Piers Morgan and Richard Quest dissect recent aviation crises, analyzing a Singapore Airlines turbulence incident that killed a passenger despite the aircraft's structural integrity against 1,500 feet per minute vertical movements. They scrutinize Boeing's systemic quality failures, including the Alaska Airlines door plug incident caused by omitted screws and the MAX crashes, while noting modern radar cannot fully gauge internal storm ferocity. Ultimately, the discussion reaffirms that flying remains statistically safer than being struck by lightning, even as unresolved mysteries like MH370 and political optics surrounding Rishi Sunak's election announcement linger in the background. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Boeing Safety Concerns00:11:54
If you spend any time at all online at the moment, you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a terrifying time to be an air passenger.
Boeing, in particular, has faced a slew of claims about the safety of his aircraft.
Several whistleblowers have raised concerns.
A series of high-profile incidents, including a door blowing off an Alaska Airlines flight in January, have caused understandable concern.
And yesterday, a British man tragically died of a suspected heart attack after a Singapore Airlines flight hit severe turbulence and plunged 6,000 feet.
So should we be alarmed?
Was that one better to ask and CNN star, aviation mega brain, Richard Quest, who I haven't spoken to in many years?
Richard, great to see you.
Good to see you, Piers.
It's a fascinating story, this one of the Singapore flight, because in essence, it could happen to any one of us that flies.
There are no unique factors about this case, other than you have a plane that is flying along and all of a sudden gets hit by turbulence.
But what's interesting, Piers, is that the height that this plane went up and down was not thousands of feet.
It was only several hundred feet at each time.
But the ferocity, because of what's known as the vertical rate of ascent, that's what was so powerful.
This plane was being pummeled up and pummeled down several hundred feet a minute, and that's why it was so difficult.
And ultimately, what level did it go from and to by the end of this?
Right.
Now, this is where you not that much.
The greatest differential of feet seems to be about 300.
So it goes from 37,000 up to 37,150, and then maybe down to 36,700.
Right.
The confusion here, Piers, is people have confusing later on where they see the plane descending to 31,000 feet.
But if you look at the chart, that is a controlled descent on autopilot, and it's a continual descent down to a lower level.
The actual incident, the differential is from bottom to top, is about 400 feet, but it happens aggressively.
It happens at a rate of ascent of 1,000 a minute and at a rate of descent at 1500 a minute.
These are very, very violent movements, but they're just not that big.
Now, I think you're right in saying that no plane has ever crashed from turbulence, right?
Correct.
It is the plane is built.
I mean, let's take this incident, for instance.
There is absolutely zero chance in my view that this incident was ever going to cause the failure and collapse and destruction of the plane.
This was not that great a movement.
It was a brutal movement.
It was violent, but it wasn't like the plane dropped 10,000 feet.
Believe me, if that had happened, you'd have had a lot more dead bodies.
So here's my question.
Clearly, somebody died from a heart attack.
It was obviously scary up there and other people got injured.
But here's my question.
I just assumed that modern day aircraft are so sophisticated now, the systems they have.
Why is it that they would not be able to detect such turbulence approaching?
Because I'm told they have all these built-in systems, which are specifically designed now to actually detect when this stuff is there.
So what happened?
There is a difference between detecting the presence of the storm and really understanding the ferocity within it.
So yes, they did see that there was a weather pattern ahead.
And it was obviously one that they could not go around.
So they had to go through or at least go back, go skirt the edges of.
But when this thing happens, what they can't tell you is just how bad.
Yes, the radar's got yellows and greens and reds on it that will help them understand it.
The best way, actually, is what's known as a ride report, which comes from pilots ahead of them.
And one of the parts of the investigation will be, were there ride reports that told them this was not very clever to be going through it?
And one other point, Piers.
Look at my office, just sort of vaguely behind you.
You can see all the Detroiters of the day.
Now, imagine you're on the plane and they're serving breakfast.
And suddenly you're told, well, in a minute or two, you're going to hit this.
All of this is just going to go up into the air.
And that's why there's such a mess.
And those panels, by the way, on the roof, they're meant to be opened and to taken down.
So if somebody hits it, something opens it, they fail.
All the really serious stuff that controls the aircraft is hidden way, way down beneath under the floor or in the walls.
Now, there have been a lot of Boeing-related incidents.
You know, we've had wheels falling off.
We've had doors falling off.
We've had whistleblowers coming forward to point out all sorts of flaws and problems with the company and its engines and so on and its aircraft.
What is your belief about where the truth lies?
Does Boeing have a big problem?
If it does, what's causing it?
Yes is the short answer.
Boeing has a big problem.
And the problem is one of quality control.
Let's go back to the MAX incident.
The problem with the MAX incident, where the crashes of the MAX incident wasn't quality, it was profit seeking over safety.
The documentation is absolutely clear.
They made mistakes in the way they designed and the way they told pilots about the MAX.
But now take that as being year one.
You then have Calhoun taking over as the CEO and you have this two-year period where he is telling us that everything is changing.
Things are getting better.
Safety, safety, safety.
Safety first.
Nothing comes before safety.
And then right, you have this door plug where four plugs, four screws are not put back on.
And it not only blows the door out, it blows a hole, a gigantic hole in Boeing's argument that they are safety first.
Because for crying out loud, Piers, if you're safety first, how do you not put the four plugs back on the door?
Why?
Now, Michael O'Leary, you know, Michael of Riot.
He told me last year, he said, look, we get planes from Boeing.
And when we go through them, they're fine.
They're perfectly safe.
But we find things that aren't quite right.
This isn't being, this isn't that.
Something that's been left on.
Nothing terribly significant or serious, but we find we have to put it right.
Alaska was an egregious case of that.
And now Boeing doesn't have, Piers, Boeing does not have to convince me that it makes brilliant, bloody brilliant planes that fly beautifully and are fuel efficient.
It has to convince us all that it can make those planes so that six months later, it doesn't have to go and repair them.
You see, my parents don't fly at all.
My mother's flown like once in 25 years.
She's terrified of it.
I've never had any problem.
I hate heights, funny enough, but I have no problem flying at all.
But I've got to say, the more of these things that happen, the more slightly twitchy you get.
And what you just said is not massively reassuring because I always think it's like if the little things start to go wrong, you always assume that inevitably there's a mindset issue that could lead to a bigger thing going wrong.
And that's exactly the sort of, I mean, you're talking about dog bites baby syndrome that we have in journalism.
You have one incident and suddenly you have millions of incidents and they were always happening all the time anyway, but suddenly you're seeing them all.
And this is really, I think, where we in the media have gone slightly a bit off beam.
Let's take United.
I mean, United has had a series of incidents, but those incidents were happening anyway, and they weren't that serious.
But it did raise the question, which is why the FAA got involved, and which is why United took the measures that it did, and which is why United is now told, yes, you can take new planes again.
You can carry on expanding because there was nothing systemic.
That's the word you need to focus on.
And in Boeing's case, there was something systemic at max.
Arguably, there has been something systemic on quality, and that's what they have to address.
But thank goodness, there are a million and one people and processes between when the plane is handed over from Boeing to the airline to when you and I actually get to sit on it and it starts to fly.
Is it safer to fly now than it's ever been, do you think, notwithstanding all this?
Oh, completely.
Absolutely.
You've got more chance of being hit by lightning than an accident in a plane.
Absolutely.
I flew yesterday, Riyadh to London, London to New York.
I'm flying next week from somewhere else.
I don't worry, to be honest, to be honest, Piers, I do not worry about the aircraft itself.
I've seen wings in testing being sent to 45, 50 degrees.
I've seen just how well built the plane is.
Even if, I mean, ignoring the door blowing off, I worry more about air traffic control.
I worry more about pilot training in some cases in some parts of the world.
And I worry about all the ancillary parts that make it.
But I do not worry about the actual plane falling apart.
It is the least of my problems.
And this incident yesterday on this Singapore Airlines flight, as a result of what happened, as a result of the fact somebody died, are they going to be modifying planes now to try and avoid this recurring in the way that it did?
No, no, they won't be because there's nothing they could have done.
The man died regretfully and untragically, probably from a heart attack.
What they will be, Piers, if I say to you, and we've known each other a while, if I say to you, always keep your seatbelt fastened, you immediately yawn and think, here we go, apple pie, motherhood, and turn the light, turn the gas off if you're going away from Chris, if you're going away for Christmas.
Lag your pipes in winter, all the usual bromides.
Right?
Oh, good.
Here we go again.
Tell me something I don't know.
But if I also give you the example, I'm just looking in my office.
If I can find a suitable thing to demonstrate, let's take these things here.
This is you on a plane.
Now, if the plane drops, look what happens to you.
You go down, but the roof is here and you hit the roof.
Think of the egg in the bottle.
Put an egg in a bottle and shake it.
That is you without a seatbelt.
And there's something blasé about passengers, particularly.
And I'm one of the worst, and I suspect you're up there too, that sort of fly frequently.
And we're too cool for seatbelts.
I mean, you know, that's for little old women at the front of the plane, whatever.
No, I make sure now I always fasten the belt and I keep it loosely fastened when I'm sleeping because I don't want to be the egg in the bottle that hits the roof of the plane if we drop.
And this thing, Singapore, shows us you don't have to drop much, only a couple of hundred feet.
I can't let you go without taking you back to the last time we worked together at CNN, early 2014, where for six consecutive weeks, night in, night out, as I was hosting my show, Piers Morgan Live, as it was then.
And you were my regular guest as the aviation guru.
And we were trying to work out what the hell had happened to that flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
So my question here, nearly 10 years later, have we ever found out what happened to that plane?
Rishi Sunak Rainy Exit00:02:49
No.
And I'm looking for a copy of my book, which is somewhere here, which I think I sent you a copy of.
The no, we haven't.
And that's fascinating because, you know, people will tell me this happened, that happened.
We don't know.
Just leave it at that.
We don't know.
I have one question for you, Piers, if I may.
Of course.
Are you excited at today's announcement on the UK election?
It's interesting.
You know what?
I was really struck by is that you know when things aren't going well for you as a political leader and it just when it rains, it pours, we would say right as UK people and I watched Rishi Sunak came out, came out of the number 10 door and it was pouring with rain.
It's been ghastly weather and they didn't have him covered so he got absolutely soaked and all I could think was the headline the next day will be, rather than Rishi Sunak boldly goes for early election, it's going to be drowning street.
You know, washed out, washed out, Rishi.
You know blah blah, blah, it'll all be rain and soaking jokes and wet jokes.
That is not a great optics, all I could think.
I was mesmerized, not by the fact that it was, you know, july 4th, which is independence day, has all his connotations for that and it's a definitely a bold move by Sunak to do it.
But, just as a former newspaper editor, the glee I would have felt at being able to immediately have a big picture of this drowned rat.
Prime minister, with things can only get wetter, or whatever you want to say.
Um, that was what struck me.
The optics were terrible, which begs the question, why on earth didn't they just move it inside, were they hoping to show him as being man who's like everybody else, gets wet?
Now, you can't do it.
So i've got one question for you before you go um, and it's this, you fly a lot and you've already given some insight into the ridiculous schedule you have.
Who is the person in the world present company accepted, who you would least want to be finding yourself sat next to on a long-term, long-distance flight?
Oh, least want, to least want to.
Oh, that's easy, that's easy.
Wherever i'm working, the ceo of the company.
Um it's, it's like being, it's like being, you know you, the first time you're invited to go on the corporate jet, you really think you've made it, you're the dog's buttlocks and you really think oh, this is great.
And then you get to realize you've got to sit on this bloody plane and make polite conversation without giving anything away to the ceo who incidentally, always gets the best seat out, of course, of the private jet.
So I I love sitting next to strangers and making conversation and I love all of that.
And i've perfected the art of saying, you will let me sleep now, won't you do forgive me and let me go, but um no, the person I would least like to spend 12 hours across the Pacific is the ceo.
Corporate Jet Etiquette00:00:49
I once spent uh, 10 hours flying from London to Las Vegas on a Virgin Atlantic flight In one of their, you know, the pods they used to do, in first class, upper class, whatever they called it.
And there was a very glamorous lady lying next to me, and we got on really well.
We started having some drinks and laughs and talking.
And we never actually got around to what we both did.
And eventually she went to sleep.
And one of the students came up and went, you're getting on very well with Shania.
I said, Shania?
She went, that's Shania Twain.
And we'd be speaking for three hours without me ever clocking that she was at the time the biggest country music star in the world on her way to the country music awards in Vegas.