[HN Gopher] United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Ma...
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United finds loose bolts on plug doors during 737 Max 9 inspections
Author : etimberg
Score : 184 points
Date : 2024-01-08 20:43 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theaircurrent.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (theaircurrent.com)
| armada651 wrote:
| Given that these are plug-style doors even if these were bolts in
| the hinges it would not risk the integrity of the fuselage seal.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Maybe the plugs aren't flanged enough? If the walls are mostly
| flat you could see the bolts being load-bearing.
| samstave wrote:
| My money is on the window. It was compromised and then the
| plug/bolts/flanges structure was ripped out of the body.
| bell-cot wrote:
| How would compromise of the window encourage the plug to be
| ripped out?
| samstave wrote:
| My assumption is the decompression event would have put
| the velocity of that decompression on the door/bolts and
| they are going to be weaker - and the addition of a
| window into a plug/door like this adds structural mass to
| add to that which is being sucked out via the
| decompression putting them over spec load for that area -
| but since it was a plug, the surrounding structure was
| still sound - just that thing couldnt handle the load.
|
| EDIT: Maybe the bolts have a really high shearing
| tolerance, but not as good of a tensile pull?
| tavavex wrote:
| I don't think there were any modern cases of airliner
| windows just being removed like that. They're fairly
| strong and consist of multiple layers of acrylic that are
| sandwiched between other components, so the entire window
| assembly would need to get torn out. Even then, it
| doesn't seem realistic that the difference in pressure
| would be big enough to instantly rip a properly-attached
| door clean off. Of course, only the experts can tell for
| sure, but my money's on a failure of the whole structure.
| jacquesm wrote:
| You'd lose your money. The plug is inserted from the
| outside and retained with fasteners against cabin pressure.
| iapark wrote:
| I found this video illuminating. The name is confusing because
| these aren't plug style doors. They can open out like they did
| here without passing through components
| https://youtu.be/maLBGFYl9_o?si=Km8qfkEv2YLHDY2G
| Animats wrote:
| They're not plug-style doors. They open outward. That's the
| problem.
|
| Opening outward is mechanically riskier, but more likely to be
| useful in an emergency. The drill for plug-style over-wing
| exits: Remove cover from upper handle, grab upper and lower
| handle, yank upper handle, pull door inside, have 15Kg or more
| of door land on your lap, turn big clunky door sideways, pitch
| through hole so it's outside and out of the way, climb through
| hole. Training video.[1] Few passengers are likely to get that
| drill right in an emergency, and the flight attendants are in
| the wrong place to do it.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCFzEg-t_Bk
| loeg wrote:
| Empirically, the things can fall out. So your assumption is
| mistaken.
| chippiewill wrote:
| They're only a plug when they're in the locked position. These
| bolts on the door plug prevent the plug from sliding into a
| position where it can come out.
| pcurve wrote:
| not plug!
| https://twitter.com/NTSB_Newsroom/status/1744202059870831016
| ethanbond wrote:
| Soothing to read this while waiting to taxi aboard a different
| 737 model flown by United!
| intunderflow wrote:
| At what point do consumers en-masse refuse to fly on these
| aircraft, if ever? When there's a few more fatal crashes?
| t0mas88 wrote:
| Unfortunately consumers don't have much choice, the airline can
| change which type operates a flight at any time.
|
| However longer term if Boeing's reputation keeps getting worse
| that can motivate buying decisions by the airlines. That change
| will be a very slow one, because fleet changes cost a lot of
| money in training crews, changing maintenance etc.
|
| For example KLM is changing their short-haul fleet from the 737
| NG to the A320neo family, that will take many years to
| completely roll out.
| neverartful wrote:
| True, but some airlines probably don't have any in their
| fleet. If worried consumers find out they could opt to not
| fly on those airlines.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Most airlines do have MAXs. Delta does not. However, they
| have _ordered_ some MAXs. So they will have MAXs in the
| future. That will take quite some time however.
|
| So if it's really that big of an issue for a person, then
| just fly Delta for the time being.
| plopz wrote:
| spirit doesn't have any of these in their fleet, but it's
| not the most comfortable flight
| chriskanan wrote:
| Delta doesn't have any currently, although they ordered a
| bunch of the MAX family that will be delivered from 2025 -
| 2029. It will probably be impossible to avoid them, long-
| term.
| fullshark wrote:
| I think it would require a fatal air crash of an American
| flight with a major celebrity on board.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| . . . and the US airline industry has still not had a fatal
| crash in just under 25 years.
| hunterjrj wrote:
| Unfortunately there was one in the Buffalo area in 2009:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colgan_Air_Flight_3407
| intrasight wrote:
| Beverly Eckert, Sept. 11 Widow and neighbor of a friend,
| died on that flight. Still makes me sad for their family.
| Max-q wrote:
| * 15 years
|
| Still impressive.
| pixl97 wrote:
| What is considered a US airline, and I'm assuming the
| minimal fatality count is 1 right?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PenAir_Flight_3296
| kube-system wrote:
| There's a decent list of celebs who have died in aircraft
| accidents. The attention typically lasts for a single news
| cycle.
| hmottestad wrote:
| Maybe when airlines start advertising that they don't use the
| new 737s.
|
| The more likely scenario is that the Chinese or Europeans will
| ground the new 737s until some very expensive fix is put into
| place and not accept any workarounds. That would probably make
| a difference.
|
| FYI: https://qz.com/1569865/china-grounds-737-max-8-after-
| ethiopi...
| gostsamo wrote:
| There are mutual recognition agreements between the
| regulators and if the europeans try something like that, the
| americans can create counter measures to even the field in a
| mutually undesired spiral. At this moment, the biggest enemy
| of Boeing is Boeing itself.
| vidanay wrote:
| We don't care if people die, just so long as your
| enforcement is not any more rigorous than ours!
| gostsamo wrote:
| It is more like "our cooperation is more valuable than
| temporary monetary advantages which could be negated and
| which could leave everyone worse overall". I'm not sure
| why deliberately misinterpret my comment, but you are
| quite wrong. The first 737max precedent is quite
| instructive for the relationship between the two
| regulators.
| hmottestad wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand what you are getting at.
|
| I'm assuming that the US is less likely to demand costly
| changes to aircraft produced by Boeing because of the
| implications it would have for their own economy. I
| wouldn't trust France to preemptive ground a series of
| Airbus planes either.
| hef19898 wrote:
| See, that, grounding of Airbus olanes, is exactly what
| EASA (which is European and not French) does.
| Spontaniously, I can think of fractures in the wings of
| the A380 when that happened.
| hmottestad wrote:
| I'm just poking fun at the French a bit.
| croisillon wrote:
| from a cursory check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bo
| eing_737_MAX_orders_... there are not that many 737 MAX in
| Europe:
|
| * Ryanair (124 planes out of 575)
|
| * TUI (40 planes out of 134)
|
| * Turkish (25 planes out of 400)
|
| * Norwegian (18 planes out of 81)
|
| * Icelandair (3 planes out of 47)
| aledalgrande wrote:
| Went to check on Air Canada and I thought they had way
| more, but they only have 40:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Canada_fleet
|
| and aside 787s, they haven't ordered any more Boeings
| j-bos wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38917569
| makestuff wrote:
| I doubt ever, consumers have been proven to select the cheapest
| airline ticket. The average once-a-year flier likely has no
| idea what aircraft they are even flying on.
| lokar wrote:
| I wonder what fraction of seats/revenue come from people who
| take one or fewer trips per year.
| KolmogorovComp wrote:
| 1% of people represent 50% of the ~~flights~~ emissions
| (see thread):
| https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/17/people-
| caus...
| ekam wrote:
| This about 50% of emissions not 50% of flights
| KolmogorovComp wrote:
| My bad, probably inflated by private jets then?
| joegibbs wrote:
| That's not 1% of fliers representing half the flights
| though, I think it's more like 10% - it's saying that 1%
| of the entire world population causes it and only 11% of
| the world actually flies once a year.
| im3w1l wrote:
| I'd be willing to pay a premium not to fly on such an aircraft
| but not too big, as even though they aren't quite as safe as
| they should be, my impression is that the risk is still fairly
| low. Something on the order of 5%
| gruez wrote:
| Statistically speaking it's not worth worrying about. In 2021
| there were less than 0.001 deaths per 100M passenger miles.
| Assuming these aircraft are 10x more dangerous than the
| alternative, that works out to 0.01 deaths per 100M passenger
| miles, or 0.00000026 deaths NY to SF flight. For an average
| american aged 38.9 years[2] with 40 years of life left[3], that
| works out to a loss of life of 5.4 minutes. I don't think most
| americans would worry over this, especially compared to other
| far more deadly threats like obesity.
|
| [1] https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-
| topics...
|
| [2] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-
| releases/2023/populati...
|
| [3] https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
| tw04 wrote:
| >Statistically speaking it's not worth worrying about.
|
| Those statistics don't really work out at all. They take
| number of miles and deaths, and nothing else. Let's say flown
| miles and driven miles are exactly the same for arguments
| sake. If the number of miles flown on planes were traveled by
| 4 million people, whereas the number of miles traveled by car
| were from 4 billion people, your likelihood of dying in a
| plane crash is FAR higher than by car if you're one of the 4
| million who fly on a plane.
|
| Miles and deaths alone are pretty poor metrics. There's also
| the part where I may only drive once or twice a week vs. the
| average which takes into account people who commute daily. So
| my odds of dying in a car crash are still lower. The
| frequency of travel seems just as pertinent as the miles
| traveled.
| fulladder wrote:
| Excellent analysis.
| phkahler wrote:
| A better metric IMHO is "crashes involving at least one
| fatality" per flight. For large aircraft the fatalities are
| often everyone on board or nearly so. So people care about
| "what is the probability that the flight I'm getting on has a
| fatal accident?" This is largely independent of number of
| passengers or miles flown.
| kube-system wrote:
| People don't change their behavior much when things like this
| happen. When it comes around to the next big travel weekend,
| people will continue to book on whatever airline gets them to
| the right place at the right time for the right price.
|
| Even when people have a _direct_ ability to change what vehicle
| they travel on, like with car sales, safety incidents
| /features/records/etc have little impact to no on sales.
|
| This is one of the reasons why transportation safety is
| regulated rather than being left up to market forces. Market
| forces don't really have an impact until the safety risk
| reaches some extreme levels.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| As far as I can see, there's no real way to communicate this
| preference to airlines. I won't book a flight on a MAX, but the
| airline can change the airframe at the last second and it's
| highly situational how willing/able I am to just refuse to fly
| if they swap in a MAX.
| plagiarist wrote:
| The typical person does not have the information about these
| failures, won't prioritize better odds of survival over short-
| term savings, and do not have enough money to choose
| alternatives anyway.
| napoleoncomplex wrote:
| On at least 5 airplanes? Of one airline? Are loose bolts a minor
| issue, or is it as insane as it reads?
| Syonyk wrote:
| No, it's as insane as it reads.
|
| It means people were careless and sloppy during assembly.
|
| Think of it like seeing "one cockroach in your kitchen." It's
| _not_ one cockroach. You just haven 't opened up the rest of
| the walls.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Or it means the torque specs were a little too low, or too
| high and stripped, or the bolt threading was defective/spec'd
| wrong. Or bad metallurgy. Or the spec didn't specify which
| order to tighten the bolts, so which direction you go causes
| different outcomes.
|
| Lots of stuff is assembled consistently and carefully
| "wrong", but as specified.
| flamedoge wrote:
| idk what aviation standards say but shouldnt loctite or
| spring washers at least be used
| jacquesm wrote:
| Bolts are torqued down to spec and if specified will have
| a retention mechanism, usually a pin, a foldover or a
| wire.
| 88913527 wrote:
| Some part of the process -- anywhere from specs to
| assembly-- had some cost cutting that led to the outcome.
| The root cause of this problem is something financially
| motivated.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| While I don't disagree with you that it is possible, it
| isn't a very "engineering" approach to declare that is
| the case without doing a root cause analysis. Stating it
| as fact is as bad as the MBAs...
| stefan_ wrote:
| To be fair it seems there is an image of some of the loose
| bolts:
|
| https://nitter.net/ByERussell/status/1744460136855294106
|
| I think this should stick out to an assembly person as not
| quite right.
| CobaltFire wrote:
| Note that, as a comment there states, there are tool
| marks indicating the bolts were both tightened and
| loosened at various points.
|
| Complicates the issue of who is at fault; where/when were
| they loosened?
| hef19898 wrote:
| Assembly was loppy, management either ignored or, even worse,
| encouraged it while QA was asleep. Which is really bad...
| tyingq wrote:
| > It means people were careless and sloppy during assembly.
|
| Maybe. Could also be incorrect torque specs, bad parts,
| unexpected vibration in that area, etc.
|
| Edit: Yes, none of these are good either. Just saying there
| are many possibilities.
| hmottestad wrote:
| Those don't sound very reassuring either. What's to say
| that this is the only bolt with incorrect torque spec, or
| if this part is bad why not others, and if bad parts are
| not being caught during quality control then what other
| parts will be next to fail prematurely? And if there are
| unexpected vibrations in that area, why wasn't it
| discovered during test flights? What other vibration issues
| would they not have accounted for if they weren't capable
| of detecting this one?
| hypothesis wrote:
| To be fair, I read recently that another issue with MAX 7
| was discovered through flight testing. The issue is that
| now Boeing wants to exempt plane from safety rules...
| hmottestad wrote:
| The de-icing button issue?
| dylan604 wrote:
| What's crazy to me is that these things do not roll of the
| factory line in large numbers. If it was a car plant or some
| other line where large numbers come off per shift, you could
| find that possibly one operator for one shift set their
| torque wrench to the wrong setting causing the finished items
| for that shift to be suspect. But seeing as not one plane
| rolls of the floor per shift, this is much more systemic like
| possibly the documentation was wrong or similar where it is
| persistently done incorrectly. Or maybe just the one plane
| for that one day that the worker incorrectly set their torque
| wrench that day.
| hef19898 wrote:
| There is definetly one plabe rolling of FAL per shift.
| Airbus for example is aiming for a delivery rate of 60
| single aisle planes per month.
| dendrite9 wrote:
| Well they left a ladder in the tail of a plane during
| assembly in the not distant past. It's not like just a couple
| screws or washers were left behind to rattle around.
|
| An ex worked on a QA-type project related to production for
| them. It makes me wonder if some of the issues were more
| fundamental than that project could ever have addressed.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/28/business/boeing-787-dream.
| ..
| baz00 wrote:
| In software this is a reboot or an apology to a client.
|
| In aerospace this is dead people.
| baq wrote:
| It's a cliche thing to say, but if it was a known issue and
| management papered over it - as the alternative is incompetent
| engineering instead of just cost-center-managed engineering -
| someone should go jail?
| j-bos wrote:
| Did anyone go to jail for the previous Boeing MAX crashes?
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| At this point there's a pretty clear implication that if
| some Boeing people had gone to jail that time maybe this
| wouldn't have happened at all.
| jerkstate wrote:
| not only did nobody go to jail, they didn't even fix the
| problem:
|
| https://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-News/Airline-
| News/Omnibu...
| fulladder wrote:
| Nah. When you have an engineering culture problem, putting
| people in jail is not going to solve anything. It will scare
| employees, sure, but it won't fix your culture.
|
| I believe someone at Boeing actually was criminally
| prosecuted in connection with the earlier MAX 8 problems,
| but, as in all these situations, it is seriously unlikely
| that that fixed any actual problems. Most likely, somebody
| felt they needed a neck to wring and found a convenient
| scapegoat.
| tuckerpo wrote:
| It seems there's a sense of malaise falling over everything and
| everyone in the USA. People at large simply cannot be bothered to
| care about anything, including torque specs for freakin'
| AIRLINERS
| xcv123 wrote:
| Could it have anything to do with Diversity and Inclusion
| quotas? Ignoring better qualified and more conscientious
| applicants because they have the wrong sexuality/gender/skin
| colour.
|
| https://www.boeing.com/principles/diversity-and-inclusion/an...
|
| https://www.boeing.com/resources/boeingdotcom/principles/div...
| dang wrote:
| " _Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents._ "
|
| " _Please don 't use Hacker News for political or ideological
| battle. It tramples curiosity._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| smegsicle wrote:
| wouldn't dismissing discussion of hiring practices on
| product quality be trampling curiosity for political or
| ideological battle?
| spike021 wrote:
| I know of a pretty famous car tuner in the US (I won't get too
| specific for various reasons) and despite most people in my
| community going to him for service over the years, multiple
| people have come out and proved he rarely if ever torques
| anything to spec. For the longest time he even allowed
| customers to watch in the shop space as he worked on their cars
| and he'd hand-torque many things that the car manual was very
| clear needed to be specifically torqued for safety and
| operational reasons.
|
| The fact that people would share this and it didn't curb the
| amount of business and referrals he got just proved to me what
| you've said for the longest time.
|
| People don't like to be troubled with details and they'd rather
| be ignorant of them.
| vidanay wrote:
| Probably one of those guys that says "click!" whenever they
| tighten a bolt.
| eppp wrote:
| How many times are the torque specs available to me when
| working on my car? I have no idea what random bolts are
| supposed to be so they get the good n tight click.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Workshop manuals are your friend.
| vidanay wrote:
| Buy a service manual for your vehicle? I have yet to see
| an important fastener without a specification (torque and
| pattern).
|
| If you are a professional mechanic, it's your
| responsibility to obtain the specifications and follow
| them. This is especially true when it comes to a licensed
| and certified A&P mechanic and not your neighborhood
| shadetree mechanic.
| somerandomqaguy wrote:
| To be fair, manufacturers are trying to discontinue the
| ability to 'buy' a service manual and make you pay for x
| amount of time of access. And IIRC they don't format the
| page into something that's offline friendly.
|
| It's still doable to get the full manual off, just not
| easy anymore.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| The vast majority of fasteners on your car do not depend on
| being torqued precisely. Basically anywhere you need to
| worry about clearance (e.g. bearings). If it's a matter of
| ensuring nothing comes loose you'll have things like
| threadlocker or a cotter (split) pin.
| jsight wrote:
| I've noticed the same with electrical work. How many use
| torque screwdrivers, even when dealing with high load
| appliances (eg, a 50 amp EVSE)?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| I've worked in stage lighting and general construction at
| different parts of my career, and I _never_ saw these being
| used by anyone despite them being very much required for a
| proper job.
|
| WAGO clamp terminals are a godsend here - no need to take
| care about wire nuts going loose, screw terminals being too
| loose or too tight (leading to fracture), ferrules being
| properly crimped... just insert the cable, lower the lever,
| and off you go. Unfortunately, standard DIN fuses still
| come with only screw terminals.
| GenerWork wrote:
| Sounds like Hennessey.
| fidotron wrote:
| It is even worse than that: those that don't care will make
| life intolerable for those that do until they give up trying
| to help and go away.
|
| You would definitely hope aerospace assembly would be immune
| to this widespread phenomenon though.
| tuckerpo wrote:
| German torque specs: "gutentight!"
| hef19898 wrote:
| Nach fest kommt ab.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| My beef is that torque specs are for factory assembly. If
| you're using new parts, sure, but once they're old/re-used
| parts with some corrosion due to dissimilar metals, age or
| salt belt, you're flying blind and probably undertorquing if
| going by the book.
|
| Given the amount of (soft) aluminum on aircraft, (737 is 80%
| aluminum), it would be insane to not precisely consider
| torque.
|
| Steel on steel is more forgiving.
| lucisferre wrote:
| Why would the softness matter for torque, if there has been
| some shift or compression since original install the torque
| should still ensure the correct pressure between the
| fitting, no?
| Scoundreller wrote:
| That's assuming then original install torque spec was
| correct.
|
| Much easier to strip aluminum threading if you over
| torque. Steel tends to just bend (and bend back better).
|
| Aluminum also fractures while steel bends/stretch back
| and forth better.
|
| (This is mainly from my experience working on bicycles,
| and a little auto)
| etrautmann wrote:
| A major concern is presumably over-torquing a screw and
| causing partial failure of threads in the material. This
| could be subtle and difficult to detect, but present as a
| problem over time.
| kube-system wrote:
| Soft materials develop wear more easily.
|
| e.g. any slight boogering of the threads of a used
| fastener could translate into rotational torque that
| doesn't end up being converted to a clamping force.
|
| (or in more extreme instances, some fasteners are torque
| to yield, and change shape after their first use, and
| must be replaced. But I'll presume that's not what they
| were talking about here)
| lupusreal wrote:
| Aluminum has no fatigue limit, so you really need to do
| things by the book.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| > If you're using new parts, sure, but once they're old/re-
| used parts
|
| Most service manuals require new bolts, fasteners and
| washers for torque-critical parts.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Skipping that part is even more ubiquitous than failure
| to properly torque. It takes a lot of effort to buy the
| correct bolts, only specialists have them to hand for a
| given make. Even dealers might not have every bolt. So it
| means you need to procure many more parts you would
| otherwise (the part you're replacing, plus 20 specific
| bolts with part numbers).. Most mechanics don't bother
| unless it's something really big like cylinder head bolts
| or an axle nut.
| kube-system wrote:
| When I was in high school I helped a lot of my friends fix
| issues caused by quick tire and lube shops. Lots of snapped,
| stripped, and rounded fasteners.
| jmoss20 wrote:
| I imagine at least part of this is that specs (and
| documentation generally) just suck now. It's nigh impossible
| to sort out which bits are CYA legalese, and which bits are
| "no, actually, do this or else <terrible outcome>".
|
| That obviously isn't the problem with airplane manufacturing,
| and maybe not for car mechanics either. But it's totally
| endemic in the consumer world.
|
| "Do not operate while driving" on car HUDs. "Do not consume
| if pregnant" on perfectly safe OTC medications. "Do not
| continue to ride after a crash" on bike frames.
|
| It's not surprising most of this is just ignored now --
| there's no information content. The documentation is nothing
| more than a list of things for which the manufacturer would
| like not to be liable, and the marginal cost of adding to
| that list is ~0. It will grow until we run out of room in the
| manual / space on the packaging.
|
| "Store between 68 and 75 F." Or what? Is that a "must follow
| or else death", or a "it may reduce efficacy 0.5%" or a
| "we've never run a sufficiently powerful study under any
| other conditions, but there's no theoretical reason it should
| matter"? It matters quite a bit to me which!
|
| I don't see how we can hope to have good-faith communication
| under such a heavy threat of litigation. I would not be
| surprised if /that/ turns out to be relevant to the Boeing
| issue, even if the rest is unrelated.
| Sparkyte wrote:
| Culture problem as we hire people of a generation who were not
| educated or engrained with responsibility they avoid doing the
| right thing and this happens.
| agubelu wrote:
| Yes, because no catastrophic defects have been present in
| airliners in the past 50 years.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| The only cultural problem is in management.
| terminous wrote:
| Get this generationalist BS out of here. It isn't supported
| by the facts. Airline safety has improved with each
| generation. There were many more plane crashes in the
| 1970s-1980s when boomers were in their prime. Five times as
| many!
| pixl97 wrote:
| Heh, I remember back then when they said "Airplane crashes
| come in threes", while I don't think that's exactly true,
| the number of large fatal crashes was much higher.
| fulladder wrote:
| I don't think it's generational per se, but I've noticed a
| declining level of concern for safety in product design
| compared to even like 20 years ago. I think people got used
| to the idea that everything is generally very safe and now
| there's less of an emphasis, so given enough time we'll start
| seeing dangerous products again and the cycle will start
| anew.
| plagiarist wrote:
| I agree. We need way younger CEOs (and legislators!). This
| current crop is perfectly fine rushing QA to ship defective
| products as long as it lines their own pockets. In industries
| where failures won't directly kill people they actually plan
| the obsolescence to happen.
|
| Leadership from a more environmentally-conscious and
| empathetic Gen Z would definitely have safer products that
| last longer.
| jasode wrote:
| _> People at large simply cannot be bothered to care about
| anything, including torque specs for freakin ' AIRLINERS_
|
| It may have not been operator error with the torque wrench.
| Maybe the torque wrench itself was miscalibrated. Maybe the
| bolt had a flaw in the metal. It seems too early to make
| conclusions.
|
| An example of flawed bolts on aircraft in an excerpt from https
| ://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136970210...:
|
| _A bolt from an aircraft flap control unit fractured in the
| threaded region of the shank near the shoulder with the head
| upon installation after a major service. A metallurgical
| investigation was carried out to identify the cause of failure.
| The bolt was manufactured from cadmium-plated, high-strength
| steel. Material checks carried out on the bolt showed that it
| conformed to the required specification and was found to have
| an approximate ultimate tensile strength of 1380 MPa.
|
| The fracture surface of the failed bolt was examined using SEM
| to identify the mode of fracture and determine if pre-existing
| defects were present that could account for the unexpected
| failure. The fracture surface exhibited two distinct modes of
| failure. [...]
|
| The embrittlement in this case was attributed to the cadmium
| plating, which is applied to the bolts to provide corrosion
| protection to the steel. Hydrogen is evolved during the plating
| process, which becomes absorbed by the steel. The cadmium
| plating acts as a barrier to hydrogen diffusion at ambient
| temperature so that the hydrogen becomes 'trapped' in the
| steel. In high strength steels (>1100 MPa) this leads to
| embrittlement. To overcome this problem, high strength steel
| fasteners, which have been cadmium-plated, are baked at
| 175-205degC for 24 hours to allow hydrogen to diffuse through
| the cadmium. In this case, failure of the bolts was caused by
| insufficient baking after plating, which gave rise to hydrogen
| embrittlement._
| bob1029 wrote:
| > It seems too early to make conclusions.
|
| In this specific case, I would agree.
|
| I share much of the sentiment of the OP, but I wonder if it
| is simply my perspective changing as I take on more and more
| responsibilities. Maybe things have always kind of been this
| way.
|
| I would be hesitant to say it's all going to hell in a
| handbasket because that tends to be one of those self-
| fulfiling prophecies. I prefer to look at things as
| "challenging, but workable".
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| >People at large simply cannot be bothered to care about
| anything
|
| People care deeply about a lot of things, just not this. And
| why should they? When you have every business decision made
| either by private equity or public companies with a focus only
| on the next 90 days it turns out everything goes to shit. Wages
| are stagnant. Wealth inequality is massive. Our society is
| sick. Issues like this will only increase. Our rail ecosystem
| is experiencing the same issues for the same reason.
| leetrout wrote:
| Random aside: I looked up an Acela ticket this morning.
|
| $1000 for a first class ticket from DC to BOS. 6.5 hours.
|
| Same flight first class with Delta this week is $850. Also 6
| hours with layover.
|
| Blows my mind first class rail travel is as much as first
| class air travel.
| CaptainMarvel wrote:
| Do you mean that the train is _as cheap_ as taking a plane?
|
| In my experience, in the UK, taking a train is more
| expensive than taking a flight (or driving, for that
| matter).
| fulladder wrote:
| Why do people pay more for slower transportation?
| Max-q wrote:
| Train travel tend to be much more comfortable than bus,
| car or plane. Especially if the plane takes as long time
| due to airports being located outside the city, security
| hazel, lots of stress at the airport and so on.
|
| The train cost more, but you enter the train in the city
| centre, sit down and relax, go to the restaurant car and
| eat a nice dinner, relax som more and you arrive in the
| destination city.
|
| This works better in continental Europe, where you have
| shorter distances and high speed trains between the
| capitols, often making the train faster from city centre
| to city centre than air travel. Traveling from Chicago to
| SF by train is pleasant, but take a couple days, not a
| couple of hours.
| plagiarist wrote:
| I'd pay extra to take the train for shorter trips. The
| entire experience is better, from not passing through a
| security theater production to the larger seats. I've
| never had a train sitting on the tarmac for hours,
| either, my plane trips frequently involve waits and
| delays.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| Not OP, but as a simple physics exercise, the fact that
| it's cheaper to put a metal tube flying in the air
| instead of hurling it down a pair of low-friction steel
| rails firmly attached to the ground to get from the same
| point A to the same point B is mind-boggling. It becomes
| even more so when you consider that I was easily able to
| find a ~$500 first class flight for the same route that
| is non-stop for just 1.5 hours of flight time, so flying
| is going to be a much shorter door to door time for half
| the price and probably a better experience to boot.
|
| I haven't ridden Amtrak in a long time, but I would be
| absolutely shocked if the first class experience on the
| Acella is as nice, much less worth a premium compared to
| flying. Regardless, there's pretty much nothing they
| could offer to make it worth the price premium.
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| DC to BOS should be a 90 minute flight...?
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| Presumably the "with layover" is something crazy like a
| Delta flight that goes via Atlanta. You can get some
| pretty crazy routing sometimes if you pick the wrong
| combination of airports and carrier. United has a non-
| stop with weekday first class tickets for ~$500, so I
| think the point stands.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| Those prices are extreme, I regularly travel 1st class by
| train from Goteborg/Sweden to Amsterdam/the Netherlands at
| about EUR85 for a single with ICE/EC/IC, a ~15 hour trip.
| Max-q wrote:
| What is the reason behind this thought? I know that most
| people think like this. Train should be cheaper than air.
|
| I guess it has to do with planes replacing plane, hence
| plane must be better, hence more expensive.
|
| But the reality is that the plane won because of two
| things: speed and cost. Air is free. Miles of miles of
| railroad is very expensive to build and maintain.
|
| Trains are a bit cheaper than planes. But they travel
| slowly. So cost per mile per passenger is lower for a
| plane.
|
| Even when subsidized, the cost of rail travel is often more
| expensive per mile than air travel.
|
| So when Europe and Asia now are building a lot of high
| speed rail, it's not to make it cheaper, but to lower
| carbon footprint and to make a more pleasant experience.
| mehlmao wrote:
| Amtrak and plane tickets are priced differently. For each
| class of ticket, Amtrak has X seats at price A, Y seats at
| price B > A, Z seats at price C > B, etc. When you check
| prices or buy a ticket, it will offer you the cheapest
| remaining ticket in that class. If you book Amtrak early,
| you'll find it is significantly cheaper than a plane
| ticket. Wait until a week until departure, and usually the
| airplane will cost less.
| nostromo wrote:
| You're catastrophizing a bit. This isn't an America problem
| it's a Boeing problem.
|
| American air travel is safer than it's ever been. Going years
| without a single fatality is now the norm, not an exception.
| The airlines are well run and do care deeply about safety. The
| regulators aren't perfect but generally do a good job. The NTSB
| is world-class.
|
| Boeing will continue to lose marketshare to Airbus and feel
| some pain which is appropriate. Eventually they'll get their
| act together or they will continue to suffer real consequences.
| sschueller wrote:
| Working conditions in the USA have come to a point where many
| don't care because the company doesn't care about them.
| People are fired at will after working for 20+ years with
| zero shits given. There is zero loyalty and in return workers
| just don't care either.
|
| There are only so many checks and balances you can build in
| until this situation will catch up with you.
|
| Doesn't amazon have such a huge turn over that they are
| running out of possible candidate to replace those workers?
|
| Being pushed to deliver more and more packages in shorter
| time or inspect train cars in less time then required why
| would one care if a packages gets tossed or a rail car is not
| properly inspected?
|
| In most jobs the only consequence is to be fired which is
| already possible for no reason what so ever in many states.
| el-dude-arino wrote:
| Thanks, Jack Welch. May you burn in hell for making the
| 21st century worker-employer relationship so adversarial.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Sorry, but habe you ever worked in an aero assembly plant?
| You're making it sound like it's just like any other
| warehouse sweatshops job where you need to pee in a bottle
| while you work to meet your quotas when it's the furthest
| thing possible from that.
|
| You definitely have enough time to work at leisurely pace
| and assemble every part right. There's not much rushing
| going on there. If workers get away with doing dodgy work
| you have a QA issue.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| In 1966, Boeing had 142k employees and thousands more
| employees working for them indirectly through suppliers. By
| 1970 they had less than 39k employees.
|
| Let's not pretend layoffs are new.
| jskrablin wrote:
| Or use a few drops of threadlocker...
| 0max wrote:
| Sagaar from Breaking Points felt the same way in his monologue
| today.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I commented on another thread[1] but I feel like it would apply
| here:
|
| > My theory is that this is not limited to Boeing or even
| aircraft design, it's a much deeper and systemic problem
| affecting all kinds of fields. We've had a lot of industrial
| accidents lately.
|
| > When aircraft manufacturing was an emerging industry there
| were tons of undocumented safety margins and "slack" in the
| design and production pipeline. Over time, the beancounters
| start optimizing stuff, so these undocumented safety margins
| are eroded in the name of efficiency/profit (and sometimes even
| documented safety margins too).
|
| > Furthermore, workers back in the day had a much better life
| when it comes to purchasing power (especially when it comes to
| property), and so could actually "give more fucks" about the
| job than they do now which is a compounding factor. You used to
| get a lot of implicit quality assurance back then which you
| don't get now.
|
| > We've now reached a stage where these undocumented safety
| margins have been eroded enough that it actually starts to
| cause issues, and the safeguards that are supposed to catch
| them aren't good enough, either due to 1) they've never been
| good enough but just weren't really needed before or 2) they
| too have been eroded in the same way for the same reason.
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38896457
| fzeroracer wrote:
| The 'malaise' is the rot coming from uncurbed late-stage
| capitalism. Just about every single company only cares about
| short-term forecasts which leads to enshittification because
| there is no long-term planning or allowance for things like
| quality control.
|
| Privately-owned companies or worker-owned companies are more
| resilient to this problem because the nature of their existence
| means a stronger focus on long term goals. Though there are
| still issues with publicly owned companies exerting enough
| influence to acquire and subsequently destroy private
| companies. For example, Rite-Aid acquiring Bartell Drugs then
| going bankrupt and proceeding to shutter most Bartell Drug
| stores leaving Seattle with a deficit of pharmacies.
| pixl97 wrote:
| "Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome."
|
| Welcome to the outcome. When companies look at employees and
| employee training as an expense, and when the only way to
| improve your salary is to go to a new company, expect to see
| these companies to be hollowed out shells of untrained
| people.
| chatmasta wrote:
| This is reassuring news to me, as someone who has opted for
| Airbus over Boeing (and even paid extra for it) whenever given
| the choice since the first 737-MAX crashes in 2017.
| WheatMillington wrote:
| How is this reassuring?! Are you sure you don't mean
| "vindicating" or similar? Hard to understand how anyone could
| feel reassured by this.
| chatmasta wrote:
| It's "reassuring" in the sense that I'm reassured I've been
| making the right decision... but yeah, "vindicating" is
| probably a more appropriate choice of word :)
| eterm wrote:
| What you're describing is validation.
| fidelio93 wrote:
| Could AI help firms like Boeing perform more robust and automated
| safety checks? I'm curious about how much an issue like this can
| be chalked up to human error vs. poor, semi-automated QA.
| bell-cot wrote:
| GIGO
| pc86 wrote:
| Oh nice this is the first time I've seen the AI equivalent of
| "Bitcoin fixes this" in the wild.
| consumer451 wrote:
| This is hilarious, but I think we might be being a bit
| unfair.
|
| Why couldn't you use something a camera on eyeglasses while
| doing the work correctly to fine tune a multimodal model, and
| then infer to a user wearing the same glasses? Audio reply
| saying "nope, try again."
|
| You would need multiple frames per second, so not today, but
| not that far into the future, right?
|
| edit: Zero-shot, I just took photos of me "fixing things"
| around the house, and here is what ChatGPT told me. It does
| not suck. Do this with fine tuning, many frames per second,
| and what am I missing?
|
| https://imgur.com/a/H1eSShH
|
| https://imgur.com/a/YXxz8uL
| ChatGTP wrote:
| Because those things are a joke ?
| consumer451 wrote:
| Please refresh and look at my edit.
|
| If a missing some major required component aside from
| finetuning and frames per sec, which will require a few
| years for everything to be fast enough... please let me
| know what it is.
|
| Wait, oh it will be understand of time... the sequencing
| of the frames. That is missing for now, right?
| tavavex wrote:
| The reason why it's bad is that this is an overcomplicated
| process that introduces potentially unreliable bells and
| whistles for little upside. At the end of the day, there
| aren't fundamental issues with a trained employee following
| a checklist. Machine learning is extremely powerful but
| tons of issues can be solved in a straightforward
| algorithmic fashion, so we should really be using it where
| it could make a big difference.
| consumer451 wrote:
| Thanks. I get it, and generally agree with your point
| here. Paying for good people and giving them enough time
| to get the job done is generally enough. I was just
| trying to be fair to op's question as devil's advocate. I
| don't think it should just be dismissed as a joke. I have
| always been a huge cryptocurrency skeptic, and I just
| don't see the same trajectory for ML.
|
| So back in the day, Expert Systems were a big thing at
| Boeing. Searching Boeing's job openings today, it's a
| still a word used in hiring, but I don't understand what
| they mean by it in terms of manufacturing. Do you have
| any idea what they mean by that today?
| tavavex wrote:
| Yeah, I understand your sentiment. I hope I didn't appear
| to technologically conservative in my comment, it is kind
| of a minor pushback to people promoting generative AI as
| a panacea that makes every problem ever easier.
|
| I can't tell you about what Boeing does with expert
| systems. I've never been employed by them and I never
| really looked into it or where they use them. It's
| especially unclear because Boeing does _a lot_ more than
| just pure manufacturing.
| sp527 wrote:
| Found the Boeing executive.
| queuebert wrote:
| Tech L7 who can only program Python but thinks they could be
| the next Boeing CEO.
| Bluescreenbuddy wrote:
| Go outside.
| jsight wrote:
| Neural networks for quality assessment aren't necessarily
| unheard of. I'm not sure how they'd be using them in this case,
| though?
|
| Maybe something like a camera monitoring that they are using
| the correct tool at various parts of assembly? But I'm not sure
| how feasible this would be at airplane levels of volume.
|
| I bet it'll be common in car assembly at some point, though.
| molave wrote:
| It still requires a human to be sometimes skeptical of the AI's
| results.
| raverbashing wrote:
| It is not so clear if the loose bolts are on the door or if
| they're the bolts that attach the door to the frame. Also given
| that the door that fell was just found in one piece this makes me
| suspect the latter
|
| But regardless, not looking good for Boeing
|
| (*door but of course it's more a plug than a real door, just
| using the term for ease of understanding)
|
| Edit:
| https://twitter.com/ByERussell/status/1744460136855294106?t=...
| jasode wrote:
| I found it interesting that Boeing _did proactively_ tell
| airlines to inspect 737 MAXs for a possible loose bolt in a
| different part of the plane (rudder section) at least _8 days
| before_ the January 5th event. Example story:
| https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/boeing-ur...
|
| Unfortunately, Boeing did not know they had _other issues_ with
| the plug door bolts.
| nritchie wrote:
| Makes you wonder if there was malice involved?
| dylan604 wrote:
| My grandfather worked for Braniff as a mechanic, and I've heard
| stories where very strange things would happen that definitely
| gave merit to some sort of sabotage being a likely explanation.
| From very specialized tools would be missing not from just one
| bay, but from all of the bays to other issues that would cause
| regular maintenance from being able to be completed in a timely
| turn causing more and more planes to be taken out of service.
| Lots of things went wrong with that airline, but some of the
| things just makes you scratch your chin in wonder if it might
| not be possible.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
| adrian_b wrote:
| There were only 2 possible causes of the incident, either the
| bolts had been replaced with bolts made from an inappropriate
| material, so they broke, or the bolts had not been assembled
| correctly, and they became loose.
|
| It appears that the latter is what happened.
|
| Perhaps those who did the assembly of the doors at Boeing did not
| use the right kind of washers that are needed to prevent the
| unscrewing of the bolts, or they did not apply the correct torque
| to the bolts.
|
| It is extremely surprising if such trivial errors can happen
| during the assembly of an aircraft.
| lokar wrote:
| Or the lock wire was left off or done incorrectly
| someguydave wrote:
| Aren't there multiple signoffs & inspections to see if the
| lock wire was being done correctly?
| zokier wrote:
| You are assuming this is problem in the assembly and not in the
| design?
| rpeden wrote:
| The same part was used on the 737-900 for quite a while and
| didn't (as far as we've heard, at least) have any similar
| issues there.
| dralley wrote:
| And you seem to be assuming that the problem is in the design
| and not the assembly...
|
| The latter seems more likely.
| jacquesm wrote:
| You are both missing the 'faulty process' and 'faulty
| communications' options.
| adrian_b wrote:
| For loose bolts, incorrect assembly is by far the most likely
| cause.
|
| It can be a design problem if the bolts and associated parts
| like washers have been substituted recently or if the
| assembly instructions have been changed recently, e.g. by
| specifying a different torque. If any such engineering change
| has happened recently, then that would be the likely culprit.
|
| A resonance problem of the aircraft body as supposed by
| another poster seems extremely unlikely as that would have
| required significant recent changes to the aircraft body,
| which did not happen.
| pengaru wrote:
| The torque or fastener spec could just be wrong in the face of
| unforeseen resonance or some other in-flight oddity
| cumulatively loosening the bolts.
|
| I wouldn't be so certain it's installation error or mfr defect
| of the fasteners...
| Someone wrote:
| > There were only 2 possible causes of the incident, either the
| bolts had been replaced with bolts made from an inappropriate
| material, so they broke, or the bolts had not been assembled
| correctly, and they became loose.
|
| Or the 'correct' assembly instructions weren't actually
| correct, or the design isn't good enough (e.g. it uses too few
| bolts, or didn't check the strength of the bolts when they get
| cold), or the bolts were of the correct material, but designed
| too thin, etc.
| queuebert wrote:
| I've seen on Toyotas and also at Universal Studios bolts on rides
| are marked with paint presumably to indicate that the nut hasn't
| backed out.
|
| Are airliners marked in this way? Is checking the bolts simply a
| visual inspection, or do the inspectors need to get out a torque
| wrench?
| hef19898 wrote:
| Workers are trained and qualified to sign of on their work.
| Some work is double checked by a co-worker. Some is again
| checked by QA. FAL work, and loose bolts falling under FOD
| absolutely, are checked by QA. Or at least should be.
|
| No idea how this can happen, Boeing really has to get its shit
| together.
| lb1lf wrote:
| This is SOP in manufacturing to indicate that a bolt has been
| torqued to whatever torque specified in the assembly drawing;
| as an added bonus, if the mark is applied properly, you can
| also tell at a glance whether the bolt has worked itself loose.
| chippiewill wrote:
| Unlike on a rollercoaster, these bolts are hidden within the
| fuselage behind the cabin panelling so a regular visual
| inspection to see if they've been loosening wouldn't be
| practical. During assembly the bolts should have been torqued
| and then checked and the bolts would only be reinspected when
| the panelling is removed after 3 years or so.
| adamweld wrote:
| Yes aircraft fasteners are often torque marked, and almost all
| safety critical fasteners have an additional preload locking
| mechanism. Often these fasteners use mechanical locking
| features such as cotter pins, safety wire, or safety cable.
| kube-system wrote:
| Even better, safety critical bolts on these doors are (supposed
| to be, at least) pinned.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maLBGFYl9_o&t=523s
| phkahler wrote:
| Even on light aircraft some bolts will have a safety wire
| through the head to prevent it from turning. You might even see
| these on bolts holding the propeller on.
| Juicyy wrote:
| common practice in manufacturing to use a paint pen on bolts in
| assembly lines to check and make sure nothing is backing out
| aftre maintenance/repair.
| blindriver wrote:
| Doesn't this call into question the manufacturing of ALL 737
| MAX's including the 7 and 8 since they must use the same
| manufacturing process?
| pluc wrote:
| Yeah this isn't a plane issue, it's a guy holding the drill
| issue as far as I understand it
| intrasight wrote:
| A guy holding an inspection report issue
| myself248 wrote:
| If a guy holding the drill CAN cause this issue, that means
| there's ALSO a drill calibration issue, a bolt inspection
| issue, an inspection recordkeeping and doublechecking issue,
| etc.
|
| Humans make mistakes. The whole point of modern manufacturing
| is to make products better than any human can make them, by
| layering processes and procedures to catch those mistakes
| before they get out the door, and continually improve the
| processes to catch ever more.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Spot on, this is exactly the problem: you can't have 'just
| loose bolts', it's a whole raft of other issues.
| barryrandall wrote:
| It calls into question Boeing's entire portfolio because it's
| all a product of the same management culture.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| It's a door design that dates back to the 707.
| infotainment wrote:
| Sure, but Boeing's current awful cost cutting management
| does not date back that far.
| hef19898 wrote:
| _If_ this turns out to be the assembly issue it seems to
| be, it hints at a deeper, potentially cultural, issue at
| Boeing. One that could affect all their planes, because why
| would only be the B737 MAX FAL be sloppy?
| chippiewill wrote:
| Only the max-9 has the door plug, the smaller airframes don't
| have that door, and the larger airframes always have the door
| fitted
| phkahler wrote:
| Maybe Boeing will rethink their plan to claim all variants of
| the 737 are basically equal.
| tomohawk wrote:
| Industrial sabotage? Grievance sabotage? Quality control?
|
| Hopefully they can track down the cause.
| barryrandall wrote:
| Metrics that don't give employees enough time to accurately
| complete their tasks? Management whose first and last
| priorities are quarterly financial projections? Transitioning
| from external oversight to self-reporting?
|
| I do hope they can track down the cause, whatever it might be.
| pierotofy wrote:
| It might be another fault due to the cultural shift that's been
| happening at Boeing:
| https://www.npr.org/2019/10/26/773675393/boeings-cultural-sh...
|
| > Safety and quality were taking a second seat to schedule and
| cost.
| blibble wrote:
| "the most scrutinised transport aircraft in history"
| 7e wrote:
| Not reassuring.
| nwallin wrote:
| Not reassuring indeed.
|
| "most scrutinized world leader in history"
| ActionHank wrote:
| Well yeah, keep making things that break or cause issues and
| people will have to scrutinise more and more.
| phkahler wrote:
| 737 != 737 Max.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| Check out this video showing how the plug is supposed to be
| installed: https://youtu.be/maLBGFYl9_o?t=540
|
| Some of the bolts that would be loosened when the plug is opened
| during maintenance have a pin to prevent them from turning. That
| pin is present in this photo:
| https://x.com/byerussell/status/1744460136855294106?s=46&t=s...
|
| However, the same photo shows other critical bolts that hold the
| whole hinge on the door are loose, and there's not meant to be a
| pin on those.
|
| I'm curious how the decision is made whether to include that pin
| in the design. Did they idiot-proof the maintenance of the plug,
| but not the initial installation?
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| More rampant speculation!
|
| Some quotes from this article:
| https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/spirit-ae...
|
| > As part of the production process, Spirit builds fuselages
| for 737s and sends them by train with the special door assembly
| "semi-rigged," one of the people said.
|
| > "They are fitted but not completed," the person said.
|
| > At its Renton, Washington, plant, Boeing typically removes
| the pop-out, or non-functioning, door and uses the gap to load
| interiors. Then, the part is put back and the installation in
| completed. Finally, the hull is pressurized to 150% to make
| sure everything is working correctly, the person said.
|
| I can imagine a diffusion of responsibility as to whose job it
| is supposed to be to tighten those hinge bolts. Spirit is
| installing the plug in a "semi-rigged" state. Boeing is
| removing the plug to load the interior, then reinstalling it.
| I'd hazard a guess that Boeing is not removing the hinges,
| because the plug can be removed without doing so. What if, when
| reinstalling the plug, Boeing workers just redo the stuff they
| removed? They tighten the vertical movement arrestor bolt, put
| the pin through it, and believe they have done their job? If
| they never messed with those other hinge bolts, they don't
| bother tightening them?
| thehappypm wrote:
| There's no way that this is what happened. They're not
| building IKEA furniture, everything is tightly check-listed.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| The castle nut design requires the use of a cotter or other
| locking pin.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castellated_nut
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_locking_device
| Rapzid wrote:
| "Loose bolts" is not a ton of detail. It could have nothing to
| do with any of the bolts discussed in that video.
|
| I'm having a hard time imagining how this failure could occur
| from just those bolts "needing tightening". They are lock bolts
| with pins and appear to take shear forces and provide no
| clamping functionality. Even if the bolts were "loose", or not
| torqued to spec, how would they come all the way undone? Then
| the bolts, under shear, work their way out completely? And
| isn't the lift spring forcing the top pins into the upper part
| of the track? On top of that the curve of the track appears to
| be such that outward force on the door would actually cause the
| pins to go into the upper part of the track.
|
| IDK, seems like there is something else going on. Different
| bolts maybe.
| bad_alloc wrote:
| How is Airbus doing meanwhile? I didn't hear about any production
| quality issues in their aircraft.
| aledalgrande wrote:
| > The A320neo family has had four ground fatalities and one
| hull loss accident as of November 2022.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A320neo_family
|
| A320neo is the direct competitor to the MAX. So yeah, they're
| doing pretty well.
| jacquesm wrote:
| And that hull loss wasn't on account of a faulty design,
| assembly or process issues.
|
| Crew and passengers were unharmed after a collision with a
| firetruck crossing the runway while the aircraft was doing
| its take-off roll.
| aledalgrande wrote:
| Exactly, as I understand all those occurrencies were due to
| people on the runway for one reason or another.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I am not familiar enough with that incident but I wonder
| how fast the plane was going and how close it was to
| actually being airborne, that seems like it must have
| been quite the impact but given that all crew survived
| there must be some factor that I'm missing. Blind luck
| either way.
|
| edit: 235 Kph!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBEE7bzatKk&t=47s
|
| two 10ths of a second later and it would have been an
| entirely different story. Ugh.
| disiplus wrote:
| i'm not sure are you being sarcastic, there were no
| fatalities on the airplane. but once motorcycle and another
| time a firetruck crashed with the plane and people died.
| aledalgrande wrote:
| I am not being sarcastic. Fatalities were unfortunate, but
| not due to the airplane design or manufacturing.
| notahacker wrote:
| Half the A320neo fleet needs to be grounded for 250-300 days
| over the next year due to engine manufacturing issues affecting
| their wear (which tbf is entirely Pratt & Whitney's fault).
| Airbus settled a $2bn suit last year with Qatar Airways over
| A350 paint jobs so bad they grounded them and refused to take
| scheduled deliveries. You'll hear more about Boeing than the
| rest of the industry put together because this is HN...
| aledalgrande wrote:
| So Airbus has fault for a paint job? While they should do
| better, that sounds a lot safer than airplanes losing pieces
| or crashing down to me.
|
| > You'll hear more about Boeing than the rest of the industry
| put together because this is HN...
|
| That's not it.
| wnevets wrote:
| but shareholders got rich and that's really what is important.
|
| > Boeing Co. (BA.N) directors authorized a record US$20 billion
| share buyback program and boosted the company's dividend 20 per
| cent -- a sign the planemaker doesn't intend to stop showering
| cash on investors any time soon.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/boeing-sets-new-20-billion-
| buyba...
| rmbyrro wrote:
| Is the aircraft industry also adopting the "move fast, break
| things" now?
| molave wrote:
| Literally yes (at least for Boeing). Pray Airbus doesn't do the
| same.
| avgDev wrote:
| Flying in this plane in a few days......a bit uneasy to be
| honest.
| outside1234 wrote:
| I think they are grounded - so it will be something else
| exabrial wrote:
| I have a dumb question: why "plug" the doors at all? Why not burn
| a row of seats and have an extra safety door? Was this at request
| of the airlines to "meet" minimum safety standards or was there a
| reason why it's "better" to have less exit doors?
| anderber wrote:
| If the regulators don't require the extra exit door, then the
| airlines would rather put in an extra row for more profits. The
| extra safety door is only needed depending on seating
| configuration.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| And this just blew every bit of profit you could make off
| those extra seats.
| exabrial wrote:
| That's what I figured.
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| Less cost and weight, and more rows. Only advantages there.
| oooyay wrote:
| Kind of non-sequitur, but am I disconnected from reality if at
| this point I do not want to fly on a Boeing aircraft?
| outside1234 wrote:
| It is really the 737 - not sure what is going on with the MAX
| design team - but it ain't good
|
| The 787 and 757 seem to have been stable platforms.
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