Nearly a year after the second deadly crash of a Boeing 737 Max jet, the fastest-selling airplane in Boeing's history remains grounded. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, whose grandniece was killed in that disaster, said that even once the plane makes it back to the skies, he won't fly in it.
"Anytime when you have excessive automation taking the plane's control away from the pilots, passengers have got to be very concerned with that," he told Cheddar on Monday. "One of the problems with all of these new planes is excessive automation."
Automation is, at least in part, to blame for the Lion Air crash that killed 189 and the Ethiopian Airlines crash that claimed 157 lives.
The Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) has been cited as one of the main factors both planes crashed. A new report about the March 10, 2019, Ethiopian Airlines flight that prompted the plane's grounding showed design flaws accounted for the catastrophic failure, not pilot error or airline performance.
But Nader said the glitches aren't the only problems he's concerned about. "More and more problems beyond the MCAS software glitch and snitch have emerged," he said.
He said Boeing contributing to Congressional campaigns, "freebies all the airlines give to senators and representatives," and cuts to Federal Aviation Administration budgets contributed to the regulatory agency's decision to shift certification to Boeing, itself.
The FAA came under scrutiny when, following the crashes, it became public that the agency had delegated responsibility to the company for testing the jet.
"It went from a regulatory agency to a delegating agency," he said. "Now they gotta pull it all back."
In the meantime, the jet remains grounded and Boeing stands to lose an estimated $18 billion while the plane's timeline for return remains unclear.
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
