Alaska Air CEO Says Loose Bolts Found in 'Many' Boeing Jets (bloomberg.com) 191
Alaska Air Group found loose bolts on "many" of its Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft following the midair blowout of a panel on one of its planes earlier this month, the carrier's chief executive officer said in an interview with NBC. Bloomberg: The accident has prompted some "very tough, candid conversations" with Boeing about the planemaker's operations, Alaska CEO Ben Minicucci told NBC in the interview, which aired late Tuesday. "I am angry. I'm more than frustrated and disappointed," he said. "My demand on Boeing is what are they going to do to improve their quality programs in-house?"
US safety regulators ordered all Max 9 planes grounded following the Jan. 5 incident, which left a gaping hole in the side of a jet and forced an emergency landing. No one was seriously injured. Minicucci said there was a "guardian angel" on the flight. Manufacturing quality at Boeing is facing deep scrutiny from regulators, customers and the planemaker itself in the wake of the blowout. While Alaska and United Airlines Holdings, another large operator of the Max model, have performed inspections on some of the aircraft, they're awaiting final specifications from the Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing before the planes can fly again. "Boeing is better than this," Minicucci said. "Flight 1282 should never have happened."
US safety regulators ordered all Max 9 planes grounded following the Jan. 5 incident, which left a gaping hole in the side of a jet and forced an emergency landing. No one was seriously injured. Minicucci said there was a "guardian angel" on the flight. Manufacturing quality at Boeing is facing deep scrutiny from regulators, customers and the planemaker itself in the wake of the blowout. While Alaska and United Airlines Holdings, another large operator of the Max model, have performed inspections on some of the aircraft, they're awaiting final specifications from the Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing before the planes can fly again. "Boeing is better than this," Minicucci said. "Flight 1282 should never have happened."
The FAA is greatly to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The FAA is greatly to blame (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The FAA is greatly to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
The FAA uses non-FAA personal to do a huge amount of their work. Non FAA-employee "designated pilot examiners" give checkrides and issue pilot certificates, A&P-IA inspectors issue airworthiness certificates, private companies run airport towers and weather service. Everyone usually does their jobs under threat of losing their credentials if they fuck up. It's a system that actually works pretty well as long as everyone behaves themselves. Which they haven't.
Yeah, but you'll notice that pilots don't give checkrides and issue pilot certificates to themselves. :-)
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Re:The FAA is greatly to blame (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The FAA is greatly to blame (Score:5, Interesting)
"pilots don't give checkrides and issue pilot certificates to themselves"
Rand Paul knows how to fix that.
Re:The FAA is greatly to blame (Score:4, Insightful)
But that's meaningless, "it works as long as it's working" is true of every system.
The deciding question is how likely is it that either some people aren't doing their jobs, or that higher-ups ignore the people doing their jobs and simply rubber-stamp the design.
Re:The FAA is greatly to blame (Score:5, Interesting)
The deciding question is how likely is it that either some people aren't doing their jobs, or that higher-ups ignore the people doing their jobs and simply rubber-stamp the design.
This case is much more active and problematic than that. The airline industry procedures for safety are/were second to none. They follow up on all sorts of problems; they do random and systematic checks. They make sure that they don't just blame the human who made a mistake but also ask why they made that mistake and why that mistake was possible and fix each of those things. For a recent public event it's worth reading the descriptions of the training and actions in evacuating the Japanese plane that recently burnt up, including the design features of that plane which made it possible for everyone to escape alive.
In this case, Boeing senior management has colluded with American, largely right wing, politicians to deliberately bypass and disable that system in order to reduce their costs. They not only agreed to allow Boeing to do their own checks. They also got rid of their own people who had the serious safety culture and they also have to have disabled the airline's standard checking procedures which (I'm sure) would have found a loose bolt before something actually went wrong and reported it.
One of those things might be forgivable as long as it was compensated for in other systems. For example, deciding that it's more dangerous to have the airlines checking the bolts than just leaving them and having random checks of bolts on planes which are returned through Boeing so that they are sure that the lifetime and probability calculations are correct. At the point that cost cutting is coming from all sides, though, we reach towards disaster.
There was much more information about the way they got safety checks disabled during the discussions about the previous trim control problems which caused several jets to crash. This is really really terrible because Boeing is one of the US's real strategic assets and needs investment, not cost cutting.
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This is really really terrible because Boeing is one of the US's real strategic assets and needs investment, not cost cutting.
Boeing is a symptom of what is going on in America. Fixing Boeing will be FAR easier than fixing America and knowing how power fails, Boeing will never be fixed. It will fail catastrophically and be sold and renamed and NEVER be reliable again.
Re: The FAA is greatly to blame (Score:5, Interesting)
If you are going this sort of crap assertion then show some evidence.
https://www.politico.com/story... [politico.com]
In 2003 the Congress was republican controlled.
BTW, the other large OEM, Airbus, seems to be doing fine producing quality aircraft in the reddist of red states, Alabama.
Airbus, as a company, still has the fear of a strong regulator in EASA which applies even if they are manufacturing in the states. I hope you aren't suggesting
And generally, American engineering is still the best in the world, but that edge is going fast as individual Americans are failing to commit to STEM subjects. That's something which needs active intervention to fix.
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I hope you aren't suggesting,...
... that American manufacturers have to become subject to European Union regulation to fix this?
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> ... that American manufacturers have to become subject to European Union regulation to fix this?
Not at all - just that you need a regulator a bit more capable of actually regulating.
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Both the Democrats and the Republicans are broad coalitions. Whilst I'd consider (almost?) all Republicans to be right wing, I would also consider some Democrats to be right wing. For example Manchin. Specifically corporatist / reduced regulation Democrats would do it for me.
There were a number of stories during the previous rounds of Boeing problems about how Boeing put pressure on politicians to reduce oversight and thus their costs. It was very clear who they were working with and that this was a continu
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But that's meaningless, "it works as long as it's working" is true of every system.
The deciding question is how likely is it that either some people aren't doing their jobs, or that higher-ups ignore the people doing their jobs and simply rubber-stamp the design.
The loose bolts are a direct result of the Loose Nuts running Boeing at the moment.
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But that's meaningless, "it works as long as it's working" is true of every system.
The deciding question is how likely is it that either some people aren't doing their jobs, or that higher-ups ignore the people doing their jobs and simply rubber-stamp the design.
Whatever happened to "the buck stops here" being printed on the CEOs desk. Not just Boeing, but a lot of companies C-levels are intent on throwing juniors under the bus when they get caught out doing someone wrong, see VW and Dieselgate for example. Isn't the weight of responsibility the alleged reason the CEOs get paid so much and even after failing dramatically, still get a golden parachute?
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There's a difference between passing a pilot as fit to fly and passing a new aeroplane as fit to fly. In the former case, the only thing that rides on it is one person's career and you could argue that it is in the airline's best interests that its pilots know how to fly its planes. In the latter case, the financial wellbeing of an entire huge company might be at stake. There is no way a plane should be certified by employees of the company that makes it.
Re:The FAA is greatly to blame (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the result of Newt Gingrich's moment of brilliance, when he realized that even if he couldn't eliminate regulatory agencies he could make their enforcement budget a separate line item and squeeze. Once upon a time the FAA had its own people who could look at a plan of something like the 737 MAX and say, "This is enough of a change that it needs recertification." Now all those people have been laid off because there's no money to pay them and they have to take the company's judgement because of the ridiculous Libertardian belief "No one would knowingly build something poorly to save money, because they'd get sued." This is the inevitable result.
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This is true, even if the FAA has culpability on this the lesson to be taken is exactly that, first party adequately funded regulation and inspection because obviously, these companies cannot be left to their own devices.
Re:The FAA is greatly to blame (Score:5, Informative)
Newt Gingrich hasn't been in office for 25 years. The actually relevant legislation is the Organization Designation Authorization [wikipedia.org] which was passed after he left office. It has been the FAA itself which has pushed for increasing delegation under that authority (and defended it under criticism). Their view essentially is that they don't have sufficient expertise to evaluate modern aircraft in the same capacity as the manufacturer and instead best serve that process in a regulatory capacity.
Re:FAA is completely to blame (Score:5, Informative)
And that new legislation has been prepared by who ?
According to the Wikipedia page it was established by FAA Order 8100.15. An image of that Order is inluded on that Wikipedia page.
US Government is filled with Departments and Agencies that can make rules & regulations WITHOUT Congressional involvement, provided Congress has authorized that Department or Agency to make rules & regulations in that area.
That approach to governance is currently under reconsideration in The Supreme Court of the USA in a legal case that the Court accepted for this term. It is known as a Supreme Court ruling called "The Chevron Deference".
Trump’s Open Plot to Break the Federal Gover (Score:4, Interesting)
Trump’s Open Plot to Break the Federal Government [theatlantic.com]
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Don't be obtuse. Gingrich is just one early, but prominent figure in the ongoing multi-generational project, rooted in the Reagan presidency, that the Republican party is still working on
AC is right, but misses the worst part of it. Yes, Project 2025 [wikipedia.org] is a logical continuation of Regan's shrinking of government, but both Regan and Thatcher were from the generation brought up in the shadow of WWII and they fully understood the need for government even if they wanted it limited. Newt's project:
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This is the result of Newt Gingrich's moment of brilliance, when he realized that even if he couldn't eliminate regulatory agencies he could make their enforcement budget a separate line item and squeeze. Once upon a time the FAA had its own people who could look at a plan of something like the 737 MAX and say, "This is enough of a change that it needs recertification." Now all those people have been laid off because there's no money to pay them and they have to take the company's judgement because of the ridiculous Libertardian belief "No one would knowingly build something poorly to save money, because they'd get sued." This is the inevitable result.
This issue goes well beyond that. The FAA weren't just negligent, they were complicit.
They knew the 737-MAX was not suitable to share the type certification with the 737-NG family, however because Boeing is so powerful they ignored that and instead mandated MCAS to fudge the controls to make it feel similar to fly. EASA and CAA should also have pulled them up on it and it's a damning indictment on all of them that we'll have to have another MAX incident before they'll pull the type certification.
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Now all those people have been laid off because there's no money to pay them
But there is still plenty of money to pay cabinet officials and N layers of bureaucracy, imagine that..
You do realize the number of people the Federal government employees vs the population has declined like less than 1% since Regan was still in office right? One would think that automation and information technology over that period would have offered enough efficiency gains we should be able to have seen a far greater decline than that. ... but sure its all Newt's fault!
I would argue the evidence rather s
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This is the blind spot most libertarians have: they never stop to think that *they* might be the ones getting fucked, it'll always be the other guy. It'll never be YOUR wife or YOUR child who dies from some untested medication or contaminated food or unsafe electrical appliance.
It'll always be some other guy whose wife or kid dies, and then the Magical Invisible Hand Of The Free Market will punish that company and force them out of business, and you'll be safe, right?
But it won't be your wife or your kid, n
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Have a look for the discussions on Slashdot about the time of the Boeing 737 trim control accidents and investigations. The politics was discussed as well as the technical details.
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This just in... the Federal Bureau of Prisons will now allow prisoners to incarcerate themselves.
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and parole themselves?
Re:The FAA is greatly to blame (Score:5, Funny)
Re: The FAA is greatly to blame (Score:3)
Past generations of Boeing leadership understood the reason they get paid this quarter is from building quality aircraft and not taking shortcuts, where mistakes made 10 years ago will eventually be found.
Current leadership seems to be optimizing for more revenue this quarter. Costs money to be careful, let's get those planes built faster.
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The same way the DOT lets the automakers do their own QC.
The realty is commercial passenger aviation is damn near accident free on a per-capita basis. Most of that is the safety culture for certain. The reality is a everyone is getting a panties in twist of what are actually statistically speaking non-problems.
All that is really needed here is for FAA to send Boeing a strongly worded letter to the effect of -
Dear Boeing,
We are unsatisfied with the quality of your self-inspections and certain incidents have
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Save a dollar, lose a billion (Score:5, Insightful)
No-clue MBA types at the helm, what do you expect?
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You know how you can instantly get these suicide flights safe again? Force the C-suite to fly in them. At random times, some C-Level from a plane manufacturer gets chosen to fly on a random flight of their fleet.
Want to bet your rear that these things suddenly have top of the line security, even without any regulation authority having to check them?
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That's not good enough. They all need to fly on their own planes every day.
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Then that is the one plane that gets the perfect maintenance.
No. They must not know what plane they'll be flying in. One random plane of the fleet will carry them. To destiny or grave, either is fine by me.
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Nice idea, not practical and would not work. Despite Boeing screwing up in the most unimaginable ways now, flying is still very safe and the greedy MBA morons can do one thing: Statistics.
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They just don't enjoy the idea of becoming one. They consider themselves far, far too important to just be a blip in a crash statistics.
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Looking for something else entirely, I came across this tale of a nose-wheel mishap on a 757 [nytimes.com] this month. I have no idea how old that plane is - or what caused a wheel to come off - but it is one thing after another with Boeing at present.
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My understanding of the "Boeing" problem is that each time they've wanted to design a new large jet, they've ended up deciding to just make (yes, major) alterations to a previous model rather than coming up with something from a closer-to-scratch level - as doing the former cost way less money. The problem is that this means even the most modern 737 you fly in today is just a 707 with enough changes that you can call it a whole new model. Kind of like a 1.0 to 2.0 release situation. This doesn't sound like
Re:Save a dollar, lose a billion (Score:5, Insightful)
No-clue MBA types at the helm, what do you expect?
The FAA to intervene and say "this development process is not adequate to the job". Before they were all got rid of, this was the agency that everyone in the world, including European regulators, would always give deference to.
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> Before they were all got rid of
FAA has 45,000 employees, plus contractors.
The issue is *not* that they couldn't find anyone to look at Boeing's self-certification program.
It's that agencies are run by political hacks who are counting on Industry fatchecks and board seats in exchange for looking the other way.
But go ahead and count how many current officials came from Boeing and how many Boeing execs have come from FAA and let us know.
well looks like the Boeing CEO is in big trouble (Score:2)
probably only make 20 million this year instead of 22
https://www1.salary.com/BOEING... [salary.com]
I wonder if he'll make more money getting fired than if he stayed.
Fucking wanker.
I mean, if I'm the Alaska Air CEO, i'm going back over all of those fucking airplanes from top to bottom.
Boeing has just cost them a fortune.
Re:well looks like the Boeing CEO is in big troubl (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the same CEO that sent us an email during Covid saying "hey, no problem going to Hawaii. I'm taking my loving family there over Christmas".
Then Hawaii shut down all travel to the island.
Add to that, they told us we had 6 months to use our canceled flight tickets or we'd lose the money.
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This is the same CEO that sent us an email during Covid saying "hey, no problem going to Hawaii. I'm taking my loving family there over Christmas".
Then Hawaii shut down all travel to the island.
Add to that, they told us we had 6 months to use our canceled flight tickets or we'd lose the money.
As much as Calhoun deserves to be pilloried alongside Muilenburg I don't see how Hawaii shutting down tourist arrivals during a Pandemic is his fault. As for not getting your money back, that's your governments fault for not having strong consumer protections in place. I had to cancel two trips during the Pandemic (Iberia and Air France) I name names because both times a 5 minute phone call resulted in every penny being deposited back to my account within a day.
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I wish Alaska Air would ground the planes and ask for a full refund. Have Boeing come get them.
On the other hand ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Loose Bolts Found in 'Many' Boeing Jets
Consistency is (usually) a good thing. Maybe it's a process-related issue.
In any case, patterns in problems can often help find/develop solutions.
If it's something related to a common method, or automation. then the same things should be broken in the same way and (a) should be easy/ier to correct going forward and (b) allow a common, perhaps automated, way to correct and/or test in current planes.
Not saying this whole thing isn't bad, but I'd be more worried (all around) the more it's random.
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On the blow out plane, the bolts were not loose, they were missing - not installed at all.
Unless they were loose, worked/vibrated their way out, and were then sucked out. Admittedly, I don't know how they're installed and how unlikely that situation would be ...
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From the schematic I looked at, they shouldn't come out at all if torqued anywhere close to correctly. It's a bolt and nut assembly that locks the plug in place. If the nut came off, the bolt would have to come out before the plug would release. So the nut and bolt would be loose when the plug flew away and would most likely be permanently lost. It SHOULD be a pretty vibration resistant setup.
That said, whether the bolt was actually inserted, and whether the nut was attached at all, well, that's a big qu
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I disagree. If they're are a couple of fuckers in the factory then barring exceptional levels of intentional collusion and malice the problem is with the process and management. Inadequate time, inadequate training, inadequate rectification, inadequate inspection. It's management that cheaped out, and three blame doesn't lie on the shoulders of a factory floor worker.
Unless we believe that the not especially well remunerated Volkswagen engineer with nothing to gain and no real stake just loved the company's
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Do you have an article saying that they weren't installed at all?
Last I heard, they found the plug in Bob's yard, have not found the bolts, but need to go over the plug in their lab to figure out whether or not the bolts were actually installed, or if like fahrbot-bot said, they vibrated out and haven't been found.
He probably doesn't but it's clear from the design (Score:5, Informative)
There are 4 bolts preventing the door from opening. The door needs to slide up on rods attached to the two lower hinges, each has a bolt through the ring and rod locking the two together, with a castellated nut secured with a split pin. There are two a hook arrangements on the door that fits over roll pins on the frame - this hook has a bolt across its mouth preventing the hook from moving upwards - again, secured with a castellated nut and spit pin.
Just one of those four bolts would prevent the door moving upwards and out of the hooks. There's no force on those nuts, no cause for them to loosen even without pins. At least the lower two bolts are under constant weak shear force from lift assist springs, which would prevent the bolts moving even if the nuts were not there.
And pictures of the door and frame show both largely undamaged apart from damage explained by the process of the opened door being ripped off.
There's no reasonable explanation of how the door could open unless none of those bolts were ever installed.
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Oh, I don't disagree, I was just asking if somebody had official word that that was the FAA's determination.
Though I think my theory was that maybe the bolts were inserted, but the nuts weren't added. Like the workers was moving too fast and was going to go back and do it, but got called away, and the 2nd workers supposed to check the install never did.
Re:He probably doesn't but it's clear from the des (Score:5, Interesting)
There's an interesting story on pprune.org that the aircraft needed some rivets and the plug's seal being replaced. So there's paperwork for the replacement of the rivets and the seal, but none for the reinstalling of the plug. Because it is in the books as a door, and closing a door doesn't require paperwork. Except this door has bolts and nuts and split pins that must be properly installed. Calling this plug a door might have punched a huge hole in several layers of the Swiss Cheese model.
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On the blow out plane, the bolts were not loose, they were missing - not installed at all.
... and that, ladies and gentlemen, proves conclusively just how successful self regulation by industry is as a way to ensure product quality and safety.
Obvious Problem is Obvious (Score:3, Insightful)
This is pretty much always what happens when you let a non-engineer lead an engineering company. It's always a very high likelihood of tanking: IBM, HP, Boeing, GM, Intel is getting there... we'll see if the ship can be righted. And these are just the obvious ones. I'm certain with time I could find many more (likely a lot of 80s mainframe companies).
Throw out all business admin BAs or accounting BAs from the helm of any and all engineering firms - they simply don't know shit, except maybe how to shotgun a beer.
Re:Obvious Problem is Obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
This is pretty much always what happens when you let a non-engineer lead an engineering company.
Obvious but wrong.
Calhoun's predecessor, Dennis Muilenburg [wikipedia.org] is an aeronautics engineer and he oversaw the 737 MAX shitshow - proving that an engineer at the head a company is no guarantee of the quality of the engineering in the company.
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And that is assuming you would take 'pretty much always' as meaning 'absolutely always' which it seems you were doing
So, in fact, even if you could prove that absolutely all engineering companies lead by engineers are failures, it would still not be a disproof of the statement, you would still have to show that there exist (and a significant number at that if not thinkin
Re:Obvious Problem is Obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the "exception which proves the rule"* is Apple. Jobs wasn't an engineer and clearly personally targeted being the best business/marketing person. I think, that's a really interesting case. In his time in NeXT, Jobs clearly transformed his understanding of the importance of engineering and also learned how to judge the quality of engineering work and encourage the good work. I personally think his own talk about his marketing expertise was partly misdirection. Jobs reportedly had an absolute commitment to engineering quality and would often back Engineers who were complaining about not getting resources needed to ensure product quality.
* yes, I'm winding you up by using this phrase correctly.
Re: Obvious Problem is Obvious (Score:4, Informative)
Mullenberg was CEO from 2015-2019, long after the bad decisions about the MAXâ(TM)s design were made. Unless you think a guy who was CEO only months before its maiden flight really had that big of an impact on the development process?
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Unless you think a guy who was CEO only months before its maiden flight really had that big of an impact on the development process?
Yes: for example, he was in a prime position to know full well the MCAS system warranted a re-certification of the aircraft, and successfully bullshitting the FAA into swallowing the "minor change" narrative was going to be trouble one day.
And - more importantly - he was in a prime position to know such a critical system without redundancy was a disaster waiting to happen - and again, the FAA accepting this *at all* screams corruption, and that was going to bite the company in the ass at the slightest hint
Re: Obvious Problem is Obvious (Score:2)
Add Xerox to that list.
Power Vacuum (Score:2, Interesting)
This is a direct result of Republican de-regulation and budget cuts at the governmental level. It is time for the pendulum to swing back and have more regulation from our government. We've slid down the slippery slope too damn far the deregulation route, and the corporations are the ones filling the vacuum left by the government stepping aside. I, for one, would much RATHER have government regulations and accountable and electable officials at the helm than some voodoo-economic corporation accountable to
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And FYI Obama said that in jest about all his work convincing foreign companies to purchase Boeing planes, it had nothing to do with
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Maybe you can explain then why this is because of policies setup by obama and biden.
I know Americans have given up on civics to a large degree, but this should be basic 101. The President is the American executive. Laws, such as those that control how the FAA operates, are set by congress.
The President can help with the selling of planes and with ensuring that there isn't unfair competit
Re:Power Vacuum (Score:4, Informative)
Correction: that's a misquote, the quote from one place and the link from a different one. Better source:
https://www.politico.com/story... [politico.com]
Where? (Score:2)
Re: Where? (Score:2)
Given what happened to that plug, it's probably safe to assume these bolts are important ones.
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However, a "plug" is supposed to seal by internal pressure. That's why it's called a plug. So it seems likely that Boeing mis-designed their plug.
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However, a "plug" is supposed to seal by internal pressure. That's why it's called a plug. So it seems likely that Boeing mis-designed their plug.
The doors on Boeings and Airbuses seem to open inward, rotate slightly and then open outward. The door-plug is little more than a stripped-down door that is bolted in place. If the bolts are missing the door-plug can, as we have seen, be blown out. I'm pretty sure this could happen with a door plug on an Airbus or any other airliner that has this kind of door arrangement as well unless those aircraft have bolts with crown nuts and retention splits holding the plug in place and the quality control inspector
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The difference is that Airbus is installing the door themselves (and also builds the fuselage themselves instead of outsourcing it to a spinoff).
It's not really a plug door. (Score:3)
This isn't a plug door as in a door that is smaller than the opening, and opens inwards. The door is smaller than the opening, but has 8 stop pins that line up with 8 stop pads on the frame. When it is closed, these take the forces on the door. To open, the door is moved upwards, the pads clear the pins and the door can open outwards and then hinge downwards.
It is more a plug in that it is something placed to plug up the door opening, than it is a classic plug-style door.
Minicucci should have said ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of "Boeing is better than this" of course, as everyone should know by now, that take is now 30 years in the past. It should have been "Boeing used to be better than this."
Arn't loose bolts a solved problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
In a lot of aircraft-grade parts, one uses lockwire or safety wire. This is something that one threads through holes in bolts, the wire winds up work-hardening and provides an effective means to ensure torque. Barring that, there are many other ways to ensure bolts don't work loose, be it jam nuts, Nylock fasteners, or even good ol' Loctite.
I just don't understand how loose bolts can even be an issue. Even with cars, this is a solved problem via many ways. At the minimum, have a tab with a hole in it, so each bolt can have lockwired to that, ensuring they are not going to torque out.
Re:Arn't loose bolts a solved problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
The fuselages are made by a subcontractor who probably bung the door plug in "temporarily" and ship it out to Boeing or the airline or whoever else is in the outsourced-to-hell supply chain. The assumption is that somebody downstream is going to take the plug back out for installing the interior, painting, or whatever, and then put it back in and torque it and all that.
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These are probably steel bolts and I think it's a fair chance that the taps are aluminum
This would be a recipe for galvanic corrosion, just add moisture.
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Moisture is probably guaranteed if the bolts are in the air, which is well under the dew point, and the plane lands. This makes sense, and in a way, this makes it even worse, because almost any auto mechanic knows about this, and to use either anti-seize and stainless steel bolts. Even squirting on Loctite would at least provide a measure of anti-corrosion properties, although going full "red" would make those bolts need to be removed with a blowtorch.
The parent poster has the ideal setup, but at minimum,
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The diagram I saw had the bolts going from the outside of the plane inwards, then having a nut applied.
These used castellated nuts and split pins. (Score:3)
Which is another very secure and well tested approach. But like locking wire, in order to work they have to be installed.
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Corporate America Speaks (Score:5, Insightful)
Alaska CEO Ben Minicucci says, "My demand on Boeing is what are they going to do to improve their quality programs in-house?"
Is Minicucci naive, or just stupid? Boeing has demonstrated repeatedly that they don't give one single f*ck about "improving their quality" on their own. This is where regulators are supposed to step in, and they're supposed to impose penalties harsh enough to discourage this kind of behaviour in the future. When the regulators have been captured by the industry they're supposed to be regulating, this doesn't happen. It's just the frog and scorpion story writ large.
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Until they go and talk to Bombardier and/or Embraer and ask them to build bigger jets, there's not much in the way of other options. Airbus is booked solid.
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Bombardier is essentially dead. They can only make business jets now since they have sold off their commercial aircraft and railway divisions.
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It's the frog and scorpion story except the scorpion gets away scot-free with a multi-million dollar severance package.
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Alaska CEO Ben Minicucci says, "My demand on Boeing is what are they going to do to improve their quality programs in-house?"
Is Minicucci naive, or just stupid? Boeing has demonstrated repeatedly that they don't give one single f*ck about "improving their quality" on their own. This is where regulators are supposed to step in, and they're supposed to impose penalties harsh enough to discourage this kind of behaviour in the future. When the regulators have been captured by the industry they're supposed to be regulating, this doesn't happen. It's just the frog and scorpion story writ large.
Minicucci is neither naive or stupid... What he's really saying to Boeing is "get your chequebook out because we're going to want a lot of compensation". Of course he (and everyone else) knows the regulators need to step in but it's not the regulators who are liable for the losses suffered by airlines (even though the lack of oversight is a huge fuck up by the FAA).
It's not as if Minicucci can replace the 737's Alaskan has spend hundreds of Millions on... Even if he could, there's nothing else to buy, yo
Obvious outcome (Score:5, Funny)
If these were Russian jets... (Score:2)
...all hell would break loose.
We would be hearing [from media houses], how the country is just a gas station; how their tech is subpar; how the country has lost direction under Putin... What else?
Re:If these were Russian jets... (Score:5, Interesting)
We would be hearing [from media houses], how the country is just a gas station; how their tech is subpar; how the country has lost direction under Putin... What else?
Maybe in the West. From Russia, we'd be hearing endless BS from the parties who can actually fix the problems (the manufacturer, regulators, maybe the airline itself) about how there is no engineering defect, that it was all a CIA plot, and that actually Ukrainian Nazis shot the door off the plane.
Despite the downturn that Boeing and the reliability of FAA oversight seem to have taken, at least there's open conversation about the fact that there is a problem, which is the first step towards fixing it.
Re: (Score:2)
What do you mean? The country did lose its direction under Putin. And his nominee is overwhelmingly likely to run for president again and be cheered on by a good fraction of congress.
Re: (Score:2)
What do you mean? The country did lose its direction under Putin. And his nominee is overwhelmingly likely to run for president again and be cheered on by a good fraction of congress.
If you spoke to a Russian 5 years ago, they'd tell you they liked Putin because he was Making Russia Strong Again.... Now they'll tell you the same thing but only because they're afraid of being drafted.
Point is, Putin had made a career out of looking like a strongman, his platform was based on that and up until Ukraine, largely successful. Even after removing the (barely) functioning democracy and crowning himself President for Life he was well supported. Imagine if we had politicians like him in the we
Alaska Air bit on SNL (Score:3)
In case anyone missed this rather funny Alaska Airlines "Ad" [youtube.com] on SNL last weekend.
Taglines:
Alaska
You didn't die
and you got a cool story
Alaska
Still better than Spirit
Troubles (Score:2)
Boeing and the FAA were told of serious QA defects in the material components of the aircraft during the investigation of the flight software. That's going to increase Boeing's liability and make it easier for anyone suing to meet the burden of proof.
A wheel has just been reported falling off another Boeing when taxiing, which may or may not be related. There was no mention of aircraft age, so we don't know if lax QA from Boeing is to blame. Regardless, it's going to up pressure on the FAA to do something.
Casts a whole new light on airplane maintenance (Score:3)
List of instructions left by pilots on maintenance forms [aviationhumor.net]
After every flight, pilots fill out a form, called a 'gripe sheet' which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft. The mechanics correct the problems; document their repairs on the form, and then pilots review the gripe sheets before the next flight.
Never let it be said that ground crews lack a sense of humor. Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by pilots (marked with a P) and the solutions recorded (marked with an S) by maintenance engineers.
P: Something loose in cockpit.
S: Something tightened in cockpit.
Re:"Boeing is better than this"? Why? (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, that should only be said by the replacement Boeing CEO as he goes through the company with a massive red pen firing anybody who doesn't show enough dedication to proper construction, procedures, and more.
It's easy to lose quality control. Getting it back is ugly.
My dad worked for a HVAC company that had to "pivot" for greater safety. They had to fire several techs who refused to stop doing unsafe stuff.
Re: (Score:2)
In Boeing's case, they need to re-hire most everyone that was previously fired ... for refusing to cut corners.
Diversity is about getting the best employees. (Score:2)
It is about realizing that there are racial and disability based biases in your recruiting system, and that in order to actually hire the best employees you need to do something to push back against those unintentional, but very real, biases.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't see why not. After the two MAX planes crashed due to faulty software, it was reported multiple times, including to the investigation teams, that Boeing was not doing adequate QA and that parts were not being fitted correctly. In other words, both the FAA and Boeing knew perfectly well that this was an issue.
I think that when a defect is known and aggressively not fixed, that Boeing will have potential risk from court action. If it had not been known, that would be different. There might still have b