Same thing happened to British Airways a few years ago on a 787, a misplaced security pin that was inserted in the wrong place during a maintenance operation. There are two very similar holes next to one another that can receive the pin, there's a picture at the bottom here : https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/318989
I don't understand how that caused several injuries among a pretty small group (staff)?
Google says front wheel is about 1.68m. High but not crazy high. Plane body and people fall at same speed and it would be slower than actual freefall since the plane is vaguely balance-ish on rear wheels
I'm sure the reporting is right but feels counterintuitive to me
My uneducated guess is that crew members in the back galley could have been injured by unsecured items they were loading falling or sliding. The service cart itself is 200-250 lbs. With the rear galley accelerating upward, then a sudden halt to the acceleration when the front nose impacts the ground, I could imagine the cart lifting off the ground and landing on feet or legs. Or putting the cart aside, other items such as drink cans, galley appliances, etc. falling from cabinets or counters could cause injury
Because the tow guy called in the leak and the mechanics were clustered around it deciding it it was a "get a new plane" sized problem and they dropped it or whatever. Someone's hand got mashed, someone got bonked on the head and the boss spilled his coffee. Meanwhile inside the cabin whoever was febreezing vomit off the wall of the bathroom reached out to grab anything that was nearby when the plane lurched which turned out to be his coworker's ass and the fake nail grazed his eye when he got slapped for that. And another guy got a bloody nose when he crashed his baggage tractor into a parked forklift at at 3mph because he was watching the whole deal rather than where he was going but he didn't report that one so he's not included in the total.
However mundane and stupid you think ground ops are at an airport triple that and you'll be in the ballpark.
So a plane which has withstood probably countless landings, had its nose gear collapse while sitting statically at a gate of all times and places? Weird.
Collapsed while it was sitting at a gate, with no passengers yet on board - meaning the the gear was under far lower loads than during a landing.
While slowly-failing gear could have collapsed anyway just then, the obvious question is whether the nose gear had just been serviced. By mechanics who (say) forgot to re-install the bolts holding everything together.
I duckduckgo'ed "nose gear collapse" earlier and it seems it may be an issue that's more common than expected? At least there were lots of images of airplanes with broken front wheels and the nose touching the floor.
From the picture and the text this aircraft was parked at the gate. During a hard landing the nose gear may collapse but not while being parked. And while parked there are protections to prevent retraction. However, these can be overridden by maintenance.
Can someone tell me if this is just confirmation bias or is Boeing really going down this hard? I mean management was obviously tanking since the McDonnell Douglas takeover, but did it really take almost 30 years for this to shine through? Or were these things underreported in the last decades?
The 777 and 787 programs have never seen a passenger fatality resulting from an engineering defect. That is a monumental achievement in light of the passenger miles served. Boeing has its problems, but that record speaks for itself
This and we don't know yet what happened. It could have structurally collapsed - very unlikely, it could have uncommanded retracted, or maintenance has overridden the protections. I'd place my bets on #3, handling error in maintenance mode.
From 787 wikipedia page: "On June 12, 2025, Air India Flight 171, an 11-year-old Boeing 787-8 registered as VT-ANB[398] operating from Ahmedabad Airport to London Gatwick Airport, crashed into the hostel building of B. J. Medical College shortly after takeoff. According to the preliminary Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau report released on July 8, 2025, the crash was caused by both engines shutting down after their fuel control switches moved from the "RUN" to "CUTOFF" position.[399]: 13–14 The cause of the switch movement remains under investigation. The report did not recommend any actions to Boeing, or 787 operators.[400][399]: 15 All but one of the 242 people on board were killed, as well as 19 people on the ground.[401] The sole survivor was a British national "
Another thing I'd point out is how often planes regularly fell out of the sky as recently as 40 years ago - my first flight 32 years ago or so, they still had kiosks in the airport to sell you life insurance.
Even with the MAX and the recent (last ~2 years) spate of incidents, flying is safer now than it ever has been, and certainly safer than it has been over its lifetime.
The 1997 McDonnell Douglas acquisition led to their arrogant management culture replacing Boeing's, represented symbolically by the reference to The Economist cover September 10th-16th 1994 of camels fucking.
There have been many other safety defects and scandals swept under the rug, but they rarely make the news because they're detailed and complicated and corporate "news" isn't interested. Also, US presidents have defended them and US regulators run PR interference for them too.
The biggest one is the fact that unknowable 737 NG -6xx/-7xx/-8xx/-9xx structural fuselage elements including bear straps manufactured grossly out of spec by subcontractor Ducommun, declared "airworthy", and pounded into place on the Boeing fuselage assembly line on orders of management present greater risks of fuselage breakup during severe turbulence, runway overruns, and hard landings. There have already been fuselage breakups of NG airframes that 737 Classic aircraft survived more intact in similar circumstances. Most worryingly, there has been extensive retaliation against whistleblowers.
Same thing happened to British Airways a few years ago on a 787, a misplaced security pin that was inserted in the wrong place during a maintenance operation. There are two very similar holes next to one another that can receive the pin, there's a picture at the bottom here : https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/318989
Wondering if the same mishap is behind it again.
Yikes, mojibake in 2021.
edit: actually, how did that happen? The apostrophes show up correctly, they’re just all preceded by a  that doesn’t seem to represent anything?
The report on that incident says there was a hardware modification to make this impossible, to be incorporated before Jan 2023.
(It also says this happened to Boeing in 2018 and they ignored it, of course)
Video (reddit) - https://www.reddit.com/r/aviationmaintenance/comments/1twmd2...
I don't understand how that caused several injuries among a pretty small group (staff)?
Google says front wheel is about 1.68m. High but not crazy high. Plane body and people fall at same speed and it would be slower than actual freefall since the plane is vaguely balance-ish on rear wheels
I'm sure the reporting is right but feels counterintuitive to me
If you are inside the cabin and not expecting, would be sliding down quite a bit.
+1. And honestly you can injure yourself pretty badly by just falling down. Especially if you’re a bit older.
My uneducated guess is that crew members in the back galley could have been injured by unsecured items they were loading falling or sliding. The service cart itself is 200-250 lbs. With the rear galley accelerating upward, then a sudden halt to the acceleration when the front nose impacts the ground, I could imagine the cart lifting off the ground and landing on feet or legs. Or putting the cart aside, other items such as drink cans, galley appliances, etc. falling from cabinets or counters could cause injury
Because the tow guy called in the leak and the mechanics were clustered around it deciding it it was a "get a new plane" sized problem and they dropped it or whatever. Someone's hand got mashed, someone got bonked on the head and the boss spilled his coffee. Meanwhile inside the cabin whoever was febreezing vomit off the wall of the bathroom reached out to grab anything that was nearby when the plane lurched which turned out to be his coworker's ass and the fake nail grazed his eye when he got slapped for that. And another guy got a bloody nose when he crashed his baggage tractor into a parked forklift at at 3mph because he was watching the whole deal rather than where he was going but he didn't report that one so he's not included in the total.
However mundane and stupid you think ground ops are at an airport triple that and you'll be in the ballpark.
Yep. My brother was ground ops at Stansted. Knocked himself out cold falling over a traffic cone he just put out.
He's now an estate agent. Must have been the concussion.
So a plane which has withstood probably countless landings, had its nose gear collapse while sitting statically at a gate of all times and places? Weird.
One post said that the plane was only 4 months old.
https://www.planespotters.net/airframe/boeing-787-9-d-abpq-l...
Okay, countable landings.
Not yet at the https://avherald.com/
Collapsed while it was sitting at a gate, with no passengers yet on board - meaning the the gear was under far lower loads than during a landing.
While slowly-failing gear could have collapsed anyway just then, the obvious question is whether the nose gear had just been serviced. By mechanics who (say) forgot to re-install the bolts holding everything together.
> That’s not very typical, I’d like to make that point
I duckduckgo'ed "nose gear collapse" earlier and it seems it may be an issue that's more common than expected? At least there were lots of images of airplanes with broken front wheels and the nose touching the floor.
This is a joke about "The Front Fell Off", a classic comedy video from a few decades ago.
If you haven't experienced the awesomeness of "The Front Fell Off", do yourself a favor and seek it out on youtube... you won't be disappointed.
Joke ? Those people were serious.
From the picture and the text this aircraft was parked at the gate. During a hard landing the nose gear may collapse but not while being parked. And while parked there are protections to prevent retraction. However, these can be overridden by maintenance.
Well this time it at least didn't fall into the environment.
Can someone tell me if this is just confirmation bias or is Boeing really going down this hard? I mean management was obviously tanking since the McDonnell Douglas takeover, but did it really take almost 30 years for this to shine through? Or were these things underreported in the last decades?
Confirmation bias, instant communication, hyper focus on Boeing mishaps, etc.
The 777 and 787 programs have never seen a passenger fatality resulting from an engineering defect. That is a monumental achievement in light of the passenger miles served. Boeing has its problems, but that record speaks for itself
This and we don't know yet what happened. It could have structurally collapsed - very unlikely, it could have uncommanded retracted, or maintenance has overridden the protections. I'd place my bets on #3, handling error in maintenance mode.
From 787 wikipedia page: "On June 12, 2025, Air India Flight 171, an 11-year-old Boeing 787-8 registered as VT-ANB[398] operating from Ahmedabad Airport to London Gatwick Airport, crashed into the hostel building of B. J. Medical College shortly after takeoff. According to the preliminary Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau report released on July 8, 2025, the crash was caused by both engines shutting down after their fuel control switches moved from the "RUN" to "CUTOFF" position.[399]: 13–14 The cause of the switch movement remains under investigation. The report did not recommend any actions to Boeing, or 787 operators.[400][399]: 15 All but one of the 242 people on board were killed, as well as 19 people on the ground.[401] The sole survivor was a British national "
Another thing I'd point out is how often planes regularly fell out of the sky as recently as 40 years ago - my first flight 32 years ago or so, they still had kiosks in the airport to sell you life insurance.
Even with the MAX and the recent (last ~2 years) spate of incidents, flying is safer now than it ever has been, and certainly safer than it has been over its lifetime.
Commercial air traffic has increased ~400% since 1990 [0], do you feel that number reflects the increase in reporting?
0. https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/world-air-pas...
The 1997 McDonnell Douglas acquisition led to their arrogant management culture replacing Boeing's, represented symbolically by the reference to The Economist cover September 10th-16th 1994 of camels fucking.
There have been many other safety defects and scandals swept under the rug, but they rarely make the news because they're detailed and complicated and corporate "news" isn't interested. Also, US presidents have defended them and US regulators run PR interference for them too.
The biggest one is the fact that unknowable 737 NG -6xx/-7xx/-8xx/-9xx structural fuselage elements including bear straps manufactured grossly out of spec by subcontractor Ducommun, declared "airworthy", and pounded into place on the Boeing fuselage assembly line on orders of management present greater risks of fuselage breakup during severe turbulence, runway overruns, and hard landings. There have already been fuselage breakups of NG airframes that 737 Classic aircraft survived more intact in similar circumstances. Most worryingly, there has been extensive retaliation against whistleblowers.
https://christinenegroni.com/boeing-workers-warn-of-737-ng-s...
The only reason boeing exists today is because they've paid off Trump
Given that it's their turf, is it reasonable to consider sabotage by an Airbus-affiliated entity?
It was the same sniper that blew up that Starship
And New Glenn. This guy gets around!