Boeing 737

The Boeing 737 is a twinjet narrow-body commercial airliner designed and manufactured by the Boeing Company. Following its inaugural flight in 1967, the Boeing 737 became one of the most successful and widely operated planes in the history of commercial air travel. Continuously produced for more than five decades, nearly 12,000 737s have been built to date. Thanks to its remarkable versatility, the Boeing 737 has been a workhorse for virtually every major airline for decades and continues to be seen as an industry standard. The legacy of the Boeing 737 line has not been without controversy, however. One of the modern 737 variants, the 737 MAX series, was launched to great fanfare in 2017, but quickly became a public relations nightmare for Boeing after two fatal crashes revealed serious design flaws. As a result of this discovery, the entire 737 MAX fleet was grounded in March 2019.

Background

The Boeing 737 is the flagship jet of the Boeing Company, which itself is widely recognized as the world’s leading manufacturer of commercial airliners, as well as military aircraft, missiles, and space vehicles. Boeing was founded in 1916 by timber merchant William E. Boeing as Aero Products Company. Rechristened the Boeing Airplane Company the following year, Boeing initially focused on producing so-called “flying boats” for the US Navy during World War I. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the company manufactured and sold a wide array of training aircraft, pursuit planes, patrol bombers, and other aircraft to the US military. In the late 1920s, Boeing also expanded its interests to include airmail services, commercial airliner production, and airline operations. Boeing’s first commercial airliner, the 12-passenger Boeing 80 biplane, debuted in 1928.

That year, the company was once again renamed, this time becoming known as United Aircraft and Transport Corporation. In 1931, Boeing combined four of the small airlines it owned to create a single large airline called United Airlines. When new anti-trust legislation took effect in 1934, however, the corporation was forced to become three separate companies, one of which became the Boeing Airplane Company.

Boeing continued building commercial aircraft in the 1940s, notably producing such planes as the Model 247 twin-engine monoplane and the model 307 Stratoliner. The latter was the first airliner to feature a pressurized cabin. During World War II, Boeing also manufactured famous bombers like the B-17 Flying Fortress and the B-29 Superfortress. While Boeing found sustained success manufacturing military aircraft into the 1950s, its production of commercial airliners diminished for a time until the arrival of the Boeing 707 in 1958. Wildly popular with travelers thanks to its smooth ride and short flight times, the 707 played a major role in the modernization of air travel. Boeing subsequently followed the 707 with the Boeing 727 trijet, which went into service in the early 1960s. Another success for the company, the 727 became the first commercial airliner to reach 1,000 sales. In short order, Boeing turned its attention to the development of what would become the most successful airliner in its history: the Boeing 737.

Overview

Development of the Boeing 737 began in 1964 after company executives decided to produce a new aircraft to supplement the 727 on certain routes. Construction of the first 737 was undertaken at Boeing’s cavernous Plant 2 in Seattle, Washington. Despite Plant 2’s massive size, however, the 737 was so tall that its tail had to be attached with a crane outside in a parking lot. Once complete, the prototype 737 was transported to another nearby plant called the Thompson Site, which housed the soon-to-be-launched 737 production line. The 737 was first unveiled to the public at a special ceremony held at the Thompson site on January 17, 1967.

The inaugural Boeing 737-100 series was an immediate success. Much of that success was a direct result of the airliner’s unique design. In a notable shift, the 737-100 series featured six-abreast seating, which meant that it included one more seat per row than any other airliner at the time. This allowed the 737-100 to carry more passengers per load. The 737-100 was also able to house more seating overall than other airliners because its design saw its engines mounted under each wing. This design also served to buffer some noise created by the engines, decreased vibration, and simplified ground maintenance. In addition, the 737-100 came equipped with a variety of technological equipment that effectively eliminated the need for an on-board flight engineer and allowed for a two-person flight deck. In the years that followed, this two-person flight deck became an industry standard. At the same time as Boeing started work on the 737-100, it also developed the 737-200, a second model of the 737 that included cargo convertible features. These special features allowed the interior of the plane to be converted from passenger cabin to cargo hold and back as necessary.

The first production Boeing 737-100 was presented to Lufthansa on December 28, 1967. The first 737-200 was delivered to United Airlines the following day. Both models were well received and quickly became the most in-demand airliners on the market. In just over twenty years of production, the 737 became the most ordered plane in the history of commercial aviation. By the time the last 737-200 was delivered in 1988, Boeing had already produced a number of additional models in the 737 series, including the 737-300, -400, and -500. The Next-Generation 737-600, -700, -800, and -900 models subsequently debuted in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Boeing announced the upcoming production of a new line of 737 models known as 737 MAX in 2011. The first 737 MAX entered service in 2017. Although the MAX line was initially well received, Boeing found itself in the midst of a crisis when a pair of 737 MAX 8 airliners crashed in 2018 and 2019. The two crashes led to a total of 346 deaths and raised questions about the 737 MAX’s design. To prevent further accidents, the entire 737 MAX fleet was grounded in March 2019. Boeing determined the problem was caused by a malfunctioning automatic safety feature, but a subsequent Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investigation revealed additional problems tied to sections of wiring that control the plane’s tail. The matter quickly became a public relations nightmare for Boeing and led the company to suffer the largest quarterly loss—totaling $4.9 billion—in its history.

In August 2020, the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) published information about what needed to be fixed in each plane and improved pilot training. In November of that year, the FAA ended the grounding, which had lasted twenty months, making it the longest grounding of a US airliner. This was not the end of Boeing's problems, however. In January 2021, Boeing was charged with fraud for hiding information about the problems with the 737 MAX. Boeing ultimately paid more than $2.5 billion in damages.

During a flight in January 2024, 737 MAX, Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, the door of an emergency exit, called a door plug, blew off mid-flight and sailed into the air, causing the aircraft to rapidly decompress. None of the 177 people on the plane was seriously injured, but the experience was traumatizing. The blowout left a gaping hole in the side of the plane where the door plug used to be. A man was nearly sucked out of the plane but was saved by his seatbelt. The suction ripped headsets off seats and sucked items into the air outside the plane. According to a passenger, a boy's shirt was ripped off his body. Prior to the incident, several other flights caused airline officials to suspect a pressurization problem with the planes and restricted them from flying over the ocean. The FAA eventually determined that Boeing had been negligent. Four key bolts that would have secured the door plug were not fully bolted in place during production. The FAA also found additional problems with the 737 MAX.

Bibliography

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