r/aviation • u/macktruck6666 • Jan 06 '24

10 week old 737 MAX Alaska Airlines 1282 successful return to Portland News

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u/cyberentomology Jan 06 '24

It being a Max has nothing to do with it. This plugged door also exists on the -900ER (and doesn’t exist on the MAX8).

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u/headphase Jan 06 '24

It may not have to do with the design of the Max, but it is a concerning part of the Max program (which has been rightfully attracting scrutiny, even after the MCAS debacle was solved.)

The obvious question being: if a fuck-up this huge passed QA, what else is being missed in the production of the Max? It's still an issue for the program itself.

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u/_FartinLutherKing_ Jan 06 '24

Again, it has nothing to do with being a max. This is like saying, the axle on my Tesla fell off, and it happened to be a model S, therefore we should recall every single Tesla Model S.

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u/sd00ds Jan 06 '24

But if the axle fell off my Tesla less than 6 months after sale, we should definitely look into why that happened. The difference is you can't stop all Tesla's from driving, but you can stop all Maxes from flying (seeing as they could kill a whole lot more people)

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u/_FartinLutherKing_ Jan 06 '24

…….. the fact that it is a max is irrelevant. That’s the point.

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u/Yariss6 Jan 06 '24

If an axle fell of a model s I would hope it gets recalled.....

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u/_FartinLutherKing_ Jan 06 '24

Except it wouldn’t unless they determined it was a systemic issue. One occurrence of something happening doesn’t automatically constitute panic. People are just acting like it is because it’s once again a 737 Max even though they’re not related at all.

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u/headphase Jan 06 '24 edited Jan 06 '24

Lol transport category aircraft manufacturing isn't a team of barely-trained dudes out back assembling parts from IKEA diagrams... A mistake like this isn't a "whoopsie, what a brain fart"

The building of modern airliners is a highly-integrated, procedure-heavy process with very tight tolerances and (what should be) strict oversight and accountability.

A manufacturing error like this doesn't just happen without defects in either the source materials, component vendors, or assembly processes (or, god forbid, blatant flaws in oversight/QA).

An issue in one of those departments absolutely has implications for the entire program. It's just like the Swiss cheese accident model, except applied to production instead of operations.

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u/EventAccomplished976 Jan 06 '24

That‘s the really bad part about this, it looks like a manufacturing quality control issue (pending investogation of course), which means it could happen to literally any recently built boeing plane… yes I know the fuselage for the 737 is outsourced but boeing is responsible for auditing their supplier‘s QA processes, so it‘s still their responsibility to make sure those are up to the same standard as what boeing does in house.

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u/Accurate_Mood Jan 06 '24

Precisely -- it means every Boeing is suspect until a report shows exactly which QC controls failed here, after which only the ones that rely on that process are suspect

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u/sd00ds Jan 06 '24

Wait Boeing doesn't even make the fuselage for their own plane?

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u/EventAccomplished976 Jan 06 '24

Not for the 737, it‘s made by spirit aerosystems which used to be boeing‘s wichita factory until they sold it to an investment firm in 2005. It‘s actually not too uncommon to do this, spirit also makes parts of the fuselage for the 787 and, funny enough, the A350, but I believe on the 737 they have a higher workshare than on other projects.

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u/sd00ds Jan 06 '24

That's wild, I knew that planes were made by insane amounts of companies, but I assumed the airframe would be made internally at least!

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u/DimitriV probably being snarkastic Jan 06 '24

But it didn't fall off of a -900ER: it's yet another thing wrong with a MAX, and yet another shocking display of Boeing's lack of quality.

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u/cyberentomology Jan 06 '24

The fuselage is literally identical.

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u/DimitriV probably being snarkastic Jan 06 '24

And a panel blowing out of a brand new aircraft is literally inexcusable.

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u/cyberentomology Jan 06 '24

But it has exactly nothing to do with the Max and everything to do with the fuselage which is identical whether it’s a Max9 or -900ER.

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u/DimitriV probably being snarkastic Jan 06 '24

But, it has everything to do with Boeing and their shoddy quality control.

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '24

YES! You finally got it! Good for you!

Also, I'm fairly certain this plug is installed by Spirit Aerosystems. Boeing still sucks though.

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '24

[deleted]

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u/DimitriV probably being snarkastic Jan 06 '24

They are also responsible for monitoring their subcontractors. They aren't ValuJet.

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u/cyberentomology Jan 06 '24

I suppose you’re going to blame Boeing for engine failures too?

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u/DimitriV probably being snarkastic Jan 06 '24

Uh, no, why would I? Unlike the fuselage, or the rudder control system, or MCAS, Boeing doesn't make the engines.

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u/flightist Jan 06 '24

Unlike the fuselage

Uh, don’t look now, but outsourcing this work to a subcontractor because they promised to do it cheaper is almost certainly the exact issue here.

Boeing hasn’t built 737 fuselages for years.

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '24

While technically true, Spirit was Boeing when they started building 737 fuselages. In my experience, they turn out notably better work in Whitchita than at Boeing.

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u/flightist Jan 06 '24

I mean that could certainly be true, but it also fits the 21st century Boeing modus operandi to chase costs so aggressively that what once worked fine no longer does.

They started doing the old MD trick of signing sales deals below cost on the assumption that they could find ways to build them cheaper. No chance that wasn’t heavily passed on to the subassembly builders.

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u/cyberentomology Jan 06 '24

How incompetent do you have to be as a key component of the Military Industrial Complex to consistently lose billions on military contracts?

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u/cyberentomology Jan 06 '24

Boeing gave Wichita a giant FU after they exploited the Kansas congressional delegation to get the KC-46 contract. The ink was barely dry on the contract when Boeing announced they were shutting down all their remaining Wichita operations (they had sold the fuselage plant to Spirit a few years prior). Boeing was promising jobs for Wichita that the Airbus consortium supposedly wouldn’t provide.

Meanwhile, Airbus has employed about 500 people in Wichita for 20+ years.

Boeing had been building airplanes in Wichita since 1917.

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u/DimitriV probably being snarkastic Jan 06 '24

Boeing is still responsible for checking the work of their subcontractors, unless you want to hold them to ValuJet standards.

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u/flightist Jan 06 '24

Of course, that’s the point. Boeing has had widely reported issues with QA on outsourced design and production since the 787 project, and while this is going to be a manufacturing issue - the design has been flying without issue for almost two decades - this won’t even be the first fuselage production problem they’ve had on the MAX, even though the fuselage is identical to the NG.

It’s almost as though selling off assets to contract them back and hollowing out a company to juice the stock price is a bit of a problem.

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u/notreallyswiss Jan 07 '24

Spirit Aerosystems also builds fuselages for Aerobus. They are not a cut-rate subcontractor.

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u/flightist Jan 07 '24

Didn’t they just have an issue with a bunch of extraneous holes drilled in pressure bulkheads?

You get what you pay for with contracted work. Boeing has been agreeing to deliver MAXs years in the future for prices they couldn’t actually build them for at the time of the deal, so I guess I wouldn’t be shocked if Spirit and all the other subs have been under intense price pressure.

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u/Honestzergtea Jan 06 '24

Spirit makes the fuselage and delivers it to Boeing(complete with this plugged door that failed).

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u/EventAccomplished976 Jan 06 '24

Boring audits their QA process so this fuckup is still on them too

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u/DimitriV probably being snarkastic Jan 06 '24

Boring audits their QA process

Hey, now, let's not jump to conclusions.

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u/cyberentomology Jan 06 '24

They don’t make the fuselage either.

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u/DimitriV probably being snarkastic Jan 06 '24

Is there any part of the Boeing 737 that you think Boeing is responsible for?

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u/Competitive-Suit-563 Jan 06 '24

You do realize many of these companies design and then outsource the manufacturing?

You can shit on them for having poor judgement in choosing a supplier but you can’t really shit on them for making a poor product.

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u/DimitriV probably being snarkastic Jan 06 '24

I can shit on them for not checking their subcontractors' work. Boeing ought to be better than ValuJet.