the new Boeing 787s -- don't let them pass you by (in 2008)!

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heaving bottoms!

teeny (teeny), Saturday, 16 July 2005 23:58 (twenty years ago)

dreamliner is a cool name. air travel deserves to reclaim its lost dignity, to become something classy again.

aqua teen hongro force (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 17 July 2005 00:32 (twenty years ago)

See, now if only the designers would make the seat a little bit more bucket-ed, passenger comfort would skyrocket...

Jimmy Mod Is Sick of Being The Best At Everything (ModJ), Sunday, 17 July 2005 00:42 (twenty years ago)

Why do all the seats on a plane have to face forward?

Thermo Thinwall (Thermo Thinwall), Sunday, 17 July 2005 00:46 (twenty years ago)

Actually, when I was a kid, TWA had a center table with chairs around it where you could play cards in flight. This was 1st class on a 747 in like 1971.

Orbit (Orbit), Sunday, 17 July 2005 00:56 (twenty years ago)

I don't think those seats will actually appear in any planes we'll ever be in. The airlines outfit the planes with their own seats.

The Dreamliner looks gorgeous. I'm looking forward to it. Although I have to say that name is pretty lame. I prefer the simplicity of 787.

Super Cub (Debito), Sunday, 17 July 2005 01:05 (twenty years ago)

they actually changed the name to 787 from the more leet "7E7" (no joke).

aqua teen hongro force (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 17 July 2005 01:23 (twenty years ago)

I like the exterior paint job on the 787. I wonder how much it adds in terms of weight.

jim wentworth (wench), Sunday, 17 July 2005 01:30 (twenty years ago)

certainly it should be "7D7"?

Curt1s St3ph3ns, Sunday, 17 July 2005 01:36 (twenty years ago)

It takes forever to get everyone onto a 747, I can't even imagine loading one of these...

Thermo, on BA in Business class, every other seat faces backwards. I don't know of any other airline with backwards seats, though. Supposedly facing backwards is safer if you crash on the runway...

lyra (lyra), Sunday, 17 July 2005 01:38 (twenty years ago)

the e stands for "eight"!

xpost: the 757 >>>>>>>> any other boeing aircraft in commercial use.

aqua teen hongro force (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 17 July 2005 01:40 (twenty years ago)

but in terms of comfort the airbus beats 'em all hands down.

aqua teen hongro force (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 17 July 2005 01:41 (twenty years ago)

Nah, 737-800. :-) I love the bulkhead seats on that plane.

lyra (lyra), Sunday, 17 July 2005 01:41 (twenty years ago)

""It takes forever to get everyone onto a 747, I can't even imagine loading one of these... ""

This plane is smaller than the 747.

The best Boeing is the 777, me thinks.

Super Cub (Debito), Sunday, 17 July 2005 02:26 (twenty years ago)

B747
ihttp://www.boeing.com/companyoffices/gallery/images/commercial/747-07.jpg

Super Cub (Debito), Sunday, 17 July 2005 02:30 (twenty years ago)

aw yeah

aqua teen hongro force (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 17 July 2005 02:55 (twenty years ago)

because of the massive industry nosedive, the trend now is towards smaller planes, since for most flights during the week they have problems filling seats. airlines lose $$$ for every unsold seat.

aqua teen hongro force (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 17 July 2005 03:01 (twenty years ago)

yeah, so what's the point? are MASSIVE passenger planes what the world needs right now, in any way?

s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 17 July 2005 03:05 (twenty years ago)

if you ask me (and you didn't), the cardinal rule of good customer service is that you get back what you put in. there are people out there with money, and they'll pay (maybe not first-class prices, but they'll pay) for a great flight. people don't just stop flying because of security concerns -- it's because THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE is a massive headache.

aqua teen hongro force (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 17 July 2005 03:09 (twenty years ago)

are MASSIVE passenger planes what the world needs right now, in any way?

probably not.

aqua teen hongro force (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 17 July 2005 03:10 (twenty years ago)

something i could see doing really well: a small, mid-price airline geared exclusively towards adults and older children (no infants/toddlers = quieter ride for passengers, probably less of an insurance risk for the airline, and every seat is paid for), that guarantees top-notch service, good food, and a comfortable ride. like jetblue, but moreso, and without the false premise of being "discount." perfect for regular middle-class people who would be willing to pay $400 for business class/economy plus but not $800.

aqua teen hongro force (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 17 July 2005 03:43 (twenty years ago)

Can you imagine when/if god forbid the first Airbus with 800 passengers goes down. I don't want to fly with that many other passengers, makes me feel sort of uneasy for some strnge reason I can't explain.

ryan_d, Sunday, 17 July 2005 03:46 (twenty years ago)

This B787 vs. A380 thing is quite interesting, actually.

Will the future of commercial air travel be point-to-point on medium-sized, highly efficient airplanes (let's hope so), or hub-to-hub on massive, economy-of-scale utilizing planes (let's hope not)?

Super Cub (Debito), Sunday, 17 July 2005 04:23 (twenty years ago)

Remember Airbus is also putting out another plane, the A350, which is a direct competitor to the 787, with a few more seats and a taller cabin.

The A380 is pretty efficient, as planes go, as well, however that efficiency does depend on them being fully loaded, that goes for all planes.

Ed (dali), Sunday, 17 July 2005 06:08 (twenty years ago)

I hadn't realized that Airbus is developing a plane to compete with the 787. So the A380 is really designed to go head-to-head with the 747. It's kind of odd that Airbus is introducing a plane in 2005 to compete with a plane that dates back to 1969. I suppose Airbus was tired of ceding the jumbo market to Boeing.

Super Cub (Debito), Sunday, 17 July 2005 06:26 (twenty years ago)

The A380 fits into a segment of the market that neither plane make fills and also gives Airbus the big plane it's never had before.

The 787 is Boeing's all new replacement for the 757/767 series of smaller long distance planes. In response to the efficiency games, Airbus has put out a spoiler plane in the form of the A350 derivative (90% new design though) of the A330. Basically it comes from two different views of where air travel is going.

The dreamliner is a point to point airliner, ideal for smaller loading from smaller airports, it could easily be the spring board for inter-continental budget airlines, if it is as efficient as claimed.

The A350 is less radical than the dreamliner, but still a very advanced aircraft with heavy use of composites and should have comparable fuel economies with the 787 mainly through cramming in a few extra seats.

The A380 is about maximising capacity on congested routes from congested airports, Europe-East Coast, Tokyo-Osaka, although it's also been taken by Airlines such as Emirates and Singapore who are locked into hubs in tiny nation states and need to maximise number of seats on planes. You better beleive that someone is going to cram 800 seats on one of these things for the Tokyo Osaka run.

If the A380 is a success then Boeing can always revive it's 747-800 stretched version of the 747.

They'll be space for both in the market as they are going after different niches.

Ed (dali), Sunday, 17 July 2005 06:45 (twenty years ago)

it could easily be the spring board for inter-continental budget airlines, if it is as efficient as claimed.

here's hoping. the market is definitely there for that. north america -> asia will do outstandingly well.

jody heatherton (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 17 July 2005 06:51 (twenty years ago)

Are you in the biz Ed?

Super Cub (Debito), Sunday, 17 July 2005 06:54 (twenty years ago)

No, but there has been some good economist and new scientist coverage of it, plus the early stages were going on through my time at university, studying engineer; my faculty has a Rolls-Royce funded tribology lab and did a lot of work which went into the Trent 900 and 1000 engines. (Also going back further, my A-level physics teacher was a former Rolls-Royce engineer who'd worked on earlier Trent engines.)

Someone needs to be working on powering these planes on vegetable oil/ethanol blends.

Ed (dali), Sunday, 17 July 2005 06:59 (twenty years ago)

someone needs to be working on taxing all these planes out of the sky

lol

ambrose (ambrose), Sunday, 17 July 2005 08:20 (twenty years ago)

Then how will we go from continent to continent. By ship?

Super Cub (Debito), Sunday, 17 July 2005 08:35 (twenty years ago)

auto-gyro

Ed (dali), Sunday, 17 July 2005 08:40 (twenty years ago)

When is teleportation going to get up and running?

Super Cub (Debito), Sunday, 17 July 2005 08:50 (twenty years ago)

Zeppelins!

Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Sunday, 17 July 2005 09:09 (twenty years ago)

I don't know, I'm a little skeptical of zeppelins.

Super Cub (Debito), Sunday, 17 July 2005 09:36 (twenty years ago)

magic carpets. most ecologically sound solution yet!

jody heatherton (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 17 July 2005 09:37 (twenty years ago)

also, carrier pigeons

jody heatherton (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 17 July 2005 09:37 (twenty years ago)

I want one!

Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Sunday, 17 July 2005 10:31 (twenty years ago)

ship is ok. my folks did swansea to cornwall in a week hahaha

why not just stay on yr continent, then you can use the best ever form of transport: train.

ambrose (ambrose), Sunday, 17 July 2005 11:36 (twenty years ago)

I think I'd require a sizable flock of pigeons to get me across the Pacific.

Clearly the best advancement in international transport would be to build superfast elevators through the center of the Earth. Something like a pneumatic tube.

http://zapatopi.net/pneumatic/beachsub2.jpg

http://zapatopi.net/pneumatic/beachsub.jpg

Super Cub (Debito), Sunday, 17 July 2005 12:05 (twenty years ago)

The Zipparu crew hard at work. "Safety is our Number 1 priority!"

http://www.uboatarchive.net/JtOpsCtr11.jpg
Craig keeps a close eye
http://www.uboatarchive.net/JtOpsCtr6.jpg
Jenny updates the big chart

Super Cub (Debito), Sunday, 17 July 2005 12:10 (twenty years ago)

why do they never say "profit is our number 1 priority"?

its often said that safety occupies this top spot, but it seems to actually occupy maybe....10th place, priority-wise?

ambrose (ambrose), Sunday, 17 July 2005 12:19 (twenty years ago)

I'm wondering how well/not well these new 'composite materials' burn.

sgs (sgs), Sunday, 17 July 2005 12:53 (twenty years ago)

I would think they'd melt.

Super Cub (Debito), Sunday, 17 July 2005 13:01 (twenty years ago)

This plane is smaller than the 747.
Ah yeah, I was thinking of the new HUGE Airbus. Too many new planes...

lyra (lyra), Sunday, 17 July 2005 15:11 (twenty years ago)

Have you ever seen a graphite hockey stick break?

Jimmy Mod Is Sick of Being The Best At Everything (ModJ), Sunday, 17 July 2005 15:14 (twenty years ago)

I'm wondering how well/not well these new 'composite materials' burn.

Pretty poorly

Have you ever seen a graphite hockey stick break?

Not really the same stuff. The design the composite to have the mechanical properties for the job.

Ed (dali), Sunday, 17 July 2005 15:39 (twenty years ago)

Good air travel/industry sites: flyertalk.com, airliners.net

JBR OTM re: smaller planes, especially in mid-size/small markets. 80% of my flights are on 50-seat regional jets or props, and another 15% are on DC-9s, which aren't really modern aircraft in any sense of the word. Only place I'll ever see these super-planes is across the tarmac while connecting at O'Hare.

Jeff Wright (JeffW1858), Monday, 18 July 2005 01:49 (twenty years ago)

Another interesting source about air travel/industry is Ask The Pilot by Patrick Smith. It's a book based on his column.

Apparently the regional carriers have much less restrictive labor contracts than the majors, so their overhead is lower. The regionals are probably closer to what the future industry will look like.

I do a lot of inter-continental flying, because I live in a foreign country. So I get to fly on 777s all the time (for 13 hours).

Super Cub (Debito), Monday, 18 July 2005 02:47 (twenty years ago)

three years pass...

What a half-billion dollar A380 gets you: http://gizmodo.com/5279529/inside-the-485+million-airbus-a380-flying-palace

Carroll Shelby Downard (Elvis Telecom), Friday, 5 June 2009 09:55 (sixteen years ago)

Boeing pilots' messages on 737 MAX safety raise new questions

Book Doula (sleeve), Sunday, 20 October 2019 21:35 (five years ago)

one month passes...

https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/john-barnett-on-why-he-wont-fly-on-a-boeing-787-dreamliner/

What is your own personal practice on flying Boeing aircraft now?

“When I worked on the 747, the 767, the 777 in Everett, those are beautiful planes. And the people there fully understood what it took to build a safe and airworthy aircraft. I hate to throw the entire label over the whole product line. But as far as the 787, I would change flights before I would fly a 787. I’ve told my family — please don’t fly a 787. Fly something else. Try to get a different ticket. I want the people to know what they are riding on.”

Elvis Telecom, Tuesday, 3 December 2019 20:30 (five years ago)

one month passes...

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a30470973/boeing-737-max-employees-emails/

I don’t want to read this. I’m just posting it here

El Tomboto, Friday, 10 January 2020 22:01 (five years ago)

"This airplane is designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys.”

The Squalls Of Hate (sleeve), Friday, 10 January 2020 22:04 (five years ago)

But the the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee provided excerpts of those messages to Bloomberg News that un-redacted the Indonesian carrier’s name.

“Now friggin Lion Air might need a sim to fly the MAX, and maybe because of their own stupidity. I’m scrambling trying to figure out how to unscrew this now! idiots,” one Boeing employee wrote in June 2017 text messages obtained by the company and released by the House committee.

In response, a Boeing colleague replied: “WHAT THE F%$&!!!! But their sister airline is already flying it!” That was an apparent reference to Malindo Air, the Malaysian-based carrier that was the first to fly the Max commercially.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-14/lion-air-idiots-sought-more-max-training-boeing-thwarted-it

Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 15 January 2020 22:43 (five years ago)

ten months pass...

is there anyway to check (in advance of booking) which type of aircraft will be used on your flight? would not fancy going on one of these for say, oooooh, about 10 years?

https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/9/22165956/boeing-737-max-flight-brazil-gol-airlines

sir kieth scamper QC (||||||||), Wednesday, 9 December 2020 21:59 (four years ago)

Gol Airlines told the publication it plans to use the 737 Max in regular service starting later this month, and passengers who don’t want to fly on the plane will be able to exchange their tickets.

all airlines need to do this imo

sir kieth scamper QC (||||||||), Wednesday, 9 December 2020 22:00 (four years ago)

You can go to FlightAware.com and enter your flight # which will give you a lot of data about that flight; below the flight map you'll see a log of scheduled flights and what aircraft will be used, plus a record of what aircraft were used in previous flights.

Some airlines' websites, e.g. JetBlue's, tell you the aircraft used for each flight when you go there to do your booking. I wouldn't say they're accurate 100% of the time but I think they generally are.

Josefa, Wednesday, 9 December 2020 22:31 (four years ago)

one month passes...

Another 737 gone missing after taking off from jakarta

nob lacks, noirish (darraghmac), Saturday, 9 January 2021 11:41 (four years ago)

three years pass...

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-not-spirit-mis-installed-piece-that-blew-off-alaska-max-9-jet/

The fuselage panel that blew off an Alaska Airlines jet earlier this month was removed for repair then reinstalled improperly by Boeing mechanics on the Renton final assembly line, a person familiar with the details of the work told The Seattle Times.

If verified by the National Transportation Safety Board investigation, this would leave Boeing primarily at fault for the accident, rather than its supplier Spirit AeroSystems, which originally installed the panel into the 737 MAX 9 fuselage in Wichita, Kan.

That panel, a door plug used to seal a hole in the fuselage sometimes used to accommodate an emergency exit, blew out of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 as it climbed out of Portland on Jan. 5. The hair-raising incident drew fresh and sharp criticism of Boeing’s quality control systems and safety culture, which has been under the microscope since two fatal 737 MAX crashes five years ago.

Last week, a different person — an anonymous whistleblower who appears to have access to Boeing’s manufacturing records of the work done assembling the specific Alaska Airlines jet that suffered the blowout — on an aviation website separately provided many additional details about how the door plug came to be removed and then mis-installed.

Elvis Telecom, Friday, 26 January 2024 00:32 (one year ago)

is there anyway to check (in advance of booking) which type of aircraft will be used on your flight? would not fancy going on one of these for say, oooooh, about 10 years?

KAYAK Lets Users Filter Out Boeing 737 Max 9 Flights After Door Blows Off Plane

Elvis Telecom, Friday, 26 January 2024 00:33 (one year ago)

oof

dead precedents (sleeve), Friday, 26 January 2024 00:48 (one year ago)

Nationalize Boeing

B. Amato (Boring, Maryland), Friday, 26 January 2024 01:15 (one year ago)

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/24/delta-air-lines-plane-nose-wheel-falls-off

organ doner (ledge), Friday, 26 January 2024 08:34 (one year ago)

one month passes...

More concerns as Alaska Airlines flight arrives at PDX gate with open cargo door
https://www.koin.com/news/alaska-airlines-safety-concerns-cargo-door-pictures-portland/

Elvis Telecom, Saturday, 9 March 2024 05:05 (one year ago)

o_0

Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

It said the 62-year-old had died from a "self-inflicted" wound on 9 March and police were investigating.

mookieproof, Monday, 11 March 2024 22:20 (one year ago)

Jon Oliver did a good piece on them last week, the gist of it is their only priority right now is shareholder value

frogbs, Tuesday, 12 March 2024 00:07 (one year ago)

I know nothing about financing, stocks, etc. But it seems to me that if I owned a business that I really cared about, I would never take it public.

Hideous Lump, Tuesday, 12 March 2024 11:50 (one year ago)

two weeks pass...

Really good article that sums up Barnett's (the now dead whistleblower) complaints.

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-03-28-suicide-mission-boeing/

just like Christopher Wray said (brownie), Friday, 29 March 2024 14:01 (one year ago)

one month passes...

Hm another whistleblower has died.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/whistleblower-josh-dean-of-boeing-supplier-spirit-aerosystems-has-died/

just like Christopher Wray said (brownie), Thursday, 2 May 2024 12:06 (one year ago)

o_O

those Prospect articles about Barnett are wild

rob, Thursday, 2 May 2024 13:58 (one year ago)

I was going to say something about irony impairment by naming your rejected/not-rejected parts bin MRSA, but fuck this company
https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-04-30-whistleblower-laws-protect-lawbreakers/

Sections 47 and 48 of a 787 Boeing Dreamliner fuselage consist of the back four rows of the plane’s passenger seating, bathrooms, meal prep area, flight attendant seating, and rear exit doors. “Not the kind of thing you could sneak out on the back of a pickup truck,” says Rob Turkewitz, an attorney who represents the estate of John Barnett, the whistleblower who was found dead last month the morning he’d been scheduled to finish a deposition in his whistleblower lawsuit against the company. And yet around 2015, someone caused a massive hunk of this fuselage to vanish from the Material Review Segregation Area (MRSA) of the Charleston, South Carolina, 787 assembly plant, without leaving any kind of paper trail. As near as Turkewitz and his former client have been able to figure, no one ever determined what became of the thing.

Elvis Telecom, Thursday, 2 May 2024 22:48 (one year ago)

what in the fuck

I painted my teeth (sleeve), Friday, 3 May 2024 00:27 (one year ago)

so what, hypothetically, could you do with that if you had ill intent?

I painted my teeth (sleeve), Friday, 3 May 2024 00:27 (one year ago)

I think the point here was that 'losing track' of something like that and not even reporting it is a graphic illustration of how absurdly far Boeing was from compliance with federal regulatory requirements. Whether it was purposeful or accidental wouldn't even matter.

more difficult than I look (Aimless), Friday, 3 May 2024 00:43 (one year ago)

gotcha, jeez

I painted my teeth (sleeve), Friday, 3 May 2024 01:12 (one year ago)

crazy stuff

I painted my teeth (sleeve), Friday, 3 May 2024 01:13 (one year ago)

last company i worked for did tons of business for Boeing - we supplied them with antennas among other things. our company, and i wouldn't be surprised if it was the same with other suppliers, were more and more following the Boeing mentality. we had a locked room that had all the "scrap material" that couldn't be taken to the material shredder until everything was signed off on by quality assurance, the appropriate upper management, the customer, etc. so the fact Boeing had something like that disappear is absolutely wild.

Western® with Bacon Flavor, Friday, 3 May 2024 01:41 (one year ago)

straight up, the FAA doesn't fuck around, so at least i made sure everything i was doing was always by procedure.

for example, products we supplied airlines had to be assembled, painted, tested, etc. at certain approved temperatures and humidity. one year, the facility manager decided that to save some money they were going to hold off on repairing the AC system. flash forward to May/June and the AC hasn't been fixed and a heat wave is going through the area. the production area was hitting 95+ F and terrible humidity. it took program managers to get them to let them know we were violating government regulations to finally get them to fix the AC. but that's the kinda snakey shit i started seeing upper upper management were doing to save a buck/get their next promotion.

Western® with Bacon Flavor, Friday, 3 May 2024 01:49 (one year ago)

yep, and I bet that was x10 at Boeing

I painted my teeth (sleeve), Friday, 3 May 2024 01:51 (one year ago)

nine months pass...

Cracks In KC-46 Pegasus Tankers Halt All Deliveries
https://www.twz.com/air/cracks-in-kc-46-pegusus-tankers-halt-all-deliveries

...compendium of Boeing failures continues at link

Elvis Telecom, Saturday, 1 March 2025 01:41 (six months ago)

one month passes...

Something truly post-apocalyptic about seeing an A380 being scrapped... pic.twitter.com/kd4TZMyEwW

— Zaphod Beeblebrox (@Zaphod2042) April 17, 2025

Elvis Telecom, Sunday, 20 April 2025 01:27 (five months ago)

The first, second, and so far only long-haul flights I ever took were on an Airbus A380. My enduring memory is of discovering that the headphone socket for the in-flight entertainment was in the handrest about an hour before landing on the return flight. For a while they were a really common sight in the skies over London because the major customer was Emirates, who bought a huge fleet of them seemingly so that lots of people could fly from London to Dubai.

I remember reading that they couldn't be converted into cargo planes because the top deck wasn't strong enough to carry pallets. If the deck was reinforced the aircraft wouldn't have enough engine power to take off, and in any case it would have been difficult to load the top deck. So unlike the Boeing 747 it didn't have an afterlife as a cargo plane. And the Boeing 777 could land at a much wider range of airports. The only two airports the A380 could land in Spain were Madrid and Tereul, a maintenance facility which isn't open to the public, whereas the 777 could land in Malaga etc.

I learn from the internet that Virgin Atlantic ordered six A380s in 2001, then waited and waited and waited until eventually cancelling their order in 2018 because fuel was just too expensive. They dodged a bullet there. I'm also reminded that during the COVID pandemic Singapore Airlines used one of their A380s as a pop-up restaurant:
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/singapore-pop-up-restaurant-sells-out-in-30-minutes-trnd/index.html

Customers bought a ticket to sit in a static A380 and have a (presumably freshly-cooked meal). There were also sightseeing "flights to nowhere" that took off and landed from the same runway, giving people the chance to see Antarctica / the Southern Lights / Hong Kong etc from the air without having to pass through international arrivals. Like in Dawn of the Dead, where the undead instinctively flocked to a shopping mall, because they were re-enacting their former lives.

Ashley Pomeroy, Monday, 21 April 2025 19:10 (four months ago)

one month passes...

Ten year old documentary on Boeing and the 787 suddenly relevant

Our journalism reveals the deeply-held safety concerns of current and former Boeing engineers, who in some cases fear to fly on the 787, the plane they build.

We uncover allegations of on-the-job drug use, quality control problems and poor workmanship.

We explore the roots of the battery problems that led to the plane’s grounding due to safety concerns for three months from January 2013.

For more on the investigation, visit http://www.aljazeera.com/boeing787

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvkEpstd9os

Elvis Telecom, Sunday, 15 June 2025 23:56 (three months ago)

four weeks pass...

so uh, air india... pilot cut off the fuel switches? both of them?

, Monday, 14 July 2025 17:26 (two months ago)

Accidentally, without knowing, it seems

Black Sabaoth (Boring, Maryland), Monday, 14 July 2025 18:27 (two months ago)

consensus i've seen is deliberate - murder-suicide :(

alpine static, Tuesday, 15 July 2025 02:37 (two months ago)

the older pilot, in his early 50's only had a few more flights left until he was due to retire and dedicate all his time to being a f/t carer for his elderly dad.

vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino), Tuesday, 15 July 2025 04:24 (two months ago)

jfc

werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 15 July 2025 04:25 (two months ago)

There's an investigation under way that will likely take months before we have a conclusion based on all the facts, so nothing conclusive can be drawn at this stage.

I find it implausible that they both planned a suicide right after take-off and exchanged last words ("did you cut the fuel off ? no I didn't") to simulate an accident / muddle the investigation. Or that even the copilot turned them off discretely when they're in the middle of the deck, denied doing it in conversation, they put them back on, and crashed to their death. Accidentally doing so also seems highly unlikely. Meanwhile there's this fuel control switch being installed with the locking feature disengaged + FAA issuing a non-mandatory directive not carried out by Air India... All this to say that the cause is still very open and it's premature to lean one way or the other.

Still amazed that one guy survived, relatively unscathed.

Naledi, Tuesday, 15 July 2025 07:43 (two months ago)

I haven't seen anyone suggest that they planned a suicide together. And they haven't said who said what, as far as I know.

Most likely to me seems that one cut the fuel, then asked the other pilot "did you cut the fuel off" to muddle the investigation and try to direct blame / deflect shame on his family. Then the other pilot tried to turn them back on, but it was too late.

But you are right ... we do not know for sure, but an accident seems unlikely.

alpine static, Tuesday, 15 July 2025 13:47 (two months ago)

Bright spot for Boeing then!

Black Sabaoth (Boring, Maryland), Tuesday, 15 July 2025 14:32 (two months ago)

Also every time is see this thread I get Ringo singing “Don’t Pass Me By” in my head.

Black Sabaoth (Boring, Maryland), Tuesday, 15 July 2025 15:02 (two months ago)

There is an ex-pilot saying this still could be a Boeing hardware fuck-up, some dodgy chip that needed remedial work that never happened or some kind of vmic Boeing sounding shit like that. FAA says their fuel switches are fine ... yada yada. You couldn't pay me to get inside one of them flying-deathtrap pieces of shit.

vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino), Tuesday, 15 July 2025 18:36 (two months ago)

There was a rumor in the flightsim community that switch->CUTOFF was how you reset the 787 in MSFS but now its impossible to search anything related to this

Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 16 July 2025 10:12 (two months ago)


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