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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

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And why are you doing this?

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

#282

Such a crappy aircraft - can we just get rid of these already?

Bolts can be loosened, or fail to be tightened on any aircraft. I suspect this may be a problem with people and/or procedure.

If it’s built so sloppily, will you manage to think of literally every mistake they might have made?

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

#283
post #249

Kind of non-sequitur, but am I disconnected from reality if at this point I do not want to fly on a Boeing aircraft?

It is really the 737 - not sure what is going on with the MAX design team - but it ain't good The 787 and 757 seem to have been stable platforms.

I think you're mostly correct but while it's not been as bad as the Max, the 787 has a not-so-short list of controversies, starting with those electrical / battery fires early in the plane's life [1] and going through recently with stray tools, fuselage issues, etc. [2] Not an engineer or a pilot, but like the poster above, I'm a regular person wondering how concerned to be on at least two Boeing platforms these days.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Boeing_787_Dreamliner_gro...

[2] https://aviationweek.com/air-transport/new-boeing-787-fix-de...

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

#284

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.

FWIW, it's only the Max 9s which have this issue. The Max 7s and 8s don't have an exit in that location (too few seats) and the Max 10s require an exit door to be installed in that location, not the door plug.

It's only the Max 9s that have the option of the door plug, if the installed seat count is below the threshold where an additional exit is required.

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

#285

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?

Elon Musk doesn't have a spare hundred billion. Apple is one of the only entities that does, but it's not really their kind of market. Institutional customers that are going to expect gradual iteration and thorough specifications that allow independent third party repairs etc.

That's more like Microsoft's kind of market, but uh... don't give them any ideas.

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

#286

At what point do consumers en-masse refuse to fly on these aircraft, if ever? When there's a few more fatal crashes?

As far as I can see, there's no real way to communicate this preference to airlines. I won't book a flight on a MAX, but the airline can change the airframe at the last second and it's highly situational how willing/able I am to just refuse to fly if they swap in a MAX.

I've communicated it albeit very indirectly. When looking at holiday packages for this summer I looked up the route to see if it's a 737 max before booking.

It wasn't, it was an A320 as I expected.

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

#287

How were these not noticed in proper inspections? Is this the first time these planes have been inspected?

Hot take, but I'll bet this will become more epidemic as companies hire more for quotas rather than merit like they used to.

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

#288

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?

Probably not going to happen. If someone was interested, they could have had it easy if they bought up Bombardier's CSeries aviation unit before Airbus did.

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

#289
post #62
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably one of those guys that says "click!" whenever they tighten a bolt.

How many times are the torque specs available to me when working on my car? I have no idea what random bolts are supposed to be so they get the good n tight click.

If you don't know what you are doing then better stay away from anything critical. There are 'stretch' bolts, bolts that are definitely not to be overstressed or they'll weaken and bolts that will cause damage to whatever they're bolted into if over torqued. Every workshop manual and every workshop process has specs for all fasteners.

It gets worse when bolts and part are of different materials (say: steel bolt in aluminum part), that's a very nice recipe for trouble (also in the long run, not just during assembly because oxidization will almost certainly occur on the interface and oxidized metal takes up more room than clean metal so unless you very explicitly protect against it the fasteners won't come out without massive damage to the part).

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

#290
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Shouldn't the bolts be safety wired after being torqued?

Does wiring bolts actually help? I feel like if a bolt is going to come loose enough such that the wire is all that is holding it in then you have a big problem already. The wire is just delaying the inevitable.

A bolt is either fastened or it isn’t. If the wire is all that’s left to hold it, then it isn’t fastened and your parts are being held together with a very weak piece of wire.

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