Fuel tank issue (FOD) hits Boeing’s 737 MAX - Feb 2020

Marc said:

I have read a few articles that opined that things started down hill when Boeing upper management moved to Chicago.

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That's a nice coincidence (or is it?) - the University of Chicago school of economics brewed Friedman and Greenspan = totally free markets, economical efficiency above all, bottom line is king. Makes sense.

Randy said:

I know it's impossible, but if the people that QC'd those airplanes had to sit in them during the test/acceptance flights like I had to these BS faults would disappear fast. As and aircraft QA/QC your watchfulness changes real fast when you have to strap the thing to your butt and do all the "validation" personally.

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Heck put the BOD and top management in there, too, for test/acceptance flights. I like it.

If you want to hear a very good "insider's view" of Boeing, listen to this podcast.

Boeing's Broken Dreams

Ronen E said:

Boeing might be a tech powerhouse, but that's just a by product. It's not its primary goal to excel technologically. Its primary goal (like any contemporary mega corporate) is to generate profit, theoretically for shareholders, but vide the Agency Problem. That should explain at least points 1 & 3 of yours. In the current general economical atmosphere/trend this is nothing of wonder.

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Yep Ronen...and a slight amplification....nothig worse than when one quotes a thrid party without proper attribution....the above quotes are from several recent Seattle Times articles...and btw the Seattle Times team, has done a good job reporting on this....and just received a George Polk award for the same...

optomist1 said:

nothig worse than when one quotes a thrid party without proper attribution....the above quotes are from several recent Seattle Times articles

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Not sure who you're referring to. If you referred to me "quoting" anything, I assure you that what I wrote was purely my own original thoughts. I never read the Seattle Times (or heard of it for that matter). Sorry if I accidentally said something someone already said.

Hi Ronen, the above comment was meant solely for my benefit as a reminder for me, no slight intended, many times espeically on great sites like this one, I get all amped up to share an opinion or insight and forget good web ettiquette ...thanks again...Cheers Optomist1

Folks see below, kind of astonishing this wasn’t caught earlier, or maybe not given the recent culture...any cable harness EMI/EMC experts care to weigh in on this? Is it just routing or routing and shielding of signal lines that are adjacent to power lines?

Rebuffed by the FAA, Boeing will rewire all the grounded 737 MAXs

Marc said:

Especially with occurrences such as these:

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What is amazing is looking at some of the other threads on the Cove for Boeing going back 10 years. I will be transparent, I won't fly on a Boeing plane if I have the choice. Since Covid I haven't traveled much, before that I have been around the world 8 times. I hardly see Airbus with these issues but they do use some of the same suppliers like GE - Pratt and Whitney.

jpconnor said:

What is amazing is looking at some of the other threads on the Cove for Boeing going back 10 years. I will be transparent, I won't fly on a Boeing plane if I have the choice. Since Covid I haven't traveled much, before that I have been around the world 8 times. I hardly see Airbus with these issues but they do use some of the same suppliers like GE - Pratt and Whitney.

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Don't know about 8 times around the world, but my business mileage is equal to about 80 times around the world on one airline alone, and the vast majority would be on Boeing aircraft, especially all of my foreign destination flights (commercial that is) and I'm not too concerned.

If it's true or close to the truth then there's got to be more going on here than meets the eye, and as an old cop and as an old aviation QA/QC guy for a "minor" aircraft company among other things, I tend to get suspicious over time about things and in this case like this my suspicions would lean towards shoddy workmanship and even more shoddy inspections, I could be wrong. Granted, I've never worked in manufacturing or on aircraft this size (my biggest would probably be a CH-47 or CH-54), but, there's just no accident in continual problems, a funky paint job or smiley face on a rivet now and then yeah, but not stuff like this.

Randy said:

Don't know about 8 times around the world, but my business mileage is equal to about 80 times around the world on one airline alone, and the vast majority would be on Boeing aircraft, especially all of my foreign destination flights (commercial that is) and I'm not too concerned.

If it's true or close to the truth then there's got to be more going on here than meets the eye, and as an old cop and as an old aviation QA/QC guy for a "minor" aircraft company among other things, I tend to get suspicious over time about things and in this case like this my suspicions would lean towards shoddy workmanship and even more shoddy inspections, I could be wrong. Granted, I've never worked in manufacturing or on aircraft this size (my biggest would probably be a CH-47 or CH-54), but, there's just no accident in continual problems, a funky paint job or smiley face on a rivet now and then yeah, but not stuff like this.

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I have a great tool that rips videos from the net and was lucky enough to find the old post on here and ripped the video from Al Jezeera, originally broadcast in Australia I believe in 2011 of the Auditors that got fired for reporting CNC machines were not being used to cut out the fuselage. They found the subcons in central America were using Sharpies and Rulers. I believe Boeing has a history of not abiding by rules, but because they have decent detection (the aircraft must pass initial flight hours), the risk is reduced. Looking at Boeing compared to Airbus, I just don't see the same issues with Airbus.