Last Friday, a Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft of Alaska Airlines broke out in a rare accident in the history of civil aviation.
In recent days, as the investigation into the accident type has deepened, many countries around the world have announced a new round of grounding of Boeing's aircraft.
The reason why this accident is rare in the history of civil aviation is because the Boeing 737max9 has just taken off from the airport, its emergency exit escape hatch actually fell off in the air, and the passenger's mobile phone and other belongings flew out of the plane instantly.
The most important thing is that Boeing only delivered the aircraft in November last year, which shows that the bolt life of the hatch is only a few months, so all companies around the world that have ordered 737max9 aircraft have asked to ground and check the safety of the relevant components of the emergency escape hatch.
The major accident that caused Boeing's global grounding caused very little waves in China, and there are two main reasons for this.
The first reason is that we have not ordered Boeing 737MAX 9 aircraft in China, so we feel that the "door safety defect" of this aircraft has nothing to do with it.
Another reason is that the successive cycles of "air crashes, grounding, and re-flying" in the past few decades have proved that Boeing simply "doesn't care" about such safety defects, and those countries that have been grounded have no choice in the end.
Although the Boeing 737 series and the European Airbus A320 series are not the largest commercial aircraft in the world today, they are supplemented by the largest number of passenger aircraft with the most extensive application scenarios and the most mainstream passenger aircraft in the world today.
At present, there are more than 1,200 Boeing 737 series aircraft in service in China, and nearly 1,000 Airbus A320 aircraft, which carry 150 180 passengers and have a range of 5,000 6,000 kilometers, which can meet the domestic flight needs of China, the United States and Canada, as well as the international flight needs of all small countries in Europe, Asia and Africa.
So, in addition to ultra-long-haul flights across continents, the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 meet the main needs of almost all airlines around the world.
The United States first designed the 737 aircraft for Lufthansa in 1964 and delivered the first one in 1967.
By 2018, Boeing had delivered its 10,000th 737 series order, and had received more than 15,000 orders.
Before this year's accident that led to the global grounding of the 737max9, Boeing's "worst fall" was in 2019, in a very short period of time, two 737max8 aircraft crashed one after another, and exposed the huge loopholes in the design of the operating system and pilot training of the 737max8 model.
At that time, China was the first country in the world to completely ground the Boeing 737 Max8 aircraft, and more than 100 countries around the world followed suit.
Until the end of 2021, after Boeing's design improvements to the piloting system and the retraining of pilots, China and Indonesia became the last two countries in the world to lift the ban on the 737 MAX 8.
Boeing's 737 MAX and Airbus' A320 are called series aircraft because they have more than one model, and each generation of their technological innovation has four models.
The reason why we pay so much attention to Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 is because our country's first self-developed commercial aircraft C919 is the benchmark for Boeing and Airbus, which are currently the two main series in the world.
The four third-generation models of Boeing 737 are 737-600, 737-700, 737-800, 737-900, and most of them are currently in service in China are third-generation 737, especially 737-800.
The Boeing 737 has been upgraded since 2015, replacing the previous generation with the MAX7, MAX8, MAX9, and MAX10.
The Airbus A320 family also includes four models: A318, A319, A320 and A321.
For the sake of easy identification, you can imagine four models of the same series, using the same engine, the width and height of the fuselage are the same, the only difference is the "fuselage length".
Different fuselage lengths correspond to different number of seats, so that the close aircraft configuration can meet the "number of seats and mileage" requirements of different customers and different routes.
Although the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 have four models in each generation, the one with the largest demand in the global market is the one with the middle parameters.
Among the four models of Airbus, the most demanded in the world is A320, Boeing 737, the most demanded in the previous generation, and the most in service in China are 737-800, after the technical upgrade, the most orders are currently MAX8.
Seeing this, everyone understands how much courage it took for us to take the lead in banning the MAX8 back then, and almost cut off the market prospects after the technological innovation of the 737 in the United States in one fell swoop.
In comparison, the number of orders and deliveries of the MAX9, which is grounded globally, is less than one-tenth of that of the MAX8.
In the past five years, in all exchanges and games between China and the United States, the United States has to talk about the "go-around 737MAX 8", because this aircraft is the most important source of revenue for Boeing in the next 20 years.
In the past five years, the Boeing 737MAX 8 has gone from continuous crashes, to global grounding, and then to the gradual resumption of flights a few years later, and it has been proved with bloody facts that hundreds of lives and huge design hazards can only make Boeing "fall", and the process of upgrading and replacing the 737MAX has been delayed for a few years.
Boeing is too big to fail, and the root cause of "crashing and flying" lies in the fact that as of now, when the global aviation manufacturing industry is highly merged, and monopoly, the world's airlines have almost no choice.
At present, the most urgently needed aircraft in the world are the 737 and A320, which carry about 150 people and have a range of less than 5,000 kilometers.
In the past few years, countries around the world have grounded the 737 MAX 8, and after stopping follow-up orders, the only option is the Airbus A320
Airbus A320 has delivered hundreds more than Boeing every year in the past few years, but demand is still in short supply worldwide.
This "only choice" and "insufficient production capacity" make all airlines have no room for bargaining, and can only beg the other party to supply first.
If you want to get rid of this state of not waiting for a new machine and being manipulated by European Airbus at will, countries around the world can only choose to "lift the ban on 737MAX" to increase bargaining chips.
Of course, compared with the dilemma of other countries in the world being harvested by the crashed Boeing and **Airbus, China has become the only country with an "independent response plan".
Because our C919 is precisely for the Boeing 737 MAX 8 and Airbus A320, the two most demanding models in the world, developed and manufactured as competitive models.
At the domestic air show in 2023, the C919 launched a "shortened version" and an "extended version", which many people did not understand at the time, but now compared with Boeing and Airbus, the specifications of the same series and different fuselage lengths, everyone can understand.
Our C919, from the length, width and height of the fuselage, to the number of passengers, to the cruising range, is a replacement for the 737MAX8 and Airbus A320.
Of course, compared with the Boeing 737 series of more than 15,000 aircraft for more than 50 years, and the Airbus A-line 320 is close to 10,000 orders, the current orders of more than 1,000 aircraft for C919 are not enough.
However, putting aside the historical background, the global delivery of the Boeing 737 737 Max series has just 1,000 aircraft, and the latest generation order for Airbus A320 is only two or three thousand.
Therefore, over the long history, C919 and the latest generation of 737 and A320 have a certain competitiveness.
In the next 20 years, China still has thousands of aircraft demand, and the production capacity of C919 cannot be quickly met, and the safety field should not be promoted.
However, with C919, at least we have fewer options to "risk our lives to return to flight" in the future, and we have more confidence in the game with the two giants!