The US transportation secretary announced on Wednesday afternoon that no grounded Boeing 737 Max 9 would return to service “until it is safe”, after Alaska Airlines announced the cancellation of all flights on its 737 Max 9 planes at the direction of the Federal Aviation Administration.
Pete Buttigieg said he was “not putting a timeline” on when the FAA will allow the planes to resume flights.
Every plane that the US aircraft manufacturer delivers “needs to be 100% safe”, Buttigieg added.
He said he has spoken to the head of Boeing and told him the company needs to do everything it can to establish 100% confidence in its planes.
The FAA should have known they were unsafe! Instead of using independent government inspectors, it’s FAA policy to trust the company to inspect itself. It’s a joke!
FAA does do inspections and writes standards. They will almost certainly update those standards based on what they learn from this.
It’s impossible to say something as complex as a modern aircraft is completely safe. You can only say we looked at the known problem areas and the predicted problem areas things look to be within reasonable safety margins.
I think doors falling off is a pretty obvious problem that should have been caught. I will continue to blame the FAA as well as Boeing.
It’s not a door falling off. It’s the plug in the hole where a door could have been depending on plane configuration.