One of the two most popular planes for Hawaii flights is the Boeing 737 MAX. There’s no doubt that these ubiquitous planes remain controversial despite their adoption and popularity. Today, activist attorney Ralph Nader sounded off regarding the aircraft as it relates to presidential candidate Nikki Haley. While we generally avoid controversial subjects like this, when it comes to the 737 MAX, it’s something very near and dear to us. Editors here will fly Southwest Airlines 737 MAX 8 in the next week.
The Boeing 737 MAX remains a subject of discussion after two deadly accidents and the 737 MAX safety concerns that led to worldwide grounding.
The first incident was the Lion Air crash in the Java Sea after takeoff, which resulted in all 189 people on board being killed. Issues with the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) system have been pinpointed as being causal in that accident.
Then 157 were killed when Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crashed following takeoff, with MCAS again being pointed to MCAS. Design flaws were pinpointed, both due to its reliance on one single sensor and due to the lack of necessary pilot training.
How is Nikki Haley involved in 737 MAX crashes?
Nader today pointed out in an open letter that Haley served on the Boeing Board of Directors from April 2019 to April 2020. “This unusually abbreviated tenure immediately followed the Boeing 737 MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. They were perceived as caused by Boeing’s criminal negligence.”
“Cut and run” according to Nader.
“The seats on Boeing’s Board of Directors were smoking as the media began zeroing in on what the Board knew and when did they know about Boeing’s executives cutting corners, suppressing technical dissent, and accelerating production on the assembly line. Lawsuits from the government, the bereaved families, and shareholders promised sworn depositions and other discovery. It is likely that you decided to “cut and run,” given your vaulting political ambitions.”
What does Haley know about deadly Boeing 737 MAX crashes?
Nader said that voters “Are entitled to a forthright explanation and willingness to answer informed questions by reporters and other interested parties about your knowledge and inquiries into the Boeing 737 Max lethal crashes.”
Regulatory oversight by the FAA?
Questions have been raised about their delegation of aspects of the plane’s certification processes to Boeing directly, which may have compromised objectivity.
The FAA and global regulatory agencies grounded the plane for an extended period. Thereafter, Boeing undertook major efforts to address these issues including MCAS software updates, added pilot training, and other safety improvements. The entire series of events served to highlight the complexity of regulatory oversight in complex, modern aircraft design and the need for additional safety measures.
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The 737 MAX design changes came about way before Niki Haley was
on Boeing’s board of directors. Airbus had released the A320NEO aircraft in the mid-2010s. Boeing had to respond quickly. This resulted in the 737MAX. They didn’t have time to respond with a clean sheet design since the 737 is Boeing’s cash cow. If I recall correctly Boeing
had lost a major customer to Airbus at the time, which forced their hand even more.
Niki Haley was instrumental in getting a non union Boeing assembly plant in S Carolina and then scored a seat on the Boeing board for $300K annually to attend a few meetings. That plant had many quality control problems. She was asked by passenger groups to meet on the MAX safety issues but never responded. She quit the board when it was considering taking federal bailout money to avoid bankruptcy saying she opposed any federal loans to corporations.
Since the MAX was ungrounded in late 2020, there have been hundreds of service difficulty reports SDRs filed with the FAA by pilots and several inflight emergencies.
It should have had at least 1.5 years of trouble free operation before being allowed to fly 5-6 hours to HI.
The issue is Boeing stretched a short hall jet transport into something it was never engendered to be. For domestic USA operation the 737NG and MAX replace the classic 727-200 and DC9-80 and compete with new designed family of AirBus jets. There is nothing wrong with improving, modernizing, upgrading, stretching or making more mission reddy an existing aircraft design, especially if it is a good and capable design in the first place. Boeing upgraded the wrong aircraft for these expanded mission sets. As in may instances modern business managers in aircraft manufacturing and airline corporate leadership have made poor decisions with deleterious consequences
AMT states that the airframe was/is unsafe. The airframe, in several iterations, has worked just fine for over 50 years. The MAX problem, in the name of profits, was that the software was not properly debugged, the FAA was misled by Boeing, and the the crews not properly trained in its use. Most of this has been addressed. The rest of this is just politics as practiced in this day and age.
Wow, BOH “editors” have it in for the MAX. If they were qualified aeronautical engineers, they would be qualified to speak out. However, since they have yet to offer evidence that they have expertise in that area, I suspect they are still unhappy because they didn’t like the size and placement of the bathrooms.
The FAA went through this aircraft from stem to stern, from the keel to the foretop. The work the FAA put in gives me confidence that this is an airworthy airframe.
Nader has spent the last 50 years looking for the next Corvair. Sort of like every Washington Post author wants the next Watergate so they can be the next Woodward and Bernstein.
He’s got an agenda, which discounts anything he says into negative number territory for me.
Has Nikky Haley made any public comment? I doubt she was given a seat on the Board for her airplane safety expertise.
I had no idea Ralph Nader was still around. I looked it up – he’s 89 now. Bet he’s a younger 89 than a certain 81-year-old in the news these days.
Boeing knew the airframe was unsafe and had issues, but they pushed it out the door anyways. They put profits over safety and that should not sit well with anyone. Being around and in the aviation industry as I have, I will not fly on any MAX aircraft ever. I’m very thankful that American and Hawaiian still fly solid airframes to and from Hawaii
The MAX is safe – always has been. I put my life in it many times a week. A big part of our training is to safely fly the machine when it breaks or misbehaves. Before the MAX, there were 5 failures that could cause an uncommanded trim situation – the MAX added a sixth (MCAS). The procedure for all those situations is exactly the same – it matters not what the actual failure is. The machine is safe. It does however, require a properly trained flight crew.
Hi Mark.
Thanks for this comment and many others, and for reinforcing the “properly trained flight crew” aspect.
Aloha.
Nader who is no longer relevant to anything is just kicking up dust here. Don’t take the bait.
There are (serious) issues with the 787 as well that Boeing does its best to suppress… Just the world we live in these days I suppose…
Best Regards
Hi Jay.
Thanks for that, and many comments. You’re making us want to cruise from and to Hawaii instead. Lol.
Aloha.
What are those serious issues with the 787? Inquiring minds would like to know?
Well, how about this to start and I suggest doing your own due diligence to uncover more… There’s quite a bit to this story
cnbc.com/2022/05/13/faa-finds-boeing-787-certification-documents-incomplete-sources-say-.html
Best Regards
I did a brief Google search as you suggested and found a
Washington Post article dated August 8th, 2022 regarding
the 787 certification. The FAA approved the resumption of 787
deliveries. They (FAA) will inspect each 787 out of final assembly before they’re delivered to the customer.