Boeing has had a rough last five years and the incident in Oregon last week seemingly came out of left field. Are there fundamental problems at Boeing?
Poll: Did MAX 9 Incident Shake Your Faith In Boeing?
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I lost trust in Boeing after watching a video showing what was done to the fuselage bulkheads being outsourced to a cheapy company. This problem is related to the -300 on up to the -800s. It’s an old problem that nobody talks about anymore. Serious stuff. Long story short, the outsource company was making the holes on the bulkheads with manual drills! Regular joe with a power manual drill making holes that must be made by CNC machines so that when sections of the fuselage get to be joined to each other the holes align perfectly. There are many ADs that mention the “cracks” on the fuselage skin in “various” parts of the fuselage. The ADs words are funny to say the least. It mentions; “look around” because it is hard to predict where the cracks will pop. LOL. Wonder why! holes made with manual drill! posing tremendous stresses in different parts of the fuselage due to “manual” tolerances! LOL. Management at Boeing has had serious problems since then and now. Well, it shows up, doesn’t it? It’s out there for anyone to see. This was scandalously deflagrated by internal management people. I forgot the name of the woman going after the problem. She paid a visit to the outsource company to see how they were doing to bulkhead and voila!
Well said Zeca
“Other”??? I’d say, “Yes! All of the above!” The usual knock on Being is they lost their way from an engineering-driven company to a finance-driven company. Just looking in from the oustide with no insider knowledge, it sure looks like that. And if so, it’s a shame. Because we need as a country to have a vibrant, strong, high quality commercial aerospace manufacturing sector that can balance quality with profits. Boeing seemingly can’t do either very well lately. Fingers crossed they get their act together soon.
NOT happy with my former (1980 – 2000) company. Always thought they were better than Airbus, primarily because of their multi-national government company cluster structure. But that’s no longer true; TBC has somehow managed to shake the public’s faith in their flagship products. Unless this turns out to be a glaring MX or sabotage issue, this will not go away quickly or quietly.
Boeing HQ needs to move back to Seattle where they can face-up to their errors in judgement in real time. Hopefully management would revert back to engineers instead of bean counters.
Not very likely. Boeing is now, and has been for many years, run by the accounting department rather than the engineering department. The MCAS debacle which cost hundreds of lives didn’t seem to be enough of a “wake up call” to change that; so why should this issue which only cost the loss of an airframe be able to.
Derek said it all, “engineering-driven company to a finance-driven company.” This change in value structure has occurred across the Country since the 1970’s. It is a break-down in a Countries value system. And we are all at fault for the apathetic reactions and always putting blame where it will have the least financial impact, not necessarily where the real problem is centered. Boeing’s (and too many other companies) entire priorities changed when CEO’s went from Engineers, Airmen, and people who really knew the product and tech side of the industry, to a narrow focused financial short term profit motivated company structure. The problem too is that these financial people do not stick around very long. These folks move on to “short-term profit” another company. The board/owners/investors see this short term profit and believe the company is healthy. But anyone doing a deep-dive into the companies mfg and engineering operation would get a ear full from frustration from engineers and techs being rushed to complete projects before they are ready. Until the “bean counters” again have to answer to the engineers, this dangerous problem will continue. At one point when this all started, CFO’s tried to make aircraft accidents “just a cost of doing business.” However, the NTSB and the FAA put a stop to this and reminded these airlines and manufactures that “O” zero tolerance is the only acceptable course, and accidents are never an acceptable cost of doing business. Until retired pilots, astronauts, engineers and technologist types are back in the overall decision making roles, these tragedies and near misses will continue.