Boeing 737 MAX (gulps): Is it.... safe?

Over the past two years, the 737 MAX has been receiving such negative publicity because of the crash of Ethiopian Airlines and Lionair (and I really can’t blame the media: Boeing really had rushed the productions for profit). Boeing does deserve part of the blame, but a lot of people don’t understand what happened to the production, the design, and even the cause of the crash. The 737 MAX and the Boeing company have been very close to me growing up. Boeing had played a big role in my childhood, accompanying me on every journey. I’ve mostly flown on Boeing aircraft, flying the reliable planes, almost like a second home come to think of it when I’m on those planes. When I heard about the 737 MAX crashes and Boeing’s reputations plummeted, it was a very sad moment for me, since I know that before the Boeing 737 MAX problems, Boeing made wonderful, safe planes transporting millions and billions of passengers across the world like the 777 (to which I personally had flown on a lot of the times).

The Boeing 777-200 in the Boeing House Livery, one of the most popular and safest and most reliable line of planes in the world.

When Boeing developed the 737 MAX, though, it installed a system that was supposed to only “moved 0.6 degrees at a time when actually it was moved 2.5 degrees at a time—a relatively massive difference that would theoretically cause a significant change of the aircraft’s pitch attitude”. This caused the plane to crash, resulting in the Lionair Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 301. This was because of poor production and rushing things to make a profit from Boeing, to which Boeing had made every accommodation possible to the press, the family of victims of the plane. That doesn’t mean that the plane is unsafe, though. Quite the opposite. Over the past two years, the whole world had ground the plane, and the MCAS system went under extreme scrutiny to ensure its safety, so most likely that the 737 MAX will be one of the safest planes in the sky.

The MCAS overview of the 737 MAX, provided by Aviation Today.

Not just that, airlines such as “United Airlines has ordered an additional 25 Boeing 737 MAXs, to be delivered in 2023.” “Not only that, but United Airlines has moved forward the delivery timeline of existing 737 MAX orders”. Nevertheless, of course, some countries still felt that the 737 MAX is still unsafe and continue grounding it until they have a detailed report if Boeing truly have fixed the system or not, China being one of those countries. According to Bloomberg: “need to be approved by China, pilots need to be retrained to fly the jetliners following those changes, and the conclusions of the Ethiopian and Indonesian crash reports need to be clear.”

Lionair’s 737 MAX Flight 610 in operation before it crashed.

Even after the 737 MAX was grounded, though, Boeing still tried to rush production with another type of plane, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. According to Aerotime Hub: “Shims, which are used to fill gaps when two fuselage panels are joined in assembly, were found to be improperly manufactured as well.” This shows that Boeing, again, rushed the production line and made the 787 Dreamliner unsafe. Even though I know that Boeing has the potential to produce safe planes, there are certain things that Boeing need to do to regain its reputation, and I’m hoping to be one of those, debriefing the mysteries of the 737 MAX and telling truly what happened, what was fixed, and how it could be improved/how it’s safe now. For now, my researches have proved that, yes, even though Boeing may have made a huge mistake rushing the production of planes, but at the same time, the 737 MAX is safe now as it is under huge scrutiny from many countries in the world. I hope with my continuing research, I can give a well-based, supported-with-evidence statement that the 737 MAX is 100% safe now.

Annotated Bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QTuFL3YGpiXcqIU4rgGOcK23v5HOq6W48cdh7gEmi1k/edit