Boeing 737 MAX family NEWS ONLY

[DWG]

I was aiming more at the point that in the case of Dan-Air 240, the door folded itself around the tailplane, causing control to be lost. If the same thing, or similar' had occured with Alaska 1282, we would be looking at a very different story . . .

Agreed, 'thank god it missed the tail' was part of my immediate reaction to the story.

 

[DWG]

Noticed in reading around recent decompression incidents that comments for the Airworthiness Directive requiring nacelle changes to all 737 NGs (ie not Maxs) after the 2018 Southwest Flight 1380 incident* apparently close tomorrow. Which may give a normal timescale for this kind of fix:

17 Apr 2018 Southwest Flight 1380 accident, 1 pax dead, 8 pax injured
22 Nov 2019 Final NTSB report
?? Aug 2021 Boeing asks for 7 years to develop the fix,
31 Jul 2023 FAA deadline for development of fix ,
19 Jul 2023 Boeing requests 17 month extension to analyse failures caused by faulty maintenance**
12 Dec 2023 AD issued
26 Jan 2024 Final date for comments
31 Jul 2028 Implementation required by, over a decade after the accident.

There's not a lot of urgency once the NTSB are done, is there?

* fan blade failure led to the nacelle coming apart, hitting the fuselage and breaking a window, through which a passenger was then partially dragged, suffering fatal injuries

** What had they been doing for the past four years?

 

[Scott Kenny]

Per the illustration, the upper bolts appear [to me] to bear very little load; that is reacted through the [blue] pin and guide assembly. Pressurization loads are outboard (to the right).

The bolt appears to only restrict the upward motion of the door plug which should be minimal once the door is fully seated. (Upward load induced by the two springs in the bottom plug door hinge assembly - mounted in the aircraft.) I should note that the bolt has to be inserted from the blind side of the Guide Track (which can be a booger) so that the castellated nut and cotter pin can be seen from the inside of the fuselage.

Mechanical Engineers - ASSEMBLE! (please comment)

View attachment 718214

Image upside down?

That's not a particularly bad spot to have a blind reach for the bolt. 727s were terrible for that.

Without the safety pin, there is high risk that the bolt and nut get loose with time and vibrations. The omega section of the assembly is elastic per essence (as the bolt), hence each time the pin goes in contact with the bolt, the nut and bolt untight slightly. That's why this assembly is problematic as stated earlier.

Depends on what the assembly instructions are for that:

• "Torque to spec then tighten up to 1/6 turn to align the castle nut" and it's very unlikely to come loose.
• something more or less "hand tight and align the castle nut" like on an axle nut is likely to come loose.

You say that like a quality escape isn't a serious issue.

My reaction to a quality escape is a whole body shudder. A quality escape found at the customer on a safety critical assembly is a whole other level of nope.

It means the supplier's quality system isn't working, and not just in the sense of occasional failures, but daily failures (392 in a year). That is not a trivial problem in aviation. A quality escape rate of over one per aircraft on a comparatively simple, yet safety critical, assembly is horrifying. This is not a situation that should be acceptable in aviation, the sirens should have gone off long before the quality escape rate got to this point.

Yeah, I don't know how Spirit's QA are missing entire bolts not installed or castle nuts not installed or missing cotter pins. It's not like the inside of the fuselage is all closed up with cabin walls and insulation when the fuselages leave Spirit, that's an easy visual inspection.

There would be heads rolling at Tramco if this was found, probably including blacklisting from further employment in aviation. And quite perhaps literally heads rolling. Hated my boss there, should have reported him to HR for all the shit he was giving me, but they absolutely hammered SAFE FOR FLIGHT into you.

This has been bothering me, if it is not intended for the door plug to be opened, and is therefore fixed with bolts, why install the springs ?

There are some inspections that need to be done on the plug and tracks every so often (like every couple of years), so the springs are installed to take the load of the open plug while the inspection is going on. The plug only opens about 20-30deg instead of coming all the way out of the plane like the small emergency exit doors do.

 

[Arjen]

‘I think they’re rushing these planes into the sky’: Fears cloud return of Boeing’s 737 MAX 9

United Airlines and Alaska Airlines, the two carriers with Boeing’s 737 MAX 9 in their fleet, have begun fixing their planes — and could be flying again as soon as this weekend.

www.politico.com

Apparently, there are people around who think the 737 MAX-9 is safe enough to return to the air. Being aware of defective QA with the attendant unpredictability of what's wrong with individual aircraft, or the nature of those individual defects, is not enough to shake their faith.

Others disagree.

 

[publiusr]

I like the tail doors of 727s more and more. At least it is in the back...so it can't hit anything coming off...airflow could help keep it closed...

Some thoughts

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhRYqvCAX_k

The adaptation

How Mobile is overcoming a ‘revolving door’ of low-cost airliners

The arrival of Breeze Airways to Mobile marks the fourth airline in recent years to announce flights to Orlando. It's been a revolving door but airport and city officials say it shows interest in Mobile.

www.al.com

 

[Desertfox]

Its also great if you want to escape the plane with millions of dollars.

 

[TomS]

Its also great if you want to escape the plane with millions of dollars.

After Cooper, they actually added a little vane-actuated latch so that the 727 rear door can't open in flight.

 

[WatcherZero]

Airbus Hunts for Delivery Slots to Win Over Key Boeing Customer - BNN Bloomberg

Airbus SE is seeking to persuade customers to return some aircraft delivery slots that it could then hand over to United Airlines Holdings Inc., going all out for the rare chance to snatch a marquee order away from embattled rival Boeing Co.

www.bnnbloomberg.ca

 

[robunos]

31 Jul 2028 Implementation required by, over a decade after the accident.

By which time Boeing are hoping that all the NG's are out of service and replaced by Maxes . . .

cheers,
Robin.

 

[DWG]

By which time Boeing are hoping that all the NG's are out of service and replaced by Maxes . . .

Yeah, exactly what I was thinking. That may not work as planned.

 

[DWG]

Senator Tammy Duckworth calls on FAA to reject Boeing's request for safety waiver for the 737 Max 7

The issue centers around an anti-ice system on 737 Max engines.

www.cbsnews.com

TLDR: Tammy Duckworth (D, Ill), chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Aviation Safety, thinks Boeing are taking the piss in asking for a safety waiver on the Max 7 for engine anti-ice (it's already in place on the Max 8 and 9). Basically, if you use engine anti-ice for more than 5 minutes in dry air, the inner barrel of the cowling may fail, so the safety waiver says just don't use it for more than 5 minutes and we hope to have a fix by mid-2026. So if you need engine anti-ice for more than 5 minutes, you're caught between a rock and a hard place.

Given what happened when a cowl came apart on Southwest 1380, Duckworth's concern might not be unreasonable.

Duckworth, of course, has more of an aviation background than most senators, being an ex Army Aviator.

 

[DWG]

Online travel agent allows customers to filter out Boeing 737 Max planes

Kayak customers can exclude Max 9 aircraft after cabin panel blowout on Alaska Airlines flight

www.theguardian.com

Kayak says use of the filter on 737 Maxs is up 15 times since before the Alaska Air incident, so they've made it more prominent and expanded it to distinguish between Max 8 and 9.

 

[TomcatViP]

The Vociferous age has reached aviation. That does not bode well for safety (see what it does on aviation progress through the lens of the gamut of never delivering Startups and their clownest regulation changes proposals). Hold tight (and keep your seat belt locked)!

I wonder when US Senator (and elsewhere) appropriated with Aviation safety will also take the bull by the horns on something they have the most relevancy: media campaign shaming.

 

[martinbayer]

The Vociferous age has reached aviation.

A bog standard Google Advanced search for "vociferous age" without any qualifiers yields a grand total of 32 hits, and that is without adding Boeing, aerospace, or anything else to the search terms. Throwing Boeing into the search term mix reduces the search results to a grand total of two, with one linked to the Lockheed Martin F-35 thread on this very forum, and the other to a full text version of Nations Business 1928-04 on the Internet Archive. For clarification/elucidation, would you please care to elaborate a bit more on your cryptic reference?

 

[TomcatViP]

I name the Vociferous Age the online media frenzy of everyone commenting on everything and the zoonotic like spreading of hatred, desobligent and unrational thinking.
This is driven mainly by the quick decay of written comments/statements, a new paradigm that came with online media (writings are meant, per essence, to last as long as the medium, leaving time for Cartesian thinking).

 

[DWG]

I name the Vociferous Age the online media frenzy of everyone commenting on everything and the zoonotic like spreading of hatred, desobligent and unrational thinking.
This is driven mainly by the quick decay of written comments/statements, a new paradigm that came with online media (writings are meant, per essence, to last as long as the medium, leaving time for Cartesian thinking).

As chair of the Aviation Safety Sub-Committee, the problem would be if Duckworth wasn't expressing an opinion, not that she is.

TLDR: It's her job.

 

[DrRansom]

It would be easier to decry the politically-driven criticism of Boeing were Boeing not dead-set on proving its critics correct.

 

[Whopper]

From what I've read, it looks like Boeing is reaping the consequences of selling the Wichita facility back in 2005. Spirit Aero is a mismanaged disaster and has been one for years. They bled valuable institutional knowledge, and many of their experienced engineers went on to work for Airbus and help design the A350. These engineers previously worked on designing composite structures on the 787, and this hemorrhaging of experienced personal has also resulted in the delay of a clean-sheet composite 737 replacement.

But hey, I'm sure the money saved from outsourcing to Spirit Aero was totally worth all of this.

 

[MihoshiK]

From what I've read, it looks like Boeing is reaping the consequences of selling the Wichita facility back in 2005. Spirit Aero is a mismanaged disaster and has been one for years. They bled valuable institutional knowledge, and many of their experienced engineers went on to work for Airbus and help design the A350. These engineers previously worked on designing composite structures on the 787, and this hemorrhaging of experienced personal has also resulted in the delay of a clean-sheet composite 737 replacement.

But hey, I'm sure the money saved from outsourcing to Spirit Aero was totally worth all of this.

It was for the shareholders back then. Gotta think about that short-term bottom line going up man! Gotta chase that high!

The future is for others, you can cash out NOW!

 

[DWG]

From what I've read, it looks like Boeing is reaping the consequences of selling the Wichita facility back in 2005. Spirit Aero is a mismanaged disaster and has been one for years. They bled valuable institutional knowledge, and many of their experienced engineers went on to work for Airbus and help design the A350. These engineers previously worked on designing composite structures on the 787, and this hemorrhaging of experienced personal has also resulted in the delay of a clean-sheet composite 737 replacement.

But hey, I'm sure the money saved from outsourcing to Spirit Aero was totally worth all of this.

While Spirit's part of the problem, I'm fairly sure there's blame internal to Boeing as well - safety cultures don't wither because your supplier has problems, they wither because you have problems. I've heard the rot ascribed to an influx of ex-McDonnell Douglas managers in a sort of reverse takeover, but it was Boeing homeboy Phil Condit who moved Boeing's HQ to Chicago away from all that nasty engineering stuff and set up the union-busting 787 factory in South Carolina - which was originally meant to be another Spirit, but Boeing ended up having to bring it inhouse as Alenia and Vought couldn't make a profit at the rates Boeing was paying, and then moved 787 production there, which the Labor Relations Board ruled was retaliation for IAM striking in Seattle.

The irony is it was Condit who really pushed 'Working Together' as a philosophy when he was running 777 development.

(And of course the Darleen Druyun scandal also happened on Condit's watch, even if that mostly seems to have been his CFO dealing under the table).

 

[GTX]

'This is not a 737 issue': Former Boeing workers allege aviation giant puts production speed over passenger safety

Former workers of aviation giant Boeing allege the aircraft manufacturer has cut corners on its production line to meet deadlines, resulting in defects going unnoticed and compromising safety.

www.abc.net.au

 

[Archibald]

There's at least seven door incidents listed in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontrolled_Doesn't decompression, not all causing hull loss, but with over 500 fatalities in total.

And it's notable in that Dan Air incident that the door had been wrongly assembled, which directly contributed to it coming open. What's that line about failing to learn the lessons of the past....

And Turkish Airlines crash of Ermenonville, March, 3 1974 killed 346 all by itself. Still the worst crash ever happened in France. Goddamn criminal MDD and their stupid baggage door. They got a warning call in 1972 with noone dying and just sat on it doing nothing. Next time 346 people died (same exact number as 737 MAX death toll - and same stupidity).

Turkish Airlines Flight 981 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[DWG]

And Turkish Airlines crash of Ermenonville, March, 3 1974 killed 346 all by itself. Still the worst crash ever happened in France. Goddamn criminal MDD and their stupid baggage door. They got a warning call in 1972 with noone dying and just sat on it doing nothing. Next time 346 people died (same exact number as 737 MAX death toll - and same stupidity).

Turkish Airlines Flight 981 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Lot of similarities to the Dan Air crash as well - a door that could be forced locked in an unsafe way with the telltales showing it as safe.

I came across https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Congo_air_disaster just by chance as AFAICS it's not listed in the wiki list of decompression accidents - Il-76 cargo door, possibly improperly closed, opened in flight on a flight carrying troops and families. Estimates of the number of dead vary between 17 (government) and 200 (survivors).

 

[Archibald]

Found this about the crash. https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com...81-and-the-dc-10-cargo-door-saga-d22f0b9fa689
Extremely detailed and interesting.

 

[martinbayer]

Found this about the crash. https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com...81-and-the-dc-10-cargo-door-saga-d22f0b9fa689
Extremely detailed and interesting.

You forgot to mention *depressing* (in more than one sense of the word)...

 

[DWG]

Boeing withdraws exemption request for 737 Max 7 amid door-plug failure scrutiny

Boeing has withdrawn a request with the Federal Aviation Administration for a temporary exemption from some certification rules for its 737 Max 7, bringing more uncertainty to the type's certification timeline.

www.flightglobal.com

Boeing have withdrawn their request for an exemption for Max 7 certification on fixing the inlet barrel deicing issue until 2026. It will be interesting to see just how long that delays certification.

 

[robunos]

Found this about the crash. https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com...81-and-the-dc-10-cargo-door-saga-d22f0b9fa689
Extremely detailed and interesting.

That's an excellent site, I'm currently working my way through it . . . an intersting snippet from the story you linked to :-

"On the Turkish side, Air Force officials who were deeply involved in the management of the airline also liked the idea of the DC-10. Although relevant sections of the Turkish Airlines board meeting minutes were redacted for national security reasons, it is thought that the Turkish Air Force wanted the DC-10s because they expected an imminent outbreak of war in Cyprus, and the DC-10 could carry 350 troops at a time into the airport in Nicosia."

cheers,
Robin.

 

[WatcherZero]

Rhode Islands state pension fund has launched a class action lawsuit against Boeing for damages on behalf of shareholders who lost more than $100,000 over the last four years due to company mismanagement and alleging the claims that the company was laser focussed on improving quality after the previous MAX crashes and grounding were false statements.

BOEING SHAREHOLDER ALERT by Former Louisiana Attorney General: Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC Reminds Investors With Losses in Excess of $100,000 of Lead Plaintiff Deadline in Class Action Lawsuit Against The Boeing Company - BA

Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC (“KSF”) and KSF partner, former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., remind investors that they have until

www.businesswire.com

 

[DWG]

Boeing have withdrawn their request for an exemption for Max 7 certification on fixing the inlet barrel deicing issue until 2026. It will be interesting to see just how long that delays certification.

Boeing needs up to 12 months to redesign anti-ice system prior to 737 Max certification

Boeing has provided new insight into when the 737 Max 7 might achieve certification, with executives saying they need another nine to 12 months to finish development of a fix to the type's engine anti-ice system.

www.flightglobal.com

The answer is 9 months to a year, which raises the question of why Boeing told FAA they needed 3* years to implement a fix.

* Given they had an Airworthiness Directive issued by FAA in August 2023** for Max 8 and 9 operators to work around it while Boeing wouldn't have to fix it until May 2026.

** This appears to have been expedited by FAA as it went into effect 15 days after issue with no comment period, suggesting how serious it was considered, but probably also indicating it had only been flagged up by Boeing fairly recently.

TLDR: they could probably have fixed it and still kept to their original Max 7 schedule rather than chasing waivers and ADs.

 

[publiusr]

Rhode Islands state pension fund has launched a class action lawsuit against Boeing for damages on behalf of shareholders who lost more than $100,000 over the last four years due to company mismanagement and alleging the claims that the company was laser focussed on improving quality after the previous MAX crashes and grounding were false statements.

BOEING SHAREHOLDER ALERT by Former Louisiana Attorney General: Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC Reminds Investors With Losses in Excess of $100,000 of Lead Plaintiff Deadline in Class Action Lawsuit Against The Boeing Company - BA

Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC (“KSF”) and KSF partner, former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., remind investors that they have until

www.businesswire.com

Oh, that's rich---catering to shareholders instead of engineers is what started all this mess---that and mergers.

 

[DWG]

Boeing aims to offload most of its 250 undelivered 737s and 787s by year-end

Boeing ended 2023 with about 200 737 Max and 50 787s in its inventory of undelivered jets, and executives still expect the company will deliver most of those by the end of the year.

www.flightglobal.com

TLDR: Boeing is sitting on c200 undelivered Maxs, 140 of them Max 8s for China/India. With China now taking deliveries it hopes it can get rid of them by year end*. The 35 Max 7s and 10s it can't do a thing with until they're certified, so they'll be sitting on the hardstanding through into 2025, if not '26 for the 10s. The other 25 are aircraft that require rework, whether because of oblong holes in the pressure bulkhead, lose bolts in the tail, or whatever, so in theory it can deliver them as soon as it gets the work done.

All 50 undelivered 787s need rework, probably for last year's horizontal stabilizer shimming issues, unless Boeing hasn't gotten around to fixing earlier issues yet.

* I can't help thinking this means doing pre-delivery QA checks and fixes on an aircraft every other day for the rest of the year, on top of their existing production rate, on top of all the issues spinning out of the Max 9 door. FAA's told them they can't increase production, but this will have much the same effect in terms of stressing Boeing's 737 QA function.

 

[Arjen]

CNN's report on corporate culture at Boeing

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/30/business/boeing-history-of-problems/index.html

Aboulafia said the short-sighted push for profits has put the company at a severe competitive disadvantage to Airbus, and that Calhoun and other top managers at Boeing, as well as its board, need to go if the company is to have a chance to turn things around.


Despite the losses and severely weakened market position of Boeing, there is little chance it could go out of business.


The airlines around the world that have already bought Boeing planes basically need to keep using those models, whatever the problems.


Commercial pilots are certified on specific models and are not able to easily move from single-aisle to widebody versions of Boeing jets, let alone between a Boeing and an Airbus jet. And having different models means the airlines need to have a large, expensive supply of spare parts on hand to keep their planes in the air.


And any Boeing customer who canceled their orders today would have to get in line behind a backlog of more than 8,600 jets that Airbus has already agreed to build for its existing customers.


“It’s a very weird industry. It has high barriers to entry and only two players. You can get away with nonsense like this,” said Aboulafia.

More at the link.

 

[publiusr]

Too big to flail

 

[WatcherZero]

Oh its flailing alright, its just too big to sink.

 

[WatcherZero]

Its feeling like Seal Clubbing at the moment, but anyway.

Delivery of 50 completed 737's has been delayed for rework after a new quality issue was discovered where Spirit had mis-drilled two holes in the window frames leading to uneven spacings.

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/exclusive-boeing-delays-some-737-max-deliveries-after-new-quality-defect

 

[DrRansom]

At this point, shouldn't the baseline assumption be every Boeing production line is flawed and needs review? As in, if it's a Boeing, it has a defect until proven otherwise?

Edit: Aboulafia has basically said either Boeing gets a new board and CEO or Boeing doesn't live to 2040. He has no confidence in Boeing being able to Clean-Sheet a new aircraft and, if Airbus gets something new in the 737-class produced rapidly enough, which is apparently their intention, that would be lights-out for Boeing.

 

[DrRansom]

Boeing needs up to 12 months to redesign anti-ice system prior to 737 Max certification

Boeing has provided new insight into when the 737 Max 7 might achieve certification, with executives saying they need another nine to 12 months to finish development of a fix to the type's engine anti-ice system.

www.flightglobal.com

The answer is 9 months to a year, which raises the question of why Boeing told FAA they needed 3* years to implement a fix.

* Given they had an Airworthiness Directive issued by FAA in August 2023** for Max 8 and 9 operators to work around it while Boeing wouldn't have to fix it until May 2026.

** This appears to have been expedited by FAA as it went into effect 15 days after issue with no comment period, suggesting how serious it was considered, but probably also indicating it had only been flagged up by Boeing fairly recently.

TLDR: they could probably have fixed it and still kept to their original Max 7 schedule rather than chasing waivers and ADs.

Or they're just hopelessly optimistic and have no idea how long it'll take - and had no intention of fixing it in the first place.

 

[Scott Kenny]

At this point, shouldn't the baseline assumption be every Boeing production line is flawed and needs review? As in, if it's a Boeing, it has a defect until proven otherwise?

Edit: Aboulafia has basically said either Boeing gets a new board and CEO or Boeing doesn't live to 2040. He has no confidence in Boeing being able to Clean-Sheet a new aircraft and, if Airbus gets something new in the 737-class produced rapidly enough, which is apparently their intention, that would be lights-out for Boeing.

Probably, but it's been a long time building up.

Back when I worked at the other end of the airfield from Boing in the late 1900s, we had one guy who got laid off from Boeing show up for a bit since it was going to be a longer time than usual between contracts. His third or fourth day on the line he showed up just reeking of booze. "What's the big deal? I did this all the time at Boeing" "The FARs say that you're fired if you pull that shit at a Repair Station, that's why." I don't know if he was re-hired at Boeing or not.

 

[DWG]

Boeing may delay more 737 Max deliveries after incorrectly drilled holes found

Emirates Airlines boss says manufacturer ‘in last chance saloon’ as supplier Spirit AeroSystems finds new production glitch

www.theguardian.com

As of Friday, the incorrectly drilled holes had been found in 22 fuselages out of 47 inspected up to that point, spread between Boeing and Spirit, and may exist in some 737s in service, according to sources cited by Reuters.

An employee from Spirit AeroSystems, which is the sole supplier of the fuselage for the 737 Max, reportedly discovered that the holes were too close to the edge of the piece of metal in a window frame.

I was hoping they were simply in the wrong position laterally/circumferentially, not closer to the edge. That presumably means you have to re-run the stress calculations to work out if the window is still safe. We really don't want another Comet.

It's almost more worrying that some have the problem and some don't, you would hope a drilling task like this is being done on an appropriately set up jig. Whatever happened to "Measure twice, cut once"?

The chance of this not being in flying aircraft is minimal. It's going to be a nightmare for the airlines if they have to recheck every cabin window in every Max.

Tim Clark, the head of Emirates Airlines, has become the latest airline leader to call for significant change at Boeing. Speaking in an interview with the Financial Times, published on Sunday, he said Boeing was in the “last chance saloon” after a “progressive decline” in standards.

 

[Helicoprion]

Or they're just hopelessly optimistic and have no idea how long it'll take - and had no intention of fixing it in the first place.

Oh they know how to fix it, just wanted to push the jets out the door to meet delivery/generate a positive short term result. That bit them before, and it will again if they keep making similar calls.