There have been two deadly crashes of Boeing’s new 737 Max 8 airplane in the last five months, both of which were highly unusual. Until they can figure out what is causing the problem, it’s hard to say that these planes are safe. That’s why most of the world decided to ground the Max 8 after the second crash in Ethiopia. But they are not being grounded in the United States, and there’s some reason to believe that our safety isn’t being put first.
Early Tuesday, Dennis A. Muilenburg, the chief executive of Boeing, spoke to President Trump on the phone and made the case that the 737 Max planes should not be grounded in the United States, according to two people briefed on the conversation…
…Mr. Muilenburg has worked to cultivate a relationship with the president, although it has sometimes been uneasy.
Shortly after he was elected president, Mr. Trump assailed Boeing for the estimated cost of its program to build new Air Force One planes that serve as mobile command centers for the president.
The “costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter a month after winning the election but before he took office. A couple of weeks later, Mr. Muilenburg visited Mr. Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., to try to smooth things over.
“It was a terrific conversation,” Mr. Muilenburg told reporters after the meeting, explaining that he had given Mr. Trump “my personal commitment” that Boeing would build new Air Force One planes for less than the $4 billion estimate. Weeks after the conversation, Boeing donated $1 million to Mr. Trump’s inaugural committee. The company had donated the same amount to help finance President Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2013.
Boeing’s CEO is doing what a lot of major businessmen do. He’s greasing the skids for his behemoth of a company by making million dollar donations to the president. But he’s also assuring the president that his aircraft is safe, which is a judgement he cannot yet make on the merits and for which he is obviously not a dispassionate and objective observer.
I’d like to believe that President Trump isn’t influenced by Boeing’s million dollar check and Mr. Muilenburg’s personal patronage of Mar-a-Lago, but I don’t believe that for a second. Do you?
so I’m guessing we’ll see far more planes fall out of sky because this president is so corrupt
Possibly. And Mr. Muilenburg is evidently an idiot. If that does happen, he’s out of a job and his company gets sued for googolplex dollars.
There’s going to be a lot of shit leaking about this. Already seeing reports that pilots complained to FAA back in November! The Acting Secretary of Defense was a member of the Boeing Executive Council!
More people are going to die because of this (foreseeable) corruption.
Yes, but those complaints were a diffetent cause than the suspected cause of the Lion Air crash according to what I read at TPM.
Yes, but those complaints were a diffetent cause than the suspected cause of the Lion Air crash according to what I read at TPM.
Guess who was just put on Boeing’s board? Nikki Haley!! Someone should ask her if she’s willing to fly on them.
There used to be a miserable track record for the MD-80 back in the day. I refused to fly on them. I wasn’t alone. The public has a way of shutting that sh*t down.
Over half of the planes are currently grounded. Why? No one trusts the donald or anything associated with him…his government and us.
This morning I heard that the black boxes had been found and no one had any idea who was down loading the info. Didn’t the NTS use to lead or involve itself in all air crashes. Why are they so suddently missing?
Theres a legitimate argument to be made that poor training for the first crash and a huge growth (221%) of the airline in the second led to holes in the airline safety procedures. So far even in the cases where US pilots reported issues (different than what is suspected to cause the first crash) they were swiftly able to establish safety again.
Rachel did a piece on this just now. The story gets worse.
There is a data base where pilots can report issues to Boeing directly and it is apparently filled, she read some, with commentary from pilots and co-pilots of issues on takeoff similar to what just happened.
Next, Trump has never nominated a head of the FAA, so we’ve had an acting head for two years. She reminded that Trump wanted to have his personal pilot get the gig but that didn’t go over well when the reminder came that the Trump ‘fleet’ had been grounded while under the direction of that same pilot.
And the final kicker is that Boeing has been working and negotiating with the FAA on a fix. The fix was supposed to be available by now…BUT, wait for it, was delayed 6 weeks because of the govt shutdown.
And the final kicker is that Boeing has been working and negotiating with the FAA on a fix. The fix was supposed to be available by now…BUT, wait for it, was delayed 6 weeks because of the govt shutdown.
Why would this be the case? The shutdown has been over for a few weeks now. Isn’t the fix a software fix? And why would that stop them from fixing it in airplanes overseas?
Because any “fix” would and should have to go through a rigorous and independent testing process before being approved for deployment. If you were an airline with billions invested in Boeing planes, would you be happy for Boeing to simply “apply” software fixes – like Microsoft does for Windows – without a rigorous and independent testing and approval process?
This disaster strikes at the very roots of the airline industry – why invest billions in planes when the manufacturer has been shown to deploy defective software?
With Trump no one trusts what the USA or its corporate elite say any more – a situation that can only lead to rapid relative commercial decline in the longer term. All for the want of better internal QA and external regulation, testing and verification…
RM noted tonight there is a fix for the problem, but it won’t be available until the end of April, and some of the delay was the result of the shut down. ( I don’t understand that last part but) So lets keep those planes in the air, Guys, until we get the fix. Fingers crossed,
P.S. I won’t be flying that Max 8 at least until the Fix is in and maybe never. It’s getting so you can’t trust anybody.
It’s the end-goal of GrOPers, isn’t it? To destroy civilians’ trust in regulation and government.
Duh!!!
Legal graft.
Also known today as “Lobbyists’ under the table payoffs” and “Corporate monetary support for PermaWar, corporate-friendly congressmen and other politically powerful people.”
End of story.
“Duh” twice!!!
Solution?
It’s really not that difficult.
Not anymore it isn’t.
As Trump’s rise and continued survival has proven, the Deep State’s mass media Great Wurlitzer is simply not working very well anymore.
I mean…it still produces the same amount and volume of bullshit “music,” but fewer and fewer people feel it necessary to tune in and listen.
Please!!!
Only support and vote for Dem candidates who have proven…over a long enough period of time to be believed…to refuse to kowtow to the corporate systemthat currently finances (and thus essentially owns) almost the entire federal government.
Problem solved!!!
You gonna do it!!!???
We’ll see.
Won’t we.
I already done it!!
You???
Prove it!!!
Later…
AG
In every competition between the public good and Der Trumper’s ego and bank account, you know the winner.
The corruption of the country’s bizness elites and ongoing government paralysis is so deep there is no plausible remedy.
The new normal. Not that it’s new, but right out in the open.
The next big drop will be a food safety scandal.
.
A large volume of Trumper’s high crimes are his (daily) violations of the “Take Care” clause, across hundreds of federal statutes and regs.
But to be fair, serial unconstitutional actions and refusal to enforce federal law are a feature of ALL “conservative” Repub prezes, and (in this) Der Trumper is just another Repub—although his peasant-brained venality and desire to profit daily from his high office perhaps set new records, haha…
BREAKING: Trump Issues Order To Ground All Boeing 737 Max 8 & 9 Jets