Delta Air Lines flight 520 from New York JFK to Los Angeles had a piece of the aircraft fall off during climb out this morning, with emergency equipment meeting the flight on arrival. Delta substituted another Boeing 767, and passengers were sent on their way - expected to land in Los Angeles three and a half hours late.
Potentially relevant piece of info, it was a Boeing. Might be bad maintenance, might be manufacturing defect, we’ll need to see what the investigation turns up. At the very least the fact it was a Boeing plane raises some eyebrows.
Edit: rereading it mentions it was a 33 year old plane with a history of problems. Leaning more towards bad maintenance, although if it was that prone to issues maybe it should have been taken out of service before now.
Boeing and Airbus are the only large passenger aircraft manufacturers that I’m aware of.
Don’t get me wrong, Boeing’s doing awful lately. But even on a good day the odds are high it’s Boeing, and even higher when news outlets know people want to hear about every fail from Boeing suddenly.
Is Airbus seeing similar rates of failure on their older models? Not that you personally need to know, just that question should be asked/answered if we’re going to give Boeing the benefit of the doubt.
Great question, I’m curious too. I definitely don’t want to give Boeing to benefit of the doubt. Just wanted to give perspective that there aren’t a lot of aircraft manufacturer options.
All I know right now is I’ve seen a ton of stories lately about different Boeing failures and can’t think of a single such story about an Airbus failure. The only thing that pops into mind in general about Airbus is that one really big plane they were making kept getting delayed, which from my perspective actually sounds good because it’s a sign they might not be cutting corners like Boeing seems to be.
I fly Delta a fair bit just because they’ve fucked me around the least out of the major US carriers. They also use Embraer models for shorter regional flights. However, yes, you’re correct in saying the odds are high that any given commercial jet in the air is a Boeing or an Airbus.
Could still be a manufacturing defect on a replacement part, but obviously not on anything that is original. It’s more likely though that whatever it is failed from lack of maintenance or improperly done maintenance at this point.
Potentially relevant piece of info, it was a Boeing. Might be bad maintenance, might be manufacturing defect, we’ll need to see what the investigation turns up. At the very least the fact it was a Boeing plane raises some eyebrows.
Edit: rereading it mentions it was a 33 year old plane with a history of problems. Leaning more towards bad maintenance, although if it was that prone to issues maybe it should have been taken out of service before now.
I was going to say do we even need to bother asking who manufactured the plane anymore.
Boeing and Airbus are the only large passenger aircraft manufacturers that I’m aware of.
Don’t get me wrong, Boeing’s doing awful lately. But even on a good day the odds are high it’s Boeing, and even higher when news outlets know people want to hear about every fail from Boeing suddenly.
Is Airbus seeing similar rates of failure on their older models? Not that you personally need to know, just that question should be asked/answered if we’re going to give Boeing the benefit of the doubt.
Great question, I’m curious too. I definitely don’t want to give Boeing to benefit of the doubt. Just wanted to give perspective that there aren’t a lot of aircraft manufacturer options.
All I know right now is I’ve seen a ton of stories lately about different Boeing failures and can’t think of a single such story about an Airbus failure. The only thing that pops into mind in general about Airbus is that one really big plane they were making kept getting delayed, which from my perspective actually sounds good because it’s a sign they might not be cutting corners like Boeing seems to be.
I fly Delta a fair bit just because they’ve fucked me around the least out of the major US carriers. They also use Embraer models for shorter regional flights. However, yes, you’re correct in saying the odds are high that any given commercial jet in the air is a Boeing or an Airbus.
You would think at this point every airline would be giving their fleet full inspections… I guess the bad press isn’t enough motivation?
For a thirty three year old plane, I wouldn’t call it too much of a “history of problems”. It was like 4 issues and one of them was hitting a bird.
“Leaning towards”??
Could still be a manufacturing defect on a replacement part, but obviously not on anything that is original. It’s more likely though that whatever it is failed from lack of maintenance or improperly done maintenance at this point.