Control surface write-ups are *huge.* The 737MAX design is broken as designed ... and then poorly built.<p>I actively won't fly one and I've never said that about any other aircraft.<p>(me => FAA licensed aircraft dispatcher / ex-dept chief)
The article makes vague references to scary sounding incidents such as:<p>> In one incident in December 2021, a United Airlines pilot declared a mayday after the system controlling the pitch and altitude of the plane started malfunctioning.<p>And yet, after searching multiple online databases looking for more info, I can't find any evidence of this ever having happened. One exception is this incident from December 2021 in the NASA database which references a non-MAX 737-800:<p>> B737-800 Captain reported stabilizer trim became inoperative and elected to divert and make a precautionary landing.<p>Surely the authors of this hit piece would not have confused the MAX with a completely different aircraft?
Is one declared emergency per 100,000 flights (6 emergencies declared in 580,000 revenue flights, according to the article) more or less than is usual/expected?<p>edit: I was able to find one very rough statistic "about 10,000,000 passenger flights per year" are managed by FAA, and "150 emergency events" are reported in a typical year. That's 1.5 emergencies per 100,000 flights, or fairly in line with what the post-MCAS-redesign 737 MAXs are running
I'm still waiting to ever see any disaster or problem or issue with any other plane manufacturer show up here or in other media sources. Other manufacturers have problems just as often. Yet the reporting is completely, horrendously, skewed to the point where every single Boeing issue is blasted as publicly as possible, whereas you never, ever, hear of any problems with any other planes, which paints a completely inaccurate picture of the landscape.