The Scuttlebutt - podcast episode cover

The Scuttlebutt

Jan 08, 202423 min
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Episode description

A pilot calls in to weigh in on the story of the Boeing 737 Max 9 plane that lost a door-plug mid flight, leaving a gaping hole in the plane

Transcript

This is a downbeat freak. All right, Let's go back live to the NFL Black Monday News desk with our correspondent Mike sir Roy. Sorry, there's so much coming in. Uh. We reported earlier this morning, Thank you, Kevin, thanks for having me that Arthur Smith, head coach of the Atlanta Falcons, had been fired. We got another one just came in. Hot. Washington Commanders coach Ron Rivera apparently has been fired from his duties as

head coach the Washington Commodores. Commodore Riverboat Ron as he was called for a long time, not because he was really did risky things, just because it was a cool ass nickname. Yeah, Like statistically, he didn't really go for it more than yeah. It's just kind of a thing that they said. But it's fun to say out loud. Ron Rivera fired. It's a damn shape. When you think of steady hand, Ron Rivera looks like a guy that's hand has never shaken in his now cool cucumber. Was Ron Rivera

been in the league for a very long time? Why was that his nickname? Then? Riverboat Ron? He should have been As you know, the Commodoores are led by cool cucumber RIVERA. That's way cooler. Was he in proximity to a riverboat in one of his former stops? Yeah, he was born on a riverboat? Okay, really, yes, Kevin? Really? No? Oh I know, I don't know the backstory. Will be born on a river boat? Oh? Yeah, there's two down. It's only

seven thirty seven anti Meridian here in the Central time zone. We have two coaches officially fired here on Black Monday, Arthur Smith of the Falcons, Ron Rivera, the Commanders. Who's next? So five on the year. Who's next? Will it be? Bill Belichick? Bill Belichick? Noted movie critic Bill Belichick? Will it be wet to check Raves? It's hilarious. We'll let you know before anyone else on planet Earth. I can't promise that, but I'm on top of it. I'll say that we get Dingo's Morning News

in an hour and an hour and a half. Golden Globes Review. Why is everyone so mad about last night? Okay? Why are people saying this is the worst award show of all time? I'm actually excited for this segment because I didn't see any of it, but all I heard was that whoever the host was bombed and made everyone mad. And I've got the audio. Okay, I think he was mad that people weren't laughing. I love that even more like I'm failing and I'm mad at you guys, because it's on

you. It's like the story of my life. He made one young lady mad very early in the show. He did it cringey. I don't really like it's for us. He got bomb stared down as she was taking a sip from her flute of champagne. That's for half the meams come from his award show reactions of celebs, and it's great. It's really great. Yes, good drama. Also, we gotta make it joke got back. You

know. We did our Golden Globes predictions last week with our listeners and we have tracked those to see if our listeners are gonna win mystery prize pack from the Downbeat. Granted, I don't know what our giveaway is this week, Yettie, So there's that. Let's do our daily news segment, the scuttle Butt here Bing Bing bing well, Dave Bing. So basically, this story that I want to lead with today is a tale of It's a harrowing tale

of flight. So there was a big situation in the air on Friday night as the FAA has ended up having to order the Boeing seven thirty seven MAC. They had to ground a lot of them until they're inspected. Not all of them though, because there's a wild of it Friday night where a plane lost a piece of its body in mid air, and it is insane if you haven't seen the video or seen this going around over the weekend. Alask

Caroline's flight twelve eighty two. It's leaving Portland, it's headed for California, and then about ten minutes into a flight, a part of the fuselage blew out and it left a huge gaping hole in the side of the plane. There's about ten minutes after takeoff, there's sixteen thousand feet up in the air. The plane returned to Portland and landed twenty minutes after taken off. Everyone's

good, everyone, everyone's okay. But who there's trauma that's gonna come from this, and basically what they want the what they're going going to inspect is something that's called the mid cabin door plug. And it is not like on the exit row where the wings are, but it's a place where it's a A door could be inserted there on other planes if there are more people on

them, but they did not have a door there on this one. Now, this fight had two plugged doors, and they're located between the rear of the plane and then in the emergency exits to the back half of the plane. This was in seats road twenty six. Seats A and B just fell out. Just imagine the window you're looking out of the plane and that little section that panel gone. Good God, luckily no one was sitting in those seats. Oh really, yes, they were been Okay, had they been

buckled in. They think they would have been fired if they were buckled in because they had not reached a cruising altitude that would have killed everyone where the pressure would have killed everyone. But that can't happen. I've look at that. It's like that door. I guess they build these fuselages for multiple different types of configurations, right, Yes, so it was almost like a not perforated But there's a a different configuration that would have been a door, but

it's not. Yeah, there's there's some kind of maybe the fuselage is somewhat compromised in that spot. My understanding I've read, say a couple of different articles on this to see if anyone had extra details on it. My understanding is basically built with a they call it a door plug for if you had more seats or less seats put on the plane, you know, so if

they could have been turned into an emergency door. Yes, yeah, okay, And this is again a part of uh it's the Boeing seven thirty seven Max nine and why this is an extra Oh, I guess there's more too. Juice to this story is that in twenty eighteen Boeing had their Max eight

airplanes killed a bunch of people. Twenty eighteen there was a seven thirty seven Max eight that crashed into the ocean off the coast of Indonesia, and then five months later another plane crashed in Ethiopia, killing one hundred and fifty seven people, and they had to like make big changes to the plane. The FAA cleared Boeing seven thirty sevens the Max Max plane they call it. That was the Max eight. This was the Max nine. They cleared to fly

again in late twenty twenty. And these planes are in wide use, like there is I read three million flights scheduled in January, almost five percent of them are using the Max eight plane, and about one percent of those is the Max nine. Point. So if you're like researching that, you're going on a trip somewhere and you're flying a Boeing seven thirty seven, see if it's a Max eight or Max nine and maybe don't get on it. Hey, don't make people paranoid. I'm not trying to scare you. Yeah you

are. What are you trying to save you? You just said save you, not scare you. Do you know how many damn flights there are a how safe that stuff is. I'm shocked at how safe it is. It's incredible that we don't have that. I mean, we haven't had knock on Wood a real big air disaster in a long time, not domestically. And if that's that's the big news, and yes that's terrifying, But we didn't

lose one soul. Yeah, yeah, that's that's amazing. One person the FAA said, if they were at a cruising altitude then this just happened, then, yeah, everyone on the plane dies. Really, Yeah, because the pressure there's a little I don't know if you have this in your story about the previous issues with this plane, this exact plane. No, no, okay, so this dropped. I saw this this morning when I woke

up. But about four hours ago, New York Times reported that the Alaskan Airlines plane that we're talking about that lost a piece of its fuselage mid on Friday was not being used in long flights over water because a pressurization warning light had gone off during three recent flights. So this used to this exact plane, I guess got not grounded, but it was not allowed to fly long flights over water because it had had pressurization problems. The warning light had been

going off during three recent flights. It's too soon to say whether the issue had played a role in what happened on Friday, but it's certainly a concern and it's one that we want to dig into. The board's chairwoman of Alaskan Airlines said, we have on the free cutline an expert in the field of air, in the field of flight. Oh it's a pilot, okay, all right, Hello, what's your name? Captain? I you? Hey? What's go on? Hey? Man? We got you live on the

air. Yeah. You don't have to say your name if you don't want, But if you want to say your name, you can say right now, sorry miss was that? We are you a pilot? You can help us? You know what's going on with the situation? Yeah, what's going on? Man? Yep? Talking about the Alaskan Airline flight. You called in to provide expertise on it, and that's where we sit right at this moment. Yeah. I just read a couple just a couple of things you

were talking about. Just wanted to clear up some stuff and answering questions you guys had, is actually what happened or what the actual safety concern was, or if people were actually in dangerous situation like this, tell us what you know? Yeah, so obviously you saw it was a Max nine with the

last airlines. The Max, as you guys were just talking about, it has had some significant problems in the past, completely unrelated issue, more due to the engined modifications that were done at the aircraft that were causing basically needed a flight software fixed to counter the thrust from the engines that would push the

nose up, that would automatically push it down. It had a problem with that that system was activating and pushing the nose down when it didn't need to, so that was what you heard a few years ago when the Max was grounded. It is completely unrelated. You saw a plug door separated from the aircraft. You guys were mentioning that the airplane has built into a few different configurations, and this was a situation where Alaska shows based on their seating configuration.

There's a number of exit requirements for the amount of passengers that are in the airplane, and since Alaska and this particular configuration had fewer passengers, they weren't required to use those emergency doors. However, that the cutout for that door is still in the airplane. If you look on the outside of the airplane, you can actually see where the door would be. There's just a wind Yeah, there's just a window there. There's not there's not the actual

door. So on the inside you see the normal plant paneling and a normal window. The rest of the UH, just the rest of the aircraft would see. So you may be sitting at one of these doors and you don't know it's there. This is not uncommon, This is UH. They do this on multiple airlines, different different airplanes as well that don't utilize all the mercy doors. Based under UH. The requirement for the certification of the aircraft.

But the door kind of where the door plug flying off certainly is uncommon. I mean what end that is? So yeah, so there has there there's always issues manufacturing. So there was an issue with the software. Obviously with the Max before there has been uh issues you know, structural compromise or something like that with a door coming off. So there obviously there is a somewhat compromised portion of fuselage there, there's a port portions cut out that has

to be reinforced and attached the panel there instead of having the door. So in this case, obviously something with a brand new airplane, most likely something with the manufacturing process. Some pieces were missing, something was overlooked and they missed. Yeah, they they missed a piece there because for for structural uh uh adominantly like that to happen or something to fall apart where uh, it

would be a situation just right where the door was. Obviously there was something improperly done with that portion of the of the assembly for you know, people inside. You know, there's been completing reports on who was sitting there, but maybe somebody who was in the B seat but not in the A seat, which so this is on the left side of the aircraft. So seven thirty seven has three breached, so agency. So definitely, I guess there's nobody in the a seat if there was somebody there, uh, if there

were. This is why as a airline captain, and when I'm up there and I say, hey, please keep the seatbelt fast in even if the seatbelt signs off in case we encountered unexpectable US yeah off. Chances are, yeah, chances are if that person was there with their seatbelt on, they might have been injured by maybe some debree that got sucked out, you know.

Most that's the kind of the stuff. As a depressuration happens the air the pressurized are on the airplane is going to go the least through the resistance out of your plane, which is gonna be that whole. So a lot of stuff is gonna be flying out that door. People's drinks or you know, pamphlets, all that stuff. However, you know, for as for the depressurization, even up at altitude I heard you guys talking though about you

know, yeh, at that altitude. You can depressurize at cruise altitude thirty five thousand feet forty thousand feet The real concern is the timing, useful consciousness and staying awake, mainly for the pilots. We're we're trained to immediately get our emergency masks on and starting to descend. That's when you'll see the masks fall and all that stuff. You guys have some time. You know, it could be anywhere from you know, three to five seconds up to you

know, a minute before you leave. It was conscious conscious before. Based on the altitude. Obviously, the higher you are, the faster that's going to happen. But as for survivability, completely survivable other than the actual structural problem, like if some of the metals sheared off and actually hurt somebody else to see, that'd be a problem. But as for the depressuration or the loss of auction, not really a concern if they can get the airplane down

quickly. And I don't know if you were called. There was actually a seven thirty seven in Hawaii years back that lost the whole top of the fuselage for probably about fifteen twenty rows of seats to the front. The whole from the floor up just turned into a convertible. People were just riding there looking over the side and a couple of people were lost on that the one wearing cheat belts and whatnot. I don't remember the exact details, but the people

were on their seatbelts and they're they're fine. They're just looking out the side, you know, down twenty thousand feet to what's around them. So it was it was pretty It was pretty interesting to watch that video to look out the window. You were out out that door. You saw the lights passing. The people are just kind of looking out the door like they're looking down out the window. But as for survivability, pretty safe as long as you

got your seatbel on. So that's that's another plug to always always wear your sheatbelt in the when you're when you're your sheets back there, damn, captain, is okay if I call you captain? Yeah? So if you're flying the plane, sorry, I mean, I just want to ask questions. Okay, two things. First off, if there's a flight attendant or someone a row or two away not wearing their seatbelt, are you getting launched out of your seat in this scenario sixteen thousand feet are you hanging on to an

arm rest? I mean, I know it's so Really the big thing is pressure differential. So at sixteen thousand feet, the cockit's gonna or the cabinty and the cockat it's all the same for the front of the piles in front of it and the passers of the back. Typically the commercial airlines, they're

gonna be pressurized somewhere between you know, six to eight thousand feet. The newer airplanes are pressurized lower to make it more comfortable for the human body, because as you get higher, there's less humidity, there is less aucygen. I mean, there's obvious auction the airplane, but for environmental situations, for physiological reasons, it's less fatiguing on the body. So it's much more comfortable to stay at a lower altitude. You know, you don't feel your ears

popping much. A lot of things that happen with the body physiologically in flight, especially as you go up an altitude. So at the lower altitude, if their planes pressureized, say at seven thousand feet and you're at sixteen thousand feet, there's only what you have there nine thousand foot press pressure differential, so it's not that much of the difference at altitude and explosive. This would

be an explosive decompressions we talk about or rapid decompression. It's not like a pump one of our sea and Layman turns like one of the pumps that pump the pressure in right to keep the futurelaged pressurized. It's not like one fail then it's slowly depressurized. This is what we call a rapid decompression or an explosive decompression. Where you go from if they're at you know, say you're at if it's pressurized eight thousand feet and all of a sudden you depressurize the

thirty five thousand feet. That's a rapid decompression. That's where you're gonna have all that pressurized air is going to be screaming out of the airplane wherever it can find a hole. In this case that door. So there would be things flying out that way. Whether that's enough to throw somebody from their seat who's sitting further away, I would say no, but you're definitely going to get loose items, loose articles that are gonna be uh that are gonna be

flown out that way. The people in the in the new area, Yeah, there's a potential that have some issues if you're not wearing your seatbelt, so it is a threat. And that's why we always want you, always, always always to wear a seatbelt just in case there's a situation like that happened. And like I said, if there was this case, if people

were sitting there, that would have saved their lives. If they if they were sitting there, I'm confident they would they would have written home looking out the side of the out of the door, just like just kind of like you saw with somebody. We're talking to Captain live on the down. So Okayngers, not the Rangers mascot of our last one. You're dropping, you're flying the plane. I imagine lights go nuts, you feel it physically, you you sort of I assume this hasn't happened to you, but you would

know what happened instantly, just real quick. We only have about a minute. How does the procedure of I'm sure there's a call you make where where the air traffic control understands it. You need to get to an airport that's got a large enough runway. You can't come back to df W. The scenario that you're flying out of here, I mean, how is that procedure of mass emergency? I have to get this thing on the ground and you have to determine what level of emergency it is. Yeah. Absolutely so.

First of all, anybody who's up there flying these their planes are any highly trained. We train to this multiple times we go. We do simulators either a couple times a year, once a year, depending on the programs. We do these emergency after emergency after emergency, including we do these rapid decompressions or things like this. I actually had a rapid decompression like this in Afghanistan who formal Air Force retired fly over there. I had one in Afghanistan in

the weather. We had to descend and get out out of the weather around the mountains to where we get down and get auctioned to everybody on the airplane. So it does happen. The first thing anytime there's two of us up there, and the first thing we always train to is myrecraft. Whoever's flying

is going to say mirecraft. That's going to confirm who's flying the airplanes, and so there's no question who's on the controls, and that's going to save some other things that we've learned from the past incidents like that there's not two people playing it once on a deep pressurization. The first thing the pilots do before you do anything else is we get our emergency auction mask. And these things are crazy in an airliner. Man, you pull it out, you

squeeze two buttons, it expands. You put it over your face and it goes around the back of your head. You release it and it's like the alien from the Alien movies, and it just sucks to your face and it pulls, pulls right to your face. So it's a very tight seal to get that oxygen flown. And that's gonna get That's our one, number one party because obviously the pilots are gone. We're gonna have bigger issues than that.

So that's our number one thing, and we're gonna hear it. We'll get alarms, we'll get a pressurization warning, there's gonna be bells going off in the cockpit. We're going to know what's going on. So but our number one thing is we're gonna get our auction masks on. We're gonna do a couple other things, and then we're going to immediately start a decent preferably

below ten thousand feet where the people don't need oxygen anymore. Really below fifteen thousand feet you'll be fine with no auction, but so we'll do that. We'll get the airplane descending. Once we have it under control, then we'll talk to ATC and say, hey, may Day, may Day, may day, whoever our airline is or whatever we're doing there, we need emergency

decent this heading. Hopefully they're going to help us out points in the right direction if there's any terrain around there, to keep us clear of that. Obviously we have a terrain radar in our plane, so we can keep mind in that. But the priority thing is to get down now to where and get breathe of auction because there's only a limited amount of auction for the pastors and that, you know, depend on the airplane you're looking at, you

know, fifteen to thirty minutes of oxygen. So we got to get down and that's what we'll do. Get below you know, ten to fifteen thousand feetle where you can breathe normally without without the use of auction. So that's really the primary things, just safety, get control of the aircraft, get ourselves moved down, let ATC know, and then we'll come up with a game plan. We have plenty of it's not the the airplane's not falling apart, well mostly obviously in this case, right, but we have some time

to come up with a game plan and safely land. If it's not as feasible to land back in BFW because there's something's going on, we can go to you know, Alliance, or we can go down to San Antonio or whatever else we need to do up to Shepherd Airport space to got long run lines as well, so a lot of options there. But primary thing is get control airplanes, get our auction going, and get down so that people can have auction in the back. Is captain, stay on hold if you

will. We'd like to get your information in case we ever have any more plane issues in the future. Well do Hey, it's great talking to you guys in a great show. Wuld likeless you guys. Oh, thanks so much. We appreciate. I'm saluting you, captain, not only for your information today before your Air Force service as well, and thank you for calling in. Hi. Good morning guys. Think here there he goes, Captain.

That was very informative. The downbeat Captain, that was I mean, I mean a lot of words per minute, but that was very informative short amount of time. Look, we're gonna get to our cowboys commander's predictions, but we're not gonna let this best pro shops story fall by the wayside either. Good all that covered in the eight o'clock hour on the Downbeat. Next on ninety seven to one The Free

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