Weekend Beyond Cars Roundup March 16, 2024

Boeing is having a rough time of it right now, with parts falling off its planes left, right and center. Just last week, a wheel came loose and smashed through a car, and earlier this year the door from a 737 Max aircraft broke off mid-flight. That mid-air disaster sparked an audit from the Federal Aviation Administration, which has gone far from well. - Owen Bellwood Read More

A whistleblower who gave evidence in a case against Boeing has been found dead in South Carolina. John Barnett, who worked as a quality manager at the 737 Max maker until 2017, was found dead this weekend just days after he was questioned in a legal case he brought against Boeing. - Owen Bellwood Read More

If studded tires are good on ice because they dig in to the ice and help the bike hook up on a slippery surface, then surely a saw blade, a tool designed for cutting through things, would do the same job better, right? As it turns out, that hypothesis holds no water. The folks from CboysTV on YouTube found out the hard way, after laser cutting a couple hundred pounds of half-inch-thick steel into the shape of a saw blade and bolting them to the extremities of a Honda CRF250R dirt bike. - Bradley Brownell Read More

The Boeing 737 Max 9 that had a door plug blow out over Portland, Oregon during an Alaska Airlines flight was scheduled for a thorough maintenance check the next day, according to the New York Times. The carrier’s engineers slated the aircraft to be taken out of service because of several hints at a problem that didn’t cross Alaska Airlines’ established threshold for an emergency grounding, which could have spotted Boeing’s critical quality control error. - Ryan Erik King Read More

A United Airlines Boeing 777-300 was forced to return to Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport in Australia after takeoff due to a mechanical issue. United Flight 830 was at the start of a 13-and-a-half-hour flight across the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco. It appears that hydraulic fluid was gushing from the right landing gear strut. If this sounds familiar, another of the carrier’s Boeing 777 planes had a landing gear wheel fall off while taking off from San Francisco on a transpacific flight just last week. - Ryan Erik King Read More

Ex-Boeing quality manager John Barnett was found dead on Saturday shortly after he gave evidence in a case against the American plane maker in South Carolina. Now, lawyers representing the 62-year-old say “no one can believe” he took his own life when the case was nearing its end. - Owen Bellwood Read More

When you’re on a plane, you’re supposed to wear your seatbelt even if the seatbelt sign is off. You may be free to move about the cabin, but if you’re in your seat (or the bathroom of a HondaJet), you want that seatbelt on. Yes, the pilots can predict turbulence to some degree, but you never know what’s going to happen. And as Reuters reports, at least 50 passengers on a flight from Sydney to Auckland found that out the hard way when their Boeing 787 suddenly plunged mid-flight. - Collin Woodard Read More

Unruly behavior from passengers has become an unstoppable problem for commercial airlines. Flights continue to be diverted due to passengers attempting to enter the cockpit, aggressively arguing with other people onboard or attacking flight attendants, despite the efforts of government regulators. The Federal Aviation Administration has levied record fines against unruly passengers and referred cases to the FBI, but it hasn’t had a significant impact. - Ryan Erik King Read More

The SS United States is facing eviction from its mooring at Pier 82 in Philadelphia in a lawsuit filed by Penn Warehousing, the pier’s landlord. The ocean liner has been rusting away in the Delaware River since 1996 but has a storied past. In 1952, it broke the once-highly sought record for the fastest transatlantic crossing, the last passenger ship to do so. The SS United States Conservancy, a non-profit attempting to restore the ship, admits that relocation will be necessary but is still aiming to preserve the vessel. - Ryan Erik King Read More

Air travel lately has been pretty hellish, and things have only gotten worse now that Boeing and its aircraft have come under fire for their increased danger. But what if there was a way you could find flights that didn’t use Boeing aircraft? Maybe it would make some people feel better about flying. - Lawrence Hodge Read More