China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 crashed in the mountains of Southern China Monday morning as it speedily descended at low altitude. The airline sent a message to relatives connected with passengers in the plane. They do not know if there was anyone among the 132 passengers who survived the crash.
The Boeing 737 plane was seen hitting the Guangxi mountains where fire and smoke emitted in the landscape. Rain made it more difficult for rescuers to perform their mission in finding surviving passengers in the crash site. 1,000 firefighters and 100 local military members immediately rushed to the crashing site to enable safety operations. This crash has been one of the deadliest accidents since the 1990s, but the strong weathering of the rain and wind dampened the hopes of families and locals that there is a survivor out there in the plane crash,
The terrifying crash in Southern China is a reflection towards Boeing’s history of plane crashes in the past couple of years. Boeing was a well-respected air transportation manufacturer that transcended high technology from all over the world. When Boeing merged their company with McDonnell Douglas in 1997, the quality of the planes worsened because the mission of Boeing became profit-focused rather than safety-focused. In Downfall: The Case Against Boeing, Wall Street Journal reporter Andy Pasztor focused on the two brand-new 737 Max airplanes that crashed within a few weeks of each other. It is revealed that the pilots did not receive proper training for the MCAS system which pushed the nose of the plane down when it reached the dangers in elevating at a certain altitude. The MCAS system is made to stabilize the flight, but it came at the cost of hundreds of passengers whose families are still, to this date, making Boeing responsible for the loss of their loved ones.
The new 737 Max airplanes stopped its services worldwide when the world had seen the lives it had taken in the aftermath of the crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. 20 months after the crash in Ethiopia, Boeing made multiple changes to their aircraft’s structure to bring back their focus on safety to their passengers and approved for service overseas. China waited a little longer to approve the service of the 737 Max airplane. Chinese airlines are making changes to Boeing’s airplanes before taking flight again.
At what further cost will Boeing need to make to shift its focus on the safety of their passengers over profit? As horrible as the events have unraveled in people’s eyes, relatives are left wondering if their loved ones are ever alive under the tattered debris.
