Chinese carriers, Ethiopian Airlines suspend use of Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft after crash

[DownwardSlopingPlateau]

7 minutes ago, zugzwang said:

 

Only on HPC could an industrial disaster be spun as a corporate success!

For a minute there I thought that door had an Apple logo! 🤣

[shlomo]

https://jacobin.com/2024/01/alaska-airlines-boeing-parts-malfunction-workers-spirit-aerosystems/

Workers at a Boeing Supplier Raised Issues About Defects. The Company Didn’t Listen.

Weeks before the door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines flight over Portland, Oregon, on January 5, grounding more than 150 Boeing aircraft, workers at the part’s reported manufacturer had been warning of safety concerns — but management ignored them.

Less than a month before a catastrophic aircraft failure prompted the grounding of more than 150 of Boeing’s commercial aircraft, documents were filed in federal court alleging that former employees at the company’s subcontractor repeatedly warned corporate officials about safety problems and were told to falsify records.

One of the employees at Spirit AeroSystems, which reportedly manufactured the door plug that blew out of an Alaska Airlines flight over Portland, Oregon, allegedly told company officials about an “excessive amount of defects,” according to the federal complaint and corresponding internal corporate documents reviewed by us. 

According to the court documents, the employee told a colleague that “he believed it was just a matter of time until a major defect escaped to a customer.”

 

Although the cause of the Boeing airplane’s failure is still unclear, some aviation experts say the allegations against Spirit are emblematic of how brand-name manufacturers’ practice of outsourcing aerospace construction has led to worrisome safety issues.

They argue that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has failed to properly regulate companies like Spirit, which was given a $75 million public subsidy from Pete Buttigieg’s Transportation Department in 2021, reported more than $5 billion in revenues in 2022, and bills itself as “one of the world’s largest manufacturers of aerostructures for commercial airplanes.”

“The FAA’s chronic, systemic, and longtime funding gap is a key problem in having the staffing, resources, and travel budgets to provide proper oversight,” said William McGee, a senior fellow for aviation and travel at the American Economic Liberties Project, who has served on a panel advising the US Transportation Department. “Ultimately, the FAA has failed to provide adequate policing of outsourced work, both at aircraft manufacturing facilities and at airline maintenance facilities.”

David Sidman, a spokesperson for Boeing, declined to comment on the allegations raised in the lawsuit. “We defer to Spirit for any comment,” he wrote in an email to us.

Spirit AeroSystems did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the federal lawsuit’s allegations. The company has not yet filed a response to the complaint in court.

“At Spirit AeroSystems, our primary focus is the quality and product integrity of the aircraft structures we deliver,” the company said in a written statement after the Alaska Airlines episode.

The FAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its oversight of Spirit.

[TheChangeIsCast]

44 minutes ago, nightowl said:

They were dominant for decades but Airbus have given them sustained competition in recent decades and given them different challenges to contend with.

Despite all this there's no shortage of Boeing's going in and of LHR that is see, so its not like their customers share the pessimism.

There was a fantastic documentary knocking about a couple of years ago on Netflix, called "Downfall: the case against Boeing", that details exactly why and how Boeing has gone downhill in recent years. Well worth a watch.

[shlomo]

Shares of Boeing have plunged nearly 10% this week after a door plug blew out of the company's 737 Max 9 aircraft during an Alaska Airlines flight.

The incident, which took place on Friday night, prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to ground the aircraft.

The stock price of Spirit Aerosystems, the manufacturer of the door plug, has fallen by more than 11% since trading began on Monday.

The National Transportation Safety Board has opened an investigation into the incident. The Alaska Airlines flight, which carried 171 passengers, had taken off from the Portland International Airport and climbed to 16,000 feet when the door plug fell off the aircraft, according to the NTSB.

None of the passengers or crew members experienced serious injuries.

[zugzwang]

3 minutes ago, TheChangeIsCast said:

There was a fantastic documentary knocking about a couple of years ago on Netflix, called "Downfall: the case against Boeing", that details exactly why and how Boeing has gone downhill in recent years. Well worth a watch.

Will do and thanks for the tip.  🤙

[longgone]

6 hours ago, DownwardSlopingPlateau said:

That kinda happens when you don't tighten them up in the first place. Seems they still don't have any torque wrenches:

 

Bolts in need of "additional tightening" have been found during inspections of Boeing 737 Max 9s, United Airlines has said.

Alaska Airlines says it has since found "some loose hardware" on some Max 9s.

 

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67919436

Torque wrench's cost $5 bucks, that would hurt boeing's profit margin are you mad !!.

Some thread lock would have done the trick or a few circlips.

This is not boeing's first rodeo mind, aloha flight 243 was similar.

Aloha passengers ! bye bye roof, it flew off and the plane turned into a sight seeing bus.

Boeing will need a denzil crash course

 

 

 

 

[longgone]

2 hours ago, smash said:

 

The glory days of the good old USA being the global leader are well and truly over it seems.

The crazy rich asians are coming for aviation, although 60% of it is american or european parts. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comac_C919

 

[Social Justice League]

The 737 MAX Carnage strikes again.

Why are Boeing still in business?

[Chunketh]

11 hours ago, shlomo said:

Shares of Boeing have plunged nearly 10% this week after a door plug blew out of the company's 737 Max 9 aircraft during an Alaska Airlines flight.

This will get the boards attention where repeated warnings from the folk making the aircraft did not.

[zugzwang]

2 hours ago, Social Justice League said:

The 737 MAX Carnage strikes again.

Why are Boeing still in business?

Because the United States is always at war.

[Huggy]

2 hours ago, Social Justice League said:

Why are Boeing still in business?

Because racial and ethnic minority representation in the U.S. is up to 35.3%, a four point increase from 2020 and three points higher than the industry average, is why.

https://jobs.boeing.com/diversity-and-inclusion

[DownwardSlopingPlateau]

3 hours ago, Social Justice League said:

The 737 MAX Carnage strikes again.

[Johnno1167]

2 hours ago, Huggy said:

Because racial and ethnic minority representation in the U.S. is up to 35.3%, a four point increase from 2020 and three points higher than the industry average, is why.

https://jobs.boeing.com/diversity-and-inclusion

Wow, so now you’re blaming engineering problems on race.   Thats trawling the gutter.  

[Huggy]

22 minutes ago, Johnno1167 said:

Wow, so now you’re blaming engineering problems on race.   Thats trawling the gutter.  

The main point was Boeing spending money, time, and effort on extravagent and quite unnecessary virtue signalling when their safety record is a joke. It's like spending all your time making a medical textbook look professional and glossy, but getting some typos in the text. "4 litres of morphine, is that right? Must be, the book looks credible"

The second point was they recruit on qualities other than skill. Again, with a laughable safety record, maybe getting competent people rather than hitting melanin quotas might be a good idea.

There is a serious problem at Boeing and it looks like they have been putting time and effort into the wrong areas.

Edited January 10 by Huggy
ironically, a typo

[MarkG]

6 hours ago, Johnno1167 said:

Wow, so now you’re blaming engineering problems on race.   Thats trawling the gutter.  

It's weird how everywhere in the world where they start hiring people based on the color of their skin or the sex they claim to be rather than on merit suddenly goes downhill fast.

Must just be a strange coincidence.

[Big Orange]

6 hours ago, MarkG said:

It's weird how everywhere in the world where they start hiring people based on the color of their skin or the sex they claim to be rather than on merit suddenly goes downhill fast.

Must just be a strange coincidence.

Uh OK, so feck nothing to do with 30 to 50 years of very slowly accumulated retarded deregulation, gross mismangement, and pure cupidity then? 

Funny how America's steep decline in the 2010s and 2020s vaguely mirrors that of Russia's in the 1980s and 1990s....

Edited January 11 by Big Orange

[Johnno1167]

12 hours ago, MarkG said:

It's weird how everywhere in the world where they start hiring people based on the color of their skin or the sex they claim to be rather than on merit suddenly goes downhill fast.

Must just be a strange coincidence.

Any factual based evidence , or just Daily Mail / UKIP sabre rattling ? 
 

I could counter your argument. I work for a tech company whose diversity and ethnic mix has been increasing rapidly.  our biz is going gangbusters  ..  and we don’t set targets, we just hire on merit irrespective of gender / race / colour. Most corporations don’t set targets, the diversity drive removes the bias in hiring . What follows next is hiring purely on merit w/o bias , and guess what, diversity mix goes up . It also becomes a more fund m interesting, cultured place to work. 
 

[shlomo]

TOKYO: A domestic flight of Japan's All Nippon Airways returned to its departure airport on Saturday (Jan 13) after a crack was found on the cockpit window of the Boeing 737-800 aircraft midair, a spokesperson for the airline said.

Flight 1182 was en route to Toyama airport but headed back to the Sapporo-New Chitose airport after the crack was found on the outermost of four layers of windows surrounding the cockpit, the spokesperson said, adding there were no injuries reported among the 59 passengers and six crew.

The aircraft was not one of Boeing's 737 MAX 9 airplanes. These have been in the spotlight after a cabin panel broke off a new Alaska Airlines jet in mid-air last week.

"The crack was not something that affected the flight's control or pressurisation," the ANA spokesperson said.

The United States aviation regulator on Friday extended the grounding of Boeing 737 MAX 9 airplanes indefinitely for new safety checks and announced it will tighten oversight of Boeing itself. 

[TenYearToGetMyMoneyBack]

On 1/9/2024 at 9:51 PM, longgone said:

Torque wrench's cost $5 bucks, that would hurt boeing's profit margin are you mad !!.

Some thread lock would have done the trick or a few circlips.

This is not boeing's first rodeo mind, aloha flight 243 was similar.

Aloha passengers ! bye bye roof, it flew off and the plane turned into a sight seeing bus.

Boeing will need a denzil crash course

The Aloha Airlines plane had done 90000 flights (the second highest of any Boeing 737.
The Alaska one was almost brand new.

[MarkG]

On 11/01/2024 at 01:10, Johnno1167 said:

I could counter your argument. I work for a tech company whose diversity and ethnic mix has been increasing rapidly.  our biz is going gangbusters  ..  and we don’t set targets, we just hire on merit irrespective of gender / race / colour.

How is that a counter to my argument that hiring on skin colour rather than merit is bad?

You literally hire on merit rather than skin colour but that's somehow supposed to disprove what I said?

[MarkG]

On 10/01/2024 at 19:49, Big Orange said:

Uh OK, so feck nothing to do with 30 to 50 years of very slowly accumulated retarded deregulation, gross mismangement, and pure cupidity then? 

Where did I say that?

The 'diversity' push is the result of that same mismanagement. No sane managers would hire people on skin colour rather than whether they can actually do the job.

[nightowl]

3 hours ago, shlomo said:

TOKYO: A domestic flight of Japan's All Nippon Airways returned to its departure airport on Saturday (Jan 13) after a crack was found on the cockpit window of the Boeing 737-800 aircraft midair, a spokesperson for the airline said.

Flight 1182 was en route to Toyama airport but headed back to the Sapporo-New Chitose airport after the crack was found on the outermost of four layers of windows surrounding the cockpit, the spokesperson said, adding there were no injuries reported among the 59 passengers and six crew.

The aircraft was not one of Boeing's 737 MAX 9 airplanes. These have been in the spotlight after a cabin panel broke off a new Alaska Airlines jet in mid-air last week.

"The crack was not something that affected the flight's control or pressurisation," the ANA spokesperson said.

The United States aviation regulator on Friday extended the grounding of Boeing 737 MAX 9 airplanes indefinitely for new safety checks and announced it will tighten oversight of Boeing itself. 

At the risk of appearing very anoraky, thats not a B737 of any variant.  I can tell by other means that just counting how many doors are still attached BTW 😉

[shlomo]

7 minutes ago, nightowl said:

At the risk of appearing very anoraky, thats not a B737 of any variant.  I can tell by other means that just counting how many doors are still attached BTW 😉

lol, I do not get peer reviewed very often 

on this one the window cracked and it was not even a Max

[Johnno1167]

59 minutes ago, MarkG said:

How is that a counter to my argument that hiring on skin colour rather than merit is bad?

You literally hire on merit rather than skin colour but that's somehow supposed to disprove what I said?

We have a very ethnically diverse workforce .. because bias in hiring is removed . 

[Maghull Mike]