The US transportation secretary announced on Wednesday afternoon that no grounded Boeing 737 Max 9 would return to service “until it is safe”, after Alaska Airlines announced the cancellation of all flights on its 737 Max 9 planes at the direction of the Federal Aviation Administration.
Pete Buttigieg said he was “not putting a timeline” on when the FAA will allow the planes to resume flights.
Every plane that the US aircraft manufacturer delivers “needs to be 100% safe”, Buttigieg added.
He said he has spoken to the head of Boeing and told him the company needs to do everything it can to establish 100% confidence in its planes.
So if Boeing is such a mess that they are grouding their planes, why are their other planes still okay? The problems seem to be about how Boeing operates and aren’t limited to one or two planes so it seems reasonable to think that others are being handled the same way. Why should we assume that other Boeing planes are safe?
It’s because the 737 MAX went through significant changes and lobbies the FAA to avoid recertification.
Essentially we have a record which planes have gone through a rigorous certification process in their current configuration and which haven’t because looking back it’s plain as day.
The design of most planes has been checked properly because the FAA and Boeing have usually done their job properly. In the case of this change to the 737 they haven’t.
I’d still recommend requesting a flight on another companies airplane when possible and never accepting a ticket on a 737 max even if it’s allowed back in the air.
But there’s no need to cause a mass grounding of safe aircraft that don’t have any problems. That would be incredibly wasteful and more importantly bring older aircraft into service as an alternative. Older aircraft which would be less safe than the ones on the ground.
Because a large majority of commercial jets in the US are made by Boeing. And grounding more than half of the planes in the US would be terrible for the economy.
Also, different models have different designs, were designed at different times. Many of the planes are ‘tried-and-true’.