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FAA Audit of Boeing's 737 MAX Production Found Dozens of Issues
- mikeytown2 3y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20240312024717/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/us/politics/faa-audit-boeing-737-max.html https://web.archive.org/web/20240312024717/https://www.nytim...
- zettabomb 3y agoI feel like the words "dozens of" in the title were rather important.
- disillusioned 3y ago>At one point during the examination, the air-safety agency observed mechanics at Spirit using a hotel key card to check a door seal, according to a document that describes some of the findings. That action was “not identified/documented/called-out in the production order,” the document said. >In another instance, the F.A.A. saw Spirit mechanics apply liquid Dawn soap to a door seal “as lubricant in the fit-up process,” according to the document. The door seal was then cleaned with a wet cheesecloth, the document said, noting that instructions were “vague and unclear on what specifications/actions are to be followed or recorded by the mechanic.” As always, the issue isn't the _process_, but rather the lack of _documentation_ of said process...
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoI don't know about that, the process itself sounds pretty fucked to me.
- hipsterstal1n 3y agoAh yes, if there was documentation, it would specify that a Hilton key card should be used. Otherwise, a Hyatt or Westin key card being used may cause an incorrect check result of the door seal and cause possible loss of life.
- mannyv 3y agoWell it should specify the thickness, length, and width of the keycard, since brands might change vendors And of course it should specify which way it should be inserted. And it needs to specify the amount of bend allowable given some amount of pressure. No point in using a bendy card.
- vinnyvichy 3y agoSeems like the clearest example of damage from the iron law of bureaucracy here. As @dboreham mentioned in another thread, there is a culture of management suppressing documentation. Not that management is entirely to blame, as documentation is oftentimes not appreciated by anybody except regulators https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39623522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39623522
- sverhagen 3y agoYou're defending the hotel card Dawn soap stuff, as long as it's documented. Got it!
- nvy 3y agoDish soap and baby powder are commonly used in aerospace maintenance for finding pressurization leaks.
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y agoThat's quite different to using them as a lubricant. They're not applied to internal surfaces for one.
- HarryHirsch 3y agoIt very much sounds that parts are not manufactured to proper tolerances, and as a result Boeing uses undocumented lubricants to make things fit (badly). If this were anticipated there would be a documented process, but there isn't, and it means nothing good.
- datavirtue 3y agoAjax or Dawn? These things matter.
- _heimdall 3y agoI think you're assuming that those could never be valid tests or processes for the manufacturing process. I'm not saying they are or defending Boeing by any stretch, but I know my knowledge of manufacturing details for aircraft is limited enough that I couldn't make that assumption.
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago> I think you're assuming that those could never be valid tests or processes for the manufacturing process. Given that Dawn dish soap isn't manufactured to any kind of useful tolerance, purity or performance guarantee, I'd say that's a safe bet. I really wonder what the effects of Dawn dish soap residue on doors that go through huge pressure and temperature cycles is.
- Calavar 3y agoThere's a lot of shoot from the hip emotional/sarcastic responses to this, but the lack of documentation is absolutely one of the main issues. If mechanics are improvising with questionable practices, what are you going to do? Fire the dozen mechanics who used Dawn soap and now everything's fixed and we can trust all 737 doors for the foreseeable future? No, of course not, because that doesn't solve the underlying systems issue. You need to create a workplace culture of sticking to the documented process, and you can't do that if there isn't a clearly documented process to begin with. Sloppy engineering culture and QA culture trickles its way down, and that's what we're seeing here.
- extraduder_ire 3y agoBoth using commercial soap as lube, and a plastic card as a gague seem like symptoms rather than the actual root of problems here. I have to assume the same time crunch that caused them to use quicker to acquire materials than what they ought to have used (and likely had stocked nearby) is what cut down on documenting these processes. Documentation of what was actually done would certainly be another useful layer in the swiss-cheese safety model commercial aviation relies on.
- instagib 3y agoI’ve written tech manual procedures and maintenance instructions. It’s common to add alternative solutions for cleaning or lubricating parts. I’m sure there’s a more appropriate way to put it other than dawn plus hotel card because that would not pass the approval process for my organization. > Clean with a general purpose soap and water with a firm applicator card, plastic or nylon spudger, or plastic spackle knife.
- ericpauley 3y agoRelated: in the small GA aircraft world Dawn dish soap may as well be a MIL spec with how often it's used.
- rsingel 3y agoBoeing should be put in receivership, all top management fired with bonuses and stock grants clawed back. The rot needs to be cut out. Boeing is too important to be run by MBAs and private equity wannabes
- consumer451 3y agoJust imagine if we lived in such a world.
- zeroCalories 3y agoAt this point Boeing may as well be nationalized with how deeply embedded it is with U.S defense and economy.
- _heimdall 3y agoGuess we need to put the federal government into receivership then /s
- takoid 3y agoOutside of early 20th-century Italy and Germany, which countries have actively pursued nationalization of industries in a late-stage capitalism phase of development? What were the outcomes? Are there more effective alternatives?
- gumby 3y agoPost-WWII France and UK, France even into the 80s. US nationalized passenger rail into Amtrak in ‘71. New York took over the private subway companies in the 40s. Since the 1980s the US uses a different mechanism (as they did with Boeing) where the state leaves the companies listed on the stock exchange but influences policy by guaranteed purchase orders, forced mergers (else you lose those purchase orders) etc — privatization in all but name.
- Log_out_ 3y agoWouldn't count the US though. Privat industry regularly sabotage state enterprises via lobbyism.
- chrisbolt 3y agoI wonder how that would compare to an audit of other manufacturers like Airbus or Embraer.
- ajhurliman 3y agoTbh it’s a fair question, but we haven’t seen a rapid escalation of incidents in planes from those manufacturers. So I’d venture the guess “not as bad as Boeing”
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y agoThey used aeronautical grade Dawn dish soap and wet cheesecloth to fit doors. It's almost comical.
- ahazred8ta 3y agoNonsense. They were obviously supposed to use MIL-SPEC standard MIL-D-16791 Nonionic General Purpose Detergent. /s
- justinclift 3y agoKind of surprised it wasn't WD-40, the universal fluid. ;)
- JohnTHaller 3y agoRelated: 32 year Boeing veteran turned whistleblower John Barnett was found dead of an apparent suicide today. And a Boeing 787-9 went into a sudden dive yesterday due to a 'technical issue' injuring 50 people, some of which were "thrown into the roof".
- wsc981 3y agoIf anyone else was willing to blow a whistle, I’d think they’d consider changing their tune.
- aurareturn 3y ago>And a Boeing 787-9 went into a sudden dive yesterday due to a 'technical issue' injuring 50 people, some of which were "thrown into the roof". Sound more like a pilot error? I don't know. The plane flew immediately after landing to its final destination.
- instagib 3y ago“Barnett was cross-examined by Boeing's lawyers and his own attorney days before he died… The court planned for Barnett to answer more questions on Saturday, but he did not appear as planned. The BBC reported that he was later found dead [on Saturday] in his truck, which was parked in a hotel parking garage.” Also why they say to buckle up while you are in your seat. Wind shear and such. Rapid descent they can do 4000ft/min controlled with air brakes. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/boeing-whistleblower-john-barnett-found-dead-days-after-testifying-against-company-report/ar-BB1jJ3Pd https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/boeing-whistleblow...
- wannacboatmovie 3y ago> went into a sudden dive yesterday due to a 'technical issue' injuring 50 people, some of which were "thrown into the roof" Reminiscent of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas_Flight_72 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas_Flight_72 The 2008 incident, this time on an Airbus, is interesting to HN readership as an unexplained hardware bit flip in one of the flight systems that calculates the angle of attack generated garbled data. This system was triple-redundant; however, it subsequently triggered a then-unknown software defect in the flight computer's algorithm for discarding such erroneous data. Some sort of edge case that wasn't considered. The result was the plane entered a dive in a manner eerily similar to the MCAS incident.
- Woodi 3y agoNice, nice, they finally drived down the street ! Now audit FAA for being beyound stupidity or taking bribes or whatever - clearly not doing their own work in this and previous decade...