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United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections

theaircurrent.com

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Re: United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections

#271

Post by AnthonyMouse »

jerlam wrote: post #200
infotainment wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed — while we’re at it, let’s break Boeing up into multiple firms. It has been “too big to fail” for too long.

Not sure that would help - the Boeing subcontractor that likely played a role in the defective parts, Spirit Aero, was previously part of Boeing and spun off in 2005.

If Boeing has insufficient competition, they don't have to care because their customers have limited alternatives. If they don't have to care then they don't have to care if their subcontractors care. They also have limited fear of regulators because the US government will be wary about damaging the country's sole supplier in an important industry.

Break them up and it's easier for both the market and the government to punish bad behavior.

Re: United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections

#272

Post by exabrial »

anderber wrote: post #244
exabrial wrote: post #240

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?

If the regulators don't require the extra exit door, then the airlines would rather put in an extra row for more profits. The extra safety door is only needed depending on seating configuration.

That's what I figured.

Re: United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections

#273

Post by joegibbs »

KolmogorovComp wrote: post #111
lokar wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what fraction of seats/revenue come from people who take one or fewer trips per year.

1% of people represent 50% of the ~~flights~~ emissions (see thread): https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/17/people-caus...

That's not 1% of fliers representing half the flights though, I think it's more like 10% - it's saying that 1% of the entire world population causes it and only 11% of the world actually flies once a year.

Re: United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections

#274

Post by hmottestad »

hef19898 wrote: post #132
hmottestad wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure I understand what you are getting at. I’m assuming that the US is less likely to demand costly changes to aircraft produced by Boeing because of the implications it would have for their own economy. I wouldn’t trust France to preemptive ground a series of Airbus planes either.

See, that, grounding of Airbus olanes, is exactly what EASA (which is European and not French) does. Spontaniously, I can think of fractures in the wings of the A380 when that happened.

I’m just poking fun at the French a bit.

Re: United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections

#275

Post by sparky_z »

jupp0r wrote: post #223
Kluggy wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They generally don't disassemble the entire plane every time they get inspected...

IIRC every bolt's torque value needs to be logged any time it's (re)fastened. At least that's true for aircraft engine maintenance, not sure if it applies to the assembly process of the airframe, I'd sure hope so!

Which doesn't rule out, say, a design flaw that allows the bolt to loosen over time under certain circumstances.

Re: United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections

#276

Post by jerkstate »

j-bos wrote: post #60
baq wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a cliche thing to say, but if it was a known issue and management papered over it - as the alternative is incompetent engineering instead of just cost-center-managed engineering - someone should go jail?

Did anyone go to jail for the previous Boeing MAX crashes?

not only did nobody go to jail, they didn't even fix the problem:

https://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-News/Airline-News/Omnibu...

Re: United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections

#277

Post by ramesh31 »

epicureanideal wrote: post #229
ramesh31 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Such a crappy aircraft - can we just get rid of these already? It was a beautiful aircraft, destroyed by years of management comittees. Boeing needs to be broken up and reorganized, full stop. Congress has to act. It is simply too important and vital of a company to US strategic interests to be left in this state.

Maybe Apple, or Elon Musk, or some other person or company with a spare hundred billion could spin up a decent aircraft company?

>Maybe Apple, or Elon Musk, or some other person or company with a spare hundred billion could spin up a decent aircraft company?

SV has tried and failed time and again to realize the enormity of undertaking that is commercial aviation. There are less than 10 countries in the world capable of producing and marketing a competitive modern civil airliner. And of those, a vast majority are state nationalized conglomerates, or in the case of Airbus multi-country efforts. It takes almost the entirety of a country's aviation workforce and industrial capacity to maintain just one of these companies. Boeing cannot be replaced. It has to be fixed.

Re: United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections

#278

Post by jkqwzsoo »

pluc wrote: post #119
blindriver wrote: post #101

Doesn’t this call into question the manufacturing of ALL 737 MAX’s including the 7 and 8 since they must use the same manufacturing process?

Yeah this isn't a plane issue, it's a guy holding the drill issue as far as I understand it

Keep seeing this take (just an installation issue), over and over and over again.

I think it's much worse than a design flaw.

Even very carefully-engineered systems can have flaws. Engineering flaws, once identified, can be engineered around, managed, or corrected.

I'm much less comfortable with the idea that the assembly plant for these planes could be a random-critical-failure generator based on how the employees handle a torque wrench.

Re: United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections

#279

Post by molave »

fidelio93 wrote: post #15

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.

It still requires a human to be sometimes skeptical of the AI's results.

Re: United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections

#280

Post by the_third_wave »

HPsquared wrote: post #120
the_third_wave wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you’re using new parts, sure, but once they’re old/re-used parts Most service manuals require new bolts, fasteners and washers for torque-critical parts.

Skipping that part is even more ubiquitous than failure to properly torque. It takes a lot of effort to buy the correct bolts, only specialists have them to hand for a given make. Even dealers might not have every bolt. So it means you need to procure many more parts you would otherwise (the part you're replacing, plus 20 specific bolts with part numbers).. Most mechanics don't bother unless it's something really big…

That is probably valid reasoning when talking about a neighbourhood mechanic dealing with all brands but it does not hold for an aircraft maintenance shop. Skipping this step makes them liable for any problems caused by failure of related parts so I assume [1] they keep to the book in this respect. Anyone here who has experience with one of these shops want to chime in? When I work on machinery I tend to follow the rules when dealing with stretch bolts since these do tend to fail far more often when re-torqued but for normal (non-stretch) bolts I do often reuse them if they're in good enough shape. I work mostly on farming/forestry equipment and our personal vehicles though, not on airplanes.

[1] which makes an ass (out of) u (and) me

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