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Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system

431 points by osivertsson 7y ago

jMyles 7y ago
Wow - more serious story than I first imagined. > Mr Barnett, a former quality control engineer, worked for Boeing for 32 years, until his retirement on health grounds in March 2017. From 2010 he was employed as a quality manager at Boeing's factory in North Charleston, South Carolina. This plant is one of two that are involved in building the 787 Dreamliner. In terms of credibility lent by a career, you can't do much better in terms of being positioned to blow this particular whistle. > According to Mr Barnett, 57, the rush to get new aircraft off the production line meant that the assembly process was rushed and safety was compromised. The company denies this and insists that "safety, quality and integrity are at the core of Boeing's values". Surely Boeing must realize how tone-deaf this sounds given the current skepticism being (rightly) cast its way. > Mr Barnett says his attempts to have the matter looked at further were stonewalled by Boeing managers. In 2017, he complained to the US regulator, the FAA, that no action had been taken to address the problem. The FAA, however, said it could not substantiate that claim, because Boeing had indicated it was working on the issue at the time. I tend to lean libertarian on a lot of "regulatory" matters, but no matter your normal view of things, I hope we can all agree that this is an embarrassingly obvious fox guarding this particular hen-house. > John Barnett says tests suggest up to a quarter of the oxygen systems could be faulty and might not work when needed. He also claimed faulty parts were deliberately fitted to planes on the production line at one Boeing factory. Even if the bag does not inflate, breathe normally as oxygen is flowing. Or not.
- riffraff 7y ago
  It seems to me the FAA comes out of this looking terrible, even if the accusations are not grounded it seems absurd that no actions were taken to verify such a notice coming from a QA engineer in the company itself. I wonder if other regulatory bodies around the world could/would/should have done something.
  - krn 7y ago
    > It seems to me the FAA comes out of this looking terrible, even if the accusations are not grounded it seems absurd that no actions were taken to verify such a notice coming from a QA engineer in the company itself. This has been going for a long time now[1]: > Instead of being manufactured by the approved computerised process, Ducommun employees were cutting the parts by hand - literally using a felt-tipped pen to mark out the shape and then cutting the metal with a hand-cutter. > Not only did this result in parts which could never meet the mandated 3000ths of an inch accuracy - but the Boeing team realised it violated the official type design: any aircraft with these parts on them would be legally "unairworthy" - and therefore not allowed to fly. > The Department of Justice ordered two investigations - one by the FAA and, because Boeing had sold some 737NGs to the military, one by the Defence Criminal Investigative Service. > But the whistle-blowers have been dismayed by these investigations. Al Jazeera obtained a copy of the FAA investigation - which the administration redacted. The only publicly-viewable "investigative actions" appear to be that the FAA looked up Ducommun's address and visited its website. [1] https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2010/12/20101214104637901849.html https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2010/12/...
    - londons_explore 7y ago
      Cutting parts by hand isn't necessarily bad. But they should have gone to a design engineer and said "we're hand cutting these parts, and don't think we can get accuracy better than 1/32nd of an inch. Will that compromise the design?" The engineer will then run a few tests and simulations, green-light the change, a superior will check the maths, and they'll be good to go with making the part by hand.
      - krn 7y ago
        According to the same source: > But there was worse to come: every part in the production process has to be signed off at each stage of its manufacture on a document called a "shop traveller". This records that each individual stage of manufacture has been carried out in accordance with the type design. > The Boeing team discovered that Ducommun had apparently falsified these records: it had two sets of "books" - the official one recording that each part had been made by the computerised process and a second set recording the actual, handforming process which had really been used. > What that meant, in the eyes of the Boeing team, was that every single chord and bear strap manufactured by Ducommun had to be viewed as unlawful.
- mikekchar 7y ago
  >> [...] The FAA, however, said it could not substantiate that claim, because Boeing had indicated it was working on the issue at the time. > [...] I hope we can all agree that this is an embarrassingly obvious fox guarding this particular hen-house. I can imagine situations where I would not agree, to be honest. If a manager says, "There is a bug in this system here" and I say, "I'm investigating that problem and will get back to you", it would be a bit strange for the manager to call a halt to my investigation so that they could start a new one. Usually the manager would wait until my investigation is finished. If they were still not satisfied, then that's the time to intervene. In the same way, I would not expect the FAA to intervene on an issue if the manufacturer was already investigating it. They would wait until that investigation was finished. Sure, put a deadline on it, but it's pretty reasonable to say that you don't know where the issue stands because it's currently under review.
  - jMyles 7y ago
    > If a manager says, "There is a bug in this system here" I think that your metaphor does a disservice to this whistleblower and the allegations that he's making. Better is to imagine a manager saying, "I have observed bugs being intentionally left in the codebase in order to cut cost. Senior managers are aware of this and have allowed it to continue." In that scenario, the matter of when to intervene is quite different I think.
  - simion314 7y ago
    It depends, say if your investigation would find bugs that would cause you to be fired and fined then why should we trust you to investigate yourself? I think this is what is happening herewith Boeing, they are trying hard to cover the issues or if they can't hide them to reclassify them as not severe or patch them with some bad hack.
  - torgian 7y ago
    In the meantime, people die, or have the potential to die. There's nothing preventing the FAA from proceeding with its own investigation, except for Boeing saying, "Nah, don't do that, we got our own thing going on here... btw, how's your bank account? Get that 250k yet?"
- briandear 7y ago
  John Barnett’s potential involvement with the union ought to be disclosed. There are repeated claims of “problems,” that are strangely coincidental to union opposition to right to work states. Attributing altruism when in fact there had been a concerted campaign against right to work states and factories moving there is journalistic malpractice. “Many analysts say that Boeing decided to put its second Dreamliner aircraft assembly line in the state to reduce the leverage of the machinists’ union, which represents Boeing’s work force in the Puget Sound region of Washington State and has used work stoppages to exact concessions from the company in the past. South Carolina is one of the least unionized states in the country.” [1] And not surprisingly, pro-union “whistleblowers” are all to willing to leverage the fears of the public to advance their agenda. If oil company workers were to go to the media to suggest that solar panels caused cancer, we’d frame their claim within the context that they have a self-interest rather than a genuine concern. Since John Barnett is retired and depends on a union pension, he has a vested interest in this despite not even working at Boeing for years. The Aerospace and Machinist Union is extremely powerful. It’s foolish to think they are going to miss an opportunity to make a case than a non-union factory is more dangerous than a union one. Their literal existence depends on advancing that narrative. Even if they are right, their angle makes it hard to give their objections objective credibility. However, that being said, that doesn’t mean the story is false, but responsible journalism wouldn’t let a “whistleblower” be the key voice in the story. Those planes go through airworthiness inspections each year and unless some IA is fraudulently signing off on airworthiness requirements (which includes fully testing the oxygen systems,) then there isn’t any actual reason to suspect a system that doesn’t work. If Boeing is fraudulently conducted airworthiness inspections, then that’s something that would ground any airline using those planes — no air carrier is going to risk their carrier certificate by “helping” Boeing by faking airworthiness. Airlines themselves are responsible for maintenance and inspections — they have no incentive to be complicit in helping Boeing cover up defective oxygen systems. Boeing isn’t the one doing airworthiness inspections on airliner operated aircraft. The would mean the end of the airline. Suggesting that oxygen systems is faulty is ridiculous considering how frequently they are tested by the operators. If United found the O2 of the 787 was faulty, they wouldn’t accept the airplane. They would demand Boeing fix the issues or they wouldn’t take delivery. Those airplane sales contracts are extensive and exhaustive. United has no incentive to accept a faulty airplane. [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/business/boeing-union-south-carolina.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/busi...
- soapboxrocket 7y ago
  > Even if the bag does not inflate, breathe normally as oxygen is flowing. Or not. The 787 doesn't have any accumulator bags, the big difference with that system is that its electronically pulse controlled oxygen flow rather than a mechanical/chemical constant flow system. His claim isn't exactly true, the lab he used sent power to all systems at once, this is why he saw a failure of about 25%, in fact the system on the plane actually fires the system in a sequence because the power draw to start all systems at once is just too high. So sit closer to the front of the plane if you want oxygen faster.
  - jMyles 7y ago
    Of course I was just riffing on the typical in-flight safety language, but I appreciate learning a bit more about the 787. I guess I never noticed this, but I imagine the safety video doesn't show (or mention) the bags?
spectramax 7y ago
Just curious - what are the repercussions for an untruthful whistleblower? Say someone is disgruntled, fired or laid off and wants to cause the company some level of public harm?
- jMyles 7y ago
  Certainly they can be held civilly liable if defamation can be proved. If actual spite and malice can be shown, or if the suspect intends to profit from the action, it's possible that there may be criminal laws that apply, depending on the state.
  - londons_explore 7y ago
    Are there any studies or reports of typical repercussions faced by whistle blowers for false reports? I'd guess both false and true reports suffer approximately the same repercussions...
    - Nasrudith 7y ago
      False whistleblowers can suffer less repurcussions if you include "made up out of whole cloth" because it is impossible to ruin a career that they never had. They tend to be easier to discredit at least in a "the Pizza restuarant doesn't even have a basement it is built in swampland and would flood way too easily" way.
- nraynaud 7y ago
  what are the repercussions for an untruthful cop?
- Someone1234 7y ago
  Both Boeing and the FAA acknowledge there was an issue. The only disagreement is over if it was resolved fully or not. So this whistleblower isn't "untruthful." This is all in the article.
- kwshs 7y ago
  lol @ you being downvoted for even asking. Shows how much of a leftist website this is: someone who goes against big corporations must be right!
esel2k 7y ago
Coming from another highly regulated industry: Medical Devices, I think it is not uncommon that Bosses ignore processes and for the sake of numbers (cash & career) would just override them. As long as they are protegee of any higher up on the ladder people generally don’t care and as long no serious lawsuit would put people into jail I am wondering if this is ever going to change. Anyone has made other experiences?
- missosoup 7y ago
  Yes. Spent some years working on an a class 2b diagnostic device. Potential for harm not that high, but the lack of rigour in testing leaves me wondering to this day whether it worked at all as advertised. If medical devices are ever open sourced, millions of critical bugs are going to fall out.
  - Balgair 7y ago
    http://www.opensourcediabetes.org/ http://www.opensourcediabetes.org/ Already happening with Diabetics. I know a girl that has cracked her pump for closed loop performance and she says the results are mostly better, but take close monitoring and an active hand. It's a tricky thing still. Yes, the devices are buggy (all things are), but half of medical devices are used by people with below average intelligence (by definition). It's still a balancing act and is likely to be for a long time.
    - ZeikJT 7y ago
      That website is in a rough state. I tried to contact them regarding the fact that their url for jquery tools no longer resolves and that their SSL certificate has expired. I filled out the contact form and hit submit and then was presented with an empty results screen (probably because the js is broken). Hopefully they fix it up, but might not.
    - Franciscouzo 7y ago
      Why would that be true by definition? Diabetes and IQ could be somehow correlated [0] (and other disorders too). [0] https://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/42/2/341.short https://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/42/2/341.short
usr1106 7y ago
There is at least one big airline that denies to accept airliners built in Charleston. Don't remember which. So quality problems are not invented by a single disgruntled employee. There have been news articles before https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamliner-production-problems.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamline... says that Qatar Airways "stopped" accepting planes fron Charleston. Not sure whether that means indefinitely or until the planes in question are reworked. In normal markets competition would make sure that a company like Boeing gets enough pressure or eventually fails. Now they are too big to fail however they misbehave. And there is little doubt that they do badly. The merger with McDowell Douglas should never have been approved, even less the newest acqusitation of Embraer. Case AT&T showed what to do if competition does no longer work.
- xiphias2 7y ago
  I would imagine that now that people hate Boeing management for risking their life it's much easier for other airplane startups to raise VC money and be succesful.
  - LadyCailin 7y ago
    I’m not sure I trust a startup to make life safety equipment either. Startups by definition have to do whatever they can to cut costs and get as minimal of a minimally viable product as they can, and often, that leads them to releasing shitty versions of the product and patching it later. That’s fine when it’s a mobile game, but when it’s airplanes that carry hundreds of people across the ocean... I’m not sure I have a solution here, other than saying something like “just fix Boeing” but whatever company is making commercial airplanes, I want them backed by governments and large corporations, not VC money.
    - baddox 7y ago
      > but whatever company is making commercial airplanes, I want them backed by governments and large corporations, not VC money. I’m not sure if the incentives or expected results really change all that much. Certainly there are plenty of large wealthy governments and large corporations that don’t have a great track record with safety in large engineering/manufacturing endeavors.
rolltiide 7y ago
> Boeing denies his accusations and says all its aircraft are built to the highest levels of safety and quality. self-certified clown emoji
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
raverbashing 7y ago
The upside to this complaint is that it should be "fairly easy" to test. Though you probably need someone to obtain some systems from a plane currently in operation. But if the fault rate is 1/4 of the systems, you probably don't need many samples.
torgian 7y ago
"""On the matter of parts being lost, in early 2017 a review by the Federal Aviation Administration upheld Mr Barnett's concerns, establishing that the location of at least 53 "non-conforming" parts was unknown, and that they were considered lost. Boeing was ordered to take remedial action""" That's not just bad; this is really, _really_ bad. In my eight years of the Navy, working on aircraft, parts and tool accountability was 100% the most serious part of our day. You went to and left the aircraft with everything accounted for. If _one_ part or tool was missing, everything would shut down for that aircraft until it was found. The fact that tools and parts were/are missing tells me that either supply didn't do its job right, or someone left a loose nut in a compartment somewhere, just waiting to kill people. People _die_ because of this shit.
- iagovar 7y ago
  I would say, as european, that all this storm of shit is good news for Airbus, but I hop on Boeing planes too, and I think competition is good news. Boeing is maybe too big to fail, but the reputation hit they are taking may lead to companies not buying their planes, thus pushing for least competition, which is bad news for everyone. Airbus being the kind of behemoth company it is, I am convinced that without Boeing's competition, over time, they would end up with the same practices, convinced that their aircraft sell themselves.
  - sandworm101 7y ago
    After the demise of the a380 project i doubt airbus will ever think again that the aircraft can sell themselves.
    - salex89 7y ago
      The A380 might actually live the destiny of the 767 or 757. Sure, it was a handful for the manufacturer, luckily pulled it off, kinda broke even after some time. But it will be long gone when it will be really needed, when large hubs become even more congested or certain P2P lines heavily overgrow on themselves.
tolien 7y ago
Previously covered by the NY Times [1], calling out rushed production and parts left inside aircraft, including that Qatar Airways stopped accepting aircraft from Charleston because of delays and required rework. John Barnett, the whistleblower mentioned here, had complained to the FAA about sharp metal slivers and had his complaint upheld on inspection by the FAA. 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamliner-production-problems.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamline...
altacc 7y ago
In the past, I've known people who refused to fly on McDonnell Douglas planes as their record was so bad. I wonder if the same has started, or will start happening, with Boeing.
- rethab 7y ago
  Would you fly with a 787 now?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - altacc 7y ago
    Yes, I would as I consider depressurisation an extreme event. I believe the pilots have a separate oxygen supply, so a double failure is even more unlikely.
    - mveety 7y ago
      But depending on the altitude you're at getting that mask on is wishful thinking. Don't bet on your pilots being conscious after a plane depresses.
- notfromhere 7y ago
  Boeing merged with McDonnell, but in the shuffle MD management got all the top spots at Boeing. So ironically, Boeing inherited all the culture and org problems that made MD planes such a shitshow
xwvvvvwx 7y ago
How can I tell when I’m booking a flight if that plane will be boeing? I would like to avoid them (for the time being at least).
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  You won’t, and airlines have no obligation to transport you on a specific plane. The airlines’ website most times lists what aircraft they are scheduled to use, but they can be swapped anytime if the need arises.
- koyote 7y ago
  There are quite a few airlines that do not fly Boeing planes (EasyJet for example). When booking the aeroplane will usually be listed but you can also check flight history of the flight number. Of course the airline might still swap the plane at any time.
- rethab 7y ago
  kayak.com allows you to search by plane type. not sure to what extent they can guarantee that you'll actually be flying that type of machine though.
- osivertsson 7y ago
  As mentioned in the other answers as a consumer you can try but you will have no guarantee of airplane type. I do wonder if this fear of flying Boeing will spread to company travel departments? Say a few of the really big companies in the world decide their employees should not fly Boeing. That support for this is being baked into booking systems and demanded from operators. Could Boeing ever recover?
- service_bus 7y ago
  Most airlines typically try to purchase their fleet all from the same manufacturer if they can. There's a lot of additional cost that goes into maintenance, pilot training, pilot availability, etc. that has to be accounted for if you're mixing aircraft from different manufacturers. You can just look up the aircraft owned by an airline and it will give you a pretty good idea what to expect. You can also go on flight tracker sites and just look at what aircraft are running the route currently, which would also be a good indicator.
trhway 7y ago
>the sharp metal pieces — produced when fasteners were fitted into nuts does it sound like too powerful (i.e. fast which translates to assembly speed) tools are applied to too cheap (like in manufactured to loose tolerances from cheap metal) fasteners and nuts?
BogdanPetre 7y ago
I Am Jack's Complete Lack of Surprise
Merrill 7y ago
>On December 13, 2018, the 787th Boeing 787 was delivered to AerCap, the largest 787 lessor. By then the 787 had flown 300 million passengers on 1.5 million flights and opened 210 new nonstop routes. There have been 894 deliveries through September 2019. So far only one incident involving the uncontained failure of a Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engine. There have been no complete losses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner#Accidents_and_notable_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner#Accident...
- Cactus2018 7y ago
  >Rolls Royce Trent Great 'final assembly' time-lapse video of the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2R6NTgvEV4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2R6NTgvEV4
  - Merrill 7y ago
    Interesting. Thanks.
AlexDragusin 7y ago
If Boeing keep this up, I am wondering who's out there writing the book called "Boeing: The giant stall"? PS: Credit me for the title if ever! :)
jermaustin1 7y ago
These people need to stop finding faults with the airplanes I fly on regularly! /s Its getting to the point that I'm actually nervous about flying Boeing now. I took 6-8 flights on the 737-Max each year 2016-2019 and now I've taken 4 flights on the 787-Dreamliner since March. I know that it is still statistically improbable that one of these flights to have an issue, but it still raises my blood pressure since I fly predominantly on Boeing aircraft.
jakub_g 7y ago
When the 2nd Boeing crashed and the whole Boeing saga started, I came across this (boldly named and maybe a bit exaggerated in the form) website: https://www.thelastboeinginspector.com/the-last-inspectors-contact-me-and-about-me-page.html https://www.thelastboeinginspector.com/the-last-inspectors-c... (the navigation is on top of the page, you need JS enabled to see it) It seems there's a lot of people inside Boeing who can say "interesting" things. The guy who created the above website was terminated in 2006.
KoftaBob 7y ago
The market would benefit massively from another entrant to the space, eliminating this Boeing + Airbus duopoly. If there's any entity that's proven they can tackle capital intensive aerospace markets as a new player, it's SpaceX. I know they're waiting for battery energy density to improve so that they can launch supersonic electric jets, but regular jets that use jet fuel wouldn't be a horrible stopgap.
- magduf 7y ago
  We already have several other players that have experience building aircraft: Bombardier and Mitsubishi come to mind, and China has a manufacturer that's keen on challenging the duopoly with their jet too. Don't forget, building a jet isn't that big a deal. Boeing doesn't even make the 737MAX fuselage! It's built by a company called Spirit in Kansas. Boeing doesn't make the engines either, of course (no aircraft manufacturer builds engines, which are surely the most complex and technically challenging part of the plane). Boeing does the engineering, the wings I suppose, and the final assembly. It seems like it shouldn't be that hard for a smaller competitor to get a capital infusion and scale up to building larger jets.
  - VVertigo 7y ago
    Bombardier has already tried: they ended up partnering with Airbus to market the C-series (now A220).
acd 7y ago
We need to optimize so that public health and the environment comes first. Right now economic growth and quarterly earnings are prioritized top. The current economic system demands that corporations should always grow. The solution is to change to an economic system which minimizes global warming, promotes public safety. In such a system this plane would not have been designed how it was.

431 points by osivertsson 7y ago

Wow - more serious story than I first imagined. > Mr Barnett, a former quality control engineer, worked for Boeing for 32 years, until his retirement on health grounds in March 2017. From 2010 he was employed as a quality manager at Boeing's factory in North Charleston, South Carolina. This plant is one of two that are involved in building the 787 Dreamliner. In terms of credibility lent by a career, you can't do much better in terms of being positioned to blow this particular whistle. > According to Mr Barnett, 57, the rush to get new aircraft off the production line meant that the assembly process was rushed and safety was compromised. The company denies this and insists that "safety, quality and integrity are at the core of Boeing's values". Surely Boeing must realize how tone-deaf this sounds given the current skepticism being (rightly) cast its way. > Mr Barnett says his attempts to have the matter looked at further were stonewalled by Boeing managers. In 2017, he complained to the US regulator, the FAA, that no action had been taken to address the problem. The FAA, however, said it could not substantiate that claim, because Boeing had indicated it was working on the issue at the time. I tend to lean libertarian on a lot of "regulatory" matters, but no matter your normal view of things, I hope we can all agree that this is an embarrassingly obvious fox guarding this particular hen-house. > John Barnett says tests suggest up to a quarter of the oxygen systems could be faulty and might not work when needed. He also claimed faulty parts were deliberately fitted to planes on the production line at one Boeing factory. Even if the bag does not inflate, breathe normally as oxygen is flowing. Or not.

riffraff 7y ago
It seems to me the FAA comes out of this looking terrible, even if the accusations are not grounded it seems absurd that no actions were taken to verify such a notice coming from a QA engineer in the company itself. I wonder if other regulatory bodies around the world could/would/should have done something.
- krn 7y ago
  > It seems to me the FAA comes out of this looking terrible, even if the accusations are not grounded it seems absurd that no actions were taken to verify such a notice coming from a QA engineer in the company itself. This has been going for a long time now[1]: > Instead of being manufactured by the approved computerised process, Ducommun employees were cutting the parts by hand - literally using a felt-tipped pen to mark out the shape and then cutting the metal with a hand-cutter. > Not only did this result in parts which could never meet the mandated 3000ths of an inch accuracy - but the Boeing team realised it violated the official type design: any aircraft with these parts on them would be legally "unairworthy" - and therefore not allowed to fly. > The Department of Justice ordered two investigations - one by the FAA and, because Boeing had sold some 737NGs to the military, one by the Defence Criminal Investigative Service. > But the whistle-blowers have been dismayed by these investigations. Al Jazeera obtained a copy of the FAA investigation - which the administration redacted. The only publicly-viewable "investigative actions" appear to be that the FAA looked up Ducommun's address and visited its website. [1] https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2010/12/20101214104637901849.html https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2010/12/...
  - londons_explore 7y ago
    Cutting parts by hand isn't necessarily bad. But they should have gone to a design engineer and said "we're hand cutting these parts, and don't think we can get accuracy better than 1/32nd of an inch. Will that compromise the design?" The engineer will then run a few tests and simulations, green-light the change, a superior will check the maths, and they'll be good to go with making the part by hand.
    - krn 7y ago
      According to the same source: > But there was worse to come: every part in the production process has to be signed off at each stage of its manufacture on a document called a "shop traveller". This records that each individual stage of manufacture has been carried out in accordance with the type design. > The Boeing team discovered that Ducommun had apparently falsified these records: it had two sets of "books" - the official one recording that each part had been made by the computerised process and a second set recording the actual, handforming process which had really been used. > What that meant, in the eyes of the Boeing team, was that every single chord and bear strap manufactured by Ducommun had to be viewed as unlawful.
mikekchar 7y ago
>> [...] The FAA, however, said it could not substantiate that claim, because Boeing had indicated it was working on the issue at the time. > [...] I hope we can all agree that this is an embarrassingly obvious fox guarding this particular hen-house. I can imagine situations where I would not agree, to be honest. If a manager says, "There is a bug in this system here" and I say, "I'm investigating that problem and will get back to you", it would be a bit strange for the manager to call a halt to my investigation so that they could start a new one. Usually the manager would wait until my investigation is finished. If they were still not satisfied, then that's the time to intervene. In the same way, I would not expect the FAA to intervene on an issue if the manufacturer was already investigating it. They would wait until that investigation was finished. Sure, put a deadline on it, but it's pretty reasonable to say that you don't know where the issue stands because it's currently under review.
- jMyles 7y ago
  > If a manager says, "There is a bug in this system here" I think that your metaphor does a disservice to this whistleblower and the allegations that he's making. Better is to imagine a manager saying, "I have observed bugs being intentionally left in the codebase in order to cut cost. Senior managers are aware of this and have allowed it to continue." In that scenario, the matter of when to intervene is quite different I think.
- simion314 7y ago
  It depends, say if your investigation would find bugs that would cause you to be fired and fined then why should we trust you to investigate yourself? I think this is what is happening herewith Boeing, they are trying hard to cover the issues or if they can't hide them to reclassify them as not severe or patch them with some bad hack.
- torgian 7y ago
  In the meantime, people die, or have the potential to die. There's nothing preventing the FAA from proceeding with its own investigation, except for Boeing saying, "Nah, don't do that, we got our own thing going on here... btw, how's your bank account? Get that 250k yet?"
briandear 7y ago
John Barnett’s potential involvement with the union ought to be disclosed. There are repeated claims of “problems,” that are strangely coincidental to union opposition to right to work states. Attributing altruism when in fact there had been a concerted campaign against right to work states and factories moving there is journalistic malpractice. “Many analysts say that Boeing decided to put its second Dreamliner aircraft assembly line in the state to reduce the leverage of the machinists’ union, which represents Boeing’s work force in the Puget Sound region of Washington State and has used work stoppages to exact concessions from the company in the past. South Carolina is one of the least unionized states in the country.” [1] And not surprisingly, pro-union “whistleblowers” are all to willing to leverage the fears of the public to advance their agenda. If oil company workers were to go to the media to suggest that solar panels caused cancer, we’d frame their claim within the context that they have a self-interest rather than a genuine concern. Since John Barnett is retired and depends on a union pension, he has a vested interest in this despite not even working at Boeing for years. The Aerospace and Machinist Union is extremely powerful. It’s foolish to think they are going to miss an opportunity to make a case than a non-union factory is more dangerous than a union one. Their literal existence depends on advancing that narrative. Even if they are right, their angle makes it hard to give their objections objective credibility. However, that being said, that doesn’t mean the story is false, but responsible journalism wouldn’t let a “whistleblower” be the key voice in the story. Those planes go through airworthiness inspections each year and unless some IA is fraudulently signing off on airworthiness requirements (which includes fully testing the oxygen systems,) then there isn’t any actual reason to suspect a system that doesn’t work. If Boeing is fraudulently conducted airworthiness inspections, then that’s something that would ground any airline using those planes — no air carrier is going to risk their carrier certificate by “helping” Boeing by faking airworthiness. Airlines themselves are responsible for maintenance and inspections — they have no incentive to be complicit in helping Boeing cover up defective oxygen systems. Boeing isn’t the one doing airworthiness inspections on airliner operated aircraft. The would mean the end of the airline. Suggesting that oxygen systems is faulty is ridiculous considering how frequently they are tested by the operators. If United found the O2 of the 787 was faulty, they wouldn’t accept the airplane. They would demand Boeing fix the issues or they wouldn’t take delivery. Those airplane sales contracts are extensive and exhaustive. United has no incentive to accept a faulty airplane. [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/business/boeing-union-south-carolina.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/busi...
soapboxrocket 7y ago
> Even if the bag does not inflate, breathe normally as oxygen is flowing. Or not. The 787 doesn't have any accumulator bags, the big difference with that system is that its electronically pulse controlled oxygen flow rather than a mechanical/chemical constant flow system. His claim isn't exactly true, the lab he used sent power to all systems at once, this is why he saw a failure of about 25%, in fact the system on the plane actually fires the system in a sequence because the power draw to start all systems at once is just too high. So sit closer to the front of the plane if you want oxygen faster.
- jMyles 7y ago
  Of course I was just riffing on the typical in-flight safety language, but I appreciate learning a bit more about the 787. I guess I never noticed this, but I imagine the safety video doesn't show (or mention) the bags?

spectramax 7y ago

Just curious - what are the repercussions for an untruthful whistleblower? Say someone is disgruntled, fired or laid off and wants to cause the company some level of public harm?

jMyles 7y ago
Certainly they can be held civilly liable if defamation can be proved. If actual spite and malice can be shown, or if the suspect intends to profit from the action, it's possible that there may be criminal laws that apply, depending on the state.
- londons_explore 7y ago
  Are there any studies or reports of typical repercussions faced by whistle blowers for false reports? I'd guess both false and true reports suffer approximately the same repercussions...
  - Nasrudith 7y ago
    False whistleblowers can suffer less repurcussions if you include "made up out of whole cloth" because it is impossible to ruin a career that they never had. They tend to be easier to discredit at least in a "the Pizza restuarant doesn't even have a basement it is built in swampland and would flood way too easily" way.
nraynaud 7y ago
what are the repercussions for an untruthful cop?
Someone1234 7y ago
Both Boeing and the FAA acknowledge there was an issue. The only disagreement is over if it was resolved fully or not. So this whistleblower isn't "untruthful." This is all in the article.
kwshs 7y ago
lol @ you being downvoted for even asking. Shows how much of a leftist website this is: someone who goes against big corporations must be right!

esel2k 7y ago

Coming from another highly regulated industry: Medical Devices, I think it is not uncommon that Bosses ignore processes and for the sake of numbers (cash & career) would just override them. As long as they are protegee of any higher up on the ladder people generally don’t care and as long no serious lawsuit would put people into jail I am wondering if this is ever going to change. Anyone has made other experiences?

missosoup 7y ago
Yes. Spent some years working on an a class 2b diagnostic device. Potential for harm not that high, but the lack of rigour in testing leaves me wondering to this day whether it worked at all as advertised. If medical devices are ever open sourced, millions of critical bugs are going to fall out.
- Balgair 7y ago
  http://www.opensourcediabetes.org/ http://www.opensourcediabetes.org/ Already happening with Diabetics. I know a girl that has cracked her pump for closed loop performance and she says the results are mostly better, but take close monitoring and an active hand. It's a tricky thing still. Yes, the devices are buggy (all things are), but half of medical devices are used by people with below average intelligence (by definition). It's still a balancing act and is likely to be for a long time.
  - ZeikJT 7y ago
    That website is in a rough state. I tried to contact them regarding the fact that their url for jquery tools no longer resolves and that their SSL certificate has expired. I filled out the contact form and hit submit and then was presented with an empty results screen (probably because the js is broken). Hopefully they fix it up, but might not.
  - Franciscouzo 7y ago
    Why would that be true by definition? Diabetes and IQ could be somehow correlated [0] (and other disorders too). [0] https://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/42/2/341.short https://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/42/2/341.short

usr1106 7y ago

There is at least one big airline that denies to accept airliners built in Charleston. Don't remember which. So quality problems are not invented by a single disgruntled employee. There have been news articles before https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamliner-production-problems.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamline... says that Qatar Airways "stopped" accepting planes fron Charleston. Not sure whether that means indefinitely or until the planes in question are reworked. In normal markets competition would make sure that a company like Boeing gets enough pressure or eventually fails. Now they are too big to fail however they misbehave. And there is little doubt that they do badly. The merger with McDowell Douglas should never have been approved, even less the newest acqusitation of Embraer. Case AT&T showed what to do if competition does no longer work.

xiphias2 7y ago
I would imagine that now that people hate Boeing management for risking their life it's much easier for other airplane startups to raise VC money and be succesful.
- LadyCailin 7y ago
  I’m not sure I trust a startup to make life safety equipment either. Startups by definition have to do whatever they can to cut costs and get as minimal of a minimally viable product as they can, and often, that leads them to releasing shitty versions of the product and patching it later. That’s fine when it’s a mobile game, but when it’s airplanes that carry hundreds of people across the ocean... I’m not sure I have a solution here, other than saying something like “just fix Boeing” but whatever company is making commercial airplanes, I want them backed by governments and large corporations, not VC money.
  - baddox 7y ago
    > but whatever company is making commercial airplanes, I want them backed by governments and large corporations, not VC money. I’m not sure if the incentives or expected results really change all that much. Certainly there are plenty of large wealthy governments and large corporations that don’t have a great track record with safety in large engineering/manufacturing endeavors.

rolltiide 7y ago

> Boeing denies his accusations and says all its aircraft are built to the highest levels of safety and quality. self-certified clown emoji

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

raverbashing 7y ago

The upside to this complaint is that it should be "fairly easy" to test. Though you probably need someone to obtain some systems from a plane currently in operation. But if the fault rate is 1/4 of the systems, you probably don't need many samples.

torgian 7y ago

"""On the matter of parts being lost, in early 2017 a review by the Federal Aviation Administration upheld Mr Barnett's concerns, establishing that the location of at least 53 "non-conforming" parts was unknown, and that they were considered lost. Boeing was ordered to take remedial action""" That's not just bad; this is really, _really_ bad. In my eight years of the Navy, working on aircraft, parts and tool accountability was 100% the most serious part of our day. You went to and left the aircraft with everything accounted for. If _one_ part or tool was missing, everything would shut down for that aircraft until it was found. The fact that tools and parts were/are missing tells me that either supply didn't do its job right, or someone left a loose nut in a compartment somewhere, just waiting to kill people. People _die_ because of this shit.

iagovar 7y ago
I would say, as european, that all this storm of shit is good news for Airbus, but I hop on Boeing planes too, and I think competition is good news. Boeing is maybe too big to fail, but the reputation hit they are taking may lead to companies not buying their planes, thus pushing for least competition, which is bad news for everyone. Airbus being the kind of behemoth company it is, I am convinced that without Boeing's competition, over time, they would end up with the same practices, convinced that their aircraft sell themselves.
- sandworm101 7y ago
  After the demise of the a380 project i doubt airbus will ever think again that the aircraft can sell themselves.
  - salex89 7y ago
    The A380 might actually live the destiny of the 767 or 757. Sure, it was a handful for the manufacturer, luckily pulled it off, kinda broke even after some time. But it will be long gone when it will be really needed, when large hubs become even more congested or certain P2P lines heavily overgrow on themselves.

tolien 7y ago

Previously covered by the NY Times [1], calling out rushed production and parts left inside aircraft, including that Qatar Airways stopped accepting aircraft from Charleston because of delays and required rework. John Barnett, the whistleblower mentioned here, had complained to the FAA about sharp metal slivers and had his complaint upheld on inspection by the FAA. 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamliner-production-problems.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamline...

altacc 7y ago

In the past, I've known people who refused to fly on McDonnell Douglas planes as their record was so bad. I wonder if the same has started, or will start happening, with Boeing.

rethab 7y ago
Would you fly with a 787 now?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- altacc 7y ago
  Yes, I would as I consider depressurisation an extreme event. I believe the pilots have a separate oxygen supply, so a double failure is even more unlikely.
  - mveety 7y ago
    But depending on the altitude you're at getting that mask on is wishful thinking. Don't bet on your pilots being conscious after a plane depresses.
notfromhere 7y ago
Boeing merged with McDonnell, but in the shuffle MD management got all the top spots at Boeing. So ironically, Boeing inherited all the culture and org problems that made MD planes such a shitshow

xwvvvvwx 7y ago

How can I tell when I’m booking a flight if that plane will be boeing? I would like to avoid them (for the time being at least).

lotsofpulp 7y ago
You won’t, and airlines have no obligation to transport you on a specific plane. The airlines’ website most times lists what aircraft they are scheduled to use, but they can be swapped anytime if the need arises.
koyote 7y ago
There are quite a few airlines that do not fly Boeing planes (EasyJet for example). When booking the aeroplane will usually be listed but you can also check flight history of the flight number. Of course the airline might still swap the plane at any time.
rethab 7y ago
kayak.com allows you to search by plane type. not sure to what extent they can guarantee that you'll actually be flying that type of machine though.
osivertsson 7y ago
As mentioned in the other answers as a consumer you can try but you will have no guarantee of airplane type. I do wonder if this fear of flying Boeing will spread to company travel departments? Say a few of the really big companies in the world decide their employees should not fly Boeing. That support for this is being baked into booking systems and demanded from operators. Could Boeing ever recover?
service_bus 7y ago
Most airlines typically try to purchase their fleet all from the same manufacturer if they can. There's a lot of additional cost that goes into maintenance, pilot training, pilot availability, etc. that has to be accounted for if you're mixing aircraft from different manufacturers. You can just look up the aircraft owned by an airline and it will give you a pretty good idea what to expect. You can also go on flight tracker sites and just look at what aircraft are running the route currently, which would also be a good indicator.

trhway 7y ago

>the sharp metal pieces — produced when fasteners were fitted into nuts does it sound like too powerful (i.e. fast which translates to assembly speed) tools are applied to too cheap (like in manufactured to loose tolerances from cheap metal) fasteners and nuts?

BogdanPetre 7y ago

I Am Jack's Complete Lack of Surprise

Merrill 7y ago

>On December 13, 2018, the 787th Boeing 787 was delivered to AerCap, the largest 787 lessor. By then the 787 had flown 300 million passengers on 1.5 million flights and opened 210 new nonstop routes. There have been 894 deliveries through September 2019. So far only one incident involving the uncontained failure of a Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engine. There have been no complete losses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner#Accidents_and_notable_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner#Accident...

Cactus2018 7y ago
>Rolls Royce Trent Great 'final assembly' time-lapse video of the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2R6NTgvEV4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2R6NTgvEV4
- Merrill 7y ago
  Interesting. Thanks.

AlexDragusin 7y ago

If Boeing keep this up, I am wondering who's out there writing the book called "Boeing: The giant stall"? PS: Credit me for the title if ever! :)

jermaustin1 7y ago

These people need to stop finding faults with the airplanes I fly on regularly! /s Its getting to the point that I'm actually nervous about flying Boeing now. I took 6-8 flights on the 737-Max each year 2016-2019 and now I've taken 4 flights on the 787-Dreamliner since March. I know that it is still statistically improbable that one of these flights to have an issue, but it still raises my blood pressure since I fly predominantly on Boeing aircraft.

jakub_g 7y ago

When the 2nd Boeing crashed and the whole Boeing saga started, I came across this (boldly named and maybe a bit exaggerated in the form) website: https://www.thelastboeinginspector.com/the-last-inspectors-contact-me-and-about-me-page.html https://www.thelastboeinginspector.com/the-last-inspectors-c... (the navigation is on top of the page, you need JS enabled to see it) It seems there's a lot of people inside Boeing who can say "interesting" things. The guy who created the above website was terminated in 2006.

KoftaBob 7y ago

The market would benefit massively from another entrant to the space, eliminating this Boeing + Airbus duopoly. If there's any entity that's proven they can tackle capital intensive aerospace markets as a new player, it's SpaceX. I know they're waiting for battery energy density to improve so that they can launch supersonic electric jets, but regular jets that use jet fuel wouldn't be a horrible stopgap.

magduf 7y ago
We already have several other players that have experience building aircraft: Bombardier and Mitsubishi come to mind, and China has a manufacturer that's keen on challenging the duopoly with their jet too. Don't forget, building a jet isn't that big a deal. Boeing doesn't even make the 737MAX fuselage! It's built by a company called Spirit in Kansas. Boeing doesn't make the engines either, of course (no aircraft manufacturer builds engines, which are surely the most complex and technically challenging part of the plane). Boeing does the engineering, the wings I suppose, and the final assembly. It seems like it shouldn't be that hard for a smaller competitor to get a capital infusion and scale up to building larger jets.
- VVertigo 7y ago
  Bombardier has already tried: they ended up partnering with Airbus to market the C-series (now A220).

acd 7y ago

We need to optimize so that public health and the environment comes first. Right now economic growth and quarterly earnings are prioritized top. The current economic system demands that corporations should always grow. The solution is to change to an economic system which minimizes global warming, promotes public safety. In such a system this plane would not have been designed how it was.