Media, Aircraft, And False Connections

The latest example of media misdirection, sensationalism, and  lousy reporting is the media's presentation today of an event involving a Boeing 757.

The Detroit News: Boeing 757 lost nose wheel preparing for takeoff during a very rough stretch for the plane maker

A Boeing 757 jet operated by Delta Air Lines lost a nose wheel while preparing for takeoff from Atlanta.

It was an older model of plane than those made by Boeing that have raised safety concerns about Boeing, yet it occurred with an intense spotlight on one of the nation's top manufacturers.

 Let's note the Boeing 757 last rolled off the Boeing production line in October 2004.

What this Boeing 757 incident, where it lost one of two nose wheels,  has to do with the Boeing 737 Max 9 assembly quality issues currently and appropriately in the news is exactly zilch, zero, nada, nothing.

As reported in the story, much farther down from the headline and the early paragraphs idiotic attempt at connecting the issues is that the plane in question in this incident is 32 years old. 

No cause for the nosewheel coming off is reported yet, but it's highly, highly unlikely to be a Boeing assembly issue from 32 years ago - that nose-wheel has likely been replaced multiple times since then, and not by Boeing.

It simply has nothing to do with Boeing's current assembly quality issues that led to the door plug blowout.   The 757 is quite simply one of the most successful and safe aircraft ever produced. Indeed while there have been fatal crashes involving 757s, none of the fatal crashes were due to a fault in the aircraft itself but were either pilot error,  controller error, or weather related hull loss or terrorism.

To say or indeed suggest that a wheel coming off a 32-year-old aircraft reflects on the manufacturers current assembly quality problems is ridiculous.