I found it interesting that Boeing <i>did proactively</i> tell airlines to inspect 737 MAXs for a possible loose bolt in a different part of the plane (rudder section) at least <i>8 days before</i> the January 5th event. Example story: <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/boeing-urges-737-max-inspections-possible-loose-bolt-faa-2023-12-28/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/boeing-ur...</a><p>Unfortunately, Boeing did not know they had <i>other issues</i> with the plug door bolts.
I was responsible for safe for flight inspections on military aircraft and the photo included in that post is completely insane to me.<p>Those bolts being loose (and they are BIG bolts) would mean multiple people in the installation process didn’t do their jobs, and signed their life on the line saying they did.<p>When I did maintenance, there was someone (QA) there to witness every torqued bolt, inspect every safety wire and installed part.<p>There is something rotten in Boeing.
Bolts and machine screws are very interesting. One mistake I, an amateur bike mechanic, made for years was not greasing bolts properly before assembly.<p>It sounds counterintuitive but without grease a bolt (or machine screw) will bind early with a high torque well before it is correctly tensioned lengthways. The torque is just a proxy for the tension and it is this tension which is needed to fasten your components together as intended.<p>The grease means that when the torque to turn the bolt reaches the correct value then the bolt is also under the correct tension instead of being because it got stuck in the thread half way.
Check out this video showing how the plug is supposed to be installed: <a href="https://youtu.be/maLBGFYl9_o?t=540" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/maLBGFYl9_o?t=540</a><p>Some of the bolts that would be loosened when the plug is opened during maintenance have a pin to prevent them from turning. That pin is present in this photo: <a href="https://x.com/byerussell/status/1744460136855294106?s=46&t=soI_22ePcksISc752p6zkw" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/byerussell/status/1744460136855294106?s=46&t=s...</a><p>However, the same photo shows other critical bolts that hold the whole hinge on the door are loose, and there’s not meant to be a pin on those.<p>I’m curious how the decision is made whether to include that pin in the design. Did they idiot-proof the maintenance of the plug, but not the initial installation?
I am curious why the door plug is not a plug door — that is, a design wherein the desired panel would be installed from the inside and sealed by the differential pressure, like a cabin door. This part looks more similar to cargo door; those usually have to open outward for space, but what is the design constraint for this case?
This is the the best update I have seen so far on the incident Alaska Max 9.<p>The presenter is a 777 pilot and A&P mechanic. Released 2hrs ago.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhfK9jlZK1o" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhfK9jlZK1o</a> [13:43]
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maLBGFYl9_o" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maLBGFYl9_o</a> is a good video explaining how the bolts/doors etc are supposed to go together.
There were only 2 possible causes of the incident, either the bolts had been replaced with bolts made from an inappropriate material, so they broke, or the bolts had not been assembled correctly, and they became loose.<p>It appears that the latter is what happened.<p>Perhaps those who did the assembly of the doors at Boeing did not use the right kind of washers that are needed to prevent the unscrewing of the bolts, or they did not apply the correct torque to the bolts.<p>It is extremely surprising if such trivial errors can happen during the assembly of an aircraft.
This is reassuring news to me, as someone who has opted for Airbus over Boeing (and even paid extra for it) whenever given the choice since the first 737-MAX crashes in 2017.
Ed Pierson, a former senior manager at the 737 Max factory in Renton, WA, indicated there have been 20 quality/airworthiness issues post-MCAS to date prior to this latest incident that have gone largely unnoticed by the mainstream media.<p>It's also worth noting that other ex-employees of Boeing have also raised concerns about substandard structural components made by Ducommun and Boeing's own manufacturing processes for the 737 NG (737-600 to -900). There is no way to know which ones are defective because an unknown number of these critical parts were manufactured inconsistently and haphazardly by hand when they were supposed to be CNC'ed and Boeing just slapped them in without much care. The net result is an average Boeing 737 NG is variably structurally weaker than previous models, and prone to fuselage breakup on hard landings, runway overruns, and possibly in-flight during extreme turbulence. Level 2 corrosion on structural components only 8 years old is what happens when nonconforming, trash parts are passed off as "conforming".<p>Around 2009, the DOJ made a false statement that the NTSB said the NTSB concluded structural components were "not responsible" for AA 331. These were absolute lies drafted by Boeing's lawyer, Mr. Cole, as no conclusion had been yet reached. In a subsequent sworn video statement, the DOJ official admits they spoke Boeing's words largely verbatim.<p>This is what happens when publicly-traded corporations are run by MBAs who gut a company's core competencies for short-term profits and are allowed to largely regulate themselves as a consequent of regulatory capture and the corrosive influence of elected officials who accept "campaign support" and gold bars.
but shareholders got rich and that's really what is important.<p>> Boeing Co. (BA.N) directors authorized a record US$20 billion share buyback program and boosted the company’s dividend 20 per cent -- a sign the planemaker doesn’t intend to stop showering cash on investors any time soon.[1]<p>[1] <a href="https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/boeing-sets-new-20-billion-buyback-plan-raises-dividend-20-1.1184698" rel="nofollow">https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/boeing-sets-new-20-billion-buyba...</a>
Why are there bolts and machine screws in use in the first place?<p>The seating configurations for United and Alaska, the 2 major customers for this aircraft, don't require this plug-door feature. Structurally, for these large carriers, the plug door serves only as a fuselage weakness and failure point.<p>Why don't they just rivet it permanently to the fuselage and make it non-functional? Per the diagrams shown, it's a complex assembly that serves no purpose at all for these carriers.<p>(Apparently it was used as a cargo door to furnish the interiors, which seems like a trivial use case.)
I've seen on Toyotas and also at Universal Studios bolts on rides are marked with paint presumably to indicate that the nut hasn't backed out.<p>Are airliners marked in this way? Is checking the bolts simply a visual inspection, or do the inspectors need to get out a torque wrench?
I have a dumb question: why "plug" the doors at all? Why not burn a row of seats and have an extra safety door? Was this at request of the airlines to "meet" minimum safety standards or was there a reason why it's "better" to have less exit doors?
Assuming that it's up to airline's employees (not Boeing) to remove/replace the panel/'plug as needed - and that 'loose bolts' means 'not properly torqued' rather than 'can't be', the logical conclusion is that the problem lies with the airline's employees (not Boeing).<p>IOW, it's far too early to be speculating about blame.
Shades of March 2019, below.<p><i>(CNN) In a blistering attack on Boeing, the Air Force's top acquisition official said the company has a "severe situation" with flawed inspections of its new KC-46 air refueling tanker aircraft, after trash and industrial tools were found in some planes after they were delivered to the Air Force.</i><p>Edit, remove: What is going on in Everett?
Literally just flew on a United Airlines 737 MAX 9 one week ago. It seems like the craft I flew on has probably been grounded in the week since. I noticed that we were flying on a MAX before boarding and nearly asked to switch flights, but consoled myself that I was being irrational and that the planes were almost certainly fine now. Guess my confidence was misplaced.
At this point, I believe Boeing needs to suffer the corporate death penalty, because it no longer operates as a net benefit to the public. It needs to be dissolved, and its assets sold off. Criminal charges should be pursued to the maximum support of the law against all of the corporate officers.<p>Those in the FAA and other oversight agencies who failed to properly oversee them should also be prosecuted.<p>Failing the above, perhaps it's time to revive an apocryphal custom of the Romans. The engineer of a bridge was required to have his home below it, as a means of enticing them to make sure it was well constructed. We should require that <i>Boeing board members, and their immediate family, only fly in Boeing planes of same variety sold to carry paying passengers.</i>
Which is more likely:<p>* Lazy production line worker hand-tightens bolts and forgets to torque them, faking the results on the electronic torque wrench (which records the tightening of every bolt).<p>* A design flaw causes vibrations which cause these bolts to loosen.
Were these plug doors mounted by Boeing themselves? Or under Boeing's aegis, which is the same thing. Or were they sold in a different configuration and an external contractor did the modifications?
It is not so clear if the loose bolts are on the door or if they're the bolts that attach the door to the frame. Also given that the door that fell was just found in one piece this makes me suspect the latter<p>But regardless, not looking good for Boeing<p>(*door but of course it's more a plug than a real door, just using the term for ease of understanding)<p>Edit: <a href="https://twitter.com/ByERussell/status/1744460136855294106?t=BYuio9BlUX8wF1PORZCoBA&s=19" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/ByERussell/status/1744460136855294106?t=...</a>
Getting to the point where I’d never want to fly a Boeing again after the Max debacle.<p>Completely shocked they haven’t ditched this plane and owned up that cutting safety for fuel savings wasn’t worth it.
Is Boeing an example of 'too big' to fail?<p>ie one of the reasons it's not out of business due to the multiple failures over the Max is it's just too important to the US economy?
They now know "what broke": <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38922366">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38922366</a>
Something strange, isn't it? First, the fuselage panel detaches in the only row of seats with no passengers. What is the probability of this happening? Then, an iPhone is sucked into the hole and is found on the edge of a road after falling 5000 meters in perfect condition with an airline message on its screen. Really weird.
Looks like 4 large bolts with castle nuts and cotter pins hold the plug in place.<p>Looking at how the plug is configured, you'd have to really screw up for the panel to fall off.<p><a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WhfK9jlZK1o" rel="nofollow">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WhfK9jlZK1o</a>
It might be another fault due to the cultural shift that's been happening at Boeing: <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/10/26/773675393/boeings-cultural-shift" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/2019/10/26/773675393/boeings-cultural-sh...</a><p>> Safety and quality were taking a second seat to schedule and cost.
It seems there's a sense of malaise falling over everything and everyone in the USA. People at large simply cannot be bothered to care about anything, including torque specs for freakin' AIRLINERS
Are airlines still saving money by “servicing” their airplanes overseas with cheaper labor like my friend told me a few years ago?<p>After 9/11 a friend who I’m close with was laid off as well as many other maintenance people. United began the process of moving their plane maintenance people to southeast Asian locations to cut down on labor.<p>Race to the bottom to save money and now loose bolts?
Could AI help firms like Boeing perform more robust and automated safety checks? I'm curious about how much an issue like this can be chalked up to human error vs. poor, semi-automated QA.