Boeing turmoil continues as whistleblower speaks out & jet loses nose wheel on runway

Wittman Regional Airport, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, USA - July 29, 2011: Crowd watching a Boeing 787 taxing to runway for takeoff at the Air-Venture airshow.
Edited by Travel Weekly


    When it rains, it pours, and that’s certainly the case for Boeing at the start of 2024 as an internal whistleblower speaks out about the now infamous window blowout and another aircraft lost a front wheel as it prepared for takeoff.

    According to the whistleblower, who claims to have access to the manufacturing records of the specific plane that lost its emergency door mid-air, Boeing was clearly at fault.

    “The reason the door blew off is stated in black and white in Boeing’s own records,” the whistleblower posted to an aviation website, the Seattle Times reported. 

    “It is also very, very stupid and speaks volumes about the quality culture at certain portions of the business.”

    The ‘insider’ continued to state that company records highlight four bolts that prevent the door plug from sliding off the stop pads that ‘take’ the pressurisation load in a flight.

    “(The bolts) were not installed when Boeing delivered the airplane [sic].

    “Our own records reflect this.”

    Although the whistleblower remains anonymous, the claims do carry some credit with investigators having already raised the possibility that the failure to install the four bolts could have been a factor in the incident.

    The post continued to detail the lack of attention to detail in the construction process, stating that the door plug should have been formally inspected and signed of by a ‘quality inspector’.

    The final blow was the slamming description of the Boeing 737 production system as, “a rambling, shambling, disaster waiting to happen.”

    Some in the aviation world have taken joy in joking about the situation at Boeing, perhaps done best in this Twitter/X post:

    Delta Boeing aircraft loses front wheel prior to takeoff

    On 24 January at Atlanta Airport things got worse for Boeing (and its PR team!) as the nose wheel of a Delta Being 757 passenger jet ‘popped off and rolled away’ while the plane was in the final stages of its take-off process.

    The incident was picked up thanks to a live recorded on ‘liveatc.net.’.

    “Tower there’s a 75(7) on the runway that just lose a nose tire,” an unidentified pilot on another aircraft said to tower controllers.

    “Tower, it sounds like we have a problem,” the pilot of the aircraft in question responded.

    After some back and forth chatter on the radio, the original explained the mishap, “Delta 982, this is the aircraft looking at you.”

    “One of your nose tires just came off.

    “It just rolled off rolled of the runway behind you.”

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