News

Boeing is under increased public awareness, any issues get picked up and amplified by the news.

There's about 100,000 flights a day in the world. Until very recently Boeing was the largest provider of commercial aircraft, and it's still second largest next to airbus. It's basically a duopoly with those two manufacturers providing the vast majority of planes. Even with the small rate of accidents, with so many flights every day involving Boeing planes there's going to be a few.

Editors know anything relating to an airline accident and Boeing right now will get lots of clicks, they just throw that it's a Boeing aircraft in the headline, then bury relevant facts indicating there's really no way this could have anything to do with Boeing quality control in the article. And many of these are about events that happen from time to time anyways but wouldn't normally make any sort of splash in the international news media, so suddenly it feels like you're being bombarded with Boeing news. If the headline writer put GE or Rolls Royce airplane engine fire due to likely accidental bird collision, or Garuda Indonesia airline repair standards are subpar or something, it wouldn't get any clicks.

Ok but how does this stuff keep happening to Boeing planes?

Shit happens to lots of planes. You just hear about the Boeing ones because reporting on them is in vogue.

I recently set up FlightRadar24 to alert me whenever a plane anywhere in the world starts squawking 7700, the emergency code. It’s REMARKABLE how often it happens. At least a few times per day, it seems like. There are well over 100,000 flights every day, and occasionally stuff goes wrong.

(And yet, whenever a fatal commercial air incident occurs it’s global news, because those are still exceptionally rare.)

Airbus has a ton of new planes grounded due to engine failures since before the door blowout. But you won't hear about it because shitting on Boeing is what got clicks instead.

• Bird in for service

Bird mechanic sucks teeth: well, the wings are out of alignment and some cowboy's got the quack valve out of alignment. I can fix it, but it isn't going to be cheep. Mind you, if you fly it like this you're likely to have a nasty accident.

Customer: I know your tricks! Stop trying to up-sell me. I only brought it in for a beak polish. I'm going and I'm going to leave a bad review on twitter!

Bird takes off, immediately veers into the path of a plane, which promptly bursts into flames.

Bird mechanic: Told you.

They really just flap about and squawk at their subordinates

Angry Bird strike.

It's weird they designed it to lose an engine. They should have designed it not to lose an engine. That would have been better.

Engines Turn Or Passengers Swim

Long distance 747 flighs usually take off above the maximum landng weight. They need to get rid of the fuel before landing, but the 400 has the ability to dump fuel.

The engine wasn't on fire. The engine had a surge on takeoff. They would have shut the engine off as it might have been damaged, but the plane was not on fire. They would have landed much sooner if it was.

Many articles describe engine surges with language that, while not technically a lie, is written to make readers conclude that the airplane is actually on fire.