...and reduce the chances of more whistle blowers.
To be fair the 737 Max fiasco does seem to meet the definition of a conspiracy and when your negligence has slaughtered 346 what's another two?
It's amazing that anyone volunteers to be a whistleblower having seen how those who came before them were treated after they came forward. I remember watching a PBS documentary where a regulatory investigator explained that she warns every prospective whistleblower that they are about to forfeit their future employment and that nobody will be bringing it back including the government. Which is probably why they mostly come forward after retirement....and reduce the chances of more whistle blowers.
Now these employers try to enforce NDAs which I despise.
I feel like the families of the 347 people that died don’t think Boeings problems are overblown. I bet they wish that the agencies that were supposed to regulate them actually did their jobs before lives were lost. Let’s also remember that Boeing is having quality control problems with numerous product lines, the 737 Max, the 787, the 777, the KC-46, the VC-25, the Starliner etc. It seems the thing that bonds all the separate departments together is a complete lack of quality control and accountability. Boeing should probably be broken up at this point but unfortunately our country, regardless of political party, loves corporate welfare.
As long as we conveniently ignore the fact that the seven year delay in the first manned flight from the original schedule, and an additional pumping of over $200 million into the program to keep it afloat, is because of design flaws and poor quality control in the construction of the Starliner spacecraft, which is entirely on Boeing.
Notwithstanding all that, leaving an entire step ladder within the vertical stab by mistake is one of my favorite Boeing Bloopers.
Cracks in a major component on all three test planes, not good. Fortunately it’s not part of the airframe even though it’s failure could and probably would be disastrous.
Losing an engine in the sense of the engine failing to produce thrust is something that can be managed, I am sure pilots deal with engine out procedures as part of their training. On the other hand, having an engine actually fall off the plane would be a lot more serious due to the possible other damage, the change in weight and aerodynamic effect, etc.
The relative safety records of the B777 vs DC10 are about as vast a gulf as can be found among widebody commercial aircraft.
Some pylons are supposedly designed to separate the engine beyond a certain stress level on the premise that a barely attached engine can be worse than no engine at all. You'd lose a lot of weight but also a lot of drag and assuming the break was clean and did not impact another part of the aircraft it should still be flyable through control system redundancy. Or at least that is my understanding. That said it seems to be pretty rare in actual practice and even very damaged engines generally remain attached until landing or impact.
