush of Tesla fire stories we saw a couple years ago - every single one had to be reported nationally all of a sudden, even though there are orders of magnitude more car fires every single year from ICE cars.

        Exactly. There has been so much talk over the past decade about misleading information on the internet. Traditional media has been misleading people for decades by hacking the human brain's availability heuristic. It's almost impossible to find trustworthy information!

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        But you know what happens when you throw lithium in a lake! You can look it up on Youtube!*

        * lithium-ion batteries do not actually contain elemental lithium

      • by evanh ( 627108 )

        To be fair, no battery should ever just burst into flames. Basically that battery chemistry is shit and shouldn't be in use anywhere.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 )

      Probably fewer. Airbus is mostly used by European airlines, and they generally shit their pants over stuff like that because over here such a thing can quickly ground your fleet.

      Of course, in a banana republic, you can get away with shit like that as long as you grease the right palms.

    • Re:Perspective (Score:5, Interesting)

      by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @02:27PM (#64300585)

      How many incidents have involved Airbus planes this week? Now express that as a percentage of the fleet. I know Boeing has problems, but does every issue with a Boeing plane have to be Boeing's fault?

      When former Boeing employees categorically state they will not fly on a Boeing Max [businessinsider.com], yes, it's Boeing's fault [politico.com].

    • by HiThere ( 15173 )

      It's probably true that not every incident with a Boeing plane is Boeing's fault. But I don't dig into each one to decide, and my priors have shifted so that now I don't trust either Boeing's technical capability or their honesty. So that it's Boeing's fault is now the default position. Sure, it won't always be true, but do you bet your life?

    • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Yes. The monkeys have decided to expel a member of the tribe, so they will bite and scratch it until it flees.

      A 777 just hit an A320 on pushback. Clearly a result of Boeing no longer being a legendary engineering company and instead MBA-run and putting profits before safety!

  • by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @02:11PM (#64300525)

    There's a somewhat well-known superstition among civiland structural engineers that a bridge or tunnel or building will collapse catastrophically every 30 years or so, which is just about the time necessary for the generation of engineers that learned from the previous disaster to age out of the profession.

    There hasn't been an honest-to-God air disaster caused by an in-flight malfunction on a large commercial airplane in the US in over 20 years. It's getting close.

    • well the door blowing out may of become an big disaster if some one was sitting in the seats right next to it.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      You have a point there.

    • by 0xG ( 712423 )

      There hasn't been an honest-to-God air disaster caused by an in-flight malfunction on a large commercial airplane in the US in over 20 years. It's getting close.

      Seriously?
      OK, the Max-8 crashes weren't *in* the USA but so fucking what?

    • There hasn't been an honest-to-God air disaster caused by an in-flight malfunction on a large commercial airplane in the US in over 20 years.

      Ummm... MCAS?

  • by crunchy_one ( 1047426 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @02:13PM (#64300533)
    Seriously folks, as much as I think Boeing has serious management problems, none of these incidents appear to have anything to tie them back to Boeing other than the name.
  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @02:22PM (#64300563)

    Where a bunch of Boeing managers and engineers want to fly together and just before takeoff they get told that the plane actually IS a Boeing plane. The managers frantically dash for the door while the engineers stay calm and lean back in their seats.

    Do they trust the plane to not fall apart?

    No. They just trust the plane to not even take off.

  • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @02:23PM (#64300569)

    It seems like everything is veering hard to the right down there...

  • For reference (Score:5, Informative)

    by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @02:25PM (#64300579)

    Here is video of the wheel falling off [imgur.com] the jet and its aftermath [imgur.com]. And here's an interview with someone on the plane whose engine caught fire as well video of the engine on fire [youtube.com].

    • Looking at that video it clearly shows engine surging/compressor stall not an engine fire. Its a serious condition which can lead to an engine failure or an actual fire if not corrected but not nearly as serious as an actual fire.
  • placing blame (Score:5, Insightful)

    by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @02:31PM (#64300597)

    I'm no fan of Boeing in 2024 but it is painfully obvious that all of these incidents also involve United Airlines. Does Boeing maintain the planes for United?

  • by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @02:32PM (#64300609)

    In short: it's an older 737 from the time when Boeing did quality work that suffered a mishap like any other aircraft can. Not related to MCAS, not related to battery fires, not related to missing door bolts.

    The only thing that ties it to the latest news about Boeing is that it's a Boeing.

    Yeah journalism...

    • And it totally was not related to current maintenance practices, because these planes maintain themselves.
    • The common thread I'm seeing here is that they were all United aircraft.

    • In short: it's an older 737 from the time when Boeing did quality work that suffered a mishap like any other aircraft can. Not related to MCAS, not related to battery fires, not related to missing door bolts.

      The only thing that ties it to the latest news about Boeing is that it's a Boeing.

      While you're probably right it wasn't Boeing's fault, and certainly nothing related to MCAS, you're complete wrong about everything else. It was a relatively new Boeing 737 MAX 8 in service for under a year (not only with MCAS, but one of the ones which was grounded so the MCAS can be fixed) and definitely built in the past few shoddy quality years of Boeing.

      Yeah journalism...

      I wouldn't blame shoddy journalism with your poor arse reading comprehension.

  • Remember the 1980s and 1990s when there was a commercial plane crash in the US like every two or three years?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    We have more social media now so these incidents get captured. In the 80s we had more UFO sightings.

  • In third UNITED incident of the week.

  • Looks more like United has some major issues with their maintenance facilities and processes. All of these planes have been in service for some time, and these are all issues that occur due to deferred maintenance, poor maintenance, or pilot error... nothing to do with the manufacturer.
  • In the post:
    "The incident follows the mid-air loss of a tire from a United Boeing 777-200 Thursday, just after the plane took off from San Francisco on a flight to Osaka, Japan, and an engine fire on a United flight from Houston to Fort Myers, Florida, earlier this week. The plane in the Houston-to-Florida flight had to make an emergency landing after one of its engines burst into flames 10 minutes after takeoff. The 21-year-old aircraft was also a 737 -- but an earlier version than the Max, according to Fl

  • I read "George Bush Incontinental Airport". :-/

  • In other news the 17 thousandth Ford vehicle incident occurred today when Jean Cabot collided with Daniel Ruiz.
  • The article provides no evidence that Boeing is at fault. It says nothing about a design or production defect being responsible. This could also be due to a maintenance problem, something wrong with the runway (say an oil slick), a burst of wind, or pilot error.
  • by reanjr ( 588767 )

    40% of all airplane problems should be expected to come from Boeing. Anything less than 40% and they're crushing it on safety.

  • It's not a Boeing incident. It's a United incident. In fact, they are all United incidents, not Boeing incidents. If a Ford F-150 gets into a wreck, is it a Ford truck incident, or maybe because the F-150 is the best-selling, it is likely that ANY truck wreck is going to be a Ford F-150.

    Also, in one of the other incidents, the engine did NOT "burst into flames." Rather, it experienced a compressor stall, which results in flames spewing out the exhaust.

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