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Ed 737 Max Crashes (was Shutdown caused Boeing crash.)

There were plenty of complaints before then about compromised quality.

What is surprising is that Boeing appears to have learnt nothing since the MCAS debacle. Their biggest customers have stayed loyal but that's in question now.
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.
 
There were plenty of complaints before then about compromised quality.

What is surprising is that Boeing appears to have learnt nothing since the MCAS debacle. Their biggest customers have stayed loyal but that's in question now.

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.
 
There were plenty of complaints before then about compromised quality.

What is surprising is that Boeing appears to have learnt nothing since the MCAS debacle. Their biggest customers have stayed loyal but that's in question now.

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 the same size only a little smaller than the smaller 737 variants. Bombardier (104 passengers), Fairchild/Dornier (110), Embraer (124).

Depending on what the airline needs, those may be competitive.

I think you proved what I was saying.
Fairchild Dornier 728 family -
Despite attempts to revive the programme, including the establishment of Fairchild Dornier Aeroindustries, customers opted to cancel their orders and no aircraft actually ever flew. The three prototypes that were completed have been sold on for other purposes.

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.
 
2. There is only one other large company that sells large commercial aircraft.
But there are others selling aircraft the same size only a little smaller than the smaller 737 variants. Bombardier (104 passengers), Fairchild/Dornier (110), Embraer (124).

Depending on what the airline needs, those may be competitive.
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.)
 
FAA implements build rate restriction on Boeing.


FAA restricts Boeing MAX rate ramp up and lays out extensive inspection regimen.


…“Let me be clear: This won’t be back to business as usual for Boeing,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said in a statement. “We will not agree to any request from Boeing for an expansion in production or approve additional production lines for the 737 MAX until we are satisfied that the quality control issues uncovered during this process are resolved.”…

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.
 
FAA implements build rate restriction on Boeing.


[/COLOR]
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.

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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True, but that merger was almost 27 years ago.... its fish and chip paper now. The company is now Boeing (McDD no longer exists as such) and its descent from engineering excellence to also ran only became publicly apparent in 2018 with the two Max 8 crashes and the MCAS conspiracy

.

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."
 
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.

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!

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."

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.
 
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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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.

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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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.
 
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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...

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.
 
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.

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!
 
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!

It's being reported that there are numerous instances of poor quality work. I think this is less a case of an ill-timed lunch break, and more a case of workers and management playing silly buggers with the quality system, all up and down the line.
 
True, but that merger was almost 27 years ago.... its fish and chip paper now. The company is now Boeing (McDD no longer exists as such) and its descent from engineering excellence to also ran only became publicly apparent in 2018 with the two Max 8 crashes and the MCAS conspiracy

.

Yes but the culture is the one introduced by MDD executives. The View from the Wing article contains the following quote

“ When people say I changed the culture of Boeing, that was the intent, so that it’s run like a business rather than a great engineering firm”

Attributed to Harry Stonecupher, CEO of MDD and then Boeing. He probably looked on that as an achievement to be proud of, but I, as an occasional Boeing passenger look on it with horror.
 
Yes but the culture is the one introduced by MDD executives. The View from the Wing article contains the following quote

“ When people say I changed the culture of Boeing, that was the intent, so that it’s run like a business rather than a great engineering firm”

Attributed to Harry Stonecupher, CEO of MDD and then Boeing. He probably looked on that as an achievement to be proud of, but I, as an occasional Boeing passenger look on it with horror.

Well, that really is saying the quiet part out loud...

However, I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing for a company to be run like a business. There is no reason why "a great engineering firm" cannot also be profitable - Siemens, Honeywell, Hitachi et al are good examples. It should just not be done at the expense of quality and safety.
 
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Yes but the culture is the one introduced by MDD executives. The View from the Wing article contains the following quote

“ When people say I changed the culture of Boeing, that was the intent, so that it’s run like a business rather than a great engineering firm”

Attributed to Harry Stonecupher, CEO of MDD and then Boeing. He probably looked on that as an achievement to be proud of, but I, as an occasional Boeing passenger look on it with horror.

And an alum of GE under Jack Welch, along with McNerney and the current clown. It's Jack Welch, more than any other individual, who destroyed Boeing, without ever having worked there. The corporate culture that has destroyed Boeing is his creation.
 
Strong words from David Soucie, retired FAA safety inspector, safety process development manager, author of "Why Planes Crash" and "Malaysia Airlines Flight 370", with 45 years of experience in aviation manufacturing and maintenance as a licensed aircraft mechanic.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc...9-fallout-grounded-alaska-airlines-rcna136025

"No fatalities and no serious injuries resulted from the emergency on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282. This wasn’t a case of pilot error or severe weather. No, this accident was shocking to me because of how absurdly simple and avoidable it was."
 
Strong words from David Soucie, retired FAA safety inspector, safety process development manager, author of "Why Planes Crash" and "Malaysia Airlines Flight 370", with 45 years of experience in aviation manufacturing and maintenance as a licensed aircraft mechanic.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc...9-fallout-grounded-alaska-airlines-rcna136025

"No fatalities and no serious injuries resulted from the emergency on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282. This wasn’t a case of pilot error or severe weather. No, this accident was shocking to me because of how absurdly simple and avoidable it was."

Yep. All it really needed was workers who were prepared to concentrate on the job they were being paid to do.
 
Yep. All it really needed was workers who were prepared to concentrate on the job they were being paid to do.

... and for management to listen and when those workers told them there were safety issues, and act to fix those issues rather ignore what they were being told and fire the workers who reported the issues.
 
Yep. All it really needed was workers who were prepared to concentrate on the job they were being paid to do.

When senior management has spent 25 years treating workers like crappe, shipping jobs overseas and to non-union states at every opportunity, making it clear they thing the skills and experience of employees are worth nothing, and that all those jobs can be done by anyone off the street, anywhere in the world, the workforce quite naturally ceases to care so much about what they are doing.
 
... and for management to listen and when those workers told them there were safety issues, and act to fix those issues rather ignore what they were being told and fire the workers who reported the issues.
We're talking about workers failing to put bolts back after working on the door plug. In this case the safety issues WERE the workers.

When senior management has spent 25 years treating workers like crappe, shipping jobs overseas and to non-union states at every opportunity, making it clear they thing the skills and experience of employees are worth nothing, and that all those jobs can be done by anyone off the street, anywhere in the world, the workforce quite naturally ceases to care so much about what they are doing.

Pay e'm more and they'll suddenly care?

If they don't care about the safety of the people who travel in the planes they assemble, they shouldn't be on aircraft production lines at all, whatever the wages.

I don't care if they bitch about offshoring jobs, I don't care if they strike for more pay, good for them, but failing to care about the safety of end users is not negotiable.
 
When senior management has spent 25 years treating workers like crappe, shipping jobs overseas and to non-union states at every opportunity, making it clear they thing the skills and experience of employees are worth nothing, and that all those jobs can be done by anyone off the street, anywhere in the world, the workforce quite naturally ceases to care so much about what they are doing.

No. Absolutely not. Everything you say is true. Nothing you say in any way excuses the workers from not properly assembling a commercial airliner. Management may be a problem in this, but the workers are also absolutely a problem in this. There's no law of conservation of blame. In this situation, we can - and should! - assign 100% blame to management and assign 100% to the workers who botched the job.
 
We're talking about workers failing to put bolts back after working on the door plug. In this case the safety issues WERE the workers.



Pay e'm more and they'll suddenly care?

If they don't care about the safety of the people who travel in the planes they assemble, they shouldn't be on aircraft production lines at all, whatever the wages.

I don't care if they bitch about offshoring jobs, I don't care if they strike for more pay, good for them, but failing to care about the safety of end users is not negotiable.

No. Absolutely not. Everything you say is true. Nothing you say in any way excuses the workers from not properly assembling a commercial airliner. Management may be a problem in this, but the workers are also absolutely a problem in this. There's no law of conservation of blame. In this situation, we can - and should! - assign 100% blame to management and assign 100% to the workers who botched the job.

Here is the thing though... everyone makes mistakes.

Having worked for many years in aircraft maintenance, from flight-line level right through to depot level, where an aircraft is all but ripped down to its stingers, spars and frame, and reassembled, I can easily see how such a mistake can be made. A person whose job its to do task "A" (in this case, fit the door plug bolts) gets distracted by a boss or a shift foreman, who says he will assign someone else to do the task because he needs this guy to do another important job. Another important job comes up and the second person get re-tasked to do something else, and so on. Then someone else comes along whose task it is to put the interior paneling back on. They will reason that they wouldn't have been tasked to do that if the job was not ready to be covered. They fit the paneling. The original guy, or the replacement comes along to finish fitting the door plug and finds the paneling in place and figures the boss must have assigned someone else to do the job. The mistake has been made - the door plug is now missing the bolts, and no-one knows about it.

Now, in a firm with quality and safety as core aspects of the work culture, someone will check the work before the covers are put back on. The person putting the covers on will ask a supervisor to check before proceeding. Whenever I had a task that involved a panel covering any work I had done, I would always get a supervisor to sign off that the work was done before I would allow that panel to be refitted.

Quality and safety is an attitude, and that attitude comes down from the management. If the management treat the workers like ****, if they fob them off when they try to report safety issues, if they tell them to never put anything in writing, if they make life harder for those who persist in reporting safety issues, those workers will soon learn that the management don't give a ****, so they will rightly reason that they don't need to give a **** either.
 
We're talking about workers failing to put bolts back after working on the door plug. In this case the safety issues WERE the workers.



Pay e'm more and they'll suddenly care?

If they don't care about the safety of the people who travel in the planes they assemble, they shouldn't be on aircraft production lines at all, whatever the wages.

I don't care if they bitch about offshoring jobs, I don't care if they strike for more pay, good for them, but failing to care about the safety of end users is not negotiable.

It's not so much about pay as it is about respect.
 
Here is the thing though... everyone makes mistakes.

Having worked for many years in aircraft maintenance, from flight-line level right through to depot level, where an aircraft is all but ripped down to its stingers, spars and frame, and reassembled, I can easily see how such a mistake can be made. A person whose job its to do task "A" (in this case, fit the door plug bolts) gets distracted by a boss or a shift foreman, who says he will assign someone else to do the task because he needs this guy to do another important job. Another important job comes up and the second person get re-tasked to do something else, and so on. Then someone else comes along whose task it is to put the interior paneling back on. They will reason that they wouldn't have been tasked to do that if the job was not ready to be covered. They fit the paneling. The original guy, or the replacement comes along to finish fitting the door plug and finds the paneling in place and figures the boss must have assigned someone else to do the job. The mistake has been made - the door plug is now missing the bolts, and no-one knows about it.

Now, in a firm with quality and safety as core aspects of the work culture, someone will check the work before the covers are put back on. The person putting the covers on will ask a supervisor to check before proceeding. Whenever I had a task that involved a panel covering any work I had done, I would always get a supervisor to sign off that the work was done before I would allow that panel to be refitted.

Quality and safety is an attitude, and that attitude comes down from the management. If the management treat the workers like ****, if they fob them off when they try to report safety issues, if they tell them to never put anything in writing, if they make life harder for those who persist in reporting safety issues, those workers will soon learn that the management don't give a ****, so they will rightly reason that they don't need to give a **** either.
"I was just copying management's bad attitude!"

I was today years old when I learned there was a more depraved excuse than "I was just following orders!!"

It's not so much about pay as it is about respect.
"Management doesn't respect me, so I'll be lazy and careless and have no respect for human life."

Do you not understand how you sound? The more you make excuses, the more I hate Boeing labor as much as I'm coming to hate Boeing management.
 
"I was just copying management's bad attitude!"

I was today years old when I learned there was a more depraved excuse than "I was just following orders!!"


"Management doesn't respect me, so I'll be lazy and careless and have no respect for human life."

Do you not understand how you sound? The more you make excuses, the more I hate Boeing labor as much as I'm coming to hate Boeing management.

Clearly, you are perfect. You never make any mistakes... ever, and you have never worked in a toxic work culture.

If everything was just as you say in your idealistic fantasy world, there would never be any accidents of any kind, because, you know, everyone is 100% perfect... just like you.

* * * * * * *

Meanwhile, back here in the real world of us less-than perfect, fallible humans...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01...-defects-ignored-aviation-regulator/103400468

Whistleblowers are warning production defects on Boeing planes haven't been addressed by the company or the US regulator, putting travellers at greater risk of being involved in an incident.

The ABC has spoken to former Boeing and FAA workers who allege they raised safety concerns with the company and the watchdog but they were ignored.

The whistleblowers' interviews paint a picture of a company culture that prioritizes production speed over quality and safety, leading to defects being missed or ignored to meet deadlines.

"Once you understand what's happening inside of Boeing, you'll see why we're seeing these kinds of issues," former Boeing worker John Barnett told the ABC from his home in Louisiana.

"Their culture is all about speed and production and getting aeroplanes out the door. And any issues, any concerns that you bring up are going to slow them down."

When management pressures the workforce to work faster than is possible to complete the work while still maintaining quality and safety, then the latter two will be compromised. That is not a choice the workers make, its not incompetence, or a slack attitude, its just a simple fact of logistics. This situation is exacerbated when those workers complain that quality and safety are being compromised, and the management tell them to **** off because they don't want to hear anything that will delay getting the plane out the door as fast as possible.

If you think that it is possible have maximum speed of work, maximum profit levels, maximum quality and maximum safety, you are living on Planet Fantasy.
 
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I find some of the information in this article worrying

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67909417

Particularly this bit

"Alaska Airlines placed restrictions on the Boeing plane involved in a dramatic mid-air blowout after pressurisation warnings in the days before Friday's incident, investigators say."​
"An additional maintenance look" was requested but 'not completed' before the incident"​

Really? That's all they did - had a "maintenance look" and placed restrictions!!?

I was an aircraft engineer in military aviation, I have never worked in the civil aircraft industry. However, I can't imagine that maintenance and safety procedures would be all that different from an engineering standpoint.

If we had pressurization warnings in a aircraft, this would absolutely be investigated with physical examinations and testing. In the example I know best, the Lockheed C-130 Hercules, every pressure door or openable/removable panel in the pressure hull would be checked for seal integrity - this would include the forward crew egress door, the two paratroop doors on either side of the rear fuselage and the cargo ramp and door...

C-130-FwdCrewEntryDoor.jpg
C-130-ParatroopDoors.jpg
C-130-CargoRamp-Door.jpg


Also, any pressure panels such as the Doppler radar and radar altimeter radomes on the bottom of the aircraft would be checked for pressure leaks.

This procedure involves first an inspection of the seals, followed by a ground pressurization check. On the C-130 this means closing the aircraft up, shutting the outflow valves and starting up the GTC (in later models the APU) to begin pressuring the aircraft to a pre-set level. Then the ground crew works their way around the aircraft checking for leaks at the doors and panels mentioned above.

I struggle to imagine a scenario in civilian aviation where pressurization warnings would not be followed up with inspection and testing, but it seems all Alaska Airlines did was "have a look".

In my book, this is in no way good enough when you are dealing with the lives of the the public.

 
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