Same thing happened to British Airways a few years ago on a 787, a misplaced security pin that was inserted in the wrong place during a maintenance operation. There are two very similar holes next to one another that can receive the pin, there's a picture at the bottom here : https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/318989

Wondering if the same mishap is behind it again.

I don't understand how that caused several injuries among a pretty small group (staff)?

Google says front wheel is about 1.68m. High but not crazy high. Plane body and people fall at same speed and it would be slower than actual freefall since the plane is vaguely balance-ish on rear wheels

I'm sure the reporting is right but feels counterintuitive to me

If you are inside the cabin and not expecting, would be sliding down quite a bit.

So a plane which has withstood probably countless landings, had its nose gear collapse while sitting statically at a gate of all times and places? Weird.

One post said that the plane was only 4 months old.

Okay, countable landings.

Not yet at the https://avherald.com/

Collapsed while it was sitting at a gate, with no passengers yet on board - meaning the the gear was under far lower loads than during a landing.

While slowly-failing gear could have collapsed anyway just then, the obvious question is whether the nose gear had just been serviced. By mechanics who (say) forgot to re-install the bolts holding everything together.

> That’s not very typical, I’d like to make that point

Well this time it at least didn't fall into the environment.

I duckduckgo'ed "nose gear collapse" earlier and it seems it may be an issue that's more common than expected? At least there were lots of images of airplanes with broken front wheels and the nose touching the floor.

From the picture and the text this aircraft was parked at the gate. During a hard landing the nose gear may collapse but not while being parked. And while parked there are protections to prevent retraction. However, these can be overridden by maintenance.

This is a joke about "The Front Fell Off", a classic comedy video from a few decades ago.

If you haven't experienced the awesomeness of "The Front Fell Off", do yourself a favor and seek it out on youtube... you won't be disappointed.

Joke ? Those people were serious.

Can someone tell me if this is just confirmation bias or is Boeing really going down this hard? I mean management was obviously tanking since the McDonnell Douglas takeover, but did it really take almost 30 years for this to shine through? Or were these things underreported in the last decades?

The 777 and 787 programs have never seen a passenger fatality resulting from an engineering defect. That is a monumental achievement in light of the passenger miles served. Boeing has its problems, but that record speaks for itself

Another thing I'd point out is how often planes regularly fell out of the sky as recently as 40 years ago - my first flight 32 years ago or so, they still had kiosks in the airport to sell you life insurance.

Even with the MAX and the recent (last ~2 years) spate of incidents, flying is safer now than it ever has been, and certainly safer than it has been over its lifetime.

This and we don't know yet what happened. It could have structurally collapsed - very unlikely, it could have uncommanded retracted, or maintenance has overridden the protections. I'd place my bets on #3, handling error in maintenance mode.

From 787 wikipedia page: "On June 12, 2025, Air India Flight 171, an 11-year-old Boeing 787-8 registered as VT-ANB[398] operating from Ahmedabad Airport to London Gatwick Airport, crashed into the hostel building of B. J. Medical College shortly after takeoff. According to the preliminary Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau report released on July 8, 2025, the crash was caused by both engines shutting down after their fuel control switches moved from the "RUN" to "CUTOFF" position.[399]: 13–14 The cause of the switch movement remains under investigation. The report did not recommend any actions to Boeing, or 787 operators.[400][399]: 15 All but one of the 242 people on board were killed, as well as 19 people on the ground.[401] The sole survivor was a British national "

Confirmation bias, instant communication, hyper focus on Boeing mishaps, etc.

Commercial air traffic has increased ~400% since 1990 [0], do you feel that number reflects the increase in reporting?

0. https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/world-air-pas...

The only reason boeing exists today is because they've paid off Trump

It was the same sniper that blew up that Starship

And New Glenn. This guy gets around!