catsmate
No longer the 1
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United is considering non-Boeing purchases.
Delta has a 757 incident at the weekend with a nose-wheel falling off when prepaing for take-off.
Ed 737 Max Crashes (was Shutdown caused Boeing crash.)
- Thread starter Bob001
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Delta has a 757 incident at the weekend with a nose-wheel falling off when prepaing for take-off.
rjh01
Gentleman of leisure
Airlines that have Boeing aircraft that want to buy another company's aircraft have several problems
1. Retrain their pilots. In a big way.
2. There is only one other large company that sells large commercial aircraft.
3. Long lead time between placing an order and getting an aircraft.
a_unique_person
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
That would be on Delta. The 757 is very old now. Delta maintenance has screwed up.
It's all about "shareholder value" did it apparently increase or decrease as a result of the shoddy work?
But there are others selling aircraft
Depending on what the airline needs, those may be competitive.
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rjh01
Gentleman of leisure
I think you proved what I was saying.
Fairchild Dornier 728 family -
https://bombardier.com/en/our-jets are for businesses. They are not for commercial use. They are probably no where big enough to replace Boeing.
Segnosaur
Penultimate Amazing
Minor note: I don't think Bombardier is an option anymore. They were bought out by Mitsubishi, and they have since decided to end the manufacture of the CRJ series of air liners.
Actually a bit surprising. With the general demand for air travel, and the long lead time between placing orders for a commercial jet and actually being able to fly it, you would figure they would want to continue producing jet liners (or at least try to sell off the company to someone who does want to.)
Of course, even with those other manufacturers, you still have a situation with a limited number of suppliers providing planes to the airlines (whether you assume 2, boeing and airbus, or 4-5.)
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Smaller payloads, shorter ranges, major retraining of pilots and ground crews doesn't sound very competitive to me.
a_unique_person
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
FAA implements build rate restriction on Boeing.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/faa-restricts-boeing-max-rate-ramp-up-and-lays-out-extensive-inspection-regimen/
That's one way to make sure there's plenty of time to get the details right.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/faa-restricts-boeing-max-rate-ramp-up-and-lays-out-extensive-inspection-regimen/
That's one way to make sure there's plenty of time to get the details right.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Its not as if Boeing weren't warned about the path they were heading down. Multiple engineers warned them that compromising quality for share price would come back to bite them in the arse. The bean-counters didn't want to hear about it, and even moved their HQ to put distance between them and their engineering staff. They also told engineers not to put any issues in writing - which was obviously to minimize the chance of a paper trail leading back to a decision they made.
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Gord_in_Toronto
Penultimate Amazing
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Has nobody mentioned the reduction in FAA funding and reduced inspection over the last couple of decades? This is based on the concept that companies will self regulate which is fine if senior management thinks it is worthwhile and will not cut into shareholder profits.
The Boeing saga highlights the pitfalls of self-regulation (from 2019)
The Boeing saga highlights the pitfalls of self-regulation (from 2019)
Trebuchet
Penultimate Amazing
It was extremely evident to me, Lead Engineer in Flight Controls, long before I retired in 2010. Even before SPEEA, the Boeing engineering union, went on strike for forty days in early 2000. We had corporate bigwigs saying stuff like "Boeing doesn't need engineers to build airplanes" and "Engineers need to learn they aren't the center of the universe."
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
You were at the sharp end, so I would expect to would know what was happening - and I would be astonished if you didn't.
The general public? Not so much!
Only an accountant would think like that. We had similar problem with certain idiot officers in the Air Force - we used to have a saying about them - "spending a buck to save a bean"
In 1998, our biggest city, Auckland had a major power crisis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Auckland_power_crisis
What you won't read in the Wikipedia article or any of the official reports (because Mercury Energy demanded that no mention be made of it, and threatened to fire any of their staff who spoke to anyone about it) was that Mercury's own engineers repeatedly warned the executive and the bean counters over a period of years that the city was heading for major power blackouts for long periods of time if they didn't spend more money on maintenance and upgrades. The bean counters response was to dismiss these concerns as "engineers being engineers", always exaggerating the seriousness of any situation, and always dealing in worst-case scenarios.
Of course, exactly as the engineers predicted, one of the four main cables supplying Auckland failed, and two weeks later a second failed, with the remaining two cables respectively failing 10 and 11 days later. This cut the power to the centre of Auckland for a several days, shutting down many businesses in the business district. It took six weeks to get the system restored back to full capacity.
This is the sort of thing that happens when your let profits rule over professionalism.
a_unique_person
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
Expecting an entity that exists to make money to not put making money their number one priority.
Blancolirio has a new youtube vid stating that the Spirit fuselage manufacturers workers rectifed a seal issue on the door at the Boeing plant and opened the door to do it, but just opening the door (instead of taking it right off) was not a recognised action for checking on the Boeing quality management system, so Boeing didn't go in to check it. The primary failure was with the Spirit rectification crew not putting the locking bolts back in that they took out. It seems the Spirit crew used their own quality system at their plant but had to use the boeing system at the boeing plant. at least that's what I get from it.
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smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Not to question Juan Browne's undoubted expertise in these matters, but several outlets are reporting that it was Boeing's fault, not Spirit's....
https://www.seattletimes.com/busine...stalled-piece-that-blew-off-alaska-max-9-jet/
"The fuselage panel that blew off an Alaska Airlines jet earlier this month was removed for repair then reinstalled improperly by Boeing mechanics on the Renton final assembly line, a person familiar with the details of the work told The Seattle Times.
"If verified by the National Transportation Safety Board investigation, this would leave Boeing primarily at fault for the accident, rather than its supplier Spirit AeroSystems, which originally installed the panel into the 737 MAX 9 fuselage in Wichita, Kan."
No doubt Trebuchet will be completely unsurprised by this!
ETA: Note that Juan appears to have take down that video...
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theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
I get the impression the whole process was designed to ensure that whatever went wrong, some other team from the other company could always be implicated if you looked at it the right way.
ETA: And I wouldn't be surprised if some of the blame-shifting loopholes originated as CYA measures demanded by the union(s) to make sure the workers they represent weren't screwed by bad policies being foisted by management.
ETA: And I wouldn't be surprised if some of the blame-shifting loopholes originated as CYA measures demanded by the union(s) to make sure the workers they represent weren't screwed by bad policies being foisted by management.
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Trebuchet
Penultimate Amazing
I just rewatched the Blancolirio video and also read the Seattle Times article. (If the video was down, it's back up.) I'm not surprised, but a bit confused.
Browne starts out stating that there's a record of Boeing that the right-hand door was worked on; but not the left door, which was the one that failed. But the ST article says there's a anonymous source that says Boeing has a record of it being worked on. It's all a bit muddy, to me.
Oh, and regarding the Seattle Times: About 25 years ago they and reporter Byron Acohido won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on the 737 rudder issues. Just one problem: Their story was bogus, claiming that Boeing only came clean because the story was to be published. That was a fat lie. I did not work on that problem but knew and worked with many who did. I clearly remember they were elated when testing finally revealed the problem. These were quite brilliant people doing their best to figure out what had happened and did not deserve to be slandered by the Times and Acohido.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Not only do I find it extraordinary that the two companies use different maintenance control procedures (Boeing uses CMES - Common Manufacturing Execution System, while Spirit Aeronautics uses SAT - Situation Action Tracker), but worse, even though both companies are involved in manufacturing the exact same actual airframes, Spirit have no input access to Boeing's CMES system. This is nuts to my way of thinking, and can only result in the left hand never knowing what the right hand is doing.
I am somewhat familiar with the basics of SAT as this is very similar to a system we used in Check Servicings on C-130 Hercules and P3C Orion aircraft.
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Quality systems are great when the workers and management use them. I'm putting money on the lack of restraining pins/bolts on a badly timed lunch break.
Lunch break, Gus!
I've not quite finished putting these bolts in Charlie.
Eh, finish up after lunch!
Lunch break, Gus!
I've not quite finished putting these bolts in Charlie.
Eh, finish up after lunch!