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Boeing has received more than 5,000 orders for the aircraft, it has delivered 350 so far and only 2 of them have crashed. That's not a very high crash rate. The FAA, until just a day ago, was very confident that the aircraft is "fly worthy".

The Ethiopian crash investigators haven't even ascertained if the crash was due to a problem with the aircraft or if it was pilot error and already the whole world is assuming it was Boeing and has grounded flights worldwide. Why is this?

Why is Boeing being blamed for this? Flights crash all the time! Sure, not as much today as they did in the beginning, but they still do! We can't go on grounding every aircraft that crashed during flight! Plus the aircraft was in development for 5 years - I'm sure buyers were allowed to test the aircraft to their satisfaction before placing orders, Boeing themselves would've rigorously tested the aircraft, it was even approved by the FAA!

Shouldn't we make sure it was not the pilot's fault before we blame the manufacturer? Or did they already do that? I tried to find articles that explained WHY everyone is rallying against the company, but couldn't find anything concrete.

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    $\begingroup$ No crashes do not happen all the time. 2 crash of the same model of jet in such a short time is literally unheard off. $\endgroup$
    – Antzi
    Mar 14 '19 at 1:54
  • $\begingroup$ A precautionary grounding is NOT the same as appointing blame. $\endgroup$
    – Ben
    Mar 14 '19 at 4:11
  • $\begingroup$ Possibly relevant question: What does the preliminary report on the Ethiopian B737 MAX accident show? $\endgroup$
    – mgkrebbs
    Apr 5 '19 at 22:27
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The Ethiopian crash was in a new plane, in good weather, with multiple witnesses describing rattling noises and a smoke trail.

We can rule out weather, and pilot error seems unlikely to cause that. The plane is so new that maintenance is not likely to be a factor either.

Blaming Boeing may not be fully justified at this point, but caution over the literally hundreds of thousands of passengers who fly on them every day is not inappropriate either.

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