Originally Posted by
Excargodog
You may be underestimating customer resistance. In the late 1950$ one of the best airliners around was the Lockheed Electra. Unfortunately it had a harmonic vibration problem that lead to the wings snapping off two of them in cruise. It was an easy fix - a little stiffening and reinforcing in the spar and engine mount to change the vibration frequency - and the problem was solved. Except 5here was a new problem. People wouldn’t fly in them. Eventually they shut down production of the passenger version because people just wouldn’t fly in them. Most of the pax models were eventually converted to cargo, or sold to foreign militaries, and the US Navy loved it as the P-3. They still fly out of Whidbey NAS. It’s actually still a great aircraft for a lot of things.
But those two accidents doomed them as pax aircraft.
The Jet age doomed the Electra. The crashes was just icing on its failure. 2 crashes aren’t new to the 737. Rudder hardovers crashed a United 737 at COS and a US Air 737 at PIT. And nearly an Eastwind in Carolina. 2 fatal crashes but they found and fixed the problem and the 737 did just fine for years since.
The MAX will be just fine. And people will fly them, although for the first 6 months or so airlines will offer people free changes to a NG/Airbus. But as time passes and people see this thing is safe, they won’t care.