Back in the 90s, when I was first learning the ropes of aviation maintenance, we took safety seriously. Like, seriously. We didn’t need a spreadsheet to tell us that a failing jackscrew could send a plane plummeting from the sky. But somewhere between then and now, the people calling the shots forgot that lesson. And when they did, 88 people paid the ultimate price. Let’s talk about what really happens when profit trumps people.
What the Experts Know
The FAA isn’t always your friend. I remember when I first started, the FAA was the gold standard. But I’ve seen the agency dragged through the mud by corporate lobbyists time and time again. Regulatory capture isn’t just a theory — it’s what happened when the FAA let Boeing police itself with MCAS. And it’s what happened when they ignored NTSB warnings about the jackscrew for three years. Three years! That’s not oversight, that’s complicity.
A jackscrew failure is the nightmare scenario. Back in the day, we called it “vertical steering failure.” Without that component, the plane might as well be a brick. The Alaska Airlines crew fought for a full minute with the plane upside down before impact — and they never gave up. Those guys were true professionals, the kind who make you proud to be in this industry.
GA regulations are a joke. My buddy with the Cessna just dropped thousands on a new yoke that lets either pilot fly. It’s plastic and metal, people! But the approval process alone costs more than the part itself. Meanwhile, corporate jets get away with murder because they can afford to lobby. It’s like the system was designed to protect the big guys while nickel-and-diming everyone else.
Corporate America has blood on its hands. Alaska Airlines cut maintenance downtime to boost profits. Simple as that. The executives who made that call should be looking at manslaughter charges, not bonuses. This wasn’t an accident — it was a cost-benefit analysis where human lives came out on the wrong side. Sound familiar? It should — it’s the same calculus that led to the 737 MAX disaster.
The system is broken from top to bottom. Corporations get all the rights of people but none of the accountability. When Boeing’s engineers warned about MCAS, who got fired? The engineers. When maintenance crews flagged the jackscrew issue, who got ignored? The maintenance crews. And when executives make decisions that kill people? They get golden parachutes. It’s a rigged game.
Sometimes, good things come from tragedy. After the crash, Alaska Airlines completely overhauled their safety culture. They implemented “Ready, Safe, Go” — a system that empowers any employee to stop operations if something feels unsafe. The company nearly went bankrupt, but they learned their lesson. Too bad it took 88 deaths to teach it.
Experience Speaks
The real tragedy isn’t just that 88 people died — it’s that we keep letting it happen. We’ve seen this movie before with the DC-10 cargo door failures, the 737 rudder issues, and now the 737 MAX. Each time, the pattern is the same: engineers warn, executives ignore, people die, and the cycle continues. Until we start holding corporations accountable for the human cost of their decisions, we’re just swapping one jackscrew failure for the next. Think about that the next time you board a plane — or drive your car, for that matter.