Boeing 737 MAX family NEWS ONLY

I thought that the B-717 (MD-95) had ceased production along time ago? Unless there are some airliners out there that still fly the type. BlackBat242.
 
Delta has 80 due to be replaced by A220 next year, QantasLink has 7 due to be replaced by A220 next month and Hawaiian has 19 to be replaced by 737 MAX when the merger with Alaska goes through, but they havent chosen a retirement date yet.
 
Bit more on the counterfeit Titanium issue; looks like Spirit noticed corrosion and thats how they knew it wasnt near pure Titanium but it does seem to meet the required structural strength. Spirit purchased the counterfeit titanium from Turkish Aerospace Industries who had bought it in 2019 from an unnamed Chinese supplier.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has launched an investigation into titanium used in Airbus and Boeing aircraft after a key but embattled supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, alerted it about counterfeit documentation originating from a Chinese supplier of the metal, the New York Times reported.

"Boeing reported a voluntary disclosure to the FAA regarding procurement of material through a distributor who may have falsified or provided incorrect records. Boeing issued a bulletin outlining ways suppliers should remain alert to the potential of falsified records," the FAA said in a statement.

Spirit AeroSystems initially spotted "small holes from corrosion" in the titanium parts and launched an investigation to verify whether, despite their fake documentation and unknown origin, the titanium alloys meet the structural standards for aviation-grade materiel. Spirit uses titanium in B737 MAX, B787, and A220 parts machined at its factories.

Both manufacturers said tests have so far not shown any issues that would affect the airworthiness of their aircraft. Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems said they are proactively removing any potentially affected parts from aircraft in assembly.

It is currently unclear how many aircraft are potentially affected and whether the issue would force operators to perform unscheduled maintenance to replace any flagged parts. However, anonymous internal sources told the New York Times that the issue affects aircraft built between 2019 and 2023.

According to the reports, Turkish Aerospace Industries acquired the counterfeit titanium in 2019 from an unnamed Chinese supplier which had forged certificates of conformity for the metal, pretending it was sourced from a well-known supplier, Baoji Titanium Industry, which in turn confirmed it was not involved in the transactions. The titanium was eventually sold to Spirit via other suppliers.
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www.ch-aviation.com

FAA probes counterfeit titanium on Airbus, Boeing aircraft

Several daily Operator News updates covering all Operator Route Network changes, strategic fleet developments and aircraft orders, start-ups and bankruptcies, mergers and acquisitions and partnerships and alliances.
www.ch-aviation.com www.ch-aviation.com
 
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Counterfeit parts from China is not a new threat, I sat at the next desk to the guy with general responsibility for our supply chain integrity back c2010, and China was the main threat then. Certificates of Conformity or not, if it's coming from a new supplier then surely you want to check a sample rather than just forge straight ahead?

If the corrosion is visible to the naked eye, then I suspect it's not a small degree of contamination.

And even if parts aren't compromised now, you can't guarantee they won't be when corrosion has had time to develop, not that the specifics of the contamination were consistent across the batch.
 
WatcherZero said:
Bit more on the counterfeit Titanium issue; looks like Spirit noticed corrosion and thats how they knew it wasnt pure Titanium but it does seem to meet the required structural strength. Spirit purchased the counterfeit titanium from Turkish Aerospace Industries who had bought it in 2019 from an unnamed Chinese supplier.



www.ch-aviation.com

FAA probes counterfeit titanium on Airbus, Boeing aircraft

Several daily Operator News updates covering all Operator Route Network changes, strategic fleet developments and aircraft orders, start-ups and bankruptcies, mergers and acquisitions and partnerships and alliances.
www.ch-aviation.com www.ch-aviation.com
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Nobody uses pure titanium in the aero industry, it’s all alloy with the most popular being Ti6.Al.4V. As for corrosion on Titanium Alloy, never seen that, always understood Ti alloys, all of em don’t corrode at ISO +20. We would spray salt water onto our Titanium alloys for 2000 hours without getting any corrosion what so ever.

Suggest this article is nonsense.
 
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Zoo Tycoon said:
Nobody uses pure titanium in the aero industry, it’s all alloy with the most popular being Ti6.Al.4V. As for corrosion on Titanium Alloy, never seen that, always understood Ti alloys, all of em don’t corrode at ISO +20.

Suggest this article is nonsense.
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The story is showing up in a lot of places: AP, Reuters, NYT, CBS, Guardian. The likelihood of a non-aviation site garbling the story is always non-zero, but doesn't mean the story itself is wrong.

www.theguardian.com

FAA investigates counterfeit titanium used in some Boeing and Airbus jets

Investigation comes after parts supplier found small holes in material – used in manufacturing of jets – from corrosion
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
Zoo Tycoon said:
Nobody uses pure titanium in the aero industry, it’s all alloy with the most popular being Ti6.Al.4V. As for corrosion on Titanium Alloy, never seen that, always understood Ti alloys, all of em don’t corrode at ISO +20. We would spray salt water onto our Titanium alloys for 2000 hours without getting any corrosion what so ever.

Suggest this article is nonsense.
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Ti6.Al.4V is 90% Titanium, 6% Aluminium and 4% Vanadium. All of which are corrosion resistant metals (well pure Vanadium forms an oxide layer that resists but it stabilises the bond between aluminium and titanium while being harder than steel). The alloy is mainly used in aircraft engines for its heat resistance (60% of all the alloy produced goes into aircraft engines), its also used for some fasteners and cockpit window fittings. Ti-3Al-2.5V is used for hydraulic pipes, Ti-10V-2Fe-3Al is used for landing gear and structural beams, Ti-6Al-2Sn-4Zr-2Mo is used for tails and exhausts, Ti-15V-3Cr-3Sn-3Al is used for ducting.
Pure Titanium is also used in non-structural applications, such as water supply systems for galleys and sanitary, and for ducts and piping where you want lightness, corrosion resistance and formability.
 
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DWG said:
The story is showing up in a lot of places: AP, Reuters, NYT, CBS, Guardian. The likelihood of a non-aviation site garbling the story is always non-zero, but doesn't mean the story itself is wrong.

www.theguardian.com

FAA investigates counterfeit titanium used in some Boeing and Airbus jets

Investigation comes after parts supplier found small holes in material – used in manufacturing of jets – from corrosion
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
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Goebbels says repeat a lie often enough and people will believe it​

 
What is the point of lying about how they discovered that the alloy was wrong?
 
Maybe the corrosion part is nonsense, but in recent years haven't a number of impurities been found in all sorts of different alloys? P&W had that huge issue with their geared turbofan production because of impurities in the material used.
 
Boeing and Airbus said Friday that planes containing the parts are safe to fly, but Boeing said it was removing affected parts from planes that haven’t been delivered yet to airline customers.

It will be up to regulators including the Federal Aviation Administration to decide whether any work needs to be done to planes that are already carrying passengers.

...
“This is about titanium that has entered the supply system via documents that have been counterfeited," Spirit spokesperson Joe Buccino said. “When this was identified, all suspect parts were quarantined and removed from Spirit production.”

Buccino said more than 1,000 tests have been conducted on the material "to ensure continued airworthiness.”

The New York Times reported that an Italian company, Titanium International Group, noticed that the material looked different from previous supplies and determined that paperwork accompanying the titanium seemed inauthentic. A general manager told the newspaper that the company was cooperating with authorities and could not provide additional information.

The paperwork, called a statement of conformity, describes the part or material, how it was made and where it comes from. It is designed to ensure that parts comply with FAA standards for quality.
...
Boeing said tests indicate that the parts were made from the correct titanium alloy, which raised questions about why the documentation was falsified. The company, based in Arlington, Virginia, said it buys most of the titanium it uses directly from other sources, and that supply is not affected by the documentation issue.
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abcnews.go.com

FAA investigating how titanium parts with falsified records wound up in Boeing and Airbus planes

Federal officials are investigating how parts made with titanium sold with falsified documentation wound up in Boeing and Airbus passenger jets
abcnews.go.com abcnews.go.com
 
Moose said:
This one was specifically a 717 production from after the merger, which is why I identified it as such and not an MD.
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All Boeing did was to take over the existing MD95 production line and start slapping on Boeing labels instead of McDD labels.

The design remained the same, with the same parts still made by the same subcontractors, and assembled by the same workers on the same production line.

The airframes may have been made years after McDD ceased to exist, but the aircraft were still being made to the same McDD design (with minor Boeing adjustments for Boeing-standard instruments etc).


A DC-9 produced the most unsettling and uncertain commercial flight I have ever had - and I have also had flights in a first-gen DC-8, first-gen B737s & B727s, a B757, an Embraer ERJ 145, and a Canadair CRJ 200 (all but the last 3 while I was in the USMC.

In 1985 I flew home on leave from MCAS El Toro CA (John Wayne Orange County Airport) to Salt Lake City, Utah. My flight backs aw me change planes in Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport AZ to a Republic Airlines DC-9. The aircraft was obviously aged, as everything in the aircraft, from seat fabric to plastic panels to metal surfaces showed lots of wear - more than on any other aircraft, even the ancient Arrow Air DC-8 my squadron flew from El Toro to Japan on in 1984.

Seated near the rear of the aircraft next to the aisle I spent the entire flight back swearing to never again board a Republic aircraft... as any time we hit turbulence I could see the fuselage visibly bend (in both vertical and horizontal directions) - something I had never seen before in any aircraft. Yes, the straight line along the bottom of the overhead bins, and the line of seats up the aisle, would become curved lines as the aircraft bounced through the air.
 
I am in violent agreement with you but if you want to keep going off feel free.
 
www.flightglobal.com

Pressure mounts for Boeing as lawmakers grill CEO Calhoun

Boeing chief executive David Calhoun faced an onslaught of criticism during an 18 June Senate committee hearing, with lawmakers accusing the leader of failing to fix longstanding quality problems.
www.flightglobal.com www.flightglobal.com

TLDR: Nothing new really, sounds like they were more interested in putting the boot into Boeing than in letting him answer.
 
BlackBat242 said:
A DC-9 produced the most unsettling and uncertain commercial flight I have ever had - and I have also had flights in a first-gen DC-8, first-gen B737s & B727s, a B757, an Embraer ERJ 145, and a Canadair CRJ 200 (all but the last 3 while I was in the USMC.

In 1985 I flew home on leave from MCAS El Toro CA (John Wayne Orange County Airport) to Salt Lake City, Utah. My flight backs aw me change planes in Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport AZ to a Republic Airlines DC-9. The aircraft was obviously aged, as everything in the aircraft, from seat fabric to plastic panels to metal surfaces showed lots of wear - more than on any other aircraft, even the ancient Arrow Air DC-8 my squadron flew from El Toro to Japan on in 1984.

Seated near the rear of the aircraft next to the aisle I spent the entire flight back swearing to never again board a Republic aircraft... as any time we hit turbulence I could see the fuselage visibly bend (in both vertical and horizontal directions) - something I had never seen before in any aircraft. Yes, the straight line along the bottom of the overhead bins, and the line of seats up the aisle, would become curved lines as the aircraft bounced through the air.
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That sounds like it was immediately due for a heavy phase inspection after you got off of it. I mean just from your description of cabin wear, not the flexing!
 
It's a necessary facet of the transaction, Airbus won't want Boeing as a subcontractor, and Boeing won't want Airbus operating inside a Boeing facility. The interesting aspect will be how they handle it if any of Spirit's production of Airbus components is physically in the same building as their Boeing production.


ETA: Airbus was apparently demanding compensation for taking on loss-making Spirit facilities such as Belfast.

 
Spirit has 5 plants in the US, 2 in the UK, 1 in France, 1 in Morocco and one in Malaysia. We will know in a few days how its been divided up but the consensus seems to be;

Airbus will take the plants in Belfast and Prestwick, Scotland as well as the Kinston, North Carolina and Biddeford, Maine plants.
Boeing will get the Wichita, Kansas, Dallas, Texas and Tulsa, Oklahoma plants (though some Airbus work parts of plants might be hived off)
France, Malaysia and Morocco plants might be picked up by either or spun out into a separate parts business (possibly with joint shareholding in the short term), both the Morocco and Malaysia plant were previously part of Shorts Aerospace, the Bombardier UK business for example and the Malaysia plant produces material for both Airbus and Boeing but neither seems interested in directly operating it.
 
I would have thought there would have been some value in having individuals who could work with both Boeing and Airbus components.

My guess is that the old hands that didn't feel valued left, and you only had punks remaining.

One last thing to throw out:

Would this have been as much of an issue if employees were working on something exciting like Sonic Cruiser, as opposed to just another ugly, also-ran twin-jet?

If all a passenger plane is—is a subway car with wings, then….
 
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No 737 MAX or the 777X at Farnborough. Boeing will only be exhibiting a static Qatar Airways 787-9 while the RAF will do two flybys of Poseidon's.

Airbus by contrast will have an Air India A350, Unannounced operator A220-300 and A330-900, four flypasts of an A321XLR along with static displays of Aliaca, CAPA-X, C295, Flexrotor drone, H135M, and H160. ATR and Embraer will be showing off both passenger and freighter versions of their aircraft including the ATR 72-600F and E190 Freighter.
 
publiusr said:
I would have thought there would have been some value in having individuals who could work with both Boeing and Airbus components.
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If you're a sub-contractor with contracts with both companies, possibly. If you're Airbus or Boeing it potentially creates horrendous IP issues.
My guess is that the old hands that didn't feel valued left, and you only had punks remaining.
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If by 'left' you mean 'were sacked during COVID', yes. Lay-offs may sound good if you're an accountant looking at the short term; they're less good if you're an engineering manager looking at the long-term and all your institutional knowledge was just kicked out the door by the suits in Finance and you know that when you're allowed to rehire you're going to have to replace them with kids who barely know what a wrench is, never mine one end from the other.

Would this have been as much of an issue if employees were working on something exciting like Sonic Cruiser, as opposed to just another ugly, also-ran twin-jet?
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If you're screwing in the same set of bolts day-in, day-out, then it doesn't much matter what the full thing looks like. My experience was the percentage of employees excited by the job was a lot less than those who just saw it as a job. Particularly with other industries paying better. As for Sonic Cruiser, let's remember that it would have burnt more fuel to get where it was going with so little improvement in flight times the airlines didn't see any value to it. Looks are romantic, airlines are looking for economic.
 
I can't help wondering if a hostile takeover bid for Boeing will be made at some point, or whether Boeing might attempt to ditch its commercial arm in the longer term.
 
Honest question - is the military arm that much better?
 
Its still a $110bn company, bout the only ones that could afford to would be Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, Google or Facebook LOL

Maybe Berkshire Hathaway could if they went all in, but anyone else really... not feasible unless it was a massive consortium of multi billion dollar funds.
 
Missed this from last week, Boeing's chief engineer says the Southwest dutch-roll incident was down to something specific on the aircraft, though he doesn't say what.

www.flightglobal.com

Southwest ‘Dutch roll’ not caused by 737 production or design: Boeing chief engineer

Boeing's top engineer insists the 25 May incident involving a Southwest Airlines 737 Max 8 which experienced 'Dutch Roll' was due to factors specific to the aircraft involved rather than the jet's design or to its production system.
www.flightglobal.com www.flightglobal.com

And the 787 fasteners were torqued to the right torque, but at the head end, not the nut end.
 
Boeing need to be careful, the company have just been censured by the NTSB for an unauthorised leaking of details of the panel blowout investigation by a executive (Elizabeth Lund, Boeing's senior vice president quality) at a media event last Tuesday where they gave a timeline of the accident, details not cleared for public release, and their own speculation (event media embargoed until the 27th). They have been punished by the NTSB by withdrawing the companies access to NTSB investigation documents and will be forbidden from asking questions to other participants during an investigation panel event on 6-7th August. They have also referred Boeing to the Justice department over it.
 

Not much more than WatcherZero's summary (and doesn't name the exec), but does note NTSB says Boeing portrayed itself to the media guests as focussed on trying to find the individual responsible. Which misses the entire point of the investigation and again suggests, especially when coming from the SVP Quality, that Boeing still don't understand the primary importance of making your processes robust, rather than punishing individuals when they fail. Which IMO is a far worse revelation than breaching the NTSB rules.
 
FighterJock said:
Thanks WatcherZero, soon there will be none flying anywhere in the world and that will be sad. The last link to the McDonnell Douglas days.
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It'll be NASA truss winged test birds that'll be the last MDs flying at this rate...

Anyone seen a carved in stone date for the last of the MD-11s flying with FedEx /UPS?

I just saw where NASA's DC-8 is gong to a tech school with its retirement.

Enjoy the Day! Mark
 
Yeah I think the thing NTSB is most pissed about is they tried to blame it on a missing piece of paper rather than the process that allowed that to happen. CNN writeup has a detail that I think hasn't been mentioned before, the door plug was put back on because the plane was being moved outside. They never intended it to be a permanent restoration of the plug, just a temporary measure to protect the interior from rain while it was moved from one part of the factory to another.
 
WatcherZero said:
the door plug was put back on because the plane was being moved outside. They never intended it to be a permanent restoration of the plug, just a temporary measure to protect the interior from rain while it was moved from one part of the factory to another.
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*facepalm*

Actually, no, *headdesk*, *facepalm* doesn't match the degree of corporate stupidity.


TLDR: Boeing has three different teams working on the door plugs, plus the team from Spirit working on the hole where the door plug should go. Team A removed it to let Team Spirit do their fix, but apparently didn't generate any paperwork to say it needed to be put back. (Presumably they had a work order for this, and presumably every aircraft has a work log of some description. Why did that work order not tag the door as not fit for flight? And generate a placeholder work order for putting it back?) Team Doors then put the door plug back in 'temporarily', without the bolts, because they were moving the aircraft outside and didn't want things getting wet. Apparently they do this 'often'. (*headdesk* Why aren't the doors team making entries in the work log to say the aircraft has an not-fit-for-flight-part-fitted? And checking the paperwork to ensure a fit-for-flight fix is in the system). And finally there's team C who should have done the work, who we've been blaming for months, who were never told the work needed doing.

About the best you can say is it's a miracle this never happened before. The entire process positively invites a cockup.

ETA: If Boeing thought this would let them get ahead of the news cycle, they really don't understand how bad this makes their processes look.
 
DWG said:
*facepalm*

Actually, no, *headdesk*, *facepalm* doesn't match the degree of corporate stupidity.


TLDR: Boeing has three different teams working on the door plugs, plus the team from Spirit working on the hole where the door plug should go. Team A removed it to let Team Spirit do their fix, but apparently didn't generate any paperwork to say it needed to be put back. (Presumably they had a work order for this, and presumably every aircraft has a work log of some description. Why did that work order not tag the door as not fit for flight? And generate a placeholder work order for putting it back?) Team Doors then put the door plug back in 'temporarily', without the bolts, because they were moving the aircraft outside and didn't want things getting wet. Apparently they do this 'often'. (*headdesk* Why aren't the doors team making entries in the work log to say the aircraft has an not-fit-for-flight-part-fitted? And checking the paperwork to ensure a fit-for-flight fix is in the system). And finally there's team C who should have done the work, who we've been blaming for months, who were never told the work needed doing.

About the best you can say is it's a miracle this never happened before. The entire process positively invites a cockup.

ETA: If Boeing thought this would let them get ahead of the news cycle, they really don't understand how bad this makes their processes look.
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If this had happened at a Repair Station instead of the manufacturer, the FAA would likely have decertified the entire operation.

And potentially grounded every aircraft ever worked on by that Repair Station.
 

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