‘Overstretched’ Regulators Keep Missing The Boeing 737 Max’s Serious Flaws

Photo: Mathieu Lewis-Rolland (Getty Images) The door plug blow-out on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 has rightly provoked an intense outburst of public scrutiny regarding the Boeing 737 Max 9. Initial findings have led federal regulators to believe that design and quality control issues at Boeing and its supplier Spirit AeroSystems caused the dramatic incident. But … Read more

Factory Error Could Have Led To Dangerous Door Plug Blowout On Boeing 737 Max

A door plug that blew out of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282Photo: National Transportation Safety Board (AP) When a door plug blew out from an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 just minutes after taking off from Portland, Oregon, it raised several questions about the troubled airliner. Will airlines still be allowed to fly Boeing 737 … Read more

Almost 200,000 Flights Were Canceled In 2023, But That’s Half As Many As The Year Before

Photo: Watchara Phomicinda/MediaNews Group/The Press-Enterprise (Getty Images) The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has announced that only 1.2 percent of the 16.3 million flights scheduled last year were canceled, the lowest flight cancellation rate in at least a decade. Cancellations were nearly cut in half compared to 2022, when the rate was 2.3 percent. The … Read more

There’s A Relic Runway From America’s Failed Supersonic Future Hiding In The Everglades

Supersonic airliners never became as common as airlines and government officials hoped.Photo: Victor Drees/Daily Express/Hulton Archive (Getty Images) When supersonic flight was set to transform passenger air travel in the late 1960s, Miami-Dade County had grand ambitions of becoming the center of commercial aviation’s fledgling intercontinental network. Local government wanted to construct the world’s largest … Read more