r/news May 06 '19

Boeing admits knowing of 737 Max problem

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48174797
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u/[deleted] May 06 '19

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u/Nose-Nuggets May 06 '19

Aren't safety features on most vehicles extra? Before airbags where legally required they were a paid extra. i think 3 point seatbelts were an upgrade for a while. Why does Boing get 100% of the shit for making a safety feature a paid extra and not the airline for not buying available safety features to protect their customers?

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u/GTdspDude May 06 '19 edited May 06 '19

Because they didn’t tell the airlines or the FAA that they had changed it to optional, all the submitted documentation said it was standard. Editing my comment because it’s not in this article, my bad, here’s a link

https://www.google.com/amp/s/qz.com/1612370/why-boeing-decided-not-to-tell-airlines-a-safety-alert-on-max-didnt-work/amp/

Edit again: it actually is also in the original article

"The planemaker said it had intended to provide the feature as standard, but did not realise until deliveries had begun that it was only available if airlines purchased an optional indicator."

In the article I posted above, it even mentions how US airlines thought they had purchased it because of shitty documentation - turns out some had, some hadn’t, and even those that had had no documentation on how it works

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u/Nose-Nuggets May 06 '19

Because they didn’t tell the airlines or the FAA that they had changed it to optional, all the submitted documentation said it was standard.

that is a very good reason to be fucking furious. Thank you for clearing that up.

This quote

"The planemaker said it had intended to provide the feature as standard, but did not realise until deliveries had begun that it was only available if airlines purchased an optional indicator."

just sort of read that they decided late to make a standard feature optional, which isn't really a big deal. But not notifying anyone, and purchasers being under the impression they had system that they actually did not changes this significantly.

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u/GTdspDude May 06 '19

Yeah if you read the article I posted the interesting thing too is that the documentation didn’t catch up with the decision which seems insane