Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system • Hacker News Board

Re: Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system

#161

Post by moftz » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 4:38 PM UTC

nolok wrote: post #127

xwdv wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think the pilot had any idea what happened or did he simply die never knowing?

Its lack of relevance to the matter at hand not withstanding, I admit to be a bit bewildered by your question and thus feel the need to ask: what makes you think the pilot could possibly have any idea that trimmed parts from a bolt is what caused the stick resistance, or that he would spend the time thinking about that instead of recovering the aircraft in the few minutes he had at the most ...

Pilots have loads of checklists, many of them committed to memory. If there's a problem, there's a checklist for it and following the checklist should lead you to a solution or at least tell you what is wrong. The downside is that checklists can't account for every possible thing going wrong. A little piece of wire jamming a hydraulic system is going to be a hard fix. Even if you have the tools and access to the component, do you have time while the plane is nose down?

Planes have to be predictable, they can have massive failure states but the solution must be repeatable. Unknown failures, regardless of the severity, are a major problem and should always be tracked and investigated. A small unknown failure could be a symptom or precursor to a much larger problem.

Everyone hates paperwork but it's what saves lives.

Re: Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system

#162

Post by selectodude » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 4:38 PM UTC

dgemm wrote: post #153

selectodude wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More due to airlines demanding a new 737 instead of a new plane. Boeing already made a new 737, it’s called the 757 and nobody bought it.

The 757 was made to replace the 727 and serves a different market segment than the 737.

I think you're missing the point, here. The 757 was a 727 replacement because the 737 was never meant to be flying the routes and carrying the pax that it is today. The 737 MAX 10 has become, pax wise, a direct competitor of the 757-200. Airlines are demanding a 757 that doesn't require a new type rating, which is how you get this frankensteins monster of an airplane.

Re: Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system

#163

Post by lightedman » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 4:40 PM UTC

CaptainZapp wrote: post #141

mopsi wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airbus has similar long-standing issues. On ground / airborne detection logic was broken in 1993 and is still broken in 2019, to a point that it can cause loss of flight controls. Boeing, in contrast, uses simple radar altimeter. Whenever altitude reads 10 feet or less, the aircraft is considered to be "on ground" and things like thrust reversers become available. I personally avoid praising or preferring Airbus when…

Airbus has similar long-standing issues. On ground / airborne detection logic was broken in 1993 and is still broken in 2019, to a point that it can cause loss of flight controls. So you're claiming that Airbus knowingly leaves a critical defect in their planes, which may cause the loss of flight controls and which they refreain from fixing for almost 30 years? Either come up with a reliable source for this statement…

NTSB already notes long-standing issues with all aircraft, all you need to do is read. Airbus for example has a flaw in the A300-600 line where the tailfin can get ripped off due to bad rudder manufacture, that's been around and still exists since the turn of the millennia. My pal consistently bitches about having to do constant preventative work on that section of that line of planes (he's an Airbus engineer.)

Re: Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system

#164

Post by moftz » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

torgian wrote: post #113

maxden wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US Air Force has/had problems with the KC-46 (767) being delivered from Boeing with FOD and tools left in the aircraft. So they could use some improvements in the quality control area.

I remember something similar happening to my squadron; an unopened can of oil was sitting in the engine compartment and we found it during our acceptance inspection. We were all like, WTF. Photos were taken and sent; I really hope someone got fired. This also led us to taking the aircraft completely apart and checking every nook and cranny. Found FOD and such in random places.

Usually people don't get fired for stuff like that. It can almost always be traced back to a process, documentation, or training issue. It sounds insulting but you need to treat humans like dumb lazy animals that require strict guidance on how to get things done. Having safeguards like toolbox checks and FOD checks reinforce processes. Expecting technicians to police themselves is ridiculous so you need people who's sole job is to check paperwork and keep everyone else in line. When there are lives and loads of money on the line, there's little room for being lazy about things. There is just likely a culture of laziness at Boeing's plant that leads to things like this happening.

Re: Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system

#165

Post by selectodude » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

chipsa wrote: post #157

selectodude wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More due to airlines demanding a new 737 instead of a new plane. Boeing already made a new 737, it’s called the 757 and nobody bought it.

It's actually a bit worse than that. American Airlines actually announced the "new" 737 variant before Boeing was even thinking of it[0]. At which point Boeing needed to figure out how to make the next 737 happen. [0] http://news.aa.com/news/news-details/2011/AMR-Corporation-An...

Boeing was all in on building a clean-sheet replacement for the 737 up to like 2011 until American said basically "we're not buying any new planes unless they're 737s and we'll re-standardize on Airbus". Boeing still shouldn't have built it (you don't need to be an aerospace engineer to see where the issues were going to be) but talk about being put into a "coffin corner" (ha ha).

Re: Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system

#166

Post by acd » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 4:48 PM UTC

We need to optimize so that public health and the environment comes first. Right now economic growth and quarterly earnings are prioritized top.

The current economic system demands that corporations should always grow. The solution is to change to an economic system which minimizes global warming, promotes public safety. In such a system this plane would not have been designed how it was.

Re: Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system

#167

Post by selectodude » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 4:51 PM UTC

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #122

mrtksn wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would Airbus spend 10 Billion on RD for a new plane if they can only spend 1.5 Billion on RD to modify an existing design? In their current form, Airbus and Boing don't really compete, which is bad for the customers but good for the shareholders of these companies. They already produce almost all of the passenger aircrafts and they would love this to continue. The 737 MAX fiasco threatens this arrangement.

> Why would Airbus spend 10 Billion on RD for a new plane if they can only spend 1.5 Billion on RD to modify an existing design? Because that's what manufacturers always did? If you only do iterative changes then eventually you run into a wall. Boeing engineers also knew that. The disagreement between what engineers wanted and what management wanted has been a point of contention for many years.

Full-scale redesigns require more than a ton of capital to build the new plane. It will cost your customers a ton of capital to buy the new plane and change their entire setup (pilots, mx) to use the new plane. The airlines want new jets even less than the manufacturers want to pay to design them.

Re: Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system

#168

Post by breatheoften » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 4:58 PM UTC

MSeven wrote: post #110

torgian wrote: post #28

"""On the matter of parts being lost, in early 2017 a review by the Federal Aviation Administration upheld Mr Barnett's concerns, establishing that the location of at least 53 "non-conforming" parts was unknown, and that they were considered lost. Boeing was ordered to take remedial action""" That's not just bad; this is really, _really_ bad. In my eight years of the Navy, working on aircraft, parts and tool accounta…

Just last week i heard a story from an older friend about a fighter jet crash investigation he was involved in, where the cause basically was that an engineer wired down some bolts (as required) but trimmed the ends of the wires without recovering the trimmed part. That little piece eventually found its way into the main stick mechanics, causing enough resistance at the wrong moment, preventing the pilot from recover…

How is it possible to make that determination after the crash ...?

Re: Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system

#169

Post by GuB-42 » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 5:00 PM UTC

torgian wrote: post #28

"""On the matter of parts being lost, in early 2017 a review by the Federal Aviation Administration upheld Mr Barnett's concerns, establishing that the location of at least 53 "non-conforming" parts was unknown, and that they were considered lost. Boeing was ordered to take remedial action""" That's not just bad; this is really, _really_ bad. In my eight years of the Navy, working on aircraft, parts and tool accounta…

> the location of at least 53 "non-conforming" parts was unknown

Just to make things clear since I also work in the field.

Non conforming parts are not a problem, at least not from a safety perspective. It just means that the part is damaged (ex: scratched) or not up to specs, and that some analysis is required. A typical result is that the part is usable but with more frequent inspections and a reduced service life. It is more of a problem for the company because they are losing money fixing stuff instead of doing it right the first time.

Not knowing where each part is, conforming or not, is a really big problem, as mentioned by other posters.

Re: Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system

#170

Post by ZeikJT » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC

Balgair wrote: post #129

missosoup wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Spent some years working on an a class 2b diagnostic device. Potential for harm not that high, but the lack of rigour in testing leaves me wondering to this day whether it worked at all as advertised. If medical devices are ever open sourced, millions of critical bugs are going to fall out.

http://www.opensourcediabetes.org/ Already happening with Diabetics. I know a girl that has cracked her pump for closed loop performance and she says the results are mostly better, but take close monitoring and an active hand. It's a tricky thing still. Yes, the devices are buggy (all things are), but half of medical devices are used by people with below average intelligence (by definition). It's still a balancing ac…

That website is in a rough state.

I tried to contact them regarding the fact that their url for jquery tools no longer resolves and that their SSL certificate has expired. I filled out the contact form and hit submit and then was presented with an empty results screen (probably because the js is broken). Hopefully they fix it up, but might not.