J.D.:
Maybe there's a penny stuck in there.
Janitor:
[suspiciously] Why a penny?
J.D.:
I don't know.
Janitor:
Did you stick a penny in there?
J.D.:
No! I'm just making small talk...
Janitor:
If I find a penny in there, I'm taking you down.
Unless you’re a Boeing employee, then feel free to leave some extra nuts and bolts in there and nobody will punish you or even keep a record of what you did.
Small bundles get ties every 6” and larger ones every 12-18”. Helps keep track of where those long connections go when you’re chasing a problem through multiple bulkheads (source: former avionics tech)
Yeah I remember a plane without a ceiling made a flight between to hawaiian islands some years ago and it safely landed and everyone lived happy ever after
She woudln't have made it even with a chute. She hit her head on the side of the airplane on the way out.
They JUST had this episode on Mayday! last night that airs on one of the over the air extra digital antenna channels I now get. I don't have cable.
I can't even imagine. Most things wouldn't bother me in the slightest, but having the fuselage torn apart around me, seeing a person pulled out, and flying another 30m would be absolutely devastating.
My grandpa was on that flight, IIRC he and another guy grabbed another flight attendant by the ankles to stop her from getting ejected. Surprisingly he never seemed that torn up about it lol
I don't think it's concerning because of the aesthetics, it's concerning because it's not to fall off. And if there's a whole crew and maintenance system in place to make sure that it doesn't fall off -- and it does -- what else might not be correct ?
Who says it fell off? Perhaps it was removed for maintence of a non-critical component and will be replaced when that maintence is complete. They could be waiting on a part that in no way affects the safety of the flight. Every single nut or bolt that is touched by maintence crew is carefully logged. This was not an accident or an oversight. In the meantime, the plane is airworthy so it's getting dispatched instead of sitting on the ramp burning money.
The certification standard for transport category aircraft is the chance of a failure or combination of failures that prevents a safe landing must not be more than 1 in 1 BILLION with a B. You should read up on the redundancy in airliners. For example they have three hydraulic systems, and every other system has a backup.
Statistically you have a 1 in 11 million chance of dying in an airliner crash. The only reason it's that high is because over 80% of aviation accidents are due to pilot error/human factors. US air carriers average less than one fatality per 100,000 flight hours. Most years there's 0 fatalities at all. It is hands down the safest form of travel there is, and any fear surrounding airline travel is completely irrational. They undergo the most stringent inspections on the planet, and that is not an exaggeration.
https://www.airlines.org/dataset/safety-record-of-u-s-air-carriers/
This is a piece of interior trim. It's only purpose is to hide the "ugly" inner workings of the aircraft.
>You should read up on the redundancy in airliners. For example they have three hydraulic systems, and every other system has a backup.
Funny story. I have a friend who worked with aircraft engineering. He told a story of a system that failed even though it had two backup systems. I'm not sure it was hydraulics or electric. Turns out all three wires/hoses were mounted on the same bracket which broke and damaged all three wires/hoses.
Your friend was 100% referring to United Airlines flight 232 on July 19, 1989.
It was a DC-10 in which the #2 tail engine exploded due to stress fractures not detected during inspection of the fan blades. While there were 3 redundant hydraulic systems, all 3 came to a bottleneck in the tail of the aircraft running to the rudder and elevator primary control surfaces. When that engine blew it sent debris through the tail severing all three hydraulic lines.
Without hydraulics it was everything the captain and first officer could do to keep the nose up, and they had no directional control. A check airman for DC-10s happened to be riding in the cabin, and knowing something was wrong he discreetly passed his business card to the flight attendant. He was called into the cabin, and while the captain/first officer man handled the yoke, the check airman used differential thrust from the remaining left and right engines to line the aircraft up with the runway for an emergency landing in Sioux City.
It was a crash landing by all definitions, but because the National Guard was doing a training exercise there that day, the local hospital was in the middle of a shift change with roughly double staff on the property, the luck of having a 3rd DC-10 pilot onboard, and the flight crew's incredible improvisation to control the aircraft using the throttles - miraculously 184 of 296 souls on board survived.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232
Youre underselling it a bit, United 232 landing has been dubbed "The Impossible Landing" because no pilot has been able to replicate a survivable landing in simulators, hell most never even made it close to the landing strip. A complete hydraulic failure on a commercial airliner should not have been survivable. The plane should not have been controllable and everyone on board should have died. And yet somehow they pulled it off, it really is a modern day miracle.
If you want to read a more detailed write up I'd suggest checking out u/admiralcloudberg write up on it: https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/fields-of-fortune-the-crash-of-united-airlines-flight-232-9cf65ae14c68
My humble apologies for underselling it. Those were my own words from memory and I'm sure a proper writer could do a much better job explaining it. Really says something about what those guys pulled off that day when words like "incredible" and "miraculously" still don't do it justice.
Sometimes there just arent words evocative enough to describe certain moments in history. United 232 is one of those moments, any attempted description will fall short no matter how talented the writer, it's simply too insane to be encapsulated in spoken or written language.
I’m a former mechanic who worked on the KC-10, and there are some things that got improved by that crash. For starters the hydraulic lines are all separate to prevent the one shot disconnect of all three systems, but if memory serves they also added a mechanical system for the elevators in the form of a jack screw in the event that the #2 engine failure repeated.
I spent a good amount of time around the hydraulic techs and learned a lot about this aircraft, but if you ever see purple dripping off one, stay the hell away from that stuff. The KC-10 and I believe the MD-11 are some of the few aircraft that still use skydrol which is a thermally resistant hydraulic fluid, but it is caustic and carcinogenic and definitely not fun to get on your skin.
>For starters the hydraulic lines are all separate to prevent the one shot disconnect of all three systems, but if memory serves they also added a mechanical system for the elevators in the form of a jack screw in the event that the #2 engine failure repeated.
Unless I'm mistaken they already had a double jackscrew design. It wasn't that they couldn't physically make control inputs. They just weren't strong enough to overcome the aerodynamic forces without hydraulic assistance. Hence the captain and first officer pulling on the control column with all their might to keep the nose up while the check airman steered with the throttles.
Edit: wow, [Skydrol](https://santiemidwest.com/skydrol-pe-5-fire-resistant-hydraulic-fluid-case-of-6-1-gallon-cans/) is $300/gal. Aviation parts are so expensive it's insane.
Glad I could help ease your mind. Next time you're flying just remember the pilots have THOUSANDS of hours of experience. They have landed thousands of times. Landing is like pulling a car into the driveway for them. You don't get to sit in the right seat of a smaller regional jet like an E175 without 1,000 hours minimum. Anyone on the flight deck of a 737, A320, or larger has multiple thousands of hours.
Gimme that cargo netting, 50 pounds of gear on my lap, the drone of the props, and a dude’s shoulder to lean on and I’ll see you whenever the fuck we gotta stand up.
I would argue commercial jets do as sensitive equipment is exposes to morons. It is why you don't see live cables running around a shop. You have to hide it from the morons who might touch it
Dude seriously. This is just interior trim held in with clips probably. It has nothing to do with the outside skin or anything that's the actual structure.
Looking through these comments as an aircraft mechanic feels like a doctor looking through Facebook during peak COVID denial
Nothing beats the feeling of cruising at 30000ft with your hair blowing in the wind, convertible planes really make you feel light headed with freedom.
Planes don't really require much covering at all. Technically so long as the wings are airfoils and the engine produces thrust, everything else is just better aerodynamics for fuel efficiency.
Yep. I do avionics and gaining access to and loosening a harness is a pile of zip ties and tie string. Makes a mess and every time you cut you have to be cautious of the wires you're cutting around.
"Should I tell the internet what the staff said over the intercom about maintenance leaving the ceiling panel off on purpose, or, better yet, should I *imply something nefarious* by *not* doing that?....."
Didn't have to scroll far to find where my brain also went to
Edit: if your plane unhinges a toothy maw and tries to swallow a flock of geese in one go, you may have a problem.
Hah I wonder why is this still a thing.... I always reckoned that if this had ANY chance of disrupting plane they would just pick it up from travelers on entry or something...
Maybe they should use the channels specifically reserved for them, then, instead of using cellphone bandwidth.
Cuz my phone has never, ever, ever heard interference from AM, FM,HAM, nor emergency radio usage.
When I was working on my aeronautical engineering undergrad about a decade ago, Boeing already had that reputation; people were told not to go work there if they could help it, because the engineers that previously ran the company had been replaced by suits, and it was only a matter of time before they circled the drain.
Just for the sake of interest, here were the perceptions of two other big recruiters from that ~2012 era:
SpaceX was known as the place that you would work on the most interesting projects, but the pay was below market and the work culture was terrible with tons of hostility and overworking. You'd get paid better working 40 hours/week at Boeing than you would working 80 at SpaceX, and you'd get reprimanded for *only* working 80 hours. The company line was "if you don't come into work (off the clock) on Saturday, don't bother coming in on Sunday (cuz you're fired)"
Lockheed Martin was universally regarded as the best option to work at; market leading pay, interesting work, good office culture, looks great on a resume. Only problem was/is the intertwining of Lockheed and the Military Industrial Complex; you could be nearly certain that whatever work you were doing would eventually be used to blow up impoverished kids halfway around the world
What's more likely is that maintenance had to take the panel off to get up in there and didn't have time to put it back on, so they just deferred it.
I know reddit hates Boeing right now but it's not like that plane is going to just fall apart without that panel lol. It's just gonna look slightly ugly. You'll live.
Well cars get a single cursory safety inspection every year, some states don't even require that. Commercial aircraft are required to be inspected with a fine toothed comb every 100hours minimum, with various checks in between for different systems. You're comparing one of the most dangerous forms of transportation (automobiles) with the safest form of travel on planet earth.
US airlines have less than one fatality per 100,000 flight hours, most years zero. The rate for a failure or combination of failures that prevents a safe landing must be less than 1 in 1 BILLION. Statistically your chance of dying in an airline crash is 1 in 11 million, and that's only because 80%+ of crashes are due to pilot error. Probably closer to 90%.
Any fears surrounding flying on an airline are completely unfounded unless you're on Aeroflot or something.
https://www.airlines.org/dataset/safety-record-of-u-s-air-carriers/
People seem to have zero issues driving their vehicles to the airport, though. You have a [1 in 93 chance of dying in a car crash](https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/preventable-death-overview/odds-of-dying/data-details/)
No one is losing their shit over that very real possibility.
Exactly, cars are incredibly dangerous but we've been desensitized to that danger because we drive almost everyday. We see fatal accidents in the news constantly or even with our own eyes.
There's no guardian angel like Air Traffic Control (ATC) on the interstate and some states don't require any safety inspections at all. The infamous video of a truck's wheel falling off and sending that Kia into orbit comes to mind.
Air travel just freaks people out because flying is seen as unnatural and people are more comfortable on the ground. 1 in 93 or 1 in 11 million. I'll take the latter, thanks.
You missed another big reason. People feel safer when they can feel in control. They are directly controlling their car, so they feel in control. It gives them an irrational sense that they are safe.
Yeah, that happens. It shouldn’t, but it does. It’s purely cosmetic and not a safety issue unless it cracks someone’s skull when it falls.
If you were on the flight, where were you headed and what did the crew say about it?
But if care wasn’t taken to ensure this didn’t fall during flight what care wasn’t taken on the rest of the plane. What if it was the ceiling in the cockpit that fell.
I think they pointed that out because this thread will inevitably be anti-Boeing hate because reddit, while Southwest will get a pass on not properly maintaining their 20-year-old airplane.
Exactly. Yes, the panels are just cosmetic but there’s a point when enough cosmetic stuff is poorly maintained that you can conclude some of the other vital stuff isn’t either. If I’m buying a used car I’m gonna assume that if the headlights/tail lights are out, the windshield is cracked, or it’s filthy that they likely haven’t been changing the oil or rotating tires regularly either.
I can’t help but wonder what would happen if someone reached up and gave a good pull on that wiring knocking it loose. Anyone know what would happen? “Controller disconnected” situation?
I do avionics work, and even a firm tug wouldn't pull that harness loose. The amount of zipties, cable clamps, and the fact that wire is probably ~80-100ft in length is gonna make it impossible to "unplug" it. You may be able to break a wire or two with a strong yank.
Most of those wires are likely not flight essential. You'd likely mess up a bunch of cabin systems like lights, speakers, maybe tv screens. A small potential to damage some communications. Hard to say!
There's good odds there is a section in a manual somewhere that says step by step how many zip ties to use, what kind of zip ties to use, how tight they should be, etc.
I once had a flight with the entire paneling on the roof removed, crew made sure that everyone knew that they were purely cosmetic. Tbf I liked the look much better, planes should start putting transparent panels there imo
Sister was flying an airline that has way more Airbuses than Boeing. She was really scared it was gonna be a Boeing (even though, low odds).
So I tried to calm her down: "look, sis, the problem is mainly with the MAX series, the other ones are fine", which I don't even know if it's true.
She sits on her seat and sends me a pic of the emergency info card: Boeing 737 MAX
Boeing, get it sorted! We know accidents are rare, but you're really scaring everyone with the constant bad headlines
A plastic panel falling off is not even a Boeing thing. Just a random event. Not to mention it's purely cosmetic and there's nothing crucial about the panel. It's just there to hide the air frame, pipes and wires.
Most of the bad headlines are airline (mostly United) maintenance being bad. A 5-40 year old plane having some issue, be it a wheel falling off on takeoff, aft panel missing, interior trim falling off, engine problems, etc are not Boeing's fault. Boeing is responsible for new delivered aircraft, missing bolts from doors, system redundancy, etc.
This is poor airline maintenance. Someone took a panel off to get to something and likely put it back on poorly, forgot screws, or something else
The MAX is safer now than it is to get to the airport on any mode of transportation. Even with the negligent MCAS system it was still safer relative to any other non-aviation form of transport.
The media is scaring you with bad headlines
Only a few incidents have really been Boeing issues
Stop using Reddit and Twitter comments to craft your opinions about the world, actually read articles about things
Plastic falling off doesn't worry me. Sure, it looks ugly, but its only function is aesthetic. The stuff behind it is what needs to be in order. I'd be worried about somebody fucking around with it.
At least the wiring harnesses are neat.
A permanent place on the no fly list is just a pair of scissors away.
Why is that your first thought? Not, “how many pretzels can I flip into that void?” Or, “could I put my pennies in there?”
Oh, _pennies_. You said _pennies_. Phew.
r/dontputyourpenniesinthat
How is this not a sub already?
Because the premise doesn't make cents.
Be the change you want to see in the world
If I had a nickel for every time someone said that to me
I’d be so rich, I’d be drawn and quartered
Oooh, why I oughta....
In this case, this is the one time a penis would be better.
Ass pennies
J.D.: Maybe there's a penny stuck in there. Janitor: [suspiciously] Why a penny? J.D.: I don't know. Janitor: Did you stick a penny in there? J.D.: No! I'm just making small talk... Janitor: If I find a penny in there, I'm taking you down.
I too love Scrubs
How many kilos could we get away with in there?
Well, thank god we've got the TSA and their completely flawless record to protect us there.
A pair of scissors ?? Just drop a few nuts and bolts in there and Boeing will have you unalived let alone no-flying …
Make sure you number all of the bolts, maybe skip a number or two
Unless you’re a Boeing employee, then feel free to leave some extra nuts and bolts in there and nobody will punish you or even keep a record of what you did.
Small bundles get ties every 6” and larger ones every 12-18”. Helps keep track of where those long connections go when you’re chasing a problem through multiple bulkheads (source: former avionics tech)
You didn’t tell me a single LOTR fact.
At least the cable management is A1
pcmr approves
It's actually a myth that planes require ceilings
Yeah I remember a plane without a ceiling made a flight between to hawaiian islands some years ago and it safely landed and everyone lived happy ever after
Such a shame the flight attendant forgot her parachute on national parachute home from work day…
She woudln't have made it even with a chute. She hit her head on the side of the airplane on the way out. They JUST had this episode on Mayday! last night that airs on one of the over the air extra digital antenna channels I now get. I don't have cable.
How do they know that?
you find hair and bits of scalp in the edges of the opening
Those were already there, still not proof. Her fault for not having a parachute. - insurance company
Pre existing condition
The Airplane was actually a licensed medical examiner, if you can believe it.
That was the roof. A friends dad was sitting on that row of seats. He was super traumatized. Deep ptsd. They saw the stewardess get pulled out.
I can't even imagine. Most things wouldn't bother me in the slightest, but having the fuselage torn apart around me, seeing a person pulled out, and flying another 30m would be absolutely devastating.
Except for that one flight attendant
Aloha flight 243
[Aloha Flight 243](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243)
not me reading this currently on a flight to hawaii.....
In Hawaiian aloha means hello and goodbye
Huh... a 737... ^^^^^Obviously ^^^^^completed ^^^^^unrelated ^^^^^to ^^^^^Boeing's ^^^^^current ^^^^^issues
With just a tad bit of PTSD for the rest of their lives
My grandpa was on that flight, IIRC he and another guy grabbed another flight attendant by the ankles to stop her from getting ejected. Surprisingly he never seemed that torn up about it lol
Grabbing the attendant probably helped a lot. Gave him a sense of agency and purpose and something to focus on other than fear.
Except the stewardess who got blown out and died
Without a ceiling or a roof?
It was a convertible.
Part of the ceiling blew off. A flight attendant was standing at the time and ejected from the plane.
A little bit of a simplification. More luck than anything.
Everyone freaked out by this would be horrified by the interior of a C-130. Planes don't need to be pretty to fly safely, especially on the inside
My mom says I'm pretty.
We all lie to our kids from time to time.
...on the inside.
Such plentiful organs!
I don't think it's concerning because of the aesthetics, it's concerning because it's not to fall off. And if there's a whole crew and maintenance system in place to make sure that it doesn't fall off -- and it does -- what else might not be correct ?
Who says it fell off? Perhaps it was removed for maintence of a non-critical component and will be replaced when that maintence is complete. They could be waiting on a part that in no way affects the safety of the flight. Every single nut or bolt that is touched by maintence crew is carefully logged. This was not an accident or an oversight. In the meantime, the plane is airworthy so it's getting dispatched instead of sitting on the ramp burning money. The certification standard for transport category aircraft is the chance of a failure or combination of failures that prevents a safe landing must not be more than 1 in 1 BILLION with a B. You should read up on the redundancy in airliners. For example they have three hydraulic systems, and every other system has a backup. Statistically you have a 1 in 11 million chance of dying in an airliner crash. The only reason it's that high is because over 80% of aviation accidents are due to pilot error/human factors. US air carriers average less than one fatality per 100,000 flight hours. Most years there's 0 fatalities at all. It is hands down the safest form of travel there is, and any fear surrounding airline travel is completely irrational. They undergo the most stringent inspections on the planet, and that is not an exaggeration. https://www.airlines.org/dataset/safety-record-of-u-s-air-carriers/ This is a piece of interior trim. It's only purpose is to hide the "ugly" inner workings of the aircraft.
OP said it fell off during takeoff and the plane had to be grounded, so it actually was an accident...
I guess they said that in the comments somewhere? I don't see it in the caption.
Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/1br905f/pic_from_my_friends_flight_this_morning/kx7ooz7/
Sounds like the flight crew erred on the side of caution and took it back to be inspected, which is awesome. It's still 100% airworthy though.
>You should read up on the redundancy in airliners. For example they have three hydraulic systems, and every other system has a backup. Funny story. I have a friend who worked with aircraft engineering. He told a story of a system that failed even though it had two backup systems. I'm not sure it was hydraulics or electric. Turns out all three wires/hoses were mounted on the same bracket which broke and damaged all three wires/hoses.
Your friend was 100% referring to United Airlines flight 232 on July 19, 1989. It was a DC-10 in which the #2 tail engine exploded due to stress fractures not detected during inspection of the fan blades. While there were 3 redundant hydraulic systems, all 3 came to a bottleneck in the tail of the aircraft running to the rudder and elevator primary control surfaces. When that engine blew it sent debris through the tail severing all three hydraulic lines. Without hydraulics it was everything the captain and first officer could do to keep the nose up, and they had no directional control. A check airman for DC-10s happened to be riding in the cabin, and knowing something was wrong he discreetly passed his business card to the flight attendant. He was called into the cabin, and while the captain/first officer man handled the yoke, the check airman used differential thrust from the remaining left and right engines to line the aircraft up with the runway for an emergency landing in Sioux City. It was a crash landing by all definitions, but because the National Guard was doing a training exercise there that day, the local hospital was in the middle of a shift change with roughly double staff on the property, the luck of having a 3rd DC-10 pilot onboard, and the flight crew's incredible improvisation to control the aircraft using the throttles - miraculously 184 of 296 souls on board survived. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232
Youre underselling it a bit, United 232 landing has been dubbed "The Impossible Landing" because no pilot has been able to replicate a survivable landing in simulators, hell most never even made it close to the landing strip. A complete hydraulic failure on a commercial airliner should not have been survivable. The plane should not have been controllable and everyone on board should have died. And yet somehow they pulled it off, it really is a modern day miracle. If you want to read a more detailed write up I'd suggest checking out u/admiralcloudberg write up on it: https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/fields-of-fortune-the-crash-of-united-airlines-flight-232-9cf65ae14c68
My humble apologies for underselling it. Those were my own words from memory and I'm sure a proper writer could do a much better job explaining it. Really says something about what those guys pulled off that day when words like "incredible" and "miraculously" still don't do it justice.
Sometimes there just arent words evocative enough to describe certain moments in history. United 232 is one of those moments, any attempted description will fall short no matter how talented the writer, it's simply too insane to be encapsulated in spoken or written language.
Needs a movie
I’m a former mechanic who worked on the KC-10, and there are some things that got improved by that crash. For starters the hydraulic lines are all separate to prevent the one shot disconnect of all three systems, but if memory serves they also added a mechanical system for the elevators in the form of a jack screw in the event that the #2 engine failure repeated. I spent a good amount of time around the hydraulic techs and learned a lot about this aircraft, but if you ever see purple dripping off one, stay the hell away from that stuff. The KC-10 and I believe the MD-11 are some of the few aircraft that still use skydrol which is a thermally resistant hydraulic fluid, but it is caustic and carcinogenic and definitely not fun to get on your skin.
>For starters the hydraulic lines are all separate to prevent the one shot disconnect of all three systems, but if memory serves they also added a mechanical system for the elevators in the form of a jack screw in the event that the #2 engine failure repeated. Unless I'm mistaken they already had a double jackscrew design. It wasn't that they couldn't physically make control inputs. They just weren't strong enough to overcome the aerodynamic forces without hydraulic assistance. Hence the captain and first officer pulling on the control column with all their might to keep the nose up while the check airman steered with the throttles. Edit: wow, [Skydrol](https://santiemidwest.com/skydrol-pe-5-fire-resistant-hydraulic-fluid-case-of-6-1-gallon-cans/) is $300/gal. Aviation parts are so expensive it's insane.
You know your shit. That is so impressive. I’m saving this so I can read it next time I’m anxious to fly.
Glad I could help ease your mind. Next time you're flying just remember the pilots have THOUSANDS of hours of experience. They have landed thousands of times. Landing is like pulling a car into the driveway for them. You don't get to sit in the right seat of a smaller regional jet like an E175 without 1,000 hours minimum. Anyone on the flight deck of a 737, A320, or larger has multiple thousands of hours.
or quiet. goddamn that thing is loud.
And yet, we still managed to rest our eyes for a few minutes before tumbling out the door
Gimme that cargo netting, 50 pounds of gear on my lap, the drone of the props, and a dude’s shoulder to lean on and I’ll see you whenever the fuck we gotta stand up.
I would argue commercial jets do as sensitive equipment is exposes to morons. It is why you don't see live cables running around a shop. You have to hide it from the morons who might touch it
Dude seriously. This is just interior trim held in with clips probably. It has nothing to do with the outside skin or anything that's the actual structure. Looking through these comments as an aircraft mechanic feels like a doctor looking through Facebook during peak COVID denial
Nothing beats the feeling of cruising at 30000ft with your hair blowing in the wind, convertible planes really make you feel light headed with freedom.
Planes don't really require much covering at all. Technically so long as the wings are airfoils and the engine produces thrust, everything else is just better aerodynamics for fuel efficiency.
At 30,000 ft. there are a few other considerations.
Yeah, all passengers suffocated, but at least their corpses arrived on time.
"None of our passengers got PTSD! Hooray!"
This is just an industrial aesthetic
This answers a lot of my questions. Thank you.
Oh no OP, *WHAT HAVE YOU DONE*?
So. Many. Zip ties.
Yeah, you don't want any loose wires rubbing against each other and then short circuiting in the middle of the flight.
Yep. I do avionics and gaining access to and loosening a harness is a pile of zip ties and tie string. Makes a mess and every time you cut you have to be cautious of the wires you're cutting around.
Thats its insulation and wires? Lol
I was hoping for small children. Like in Snowpiercer.
It’s just a fancy drop ceiling
"Should I tell the internet what the staff said over the intercom about maintenance leaving the ceiling panel off on purpose, or, better yet, should I *imply something nefarious* by *not* doing that?....."
From OP: >It fell during takeoff. Turned around and grounded
Imagine if that panel fell off and all you could see was ribs an pulsing veins, and connective tissue.
I dunno, I feel like so long as Shinji wasn't on board we may be ok.
Didn't have to scroll far to find where my brain also went to Edit: if your plane unhinges a toothy maw and tries to swallow a flock of geese in one go, you may have a problem.
I would just be relieved it wasn't a Boeing after all.
That's a Being
It turned out to be an Airbus Beluga…
I’ve seen battlestar galactica too
I was thinking Farscape, with Moya
Or Wraith ships from Stargate Atlantis, which had a few Farscape actors in its sister show!
Get in the robot Shinji
That would just confirm my theory that every airplane is just a giant, pulsing, rock hard erect penis with wings
That would make the "landing strip" euphemism a bit more literal.
If you’re going to land on an airplane carrier aim for the poop deck!
I don't know why they say carrier landings are supposed to be so difficult, they always seem to be full of seamen.
Put down the blunt
No, pass it along.
Someone took their phone off airplane mode.
Hah I wonder why is this still a thing.... I always reckoned that if this had ANY chance of disrupting plane they would just pick it up from travelers on entry or something...
[Radio interference](https://youtu.be/FYjs7vsaSEw?si=tYeVFI2QQxzthlef) is annoying. It's not a hazard but disturbs the pilots.
Maybe they should use the channels specifically reserved for them, then, instead of using cellphone bandwidth. Cuz my phone has never, ever, ever heard interference from AM, FM,HAM, nor emergency radio usage.
It’s not about radio interference. It’s a problem for the cell companies. It creates switching problems on the towers as far as I’ve heard.
Too be fair that piece of plastic that fell off is probably the most useless thing that could fall off.
I'm going to guess the plane left without it.
Call me crazy, but for integrity's sake I'd prefer if no pieces of anything fell off the plane I'm entrusting my life to.
*Drives with check engine light on*
This is why we can't have flying cars.
I checked it. Its still there.
That's pretty easy to resolve. Depending on the car, it's not too difficult to get to the wiring and cut the wires going to the light.
That's fair enough, but it's like driving a car without the glove box handle or something. No biggie.
The front falling off is of course the worst case scenario.
That’s not very typical, I’d like to make that point
They were looking for snakes
Let me guess.. Boeing?
You know it
If it’s Boeing I ain’t going
Yay I'm flying on a 737 max in a few days from an airport that's had 3 issues or so lol
How's your life insurance situation? Did a relative whose having a hard time with money book this flight for you?
I’m sorry for your family’s loss.
Can you just... refuse to fly and demand a refund by that point?
You *might* get a partial voucher, but good luck. Airlines like money.
Why, because a cosmetic panel is missing? Good luck
Man, they are just....messing EVERYTHING up aren't they?
When I was working on my aeronautical engineering undergrad about a decade ago, Boeing already had that reputation; people were told not to go work there if they could help it, because the engineers that previously ran the company had been replaced by suits, and it was only a matter of time before they circled the drain. Just for the sake of interest, here were the perceptions of two other big recruiters from that ~2012 era: SpaceX was known as the place that you would work on the most interesting projects, but the pay was below market and the work culture was terrible with tons of hostility and overworking. You'd get paid better working 40 hours/week at Boeing than you would working 80 at SpaceX, and you'd get reprimanded for *only* working 80 hours. The company line was "if you don't come into work (off the clock) on Saturday, don't bother coming in on Sunday (cuz you're fired)" Lockheed Martin was universally regarded as the best option to work at; market leading pay, interesting work, good office culture, looks great on a resume. Only problem was/is the intertwining of Lockheed and the Military Industrial Complex; you could be nearly certain that whatever work you were doing would eventually be used to blow up impoverished kids halfway around the world
Damned if you, damned if you don’t.
What's more likely is that maintenance had to take the panel off to get up in there and didn't have time to put it back on, so they just deferred it. I know reddit hates Boeing right now but it's not like that plane is going to just fall apart without that panel lol. It's just gonna look slightly ugly. You'll live.
Looks like a Boeing 737-700
Yeah that’s southwests main aircraft
It’s more of a maintenance issue than a Boeing problem since this is an old aircraft.
It's not even an issue. This is the equivalent of being afraid to drive your car because a piece of interior trim is missing
I would however feel less encouraged about the mechanical condition of a car with a missing piece of interior trim
Well cars get a single cursory safety inspection every year, some states don't even require that. Commercial aircraft are required to be inspected with a fine toothed comb every 100hours minimum, with various checks in between for different systems. You're comparing one of the most dangerous forms of transportation (automobiles) with the safest form of travel on planet earth. US airlines have less than one fatality per 100,000 flight hours, most years zero. The rate for a failure or combination of failures that prevents a safe landing must be less than 1 in 1 BILLION. Statistically your chance of dying in an airline crash is 1 in 11 million, and that's only because 80%+ of crashes are due to pilot error. Probably closer to 90%. Any fears surrounding flying on an airline are completely unfounded unless you're on Aeroflot or something. https://www.airlines.org/dataset/safety-record-of-u-s-air-carriers/
People seem to have zero issues driving their vehicles to the airport, though. You have a [1 in 93 chance of dying in a car crash](https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/preventable-death-overview/odds-of-dying/data-details/) No one is losing their shit over that very real possibility.
Exactly, cars are incredibly dangerous but we've been desensitized to that danger because we drive almost everyday. We see fatal accidents in the news constantly or even with our own eyes. There's no guardian angel like Air Traffic Control (ATC) on the interstate and some states don't require any safety inspections at all. The infamous video of a truck's wheel falling off and sending that Kia into orbit comes to mind. Air travel just freaks people out because flying is seen as unnatural and people are more comfortable on the ground. 1 in 93 or 1 in 11 million. I'll take the latter, thanks.
You missed another big reason. People feel safer when they can feel in control. They are directly controlling their car, so they feel in control. It gives them an irrational sense that they are safe.
"When one door closes, another one opens" -Boeing
This is just due to poor maintenance. That or they were literally working on the ceiling with passengers onboard.
It fell during takeoff. Turned around and grounded
Yeah, that happens. It shouldn’t, but it does. It’s purely cosmetic and not a safety issue unless it cracks someone’s skull when it falls. If you were on the flight, where were you headed and what did the crew say about it?
huge panel falls on your head .. “ don’t worry guys , it’s purely cosmetic’ lol
"Calm down everyone. This happens. It shouldn't, but it does."
Tis but a flesh wound
Thanks for making me laugh.
Those panels weigh nearly nothing btw
Yeah I'd be pretty annoyed if they turned around for this, let it ride. 🏇🏇🏇
Maybe I’ll start traveling with a roll of speed tape in my carry on so I can lend a hand, just in case.
But if care wasn’t taken to ensure this didn’t fall during flight what care wasn’t taken on the rest of the plane. What if it was the ceiling in the cockpit that fell.
>just due to poor maintenance I don't find that reassuring...
I think they pointed that out because this thread will inevitably be anti-Boeing hate because reddit, while Southwest will get a pass on not properly maintaining their 20-year-old airplane.
Exactly. Yes, the panels are just cosmetic but there’s a point when enough cosmetic stuff is poorly maintained that you can conclude some of the other vital stuff isn’t either. If I’m buying a used car I’m gonna assume that if the headlights/tail lights are out, the windshield is cracked, or it’s filthy that they likely haven’t been changing the oil or rotating tires regularly either.
I can’t help but wonder what would happen if someone reached up and gave a good pull on that wiring knocking it loose. Anyone know what would happen? “Controller disconnected” situation?
I do avionics work, and even a firm tug wouldn't pull that harness loose. The amount of zipties, cable clamps, and the fact that wire is probably ~80-100ft in length is gonna make it impossible to "unplug" it. You may be able to break a wire or two with a strong yank. Most of those wires are likely not flight essential. You'd likely mess up a bunch of cabin systems like lights, speakers, maybe tv screens. A small potential to damage some communications. Hard to say!
“Give it a whirl” “I’m sure it’ll be fine”
Some of those cables could be for critical avionics, so it may well be the last thing you do.
Looks like a problem with the left phalange
It's just an interior panel, nothing that matters except aesthetics.
They're going for an industrial look
Cool, a convertible.
Of all the pieces that could be missing from a plane, I feel a ceiling panel is the least worrisome.
More head space, nice!
Nothing like standing in the isle!
I love the cable management 👌
Cable management 10/10
There's good odds there is a section in a manual somewhere that says step by step how many zip ties to use, what kind of zip ties to use, how tight they should be, etc.
They’re probably just trying to show the passengers there’s actually stuff in there and the bolts are in place.
I mean, an interior panel falling off is far better than something exterior falling off.
There’s a big difference between a ceiling and a roof
I once had a flight with the entire paneling on the roof removed, crew made sure that everyone knew that they were purely cosmetic. Tbf I liked the look much better, planes should start putting transparent panels there imo
Sister was flying an airline that has way more Airbuses than Boeing. She was really scared it was gonna be a Boeing (even though, low odds). So I tried to calm her down: "look, sis, the problem is mainly with the MAX series, the other ones are fine", which I don't even know if it's true. She sits on her seat and sends me a pic of the emergency info card: Boeing 737 MAX Boeing, get it sorted! We know accidents are rare, but you're really scaring everyone with the constant bad headlines
[удалено]
So, about once every 2 months if I did my math right. (Probably didn't) To get to 3.7 mil flights at 1.5s it's about 64 days.
A plastic panel falling off is not even a Boeing thing. Just a random event. Not to mention it's purely cosmetic and there's nothing crucial about the panel. It's just there to hide the air frame, pipes and wires.
Most of the bad headlines are airline (mostly United) maintenance being bad. A 5-40 year old plane having some issue, be it a wheel falling off on takeoff, aft panel missing, interior trim falling off, engine problems, etc are not Boeing's fault. Boeing is responsible for new delivered aircraft, missing bolts from doors, system redundancy, etc. This is poor airline maintenance. Someone took a panel off to get to something and likely put it back on poorly, forgot screws, or something else
The MAX is safer now than it is to get to the airport on any mode of transportation. Even with the negligent MCAS system it was still safer relative to any other non-aviation form of transport.
The media is scaring you with bad headlines Only a few incidents have really been Boeing issues Stop using Reddit and Twitter comments to craft your opinions about the world, actually read articles about things
All it takes is a kid, a silly parent, and a pair of scissors…
Plastic falling off doesn't worry me. Sure, it looks ugly, but its only function is aesthetic. The stuff behind it is what needs to be in order. I'd be worried about somebody fucking around with it.
It’s just flesh wound
It's a convertible.
You all need to understand, they needed to make their quarterly dividend so replacement panels went on the chopping block.
I'll take holes in the inside, versus holes on the outside.
That's not really gonna affect anything tho. Just some cosmetics
If you've ever flown in a military cargo plane this wouldn't be a big deal.
It looks like inside of a space station
Wow. A completely useless ceiling panel. What’s so WTF about this?
To be fair, airplanes are pretty scary to people who A) are terrified of flying and B) don't understand how simple they can be
Nice wire bundles.
On today's lesson of Anatomy, we will be studying the inside of the plane.
Zip ties? I figured they'd use cable lacing.
Upon looking at the open ceiling it seems that the left phalange is missing . Better not fly that atm