FAA Audit of Boeing's 737 Max Production Found Dozens of Issues (nytimes.com) 85
A six-week audit by the Federal Aviation Administration of Boeing's production of the 737 Max jet found dozens of problems (non-paywalled link) throughout the manufacturing process at the plane maker and one of its key suppliers, according to a slide presentation reviewed by The New York Times. From the report: The air-safety regulator initiated the examination after a door panel blew off a 737 Max 9 during an Alaska Airlines flight in early January. Last week, the agency announced that the audit had found "multiple instances" in which Boeing and the supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, failed to comply with quality-control requirements, though it did not provide specifics about the findings.
The presentation reviewed by The Times, though highly technical, offers a more detailed picture of what the audit turned up. Since the Alaska Airlines episode, Boeing has come under intense scrutiny over its quality-control practices, and the findings add to the body of evidence about manufacturing lapses at the company. For the portion of the examination focused on Boeing, the F.A.A. conducted 89 product audits, a type of review that looks at aspects of the production process. The plane maker passed 56 of the audits and failed 33 of them, with a total of 97 instances of alleged noncompliance, according to the presentation.
The F.A.A. also conducted 13 product audits for the part of the inquiry that focused on Spirit AeroSystems, which makes the fuselage, or body, of the 737 Max. Six of those audits resulted in passing grades, and seven resulted in failing ones, the presentation said. 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.
The presentation reviewed by The Times, though highly technical, offers a more detailed picture of what the audit turned up. Since the Alaska Airlines episode, Boeing has come under intense scrutiny over its quality-control practices, and the findings add to the body of evidence about manufacturing lapses at the company. For the portion of the examination focused on Boeing, the F.A.A. conducted 89 product audits, a type of review that looks at aspects of the production process. The plane maker passed 56 of the audits and failed 33 of them, with a total of 97 instances of alleged noncompliance, according to the presentation.
The F.A.A. also conducted 13 product audits for the part of the inquiry that focused on Spirit AeroSystems, which makes the fuselage, or body, of the 737 Max. Six of those audits resulted in passing grades, and seven resulted in failing ones, the presentation said. 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.
the natural evolution of capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:the natural evolution of capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
2 engineers for 2 mile long trains? Wheels literally falling off from rust and use? Dangerous chemicals transported on these trains where due to not enough employees, overworked employees, and common derailments are heavily increased.
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There was an issue recently where some trains in Poland couldn't be properly maintained because the manufacturer put traps in the firmware that bricked them if anyone else tried to do maintenance on them. They went as far as to geofence rival maintenance facilities and have the train brick itself if it ever went there.
Such things discourage frequent maintenance, and lead to problems being ignored.
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Not sure how you got populism = good for society, but the rest was spot on. The further we get from the USSR awful example, the more the left loses its mind IRT capitalism.
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And by Fascism you mean what the Republican party has embraced [twimg.com], right?
In fact, line 11 sounds like what you're saying. Funny that.
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It's from the Holocasut Museum, dumbass.
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It's actually from this 2003 article;
https://secularhumanism.org/20... [secularhumanism.org]
But yes, the Holocaust Museum (and other places) sell a poster with a brief summary version.
=Smidge=
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Re:Stop with this 1-bit thinking. (Score:4, Interesting)
Capitalism is only the 3rd financial system humans have widely implemented. Slavery gave way to feudalism. Feudalism gave way to capitalism -to assume this is "it" is short sighted at best. Capitalism commodifies everything from the natural world to human beings and consumes till exhaustion or collapse.
Re:Stop with this 1-bit thinking. (Score:5, Insightful)
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We may be seeing the proletariat uprising with gen Z. They are refusing to participate in the grind, seeing that for them it doesn't bring the rewards that their parents and especially grandparents received.
It's a quiet uprising, but it may force capitalists to change their ways simply because they can't get the labour they need. Younger people were traditionally the most exploited, and the bedrock for a lot of businesses. We can already see them trying to force older workers who retired back into the labou
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That will change when they grow up and have to join the grind to survive.
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I wouldn't call feudalism an economic system, more of a political system. You probably mean serfdom. Anyway, I don't see capitalism as inherently bad, it was arguably necessary for Industrial Revolution to happen, which allows us to enjoy the modern lifestyle we have today. The way I see it, capitalism can be a powerful force for good, but it is also inherently dangerous, for reasons you've given. Anything that runs on pure human greed to the exclusion of everything else is going to be a very dangerous and
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Chernobyl.
Re:the natural evolution of capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Chernobyl
K-19. Failed due to bad welds in the reactor cooling system. Shoddy worksmanship.
Yes, capitalism can and does create these problems.
So does communism and any other -ism
But (and christoban this isn't addressed to you,but to those whining about how this is a capitalist problem) capitalists built the Saturn V's F1 engines *by hand*, most of Saturn *by hand*, the RS25s for the Shuttle *by hand*.. etc etc. And I consider those to be the scratch-built apexes of hands-on fabrication. And it was done by what some of you consider "filthy capitalists." The reason F1 and RS25 worked so well is because they people who made them knew what the stakes were. We're going to the moon, and we're building this space plane thing.. we gotta make it work!
Today it's different. Today it's "How much more can we squeeze out of every facet of this project so we can get bigger bonuses." That's not a Capitalist thing. That's a human thing. Greed is human, and the Communists were epic at it too. Big shots had dachas in the countryside with good food and a good devochka to warm the bed, while the peasant that built the USSRs tanks froze and starved. Just like filthy capitalist dog, no?
The problem isn't really "my -ism can beat your -ism" The problem is not caring about your product -- and that attitude filters from the top from the CEO down to the workers on the shop floor. The bosses don't give a fuck about the product because to do so reduces profit, and the worker that makes it doesn't give a fuck because as far as he knows, he could be replaced in 10 seconds with someone else, and his sense of craftsmanship was beaten out of him long ago by management and union alike.
Again, not you christoban -- but you people who keep going "baa baa capitalism bad hurr durr" fail to realize.. it's greed killing Boeing, not one -ism over another. It's just greed.
Re: the natural evolution of capitalism (Score:2)
" it's greed killing Boeing, not one -ism over another. It's just greed"
Capitalism is the -ism OF greed.
Re: the natural evolution of capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Capitalism is the -ism OF greed.
Yeah, thank you, movie called "Wall Street."
You fail to recognize that the pinko Commies had greed too. Like the part of my post you didn't quote, stating that the big shots had all these perks the peons didn't.
But sure, gloss over that.
Both systems are fucked because of greed You won't even give that thought half a second.
Communism was arguably "for the people" but in every single case it's been tried, it failed, and all it did was make the people poor and miserable and the rulers rich beyond avarice.
Will you at least admit that is correct?
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You criticize one system for being followed, the other system for not being followed.
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Thanks for that, it's nice to see when someone gets it. Capitalism is destructive by design, Communism is destructive when it's not followed and Capitalism is used instead.
If that's overrated then so is this (Score:2)
Keep modding me down, capitalism cucks. I'll get more karma points. All your downmodding does is produce more posts from me, in order to make up the loss. Meanwhile we both get fucked by the rent-seekers with all the money, the difference is that you're cheering for them.
Re: the natural evolution of capitalism (Score:4, Insightful)
Neither system is followed;
How exactly is free-market Capitalism "being followed" when there are government bailouts and subsidies propping up so many otherwise failed and failing companies.
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Capitalism is being followed. Free markets aren't a thing and never will be.
Re: the natural evolution of capitalism (Score:2)
The Saturn V was built with government money. Not really capitalism at that point
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The Saturn V was built with government money. Not really capitalism at that point
20 billion USD, in 1969 money. All of it from my parents, and your parents (if you're USA citizen.) We paid for all that.
Rockedyne made it. North American made it. MIT made it, so many companies made it. It was capitalism in the sense that all the big dogs and a lot of small fry made it a 20 year gravy train.
*shrug* that's capitalism, in my book.
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Tax money from filthy capitalists, paid to capitalist contractors, educated in a capitalist society, with technology made by other filthy capitalists.
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I'm not sure why you're referring to K-19, another Soviet failure, to make an equivalence between communism and capitalism. That's what it seemed like you were doing, anyway.
The reason I mentioned Chernobyl is that its failure was the direct result of communists literally covering up its terrible design, even to the nuclear engineers who needed that information to prevent a meltdown.
Capitalism may have failures, but nothing like communism, and it lifts all boats greatly. The fact it does so unevenly is ju
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But (and christoban this isn't addressed to you,but to those whining about how this is a capitalist problem) capitalists built the Saturn V's F1 engines *by hand*, most of Saturn *by hand*, the RS25s for the Shuttle *by hand*
With tax money. Your argument seems to be saying that capitalism works best when the government is directing it, i.e. social democracy like many European countries have.
Speaking of space, the USSR actually had a really good rocket for getting to the Moon. It's just that after the US got there first, they were not willing to spend the money developing it. Decades later, SpaceX has revived the basic concept of using many small engines (instead of a few massive ones like the Saturn V).
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Today it's different. Today it's "How much more can we squeeze out of every facet of this project so we can get bigger bonuses." That's not a Capitalist thing. That's a human thing. Greed is human, and the Communists were epic at it too. Big shots had dachas in the countryside with good food and a good devochka to warm the bed, while the peasant that built the USSRs tanks froze and starved. Just like filthy capitalist dog, no?
The problem isn't really "my -ism can beat your -ism" The problem is not caring about your product -- and that attitude filters from the top from the CEO down to the workers on the shop floor.
+10 Insightful
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"How much more can we squeeze out of every facet of this project so we can get bigger bonuses." That's not a Capitalist thing. That's a human thing. Greed is human, and the Communists were epic at it too.
Remember: under capitalism, man exploits man... but under communism, it's the other way around.
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When everything becomes about this quarter's profits and growth at any cost to appease wall st. Long term results? Who cares, I get my bonus for what I do now and the fallout will come when I'm long gone.
They need to stop using bonuses or delay them for years. They just encourage this short term thinking.
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This is what happens when an engineering company becomes a company with the single goal of profit.
It's also what happens when crony capitalism means that Federal agencies are more concerned with enabling a company than regulating it.
It's not that long ago that the US broke trade law to drive a potential competitor out of the market [wikipedia.org].
Here's hoping that Bombardier can eventually re-enter the market by buying part of Boeing out of bankruptcy.
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It's not that long ago that the US broke trade law to drive a potential competitor out of the market.
Amateurs. To do it, you do it like Harley-Davidson did to Indian and Cushman.
For those who don't know, before the Japanese Invasion of the 1960's. Harley was King of the Hill, and had two domestic competitors -- Indian, and Cushman. Harley bought both and slaughtered them wholesale. Then came the japs and both the Brits and the Americans shat their drawers, because that little Honda ran so much better that America.. and the world.. bought them hand over fist. Then Harley has the BALLS to go to the Gover
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https://www.boeing.com/sustainability/diversity-and-inclusion [boeing.com]
A focus on profit isn't the only explanation for a lack of focus on engineering quality.
Also, if your hypothesis were correct the USSR would have had a much better track record over the same period as western countries. I look forward to a rebuttal showcasing the numerous examples of superior soviet engineering.
Re:the natural evolution of capitalism (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, if your hypothesis were correct the USSR would have had a much better track record over the same period as western countries. I look forward to a rebuttal showcasing the numerous examples of superior soviet engineering.
Don't get me started. I don't know what causes this Soviet / Russian ... "Russian-ness" but they've made it a centuries-long tradition of bad worksmanship and materials.
My thought is that it's the same problem that plagues capitalism -- greed. How? Essentially the same way. Those who issue the orders have incentive to keep things cheap. Those who actually make them don't care, likely because they've got no money, no future, no food, even. How can you turn out a fine part on a lathe if you're constantly worried about other things?
Greed, folks. Envy. Jealousy. That which drives those in power, and a fair number of peasants, too. Keep up with the Joneses. The sooner people get over that, well, maybe there'll be hope.
Oh, and for the record -- the one Soviet thing that was made right was the AK47.. and it's really an M1 Garand flipped over. The trigger group's damn near identical. If you're gonna steal, steal from the best, right? (Garand kinda stole that trigger group from Browning, anyway..)
https://www.thefirearmblog.com... [thefirearmblog.com]
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The USSR was hampered by lack of access to materials and lack of money. Even in a communist country, cost is a factor. The actual engineering was often excellent.
So probably a lot like Boeing. Good engineers, but bosses who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
A bit of an aside, but I was watching something about why the MCU sucks now, and the guy cited the demand that every movie maximize profit as the major reason. George Lucas said he sold Star Wars so that he could make the movies he wa
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Unlikely to be related to diversity efforts. Check out their report for last year: https://www.boeing.com/content... [boeing.com]
"women and minorities remain sorely underrepresented in STEM"
Women are about a quarter of their employees, but mostly not on the engineering side. Furthermore, Black people only make up 7.1% of the workforce, less than half the number who make up the US population. The vast majority of employees are white.
The numbers are even worse the further back you go, i.e. when these screw-ups happened. T
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Of course, these problems never happen in socialist or third-world countries now, do they!
Name a country, with *any* economic system, that doesn't. Good luck.
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Greed destroys everything. This has been known for millennia. But the human race still has no handle on it. How pathetic.
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I rarely gap my plugs.. (Score:2)
I rarely gap my plugs, a they usually come pre-gapped.
But, when I do gap them, I use nothing but the finest HID-brand (tm) Hotel Key Cards. Right Tool for the Right Job!
--
You lot has no idea how much it hurts watching Masters of the Air, watching those Boeing-made Forts get chewed into tinfoil confetti and making their way home with 3 feathered, 1 barely turning and leaking everything.
Today, the battle damage happens in the factory, not over the skies of Europe.
Boeing isn't an illness, it's a symptom of t
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But, when I do gap them, I use nothing but the finest HID-brand (tm) Hotel Key Cards. Right Tool for the Right Job!
Well aren't you fancy. Hotel Key cards is so bougie. Most of us expired Walmart gift cards. They come pre-lubricated with our tears.
Total management failure (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Total management failure (Score:5, Insightful)
Fire the entire senior management, the CEO, the CFO, the top lawyer, the Quality Control Director, etc. etc. There is no excuse for this kind of incompetence.
While I and I would guess most rational, semi-literate folks would agree with you, our government is paid handsomely to look away when this type of thing happens in the name of increased profits. And they won't take notice until "really bad things" happen because of it. Even then, if the company has enough money to toss at the problem it'll usually just quietly go away. Not sure if planes literally blowing chunks out of the sky is enough to cause something more than a few inquiries and a public shaming, but I'd damn sure think it's gotta at least be sending some notices to the aggregate governmental brain that action may be required beyond the usual congressional hearings with teary-eyed execs justifying their lavish lifestyles and extravagant bonuses. Not that those hearings are entertaining as all get-out, watching the weasels squirm, but that's all they are is entertaining. They cause no actual damage to the company, and they certainly aren't punishment.
Let's hope this audit comes with an action list that's actually implemented, but I won't be holding my breath waiting.
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The government has nothing to do with this. The board of directors, who are supposed to represent the stockholders, need to take action and replace the management. They have shown that they are incapable of running the company.
Not to say you're wrong entirely, but the government allowed the FAA inspections of Boeing craft to be hired Boeing employees that directly reported to Boeing management and were told to sweep issues under the rug in order to keep things moving. They absolutely have something to do with it.
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It's not looking the other way.
It is being concerned that Boeing military aircraft might not be delivered. And the military isn't as concerned about a 1% failure rate in planes. as much as not getting the planes.
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Fire the entire senior management, the CEO, the CFO, the top lawyer, the Quality Control Director, etc. etc. There is no excuse for this kind of incompetence.
Didn't a retired quality control manager just kill himself before he was to testify in the 3rd day of his deposition in his lawsuit against BOING?
Coincidence? I Think NOT.
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Fire? You forget they have mass-homicide (at the very least criminally negligent) on the list of things they did. Jail them for their crimes and impound their assets. That would be the very least they deserve.
Hotel Key Card (Score:1)
the air-safety agency observed mechanics at Spirit using a hotel key card to check a door seal
Not correct per engineering documentation. It clearly states that the clearance shall be no more than a Blonde C..t H..r.
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Not correct per engineering documentation. It clearly states that the clearance shall be no more than a Blonde C..t H..r.
Well.. that's the problem right there! Engineers since the caveman era know the only accepted measure of small tolerances is RCHs! RED C nt Hair!
I mean, seriously, how else was Neanderthal Engineer going to check for the gap on the hatch to his cave? A Sabretooth Tiger's whisker?! That's too fine, the hatch will jam!
Re: Hotel Key Card (Score:2)
We're talking about aviation here, they should be using FRCHs.
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engineers use red ones, machinists use a blonde one, line workers use a hotel card and hope that they can find one behind one of the doors they try it in
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engineers use red ones, machinists use a blonde one, line workers use a hotel card and hope that they can find one behind one of the doors they try it in
Tolerance stacking is a bitch..
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RED C nt Hair!
Bloody typical, they've gone back to metric without telling us.
Average (Score:2)
The plane maker passed 56 of the audits and failed 33 of them, with a total of 97 instances of alleged noncompliance, according to the presentation.
Is this good, average, or terrible?
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Exceptionally terrible. If they fail 1 or 2 and did know of the problems and were in the process to fix the issues there, that would be "acceptable". If they fail 0, that would be "good". This is not manufacturing children's toys. Every single one of those failures has a very real potential to kill a _lot_ of people.
eh, it's the American way (Score:5, Insightful)
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The parallels are scary. What killed Douglas, what put them in the position they did where they merged with Boeing with Boeing's money -- was bad airplanes. Or certainly comparatively so.
And now, for those very same reasons, it's happening again.
sell shoddy junk to the rubes
Only this is aviation, and there's no rubes in aviation. Or at least, there were rare.. and usually ended up destroying the airline. Eastern, Pan Am, TWA, US Air, all victims of Bad Management.
Point is -- the airlines will start looking at Boeing with suspicious
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Before Airbus does.
I do not think Airbus wants Boeing. They already have sold every plane they can make in the next 10 years. And they do know that they would have to basically just scrap Boeing and fire everybody, so the only thing valuable that Boeing has left is the customer list. Which is shrinking fast and is not that valuable after all, as all of them are already known to Airbus.
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Indeed. Also happening with VMWare at the moment.
Unforeseen ramifications (Score:2)
The Boeing Whistleblower was just found dead! (Score:1)
Real whistleblowers get locked up or end up dead. Fake ones get "their" information "leaked" to the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Guardian, and other Corporatist/State Propaganda outlets.
A Good First Step (Score:1)
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Due to budget cuts, the actual FAA auditors were all replaced with Boeing's own employee-auditors.
Still want to vote for budget cutting politicians? Cut the bloat of Federal Agencies! Reduce their authority to enforce regulations!
So in summary (Score:3)
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It goes back at least a decade at this point. I first heard about issues in the assembly plants in 2015, years before the MCAS crashes. I think the company was still denying there was a problem at that point.
Is there anyone who still believes they want to fix it? The problem's made them very successful so far.
The leaked video of the inspection (Score:4, Funny)
Not that Boeing doesn't deserve it... (Score:2)
need better service (Score:2)
I blame the workers for my not getting my salted peanuts on time after the blown door flung the stewardess out of the plane. You'd think airlines would have backup stews. Also I couldn't drink my cocktail because the oxygen mask got in the way. Service sure has declined.
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you missed the chance to smoke on an airplane, once the door was gone you are technically outside
Russia's been busy (Score:1)
Undermining our democracy. When will their evil stop? When will the free world feel safe flying again?
How can a country that's nothing more than a gas station populated by drunks be such a menace to democracy everywhere?
I don't know, but I sure feel safer when I go vote to pick between two corpses.
At least in democracies whistle blowers don't mysteriously die and people don't get put in jail for tweets.
The example isn’t all that (Score:2)
BUT
It’s a much more serious thing when there are door bolts that need to be installed, which never get installed, but the official paperwork claims they were installed. Tha
Quantity of issues means nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
As anybody who works in or with a QA team knows, not all issues are created equal. They range from nit-picky details that no one would ever notice, to minor nuisances, to serious problems, to show-stoppers. *Every* company that produces *anything* has production issues. The number of known issues has more to do with the amount of time spent looking for them, than the quality of the thing being produced.
I'm not necessarily defending Boeing here, just saying that the number of issues, by itself, doesn't mean anything--at all.
For-profit technology companies and beans counters (Score:2)
Spontaneously Disassembly (Score:2)
Back in 2010, I became friends with a Toronto cop who lived in my building. He was in his mid twenties (half my age), and had just joined the force. In addition to his job, his grandfather had left him an inheritance consisting largely of Boeing stock. When he told me that, I relayed a story I had read 10 years prior.
In the early 2000's, we still had these things called "magazines", and I was an avid reader of the science-y ones. I told my friend the story of Beoing, an engineering-centric company that
Think about this next time you vote (Score:1)
I don't want to make this overtly political, but who you vote for makes a difference because:
Companies can regulate themselves, but they rarely do, and even more rarely for any length of time. Sooner or later some chancer is going to discover he can put the squeeze on quality in order to make some more $$$.
Think about this before you vote for someone who tells you they're going to "slash red tape", "get rid of burdensome regulation", or reduce "compliance costs".
Think about this if you don't want to end up
Natural Lifecycle (Score:1)
So, the only way an aspiring corporate sociopath can climb the ladder is to "create efficiencies." And, this is almost always done at the expense of quality (which, in the case of airplanes means safety, too). This meshes nicely with the desire of those already in the c-