flight safety detectives episode 212 - new aviation safety incidents involving boeing planes

More than 50 people were injured on March 11 when a Boeing 787 flying from Australia to New Zealand experienced a precipitous drop. John Goglia shares inside information that indicates one of the pilot seats was accidentally moved forward, jamming the pilot up against the control column and causing the sudden drop.

Special guest Miles O’Brien joins Todd Curtis and John Goglia to discuss this and another aviation incident from early March 2024. The second incident occurred on March 7, when a planespotter recorded a video of a wheel falling off of a 777 shortly after takeoff from San Francisco.

The location of the cockpit seat switch in the 787 airplane is examined in detail. John shares first-hand experiences that demonstrate why the information about the March 11 flight is plausible. The event investigation by the Chilean authorities is expected to provide full details.

Todd shares his experiences as a Boeing engineer working on the 777 development program. He and his colleagues identified design changes to deal with potential safety issues, but most of those changes never happened.

John shares his experiences with wheel separation events. He has an informed opinion on how the recent 777 wheel separation event may have happened. The NTSB needs to get to the root cause and provide the public with detailed information about what happened.

The media, including social media, plays a significant role in bringing attention to aviation safety events that were often ignored in the past.
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Are there more aviation safety issues than in years past? John points out issues such as experienced professionals leaving aviation. Todd looks at the impact of increased availability of aviation data.

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