FROM THE EDITOR
GROUNDING THE BOEING 737 MAX
ON MARCH 14, THE UNITED STATES JOINED OTHER COUNTRIES IN GROUNDING THE BOEING 737 MAX.
I was contacted that morning (before EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
JOE ESCOBAR
jescobar@DOMmagazine.com 920.747.0195
the grounding was announced) by a news radio show that wanted me to discuss the 737 MAX situation on-air. I declined, telling the them, “I appreciate you reaching out to me, but I don’t feel it is appropriate to discuss the 737 MAX or the crashes without knowing what the causes were. I wouldn’t feel comfortable speculating on the matter.” But the mainstream news media wanted to speculate nonetheless, and mounting pressure forced the FAA to ground the fleet. In response to the grounding, Flight Safety Foundation president and CEO Dr. Hassan Shahidi said: “This globally haphazard approach to an important airworthiness issue was most unfortunate, but we understand the need to reassure the traveling public. “We continue to believe, however, that global aviation safety is best served by timely, harmonized decisions based on facts and evidence, not conjecture, politics, or media pressure. “Moving forward, we must allow
aviation safety professionals — investigators, regulators, engineers, and pilots — to calmly and objectively analyze the data, collaborate, and implement permanent, corrective fixes to ensure a tragedy like this can never happen again.” I couldn’t have said it better myself! This grounding ties in to the
unfortunate mentality nowadays of assuming guilt until innocence is proven. There are plenty of examples of public outrage caused by viral videos before the actual truth came out. I’m sure you can think of plenty of recent examples where this was the case. How about the Jussie Smollett “attack” in Chicago? Immediate outrage over the attack was fierce. However, Smollett was subsequently indicted on 16 felony counts
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by a grand jury for making up the story of the attack.
Or what about Nick Sandman, the teen who was portrayed as a racist based on a January 18 video of him wearing a MAGA hat and standing in front of Nathan Phillips (who claimed he was surrounded and abused by Sandman and some of his fellow high school students?) Outrage was swift and vicious. He is currently suing CNN and the Washington Post for defamation based on their initial reports of the incident. While the traveling public probably feels safer with the grounding of the 737 MAX fleet, we still don’t know the actual cause of the two crashes. They could be caused by an inherent design or software flaw. Or they could be totally unrelated. Only time and a thorough investigation will tell. Let’s hope that the causes are found in a timely manner! In the meantime, Boeing will likely lose a lot of money. Some estimates are that the grounding could cost Boeing between $1billion and $5 billion. Making the decision to ground the 737 MAX was based on speculation. If the crashes are indeed related to the new safety system in the aircraft (which many are speculating), another potential crash could be avoided. If they aren’t related to the system, then the only impacts are the financial burden to Boeing, the financial and operational challenges to airlines as they adjust their fleets to accommodate grounded aircraft and the inconvenience to customers as flights are cancelled. CNN Business reports that the FAA and Boeing both say a software upgrade will give pilots greater control over the plane in case problems emerge with the planes’ safety systems. That fix is due in April. Were they related? Only time will tell.
Thanks for reading! – Joe
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