Of course true engineers or scientists would never claim to have "no" quality issues. Per the "six sigma" doctrine, you just try to drive it to vanishingly low levels. Where humans are involved, there will be error.

The bolt part surprises me. Because on some similarly critical systems I've seen worked on, there's the guy who does the bolts, and then there's a different guy with a checklist that includes inspection of every single bolt. You've got to have two guys completely screw up to miss a bolt. I will say it's very easy as the checklist guy to start just jamming down the checklist as stupid bureaucratic busywork when you go through months and months of the first guy never making a mistake. But in my case, you had to write your name on the checklist. I wonder if Boeing has a checklist with some dude's name on it for the missing bolts.

My similar moment was when some Chevron engineers came to my high school class. Some "woke" (for circa 1990) classmate of mine asked if they could make engines any more efficient to use less oil. The engineers scoffed and said that the thermodynamics of engines was a "solved" issue, and nothing more could be done.

This was, of course, before widespread modern improvements in variable valve timing, direct injection, cylinder deactivation, higher compression ratios, and truly good turbos, etc, have made engines much more efficient since then. I knew they were full of it even at the time.

CBS news had an interesting story this morning about the inspections Alaska Airlines is doing on the doors. So far they’ve found some loose bolts but none actually missing.
https://www.cbsnews.com/...ng-737-max-9-planes/

The article also says the investigation into flight 1282 is still underway.

I read it in WSJ this morning.

Trail apparently was still in high school when I was working on the IWWTP at Being. I don't recall Six Sigma being a thing back then.

Off topic, a jobsite next to ours punctured a very large gas line. Repair guy shows up and starts beating on the pipe with a large hammer. I was wondering if I should excuse myself from the area. Fortunately, nothing blew up.

The reason we were expanding their treatment plant was because sludge discharge was so thick that ducks were walking across the pond. BTW, ducks do bite. Feels like a clothes clip lined with sand paper.

I'm a quality systems guy and I doubt their system is that simple. For something like a bolt holding a door on, they probably have electronic proximity and torque validation. I would also assume they do an allocation of parts when assembling a plane. Like IKEA furniture, they should have a system that tells them they have bolts left over when the plane is done. I'm guessing they had what looked like a fool-proof system in place and someone over road it.

There have been several whistleblowers from within the company on this and the other issues with the 737 program. The entire thing is basically due to corner cutting by management in pursuit of shareholder value.

No doubt, this was a screw up by Boeing. And, people who follow the company say it is a predictable consequence of the company becoming more finance-driven than engineering-driven.

Still, their planes have an incredible safety record in recent times. Crashes involving a major airline are almost unheard of. It is easy — and justified — to mock them for a door plug falling off under modest pressure, but when you step back and look at the bigger picture, they have done impressively well.

Why should they change if killing hundreds of people only results in a slap on the wrist?

This.

The 737 is a terribly designed frankenstein of an aircraft.

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WSJ / investigators indicate that there's a lack of documentation and flawed processes (you think??) around the door plug. I imagine with multiple vendors/suppliers there's also some finger pointing. Read that the fuselage comes with the door plug in place, which is then removed, then re-installed. Apparently it's not clear to know if the bolts were re-installed in this case.

Care to expand on that statement?

My previous employer made those cafeteria tables that fold up and roll around. Some time before I was there, one of them fell on someone because it wasn't assembled correctly and lead to a lawsuit. Because of that we had as fixture that recorded the torque and presence of every fastener on the table as well as the temp and amount of glue that was used. If one of those tables left the plant without a bolt, it was because someone bypassed the inspection system.

We were making tables, not airplanes.

I doubt you want to learn. But this is a start. The plane, all the versions that currently fly, is just a ridiculous boondoggle.
https://www.latimes.com/...-20190315-story.html

"Boeing has to sit down and ask itself how long they can keep updating this airplane,” said Douglas Moss, an instructor at USC’s Viterbi Aviation Safety and Security Program, a former United Airlines captain, an attorney and a former Air Force test pilot. “We are getting to the point where legacy features are such a drag on the airplane that we have to go to a clean-sheet airplane."

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As I understand this, the basic 737 is hardly a Frankenstein. It has been highly successful. But, Boeing reached a point with the Max where it would have been better to design a new plane from scratch rather than keep trying to push the 737 to accommodate all these changes. Of course, the former is a long-term solution and a finance-driven company might prefer the much cheaper solution of tweaking the 737.

The original aircraft was designed for a smaller engine. Rather than spend money to redesign the aircraft, they chose to stick a giant engine on the same plane completely changing the flight characteristics. And then they expected software to compensate without having to retrain pilots. The end result was killing hundreds of people to save money.

Boeing reached that point way before the max.

The plane exists for only 2 reasons:

Boeing's desire to maximise quarterly results at any cost.

And airlines' desire to absolutely minimize the amount of training given to pilots. Hence, many pilots are just "iPad qualified" (half an hour of audiovisuals on an iPad, this is not figurative, it's literal).

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Replacing the 737 is going to very difficult for many reasons.

Ignoring the cost of the new program, there are other huge issues.


First, once that new airframe is announced for sale, then Boeing is not selling anymore 737s or at least selling them for any profit. Airlines are not going to be ordering a 737 when they could buy the replacement that burns 20% less fuel and other advantages. Boeing is also going to have price the replacement at the same price as 737 due to pressure from airbus. This is a huge issue, because it means the time between when Boeing starts selling the new airplane and the time it takes to get this new airplane up to 40 per month, needs to be a shorter length of time than the current 737 back order. So this is all new technologies and having to deliver them at rate in a few years is very difficult.

The second big issue outside of cost is technology. What if you come out with a 737 replacement and soon after that some major technologies come out that can’t be put into this 737 replacement because of basic architecture? Then airbus comes out with a new airframe that has that technology and dominates. There is good reason to believe some new technologies are coming out in 5 to 10 years that are going to have to be built into the design.

I wonder what the morale is like for the designers, they design a great airplane and the company screws it all up putting profits ahead of safety, I'd be pissed.

I wouldn't say the MAX is a terrible design. It was a good design given the constraints and objectives of the program. Yes, it had at least one major flaw that led to the crashes. but engineers have to remember that the best design from a technical perspective isn't always the best overall design.

Not really.

Adding the new larger engines to the max was totally fine in really every way but one and that was keeping the same pilot type rating and only in one area.

The force the yoke versus angle of attack was identical to the 737 NG, until very high angle of attacks. These angle of attacks were areas most pilots would never see, but to keep commonality with with the NG the force on the yoke even in these extreme areas had to be the same for both models. On the max at these extreme angles of attack, the force was lower than the NG.

So if they didn’t need the common type rating, they wouldn’t have needed MCAS and would have flown fine. It was all about keeping that type rating the same. Nothing to do with the fundamentals of the airframe.

You ever talk to any pilots that flew them?

Well well before the 737 max debacle, another 737 flaw killed 157 americans in two separate crashes, and almost killed more in another near miss. (And that is just in the US. Other 737 incidents and accidents in other parts of the world might also have been caused by this rudder flaw, but the evidence is not 100% certain; airplanes obliterated in a crash are not always easy to troubleshoot.):
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/...ng_737_rudder_issues

I also know a pilot that had this happen to them personally. Luckily, it was before they launched. Needless to say, they (wisely) chose not to fly, so they (and their passengers) managed to live another day.

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Yeah, I was simplifying it quite a bit, and referring to field maintenance rather than depot level maintenance. But I was referring to a Boeing airframe! Not a commercial one, though.

MCAS was a complete POS. Any engineers that worked on that piece of software should have turned in their badges, retired, and work the rest of their lives doing something besides engineering that would help other people out. Some sort of social work penance.

But an aircraft is a system of systems, not just an airframe. Boeing also didn't update the old design for manual trim wheels to account for higher forces. And to compensate updated documentation. Per Aviation Week.


An expert commented in the same article, "No flight control system should require both pilots to operate it at any stage, let alone in an emergency."

But the fundamentals of the airframe are fine!

I know you're saying that tongue in cheek, but the airframe has been frankensteined too. Nearly all versions of the 737 have different fuselages, different wings, different engines, different horizontal stabilizers, and different vertical stabilizers. The plane is a friggin mess.

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The plane itself is fine, a year from now no one will remember what a door plug is but lets hope this was the wake up they needed to ensure something this stupid never happens again.

The plane is fine. Except for the fact that it has killed hundreds of people. At least 157 people (but likely more) due to rudder problems and another 346 people from the MCAS fraud. Yeah, all in a day's work at Boeing.

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Hundreds of people died. And stupid things keep on happening.

Yes the software screw up was bad but the door plug was because some idiot didn't install it right, you can't blame the airframe for that.

I don't blame the airframe for that, but the root cause is the same. A management culture focused on profits over safety and engineering.

In the news, the Exec in charge of the factory that built the jet w/the door issues . . . has been shown the door*
And a new position has been created to oversee quality control at Boeing.

*couldn't resist the pun. Unfortunate situation for him.

https://www.wsj.com/...ults_pos1&page=1

Most people in the industry knew this was coming. I don't know enough about the situation to know if he was the cause of the problem, or just the sacrificial lamb to get the government inspectors to calm down, but it was going to happen no matter what

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

Yes, not surprising.

Some companies try to keep these things quiet -- both the fuck up, and the consequences. Front page of WSJ isn't public, but then again neither was the incident.

Could also be signaling to the public too that Boeing's on top of addressing issues - including new overseer of quality control. They need to clear gov't scrutiny and get the public's trust back..

They need more than just a new QC position. They need a reset on the entire corporate culture.

Well, at least Boeing got it exactly right in their brand-new TV spot:

https://m.youtube.com/...oCilY4szc&t=1740

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If it says boeing on it don't get on it. 737, 777, 787. And fasten your seatbelt if you do.

https://abc7chicago.com/...ew-zealand/14513460/

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

John Barnett was just found dead. He had been giving evidence in a whistleblower lawsuit against the company.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68534703

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"100% of the people who confuse correlation and causation end up dying."

The 787 has a great safety record. Not perfect, but damn good. We’ll see what happened here. But, pilot error and clear-air turbulence are good possibilities.

Don't forget Starliner. NASA gave Boeing almost twice as much money as SpaceX and they still flubbed it up.

At any given time there are around 7,800-8,500 commercial aircraft in the air carrying about 1.25 million passengers , 99.9% of them will land safely. I would have no problem flying on any of them.

That vastly exaggerates risk, suggesting about 1 in 1000 flights crashes. This site has it at about 99.999999% . That missed crashes since 2020, of which there were maybe more than normal, so maybe the last digit has some uncertainty.

Self inflicted gunshot wound. Totally not suspicious.

My very rough calculation has the 787 at about 2 trillion passenger miles. So far, zero crash-related fatalities.

Why in the world would he decide to end his life in the middle of a deposition?? If this was in russia, we would immediately smell a rat. Like you, l'm not buying it.

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If someone on the defense side was going to kill a witness, wouldn’t they do it before he gave two days of deposition testimony, including a full day of friendly questioning from the witness’ lawyer? With a dead witness, the deposition becomes admissible.

2024 is just turning out to not be Boeings year

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/12/latam-airlines-flight-injuries-technical-problems-plane-drop-new-zealand-sydney-to-auckland

Good points. But, conversely, why in the world would he decide to end his life in the middle of a deposition, where he finally gets to say his piece as a major and vindicated whistleblower?

Something is very weird.

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No idea what sort of emotional strain he was under. I could imagine he felt that his work was done in terms of exposing Boeing — the world knows. And, beyond that, he couldn’t handle it. Two solid days of questioning can be rough for some people.

I've given a deposition. Hard to figure out what would be so stressful unless one was a suspect in a crime. Especially compared to the stress that the whistleblower already underwent.

In any case, all seems very fishy.

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Yes, tragic and strange. I read that he lives in Louisiana. So, he brought a gun with him to South Carolina? Not sure if that says something about his state of mind.

I have taken a huge number of depositions. Some of the deponents appeared a little down afterward, but never seemed suicidal.

I tried to find other details, but had no luck.

Was the gun that was used registered to him?

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Louisiana to SC would be quite a long drive. Was it his own truck that he was in, or a rental?

Or did he fly. And more telling, did he fly on a Boeing? (somewhat poor attempt at humor)

BBC says “his truck.”

Can you rent guns after arriving at the airport in SC? Do you pre-pay for the bullets or just return the gun and pay for the ones you used?

my parents do louisiana to sc regularly. it's not that long. especially if you don't believe the planes available to fly commercially are particularly safe.

That's a great business plan idea. Gun rental vending machine like the cell phone charger battery thing - where you can return it later.

Just have to have a ton of click-through waivers about how the gun is used after it pops out of the vending machine.

Trademarked name ideas?

iStrappin' (tm)
uCarry (tm)
QuickFreedom (tm)

This thread got off track and then died. Yesterday Boeing and federal investigators concluded that they can't determine who worked on the door.

Give me and my Director of Quality unrestricted access to Boeings systems and we could figure it out in a couple of hours. These people are lying idiots. The news is also reporting that Boeing has big problems and no one can figure out what to do. Give us a week.

I'm not the only one, either. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of industry professionals that could figure out what went wrong and start to fix it.

Boeing is a government contractor, just like us. There are rules that you can not break, and safe guard after safe guard, record after record that has to be completed and retained. The fact that the floor monitoring video is overwritten after 30 days is standard practice. It isn't for this type of investigation. It is there for safety and security - when someone gets hurt, something is dropped, or something is missing/stolen. It is not there to document processes. The MRP system does that. The QMS records the inspections. The direct labor tracking system tells you who was working. The tool crib log tells you who had the equipment. There are a lot more records, all electronic in this day and age, and all retained for years, if not forever.

The only way there are no records is if a group of employees when in on their own time, violated all the rules, and did the work off the books, not getting paid. Even then there would be access logs and tool logs.

I call BS on the entire story. Given the opportunity, I would do the investigation on contingency - I only get paid if I figure it out.

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

I'm in full agreement AJ. I too am a govt contractor, we are hounded with annual training about required record keeping. If Boeing "can't find" the records, it's because they don't want to find it or someone committed a federal crime by destroying required records. Regardless, as you state, there are other avenues to figure out who worked on the door plug that day.

The coverup is always worse than the crime. This could seriously damage Boeing. Airbus must be giddy and if smart quadruple-checking all their maintenance procedures and record keeping protocols.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

All day this^

When I was working in the aerospace industry, I couldn't even have my own measuring tools if they weren't logged and calibrated with the company. The company had online storage and everything was scanned and saved. Now, everything is paperless and to do anything and report, the individual has to log into the system.

Even if they truly couldn't find the paperwork, they would know exactly where that broke down and who was responsible.

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_____
TEAM HD
Each day is what you make of it so make it the best day possible.

The work on the door was done at Spirit, wonder what else they work on and what their overall record keeping looks like, wow, just wow.

Spirit is a government contractor, just like Boeing, so my statements about Boeing stands for Spirit.

From that regard, that makes Spirit a sub-contractor of Boeing, and that puts Boeing on the hook to audit their QMS prior to issuing work, and on a recurring basis, depending on some criteria. That means that not only is the government inspectors on the hook for Spirit's performance, so is Boeing.

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

Just to be clear though government contractors on other work, this work was likely not under government contract. There could be various FAA regulatipn, though.

Though some practices are shared between Federal and commercial arms at big defense contractors, there are also big differences.

One thing that is the same throughout all of these processes, whether it is government or commercial is documentation, documentation, documentation.

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TEAM HD
Each day is what you make of it so make it the best day possible.

You have a point, but in this industry there are too many overlaps to have 2 separate systems for quality control. Unless the operation is under 2 different roofs, with 2 different management teams, and material sourcing coming from different vendors, most if not all contractors will follow the defense spec for all work. It just makes it easier to control, and the added cost is worth the potential quality concerns.

If Boeing was doing what you are suggesting, then that was the problem, plain (plane) and simple.

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

Having worked more in commercial (with some defense) but now in defense (with some commercial), both companies have set up their systems with the most rigorous standards required and used that for everything. As Automatic states, trying to run two different systems is not worth the potential issues and is more cost effective.

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_____
TEAM HD
Each day is what you make of it so make it the best day possible.

I my company made the office chair you are sitting in, I can tell you when and where it was made.

Absolutely true. And then cloud backup and offsite backup. A-jack is correct. I 100% smell BS.

Yes and no. Parts of Federal system, by contract law, have to have a hard firewall from the commercial side. People on the commercial side cannot view it. There are different management structures. So differences emerge. Also some parts of the Federal stuff is more expensive, and can be deemed unnecessary for the commercial side.

I did an internship at Boeing Commercial back before they bought McDonald. They documented everything along with all sorts of other QA processes. I smell BS as well, but it is possible that they don't have it because they have just become so lax. Unlike the government programs it doesn't sound like they had their feet to the fire to maintain QA. The FAA gave up a long time ago.

This is not true in my [limited] experience. One QMS, one management team, one machine shop, etc., with everything flowing side by side through the processes. Sure, some of the drawings may be classified to various extents, but those are not out in the open for the general workers even if they are cleared. Those are "need to see" only, normally just a few engineers, inspectors, and maybe a planner or buyer. The work instructions are at the most NOFORN, and we have facility wide NOFORN controls. Others do as well.

The only real difference is material certification, and even that is normally running in the same system at the highest controls. The difference is the material itself. The certification process stays the same.

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

It varies quite a bit, and depends on the project. But I've worked on somet projects (from the gov side) where the company had a nearly identical product on the commercial side. On that commercial side a new feature rolled out that the government wanted, so we asked for it. And got told, "No, we had to fork the software for the Federal contract, the source code is no longer shared, is in a different system, and we are not allowed talk to the people on the commercial side without requesting permission and documenting the conversation. Lots of reasons for that. One of which is companies that work both Federal and commercial sides are very, very careful that the government does not get any rights to work done on the commercial side without paying dearly for it.

I not sure AJ is saying there may not be two systems, but in reality, they are run the same, or very, very closely. I know we have NOFORN computers on sight, but the systems within those computers are the same, it's just controlled tighter, for security reasons. They systems, whether it be commercial or government are the same, potentially run separately.

When I was on a shop floor, there were protocols for who could look at certain information, and it was contained on different servers, but it still ran through the same process.

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_____
TEAM HD
Each day is what you make of it so make it the best day possible.

fyi, Boeing has become almost unrecognizable after the merger. After you read this, none of the current Boeing news will surprise you. Incompetence, stupidity, corruption, and short-sightedness at all of the highest levels. It's all about the f*cking stock price and worrying only about the next quarter, and not focusing on the product and on the long-term future of the company. If aviation interests you, highly recommended, it's one a hell of read ...

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So during the nominal build of course ok this stuff would be recorded and there would be all the records being discussed in this thread.

But the reason they don’t have the records, is the same reason the bolts were not installed.

So as everyone knows spirit builds most of the fuselage. Their quality has been so bad they have spirit employees in Renton to do rework when Boeing identifies issues with Spirit work. This is due to contract reasons and possibly some intellectual property reasons.

So Boeing found an issue with spirit’s work and reported it. This is good, spirit’s quality system missed it and Boeing’s quality system identified it. But this where it breaks down. Boeing’s quality system and checks are all driven by Boeing system, but spirit employees don’t have access to their system. So this issue is tracked with a different system. Spirit “fixed” the problem, but Boeing QA inspected it and saw they didn’t and just lied. So spirit then damaged the door seal and says work completed, but the door seal is damaged.

So now the big fuck up and why this is not in the record system. Since this wasn’t a Boeing issue, it still wasn’t in the Boeing quality system. To replace the seal, the door needed to be opened. Now opening and closing a door does not normally require any quality inspection, just think many of the doors are opened and closed frequently and are not inspected each and every time during build. Think about it, airlines don’t have quality inspections every time you close a cabin door. But this door has the bolts. So there was no work order that drove the correct removal and installation of the bolts and the quality inspection, since they were just opening and closing a door. So spirit replaced the seal and I bet that is all recorded and inspected. But they didn’t treat closing the door like rework, which would have resulted in all the paper work and the bolts being installed, because they were just closing a door, which normally doesn’t require that work.


So if Boeing was doing all the work, it would have gone into the right system where this would have all been part of one job that would have been all recorded. But because they couldn’t use the Boeing system to drive the work, they didn’t use it for the Boeing portion, so it wasn’t recorded.

The problem here is Boeing should have fixed it so spirit work going on at Boeing should have been using the Boeing system, so that everyone is on the same page. But instead of fixing the process they had to create a make shift system that failed. When there was enough work to have a bunch of spirit employees stationed there, they should have all been using the same system.

Something that hasn't been mentioned is Spirit also does work for Airbus, how does Airbus quality control compare to Boeings? To me this is looking more like a coverup by Spirit, there's no way they don't know who installed that plug.

Pretty wild claim on Boeing's part to say the task(s) may never have been created/signed off.

I've never worked production, but I am an FAA A&P mechanic with a decent amount of experience on Boeing aircraft (727, 737, 757, 767) in repair facilities and line maintenance for fire fighting operations.

If production is anything like a heavy check, all of the maintenance/inspection tasks are pre-selected by the planning department in their maintenance tracking program and a physical card is printed. It's generally the exact same tasks from plane to plane but varies if you're adding something like a landing gear change or doing a detailed inspection of the fan blades (amongst many, many other different inspections we do). As a mechanic, I have to clock into that task card for billing and tracking purposes and I either sign off the mechanic block certifying that I performed the work or sign off that I inspected another mechanic's work. I then have to digitally sign off the card and an inspector signs his portion and closes out the card.

It's possible that the planning department simply didn't pre-select the task, but not likely. Not only is each booth where the task cards are kept audited by QA, but as mechanics, we don't remove, install, or inspect anything without paperwork. We even have final cards where we ensure that the landing gear pins have been removed and verified before the customer takes off.

Looks like they need to clean house and rewrite their QA/QC program.

The investigation is still in early stages, but pilot error is emerging as part of the story.

https://theaircurrent.com/...-dive-investigation/

What you describe is not what the Boeing whistleblower is describing.

What am I saying contradicts that?

I'm just going to address your explanation of closing the door.

Every fastener in an aircraft has a torque value and lubrication requirement. That value and substance is called on a drawing, and then in the procedure. Regardless of how nonchalant opening and closing a door might be, installing fasteners is never that casual.

If what you are suggesting is truly the facts - that the fasteners were installed outside of the requirements of the QMS, then the federal inspector should padlock the door to that facility immediately and send everyone home until the proper oversight is established

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

There you go. According to this guy there are records showing the bolts missing, that means they have records of the assembly, and they know who did it.

QED

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

Where in the whistle blower account are you seeing them claim “there are records showing the bolts missing”?

This is a direct quote from the account “ No record or comment regarding the retention bolts is made.”

This guys says, "It was Boeing who opened the plug and then closed it up, marking the job complete." Not the Spirit employees embedded in Renton.

You say, " So spirit replaced the seal and I bet that is all recorded and inspected. "

Quote:

The self-described Boeing insider said company records show four bolts that prevent the door plug from sliding up off the door frame stop pads that take the pressurization loads in flight, “were not installed when Boeing delivered the airplane.” the whistleblower stated. “Our own records reflect this.”

Sorry if I was not clear. Boeing was the one that opened and closed the door, but my understanding is Spirit is the one who would have to physically replace the seal.

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

This is a direct quote from the account “ No record or comment regarding the retention bolts is made.”


If your read the actual post, it is clear when they say “Our own records reflect this” they don’t mean there is some record saying “4 bolts missing”. They mean there are no records showing the installation of the bolts. Those are two separate things.

You are misunderstanding what you are quoting.

The account is saying the records show how the plane was deliver with the bolts missing, not that the records show the bolts were missing. Those are two very different things.

Seriously, I have a direct quote from the account “No record or comment regarding the retention bolts is made.”

They are saying the record is missing any mention of the bolts and the way it was worked would mean there would be no record.

I stand corrected. My thought was he was discussing a document in the final inspection OQE that listed the bolts, and those 4 were missing. If the OQE for the bolts is not in the final inspection report, then you are correct. So someone thought no OQE was necessary. That strikes me as borderline gross negligence. How could any trained and experienced technician believe that no OQQ was required to install fasteners on an aircraft? How could any supervisor or manager not know that was happening without documentation? How could the floor quality inspector(s) not see it happening and question the process?

My comment about putting a lock on the door and sending everyone home stands. Wide spread systemic quality process failures.

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

https://www.theguardian.com/...rnal-panel-in-flight

It's wild, how this just keeps getting worse

Given the current climate it might not look good but this plane is 25 years old, what panel was it? No one on board knew about it so it wasn't a critical piece, how many tiktoks have we seen of jets flying with speed tape holding non critical panels in place? Again maybe not a good look but I bet this happens a lot more than we know.

... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzyEOk-s9l0

The optics aren't great for Boeing, but this is the mechanic's fault at UAL.

If the NY post is right about the panel, looks like it was delaminated composite. Did the mechanic do the coin tap test?

Also looks like it wasn't from missing bolts! I'd bet some bit delaminated and came off then once the air got underneath, the whole thing got ripped right off the bolts.

Not directed at your comment per se, but the use of speed tape is a completely acceptable temporary repair method found in either the standard practices chapter of the Boeing aircraft maintenance manual (AMM) or structural repair manual (SRM).

Hard to tell from the video clip, but the paint could be flaking off or the sealant could be missing.

The composite wings on the B787 and A350 are notorious for the paint flaking off due to the incredible amount of flex they experience in flight (apparently they're working on improving the binders in the paint so that it adheres better). If you see pics of upper side of the wing covered with a shitload of speed tape, it's to try and prevent the paint from peeling more.

Oooh, I hadn't seen that picture. Can definitely see most (all?) of the hardware is still installed.

I'll walk back my UAL mechanic's fault statement, but I wouldn't lay this one completely at the feet of Boeing (not defending them here!).

This plane has gone through a lot of heavy checks and those panels do get checked for cracks and delamination. Some mechanic somewhere missed that one bigly.

At this point we are at peak media coverage. My guess is this sort of thing happens on a regular basis. The difference is before it might have been seen by a few niche websites and now it gets picked up my main stream media. Just like every drunk passenger story was making front page news for a while.

My last trip the lag out was on an older 737 and everyone was complaining about how dated the plane was. The trip back was on a MAX and everyone was complaining about that.

That's why I ride a Lynskey. It's not going to delaminate halfway down Alpe D'Huez.

Metal fatigue has caused many accidents, just saying.

Yes I know, that was tongue in cheek. I used to ride a '98 Cannondale, or formerly known as Cracknfail...

Oh that's brutal. Hopefully the actual talk isn't nearly as pompously toned.

This is getting more and more fishy:

'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower's prediction before death
https://wpde.com/...lina-abc-news-4-2024

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Boeing CEO has resigned. Hopefully they won't be stupid enough to hire an accountant to run the company again.

$62M parachute. Decent work if you can get it.

Reminds me of Carly Fiorina. Took a wrecking ball to one of the great engineering companies and got a big payout for it.

I just finished this book an hour ago. I fly 737's for a big airline, spent 15 years flying 777's for a big airline. Great read. Of interesting note was the section about Boeing Alteon Flight Training. These guys were floating around the sim center in the early days. We had a canteen lounge where there were snacks. After a few years we were informed we weren't' allowed to eat the snacks anymore due to cost cutting. Now I know why.

Have not read the book. But, it all seems so unnecessary. In a market with strong demand and only two players you ought to be able to make plenty of profit without taking extra risks on quality.

After he retired from the Navy my step-father worked for Boeing for about 15 years. It was right during the time were the company shifted from an engineering company to a bunch of bean counters. He used tell us all this stuff about how screwed up the company was and why......then I watched the Downfall documentary on Netflix, it was point by point the stuff he had been telling us for years.

I worked there for over 30 years, almost all in comp. sci. R&D (mostly very large scale 3D visualization / digital part assembly / design generation & analysis, along with a few other areas). Going back at least as far as the early '90s it was a schizophrenic company when it came to in-house technology development and engineering vs believing vendor claims that they should just buy some capability from them, even if said vendor didn't have the capability available. The 'merger' with McDonnell Douglas just made all of this so much worse. Despite numerous and explicit warnings, upper management would outsource design and early assembly work without any apparent understanding that they didn't outsource the ultimate responsibility for making sure everything still worked correctly, something that came back to bite them badly on the 787. All done in the name in 'increasing shareholder value'; a point that was endlessly repeated internally. To this day each time I see that phrase anywhere, I throw up in my mouth just a little.

Glad you liked the book. Small world, l have some Boeing time as well. The book is a sad and compelling testament to the demise of an extraordinary and once excellent company. But what has become pathological near sightedness and the endless pursuit of nothing except the stock price has had big consequences and, sadly, none of them good.

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My company makes aircraft parts for a defense contractor. Monday we discovered that the 3D model did not make the part to the print provided. Both the model and the print are provided by the customer in this case, and we are not allowed to deviate from either. Sales contacted the buyer and told him the delivery date needed to slip due to their mistake. Quality had sent the required notifications and were awaiting a reply.

Yesterday we were told to be on a conference call to discuss the problem. Conversation went like this:

Customer's Engineer: We have confirmed the manufacturers facts. There is a contradiction between the 3D model and the PDF drawings. We will be looking into it and issuing a corrected document.

Customer's Buyer: Our assembly line will stop in xx days. We need the resolved now.

Engineer: I don't care what you need. When we have time to look into the problem we will issue a fix.

Then the engineer left the call.

When my team told me this story I told them to get used to it. (and I bet that way of thinking is about to infect Boeing, if it hasn't already)

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

Yeah, as a 25-year engineer, it's good to have one DGAF engineer like that on any team. And a corporate culture that provides a firewall around him/her w.r.t. "hurt feelings," slipping production dates, or quarterly reports.

Was the contract build to print? ie, were you supposed to build to the drawing (PDF)? And the model either shouldn't have been given to you or was just a guidline.

You manufacture to the 3D model, you inspect to the print. Standard fair in our industry.

We do not have design control, nor do we have MRB authority. Again, standard for the industry.

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

Being a “flyover” state is getting more exciting!

Priceless.




And yet more fodder for this dumpster fire:

A Boeing whistleblower raises fresh concerns about the 787, and the FAA investigates
https://www.npr.org/...87-faa-investigation

This has gotta be the best part:
"Salehpour says he repeatedly raised concerns with management, but instead of addressing them, they transferred him to work on a different plane, the 777, where he alleges he saw similar problems. "I literally saw people jumping on the pieces of the airplane to get them to align," he said. "That's not how you build a plane."

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Need to add an engine cover in the Denver square.

https://www.cnbc.com/...ght-takeoff-faa.html

100% on the ground crew, has zero to do with who built the airplane, one more reason to hate the media.

Anything that goes wrong is the manufacture's fault at the moment. Like the tire falling off the United flight.

Because of the garbage media coverage, on a side note if anyone wants to see the daily life of a ground maintenance tech check out Stig Aviation on YouTube,he goes into detail about some of the things going on with Boeing, to say he's not a fan of the media coverage is an understatement. LOL The guy is awesome.

... https://www.youtube.com/@StigAviation/videos

I don't have much issue with that particular article.

It would not be a reporter's job to, unsolicited, state that it had nothing to do with Boeing. That requires some level of technical knowledge, and would be speculative for someone with possibly zero engineering or aerospace maintenance expertise. That's why reporters ask the expert parties for input.

The reporter asked for a statement from Boeing, Boeing chose not to give one.

Though there was mention of the other Boeing-related incidents, the context was pretty clear it was just summarizing recent events Boeing was involved in, and the increased FAA scrutiny.

Here is a mainstream media article saying that these cowling failures are maintenance issues.

https://www.reuters.com/...-problem-2024-04-08/

Well, this can't be good ...

Whistleblower urges Boeing to ground all 787 Dreamliners after safety warning
https://www.theguardian.com/...lower-787-dreamliner

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The 787 has been flying for over 10 years. I think it's ok. Lol

The whistleblower’s point is they will fail prematurely not immediately. So you might get 20 years of life from the airframe instead of 50. If it is early enough that you haven’t done the inspections, then you have a real safety issue.

At this juncture, with the company's credibility completely in tatters, l think many are more inclined to listen to the whistleblower than to boeing. And for good reason.

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Another summary of just how bad it is at Boeing:
https://www.vox.com/...m-salehpour-congress

"[whistleblower] Salehpour said he had gone up high in the chain of command at Boeing to alert them of his concerns, having written “many memos, time after time.” Yet he says his warnings went unheeded — and he was punished for bringing them up. “I was sidelined. I was told to shut up. I received physical threats,” he said. “My boss said, ‘I would have killed someone who said what you said in the meeting.’"

So much for the friendly skies ...

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Tell us why MBNA's shouldn't be allowed to run businesses without telling us that. The engineer left the "building" because the bean counters were more concerned about how many beans were used instead of whether the beans were being used in a productive and PROTECTIVE manner. The shareholder pushing for the business portion being moved back to Spokane isn't wrong, management has become disconnected from production. Boeing has become the best example of why executive should not be remote to production.

A supplier is rightly concerned with losing revenue on a problem caused by their customer. It happens all the time in construction, design and manufacturing. If they had any sense at all, there would be contractual clauses for losses incurred that will sit with their customer. The supplier is not unconcerned with the safety aspect but its not up to them to eat a loss caused by their clients incompetence. In our industry, they could take as long as they want to resolve it, but we'd keep invoicing for the variation to contract and time consumed.

Just replying to last:

https://www.instagram.com/...gsh=eHRyajJvMzYwN20z

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Long Chile was a silly place.

That's pretty funny.

https://www.theatlantic.com/...tm_source=apple_news

Not sure if this has been. Posted

Interesting article, with a lot of history. Thanks for posting. Over the past couple decades I've read some similar critiques of the U.S. auto industry, like the claim that "no one at Ford or GM knows how to make an automatic transmission anymore." All farmed out. (is the claim, not sure of the truth on that one).

And Tesla is always contentious, but part of their success has been assigned to "vertical integration" - or Tesla doing far more of their own design and manufacturing than most other U.S. automakers.

And where America leads, Britain blindly follows. Same short-sighted, short term-ist management across most of what remains in British manufacturing (which isn't a lot). The only really prosperous industry in Blighty is Pharma.
Rolls Royce aero engines are a way down the same outsourcing and deskilling of its own staff route as Boeing, in search if the quick buck for the short sighted shareholders.

Joshua Dean, another whistleblower, just died of "a sudden illness":

https://www.aol.com/...rning-090942011.html

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"100% of the people who confuse correlation and causation end up dying."

Does Russia own stock in Boeing?

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

That article was depressing and rung far too true.

GM used to run a foundry and made every single nut and bolt that went into a vehicle, now it is all outsourced overseas.

Far too much engineering in the US is just requirements management, the real design work has been outsourced.

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