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US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

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Re: US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

#81

Post by 51Cards »

graton wrote: post #75
treesknees wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was with you until midway. You're making quite an assumption while the NTSB's investigation is still ongoing. We don't know the root cause - Those bolts may have very well been in place and passed an inspection during install, but rattled loose and fell out (and then subsequently were blown out of the plane when the plug failed.) United reported loose bolts, not missing bolts. This indicates a more systemic issue a…

> Those bolts may have very well been in place and passed an inspection during install, but rattled loose and fell out (and then subsequently were blown out of the plane when the plug failed.) The bolts the NTSB can't find are not the ones that have been found to be loose. The bolts they can't find are the ones with the castellated nuts and cotter pin. Very hard to imagine those vibrating loose. And for the door to t…

Agreed, those are not going to rattle loose. Even if the cotter pins were all missing, 4 nuts would have had to back off fully and 4 bolts would have had to wiggle out, not to mention they would likely be under pressure from the guide pin during flight. Again, the final report will tell all but it really seems to me that they were just not there.

Re: US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

#82

Post by arrosenberg »

brink wrote: post #6

What other industry is allowed to inspect itself? It completely ruins the point of an inspection. It's like being the judge and jury in your own trial. I'm amazed this is a thing in the first place.

As others have noted, this is fairly common, and I would argue the correct way to do it. The US government sucks at compliance regulation. I'm sure some countries are better at it, but Americans don't follow rules very well, so trying to police them is a losing affair.

What US regulators ARE good at is investigating and prosecuting. The current issue is that they are not doing what they are good at. In the NCAA if a staffer (say Connor Stallions) commits a major rule violation, the head of the program (Jim Harbaugh) serves a punishment for "failure to supervise". We need the Boeing CEO to spend sometime in a concrete cell for "failure to supervise". Maybe threaten to break them up a bit with the Antitrust division. The next CEO will do a better job of self-regulating.

Re: US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

#83

Post by randomdata »

wolverine876 wrote: post #22
iamtheworstdev wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the FAA doesn't have the expertise. The people with the expertise all work for aircraft manufacturers. And odds are the FAA will never pay anyone enough to leave the manufacturers to do the job.

> The problem is that the FAA doesn't have the expertise. Do you know a basis for that? My understanding, though limited, is that they have incredible expertise - and we can see their outstanding results. Also, IME, this claim is used by many industries to assert that they shouldn't be subject to regulation, and (IME) it's always false.

> Also, IME, this claim [...] it's always false.

Of course it is false. Even if the regulation ultimately can't be enforced due to lack of the right people, the players can still be subject to the regulation. The two are not logically associated.

Nobody is making that claim, though. What is the significance of this fun anecdote you pulled randomly from a hat?

Re: US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

#84

Post by lamontcg »

janice1999 wrote: post #55
strangattractor wrote: post #47

Many people seem to think this couldn't/wouldn't have happened if someone else had been doing the inspections. This problem was likely caused by a flaw in the process. A mistake a 3rd party could also make. It is not a mistake where Boeing is doing nefarious cost cutting and needs to hide it or has made a huge engineering mistake affecting all the aircraft. Somebody put the plug in - got a phone call, or shift change…

The company responsible for the door installation is Spirit AeroSystems. They've been sued for "widespread quality failures" before [0]. The workers raised issues and were ignored [1] and allegedly told to falsify records. [0] https://news.yahoo.com/maker-boeing-door-plugs-sued-00335449... [1] https://jacobin.com/2024/01/alaska-airlines-boeing-parts-mal...

They were spun off from Boeing though and I think focusing on them as an entity separate from Boeing for finding fault is the kind of reason why Boeing spun them off. We shouldn't take that bait and should be considering them a division of Boeing (yeah, even though they also sell parts to Airbus).

And Spirit seems entirely financially screwed as a company, they haven't had a positive gross margin since before Covid and on top of that they're now spending half their revenue on interest on their debt. Having Spirit eat those losses is probably great for Boeing's financials and stock price. They should likely be forced by the government to take Spirit over again.

Re: US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

#85

Post by shutupnerd0000 »

beambot wrote: post #68
rkangel wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An industry regulating itself is different from an organisation regulating itself. Self regulation of the industry is common as you say. It tends to involve one central body enforcing the standards on the members, and acting as a central point for agreement of the standards. This is not the case with the Aviation regulation. The FAA is the regulator, and has delegated the testing to the people it is meant to be regul…

Prominent examples of "Self Regulating Organizations": The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), The Financial Planning Association (FPA), Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc. (FINRA), Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC), Options Clearing Corporation (OCC), American Institute of Certified Public Accounts (AICPA) https://www.investopedia.…

All very upstanding and incorrupt organizations

Re: US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

#86

Post by [deleted] »

strangattractor wrote: post #47

Many people seem to think this couldn't/wouldn't have happened if someone else had been doing the inspections. This problem was likely caused by a flaw in the process. A mistake a 3rd party could also make. It is not a mistake where Boeing is doing nefarious cost cutting and needs to hide it or has made a huge engineering mistake affecting all the aircraft. Somebody put the plug in - got a phone call, or shift change…

[deleted]

Re: US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

#87

Post by [deleted] »

treesknees wrote: post #53
strangattractor wrote: post #47

Many people seem to think this couldn't/wouldn't have happened if someone else had been doing the inspections. This problem was likely caused by a flaw in the process. A mistake a 3rd party could also make. It is not a mistake where Boeing is doing nefarious cost cutting and needs to hide it or has made a huge engineering mistake affecting all the aircraft. Somebody put the plug in - got a phone call, or shift change…

I was with you until midway. You're making quite an assumption while the NTSB's investigation is still ongoing. We don't know the root cause - Those bolts may have very well been in place and passed an inspection during install, but rattled loose and fell out (and then subsequently were blown out of the plane when the plug failed.) United reported loose bolts, not missing bolts. This indicates a more systemic issue a…

[deleted]

Re: US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

#88

Post by WrongAssumption »

mattmaroon wrote: post #74
beambot wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prominent examples of "Self Regulating Organizations": The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), The Financial Planning Association (FPA), Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc. (FINRA), Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC), Options Clearing Corporation (OCC), American Institute of Certified Public Accounts (AICPA) https://www.investopedia.…

By organization he clearly meant single for-profit corporation. While the language was imprecise, he surely wasn’t referring to these types of entities.

NYSE and CBOT are single for profit corporations.

Re: US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

#89

Post by bonton89 »

brink wrote: post #6

What other industry is allowed to inspect itself? It completely ruins the point of an inspection. It's like being the judge and jury in your own trial. I'm amazed this is a thing in the first place.

After Mattel shipped in a bunch of lead painted toys from China a law was passed requiring inspections for everyone except Mattel who were deemed large enough to inspect themselves, even though their negligence was the cause of the law.

Re: US regulator considers stripping Boeing's right to self-inspect planes

#90

Post by phone8675309 »

kmeisthax wrote: post #58
wnevets wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What other industry is allowed to inspect itself? Movies. The ratings you see before a movie starts is assigned by the industry after inspecting the movie [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association

Not a great example. The 1st Amendment prohibits literally anything more strict.

Not true.

The government could rate movies; what they cannot do is to prevent a movie from being exhibited if it is otherwise legal.

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