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NTSB says Boeing is withholding key details about door plug on Alaska 737 MAX 9
- guardiangod 3y ago>A Boeing spokesman disputed Homendy's account in an emailed statement to NPR. "Since the first moments following the Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 accident, we have worked proactively and transparently to fully support the NTSB's investigation," said Boeing's Connor Greenwood By 'proactively and transparently' I assume Boeing means telling NTSB 'we don't know anything so we can't answer your questions lalala.' >"Early in the investigation, we provided the NTSB with names of Boeing employees, including door specialists, who we believed would have relevant information. We have now provided the full list of individuals on the 737 door team, in response to a recent request," Greenwood said. Boeing throwing its employees under the bus- 'no we don't have any record of the work. Why don't you bother our plant crew instead. They would know everything because someone does, and it's not us Boeing.'
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> throwing its employees under the bus The NTSB is literally asking for names. That’s what Boeing is allegedly refusing to provide.
- dylan604 3y agoFrom the GP: ">"Early in the investigation, we provided the NTSB with names of Boeing employees, including door specialists, who we believed would have relevant information. " How is that Boeing refusing to provide employee names based on the quote in the comment you are replying. I'm assuming on good faith the GP's quote is from the TFA.
- chefandy 3y agoThe NTSB asked Boeing for the names of the specific people on the team that replaced that door, and they said Boeing hasn't provided that. In Boeing's response, they didn't say they provided that, either. They said they provided "names of Boeing employees, including door specialists, who we believed would have relevant information." If they had actually provided the names of the crew that did the work, they'd have said they did exactly that rather than giving a lawyerish sidestep. I don't even think that the people who'd have done the actual repairs were even Boeing employees. Isn't a big part of the criticism that this work is farmed out? Not positive, though: that could have been work for one of the other recent Boeing catastrophes.
- WheatMillington 3y ago[flagged]
- cwillu 3y agoPlease don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that". https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dylan604 3y agoIt also is quite the assumption that the article was not read, but a salient detail was skipped, misunderstood, or any other less malevolent possibilities.
- paulmd 3y agoThat’s a guideline and not a rule, and frankly it’s a rather poor one given that people pretty routinely don’t read the article and then miss important points.
- dylan604 3y ago> people pretty routinely don’t read the article or the rules/guidelines for that matter
- olliej 3y agoThe question is not "which team is responsible for installing or removing the plug?" it is explicitly "which specific people did this specific job?". Boeing is meant to have the answer to the second part documented - because that's how QA in this type of operation is meant to work: you document the people who did the task, and they document the exact tasks they did, you document the people who checked the task completion, and they document what they checked and the outcome of those checks. In software terms if it helps the NTSB is asking "which engineer landed this change?" and Boeing is responding with "this is the team that maintains that code". The reason the NTSB wants to know the exact people involved is not to assign blame. The goal, and sole reason the NTSB exists, is to determine why an accident occurred, so they can work out what needs to happen to stop it happening again. So the NTSB needs to know the exact people involved, so it can interview them, and see what they were doing and experiencing leading up to and during the maintenance work that may have contributed to the accident. These interviews are what led NTSB to find out things like sleep issues contributing to accidents, and so investigate what issues were leading to those sleep issues, etc which is why there are now strict rules about pilot flight times and scheduling changes. These interviews with the actual people involved are _extremely_ valuable for reducing recurrence of accidents. The fact that numerous other aircraft were found with missing bolts and similar implies something systemic is occurring in the installation of these plugs (imo the core issue is the attempts to make the plugs "permanent" leading to inspection of these connection points being essentially impossible is the core issue, but also that Boeing missed the issue repeatedly shows something else is wrong). So interviewing the people doing the work will presumably shine a light on what is causing the oversights, which again, is the goal of the NTSB.
- lopkeny12ko 3y ago> The reason the NTSB wants to know the exact people involved is not to assign blame. The goal, and sole reason the NTSB exists, is to determine why an accident occurred, so they can work out what needs to happen to stop it happening again. Anyone who has ever worked at basically any corporation knows this is career suicide. If Boeing ever discloses who that person is, he will effectively be barred from working in aviation for the rest of his career, full stop.
- guardiangod 3y ago>including door specialists, who we believed would have relevant information. Yes, by telling the NTSB to ask the door specialists "which of you installed the door", instead of having proper documentation on who did exactly what work. If the workers can't answer the question, now Boeing can wash its hands clean and blame the workers. I doubt the workers themselves keep track of which specific planes they worked on- and they shouldn't need to, this is project management.
- pxeboot 3y ago> I doubt the workers themselves keep track of which specific planes they worked on- and they shouldn't need to, this is project management. Didn't they find loose/missing bolts on other aircraft? Talking to employees who worked on other planes around this time seems like it would still be extremely important for this investigation.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- buildsjets 3y agoYep, they did. https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/united-airlines-finds-loose-bolts-boeing-737-max-planes-2024-01-08/ https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/united-ai...
- justinclift 3y ago> ... now Boeing can wash its hands clean and blame the workers. That's not what being responsible for the final product means. ;)
- pdpi 3y agoThe aeronautical safety culture specifically avoids blaming individuals, and prefers focusing on procedural and organisational issues. If one person made a mistake, why didn't the rest of the organisation around them catch it and prevent it from causing a problem? I don't think the NTSB is going to look kindly on Boeing if they even try to throw the techs under the bus.
- skullone 3y agoOh my lord that all sounds so seriously bad. I can't even believe this. My grandpa used to assemble landing gears in the 80s for boeing and they kept records of the torque applied to every nut and bolt, in duplicate or triplicate (2 people in assembly would check, and 1 from QA). He would be rolling in his grave right now
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dboreham 3y agoThe Boeing guy who posted the detailed history of the plane a few weeks ago[1] said something to the effect that they discussed things in a slack-like system rather than enter in the official records system because managers would get upset at KPIs not being met. [1] https://leehamnews.com/2024/01/15/unplanned-removal-installation-inspection-procedure-at-boeing/#comment-509962 https://leehamnews.com/2024/01/15/unplanned-removal-installa...
- dv_dt 3y agoDouble bookkeeping is a bad sign. At best it’s incompetence that causes confusion and errors, and at worst it’s fraud.
- lamontcg 3y agoI think the NTSB would probably love to interview to the crew who actually used the tools--even if nobody can figure out which exact team used the tools on this exact plane--they probably wouldn't so much as incriminate themselves as to paint a picture of incredibly shoddy quality control. Instead carefully parse that phrase "names of Boeing employees, including door specialists, who we believed would have relevant information" which are all likely management / project-management kinds of positions who are vetted by Boeing.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dclowd9901 3y agoDid we read the same article? The article I read said the NTSB was seeking the singular person who failed to reinstall the door plug correctly and Boeing was not giving that person up. I have no love for Boeing, but it sounded like they were trying to _prevent_ some poor line worker taking the fall.
- xenadu02 3y agoThe NTSB does not have any prosecution power and their investigation docket + reports are, by law, not admissible as evidence in court. The NTSB will not identify the person responsible even to Boeing, let alone anyone else. There is no "taking the fall" for talking to the NTSB. If it were otherwise a great many investigations would be impossible. Besides which the whole point of having a certified aircraft manufacturing process is to avoid making issues any one person's responsibility because all humans make mistakes. Allowing one person's mistake to endanger an aircraft means the process has failed, not the individual. FWIW Airline pilots and ATC also have an ASRS reporting system: Aviation Safety Reporting System. It is blameless as well. Everyone makes mistakes, period. If you punish every pilot or controller who makes a mistake naturally they will try to cover up all such mistakes and that leads to worst outcomes. All the big airlines follow the rules and do not punish pilots for issues reported via the system. At worst you will get sent for some training to address problem areas.
- TylerE 3y agoThen they need to do the one thing that will get Boeing's attention: ground the fleet.
- JoshTko 3y agoHave a fee of 100% of net worth for any corporate board member and C-suite that engaged in intentional negligence resulting in public harm.
- DiggyJohnson 3y agoWould that be what’s best for everyone? If you’re being serious, I genuinely wonder if you realize the consequences of this drastic a decision.
- dylan604 3y agoThe MAX fleet has been grounded multiple times now. Why would this be any different? The grounding after the door flew off was way shorter than the MCAS grounding. The consequences of continuing to fly this aircraft is likely to continue to find issues of varying severity. It's like playing Russian roulette with 2 bullets loaded.
- lazide 3y agoBecause zero people are dead from this issue, it’s relatively easy to inspect for, and isn’t a design problem- unlike the max problems?
- TylerE 3y agoOnly due to a bloody miracle. If people had been in the two nearest seats they were getting sucked straight out. That those seats were coincidentally empty doesn't lessen the seriousness of the event.
- lazide 3y agoI mean, it literally does? If 2 people has died, it would have been a more serious event. By definition, no?
- uptown 3y ago[flagged]
- geoffeg 3y agoSeems like Boeing might not have the documentation the NTSB is requesting[1], even though they say they do keep that documentation. I wonder if Boeing doesn't want to admit that for some legal reason, maybe they don't have a lot of documentation they say they should have. [1] https://twitter.com/David_Slotnick/status/1765454198932410381 https://twitter.com/David_Slotnick/status/176545419893241038...
- laweijfmvo 3y ago"That's correct, Senator. We don't know," Homendy replied. "And it's not for lack of trying." They straight up said, we don't know.
- hnthrowaway0328 3y agoAnd we don't know what we don't know, Senator.
- dylan604 3y agoFeel like a Cheney "known unknowns and unknown unknowns" meme would be fitting here.
- maybelsyrup 3y ago> Feel like a Cheney Rumsfeld
- grecy 3y agoSo where are the severe consequences here? Surely when lives are at stake there must be consequences for companies breaking the law...
- deciplex 3y agois that an earnest question or are you just trying to draw attention to the fact that that's not how any of this works? in case of the former: that's not how any of this works
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y agoJohn Oliver absolutely roasted Boeing, in this week's main story: (Link won't be available until tomorrow).
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- makr17 3y agoWatching that, I couldn't help but remember my father (who hasn't worked for Boeing since before I was born) saying in the mid-90s: > McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing's money, which is a great trick if you can pull it off.
- throwway120385 3y agoSimilarly all of the great software engineers I've worked with did a stint at Boeing that coincidentally ended when MD bought it.
- tristan957 3y agoEvery MD employee I know (grand total of 2) left the company after the Boeing merger and thought Boeing ruined everything. The two people that I know were in the space sector however, so it could be different depending on where in the companies you were.
- MilStdJunkie 3y agoWhen you're in the thick of it, it's sort of a "frog-in-pot" effect where you just notice that things are bad and have been for a whole, but when taking a few dozen big steps back and looking at the whole thing in its gross entirety, from 1990s to now . . that was awful. And Oliver didn't even spit in the direction of the wall-to-wall screwball comedy of fail from the BDS side of things. They've not been having a great time, and to this day the discipline of performing on fixed-price contracts seems to elude them. Phantom Works and BGS legit have the best claim to success, but BPW is, well, tiny - they do black research stuff. And BGS . . BGS is an enigma. One big financial success of that org is def due to how Boeing's structured internally. Howayyyyyyver . . there is a reasonably-high-probability BGS cycles refurb parts as new on the regular[1]. Also supplies the greater Boeing org with an excellent stage venue for Depreciation, the Amazing Accounting Dog. Amusing cash tricks had gotten them a loooooong way in the ZIRP era . . but those days are quite gone. [1] Something Boeing gets fined for ever other year, and not just inside BGS, either.
- rdtsc 3y agoSo at first NTSB asked "do you know who did it?", and Boeing said "no we don't". Then NTSB asked if they at least could get the list of the employee team who would have been responsible for performing that task and that's where the disagreement is, whether the names were provided or not. > Investigators have also been seeking the names of the 25 Boeing employees who are part of the team that opens and closes door plugs. But so far, Homendy says the plane-maker has not provided those names. > "Early in the investigation, we provided the NTSB with names of Boeing employees, including door specialists, who we believed would have relevant information. We have now provided the full list of individuals on the 737 door team, in response to a recent request," Greenwood said. I wonder if NTSB is seeking to at least interview the whole team to see what they say. Would they even remember that long ago who did what? Or I guess they are after more evidence that this kind of stuff just happens routinely. Though I think it's seems quite clear it is.
- Sakos 3y agoI would guess they're more interested in the processes and structures involved that allowed something like the plug door falling off to happen. The best way to find the issues is to talk to the people who deal with these processes day to day, especially in regards to these door plugs and whatever documentation about the plane may be available.
- masklinn 3y agoThat would also be my guess, the NTSB is not generally interested in assigning blame to individuals, they’re interested in finding systemic and structural failures.
- berniedurfee 3y agoRight, I think the questions are going to be along the lines of “Do you feel the proper controls are in place for you to ensure the safety of the aircraft you service?” The NTSB is after Boeing.
- sidewndr46 3y ago
- testemailfordg2 3y agoWhy wouldn't they? It is a business secret that helps them to reduce cost and be competitive.
- Animats 3y agoBecause the NTSB's authority to investigate overrides US trade secret law.[1][2] The NTSB has unusually strong investigative authority, including: (3) Require, by subpoena or otherwise, the production of evidence and witnesses; (4) Enter any property where an accident subject to the NTSB's jurisdiction has occurred, or wreckage from any such accident is located, and take all actions necessary to conduct a complete investigation of the accident; (5) Inspect, photograph, or copy any records or information (including medical records pursuant to paragraph (b)(2) of this section), and correspondence regardless of the date of their creation or modification, for the purpose of investigating an accident; (6) Take possession of wreckage, records or other information if it determines such possession is necessary for an investigation; and (7) Question any person having knowledge relevant to a transportation accident. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/831.9 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/831.9 [2] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2021-title49/pdf/USCODE-2021-title49-subtitleII-chap11-subchapII-sec1114.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2021-title49/pdf/...
- dgoodell 3y agoIt kinda seems like the NTSB doesn't really need Boeing's cooperation. Apparently they can just waltz into a factory where an accident occurred and talk to whoever they want and look at whatever records they want. I wonder why they aren't doing that yet?
- paulmd 3y agoBecause it’s better to let the criminal lie to investigators before you go nuclear on them, it strengthens the case if you can document intent to mislead and lie, and removes the opportunity for lawyerly “this is all a big misunderstanding that could have been avoided if they just asked, your honor!” defenses.
- fddrdplktrew 3y ago[flagged]
- datavirtue 3y agoThe schtick about blah blah blah "raises serious questions about quality and safety at Boeing" is downright ridiculous at this point. Almost condescending in that Boeing management literally has everyone by the balls. We are far beyond the profound insight that something is deadly wrong at Boeing, and as a matter of national security upper management needs purged. Whoever is selecting CEOs has to go. Total house cleaning.
- flaminHotSpeedo 3y agoWait I'm confused... From the preliminary report we know that the door plug was removed by spirit to fix their damaged rivets, and it sounds like the NTSB had documentation to support that as of when they were writing the preliminary report. Quoting from that report: > Records show the rivets were replaced per engineering requirements on Non-Conformance (NC) Order 145-8987-RSHK-1296-002NC completed on September 19, 2023, by Spirit AeroSystems personnel. So why is the NTSB looking for Boeing personnel?
- toast0 3y agoThat paragraph continues ... > Photo documentation obtained from Boeing shows evidence of the left-hand MED plug closed with no retention hardware (bolts) in the three visible locations (the aft upper guide track is covered with insulation and cannot be seen in the photo). This image was attached to a text message between Boeing team members on September 19, 2023. These Boeing personnel were discussing interior restoration after the rivet rework was completed during second shift operations that day I think number one, they're asking Boeing, because Boeing keeps the records. But also, because Boeing employees were working on the plane, and it was at a Boeing facility. That there is no record of attaching the bolts is consistent with them not being attached, of course. But there's also no record of the plug being opened or closed, and yet it was.
- flaminHotSpeedo 3y agoRight, I get that there's no record of the door plug being opened, which is ultimately on Boeing, but the repairs for the damaged rivets, which require opening the door plug, were performed by Spirit employees.
- Fischgericht 3y agoIt appears some here aren't fluent in WeaselSpeak. NTSB wanted the names of the specific people who had removed the door plug. Boeing then gave then the names of employees who may or may have not something to do with doors, for example, accounting, the chef and the janitor. NTSB then said that no, they did not want that, they want the names of the specific employees who had removed/installed that specific door plug on that specific airplane. And then Boeing replied: "Sure, here are the names of our 170.000 employees." The End.
- salawat 3y agoA&P mechanics are individually tracked, or if not, Boeing has bigger problems. Dicking around with NTSB is NOT good form.
- irjustin 3y agoIf what the grandparent comment says is true, I agree with Boeing. I HATE Boeing and what they've done to themselves. They had such a leg up on Airbus post A380 market, and squandered it with greed, but I digress. What good does giving the names of individuals to the NTSB do? I'm with NASA on this one: There's a process problem and the whole team should suffer not leaving individuals to hang and dry. Except perhaps the executives that allowed this to happen.
- MR4D 3y agoIt allows the NTSB to know who to interview. That gives them a much better picture and helps validate if what Boeing says is actually true.
- juujian 3y agoIt also allows the NTSB to find out whether Boeing did track it's production line as vigorously as it should. They try to figure out where everything went wrong. If there is no paper trail, that indicates that there is a systematic security issue at hand at Boeing, where people can go in and do what they want without documenting it.
- 3y ago
- Zigurd 3y agoThere was a deferred prosecution agreement with Boeing that expired shortly after the door blow out. I saw a news item that said the DoJ was investigating whether Boeing's subsequent behavior violated the agreement. It takes a bit of arrogance to stonewall the NTSB in light of such an agreement.
- bevekspldnw 3y ago[flagged]
- michael1999 3y agoSo they don't have process records for work on an airframe. Yikes. That is worse than I expected.
- tomoyoirl 3y agoYes, but generally this seems to be close to the cause of why this became a problem (that is, bad documentation may be why the bolts were not replaced to begin with). The anonymous, ostensibly internal whistleblowycomplainers said this was a process-documentation problem a while ago, before the NTSB looked into this exact problem.
- jvans 3y agoThis is exactly what you should expect. Documentation is corporate frauds biggest enemy. If you are going to commit crimes and kill people, it's far better that you don't have records of incompetence even if lack of records is itself a display of incompetence. Official logs of problems can give you insight into how deep rooted and severe the issues are. Lack of documentation means there are problems but allows them to hide the depth of them. E.g. we can't know how many other door plugs were shipped without bolts
- gruez 3y agoWhat type of fraud are you going to commit during airplane assembly?
- pi-e-sigma 3y agoCutting corners where you are not allowed to cut them.
- lupusreal 3y agoSaying you did something when you didn't, or saying you didn't do something when you did.
- anigbrowl 3y agoBoeing seems to think dealing with the NTSB is like dealing with the FAA. Would love to be a fly on the wall in their lobbyist's offices rn.
- fransje26 3y agoThey've screwed around with them before. Passengers and aircrews died because of it. https://imgur.com/a/5wcFx8M https://imgur.com/a/5wcFx8M
- mannyv 3y agoI guess the question for Boeing is simple: is it better to be incompetent or negligent? Boeing might believe that they have hit rock bottom...or their PR firm might believe that. There are miles more to go before they hit bottom. I mean, if they can't produce complete records for any airplanes what happens? And really, who are they protecting at this point? Their insurance won't cover negligence...but their customers won't accept incompetence.
- shiroiushi 3y ago>Their insurance won't cover negligence...but their customers won't accept incompetence. Why wouldn't they? What choice do they have? It's not like they can call up Airbus and order some new planes to be delivered this year (or the next, or the next, ...).
- dev1ycan 3y agoIt's about a matter of time Boeing disappears, forcefully by the sole aspect of having every other country stop buying Boeing and buy Airbus only. American companies need to start learning that profit seeking has its limits when it comes to using a single sensor to recalibrate your plane or not installing bolts that make your plan doors fall off mid-flight. In fact, I find it pretty crazy, at all, that the 737 Max, turned out to be just a 737 that had been rehashed to support a much stronger engine via some incredibly complex mechanism of balancing their plane, as if mechanical systems never failed before. Planes are hard enough as they are, let alone cheapening out on designing a new airframe because you think you can get away with this sensor garbage.
- bevekspldnw 3y agoAirbus can’t meet demand as it is, but it seems like a golden chance for an aircraft maker in Asia to enter the market more strongly.
- shiroiushi 3y ago>American companies need to start learning that profit seeking has its limits It has no limits when there's no competition. That's the situation Boeing is in right now: Airbus already has more orders than it can handle. All the Boeing customers defecting to them would only mean they won't get any new planes for 10+ years.
- the_duke 3y agoEven if Airbus could suddenly double capacity over night, a duopoly already is quite bad for consumers (aka airlines). They certainly don't want to create a monopoly.
- drstewart 3y ago>American companies need to start learning that profit seeking has its limits Why do only American companies need to learn this? And in the same response, explain why non-American companies haven't stopped buying Boeing, since it isn't for economic reasons (since they don't profit seek)
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- brikym 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- _heimdall 3y agoEasy solution here is for every traveler to refuse to buy seats on a Boeing plane. If we honestly believe the company was at fault and has been negligent in their safety protocols, it seems like an easy answer to just not support their business.
- r00fus 3y agoAsking the consumer to help dethrone a government supported monopoly is a sick joke.
- _heimdall 3y agoI'm not sure if Boeing would be considered a monopoly, Airbus also has a large market share. Why shouldn't consumers step in to avoid traveling if they don't consider it safe? If it is safe enough to travel, we can all stop talking about Boeing and the news can let the story die.
- sitkack 3y agoWhat a bold statement to make out loud, all at once.
- mynameisnoone 3y agoIn addition to making big flying things that don't seem to be as good as they were before the MD camel-fucking merger, Boeing is also a strategic defense contractor making the company TBTF. Hell, the Obama DOJ ran press interference countermanding the NTSB over the Jamacian AA331 737NG crash and Obama said he was "[the Boeing] salesman-in-chief".
- xp84 3y agoI think you may have mistyped “Hypothetical” as “Easy.” Given Boeing made about what, 60% of the full size jets domestically, and their only competitor is backlogged for a decade or so, for people to comply with that plan would also require that about 60% of air travel just be cancelled for the next 5-10 years. Which, coincidentally, would actually bankrupt all the airlines that we’d be asking at the same time to replace 50-100% of their working airplanes with very expensive new ones. In summary, this isn’t something we can really seriously attempt. Btw i say this as someone very disappointed in Boeing, not as a defender of their bad decisions.
- michaelteter 3y agoPhilip Morris. Exxon(Mobile). Boeing. Profits above all, and internal awareness of the greater unpaid costs... buried. I know my list is incomplete, but you get the idea.
- datadeft 3y agoBoeing, Apple and few other companies are losing their way. They do not care about customers anymore and for few extra cents they do everything within their power, including endangering customer lives.
- rsynnott 3y agoThis is how all large companies have always worked. That's why the solution of hoping they'll be nice has rarely worked out. You want companies to behave themselves? You _regulate_ them. (There actually _is_ a partial market solution; if a company engages in sufficiently objectionable behaviour, or is sufficiently poorly run, it is unpurchasable by a lot of funds. It's a relatively low bar, though; despite being so poorly run that it is apparently unable to build planes reliably at all anymore, Boeing has an ESG score of 40. Which is _bad_, and worse than any other major aircraft manufacturer, but is not sufficient to make it untouchable.)
- kevincox 3y agoI don't think it necessary is. This is companies prioritizing short-term over the long term. In a world of cheap junk made by DNURES or some other six capital letter oversea retailer it seems that a strong brand name is more valuable than ever. But so many companies are throwing it away by making the same crap that those effectively no-name companies are. So why would I pay more for the same junk. But if they had a reputation of quality I would be happy to pay the premium. For Boeing the equation is probably a lot different. But it is clear that there is little consideration for the long-term in the market.
- rsynnott 3y ago> This is companies prioritizing short-term over the long term. Well, it is, but realistically that is almost what the dynamics of the situation _forces_ them to do, particularly over the sorts of timeframes that aircraft manufacturers run on. Taking the 737 MAX project as a whole, to the outside observer it would seem obvious that Boeing should have designed a new-generation plane to effectively compete with the A32X family; this would, _in the long run_, clearly have paid off. But if you're the CEO of Boeing, considering a project with a 20 year payoff period, well, in 20 years you're probably not CEO of Boeing anymore, if you're even still around at all. Selling very long-term investments to the public markets is also not necessarily easy. So "squeeze another few years out of the 60 year old design, at any cost" starts to look like an attractive option. On: > But if they had a reputation of quality I would be happy to pay the premium. I don't think that _really_ applies here. There are about twice as many A32Xneo orders as 737 Max orders, and it it fairly clearly the market's preferred plane, but if you want an A32Xneo today, you're going to be waiting _years_. As long as the 737 Max can get off the runway at all, it has a large captive market. (Part of the problem here is that there are only really two companies who make planes in this size class, and again that fact is a failure of regulation; both Boeing and Airbus are products of mergers which should arguably not have been permitted.)
- nektro 3y agoits giving obstruction of justice vibes
- dzdt 3y agoThere is a huge amount of context in an early whistleblower report [1]. This reported before the FAA did the likelihood that the bolts were not reinstalled and the problems with the documentation. Per that whistleblower account, the door plug removal was not documented in the official records system ("CMES") but the required work was discussed in an unofficial system ("SAT") including whether or not an official record should be made. Boeing concluded the work could be done without an official record in CMES. Per the discussion on SAT, the official "removal" record was not needed if the operation was treated as an "opening" instead, despite the safety-critical bolts being removed in either case. The FAA obviously will have problems with the entire system that lets factory workers do safety-critical work without official documentation, standards, or oversight. So they will want to talk to enough people to understand how that system is understood in practice on the factory floor and how it came to be. Boeing it seems has tried to limit them to talking to people directly involved with the Alaska Air incident work. Hence the current heated pushback feom the FAA. It may also be that Boeing is playing coy about the relevant discussion in SAT, or about the existence or nonexistence of policy distinguishing between door plug "opening" and "removal". In any case the FAA wants everything and Boeing has been trying to get away with less. [1] https://leehamnews.com/2024/01/15/unplanned-removal-installation-inspection-procedure-at-boeing/#comment-509962 https://leehamnews.com/2024/01/15/unplanned-removal-installa...
- onetimeuse92304 3y agoIt is hard for me to understand WHY they spent so much time discussing the process and whether to record or not record it in CMES, but they could not be bothered to remember the truly important part -- to bolt the fucking thing properly. It is a bit as if people forgot what their job is about.
- hef19898 3y agoThat side process is like nothing I have ever seen: Such things can, and at every reasonable place I know are, tracked as non-conformities on the corresponding work order and reviewed and approved by quality. If no work instructions exist yet, a singlenuse on is created, checked and approved before the work is done. For having the idea in the first place of allowing some side discussions on whethe or not documentation is necessary should have someone get his ass kicked. And it should be a major audit finding, which it seems it is for the FAA. Boeing is in trouble, I'd say.
- mdavid626 3y agoWell, I’ll never fly with 737 MAX, that’s for sure.
- buildsjets 3y agoIf you have frequent flyer status at any airline, the higher status the better, make sure to let their customer service know. It appears that economic pressure will be the only way to eliminate these aircraft from public use, as the regulators are working with the manufacturer for ways to keep them in service indefinitely.