Ryanair Boeing 737 Max dives 2,000ft in 17 seconds sparking investigation
https://inews.co.uk/news/ryanair-boeing-737-max-dive-investigation-3131117
Posted by theipaper
Ryanair Boeing 737 Max dives 2,000ft in 17 seconds sparking investigation
https://inews.co.uk/news/ryanair-boeing-737-max-dive-investigation-3131117
Posted by theipaper
12 Comments
A [Boeing 737 Max airliner](https://inews.co.uk/news/world/whistleblower-boeing-737-max-parts-defects-3047566?ico=in-line_link) flown by [Ryanair](https://inews.co.uk/topic/ryanair?ico=in-line_link) dived at high speed in the final stages of a journey to [London Stansted Airport](https://inews.co.uk/topic/stansted?ico=in-line_link), sparking an official investigation, **i** can reveal.
Data shows that flight FR1269 descended more than 2,000ft in the space of just 17 seconds on 4 December last year.
Air accident experts declared a “serious incident” after the aeroplane’s descent rate of more than 8,000ft per minute, despite flying at a low altitude at the time.
Nobody was hurt on the 197-seat plane, which was on a two-hour route to the UK capital from Klagenfurt in Austria.
Ryanair said the case involved an “unstable approach” prior to landing. The airline is cooperating with the UK’s [Air Accidents Investigation Branch](https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/air-accident-investigation-crash-shoreham-mh370-mh17-farnborough-aaib-353327?ico=in-line_link) (AAIB) while it examines precisely what happened and why.
Aviation analysts told **i** they are alarmed, especially in light of ongoing concerns about the 737 Max [raised by whistle-blowers](https://inews.co.uk/news/world/boeing-whistleblower-killed-himself-more-speaking-out-3125011?ico=in-line_link), after a door [fell off one jet midflight](https://inews.co.uk/news/world/passenger-boeing-alaska-airlines-sue-2957993?ico=in-line_link) in January.
Two of the Boeing airliners went into disastrous nosedives several years ago, killing 346 people, and the manufacturer may yet face prosecution in the US for alleged breaches of a legal settlement related to those crashes.
The AAIB’s log of cases describes the jet as experiencing a “[high speed and high nose down pitch attitude](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/aaib-current-field-investigations/air-accidents-investigation-branch-current-field-investigations)”, indicating that it suddenly began flying steeply downwards.
This was “during [go-around](https://skybrary.aero/articles/go-around)“, according to the AAIB. This is when a plane approaches a runway but its pilot aborts the landing and begins climbing upwards again with engines at full power, before circling the airport and making another attempt to land.
Couple of things.
Ryanair might be absolutely awful for customer service and trying to squeeze every penny out of customers but one thing they are never budget on is safety. Their controversial CEO, Michael O’Leary, has gone on the record to say
> We have a perfect record. We invest in new planes, we’re serious about safety all the time. It’s the thing that keeps me awake at night.
It’s the one area they do not mess around and the referral is hopefully just then being extra precautionary.
However, given the absolute shambolic track record and history of the 737 Max, I would be concerned. It honestly does feel like Boeing is never going to recover its reputation until the 737 Max is retired.
Note that the official information doesn’t seem to give details other than there was an incident they are investigating.
> But Flightradar24 shows that it then suddenly dropped
The paper has got that information by looking at the FR24 logs.
That may well be correct, but it’s not a verifiable source and has been know to have a few anomalies especially when something expected happens.
Imagine having to fly Ryanair and then finding out at the gate that your aircraft is a 737 Max…
Someone didn’t pay the ‘don’t do any high speed dives’ fee.
Given the current concerns around *certain variants* of the 737 max, it’s disingenuous to include that in the headline when the cause of this incident has yet to be determined.
Holy shit!
That’s roughly 117 ft/s, or about 35 m/s! Gravity is 9.8 m/s so thats 3.5 times faster than gravity!
Hope they were givin out complementary underwear on arrival 💩
> Nobody was hurt on the 197-seat plane, which was on a two-hour route to the UK capital from Klagenfurt in Austria.
It was flying to Stansted, not London. That line is nearly as bad as the airport being called London Stansted.
During Covid RyanAir forced all their engineers to take a permanent 20% pay cut. If they didn’t like it they could leave.
That’s like an emergency decent profile you’ll see at high altitude, but at low altitude, fuck that.
I am flying soon and I hate it, this Boeing press isn’t doing any wonders for my anxiety levels.
I imagine this is only getting headlines because of it being a 737 max, but there could be any number of reasons for the incident so as it stands it’s hard to glean anything from the story one way or the other.