5 ms·

While I agree that Boeing should tell us which specific part it is, they are making the claim that it’s not an “immediate flight safety concern”. The fact that

While I agree that Boeing should tell us which specific part it is, they are making the claim that it’s not an “immediate flight safety concern”. The fact that their PR team felt the need to include the word “immediate” indicates to me it’s more important than a kitchen part, but that whatever it is likely has redundant systems that can handle a failure of this part. I do think Boeing is being a little too tight lipped on this. I think a decade ago, many would have let the questions end at Boeing’s statement, but their trust has really been harmed over the last 10 years, and I’d like them to provide more information. > "While our investigation is ongoing, we have determined that this does not present an immediate safety of flight concern for the active in-service fleet," a company spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.

jacquesm 5y ago
That's pretty weasily wordy though, it is only immediate if it has just failed and then suddenly it is a safety risk? That's way too ambiguous for my taste, and given the state of trust with Boeing I think more transparency here would be better.
jasode 5y ago
>>It would seem that we would need to know what kind of part this is if we want to continue flying and trusting Boeing. >While I agree that Boeing should tell us which specific part it is, In general, it's bad business etiquette to publicly name & shame defects/mistakes made by business partners or company employees. Whether a supplier messed up a titanium part or a Facebook employee misconfigured a router, you don't call out their names in public. Yes, it's understandable we readers would want to know all the dirty details but Boeing giving us that may also have the opposite effect: less safety instead of more. In this case, it was the supplier that notified Boeing about the defect. If Boeing publicly outed that supplier to the press, that adds perverse incentives for the supplier (and other suppliers) to not notify airplane manufacturers in the future which creates unsafe planes. On the other hand, it's probably good if Boeing privately notifies the FAA inspectors so they are alerted to it. Maybe they already shared that information.
- magicalhippo 5y ago
  I mean it might not even be the direct supplier's fault, if they sourced the titanium from a company which didn't deliver what they certified[1]. [1]: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/aluminum-extrusion-manufacturer-agrees-pay-over-46-million-defrauding-customers-including https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/aluminum-extrusion-manufactur...
  - wombatpm 5y ago
    Raw materials should be quality inspected. It was a big deal when we had 150 rolls of copper strip fail the QC testing. I worked inbound inspection for three summers at Andrew Corporation. We checked everything before it was stocked on our shelves. I remember asking why do we have to have to check the threads on boxes of Cap Screws from external supplies. The answer I was given is that when a technition is 150ft in the air mounting waveguides, he needs to know that the stupid screws will work the first time.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    That's not how it works in aerospace. Certification is there to ensure quality control throughout the chain, but you still need to do your own quality control at every step to ensure that what you produce will be within spec. You can't just rely on the certification of your source materials.
  - vkou 5y ago
    It's the supplier's fault that they didn't do QC on their upstream vendors, just like it's Boeing's fault that they didn't do QC on their supplier.
- ncallaway 5y ago
  Is it public knowledge which contractors provide which parts for every part? Is Boeing publicly naming the part also publicly naming the supplier?
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
In addition to what other commenters have said about not throwing your vendors under the bus this kind of hand wringing is why they don't trust the public with the more specific info. If they tell you that the some part will wear out 5% faster on the planes with out of spec parts then every two-bit who took an engineering class once upon a time will be writing medium posts and creating youtube analysis videos with clickbait titles that overblow things and make it look like the world is ending when in reality it just means that the plane operators will have to inspect the part more and the end of life operators will have to replace it more. From the Pinto to the 737 MAX the lesson that the public has repeatedly taught corporate America is that when there is a problem the narrative matters more than reality and it is to their best advantage to control it as much as they possibly can and because there are big bucks at stake they learn the lesson and do just that. We reap what we sow.
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  The Pinto an the MAX are drastic preventable failures that took the lives of passengers. If your take away from these failures is that the American public is somehow at fault for blowing things out of proportion you have come to the wrong conclusion. If they had sufficient information to put people's mind at ease as you described above then the inherent failure is not providing it because it was entirely certain that everyone's mind is going to fill in the blanks with the worst possible thing that fits the bill and everyone's mental pictures is going to be of air frames disintegrating in the air. This was entirely predictable. More likely the actual details haven't been communicated because it isn't nearly so reassuring. Let me speculate blindly... It's a structural part the failure of which threatens the life of everyone on board the plane but rather than merely failing 5% faster it would never have passed spec in the first place and would if left alone have been found in the aftermath of hundreds of people hurtling to their fiery deaths and would tend to have started failing when the part failed halfway through its original expected lifespan. It is only not an immediate threat to safety as 787s have only been around for 9 years and we still have literally single digit years before they would have started falling out of the sky so because they managed to discover this before falling planes took down the rest of their reputation they have time to strategize how they will take care of this in a way that simultaneously isn't ruinous to them or airlines. This is like discovering your breaks don't work a half a mile before the edge of the cliff instead of 100 ft from it or having your appliance catch fire when you happen to be on hand to use your kitchen fire extinguisher. They never should have moved substantial operations to a state full of complete idiots who can't be trusted to operate a toaster let alone build planes. THEY are reaping what they sowed.

jacquesm 5y ago

That's pretty weasily wordy though, it is only immediate if it has just failed and then suddenly it is a safety risk? That's way too ambiguous for my taste, and given the state of trust with Boeing I think more transparency here would be better.

jasode 5y ago

>>It would seem that we would need to know what kind of part this is if we want to continue flying and trusting Boeing. >While I agree that Boeing should tell us which specific part it is, In general, it's bad business etiquette to publicly name & shame defects/mistakes made by business partners or company employees. Whether a supplier messed up a titanium part or a Facebook employee misconfigured a router, you don't call out their names in public. Yes, it's understandable we readers would want to know all the dirty details but Boeing giving us that may also have the opposite effect: less safety instead of more. In this case, it was the supplier that notified Boeing about the defect. If Boeing publicly outed that supplier to the press, that adds perverse incentives for the supplier (and other suppliers) to not notify airplane manufacturers in the future which creates unsafe planes. On the other hand, it's probably good if Boeing privately notifies the FAA inspectors so they are alerted to it. Maybe they already shared that information.

magicalhippo 5y ago
I mean it might not even be the direct supplier's fault, if they sourced the titanium from a company which didn't deliver what they certified[1]. [1]: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/aluminum-extrusion-manufacturer-agrees-pay-over-46-million-defrauding-customers-including https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/aluminum-extrusion-manufactur...
- wombatpm 5y ago
  Raw materials should be quality inspected. It was a big deal when we had 150 rolls of copper strip fail the QC testing. I worked inbound inspection for three summers at Andrew Corporation. We checked everything before it was stocked on our shelves. I remember asking why do we have to have to check the threads on boxes of Cap Screws from external supplies. The answer I was given is that when a technition is 150ft in the air mounting waveguides, he needs to know that the stupid screws will work the first time.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  That's not how it works in aerospace. Certification is there to ensure quality control throughout the chain, but you still need to do your own quality control at every step to ensure that what you produce will be within spec. You can't just rely on the certification of your source materials.
- vkou 5y ago
  It's the supplier's fault that they didn't do QC on their upstream vendors, just like it's Boeing's fault that they didn't do QC on their supplier.
ncallaway 5y ago
Is it public knowledge which contractors provide which parts for every part? Is Boeing publicly naming the part also publicly naming the supplier?

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

In addition to what other commenters have said about not throwing your vendors under the bus this kind of hand wringing is why they don't trust the public with the more specific info. If they tell you that the some part will wear out 5% faster on the planes with out of spec parts then every two-bit who took an engineering class once upon a time will be writing medium posts and creating youtube analysis videos with clickbait titles that overblow things and make it look like the world is ending when in reality it just means that the plane operators will have to inspect the part more and the end of life operators will have to replace it more. From the Pinto to the 737 MAX the lesson that the public has repeatedly taught corporate America is that when there is a problem the narrative matters more than reality and it is to their best advantage to control it as much as they possibly can and because there are big bucks at stake they learn the lesson and do just that. We reap what we sow.

michaelmrose 5y ago
The Pinto an the MAX are drastic preventable failures that took the lives of passengers. If your take away from these failures is that the American public is somehow at fault for blowing things out of proportion you have come to the wrong conclusion. If they had sufficient information to put people's mind at ease as you described above then the inherent failure is not providing it because it was entirely certain that everyone's mind is going to fill in the blanks with the worst possible thing that fits the bill and everyone's mental pictures is going to be of air frames disintegrating in the air. This was entirely predictable. More likely the actual details haven't been communicated because it isn't nearly so reassuring. Let me speculate blindly... It's a structural part the failure of which threatens the life of everyone on board the plane but rather than merely failing 5% faster it would never have passed spec in the first place and would if left alone have been found in the aftermath of hundreds of people hurtling to their fiery deaths and would tend to have started failing when the part failed halfway through its original expected lifespan. It is only not an immediate threat to safety as 787s have only been around for 9 years and we still have literally single digit years before they would have started falling out of the sky so because they managed to discover this before falling planes took down the rest of their reputation they have time to strategize how they will take care of this in a way that simultaneously isn't ruinous to them or airlines. This is like discovering your breaks don't work a half a mile before the edge of the cliff instead of 100 ft from it or having your appliance catch fire when you happen to be on hand to use your kitchen fire extinguisher. They never should have moved substantial operations to a state full of complete idiots who can't be trusted to operate a toaster let alone build planes. THEY are reaping what they sowed.