As a former employee I can tell you 3 major problems with Big B. 1) The personal stress to each employee to meet the never ending schedule, 2) The top heavy managment mostly being "YES" men & women, 3) The company not being run by engineers and instead the out of touch board members.
Its the same at Apple, its the same at Mercedes, its the same at every once great brand. They HAVE to endlessly create MORE PROFFIT to satisfy the market and the CEO's vast share options pay packet.
It is not 'quality escapes'. It is quality failures, with potentially fatal consequences. Boeing dodged a bullet with the Alaska Airlines flight. If this had happened 10 minutes later, this could easily be a hull loss & multiple American deaths.
And then, as per Boeing's track record, they have a history of blaming the pilots first. Then, the Airlines maintenance. Trying to "Escape" from their quality responsibility issues.
Boeing is evil. They manufacture the osprey another disaster and they’ve always supported wars and been responsible for deaths of kids in yemen and Palestine. I have zero sympathy for Boeing and their whole organisation is criminal
Boeing started going downhill the day Phil Condit became CEO and it started accelerating when Harry Stonecipher became CEO and McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing's own money. It has been a long, tragic descent over the years. Even more amazing is the rise of Airbus, a consortium of international companies and their record of success against Boeing.
Boeings downfall won't make them go bankrupt. The rise of airbus isn't like one is going to fail and go bankrupt and tbe other will continue to succeed. Boeing has to get back on its feet and get back to recouping the confidence and trust.
This isn’t just the max 9. IT’S THE ENTIRE 737 MAX SERIES. It’s the max 8, the max 7, and “ potentially” the upcoming Max 10. Other BOEING plans have proven over time to be safe. Just not the MAX 7 8 9 series.
@@CynthiaPace-n7v reports dont say. Investigations haven't said its the max 7 or 10. It only affects the 9 only! Gosh it's not rocket science. If it affects them two then it would be reported that 10 amd 7 would need inspecting too but nothing
Boeing is an embarrassment. It stopped being an aircraft manufacturer first into financial engineering when it merged with Douglas and moved its HQ to Chicago away from engineering.
Besides cost cutting, the actual responsibility can be attributed to at least three inspectors. The shop inspector, the final assembly inspector and finally the shakedown inspector that okayed installing the insulation. When an area is closed it’s typically inspected before being covered. Boeing needs to implement lean technology so that the line can be stopped in case any production problems, that might apply to a multiple aircraft, are discovered. In any event, the pursuit of quality is more important than meeting daily production targets.
Well, Boeing claims to have already implemented “Andon”, where a shop floor worker can stop production. But they also impose pretty tight production targets and incentives for managers for meeting them. Guess how often they have actually stopped…
@@abarratt8869The problem is, if your employment is contingent on the production line not stopping, who’s gonna risk their job to stop production? The executives have set the concepts of long-term profit and reliability _alight_ in the name of short-term profit.
@@LexYeen Absolutely. The idea as implemented originally by Toyota was that anyone stopping the line should first be congratulated. It's the manager's job to do the congratulating. The manager also gets told that something is wrong if their line isn't stopping. Apparently, Toyota don't set production targets either themselves or subcontractors. They set quality targets in quality. Better to deliver things right, rather than deliver the right number of them.
yup...and DJ bought into the lingo. makes me wonder who pays the dj. Pilots and Flight Crews need their unions to Boycott Boeing. No more death / no more excuses / no more political donations. Fix this now...wind it up and let it fly. Enough is enough.
@@joeyahoo3902 Well.. Boeing's CEO started using the term so he is just repeating it. DJ didn't coin the term, but that being said, it's still an attempt at deflecting their failures. And using that term just plays into their messaging to minimize the impact. I'd rather he just call it a "Quality Failure"
I don't want excuses. If Airbus, Embraer, and Bombardier can achieve it, so can Boeing. The reality is that those manufacturers prioritize safety and quality, whereas Boeing does not, plain and simple. We aren't setting an unrealistic standard for Boeing that we don't apply to others. Quite the opposite, if this were the A320neo or the E2 series, those planes would never see the light of day from the FAA ever again.
There are several issues with this incident, Spirit's poor quality to start with, Boeing for not catching the issues, and Alaska airlines for continuing to fly a plane that had a pressurization fault on 3 previous flights.
The pressurisation fault indication had nothing to do with door blow-out. That situation was managed correctly. There is, as yet, no evidence that Spirit was at fault on this occasion. It would be useful to check facts before posting.
Boeing made its first mistake when they moved their main offices away from the production plant. Their second mistake was in subcontracting a lot of the actual construction of the components for the aircraft. In any business, if you are not looking, the contractors will cut their own corers.
You can't expect a company that rewards and promotes consistency to change easily. The 787 production line was an attempt to change the culture back in 2008. It failed when they brought management over from the other lines and the schedule came under stress. Stress, whether schedule or cost causes regression to past behaviors. I witnessed multiple quality violations that went unreported.
Luck should never be factored into a QA system. Bad as this latest incident is, can you imagine the what the situation would have been if the passengers adjacent to the fallen-off door had be sucked-out of the aircraft either as individuals or whilst attached to their seat row. Perhaps the Boeing Board / QA Dept should be made to "volunteer" their families members to fly in their aircraft next to emergency doors without the use of lap belts other than at take-off and landing, for say a 12 month period. I think that would focus their minds.
IMO Boeing's QA issues began when financial types rather than aerospace engineers started running the company, back when Boeing & MD merged. It's all been downhill since, especially when the legacy programs were finished being implemented (the 787) and the new management's methods came to the fore (canning rather than updating the 757, the MAX series). But I think Alaska bears some responsibility here, too. Who in their right mind sees a pressurization warning go off THREE TIMES and just keeps on keepin' on with minimal involvement?
The problem with the pressurization warning is - where do you look? I assume it is not that obvious for the engineers to check the door plugs (ok, now it is), especially if you don't see any damage from the inside and it likely looked good from the outside. They would have had to strip the panels from the inside to inspect it. And for Alaskan as well - an airplane only makes money when it is in the air. So there is also some pressure here to inspect quick. There is no single blame here, what speaks for Alaskan is that the plane was practically brand new. And the pressurization error likely could be remedied between flights.
They also sent out a letter to suppliers several years ago, with words to the effect of "We have been paying you price for this component. Moving forward, we will be only paying 80% for this component"
It seems to me that Alaska Airlines recently chose to purchase more Boeing aircraft, knowing that Boeing has manufacturing quality issues. Why would they do that?
I don't remember problems like this when they stretched the 707 to put the extra plug door in or on the 727 even the 757 came with options for extra doors the Delta 757.s came with a option 2 doors in front of the the wing but only a few airlines choose it
The company has already said they did not touch the door when doing the repair. That google earth image also shows the ladder is pushed against the door and fuselage so it can't be opened. And also other aircraft were found with loose bolts.
Professionally, I am a senior quality engineer, bringing up a QA department in a small company. In my professional experience, I have seen companies, both large and small, cut corners in order to meet (arbitrary) deadlines. The pressure from top level management is great / immense, to deliver more, in shorter amount of time. And why? because of the bottom line -> profits. Corporate doesn't care about what the workers say because mega-corp only cares about profits, even short term. (FYI: I truly enjoy working in small companies because they *know* that without Quality, you may as well shut your doors. I have found that smaller companies are willing to invest into building automated systems, and larger companies are less willing to do so.) These days, we tend to only see the big failures. Rest assured, failures do occur on a daily basis; it is just that we don't see them happen so spectacularly as this. And yes, the number of failures are increasing (even on a percentage level) from when I started working professionally (30+ years now).
There is a missing item here. What was done to this 737-9 when Alaska sent it to Oklahoma for a WI-FI installation shortly after it was delivered to Alaska but before there were the "false" cabin pressure alarms occured. The WI-FI installation was easier if the subject plug door was removed and reinstalled.
That may be part of it, but it doesn’t matter. Since then problems have been found with undelivered aircraft still at Boeing. We don’t know what’s wrong with them, but that’s another part of the reason the FAA is diving deeper.
Easier? How? Look at the Google earth image, the ladder is blocking the door plug as it’s above the window line. So they can’t open the plug without pulling the ladder away. It needs to be right next to the fuselage
The NTSB will no doubt have called for work packs on this mod to see if any one carried out work or task in this area since release from boeing build. Not excusing Boeing here but let's hold off the blame untill all the facts are known.
In my opinion think Boeing needs to step back in time. Build a high quality, safe, reliable products. This will keep customers happy. Then keep your employees happy and the profits will come ten fold. The CEO of Boeing shouldn’t hold an MBA in finance. He/she should be a person who holds degrees in engineering with a long track record of success and safety. They were the gold standard for many years. Then they brought in the bean counters as many other companies have and it’s backfired.
Boeing shot themselves in the foot when they decided to outsource major components of their aircraft. This greatly complicated logistics, quality control and accountability. Much of this dispersion was motivated by the "bean counters" who were primarily focused on cost and not the quality, safety, and reputation of their product. Another factor was to defeat the unions by moving production from inhouse to third parties and facilities out of state where workers would receive lower compensation and benefits. Airbus started to turn down this path of outsourcing but were quick to realize that product quality was likely to suffer and thus reversed course. The problem that Boeing now faces is that it will be next to impossible to bring much of the production back inhouse. As stated, the FAA does not have the resources to oversee the thousands of parts and processes involved in construction of an aircraft, so essentially Boeing and their vendors must be "self-policing". The FAA's leverage is that although they don't have the ability for in-depth oversight, they do have the power of certification and monetary penalties. Unfortunately, in many cases these actions are taken in hindsight after a major tragedy.
By outsourcing complex and problematic parts bean counters thought that they solved the problems, but actually they just swept them under the rug. Now those dirts are surfacing one by one.
@@user-yt198 Question??? How much has the outsourcing cost $$$$$$$$ Boeing as opposed to the cost of keeping the major assemblies in house??? "Penny wise, pound foolish"!!!
Airbus also outsource hundreds of components .What matters is they monitor the supplier quality and build exactly to specification. Either the fuselage supplier is failing to meet quality standards or Boeing fail to check the quality of supplies or employees are insufficiently trained and monitored.
@@shenandoahhills7263 At the end it cost much more than it would cost in house. More importantly they lost reputation which is priceless. What is your point? I am saying the same thing.
FAA is partly RESPONSIBLE for the Quality Debacle not only in Boeing..... If FAA would not have approved the Monopoly situation that the acquisition of McDonnell Douglas by Boeing meant, the sane competition would have taken care of companies trying to OUTPERFORM the other in terms if RELIABILITY, EFFICIE AND COMFORT.....
I’m not sure that the FAA has a say in monopolies. Perhaps the FTC? However, it’s important to recognise that the FAA has been stripped back by politicians of both parties over decades, and only just recently (December 2023) the US congress granted Boeing an exemption from the latest regulations. It’s pretty difficult to regulate, if the politicians keep interfering. Congress’s distant but pivotal role in the decline of Boeing should be more carefully looked at…
Harry Stonecipher has a lot to answer for, taking a respected engineering giant with a "Safety at any reasonable cost" culture, and turning it into a penny-pinching laughing stock, only interested in manipulating their own stock price.
"Stockholder supremacy" ruins corporations for those working inside them, and their customers. It serves the stockholders blindly within the regulations. That's not good enough.
I think Boeing are on the right track, bolts are expensive items and add weight to the aircraft. Reducing the number installed increases profit, reduces weight thereby fuel costs. It's a win-win for everybody. So the odd minor bit might fall off, they are Boeing, any bad press can be "spun", promised away just like last time. Take the term "quality escapes", sounds better than shoddy manufacturing. The spin has begun.
If there is proper record keeping, there should be a record of bolt serial numbers against their installed position. A careful inventory check and trace will identify the bolts installed in the door plug, if installed at all.
Aerospace is an incredibly complex industry and it’s easy to armchair QB comment. No one at Boeing is intentionally trying to create problems. There are literally thousands of parts on these planes that they try to get right 100% of the time but unfortunately things like this happen. Industry learns and grows safe (silver lining) despite wishing never any issues
It shouldn't be that much complex for a 100+ years old company. People are reacting because Boeing is ruining that heritage and behaving as if they are new in manufacturing.
Oh, in fact, we we agree :) yes. It is a cultural issue, a profit before safety issue, etc. what I meant was that the current problem planes out there right now aircraft are the max 7,8,9 . Otherwise - and to be fair cause we gotta be fair here - Boeing airplanes have been generally very safe and reliable for many years, but the max series is a lemon to put it kindly.
Apparently some engineers think the 737 MAX SERIES (a newer version of the original safe, reliable and successful 737) cannot be fixed. According to them - the NEW larger fuel efficient engines are too big for the original 737 airframe that was designed 65 years ago. And that BOEING should’ve created a brand new larger airframe design from scratch. However, to save time and $ - but also due to pressure from airlines. Airlines didn’t want to have to pay millions to retrain pilots on a brand new aircraft. So BOEING decided to try to jam bigger (perhaps too big) more fuel efficient engines (with a ton more electronics and wiring etc required) into the original 737 airplane airframe. An airframe that again was literally created 70 years ago. If BOEING built a new airframe, this would’ve solved all issues and maintained Boeing’s legacy. Boeing is to blame, but the airlines are too!! Airlines did not want have to invest in retraining pilots on a new airplane so they asked for the redesigned original 737. And you gotta give customers what that want. No matter - the buck stops with a big “” B “” in Washington state … BOEING. Ana at the end of the day, some think that the 737 MAX series 7,8,9 and upcoming 10 should no longer be manufactured. And that BOEING should literally go back to the drawing board creating a brand new larger airplane frame design from scratch…
@@CynthiaPace-n7v minor nitpick: the big "B" is in Virginia now (or at least the upper management is). also, if you're thinking of a successful narrowbody that could be given an extended range, they have one: the 757.
A couple things nit picker Jwill . (1) Of course - the factories are in Washington state not Arlington. But I chise not to specify the head office bc that’s not where the manufacturing or production of the 737 MAX series takes place.t BOEING Head Office and management is so insanely out of touch with what’s going on in Boeing production that it I feel it wasn’t even worth mentioning when it comes to a 737 decision that was made years ago., (2) The 757 is 40 years old and hasn’t been produced since 2004. In fact the 737 was designed to supposedly fill the gap and need the discontinued 757 wasn’t meeting. The 757 isn’t a new design by any means either so I’m not sure why you brought that up. (3) But continue to nitpick irrelevant things to the topic at hand if you want.🙄
3:27 What's with the little wind-sock/chute thingy dangling off the tip of the rudder? Is this test flight footage (wherein they might well have used such a thingy for data acquisition)?
Nothing about the entire Max line issues with the de-icing system? this affects all the Max, and be potentially catastrophic if a pilot forgets to turn it off manually.
What I want to know is why is no one looking at the Satelite installers who added their equipment to the plane a month ago. They had removed the plug to assist in installing. And inspection of the plane showed nothing wrong with the plug directly across the isle from the door that had been removed. Everyone is just pointing at Boeing 🤔
The company involved with WiFi installation directly stated it did not remove the plug, or do any work on the plug in any form. Their statement was clear and direct enough that any inaccuracy could open them up to serious legal trouble, so I think it is extremely likely they are certain about that.
Suggestions on upcoming videos: - Boeing's quality assurance program ... and what standards it complies with (or exceeds). There is the ISO9000 standard, for instance. There is also MIL-STD-105E - When was this plane made and what else was on the production floor under the same quality program then. - How does an airline inspect an aircraft for long-term structural integrity. - We now know that several bolts were loose, etc. I find it hard to believe that there was no rattling noise reported by the cabin crew and/or flight crew - I mean if this was the first flight that they became loose, others on previous flights did not notice an issue? Incomplete cabin seal?
Someone needs to buy upper management at Boeing a poster of the project management triangle. Good/Fast/Cheap. Pick two. I have the same issues at my workplace. No, we don't build aircraft. Management wants "everything" but wants to cut labor costs and wants things done faster. OK. They can certainly shorten deadlines and certainly have fewer employees but at the expense of...quality. People don't choose to do a bad job. I believe people do the best they can given what is asked of them (Desired speed of work/scope of work.) It's like plate spinning. If you can spin four plates without breaking any let's try five. Eventually something bad is going to happen. I don't understand how that is very obvious to the worker bee but not to upper management.
O, there sure as hell was! Look for Blancolario's reports on this issue. He's goes through a class action brought by former (fired) QC engineers of Spirit Airways against their former company. Very credible, very damning allegation made by all of the complainants, including MASSIVE "hush money" payouts made in their exit interviews.
After The Max crisis… I would have bet the farm that the Max series wouldn’t have so much as a blown tail light for the next 20 years…... I would have zero chickens and cows
Put all the certifying staff of Boeing in a separate Organisation an give advice to stop working for a day (fully paid) as soon as someone just think about to put any kind pressure on them. Management hast to fear certifying staff not the other way around!
I really wish we could drop all these silly euphemisms, such as "quality escape". WTF? It was a manufacturing defect and/or an assembly error and should be seen as such. Were the software failures of MCAS an "oopsie" resulting in a "premature steep angle landing" where the all the passengers and crew received "severe owies"? We have a lot of problems to solve and we need to solve them by speaking honestly, not like lawyers, HR directors or PR firms.
Workers at Boeing factories have stated that during the years the "No defects" posters on the walls changed to stressing the importance of "Shareholder value". Boeings problem in a nutshell.
The FAA has to have people on site as gatekeepers. That is to say, if any employee feels that Boeing is trying to push things past proper safety practices or ignore concerns, there is an FAA employee on site who can and will document concerns and raise with Boeing. When they are not doing that, they should be auditing safety practices and systems and walking the floor to ensure all staff are aware their work is being monitored. In other words make it too hard for a manager with a God complex to push dodgy workpractices on to their team or an individual. These positions at Boeing facilities should be cofunded by Boeing as part of their safety programs.
At first, I was thinking it was 1 lazy worker on late Friday, but #1, someone needs to double check and #2, there are other loose bolts on other aircraft on these door plugs. I have done some contract work at many of the Boeing plants and the people I worked with eat, sleep, and breath safety. It may be the team or employees who install these plugs. They come from a supplier, but I dont think the supplier installs them? Also did this happen at the Renton plant, or further up the stream. The body's come in whole by the time they get to Renton. Lots of questions and I think its too early to point fingers.
I wonder how many planes are really affected by the loose bolts. Can it be narrowed down to a single production batch/ time or is it something more systematic. It should be investigated and made clear, that qualitiy control of the finished product is done properly. But then, there are thousands of parts and bolts to check, it is a complex matter. Btw Boeing is not the only manufacturer using those door plugs, I wonder if this could happen for Airbus as well.
Same old management culture at boeing, mega profit above all else. Those executives are only interested in their massive bonus payments so why would they would they spend money on the correct amount of QC when that would mean a smaller bonus in their pocket?
I have flown Boeing a/c all my life and I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt but I am afraid this time, it will take more to get me back on Boeing a/c!!!!1
Here's my take: Boeing's reputation isn't irreparable, and they can salvage the situation. The key is their response, which has been professional. However, blame lies with both Boeing and its outsourced partners, like Spirit Avionics, responsible for parts like the door plug. Quality assurance should be a shared responsibility. While Boeing's reputation is damaged, it's not beyond repair. The focus should be on ensuring top leadership, including the CEO and the Board of Directors, oversees every aspect of the 737 Max production. If they uphold standards, Boeing can recover, but the CEO inherited a challenging situation from his predecessor, who should've faced consequences for signing off on it.
@@shoersa OK if you don’t mind me asking I like to understand more of your ideas of why you believe the current management won’t be able to fix the problem at Boeing and repair the reputation because I know I already believe that it’s possible but when I want to understand from your perspective of it
Boeing's employees feel no fear for sleeping on the job or doing shoddy work. THAT needs to change. They get paid enough to care and to put their hearts into what they are doing.
So yoiu're saying the FAA is investigating a production line that doesn't build and install the door plug. And the FAA is investigating Boeing's quality control when it's Spirit's quality control that's the problem, got it.
It all went wrong when Boeing let the plane leave Renton without checking every single nut and bolt. It went into service October 23. How is that possible!!!!
Please remember when it comes to management of any company safety will always come first until it's going to cost money then they will see if it can be fitted into next years budget or the year after that maybe 2 years time.
Who was the person that installed the plug? Is there a procedure for installing the plug? Was the procedure followed? Was there an inspection to make sure the procedure was correctly performed? My gawd it can’t be that difficult to figure out what happened. I worked in the nuclear power sector for over 30 years. When some part or electrical component gets installed the technician signs off, the technicians supervisor signs off and requests an inspection to insure that it was installed correctly. If the part or electrical component is not installed correctly then everyone involved had to write a statement of fact and go sit in a critique to answer questions from the higher ups.
I think you need to take a deeper look at Patrick M. Buchanan (CEO Spirit AeroSystems) whose company supplies the plug in question not just Boeings management.
Why do you call it an accident? One thing it isn't is an accident, someone had to make a conscious decision to not install the bolts or to not tighten the bolts up to the correct torque
By the grounding of all the max jets and with the amount of aircraft that any certain airline buys from Boeing, it could have potentially shutdown an airline. This is totally unacceptable!!!!!
The glaring fact is there is no accountability in the upper strata of Boeing management. They continue to collect massive compensation even after failures that killed hundreds of people, threaten the lives of hundreds more, breach the fiduciary duty to shareholders and have put the company on a path to bankruptcy. Despite the 737 max mcas disasters, problems with quality control on the 787, Issues with 737 aft bulkheads and vertical stabilizers management has been unwilling or unable to change course. My dog can run the company into the ground for a lot less money and embarrassment. The remaining question is whether the company that buys Boeing assets out of the bankruptcy proceedings can resurrect the business or is it dead and gone.
So, where is the wall-to-wall coverage of the A321 fuselage cracks in their cargo conversions? Why aren't those "The most dangerous planes in the world" too?
I find it interesting that the quantity of fasteners on a plane is in the millions....are each and every screw, nut ,bolt, rivet, double checked ???how often are the torque wrenches checked for accuracy, do the "inspectors" check the torque on every bolt or is there an "indicator" the bolt is torqued??? All it would take is a dropped torque wrench, a moment of distraction, a substitute worker to have a mental lasp,and or an Inspector to miss a bolt or fastener, or if the plug had bee opened after leaving the plant, extra equipment installation, so many point to fail on !!!
Yes, having worked in the test and development area for my carreer, that piece of hardware, is related to test data recording. The line that attaches it to the top of the fin, is a hose and cable umbilical, which allows the test engineers to measure the atmospheric pressure and temperature at the altitude where the plane is being tested for performance. That cone in some situations is "flown" or "dragged" through atmosphere as far as 250 feet aft of the aircraft. The umbilical is stored on a bobbin inside, at the fuselage end, and deployed after getting airborn. Then, it's wound back in before landing. The bobbin is mounted on a winch, much like the reel is on a fishing pole.
You sure it’s still a Max 9? With Aeromexico? Not seen one on flightradar appear since the grounding and they have the same plug as the Alaska Airlines plane
I am so glad the plane did not crash. I will wait at least 5 years before even considering getting on a Boeing plane. There is no point saying things have changed or may change when they clearly have not. I did fly on a 737 Max once but thought nothing of it at the time. Then two dropped out of the sky. Now Boeing is looking like a company trapped in a downward spiral. The red flags keep popping up. It is time for the traveling public to start noticing them.
The Boeing built KC-46, has been a minor disaster. Wing fuel tanks with los of debris in them. An aerial refueling boom that doesn’t work well. And a boom operators station, that limits their visability. The KC-46 is supposed to replace the very successful KC-135.
Boeing will contuine to do what Boeing has always done. Look out for number one. If you travel around a lot or have a choice when you go on holiday don't get on a 737 MAX.
FAA and NTSB also put the economy of the country above all. They’ve always hidden Boeing flaws, usually blaming governments, maintenance workers, pilots, etc… In the United Airlines Flight 811 situation, the parents literally had to steal NTSB documents to demonstrate that they lied for Boeing, suing them and winning the case.
You don't get the choice whst to fly. Why shod we a not get on a 737max on our holiday? If its not safe for passengers then faa or easa will not get it back in the sky
Even if only tentatively you seem to suggest that the fault may be with any of Boeing's suppliers that may or may not have had "a moment". Make no mistake here - Boeing signed off on these aircraft. It is not the fault of the suppliers that these parts are assembled correctly. Once is an error. Twice is a worry and more is a pattern.
As a European, I am as keen for Boeing to be held accountable as anyone, but given the plane was retro fitted Wifi after delivery, can we be sure that the failure isn't due to panel removal for that install? I also imagine that COMAC must be rubbing their hands with glee at the reputational damage being suffered by Boeing. A pity, but hard to sympathise when greed has played such a roke in B's recent corporate manoeuvres. Greetings from Spain
The Chinese are just trying to renegotiate their cost. There are many Chinese air jets built and in storage in Seattle and Mosses Lake. Loose bolts aren’t no bolts. They build 38 737’s a month. The culture isn’t broken, the fuselage maker has some serious issues with skilled labor.
Door brackets and flight control linkages lacking hardware are relatively easy faults to by to see by inspectors. What about all of the things that can't be seen, say lousy assembly of hydraulic and fuel lines and pumps. That pump power wires aren't likely to chafe through where a leak might occur. The boxes that structurally link the wings through the fuselage. Substandard cast or welded brackets, that have porosities in the castings covered up by paint or the way the part is installed. Welds that have voids in them that are out of sight. Fasteners not installed to the proper torques because the automatic torque feature of the installation tool is out of calibration and long past its calibration date. And so on.
I'm really curious about the picture that is out there showing a 737 in Alaskan livery having the plug door open - reportedly by the wifi vendor. I'd be interested to know when in the timeline that happens/happened, who does QC checks on their work after the fact, why did they use the plug door instead of a operational door, was that a one off unrelated - or might they be the last ones to have opened/closed that door, etc.
I really wish there was a place to bet on that. Easy money. And yeah all the pressure indication problems happened right after that Wi-Fi installation. The fact that the alternate didn't detect it could have just meant that the alternate is another problem. I'll take it further and say there was no retaining bolts, and at least one of the brackets had loose bolts.
I like the old way Boeing used to work, which is the way that the Skunk Work operates. Management, designers/engineers, manufacturing staff all worked closely together in the same location to build the plane. Now the bosses are a couple thousand miles away in Chicago. I think you can't discount the stupidity of the COVID response that caused quality employees to seek work elsewhere and many didn't return and we are still seeing the ripples from that. Not only do they not have the employees anymore, now they have a crushing time schedule to build thousands of 737 Max aircraft. I don't think you can discount changes in work ethic in our culture as time progresses either. Many people just don't give a rats ass anymore largely and want paid six figures for their lack of quality and work ethic. No one cares that much about other people anymore like we used to. Have you ever known someone who works in a factory and what passes for work ethic these days? This problem may be too big for Boeing to solve and I don't think Airbus has the same issues. Maybe like China makes everything else we consume, maybe Europe makes all of America's planes. I mean, hell, Boeing couldn't even build a modern copy of the Apollo space capsule that worked after billions of tax dollars spent.
737 best airplanes ever, employed aircraft workers just need to take the extra steps before closing things up. it's the safest plane to ride on again. 😊
Boeing is because of government funding and government legislation with poor oversight on safty. What will the 2 new Air Force One 747 800s be inspected.
FAA shouldn't have to baby Boeing, but FAA should have enough oversight on Boeing to prevent all these events from happening, but these accidents happened. Both FAA & Boeing are responsible for their failures.
The FAA needs to automate the monitoring and AI technology is the best way to turn. For example with loose bolts, if the torque wrench was connected to a computer and cameras were connected to computers, as the person is tightening the bolts the camera checks which bolt he/she is tightening and the computer would know directly from the torque wrench if it was tightened correctly. And so loosebolts will be a thing of the past. Alternitively just make sure all the airlines only buy Airbus.
Just like the McD DC series, Boeing is creating its own moniker. I wonder if the travelling public will turn away from the new generation of aircraft. The old workhorses of travel; 747s or Airbus may be what ppl look toward in future 🤔
Boeing should just rebrand themselves to McDonnell Douglas, it seems more appropriate now. Otherwise they're just destroying the Boeing name as a manufacturer which now makes unsafe planes.
As a former employee I can tell you 3 major problems with Big B. 1) The personal stress to each employee to meet the never ending schedule, 2) The top heavy managment mostly being "YES" men & women, 3) The company not being run by engineers and instead the out of touch board members.
Many companies are not run by bean counters. Only looking for profits.
Its the same at Apple, its the same at Mercedes, its the same at every once great brand. They HAVE to endlessly create MORE PROFFIT to satisfy the market and the CEO's vast share options pay packet.
@@piccalillipit9211 Could be worse.....could be Telsa..........
It is not 'quality escapes'. It is quality failures, with potentially fatal consequences. Boeing dodged a bullet with the Alaska Airlines flight. If this had happened 10 minutes later, this could easily be a hull loss & multiple American deaths.
That would be awful!
And then, as per Boeing's track record, they have a history of blaming the pilots first. Then, the Airlines maintenance. Trying to "Escape" from their quality responsibility issues.
Are American deaths worth something different?
@@vapsa56 would have been difficult to blame maintenance, the plane is only 5 weeks old isn't it?
Still go to try the blame the other guy game @@joemorris22
Quality escaped Boeing 20 years ago and has refused to return until they pay for it.
Boeing is evil. They manufacture the osprey another disaster and they’ve always supported wars and been responsible for deaths of kids in yemen and Palestine. I have zero sympathy for Boeing and their whole organisation is criminal
Thats very clever actually
What about the 787?
Boeing started going downhill the day Phil Condit became CEO and it started accelerating when Harry Stonecipher became CEO and McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing's own money. It has been a long, tragic descent over the years. Even more amazing is the rise of Airbus, a consortium of international companies and their record of success against Boeing.
Boeings downfall won't make them go bankrupt. The rise of airbus isn't like one is going to fail and go bankrupt and tbe other will continue to succeed. Boeing has to get back on its feet and get back to recouping the confidence and trust.
@@nickolliver3021My vote for you to become the next CEO of Boeing, as you know so much about it. NOT!
@@qtdcanada just like everyone else does. Too much jumping to conclusions for you
This isn’t just the max 9. IT’S THE ENTIRE 737 MAX SERIES. It’s the max 8, the max 7, and “ potentially” the upcoming Max 10. Other BOEING plans have proven over time to be safe. Just not the MAX 7 8 9 series.
@@CynthiaPace-n7v reports dont say. Investigations haven't said its the max 7 or 10. It only affects the 9 only! Gosh it's not rocket science. If it affects them two then it would be reported that 10 amd 7 would need inspecting too but nothing
Boeing is an embarrassment. It stopped being an aircraft manufacturer first into financial engineering when it merged with Douglas and moved its HQ to Chicago away from engineering.
An embarrassment? All companies are embarrassing with this frame of mind.
@@nickolliver3021...yes, all corporations are embarrassments, what's your point?
Then why are the McDonnell Douglas types doing so good? Blaming others is just so easy; the problem is really within Boeing.
@@LexYeen I was just saying.
Wall Street has some blame, dictating timelines and quotas to all industries in the US.
Besides cost cutting, the actual responsibility can be attributed to at least three inspectors. The shop inspector, the final assembly inspector and finally the shakedown inspector that okayed installing the insulation. When an area is closed it’s typically inspected before being covered.
Boeing needs to implement lean technology so that the line can be stopped in case any production problems, that might apply to a multiple aircraft, are discovered. In any event, the pursuit of quality is more important than meeting daily production targets.
Well, Boeing claims to have already implemented “Andon”, where a shop floor worker can stop production. But they also impose pretty tight production targets and incentives for managers for meeting them. Guess how often they have actually stopped…
@@abarratt8869The problem is, if your employment is contingent on the production line not stopping, who’s gonna risk their job to stop production?
The executives have set the concepts of long-term profit and reliability _alight_ in the name of short-term profit.
@@LexYeen Absolutely.
The idea as implemented originally by Toyota was that anyone stopping the line should first be congratulated. It's the manager's job to do the congratulating. The manager also gets told that something is wrong if their line isn't stopping.
Apparently, Toyota don't set production targets either themselves or subcontractors. They set quality targets in
quality. Better to deliver things right, rather than deliver the right number of them.
@@abarratt8869 Yep, the "wrong" number of the right product is far better than the right number of wrong products.
Every time I hear "Quality Escape" I feel that Boeing is just covering up their own failures
yup...and DJ bought into the lingo. makes me wonder who pays the dj. Pilots and Flight Crews need their unions to Boycott Boeing. No more death / no more excuses / no more political donations. Fix this now...wind it up and let it fly. Enough is enough.
@@joeyahoo3902 Well.. Boeing's CEO started using the term so he is just repeating it. DJ didn't coin the term, but that being said, it's still an attempt at deflecting their failures. And using that term just plays into their messaging to minimize the impact. I'd rather he just call it a "Quality Failure"
I don't want excuses. If Airbus, Embraer, and Bombardier can achieve it, so can Boeing. The reality is that those manufacturers prioritize safety and quality, whereas Boeing does not, plain and simple. We aren't setting an unrealistic standard for Boeing that we don't apply to others. Quite the opposite, if this were the A320neo or the E2 series, those planes would never see the light of day from the FAA ever again.
Let those who fail to lead, fail and those who nip at their heels with better products take their place. Move over big B.
There are several issues with this incident, Spirit's poor quality to start with, Boeing for not catching the issues, and Alaska airlines for continuing to fly a plane that had a pressurization fault on 3 previous flights.
The pressurisation fault indication had nothing to do with door blow-out. That situation was managed correctly.
There is, as yet, no evidence that Spirit was at fault on this occasion.
It would be useful to check facts before posting.
Boeing made its first mistake when they moved their main offices away from the production plant. Their second mistake was in subcontracting a lot of the actual construction of the components for the aircraft. In any business, if you are not looking, the contractors will cut their own corers.
You can't expect a company that rewards and promotes consistency to change easily. The 787 production line was an attempt to change the culture back in 2008. It failed when they brought management over from the other lines and the schedule came under stress. Stress, whether schedule or cost causes regression to past behaviors. I witnessed multiple quality violations that went unreported.
They reshuffled the deck but all the cards were the same.
Why have I watched your channel? Clear, concise, informative, no irritating background music, no BS!
Why nobody demanding management to step down
See my other rather long comment.
Luck should never be factored into a QA system. Bad as this latest incident is, can you imagine the what the situation would have been if the passengers adjacent to the fallen-off door had be sucked-out of the aircraft either as individuals or whilst attached to their seat row. Perhaps the Boeing Board / QA Dept should be made to "volunteer" their families members to fly in their aircraft next to emergency doors without the use of lap belts other than at take-off and landing, for say a 12 month period. I think that would focus their minds.
When I book my flights now, I confirm,before I book, that I’m not on any 737 max. Too many issues.
IMO Boeing's QA issues began when financial types rather than aerospace engineers started running the company, back when Boeing & MD merged. It's all been downhill since, especially when the legacy programs were finished being implemented (the 787) and the new management's methods came to the fore (canning rather than updating the 757, the MAX series). But I think Alaska bears some responsibility here, too. Who in their right mind sees a pressurization warning go off THREE TIMES and just keeps on keepin' on with minimal involvement?
The problem with the pressurization warning is - where do you look? I assume it is not that obvious for the engineers to check the door plugs (ok, now it is), especially if you don't see any damage from the inside and it likely looked good from the outside. They would have had to strip the panels from the inside to inspect it. And for Alaskan as well - an airplane only makes money when it is in the air. So there is also some pressure here to inspect quick.
There is no single blame here, what speaks for Alaskan is that the plane was practically brand new. And the pressurization error likely could be remedied between flights.
They also sent out a letter to suppliers several years ago, with words to the effect of "We have been paying you price for this component. Moving forward, we will be only paying 80% for this component"
@@stoffls I would agree, however the two empty seats next to the plug could just be a coincident as well. 😂😂
It seems to me that Alaska Airlines recently chose to purchase more Boeing aircraft, knowing that Boeing has manufacturing quality issues. Why would they do that?
I don't remember problems like this when they stretched the 707 to put the extra plug door in or on the 727 even the 757 came with options for extra doors the Delta 757.s came with a option 2 doors in front of the the wing but only a few airlines choose it
It has been suggested the WiFi installation could be when the door plug was removed and not properly installed again
Yes, could be! Greetings from old Germany 🇩🇪
Yes Alaska itself
Except other aircraft have been found with the same loose bolts.
The company has already said they did not touch the door when doing the repair. That google earth image also shows the ladder is pushed against the door and fuselage so it can't be opened. And also other aircraft were found with loose bolts.
Nah it’s just Boeing being utter garbage, stop making excuses for this scummy company.
“Quality escapes” is like saying someone partakes in “substance abuse” instead of calling them a crackhead
Professionally, I am a senior quality engineer, bringing up a QA department in a small company.
In my professional experience, I have seen companies, both large and small, cut corners in order to meet (arbitrary) deadlines. The pressure from top level management is great / immense, to deliver more, in shorter amount of time.
And why? because of the bottom line -> profits.
Corporate doesn't care about what the workers say because mega-corp only cares about profits, even short term.
(FYI: I truly enjoy working in small companies because they *know* that without Quality, you may as well shut your doors. I have found that smaller companies are willing to invest into building automated systems, and larger companies are less willing to do so.)
These days, we tend to only see the big failures. Rest assured, failures do occur on a daily basis; it is just that we don't see them happen so spectacularly as this. And yes, the number of failures are increasing (even on a percentage level) from when I started working professionally (30+ years now).
I love those shots of the 737MAX in flight on this video. That's one pretty airplane! However... I wouldn't want to fly on one!
Much cheaper to hire/pay for extra people to follow behind each step to make sure everything was done correct than to have aircraft grounded.
Started around the time they were found to be leaving trash inside airplanes delivered to the US air force
There is a missing item here. What was done to this 737-9 when Alaska sent it to Oklahoma for a WI-FI installation shortly after it was delivered to Alaska but before there were the "false" cabin pressure alarms occured. The WI-FI installation was easier if the subject plug door was removed and reinstalled.
That may be part of it, but it doesn’t matter. Since then problems have been found with undelivered aircraft still at Boeing. We don’t know what’s wrong with them, but that’s another part of the reason the FAA is diving deeper.
Easier? How? Look at the Google earth image, the ladder is blocking the door plug as it’s above the window line. So they can’t open the plug without pulling the ladder away. It needs to be right next to the fuselage
Why some people try to find excuses for Boeing when Boeing itself accepted that they have a quality problem?
The NTSB will no doubt have called for work packs on this mod to see if any one carried out work or task in this area since release from boeing build. Not excusing Boeing here but let's hold off the blame untill all the facts are known.
Good point. Need to look at the specific circumstances.
In my opinion think Boeing needs to step back in time.
Build a high quality, safe, reliable products. This will keep customers happy. Then keep your employees happy and the profits will come ten fold.
The CEO of Boeing shouldn’t hold an MBA in finance. He/she should be a person who holds degrees in engineering with a long track record of success and safety.
They were the gold standard for many years. Then they brought in the bean counters as many other companies have and it’s backfired.
The problems all stem from trying to retrofit 21st century engines on a plane designed in the 1970s without making basic structural changes.
70’s? Earlier than that, first 737 flew in 1967
Rushed to production as a derivative, too many changes would have made it an experimental airplane
No need to spin things around. Boeing is 100% responsible for every bit of it.
My thoughts are that the FAA should be able to investigate the Boeing workforce under condition of anonymity, if they are not doing so already.
Boeing shot themselves in the foot when they decided to outsource major components of their aircraft. This greatly complicated logistics, quality control and accountability. Much of this dispersion was motivated by the "bean counters" who were primarily focused on cost and not the quality, safety, and reputation of their product. Another factor was to defeat the unions by moving production from inhouse to third parties and facilities out of state where workers would receive lower compensation and benefits.
Airbus started to turn down this path of outsourcing but were quick to realize that product quality was likely to suffer and thus reversed course. The problem that Boeing now faces is that it will be next to impossible to bring much of the production back inhouse.
As stated, the FAA does not have the resources to oversee the thousands of parts and processes involved in construction of an aircraft, so essentially Boeing and their vendors must be "self-policing".
The FAA's leverage is that although they don't have the ability for in-depth oversight, they do have the power of certification and monetary penalties. Unfortunately, in many cases these actions are taken in hindsight after a major tragedy.
By outsourcing complex and problematic parts bean counters thought that they solved the problems, but actually they just swept them under the rug. Now those dirts are surfacing one by one.
@@user-yt198 Question??? How much has the outsourcing cost $$$$$$$$ Boeing as opposed to the cost of keeping the major assemblies in house??? "Penny wise, pound foolish"!!!
Airbus also outsource hundreds of components .What matters is they monitor the supplier quality and build exactly to specification. Either the fuselage supplier is failing to meet quality standards or Boeing fail to check the quality of supplies or employees are insufficiently trained and monitored.
@@shenandoahhills7263 At the end it cost much more than it would cost in house. More importantly they lost reputation which is priceless.
What is your point? I am saying the same thing.
@@ronnieince4568 Airbus is not outsourcing fuselage, which is a major component.
FAA is partly RESPONSIBLE for the Quality Debacle not only in Boeing.....
If FAA would not have approved the Monopoly situation that the acquisition of McDonnell Douglas by Boeing meant, the sane competition would have taken care of companies trying to OUTPERFORM the other in terms if RELIABILITY, EFFICIE AND COMFORT.....
I’m not sure that the FAA has a say in monopolies. Perhaps the FTC?
However, it’s important to recognise that the FAA has been stripped back by politicians of both parties over decades, and only just recently (December 2023) the US congress granted Boeing an exemption from the latest regulations.
It’s pretty difficult to regulate, if the politicians keep interfering. Congress’s distant but pivotal role in the decline of Boeing should be more carefully looked at…
Harry Stonecipher has a lot to answer for, taking a respected engineering giant with a "Safety at any reasonable cost" culture, and turning it into a penny-pinching laughing stock, only interested in manipulating their own stock price.
"Stockholder supremacy" ruins corporations for those working inside them, and their customers. It serves the stockholders blindly within the regulations. That's not good enough.
I think Boeing are on the right track, bolts are expensive items and add weight to the aircraft. Reducing the number installed increases profit, reduces weight thereby fuel costs. It's a win-win for everybody. So the odd minor bit might fall off, they are Boeing, any bad press can be "spun", promised away just like last time. Take the term "quality escapes", sounds better than shoddy manufacturing. The spin has begun.
If there is proper record keeping, there should be a record of bolt serial numbers against their installed position. A careful inventory check and trace will identify the bolts installed in the door plug, if installed at all.
Aerospace is an incredibly complex industry and it’s easy to armchair QB comment. No one at Boeing is intentionally trying to create problems. There are literally thousands of parts on these planes that they try to get right 100% of the time but unfortunately things like this happen. Industry learns and grows safe (silver lining) despite wishing never any issues
It shouldn't be that much complex for a 100+ years old company. People are reacting because Boeing is ruining that heritage and behaving as if they are new in manufacturing.
This isn’t just the max 9. IT’S THE ENTIRE 737 MAX SERIES. It’s the max 8, the max 7, and “ potentially” the upcoming Max 10.
Nah, it's not about one family of aircraft. It's about an entire culture, and that sheets home directly to management, and to the unions.
Oh, in fact, we we agree :) yes. It is a cultural issue, a profit before safety issue, etc. what I meant was that the current problem planes out there right now aircraft are the max 7,8,9 . Otherwise - and to be fair cause we gotta be fair here - Boeing airplanes have been generally very safe and reliable for many years, but the max series is a lemon to put it kindly.
Apparently some engineers think the 737 MAX SERIES (a newer version of the original safe, reliable and successful 737) cannot be fixed.
According to them - the NEW larger fuel efficient engines are too big for the original 737 airframe that was designed 65 years ago. And that BOEING should’ve created a brand new larger airframe design from scratch.
However, to save time and $ - but also due to pressure from airlines. Airlines didn’t want to have to pay millions to retrain pilots on a brand new aircraft. So BOEING decided to try to jam bigger (perhaps too big) more fuel efficient engines (with a ton more electronics and wiring etc required) into the original 737 airplane airframe. An airframe that again was literally created 70 years ago.
If BOEING built a new airframe, this would’ve solved all issues and maintained Boeing’s legacy. Boeing is to blame, but the airlines are too!! Airlines did not want have to invest in retraining pilots on a new airplane so they asked for the redesigned original 737. And you gotta give customers what that want.
No matter - the buck stops with a big “” B “” in Washington state … BOEING.
Ana at the end of the day, some think that the 737 MAX series 7,8,9 and upcoming 10 should no longer be manufactured. And that BOEING should literally go back to the drawing board creating a brand new larger airplane frame design from scratch…
@@CynthiaPace-n7v minor nitpick: the big "B" is in Virginia now (or at least the upper management is).
also, if you're thinking of a successful narrowbody that could be given an extended range, they have one: the 757.
A couple things nit picker Jwill . (1) Of course - the factories are in Washington state not Arlington. But I chise not to specify the head office bc that’s not where the manufacturing or production of the 737 MAX series takes place.t BOEING Head Office and management is so insanely out of touch with what’s going on in Boeing production that it I feel it wasn’t even worth mentioning when it comes to a 737 decision that was made years ago., (2) The 757 is 40 years old and hasn’t been produced since 2004. In fact the 737 was designed to supposedly fill the gap and need the discontinued 757 wasn’t meeting. The 757 isn’t a new design by any means either so I’m not sure why you brought that up. (3) But continue to nitpick irrelevant things to the topic at hand if you want.🙄
3:27 What's with the little wind-sock/chute thingy dangling off the tip of the rudder? Is this test flight footage (wherein they might well have used such a thingy for data acquisition)?
Same news over and over, long video same information, nothing interesting, nothing solid!! 👎👎👎👎👎
Unblievably, the CVR has been wiped clean..absolutely shockin!
Great update and analyses.
Nothing about the entire Max line issues with the de-icing system? this affects all the Max, and be potentially catastrophic if a pilot forgets to turn it off manually.
What I want to know is why is no one looking at the Satelite installers who added their equipment to the plane a month ago. They had removed the plug to assist in installing. And inspection of the plane showed nothing wrong with the plug directly across the isle from the door that had been removed. Everyone is just pointing at Boeing 🤔
The company involved with WiFi installation directly stated it did not remove the plug, or do any work on the plug in any form. Their statement was clear and direct enough that any inaccuracy could open them up to serious legal trouble, so I think it is extremely likely they are certain about that.
Suggestions on upcoming videos:
- Boeing's quality assurance program ... and what standards it complies with (or exceeds). There is the ISO9000 standard, for instance. There is also MIL-STD-105E
- When was this plane made and what else was on the production floor under the same quality program then.
- How does an airline inspect an aircraft for long-term structural integrity.
- We now know that several bolts were loose, etc. I find it hard to believe that there was no rattling noise reported by the cabin crew and/or flight crew - I mean if this was the first flight that they became loose, others on previous flights did not notice an issue? Incomplete cabin seal?
Boeing should expect a major order escape.
Someone needs to buy upper management at Boeing a poster of the project management triangle. Good/Fast/Cheap. Pick two. I have the same issues at my workplace. No, we don't build aircraft. Management wants "everything" but wants to cut labor costs and wants things done faster. OK. They can certainly shorten deadlines and certainly have fewer employees but at the expense of...quality.
People don't choose to do a bad job. I believe people do the best they can given what is asked of them (Desired speed of work/scope of work.) It's like plate spinning. If you can spin four plates without breaking any let's try five. Eventually something bad is going to happen. I don't understand how that is very obvious to the worker bee but not to upper management.
Can you please explain why Alaska Airlines is not also bring heavily investigated ? What corners were they possibly cutting??
Why? You go after the primary problem FIRST, Boeing delivered an unsafe airplane. Unless AA removed the bolts why investigate them???
Any labor unrest at Boeing or their suppliers? We may never hear about it if there was.
O, there sure as hell was! Look for Blancolario's reports on this issue. He's goes through a class action brought by former (fired) QC engineers of Spirit Airways against their former company. Very credible, very damning allegation made by all of the complainants, including MASSIVE "hush money" payouts made in their exit interviews.
Ty dj!!
After The Max crisis… I would have bet the farm that the Max series wouldn’t have so much as a blown tail light for the next 20 years…... I would have zero chickens and cows
That would have been a VERY bad bet indeed!
Put all the certifying staff of Boeing in a separate Organisation an give advice to stop working for a day (fully paid) as soon as someone just think about to put any kind pressure on them. Management hast to fear certifying staff not the other way around!
So when the quality escapes do the managers chase it with nets?
Pass a law that managers don’t get their bonuses for the past quarters in such cases.
I really wish we could drop all these silly euphemisms, such as "quality escape". WTF?
It was a manufacturing defect and/or an assembly error and should be seen as such. Were the software failures of MCAS an "oopsie" resulting in a "premature steep angle landing" where the all the passengers and crew received "severe owies"?
We have a lot of problems to solve and we need to solve them by speaking honestly, not like lawyers, HR directors or PR firms.
FAA can start at Spirit Aero and the subcontract company that later installed the wifi dome antenna
dont put blame in anyone else Boeing assemble the plane and is the only responsible for final quality control.
Or the supplier
Workers at Boeing factories have stated that during the years the "No defects" posters on the walls changed to stressing the importance of "Shareholder value". Boeings problem in a nutshell.
I am curious; who is going to want to fly next to a plug door once the Max 9 is rehabilitated?
The FAA has to have people on site as gatekeepers. That is to say, if any employee feels that Boeing is trying to push things past proper safety practices or ignore concerns, there is an FAA employee on site who can and will document concerns and raise with Boeing. When they are not doing that, they should be auditing safety practices and systems and walking the floor to ensure all staff are aware their work is being monitored. In other words make it too hard for a manager with a God complex to push dodgy workpractices on to their team or an individual. These positions at Boeing facilities should be cofunded by Boeing as part of their safety programs.
At first, I was thinking it was 1 lazy worker on late Friday, but #1, someone needs to double check and #2, there are other loose bolts on other aircraft on these door plugs. I have done some contract work at many of the Boeing plants and the people I worked with eat, sleep, and breath safety. It may be the team or employees who install these plugs. They come from a supplier, but I dont think the supplier installs them? Also did this happen at the Renton plant, or further up the stream. The body's come in whole by the time they get to Renton. Lots of questions and I think its too early to point fingers.
Anyhow, the correct mounting of that panel (including those bolts) should have been checked before hiding it behind some 'nice-plastics'.
I wonder how many planes are really affected by the loose bolts. Can it be narrowed down to a single production batch/ time or is it something more systematic. It should be investigated and made clear, that qualitiy control of the finished product is done properly.
But then, there are thousands of parts and bolts to check, it is a complex matter. Btw Boeing is not the only manufacturer using those door plugs, I wonder if this could happen for Airbus as well.
@@stoffls This can only be found out by checking all of these planes. And not only these, since that design is said to go back to the 707.
Same old management culture at boeing, mega profit above all else. Those executives are only interested in their massive bonus payments so why would they would they spend money on the correct amount of QC when that would mean a smaller bonus in their pocket?
Same goes for any other company..profit above anything else
I have flown Boeing a/c all my life and I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt but I am afraid this time, it will take more to get me back on Boeing a/c!!!!1
Here's my take: Boeing's reputation isn't irreparable, and they can salvage the situation. The key is their response, which has been professional. However, blame lies with both Boeing and its outsourced partners, like Spirit Avionics, responsible for parts like the door plug. Quality assurance should be a shared responsibility. While Boeing's reputation is damaged, it's not beyond repair. The focus should be on ensuring top leadership, including the CEO and the Board of Directors, oversees every aspect of the 737 Max production. If they uphold standards, Boeing can recover, but the CEO inherited a challenging situation from his predecessor, who should've faced consequences for signing off on it.
I disagree. Problems are NOT fixable with the current management team.
@@shoersa OK if you don’t mind me asking I like to understand more of your ideas of why you believe the current management won’t be able to fix the problem at Boeing and repair the reputation because I know I already believe that it’s possible but when I want to understand from your perspective of it
Boeing's employees feel no fear for sleeping on the job or doing shoddy work. THAT needs to change. They get paid enough to care and to put their hearts into what they are doing.
So yoiu're saying the FAA is investigating a production line that doesn't build and install the door plug. And the FAA is investigating Boeing's quality control when it's Spirit's quality control that's the problem, got it.
No comment on the "blame game" but dang you got some beautiful aerial vids included
MBAs' Golden Rule, "Max Profits using whatever means necessary. " Period
It all went wrong when Boeing let the plane leave Renton without checking every single nut and bolt. It went into service October 23. How is that possible!!!!
FAA should needs to be a quality control for Boeing now.
2:10 ist it normal that even after the last bolt is fastened the surfaces are not flush?
Does anybody know if this series of plane is built at the South Carolina factory?
I believe all 737's are built in Renton.
787's in Carolina.
Please remember when it comes to management of any company safety will always come first until it's going to cost money then they will see if it can be fitted into next years budget or the year after that maybe 2 years time.
Who was the person that installed the plug?
Is there a procedure for installing the plug?
Was the procedure followed?
Was there an inspection to make sure the procedure was correctly performed?
My gawd it can’t be that difficult to figure out what happened.
I worked in the nuclear power sector for over 30 years. When some part or electrical component gets installed the technician signs off, the technicians supervisor signs off and requests an inspection to insure that it was installed correctly. If the part or electrical component is not installed correctly then everyone involved had to write a statement of fact and go sit in a critique to answer questions from the higher ups.
I think you need to take a deeper look at Patrick M. Buchanan (CEO Spirit AeroSystems) whose company supplies the plug in question not just Boeings management.
companies with "Spirit" in their name don't care about the flesh.
Why do you call it an accident? One thing it isn't is an accident, someone had to make a conscious decision to not install the bolts or to not tighten the bolts up to the correct torque
By the grounding of all the max jets and with the amount of aircraft that any certain airline buys from Boeing, it could have potentially shutdown an airline.
This is totally unacceptable!!!!!
Totally acceptable in view of the MCAS history lesson on the 737MAX!
yeah. Alaska uses all 737s (including several non-MAX variants).
The glaring fact is there is no accountability in the upper strata of Boeing management. They continue to collect massive compensation even after failures that killed hundreds of people, threaten the lives of hundreds more, breach the fiduciary duty to shareholders and have put the company on a path to bankruptcy. Despite the 737 max mcas disasters, problems with quality control on the 787, Issues with 737 aft bulkheads and vertical stabilizers management has been unwilling or unable to change course. My dog can run the company into the ground for a lot less money and embarrassment. The remaining question is whether the company that buys Boeing assets out of the bankruptcy proceedings can resurrect the business or is it dead and gone.
So, where is the wall-to-wall coverage of the A321 fuselage cracks in their cargo conversions? Why aren't those "The most dangerous planes in the world" too?
I find it interesting that the quantity of fasteners on a plane is in the millions....are each and every screw, nut ,bolt, rivet, double checked ???how often are the torque wrenches checked for accuracy, do the "inspectors" check the torque on every bolt or is there an "indicator" the bolt is torqued??? All it would take is a dropped torque wrench, a moment of distraction, a substitute worker to have a mental lasp,and or an Inspector to miss a bolt or fastener, or if the plug had bee opened after leaving the plant, extra equipment installation, so many point to fail on !!!
about after the 3 min there is a small object dragd with a quite long string at top of the horizontal tail . anyone idea what this is for.
Yes, having worked in the test and development area for my carreer, that piece of hardware, is related to test data recording. The line that attaches it to the top of the fin, is a hose and cable umbilical, which allows the test engineers to measure the atmospheric pressure and temperature at the altitude where the plane is being tested for performance. That cone in some situations is "flown" or "dragged" through atmosphere as far as 250 feet aft of the aircraft. The umbilical is stored on a bobbin inside, at the fuselage end, and deployed after getting airborn. Then, it's wound back in before landing. The bobbin is mounted on a winch, much like the reel is on a fishing pole.
Moving to Chicago was a mistake.
They should move back to the Seattle area. Maybe to Dallas or DC.
I have to fly a 737 9 max tomorrow from Mexico City to Tijuana… wish me luck.
You sure it’s still a Max 9? With Aeromexico? Not seen one on flightradar appear since the grounding and they have the same plug as the Alaska Airlines plane
I am so glad the plane did not crash. I will wait at least 5 years before even considering getting on a Boeing plane. There is no point saying things have changed or may change when they clearly have not. I did fly on a 737 Max once but thought nothing of it at the time. Then two dropped out of the sky. Now Boeing is looking like a company trapped in a downward spiral. The red flags keep popping up. It is time for the traveling public to start noticing them.
The Boeing built KC-46, has been a minor disaster. Wing fuel tanks with los of debris in them. An aerial refueling boom that doesn’t work well. And a boom operators station, that limits their visability. The KC-46 is supposed to replace the very successful KC-135.
Boeing will contuine to do what Boeing has always done. Look out for number one. If you travel around a lot or have a choice when you go on holiday don't get on a 737 MAX.
FAA and NTSB also put the economy of the country above all. They’ve always hidden Boeing flaws, usually blaming governments, maintenance workers, pilots, etc…
In the United Airlines Flight 811 situation, the parents literally had to steal NTSB documents to demonstrate that they lied for Boeing, suing them and winning the case.
You don't get the choice whst to fly. Why shod we a not get on a 737max on our holiday? If its not safe for passengers then faa or easa will not get it back in the sky
The FAA never takes the blame for their failed oversight.
The FAA is the way it is currently because of corporate lobbying, which includes lobbying by Boeing, broheim.
@@LexYeen That's only possible if the FAA is both corrupt as I say, and for sale to the highest bidder. You may be right. They are that bad.
@@LexYeen Nor does any government agency such as the SEC. US corruption is a bigger threat than the rest of the world combined.
Even if only tentatively you seem to suggest that the fault may be with any of Boeing's suppliers that may or may not have had "a moment". Make no mistake here - Boeing signed off on these aircraft. It is not the fault of the suppliers that these parts are assembled correctly. Once is an error. Twice is a worry and more is a pattern.
As a European, I am as keen for Boeing to be held accountable as anyone, but given the plane was retro fitted Wifi after delivery, can we be sure that the failure isn't due to panel removal for that install? I also imagine that COMAC must be rubbing their hands with glee at the reputational damage being suffered by Boeing. A pity, but hard to sympathise when greed has played such a roke in B's recent corporate manoeuvres. Greetings from Spain
What is the little object tied to the tail of the plane?
Trail cone. Used to measure static pressure during test flights
I still can't comprehend why they tried upgrading a 60 yr old airframe
Jail the Board of Directors
The Chinese are just trying to renegotiate their cost. There are many Chinese air jets built and in storage in Seattle and Mosses Lake. Loose bolts aren’t no bolts. They build 38 737’s a month. The culture isn’t broken, the fuselage maker has some serious issues with skilled labor.
Door brackets and flight control linkages lacking hardware are relatively easy faults to by to see by inspectors. What about all of the things that can't be seen, say lousy assembly of hydraulic and fuel lines and pumps. That pump power wires aren't likely to chafe through where a leak might occur. The boxes that structurally link the wings through the fuselage. Substandard cast or welded brackets, that have porosities in the castings covered up by paint or the way the part is installed. Welds that have voids in them that are out of sight. Fasteners not installed to the proper torques because the automatic torque feature of the installation tool is out of calibration and long past its calibration date. And so on.
I'm really curious about the picture that is out there showing a 737 in Alaskan livery having the plug door open - reportedly by the wifi vendor. I'd be interested to know when in the timeline that happens/happened, who does QC checks on their work after the fact, why did they use the plug door instead of a operational door, was that a one off unrelated - or might they be the last ones to have opened/closed that door, etc.
If you’re referring to the Google earth image you can’t even see the plug is open, the ladder is above the window line blocking the plug from moving
I really wish there was a place to bet on that.
Easy money.
And yeah all the pressure indication problems happened right after that Wi-Fi installation.
The fact that the alternate didn't detect it could have just meant that the alternate is another problem.
I'll take it further and say there was no retaining bolts, and at least one of the brackets had loose bolts.
It wasn't opened. If you look closely at the picture you can see the window is in line with all the others.
I like the old way Boeing used to work, which is the way that the Skunk Work operates. Management, designers/engineers, manufacturing staff all worked closely together in the same location to build the plane. Now the bosses are a couple thousand miles away in Chicago. I think you can't discount the stupidity of the COVID response that caused quality employees to seek work elsewhere and many didn't return and we are still seeing the ripples from that. Not only do they not have the employees anymore, now they have a crushing time schedule to build thousands of 737 Max aircraft. I don't think you can discount changes in work ethic in our culture as time progresses either. Many people just don't give a rats ass anymore largely and want paid six figures for their lack of quality and work ethic. No one cares that much about other people anymore like we used to. Have you ever known someone who works in a factory and what passes for work ethic these days? This problem may be too big for Boeing to solve and I don't think Airbus has the same issues. Maybe like China makes everything else we consume, maybe Europe makes all of America's planes. I mean, hell, Boeing couldn't even build a modern copy of the Apollo space capsule that worked after billions of tax dollars spent.
737 best airplanes ever, employed aircraft workers just need to take the extra steps before closing things up. it's the safest plane to ride on again. 😊
Boeing is because of government funding and government legislation with poor oversight on safty. What will the 2 new Air Force One 747 800s be inspected.
We are praying they are not.
FAA shouldn't have to baby Boeing, but FAA should have enough oversight on Boeing to prevent all these events from happening, but these accidents happened. Both FAA & Boeing are responsible for their failures.
The FAA needs to automate the monitoring and AI technology is the best way to turn.
For example with loose bolts, if the torque wrench was connected to a computer and cameras were connected to computers, as the person is tightening the bolts the camera checks which bolt he/she is tightening and the computer would know directly from the torque wrench if it was tightened correctly. And so loosebolts will be a thing of the past.
Alternitively just make sure all the airlines only buy Airbus.
Just like the McD DC series, Boeing is creating its own moniker. I wonder if the travelling public will turn away from the new generation of aircraft. The old workhorses of travel; 747s or Airbus may be what ppl look toward in future 🤔
Boeing should just rebrand themselves to McDonnell Douglas, it seems more appropriate now. Otherwise they're just destroying the Boeing name as a manufacturer which now makes unsafe planes.