[HN Gopher] FAA investigating how counterfeit titanium got into ...
___________________________________________________________________
FAA investigating how counterfeit titanium got into Boeing and
Airbus jets
Author : levinb
Score : 115 points
Date : 2024-06-14 11:00 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| bell-cot wrote:
| However much you can "save" by outsourcing...in a sufficiently
| fraud-plagued business environment, it's seldom worth it longer-
| term.
|
| Conveniently, modern businesses and their leaders are judged and
| rewarded purely on short-term metrics.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| What was the problematic outsourcing decision here? Buying your
| titanium from a titanium supplier? Is Spirit supposed to be
| refine and foundry all their own metal alloys?
|
| I agree that it's a little bonkers that Boeing spun off it's
| own aerostructures, but since it seems like Boeing has it's own
| problems with internal fraudulent inspection reports, this sure
| doesn't seem like an out sourcing problem per-se.
| josefx wrote:
| > What was the problematic outsourcing decision here?
|
| Buying from an untrusted source without any verification of
| your own in place.
|
| > Buying your titanium from a titanium supplier?
|
| For all we know they bought it on wish.com.
|
| > Is Spirit supposed to be refine and foundry all their own
| metal alloys?
|
| Random sampling of materials to determine if the delivery is
| fit for purpose should be the absolute minimum.
| constantcrying wrote:
| But the problem isn't outsourcing, it is failed incoming
| inspection.
| e44858 wrote:
| Sounds like they outsourced the inspection too.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Spirit itself is an "outsourcing" from Boeing's point of
| view. They spun it off so they could put more aggressive
| downwards pressure on labor price and then play dumb when
| it had the obvious and well understood outcomes like
| "buying underspecced materials to save money" and
| "workers don't do all the work they should, to save
| money" and "having different systems to control work so
| you can massage the official one, to save money by doing
| less work"
| caminante wrote:
| That's the point.
|
| The parent is blaming quality control steps of outsourced
| materials at Boeing (not third party).
|
| "Outsourcing = bad" is missing the point.
| therealpygon wrote:
| That is an interesting point of view, however, needing to
| distrust and expect fraud from every outsource agency
| sounds exactly like their point, which was not the
| elementary "outsource = bad" that you make it out to be.
| caminante wrote:
| No.
|
| The parent said that the quality control should be on the
| supplier, not Boeing. This is instead of a joint problem
| with Boeing validating.
|
| Look at the repercussions.
|
| Boeing gambled on shaving procurement oversight and lost.
| pfdietz wrote:
| If sufficiently intense oversight is needed at the
| boundary then outsourcing becomes uneconomical. This is
| something SpaceX found (and also because external sources
| were often slow and expensive.)
| everforward wrote:
| Are you sure that applies to commodities with extremely
| high capital costs like mining and refining ore?
|
| It sort of makes sense to me with SpaceX. They're
| presumably buying fairly boutique parts that likely
| already require custom manufacturing, so someone is
| spending capital either way. I can see how it might make
| sense for them to build a custom manufacturing line
| instead of paying someone else.
|
| That seems odd for commodities like titanium, though.
| Even if Boeing were to do it themselves, that oversight
| process is already a subset of the mining and refining
| process. They're going to have to build out their QA lab
| either way.
| pfdietz wrote:
| The weasel word "sufficiently" was doing the heavy
| lifting.
| caminante wrote:
| _> If sufficiently intense oversight is needed at the
| boundary then outsourcing becomes uneconomical._
|
| 1. That doesn't make outsourcing "bad" before the cost
| benefit analysis. Commenters above are broadly blaming
| outsourcing.
|
| 2. As a thought experiment, specialized suppliers could
| be able to manage risks and costs cheaper due to absolute
| advantages. That's the whole point of outsourcing.
|
| 3. Mitigating the consequential and indirect damages to
| Boeing from this identity crisis could easily (my SWAG)
| justify hundreds of millions of dollars (another SWAG) in
| spend on better quality control audits.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| Other countries in some cases seem to have much less
| enforcement of anti fraud. In the US if a company is
| knowingly selling fraudulent material, I'm guessing they
| can get in legal trouble for fraud? Does that happen in
| e.g. China?
| caminante wrote:
| If it does, it does. If it doesn't, it doesn't.
|
| How is your question relevant?
| Beijinger wrote:
| "For all we know they bought it on wish.com."
|
| Source?
| chaostheory wrote:
| Not sure if this was technically outsourcing, but moving
| maintenance overseas to developing countries where agencies
| like the FAA have a much harder time to inspect the planes.
|
| https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-
| maintenance...
| therealpygon wrote:
| A company willing to have employees accidentally die when
| they come down with a case of the whistleblows would do
| things to make oversight more difficult? I'm shocked,
| shocked I tell you.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| The problem was buying titanium* from titanium* suppliers.
| datavirtue wrote:
| They certainly have to perform their own metallurgical
| analysis and certify the parts. Like, WTF?
|
| This is just hillbilly mom-and-pop bullshit.
| constantcrying wrote:
| >However much you can "save" by outsourcing...in a sufficiently
| fraud-plagued business environment, it's seldom worth it
| longer-term.
|
| Outsourcing is _mandatory_ if you are a company in aerospace.
| How would you even start making an airplane without
| outsourcing?
| drsnow wrote:
| I'd imagine by insourcing.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Probably Airbus single most important supplier is CFM who
| is making most of their engines. CFM is a JV of Safran and
| General electric. How do you insource that?
| bell-cot wrote:
| Literally, true.
|
| But, just like that fraud-plagued business environment,
| _scale_ is what really matters. If you had 10X fewer
| suppliers, each with 10X fewer second-tiers, and so on down
| the chain...then how much easier would it be for Purchasing
| 's QC people to stop sub-spec crap from reaching your factory
| floor?
| stn8188 wrote:
| I feel like this goes for personal life too. My particular
| problem du jour: some parts internal to my lawn mower engine
| crankcase self destructed and the engine needs a total rebuild
| or replacement. I replaced the camshaft 2 years ago with a
| cheapo Amazon part and I'll forever be kicking myself wondering
| if saving $20 on that destroyed a $1k (new price) engine.
| therealpygon wrote:
| Don't beat yourself up...you're probably right. Joking aside,
| with Amazon, you just never know whether you are going to get
| a hardened forged steel item, or pot-metal. You can't even
| count on that "stainless steel bowl" actually being stainless
| at all these days. That whole marketplace is a grand example
| of the exact problem with outsourcing. These days you can't
| even rely on price or brand being an indicator of what you
| will receive (with the counterfeits and intentional
| overpricing of sub-par items).
| datavirtue wrote:
| Amazon has turned into WalMart. Literally all of your
| choices for a product are a variation of the same cheap
| crap with different brand names. I would love to have a
| midling priced item of better quality. Not available.
|
| The retailers job used to be offering the best value to
| their customers by filtering out the crap that was too
| cheap or overpriced.
| Lisdexamfeta wrote:
| It seems like Boeing has an exceptional amount of normalizing
| deviance.
| pimlottc wrote:
| For the company as a whole, no, it's not worth it long term.
|
| For the division chief who smashed their targets, got a big
| bonus and a promotion, and used it to jump to a higher-paying
| role at another company? You better believe it was worth it!
| janalsncm wrote:
| It's one of the things that's fundamentally broken in our
| economic algorithm. There is genuine innovation, and then there
| is simply borrowing against the future. It's really hard to
| tell the difference, and even if you can, the market can still
| behave irrationally.
|
| Even ignoring the political question of how things could be
| changed in practice, I am struggling to imagine ways to align
| incentives better.
| JSDevOps wrote:
| How the fuck do you counterfeit titanium it's one of those things
| that is either or it's not.
| Marazan wrote:
| If I show you a lump of metal and I tell you it is titanium how
| do you know I am not lying?
| DannyBee wrote:
| 1. It will be non-magnetic
|
| 2. Easiest, most accessible testing method is scratching it
| on tile or glass. When scratched against glass (or ceramic
| tile), steel will probably leave a real scratch, aluminum
| will do nothing, titanium will leave a pencil-like line.
| gorbypark wrote:
| I am guessing that it was real titanium, just a different
| grade/alloy/treating process being passed off as something
| it was not or it's possible it's even the same
| quality/grade, just of unknown provenance (fell off the
| back of a truck) and its documents were forged. Seems kinda
| likely as Boeing says (as I understand from the article)
| they have tested the parts and it's the correct grade of
| titanium.
| DannyBee wrote:
| Sure, i answered the literal question.
|
| You are correct that this is what the article says -
| testing suggests it is in fact titanium, just maybe not
| the right treatment.
|
| That would be harder, but one would think that a company
| making airframes for aviation, in a highly regulated
| environment/etc, would occasionally send off samples to
| double check them.
|
| Getting titanium analyzed to a degree you could tell
| whether it is the right grade/alloy is cheap and fast -
| _I_ can get it done for <$100 per sample.
|
| Given the cost of what they are producing, how few they
| produce, and how much they sell them for, and how quickly
| you can get this kind of thing done, they could test
| every single lot of titanium they get and neither
| increase cost, nor slow down production.
|
| This also isn't a case where there are lots of people in
| the middle - this supplier is the ones machining and
| producing the final product from titanium alloys.
|
| Also, if you change suppliers, wouldn't you at least test
| the stuff they give you the first time?
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| For all we know, Spirit could have had sufficient
| testing, and the titanium actually pass all tests. That
| doesn't preclude fraudulent certificates.
| DannyBee wrote:
| Except the article says they only tested it after they
| found corrosion reported back to them (IE they did not
| discover or test it ahead of time), and that testing they
| have now done says it is _not_ treated properly.
|
| So it doesn't appear Spirit has sufficient testing, or
| that the titanium passes all the tests.
| scherlock wrote:
| Ohh, I've done this. I bought some titanium bike parts and I
| was suspicious if they were titanium. I measured the weight
| of the bolts then dropped them in a graduated cylinder to get
| the volume, mass divas by volume is density, I then looked up
| the density and it was the same.
| satiated_grue wrote:
| I see you have studied your Agrippa^H^H^H^H^H^H^H
| Archimedes.
| maicro wrote:
| Another literal answer to this question - spark testing. Take
| a sample to a grinder/belt sander and observe the sparks
| coming off - fairly crude, but you should be able to tell the
| difference between aluminum (no sparks), steel (mostly
| orange-ish) and titanium (white)[0]. That's really only
| enough to tell you the general material type though - the
| alloy and temper are also extremely important, as others in
| this comment chain have said.
|
| [0] - https://youtu.be/GnSBSKTC834?t=504 - not super happy
| with this video for a quick overview to provide to people,
| but this timestamp does cover this specific discussion; if I
| find a different video that covers the differences more
| broadly, I'll link it here.
| whymauri wrote:
| Inspections for aerospace parts are, in theory, a bit more
| involved than just 'looking at it.'
| smcin wrote:
| The article says it needs to be treated to be aviation-grade,
| in some Boeing-approved process.
| DannyBee wrote:
| Depending on the alloy, they solution treat it and heat treat
| it.
| Bad_CRC wrote:
| I have a titanium plate on my wrist and this make me very
| nervous...
| mrspuratic wrote:
| the strength to weight ratio is fortuitous, but this
| application is for its biocompatibility.
| jordanb wrote:
| Improper alloying, improper heat treating, improper
| rolling/forming.
|
| Trying to back out what you actually have (if you don't trust
| the supply chain) can be expensive metallurgical analysis
| involving destructive testing, spectrometers, and electron
| microscopes.
|
| The real way industry solves this problem is mill test reports
| produced by the suppliers and careful documentation of chain-
| of-custody.
|
| Unless you don't care, then you just buy whatever from China
| and pretend you trust the counterfeit documentation that comes
| with it.
| Arnt wrote:
| Oddly enough, this one seems to pass at least some testing
| even despite the phony documentation.
|
| This seems to be about this titan: <<Boeing and Airbus both
| said their tests of affected materials so far had shown no
| signs of problems.>> I read this as implying that Airbus has
| been buying other things from the same source and done its
| own tests on samples: <<"Numerous tests have been performed
| on parts coming from the same source of supply," an Airbus
| spokeswoman said...>>
|
| Is the documentation process expensive enough that it's worth
| faking it even when the tested material is OK? Weird if so.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| You can't really test. The tests you can do don't actually
| tell you what you really need to know.
|
| You can't prove the material is good, you can only trust
| that the material is good, and 50 years later observe how
| it held up.
|
| You can't find out the distribution of the alloy
| ingredients, or detect voids, or crystal structures, or
| traces of other elements, except by sawing the part in half
| and looking at the cut surface.
|
| You can't find out the critical properties by looking at
| it. All you can do is be sure you know the full truth of
| the history of the material and the part. You only know
| that if a certain recipe is followed, then the material
| will be good. You have to trust that the supplier did do
| the recipe exactly as specified. You can't look at the part
| after the fact and tell that. Even stress testing to
| failure doesn't tell you that because the material may pass
| the test today but fail from fatigue over time.
|
| The only empirical test is actual use in actual conditions
| for the full actual time.
|
| You can accelerate some tests, and failing an accelerated
| test obviously proves the material was bad, but it doesn't
| go the other way. Passing an accelerated test does not
| prove that the material is good for actual use in actual
| conditions for the full normal time.
|
| The end of the article has it right, if the parts seem ok
| from what testing is possible, then they are probably ok
| for this minute, and it's probably good enough to just
| replace them at the first opportunity during routine
| maintenance.
| Arnt wrote:
| I'm curious:
|
| I assume that the documentation asserts something
| acceptable about the manufacturer testing (accelerated,
| destructive, what have you). In theory it could assert
| that the production process was such and such without any
| information about resulting quality assurance, but that
| seems improbable.
|
| Why can't those tests be repeated (on samples,
| obviously)?
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Because it's not just about testing. Like in high-quality
| software, testing is only the final step. The primary
| determinant of quality is the source material and how
| it's processed, and testing can't completely prove
| whether or not it was processed correctly.
| schlauerfox wrote:
| Reminds me of when a favorite restaurant is bought and
| changes just enough to not be a favorite anymore, despite
| seemingly having the same menu. That feels like a similar
| analogy. Engineering has important details in the
| subtlety.
| albrewer wrote:
| > expensive metallurgical analysis involving destructive
| testing, spectrometers, and electron microscopes
|
| I used to work in a pressure vessel fabrication shop (for
| customers like Shell and Exxon). We had a few handheld mass
| spectrometers for exactly this purpose. Destructive testing
| was achieved with what we called a "coupon", a piece of metal
| that ostensibly went through every treatment the base part
| did. The coupon was destructively tested, then etched and
| examined with a metallurgical microscope. This level of
| inspection is achieved by every ASME BPVC VIII compliant fab
| shop in the US and Canada; many of which are very, very
| small.
|
| Boeing is outright negligent here if they didn't qualify
| their parts.
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| The article mentions that the CoC may have been falsified,
| but I also wonder if part of this is they had falsified
| coupon testing/inspection documentation (or likely pulled a
| "good" coupon test and said it was for that batch). They
| definitely did not test any coupons after receipt though
| since the testing by Spirit after the fact confirmed that
| "the material passed some of the materials testing
| performed on it but failed others"
|
| I cannot imagine (I say hopefully) that there is not some
| level of testing here, but I wonder if they were relying on
| supplier testing and the authenticity of that. But in that
| case I would also assume that there would be some source
| inspection of the supplier. These might all be bad
| assumptions, unfortunately, but this is coming from my
| experience working in aerospace on the space side of
| things.
| hinkley wrote:
| CoC -> Chain of Custody for those out of the loop.
|
| That's how you make sure Honeywell actually made this
| particular part, that your QA signed off on it, and that
| this particular one was used for stress tests and thus
| must never, ever end up in the spare parts bin.
| mk_stjames wrote:
| When you hear 'Titanium' mentioned in an engineering sense,
| rarely is this a reference to elemental titanium alone;
| structures use alloys of titanium which means small percentages
| of other metals are added (aluminum and vanadium for example
| are the two principle alloying metals in Grade 5 titanium,
| 6AL4V, probably the most common in aerosapce applications), and
| then the wrought products are even further processed through
| solution heat treating, etc. The same goes for aluminum,
| steels, etc. This is the purpose of the entire field of
| metallurgy....
|
| Your comment would be like the equivalent in computer science
| of saying "Why do you need to write a computer program; the
| computer either works or it doesn't..."
| mrspuratic wrote:
| recent: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38394635 The
| story of titanium
| zardo wrote:
| In addition to the actual alloy the paperwork could cover
| x-ray inspection for defects.
| Animats wrote:
| Titanium is metallurgy on hard mode.[1] Iron and steel behave
| in a much more consistent way.
|
| [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09
| 215...
| hinkley wrote:
| This year I learned titanium shavings are at least as
| dangerous as magnesium shavings.
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| And even after you get past the manufacturing, titanium
| also seems to have some weird corner cases. I learned
| recently about metal induced embrittlement of titanium [0].
| The Wikipedia article mentioned cadmium embrittlement of
| titanium, but is also possible with copper and silver. So
| if you have a silver plated washer pressed in to titanium
| it can cause issues.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal-
| induced_embrittlement
| rjsw wrote:
| People designing and using CAD systems don't care about
| materials, it is just "stuff" with a name.
| shrubble wrote:
| Most titanium has a small amount of ruthenium alloyed with it,
| which greatly increases corrosion resistance. So there should
| be chemical ways to test for it.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Answer I: Real-world materials are _vastly_ more complex than
| "it's titanium, or it's not". Not that our craptastic modern
| educational system teaches such things, unless you're taking
| specialized engineering courses or technical training. For a
| skim, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy
|
| Answer II: In theory, the headline should have said something
| like "Components which had falsified documentation to assert
| that they fully complied with Aerospace Engineering
| Specifications [long list of cryptic technical specification
| codes here] for Titanium...". But, outside of Ph.D.-authored
| articles in the (fake name) Journal of Aerospace Engineering
| Research, that's not how mass-market modern journalism works.
| carabiner wrote:
| What is it with SWE's and binary thinking? No, titanium and any
| metal alloy is a huge spectrum of materials. There are
| thousands of steels, aluminums and so on.
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| Treatment, alloyed metals along with it, grain structure,
| manufacturing process.
|
| If you want an easily accessible intro to how metal treatment
| affects it's material properties go watch Forged in Fire. It is
| a blacksmithing game show where they make knives/swords but
| they go in to some of the reasons on why
| heating/cooling/forging metal in different ways can affect the
| structure of the metal and the strength of it with the exact
| same materials.
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| You falsified documentation about the titanium's quality.
|
| Side note: some things never change. Here's an ancient tablet,
| From someone complaining about the quality of copper they were
| sold.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-n%C4%...
| qwerpy wrote:
| "JavaScript engineer confidently makes assertion about actual
| engineering"
| DannyBee wrote:
| "The material, which was purchased from a little-known Chinese
| company, "
|
| Clearly they are ordering this stuff on aliexpress!
| therealpygon wrote:
| Or they "shopped like a billionaire" on Temu.
| nxobject wrote:
| Or, god forbid, from a Sumerian merchant...
| agomez314 wrote:
| Archive link?
| baud147258 wrote:
| this: https://archive.is/GXshA ?
| draven wrote:
| https://archive.is/MXtEe
| Simulacra wrote:
| Do aviation parts have traceability? Like a serial number or qr
| code that can be used to identify suspect components?
| ramses0 wrote:
| LoL, I think aviation traceability goes down to which licensed
| individual installed each screw down to the date, time, hour,
| and minute.
|
| Further traceability goes back into the parts inventory, where
| I'm not sure of the commingling requirements on something like
| screws, but (eg) brake pads would almost certainly be traceable
| to the supplier and then manufacturer.
|
| https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fdisciples...
| sofixa wrote:
| Supposedly, anyway. You also have the lovely incompetent
| folks at Boeing who can't even tell you who worked on
| removing a plug door and who forgot to put back the bolts
| holding it down. Thankfully that's a crime though, so
| hopefully someone (ideally both the fools who did this, and
| all their managers and managers' managers that cultivated
| such a culture to allow for such a thing to happen) will go
| to prison over it.
| constantcrying wrote:
| >Do aviation parts have traceability? Like a serial number or
| qr code that can be used to identify suspect components?
|
| Are you kidding? I doubt there is a single industry which
| empathizes traceability more than aerospace.
| 1992spacemovie wrote:
| > Are you kidding?
|
| He's not kidding - just ignorant. Another long running
| comment on HN where folks think every other industry is as
| fucked as tech.
| reaperman wrote:
| Maybe biomedical devices or pharmaceuticals. I'm not sure but
| they're at least competitive in that ranking.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Nope. I work in medical devices and aviation has higher
| levels of traceability, at least in software anyway.
| pfdietz wrote:
| A famous crash caused by a hidden defect in titanium:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232
|
| The accident wasn't total only because of magnificent actions of
| the flight crew.
| TomatoCo wrote:
| To belabor the point and repeat a bit from Wikipedia, this was
| bar-none the absolute perfect flight crew possible. A flight
| crew with over 65000 hours experience and, riding as a
| passenger, a training pilot with a further 23000 who had
| specifically practiced this exact failure (total loss of
| hydraulics) after a lost craft four years prior.
|
| For further reading,
| https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/fields-of-fortune-the-cr...
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Reminds me of the Gimli Glider, and the incredible
| coincidence of having an experienced glider pilot as the
| Captain of that flight:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider
| abofh wrote:
| You hear about the coincidences that work out, you're
| unlikely to hear about the pilot who was a professional
| glider who landed his regular flight at Dulles.
|
| Thousands of planes in the air every day, that one with
| engine failure has a pilot who practices without engines
| isn't surprising. I'd be more surprised if he was a skilled
| mechanic who repaired the engine in situ.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| This blurb from the wiki stood out to me
| Despite the fatalities, the accident is considered a good
| example of successful crew resource management. A majority of
| those aboard survived; experienced test pilots in simulators
| were unable to reproduce a survivable landing. It has been
| termed "The Impossible Landing" as it is considered one of
| the most impressive landings ever performed in the history of
| aviation.
| tivert wrote:
| > crew resource management
|
| That doesn't mean what I'd assumed it would by mean just
| looking at the term.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management
| rpmisms wrote:
| Airlines have figured out that people suck at
| multitasking.
| tim333 wrote:
| That's quite an impressive story. Also with quite a lot about
| how hard it is to use titanium properly.
| ckw wrote:
| Errol Morris mini-documentary on the event:
| https://youtu.be/o8vdkTz0zqI?si=8_Be_zNPTOq9iZEF
| neilv wrote:
| > _Spirit is trying to determine where the titanium came from,
| whether it meets proper standards despite its phony
| documentation, and whether the parts made from the material are
| structurally sound enough to hold up through the projected life
| spans of the jets, company officials said. Spirit said it was
| trying to determine the most efficient way to remove and replace
| the affected parts if that ended up being necessary._
|
| Why are they even considering keeping the counterfeit parts in?
|
| Is the situation that Spirit AeroSystems believes the eventual
| answer will be that the aircraft can't be used with known-
| counterfeit parts, but they're dancing around liability or PR, or
| they don't want to grandstand upon their customers' toes?
| tim333 wrote:
| It's not exactly counterfeit parts. It's that the paperwork for
| the titanium supplied wasn't right. So I guess it could be ok
| titanium with just bad paperwork rather than bad titanium. Also
| I guess it costs a lot to change.
| neilv wrote:
| IIUC, the paperwork is a major part of the part.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| A few decades ago:
|
| I talked with a business man who said that the Chinese would
| absolutely perform to contract but no more. Early samples would
| be excellent, full production would be exactly and only what you
| asked for. Almost malicious compliance.
|
| I talked with a Chinese salesperson who said they always signed
| contracts with foreigners using their English name. Such
| contracts are unenforceable. Almost malicious compliance.
|
| It's hard for me to have sympathy for complaining about people
| doing the least they can when you're trying to pay the least you
| can.
| abakker wrote:
| Required reading: "Poorly made in china" by Paul Midler. Truly
| a great look at exactly how this happens.
| gumby wrote:
| I heartily second this recommendation.
| lupusreal wrote:
| > _Spirit Aerosystems, based in Wichita, Kansas, which raised the
| alarm on the titanium issue_
|
| Heh, they're the good guys in this story apparently.
| silisili wrote:
| For anyone reading this, Spirit Aerosystems is -not- Spirit
| Airlines. Different company, they manufacture aircraft parts
| for Boeing, Airbus, etc.
| chris_va wrote:
| And install door plugs (or not, as the case may be)
| HeWhoLurksLate wrote:
| Hey now, that was done by Boeing
| nickff wrote:
| According to most reporting, Spirit removed, then failed
| to re-install the door.
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/boeing-loose-bolts-alaska-
| airli...
| ajross wrote:
| Yes, but to be fair the reporting is incomplete because
| the Boeing-maintained records of the maintenance were
| incomplete in seemingly-deliberate ways. So... we just
| don't know. At least one, plausibly two bad guys there.
| lupusreal wrote:
| As far as I can make out, Spirit employees (probably with
| the knowledge and tacit approval of management, because
| that's the way these things usually go) found a loophole
| in the record system that allowed them to avoid
| triggering QA checks. Boeing has blame for creating a
| system with such a loophole, or failing to find it before
| it was used, but it was Spirit personnel who actually
| used it.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Reminds me of an MBA that worked for a customer. Figured
| out how to silently force various production tests in
| order to ship product faster.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| I watched a documentary that said Spirit came when the Boeing
| bean counters divided up the company to make a quick profit
| and be able to shift Blake to Spirit. They replaced vertical
| integration with circular blame.
| nimbius wrote:
| If at first your accountability fails, blame your suppliers.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Perhaps they came from a certain Republic of Crimea?
|
| I've glanced the article but didn't figure out the source.
| wannacboatmovie wrote:
| Another article said it was sourced from the Chinese. This
| detail was suspiciously deleted from this one.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Turkish supplier who reportedly got it from a Chinese
| supplier, and where they got it from is unknown since the
| Chinese supplier apparently forged the certificates using the
| name of a Chinese source (apparently in good standing) who
| say they did not make it. The actual source at this point is
| unknown, only a couple links in the supply chain.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe]
|
| Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40679599
| ajross wrote:
| The headline is spun. The text of the article doesn't allege
| "counterfeit titanium", only that the paperwork chain contains
| (according I guess to an audit done internally at Spirit)
| counterfeit _documents_. What that says about the metal itself is
| unknown. It seems more likely to me to be legitimate _but stolen_
| titanium than it does to be fake material.
|
| It's not really feasible to fake something like a raw metal.
| Nothing else looks like titanium, nothing has the weight
| properties, even things like smells are different between metals
| that come out of different processes and tarnish in different
| ways. Basically by the time you got something that wouldn't be
| noticed by the assembly crews you'd have spent so much you might
| as well just have bought stolen titanium on the black market.
| nickff wrote:
| It's also possible that they're using an alloy which is not
| easily detected, or that the titanium is in a part which was
| painted or otherwise coated before receipt by Spirit
| ajross wrote:
| > an alloy which is not easily detected
|
| Seems implausible. Again, Ti is way out on the edge of
| properties, being intermediate between steel and aluminum in
| weight and stiffer than either. That alloy would be a pretty
| novel thing, and novel metallurgy is more expensive than the
| hot Titanium someone stole from a bomber graveyard in
| Siberia.
| nickff wrote:
| According to Wikipedia, Ti alloys are commercially
| available, and used in aviation.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium_alloys
| dbuder wrote:
| Asif they don't have a handheld XRF to check everything
| that comes off the truck, the concern is the quality.
| Lio wrote:
| Sorry but I don't think it's implausible at all.
|
| Outside of medical usage I think most commercial use of
| "titanium" is actually titanium alloys.
|
| I'm sure I read somewhere there's over 50 commercial grades
| so substituting one for another close but cheaper grade
| with forged paperwork is very plausible.
| loeg wrote:
| Titanium isn't stiffer than steel. It's around half as
| stiff. It is also about half as dense, so the strength-for-
| weight is somewhat better. But you need more of it to
| achieve the same strength.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| It's likely laundered through China from Russia bypass avoid
| sanctions.
| braincat31415 wrote:
| Titanium is mostly not on the sanctioned list. In a few
| countries where is sanctioned (like Canada), exemptions are
| available.
| type0 wrote:
| https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2024-03-21/russia-
| wa...
| CPLX wrote:
| The reason they found it is because it had suspicious physical
| properties.
| ajross wrote:
| Not per the linked article. In fact Spirit goes so far as to
| claim they've done extensive testing to prove the material's
| airworthiness, which is pretty much a straight refutation.
| Are you reading from somewhere else?
| CPLX wrote:
| It was corrosion inconsistent with the expected properties
| of the material.
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/boeing-
| air...
| samatman wrote:
| Yes, this is clearly the case. The phrase "counterfeit
| titanium" doesn't even make sense, because something
| counterfeit has the wrong provenance, and the provenance of an
| alloy or element isn't a meaningful property. You could say
| "counterfeit Krugerrands", but "counterfeit gold" doesn't make
| sense.
|
| Now, it could be _ersatz_ titanium, except that the article
| specifically says that it isn 't:
|
| > _Spirit added that "more than 1,000 tests have been completed
| to confirm the mechanical and metallurgical properties of the
| affected material to ensure continued airworthiness."_
|
| and
|
| > _Boeing said in an emailed statement: "This industry-wide
| issue affects some shipments of titanium received by a limited
| set of suppliers, and tests performed to date have indicated
| that the correct titanium alloy was used."_
|
| I agree with a sibling comment that this is probably about
| evading sanctions on Russian titanium, which is produced in
| such quantity that the US obtained it through intermediaries to
| build the SR-71 Blackbird.
|
| It's also possible that these are counterfeit titanium _parts_
| , as in, real titanium, but not from the source that the
| documents claim. The article doesn't make that clear one way or
| the other.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40679599 - NYT article
| and discussion, archive link at the top
|
| > It's also possible that these are counterfeit titanium
| parts, as in, real titanium, but not from the source that the
| documents claim. The article doesn't make that clear one way
| or the other.
|
| The parts were made by Spirit (so not counterfeit) using the
| "counterfeit" titanium. Both articles are discussing the
| provenance of the titanium used by Spirit (and others, but
| this article focuses on Spirit), not the provenance of parts
| made of titanium.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Russian titanium, which is produced in such quantity
|
| Russia is what, third on the list of countries by titanium
| production? [0] Japan produces more. China produces quite a
| lot more. It should not be -that- hard to avoid using Russian
| titanium.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium_production_by_country
| braincat31415 wrote:
| There is a general shortage of titanium. It would be hard.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _not really feasible to fake something like a raw metal_
|
| Metals come in various grades. That comes down to chemical
| purity, in case of commercially pure, and consistency, in case
| of alloys. But also crystal structure of the metal.
| daniel_reetz wrote:
| >It's not really feasible to fake something like a raw metal.
|
| No one is trying to pass aluminum or steel as titanium.
|
| It's pretty straightforward to pass one titanium alloy as
| another, or claim provenance or material properties it doesn't
| have. I have two indistinguishable scrap pieces on my desk
| right now, one Grade 5 and one Grade 2. It's also possible to
| pass a billet or sheet of alloy with defects or poor quality
| control, voids, or inclusions. "Titanium" is a broad class of
| materials that are indistinguishable without exotic tools like
| XRF guns, or, in this case, a well documented and trusted
| supply chain.
|
| Alloy substitutions and similar fraud happen all the time. It
| can even be the same alloy but have issues in post treatment
| and not meet spec. Here's a case where a NASA supplier was
| committing this fraud for over 20 years. It included fraudulent
| documentation, but the material itself was not up to spec:
|
| https://www.sciencealert.com/a-supplier-was-delivering-fault...
| ajross wrote:
| > It's pretty straightforward to pass one titanium alloy as
| another,
|
| Sure, but per my actual point: characterizing the wrong alloy
| as "counterfeit titanium" is misleading, no? If I hand you a
| nickel when you expected a quarter, did I give you
| "counterfeit money"? No, I gave you the wrong thing.
|
| Cheating on material provenance is fraud. It's not
| "counterfeiting", and for a journalist to claim so is
| misleading spin. A counterfeit is something deliberately
| constructed in imitation of something else, it's not just a
| low grade substitute.
| codetrotter wrote:
| > A counterfeit is something deliberately constructed in
| imitation of something else, it's not just a low grade
| substitute.
|
| But what if the lower grade substitute was specifically
| produced with the goal in mind of passing it off as this
| other kind?
| jdavis703 wrote:
| Spirit believed it was buying a specific, certified
| titanium alloy.
|
| Imagine the rabbis at Hebrew National were out sick, but
| Hebrew National continued churning out "Kosher hotdogs"
| that hadn't been properly vetted.
|
| Sure it's still a hotdog made with kosher ingredients. But
| it's a major violation of trust. And trust is what
| consumers expect when flying.
| lupusreal wrote:
| It's not spun, you're just being overly literal. They're not
| talking about pure elemental titanium, _alloy_ is implicit
| here. And even if it were a matter of pure titanium, passing
| off an alloy as that would also make it counterfeit.
| hehdhdjehehegwv wrote:
| It's hard not to think this is just the FAA trying to protect
| Boeing again by making it look like Airbus is equally bad.
|
| FAA should just be rehoused under department of commerce where
| the job is actually to promote and protect American business
| interests.
|
| At least then we can admit we have no regulatory oversight of
| aviation safety. Let's be honest as a country for once.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| The false provenance was discovered by an Italian company, and
| then Spirit did their own investigation and found they had
| titanium from the same supplier with the same issue of false
| provenance. Spirit notified both Boeing and Airbus. Spirit
| produces parts for both Boeing and Airbus. This isn't about the
| FAA helping Boeing cover their asses, this is a real issue that
| impacts both Boeing and Airbus since the titanium ended up in
| planes from both companies.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| NASA had issues with falsified tests of aluminium not long
| ago[1], reportedly costing them $700 million in losses[2].
|
| Though buying from a relatively little known Chinese vendor
| without thorough testing on your own seems a bit reckless.
|
| [1]: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/aluminum-extrusion-
| manufactur...
|
| [2]: https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nasa-metals-
| fraud-201...
| BooneJS wrote:
| The FAA has their hands full investigating problems _after_ they
| become problems. Are airplanes in a race to the bottom or is
| there an opportunity to inject quality and reliability into this
| industry?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _FAA has their hands full investigating problems _after_ they
| become problems_
|
| The FAA is constantly auditing, certifying and testing airmen,
| airplanes and plants. They have their hands full. But it's
| totally incorrect to say they're an _ex post facto_
| investigations agency.
| dsr_ wrote:
| Right, that's the NTSB.
| nucleardog wrote:
| > The FAA is constantly auditing, certifying and testing
| airmen, airplanes and plants.
|
| Are they?
|
| Much of the work that would be done to inspect and certify
| the planes being manufactured was outsourced to the
| manufacturers to increase efficiency.
|
| They build their planes, inspect their planes, inspect and
| approve modifications and major repairs to their planes, and
| issue their own airworthiness certificates for their planes.
|
| For a long while, the FAA was barely even involved in rubber
| stamping whoever Boeing et al appointed as FAA inspectors at
| their plants, never mind inspecting and certifying the planes
| themselves--in 2016 the Transportation Department said more
| than 85% of the tasks associated with certification were
| delegated from the FAA to the manufacturer's own inspectors.
| By 2018, the FAA said that Boeing was handling 96% of the
| certification process.
|
| There were some reforms around 2021 (737 MAX crashes were
| 2018 and 2019), but they were mostly focused on improving the
| self inspection program, not solving the fundamental problem
| of having companies certify their own work.
|
| > But it's totally incorrect to say they're an ex post facto
| investigations agency.
|
| While the inspections and certifications have been delegated
| by the FAA and _technically_ are still done in the name of
| the FAA, the reality certainly looks much more like the FAA
| proper is only involved _after_ significant safety issues.
|
| I really don't think it's quite as clear cut as you make it
| out to be.
| 1jbdg wrote:
| Seems like there is a lot of criticism of the FAA while
| ignoring real time cuts to their budget. Looking at 2005
| they had 14bn, 22.5bn in today's money. Last years budget
| was 18.5bn.
|
| I am sure there is waste and opportunities for improvement
| but... that ignores the significant increase in flights,
| new planes etc. that has ballooned much faster than the
| crude time value of money calc above. Criticising them for
| doing less with, umm, less seems a bit rich. Especially as
| others (not necessarily you in this comment) then use that
| a reason for more cuts to agencies.
| bitcharmer wrote:
| Are you talking about the same FAA that allowed Boeing people
| to certify themselves?
| chaostheory wrote:
| The airlines moved maintenance overseas a few years ago, which
| make it harder for the FAA to inspect.
|
| https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance...
| exabrial wrote:
| > Spirit added that "more than 1,000 tests have been completed to
| confirm the mechanical and metallurgical properties of the
| affected material to ensure continued airworthiness."
|
| So basically, has nothing to do with safety? Is this simply Uncle
| Sam is mad he couldn't take a dip of the proceeds?
| throwaway9143 wrote:
| "I'm selling croissants."
|
| Gives you Haggis.
|
| "Well it's all food so what's the big deal, stop regulating
| me."
| filleduchaos wrote:
| That doesn't describe this case at all though? It's more like
| you got your croissants but without a name brand or receipt.
| empath75 wrote:
| This is such a dull, reflexively anti-government take that has
| absolutely nothing to do with the situation, the government
| isn't involved in certifying the authenticity of materials. In
| any case, Boeing is massively _subsidized_ by the federal
| government and not the other way around.
| exabrial wrote:
| so... yes?
| kube-system wrote:
| No, a primary purpose of the paperwork is also to guarantee
| safety.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| It wasn't exactly a secret that Russia was the world's leading
| titanium producer and it's not like any western country is doing
| much to catch up, so what's the big deal? If the origin of
| titanium is an issue, build the mines in USA or Canada.
| refulgentis wrote:
| This has nothing to do with anything in the article, or related
| material, it was China. and even if it did, is oddly flippant
| and fallacious, it's not sourcing that's the issue, it's the
| fake titanium.
| jjulius wrote:
| >... so what's the big deal?
|
| Counterfeit titanium may cause problems up to, and including,
| the plane crashing and killing everyone onboard.
| ordu wrote:
| _> what's the big deal?_
|
| Titanium needs to be processed carefully, to conform all
| specifications. Tiny impurities from atmospheric nitrogen can
| be fatal for a plane made from this titanium. So the supply
| chain must be known, certified or whatever.
| kube-system wrote:
| Russia is the 3rd largest producer of titanium sponge. But
| titanium sponge does not come from a mine. Ilmenite and rutile
| come from mines, and then is industrially processed to isolate
| the titanium.
|
| The mining of these ores isn't primarily in Russia:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/759972/mine-production-t...
| Retric wrote:
| Critically the material is still titanium. Some of the paperwork
| is counterfeit so there's concerns around quality control etc not
| what it is.
|
| _> Spirit is trying to determine where the titanium came from,
| whether it meets proper standards despite its phony
| documentation, and whether the parts made from the material are
| structurally sound enough to hold up through the projected life
| spans of the jets, company officials said. Spirit said it was
| trying to determine the most efficient way to remove and replace
| the affected parts if that ended up being necessary._
| _moof wrote:
| Unfortunately it's not enough for it to just be titanium. A
| hard alpha inclusion in an ingot used to make turbine blades
| was the root cause of the deaths of 112 people aboard United
| Airlines 232.
| lazyeye wrote:
| Ive often wondered whether poor quality counterfeit parts are
| being inserted into the supply chain as a form of industrial
| sabotage by competitors (including nation-states).
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-06-14 23:01 UTC)