Boeing 737 MAX family NEWS ONLY

DOJ has submitted to a Texas Judge that they believe Boeing did violate its 2021 plea bargain by not improving MAX safety and quality inspections as they pledged to do. Boeing has until June 13 to submit defensive arguments and victim impact statements will be taken on May 31st. Once Boeing has submitted its defence a decision will be taken by whether to resume the deferred prosecution, extend the duration of the deferred prosecution or do nothing.

www.france24.com

What's next for Boeing after the US says it can be prosecuted?

The Department of Justice said that Boeing can be prosecuted for violating a 2021 criminal settlement over the certification of the 737 MAX.
www.france24.com www.france24.com
 
WatcherZero said:
DOJ has submitted to a Texas Judge that they believe Boeing did violate its 2021 plea bargain by not improving MAX safety and quality inspections as they pledged to do.
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The other aspect of this is that DOJ is reportedly consulting with the families of those killed in the Lion Air and Ethiopian crashes, and IIRC they were unhappy with the original settlement forced on them by DOJ through the deferred prosecution agreement. So it potentially opens up legal action from the families, not just DOJ.
 
TomcatViP said:
Great news but I don't quite understand how wrong data could be returned as a result of an overflow.
The server program should either send a false flag or accurate results.
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For a prior incident of overflow leading to disastrous results through a circuitous path, see Ariane Flight V88 and the loss of the first Ariane 5. A conversion (64 bit floating point to 16 bit signed integer) overflowed because the code was designed for Ariane 4 (and wasn't even needed on Ariane 5), ran for longer than designed for on Ariane 5, generating larger values than expected that then caused the overflow, that overflow threw an exception, both inertial units dropped out because of the exception, and the diagnostic message from one of them was executed as if it was a flight command....

And for an in-the-news example of servers causing catastrophic failures, see the Horizon/Post Office IT Scandal. (TLDR: Horizon was the bug-ridden Fujitsu software used by the UK Post Office for sales and accounting in local branches; amongst many other issues it could drop transaction messages, or parts of transaction messages, between the branch and the central accounting databases, leading to erroneous financial returns appearing to show money had gone missing, which the local sub-postmasters (branch owner/managers) were legally responsible for. Worse, the Post Office had the almost unique ability to privately prosecute them for theft, and swore blind in court evidence through 700 prosecutions spread across well over a decade that there was absolutely nothing wrong with Horizon. The sole reason the Post Office hasn't been bankrupted by their liability over Horizon is that they're government owned and the taxpayer has to cover it.)
 
www.marketscreener.com

Departing Boeing CEO's board status faces Friday vote by shareholders

Boeing shareholders will vote on Friday whether outgoing CEO Dave Calhoun should remain on the board, adding intrigue to an annual general meeting where investors are expected to seek clarity on...
www.marketscreener.com
- Boeing shares have plunged 30% this year.
- Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun has resigned amid scandals; the AGM is set to discuss leadership.
- Investors seek clarity on replacing the CEO at Boeing's upcoming AGM.
- Boeing faces a crisis - investigations, production slumps, and reputation damage are just the start.
 
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I was just googling to see when Boeing's 90 day deadline to respond to the FAA is up (May 28th) and came across this:

leehamnews.com

Boeing unlikely to meet FAA’s 90-day deadline for new safety program - Leeham News and Analysis

By Scott Hamilton April 18, 2024, © Leeham News: Boeing appears unlikely to meet a 90-day deadline to submit a comprehensive plan to address safety concerns, insiders tell LNA. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Feb. 28 gave... Read More
leehamnews.com leehamnews.com

TLDR: How can Boeing adequately respond to the FAA on its Safety Management System if halfway through the time allowed it hadn't engaged with the unions yet.

*Headdesk*
 
bobbymike said:
“and has a bachelor's degree in accounting from Southwest Missouri State University and a Master of Business Administration from Lindenwood University.”
——
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Again, she needs to think like a QA, not an MBA.


Arjen said:
If academical degrees are the thing to judge a person's suitability for a function in corporate governance, I would much prefer somebody with a degree in Business Administration than one with a degree in engineering. And no, I certainly don't want anyone with just an MBA tinkering on a nuclear reactor.

Everyone to their own trade.
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Boeing's decline basically started when the engineers stopped running the company.
 
Ouch shares down 7.6% in one day after investors warned of negative cash flow continuing into this quarter and the company dropped its advice from 2 months ago that the year would be overall cash flow positive (just). Shares are down 1/3rd this year, and it is getting worse rather than better with Boeing delivering just nine 737 MAX in April against the FAA production cap of 38 per month. Boeing has also paused deliveries of 737 MAX, 777 and 787 to China after Chinese regulators raised concerns about the new lithium battery in the cockpit voice recorder to enable the 25 hour recording capability and ordered a safety review despite the change being approved by EASA and the FAA. Boeing has 140 completed but undelivered MAX of which 85 are for Chinese customers.
 
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finance.yahoo.com

Boeing employees' safety, quality concerns surge dramatically in wake of incidents as deadline looms

Boeing released its annual safety report which showed a 500% increase in submissions to its safety and quality tip line as the aerospace giant prepares to submit a report to regulators.
finance.yahoo.com finance.yahoo.com

TLDR: Use of Boeing's safety reporting tool up 500% in 2024. It doesn't say whether the detailed reporting is similarly up.

I thought their response to the FAA's concerns was due today, but apparently it's the 30th. (Annoying, I'm off to the land of no internet tomorrow, so I'll have to wait to see the details).
 
The dramatically increased use of the reporting tool is a good thing, from bottom to top they need to return to a culture that looks for problems to solve and rewards those who find them as well as those who fix them. It's going to be short-term ugly as the stuff previously swept under the rug is dragged back out into the daylight, but it needs to happen to get Boeing where it needs to be.
 
Moose said:
The dramatically increased use of the reporting tool is a good thing, from bottom to top they need to return to a culture that looks for problems to solve and rewards those who find them as well as those who fix them. It's going to be short-term ugly as the stuff previously swept under the rug is dragged back out into the daylight, but it needs to happen to get Boeing where it needs to be.
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Also going to see some short term layoffs as they kick out the people sweeping things under the rug...
 
www.mobilityengineeringtech.com

Boeing Adopts New Airplane Manufacturing Quality and Safety Metrics

Boeing released a new executive summary of their plan to improve airplane manufacturing safety and quality assurance under increased FAA oversight last week. (Image: Marius) Boeing has published a new 11-page summary of actions being implemented to prevent airplane manufacturing quality and...
www.mobilityengineeringtech.com www.mobilityengineeringtech.com

delaying the release of airframe means that you´ve more floor capacity than your optimal output and can declutter activities from sequential to parallel. Otherwise, you´d face bottlenecks and inactive team members, something that floor supervisor are always shy about.
 
www.mobilityengineeringtech.com

Boeing Adopts New Airplane Manufacturing Quality and Safety Metrics

Boeing released a new executive summary of their plan to improve airplane manufacturing safety and quality assurance under increased FAA oversight last week. (Image: Marius) Boeing has published a new 11-page summary of actions being implemented to prevent airplane manufacturing quality and...
www.mobilityengineeringtech.com www.mobilityengineeringtech.com

A couple of thoughts (just catching up with this):
New metrics: An unspoken advantage of a new set of metrics from the perspectives of those in charge is they can't be meaningfully compared to the old set of metrics to measure improvement, or lack of improvement. This is often the real reason for introducing them (cf any UK government statistical measures).

(i) Employee Proficiency (measures share of employees currently staffed to commercial programs who are proficient);
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I can't help noticing that 'currently staffed to commercial programs' opens up a way to manipulate the KPI if you have a convenient slot outside of this to move people into come metric time.

(ii) Notice of Escape (NoE) Rework Hours (measures rework due to Fabrication and supplier-provided escapes to Final Assembly);
(iii) Supplier Shortages (measures Fabrication and supplier shortages/day);
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IMO you really want both of these broken down by originating organisation, whether supplier or specific bits of Boeing, otherwise the visibility of where the problems really lie is obscured

(v) Travelers at Factory Rollout (measures jobs traveling from Final Assembly);
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Work that it's known needs to be done after Final Assembly/Factory Rollout is a bit of an oxymoron. This is something Boeing are supposed to be eliminating, not documenting. Wanna bet someone senior's KPI in their annual appraisal depends on Factory Rollout?

"737s may not move to the next factory position until identified build milestones are completed unless a Safety Risk Assessment is conducted and a Mitigation Plan is in place"
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Boeing is supposed to be eliminating this (aka travelled work) as a safety risk, this is a mechanism designed to allow it to continue, but with an excuse in place. This does not give me the warm fuzzies.

Systems Integration ... TLDR: We're going to track numbers of problems to show our success
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The numbers aren't a measure of success, they're an active pointer to where you need to focus your attention.

Still not sure they get it.
 
DWG said:
Work that it's known needs to be done after Final Assembly/Factory Rollout is a bit of an oxymoron. This is something Boeing are supposed to be eliminating, not documenting. Wanna bet someone senior's KPI in their annual appraisal depends on Factory Rollout?
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No bet.

Which should mean that said senior's contract needs to be re-negotiated for aircraft delivered, not rolled out.


DWG said:
The numbers aren't a measure of success, they're an active pointer to where you need to focus your attention.


Still not sure they get it.
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Pretty sure they don't yet.

Pretty sure Boeing needs to start beating the C-levels with "would you trust your family to fly in the aircraft we are delivering?" and possibly "would you trust YOUR LIFE to the aircraft we are delivering?"
 
"would you trust your family to fly in the aircraft we are delivering?" and possibly "would you trust YOUR LIFE to the aircraft we are delivering?"

'Hell, no, Sonny, we got Gulfstreams for that . . .' /s

cheers,
Robin.
 
robunos said:
"would you trust your family to fly in the aircraft we are delivering?" and possibly "would you trust YOUR LIFE to the aircraft we are delivering?"

'Hell, no, Sonny, we got Gulfstreams for that . . .' /s

cheers,
Robin.
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Then why should your customers buy those planes?

And start going after the salary of the C-levels...
 
Combine the dutch roll news and several major engine failures in recent weeks with Spirit now saying some of their historical processed titanium going back five years or so that was used in both Boeing and Airbus aircraft had faked manufacturer certificates, and Boeing saying they had discovered undelivered 787 aircraft had around 700 bolts per aircraft that had been incorrectly torqued as they had been tightened from the wrong side (while refusing to say if delivered aircraft were affected by the production mistake as well) and for the three weeks ive been away Boeing has never been out of the news.
 
The news for Boeing's commercial side has never been good, now it is over torqued bolts that are the problem on the 787. I do not know what is going on with the manufacturing at Boeing.
 
In the past month I have flown on A320, A350-900, A321LR, 737 MAX, 787 and 777-300ER and I would say the only Boeing aircraft that came remotely close to the Airbus aircraft in build quality (and matched the quality of 747) was the 777. Both the MAXs had horrible fitting rattles while the only redeeming feature of the 787 was the high ceilings (I missed the air vents though and the high ceilings did mean the spotlights were very intrusive for other passengers), it didnt feel like a particularly robust aircraft though.

One of the A320 also had an individual (sticky?) wheel that you could hear a rubber friction squeech and clunk each full rotation of it on the runway as well as when was it free rotating after liftoff and a noisy HVAC during Takeoff/Landing as well but I would put that down to maintenance.
 
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No. Probably an assembly instruction that was misinterpreted, not explicit enough, unapplicable or not followed deliberately. Those are recursive quality escapes and can be found all across programs around the world. That those bolts wrong assembly side were apparently left undocumented is the core of the problem, revealing a very local, disconnected (de-facto*) decision.
It´s a completely different drama from the Tequila bottles hidden in airframe voids.

Just to add to what @WatcherZero wrote, Airbus have also their fair share of problems routinely, but ones that stand mainly stealth, at least in the main stream media.

*it can be a lack of post assembly inspection also
 
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This has been discussed to death here, but as a reminder that any competitors' transgressions pale into insignificance when set against Boeing's recent history:
Despite pledging to clean up its act, Boeing had a seemingly endless run of quality and safety lapses in the years since its deferred prosecution agreement.


On September 20, 2021, just months after its agreement, Boeing disclosed it found empty tequila bottles inside one of the two 747 jets being refurbished for use as the next generation of Air Force One.


In April 2023, Boeing announced its supplier used a “non-standard manufacturing process,” delaying deliveries of the 737 Max.


In February 2024, a month after the door plug incident, a preliminary National Transportation Safety Board investigation found that the plane left a Boeing factory missing the four bolts needed to secure the door plug. Later that month, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a report sharply critical of the culture at Boeing, citing “gaps in Boeing’s safety journey,” and gave Boeing 90 days to come up with a plan to fix its problems. Subsequent FAA reports found multiple problems with Boeing’s production practices following a six-week audit.


In March, the FAA identified more potential safety issues with the engines of the 737 Max and 787 Dreamliner.


Last month, the FAA announced an investigation into a whistleblower’s complaint that the company took shortcuts when manufacturing its 777 and 787 Dreamliner jets and that those risks could become catastrophic as the airplanes age. The company disputed the complaint.
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So, in April:
In Thursday’s letter to the federal judge overseeing the prior agreement, the Justice Department said it had notified the company [Boeing] that “the government has determined that Boeing breached its obligations” in multiple parts of the 2021 deal “by failing to design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of the U.S. fraud laws throughout its operations.”
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Up the proverbial creek without a paddle.
 
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WatcherZero said:
In the past month I have flown on A320, A350-900, A321LR, 737 MAX, 787 and 777-300ER and I would say the only Boeing aircraft that came remotely close to the Airbus aircraft in build quality (and matched the quality of 747) was the 777. Both the MAXs had horrible fitting rattles while the only redeeming feature of the 787 was the high ceilings (I missed the air vents though and the high ceilings did mean the spotlights were very intrusive for other passengers), it didnt feel like a particularly robust aircraft though.

One of the A320 also had an individual (sticky?) wheel that you could hear a rubber friction squeech and clunk each full rotation of it on the runway as well as when was it free rotating after liftoff and a noisy HVAC during Takeoff/Landing as well but I would put that down to maintenance.
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Couple months ago I flew on a 737-800ER, an A320, A 717-200, and a 757-200 all on one trip. The only real standout was the 717, which felt very dated and low-tier compared to the other 3 despite probably not being older in real terms than the other two Boeings. The other 3 were roughly equal in fit and finish, though the 757 had easily the best ride.
 
What I'm not getting about this is that some reporters are getting so far up into Boeing with a microscope, they're hyping incidents involving airplanes that might just be older than the reporter doing the story.
 
The dutch-roll thing is interesting, both because I want to know what the cause is - and I really hope it's not a problem in the air data system, and because it reflects the difference between a modern design and a grandfathered design. IIRC the later 777s have specific protection in the FCS to prevent dutch-roll (on the theory the aircraft is long enough that the accelerations at the end of the cabin would make passengers air sick), but I'd expect any decent FCS to at least damp dutch-roll even if it can't quite eliminate it. Of course the Max, being grandfathered all the way back to 1967 doesn't actually have an FCS.

WRT the torque issue on the 787, I'm actually relieved to hear it's a case of doing it wrong, because the alternative was they couldn't care about getting it right.
 
That was close, 400ft of crashing into the Pacific. Weather related this time by the looks of things.
 
It actually looks like pilot error, during a go around after an aborted landing they followed the autopilots throttle instructions but pushed forward on the control stick, they then claim they didn't hear two audio altitude warnings "DON'T SINK" followed by "PULL UP".
 
Boeing really does need to build a new plane--paid for (by law) on taxes upon all former CEOs and shareholders families, living or dead.
 
Moose said:
Couple months ago I flew on a 737-800ER, an A320, A 717-200, and a 757-200 all on one trip. The only real standout was the 717, which felt very dated and low-tier compared to the other 3 despite probably not being older in real terms than the other two Boeings. The other 3 were roughly equal in fit and finish, though the 757 had easily the best ride.
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You do realize that the B717 is a MD-95 with new nameplates.

That makes it a gussied-up DC-9.
 

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