Boeing has some serious questions to answer about their engineering and QA processes. But attributing random normal problems to that just confuses the issue.
Of course, these are "normal problems" that shouldn't happen and need to be investigated, but it's not quite "the front fell off": https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM
(346 people died in two similar crashes: Lion Air Flight 610 on October 29, 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10, 2019)
With for profit companies, they'd try to push the parts to last 12 years instead of 10 by inspecting them and confirming they're still good.
Saving money this way isn't too big of a deal if you're McDonalds and it's an ice cream machine.
But if it's a for-profit airline it can turn into a problem.
Most predictive maintenance is done with data — updated sensor data processed through a mathematical model derived from principles from reliability engineering. In a sense it’s actually more realistic than the X years model (which is a once off number derived from some reliability model too but doesn’t have the benefit of being updated with real data — it’s usually an overly conservative number)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_maintenance
There is no evidence that predictive maintenance is the cause of Boeing’s mishaps.
Flatcircle's point wasn't really predictive maintenance vs. fixed lifetime, it was about government using conservative design margins vs for-profit industry's riskier design margins.
Predictive maintenance lets you achieve a better cost-vs-risk curve, but the organization still needs to select a point somewhere along that curve.
It’s just a marketing term. Most predictive maintenance models are ML or statistical learning models and have a great track record. Some call it AI to sound hip (you can any ML model AI these days) but it’s probably just a standard model from reliability engineering.
Now, every issue with a Boeing plane will be noticed, reported on and magnified. I'm not saying this is necessarily bad as there actually do seem to be some significant issues at Boeing. Hopefully, the result is an intense shakeup resulting in increased focus on quality.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm
It is a safety critical industry. Did you expect something different? Would we be "better served" by acting differently?
The goal of someone flying is to get there alive, not win the war against bias.
We would be "better served" by actually scrutinizing [all] the parties that need scrutinizing, not latching on to one scapegoat out of fear and sensationalism as opposed to actual safety consciousness.
Pearl-clutching at Boeing about an aircraft the company delivered in the _1990s_ does absolutely nothing to "get [someone] there alive". Where is your outrage at e.g. Delta for flying a 30+ year old plane that has clearly been poorly inspected/maintained?
I'm sure ATC was super happy to have orderly departures thrown into disarray.
> It just rolled off the runway behind you.
(The tweet author credited the video creator!)
"You picked a fine time to leave me loose wheel"
