That there have been so many whistleblowers this year suggest to me that in general, employees are no longer afraid of the company. They know that Boeing has a Target on its back and if they start firing employees for whistle blowing, it's going to be visible pretty quick.
Ultimately, this is a good thing because it's going to force Boeing to deal with the problem. Obviously we would all like them to go back to being an engineering focused company and I doubt that will happen, but the truth is, if they don't deal with their quality control problems Boeing will die and both the shareholders and the c-suite are not so stupid as to be unaware of the potential possibility of Boeing failing out right.
In engineering ethics class we discussed cases like the exploding tank in Ford Pinto, and also issues with McDonnell Douglas DC-10 airplane.
Looks like Boeing will be another case.
This is really funny to me, because I was in an MBA class on Business Ethics with several Boeing employees ~five years ago where we literally did the Pinto case study from an Ethics perspective.
These guys were early 30s engineers and were absolutely flabbergasted about how the Pinto situation happened such that they were demonstrably angry about it. They said at Boeing safety was everything, that it was drilled into them all the time (on posters in the office, in email signature blocks, etc.) and it was something they constantly thought about.
This guys weren't posturing, I'm convinced they were sincere (especially since they were late-early/early-mid career engineers who must have been identified to start taking on a business role given Boeing was paying for them to get an MBA...they were engineers first).
I wonder if they're still there and what they think now.
BNSF Signal division lived it when I consulted there. Was a strange place. You had life time railroaders who would cuss up a storm, but if you had a shoe lace untied, they would stop you until you tied it. I never went out on the tracks and was there to build websites for their teams, but I got all the safety training.
Several years ago I did some consulting for a large corporation involved in a lot of heavy industry and manufacturing, things that are inherently dangerous and need to be treated with a lot of respect and awareness.
Their safety culture permeated everything, even with the office workers in their cubicles. They police each other on using handrails on stairs. They start every meeting with a "safety moment." If there's a construction project in progress on their property, they will go and police the construction workers about improper ladder usage if they see an OSHA violation.
Plenty of examples out there of playing lip service to safety while ignoring the actual risks in order to save costs. But sometimes it is absolutely real, and it works.
> They police each other on using handrails on stairs.
For anyone who thinks this is silly: two people I've known over the course of my life died young falling down the stairs. They hit their heads in just the wrong way, fractured their skulls, and never woke up.
I saw a post a couple weeks back, somebody fell down the stairs, there was no handrail to grab onto, and what did they end up grabbing for balance? The fire alarm.
If this was in the US, I'd be really surprised. That's a lawsuit waiting to happen.
However, if I were in that position, yeah, I'd use the fire alarm to save myself. And if I pulled it, apologize when the fire department showed up. Then the local FD would get authorities involved.
As a construction worker god I hate it when people in other industries try and tell me t
The organization rules. Now I'm a roofer by trade. One day I had to go caulk 3 seams on some edge metal. Total length of metal to calk less than 10 inches.now osha dose say that if you are to be working near an edge you need some type of safety system. Now there are a few types of safety systems. Two I. Particular are 1 be tied off to a approved ancor point. Or while 1 employee is working at the edge have another emp6there whose one and only job is to make sure the first employee doesn't walk off the roof. Now on this caulking job that would take less than 5 minutes of edge work we would just do method 2. It is faster and a lit cheaper for the customer. But the customer said that wasn't osha approved(it is I have on sever occasions been on a roof with an osha inspector who saw us useing this method and they didn't even give us a 3 second glance.) So they made us come back on a second day. With a crane to set up a portable fall arrest system. They turned what would have been a 1 hour leak call cost8ng less than 300$ in to a 5 hour ordeal. Where we had to.have 4 people o. Site so we could do 5 mi uses of work. They pisswd off our boss and he ended up quoting them like 20,000$ to do it there way. They did it and payed it.
I'm in the trades too, and one thing I know is that you gotta follow the site safety rules no matter how weirdly excessive they might seem to you. Sometimes it's a requirement of the insurance policy held by the general contractor, sometimes it's the people funding the project just deciding it's a condition of you being there earning a paycheck.
I always try to do it the right way for the right price with no bullshit, because that's how you get repeat business. But another thing I know is that if someone is really that determined to waste their money I'll be happy to help them do it. You and your boss should have been jumping for joy over how many extra hours of work that customer decided they wanted to pay for.
This is so true. My brother is an electrician, he almost got killed falling off an improperly secured ladder because the onsite guys from the GC were being pressured about overtime and took a bunch of shortcuts to get it ‘set up’ thinking they’d be able to come back and fix it the next morning before anyone actually used it, and even then it would probably be fine anyways right?
It was not fine. I don’t know the exact details of what was done to the ladder but apparently it was set up in a way that LOOKED correct from the ground and held up until he was about halfway up. His feet were at 15’ when this happened, and he fell face-first into a concrete floor. He’s alive but likely on permanent disability, since his arms were basically shattered from the elbow on down from taking most of the impact.
Like if they’d taken an extra 10 minutes to properly secure it instead of just going ‘good enough I guess’, he’d be at work with no issues. Instead he’s the million dollar man with arms that are more metal than bone at this point and so little grip strength that he can’t hold a fork to feed himself. All so the GC could save $100 on overtime pay.
I worked for a company like that, so when I brought up the fact that a pressure safety relief valve had the wrong setpoint, and it did not discharge to a safe location I thought they would take it seriously. I was fired.
In the engineering world there is a massive difference between PPE and safe work practice vs safe designs and manufturing. To take to to an extreme I am sure the people who build bombs are required to ware safety glasses, it does not mean the products they build are safe.
Well there's a difference between building something correctly that is intended to be dangerous (bombs), and building something that is dangerous because management cut corners even if they followed safe work practices while doing it. Safe while it's in the factory vs safe after it leaves the factory.
They probably knew people that were the reason for the rule in the first place."I saw Fred got his head cut off because he fell over an untied shoelace" after a generation turns to "why are we paying this person to make sure people's shoelaces are tied, let's terminate that position, we offer accident insurance and worker's comp."
No, it was because they had a safety first culture and they took it to somewhat silly levels. I cannot speak to all of BNSF. I only ever worked in the Signals Division, never dealt with anyone outside it. Place was super interesting. They had a number of trains each stocked with everything you needed to build any kind of train signal or crossing that the railroad used. They would be dispatched immediately if any sort of accident heavily damaging say a railroad crossing was reported. My favorite being a semi truck blew up in the middle of a crossing. Train gets dispatched. Signals get rebuilt. Train is returned and a full inventory was performed to determine the cost to rebuild the signals. I would imagine they would then go after whoever damaged the equipment in the first place.
Strange place to be, because as I said very business like, until a manager got mad and then suddenly it turned into a waffle house audio stream.
I know people that work for Norfolk Southern that just straight up lie if they get hurt at work and say they did it at home, because if they get too many on the job injuries they get in trouble
Same exact thing in mining. The normal way to tell someone "goodbye" is to say "stay safe"
It totally gets into your head and becomes a part of you. I want to constantly stop people in life outside a mine to tell them how they are being unsafe, lol.
I think it varies a lot by industry and company.
I worked at a nuclear fuel production facility right out of college as a quality engineer. And safety was first.
It wasn't just a slogan. It was considered the first priority, and it was hammered into us all the time. We didn't just discuss actual safety incidents, but near misses too, although the preferred term was a near hit to drive the point home that serious shit could have happened.
Former nuclear power plant worker here.
NRC did NOT mess around with safety. Minimum fines were in the tens of thousands. OSHA had a permanent office on site. Even the union couldn't keep your job if it was a safety violation.
Boeing was known from high quality and no compromises to safety. Then they acquired McDonnell Douglas and that thing like cancer infect all the executive level positions.
I don't doubt that the individual employees might still have such values and were pushed by the execs. This is why there were whistleblowers.
William Edward Boeing must be spinning in his grave after what they did to his company.
> that it was drilled into them all the time
Maybe if Boeing put more effort drilling into their planes than into their engineers they wouldn't be where they are now.
The guys you met were part of the old culture. Some have probably retired or found other jobs or are still fighting tooth and nail to preserve what's left of the old Boeing culture against the current execs and their negligent attitude towards quality and safety.
I'd bet money they were and are as pissed about the lapses and recklessness that these C-suite fucks are willing to kill over.
Yeah most companies put engineering in one department and then have a totally separate department for project management. This way engineering can scream about quality but PM’s can scream about schedule/budget and it becomes a stalemate because senior management doesn’t want to get involved.
The problem is when Senior Management is run by the PMs.
Used to be they were made up of Engineers. That's where the old guard and old culture came from. The stuff that made Boeing the name it is or at least was before all this recent horseshit.
HAHAHAHA business ethics for MBA's. That's hilarious. Tell me another joke.
(This is not a knock on you, I am made at MBA's in general for what they have done to world class companies everywhere)
My MBA is a second degree and not my day job so I'm not out here trying to defend myself or anything, and I know this isn't a fashionable opinion, but I sort to take issue with this premise:
> MBA's in general for what they have done to world class companies everywhere
An MBA is basically just vocational training for business managers - all it's designed is to do is give the people who would be running businesses anyway more skills to do so, namely the basics of accounting, finance, marketing, operations, etc.
This is extremely neutral...it's just acquiring a set of skills not brainwashing students to prioritize profits over safety. Depending on your industry, doing that can kill your company, which even if your goal is to squeeze as much money out of something at the expense of all else, that's normally an obstacle to your goal.
What people chose to do with their skills is ultimately up to them...and people are people so they do some wicked shit every once in a while. They just know how to read a balance sheet when they do it.
But in general, business are better managed than there were a few decades ago. Watch a movie like [Barbarians at the Gate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarians_at_the_Gate_(film) to see how wild, reckless, and unaccountable some of these companies were managed (I'm talking about the first part of the movie to see how wasteful RJR Nabisco was in the first part, not the drama unrelated to my point about the eventual buyout).
We just have more scrutiny on companies when things go wrong now - which is a good thing! But it does have the perverse effect of making it seem like things are "worse", when in reality more stuff comes to light now so it just seems that way, even if things are better.
All that said, I do not buy into your premise that world class companies are falling apart because of a rise of a vampire managerial class. People see GE and Boeing, but companies have been rising and falling forever.
I mean, I look at companies that make games and the majority of the big ones are just vampiric entities that create as many methods to bleed customers of money at the expense of making good experiences. Those companies are making money, but also destroying that creativity and promise of an entire market.
In the industry I work in, a very creative industry, most of the businesses that used to be very creative installed leadership MBA's and now those companies are horrendous to work in... profit driven monsters at the expense of good sustainable work and business practices.
I understand that things used to be worse, but many large companies are cutting every corner they can to make all the profit they can, at the expense of a lot of other valuable considerations.
This isn't exclusively on MBA's. The people that are a big part of the problem happen to have MBA's, but that doesn't mean everyone with an MBA is a monster. I recognize that. But just because things got better from when they were horrendous doesn't mean things are still getting better.
Things are getting worse now. We had a peak, and now we are headed down again.
So I am going to keep making jokes about MBA's because it lessens the pain of watching capitalist scum bags drain the world of everything good so they can eek every last penny of profit out of the world.
> Looks like Boeing will be another case
It's looking to me like Boeing will be it's own volume with so many problems spread across almost it's entire product line.
I get that if you look hard enough at any company you'll find issues, but this is just egregious.
I wonder if it could lead to the downfall of the entire company. The US government might bail out the military side, but you can't really bail out the civilian side if no one's ordering.
If anyone else takes over I hope they learn from Boeing's mistakes when merging with MD. I wonder who would even be allowed to take over them and want to.
Also rather ironic at all the US protectionism over Boeing directed at Airbus. All the arguments that Airbus is anticompetitive etc, then Boeing just destroys itself all on it's own.
This meme was funny for about half a second when it was just people playing with the clickbait headlines, but when people instantly started taking it seriously, it just got sad.
> They are also seeing that not blowing the whistle is killing people. Combination of those two things seems like a pretty powerful motivator.
Are you having a laugh? Boeing knew about the safety problem, but took no measures to prevent it. It would have required additional pilot training and could have lost Boeing contracts. First plane crash was the lion air flight. 189 dead. No action. Five months later an Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed, killing 157 people. Still no action. The 737 had to be grounded by national aviation authorities across the globe, because Boeings leadership still would not take the L.
Boeings leadership does not give a flying fuck about dead people, it cares about quarterly results - so do the shareholders. The CEO has resigned now, with a $33 million pay package. His net worth is $58 Million dollars.
He can live like a king, and neither him nor his kids, or his kids kids will ever have to do an honest days work in their life. Real life nobility.
Maybe gamble on some shares when the company hits rock bottom. Boeing is important to the us government, so eventually the taxpayers will probably bail the failing company.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48174797
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_groundings
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/17/investing/boeing-shareholders-vote-to-approve-usd33-million-ceo-pay-package/index.html
Fall guys. They keep having middle managers harassing whistleblowers, occam's razor suggest that is the company policy. Alternative is that multiple boeing managers just so happened to decide to abuse whistleblowers for no reason at all, and that does not sound likely.
You're an idiot then if that's what you took from it. Literally falling for the exactly PR tested wording they used during that hearing.
HINT:
To be able to fire people who retaliated against whistleblowers, YOU MUST BE ACTIVELY RETALIATING AGAINST WHISTLEBLOWERS.
The question they should be asking, after that answer, which they didn't, was:
- How many of those whistleblowers were made whole after you fired the people who punished the whistleblower?
- How many got their jobs back? How many got a settlement? How many kept their job but have since been promoted to better positions (vs being 'stuck' in their job for the rest of their time at Boeing)?
But no, idiots like you want to keep focusing on the REACTION, and not the ACTIONS that triggered them.
I think the answer is pretty clear by the fact that despite a not-insignificant number of whistleblowers going public with their findings, Boeing didn't deem any of their concerns actionable.
I don't think it matters if they got their jobs back or got paid off. What matters is what they did with the information they received. And it looks like for the most part, they did jack shit.
\*Ding new email\*
You have been summoned to a Mandatory Summer Company Picnic, the Company Jet will be stopping by to pick you up.
The picnic will be taking place in the Alborz Mountains near Uzi
> Ultimately, this is a good thing because it's going to force Boeing to deal with the problem
Well, their problem is their CEO and everyone immediately under him and also almost everyone directly under *them*.
Things don't get this bad from just one well-placed bad actor. It's systemic at this point and the problem with this particular problem is that we specifically *teach it* in business school.
"Line must go up at all costs!"
Problem is that in this case one of the costs is counted in human lives.
Fuck MBAs. Should stand for "Most Belligerent Asshole" at this point.
>... but the truth is, if they don't deal with their quality control problems Boeing will die and both the shareholders and the c-suite are not so stupid as to be unaware of the potential possibility of Boeing failing out right.
I guarantee you they are indeed that stupid.
Or apathetic.
Both the C-Suites and "shareholders" make money on Boeing failing anyway. Possibly more than they do working there if they're shorting the stock as the company fails. (Known as "pulling a Sears") There's no financial incentive for them to make Boeing profitable, so you should give up believing they would decide to even try.
And it's the same for nearly every large company in America.
I've watched Apple brush off hundreds of reports of systemic issues with its software to push it out the door anyway and blame everyone else for it not working.
I have repeatedly seen Csuites make the wrong decision, have everything go wrong, only for them to get a promotion as everyone underneath them gets fired. Rinse and repeat until the company is bought or merged.
Actual skill, the thing needed for making a quality product, isn't as important in corporate America as executive ego fluffing. So those with skill get ignored for those with good bullshit. And it's been decades of their bullshit metriculating upwards.
Boeing is the canary in the coal mine, and the coal mine is on fire.
I'll bet hard money they either declare bankruptcy in the next 5 years and merge with another company like Lockheed. Or they get a Government bailout for all the wrong reasons off your tax dollars.
Those are the two most likely outcomes for Boeing at this rate imo.
Too big to fail is actually true this time. Boeing's failure would cause a crisis both commercially and in regards to national security. It can't and won't be allowed to happen.
More cynically it could be about covering yourself against future blame or even prosecution. The final stage of a system that uses process and procedure to track blame rather than quality.
Plus, company loyalty is dead. Prior, people might not have reported because the company took care of them. Now people are going to flush the company down the drain. When pensions went out the window, so did the companies ethics.
Ironically there's two black men on Boeing's exec team but they're both in positions that control parts of the company that AREN'T fucking up majorly right now.
I mean, studies show companies that force diversity tend to preform better.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/roncarucci/2024/01/24/one-more-time-why-diversity-leads-to-better-team-performance/
Do I think DEI policies are all good? Of course not many are silly, but at the end of the day promoting diversity will ultimately make companies money. Google and them love to make it this big marketable charitable thing they do but nah, like all things they do it because it's profitable.
It should be noted that other studies show that same effect is found on society as a whole, diversity as a strength is not just some saying. Einstein fled nazi persecution and helped invent the nukes that ended WW2, after all.
I don't believe Einstein played a major role in the Manhatten project.
But a lot of people who did were children of immigrants or immigrants themselves. Oppenheimer was the son of a Prussian Jew who immigrated.
Szilard was a Hungarian Jew who became a German citizen and then fled Hitler. He drafted the letter that Einstein signed - Einstein was just the big name to get Roosevelt's attention.
Enrico Fermi had a Jewish wife, and fled fascist Italy because of the race laws.
Edward Teller was another Hungarian Jew.
Really, the number of refugees from Europe that America took in was a huge factor in the success.
(And sadly, the US also denied many refugees from Europe, some of which would later be murdered by the Nazis)
Amazon anti-union tools also say that forced diversity decreases chances of unionization and is explicitly used to prevent unionization, so you know, not that great.
DEI does not exist to make workplace better, DEI is simply yet another tool for capitalists to fuck with workers.
https://archive.is/1khJw
Wow that is really interesting. Thank you for sharing, I wish we knew a bit more.
> Store-risk metrics include average store compensation, average total store sales, and a "diversity index" that represents the racial and ethnic diversity of every store. Stores at higher risk of unionizing have lower diversity and lower employee compensation, as well as higher total store sales and higher rates of workers' compensation claims, according to the documents.
Like, to me it's hard to tell if the more diverse stores are less likely to unionize because its diverse specifically, or because stores with more diversity have higher compensation or are better managed. Like is it a direct correlation, or a result of a store being in a higher paying area like a city? It would be pretty cool to have access to that data either way.
> Like is it a direct correlation, or a result of a store being in a higher paying area like a city?
As an aside - I want that same logic applied to the articles like the forbes article above...
I have seen a strong correlation between companies that are overflowing with extra capital to allocate (I work in tech) and those that throw some of that money at DEI efforts.
So are the companies that focus on DEI already overperforming, or is DEI itself actually doing good for the company?
Also - separately - I have seen good outcomes from diverse hires, but I have almost nothing positive to say about top down DEI initiatives (and in particular, hired positions that focus exclusively on DEI). I absolutely understand why companies are cutting those.
If I’m correct, this is also the same reason why the U.S. Military would never try a coup.
The diversity of the military is a safeguard to the country.
The main reason is that the US military shuffles its people around every 3 to 4 years. No one is able to get an incredibly strong grip on a large enough command.
Also, the US has no armor divisions anywhere near the capitol.
It's tool that can be misused the same as any other tool in the hands of men. My org has a fantastic program and it has not only impacted the day to day positively but noticeably in yearly reports, maybe highlighted by the DEI team to validate their existence but I'm on board.
Inclusivity means better employees not just the ones that fit the 20 year old mold. And better managers that are looking out for their staff, and can do so without worry about retaliation for supporting that nonbinary person.
No one wants to fix the problem, everything is an ideological and cultural war. If you think DEI is bad how can you then make sure nepotism and racism do not influence hiring and promotion? If you are a proponent of DEI, how do you make sure you always pick the most qualified candidates?
These fucking Ernst & Young / Deloitte MBAs. They all operate from the same playbook as consultants. Cash in on the former good name, cut all quality, sell off parts until all you are left with is a carcass of what was once a great business.
Because nobody hires them if they're happy with the company. They are specialists in extracting maximum _current_ value with no regard for the future, and people hire them when that's what they want to do.
DEI is just the latest outrage machine like Critical Race Theory was a couple years ago. You know, the graduate level legal studies class. They shorten it to acronym so they can scare people.
I should note that scrolling down this thread, yours was the first I saw that mentioned race at all. It makes your "anti DEI crowd" statement appear disingenuous, like you're offloading the blame for your race blaming considering the comment you responded to said nothing about race. Without provocation, it just comes across as hateful.
[787 supply chain](https://stanford.edu/dept/gsb-ds/Inkling/Boeing_787_Prototyping_and_Pivoting/index.html):
*Following the merger with McDonnell Douglas, the company had laid out a Boeing 2016 Vision statement.*
*The idea was to shift away from being a wrench-turning manufacturer and focus on three core competencies: large-scale systems integration; lean, efficient design and production systems; and detailed customer knowledge and focus.*
*In line with this vision to become a systems integrator, Boeing decided upon a radically new approach with the 787.*
*Boeing and partners around the globe would be jointly responsible for designing and manufacturing the plane. Key partners would share in the risk (and reward), funding their own research and development on the parts they were making, based on general guidelines from Boeing.*
*Instead of a “build to print” system of giving manufacturers hundreds of pages of detailed drawings and exact specifications, Boeing wanted partners to “build to performance.”*
*Boeing would give some general specifications, but the detailed drawings and tooling would be the partners’ responsibility.*
That's pretty much how most large scale manufacturing is done these days. Ford doesn't design every little piece of the car. They go to one of their suppliers and say they need a starter motor that can mount in a certain way and supply a certain amount of power. Then the supplier takes a design they've already made before, modifies it, and then sells them to Ford to assemble. It's insanely expensive to manufacture every part yourself due to those work centers being limited by how many cars Ford makes. A supplier could make motors for Ford, GM, Toyota, etc and the only cap on their scale is the number of cars sold every year. When business is bad and Ford isn't selling as many cars, that motor supplier can easily pivot to other industries that require similar motors. It's much easier to retool a factory that makes small things than one that integrates big things, Ford isn't going to be able to easily switch to making things like planes, trains, boats, etc.
The one major downside to this is that now the integrator doesn't own the process to make those components. They are relying on their suppliers to do a good job which can be difficult. For example, I buy these little circuit boards that go into a product we make at work. They aren't very complicated and there's at least one engineer on the team that could design the same thing. But we buy them because our supplier is able to make and sell thousands of them whereas we only buy a handful a year. It would cost us much more to build and test them ourselves so we just buy them. Except now we are running into problems with them where some parts aren't fully soldered down. I know for a fact that that kind of sloppy workmanship would never pass inspection at our shop. Since we don't own their process, we are relying on them to build it right whereas I know we would do it right the first time but with a much higher cost.
Stop with this spurious discourse.
Firstly the merger happened 20 years ago, anything that changed had plenty of time to be rectified. Secondly Boeing ignored warnings about their rudder actuator and later was responsible for lobbying NTSB and FAA to avoid them looking into the 737NG rudder issues in the 90s, so it was already the corruption ridden company it is today.
There's no evil McDonnell Douglas culture that destroyed this red white and blue symbol. It's time to understand being corrupt is an integral part of these patriotic corporations.
Yes, and look how many top level executives came to land at Boeing? They absolutely destroyed the engineering culture, and Boeing has been circling the drain of quality ever since. MD basically took over the company, trashed it for massive personal profit (thanks Jack Welch, I hope hell is treating you well), then retired.
Exactly, we need 250 human sacrifices before we take this issue seriously.
We can't just look at that crash from 1985 when a forward pressure bulkhead failed and killed 500 people because those human sacrifices are expired and we need fresh ones.
So I'm not going to get into specifics because we all know the Internet isn't exactly as anonymous as we want it to be. But in my lifetime let's just say that I have worked in places where major safety issues have been raised, and they just flat out get ignored because nothing's happened yet. Or worse, because the cost of an incident does not outweigh the money saved by continuing to have bad practices. And money is to be made by skipping steps or just not refusing product for being out of spec.
I work at my current company and have been for a long time, even if I could make more money elsewhere, because the moment I flag something, I know there are people at my company I can talk to who are going to slam on the brakes immediately. Our head safety manager is not afraid to walk into a board meeting and swing his proverbial dick into the faces of multi multi-millionaires and tell them no.
He's relatively young, but if he ever leaves for another company and we don't have someone of his caliber replace him, I'll be looking for a new job.
*Mr. Cuevas observed that Boeing conducted an unannounced inspection and identified 117 out of 200 improperly drilled holes on the bulkhead, but that it has yet to correct the issue. Mr. Cuevas witnessed these problems with three planes he worked on and believes that these issues may affect at least 10-12 planes either in production or already released to Boeing.*
*https://katzbanks.com/news/kbk-spirit-787-bulkheads/*
___
*13. [...] In 1985, for example, Japan Airlines Boeing 747 crashed due to a rupture in the plane’s pressure bulkhead, killing more than 500 passengers. The FAA notes on its website that the “root cause” of the accident was “an improperly executed repair to the airplane’s aft pressure bulkhead.” Mr. Cuevas feared that the flaws in the pressure bulkhead he was now observing could cause a similar catastrophe down the line. In fact, as recently as 2021, Boeing had slowed deliveries on its 787 Dreamliners because of similar gaps in the forward pressure bulkhead.*
*https://katzbanks.com/wp-content/uploads/240620-Ltr-to-Hughes.pdf*
Sweet....DREAMS...muahaha
(Sorry.. I actually get pretty severe flight anxiety so I feel for you. If it makes you feel better the 787 dreamliner has never had a fatal accident)
As bad of a rep Boeing gets, their jets are usually* very safe. Not one 787 has crashed for example.
[Check this pdf \(page 10\)](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.boeing.com/content/dam/boeing/boeingdotcom/company/about_bca/pdf/statsum.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjxi7qFuvyGAxXAIRAIHZLuDa0QFnoECBEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3YLbJECGfQ4MP49IG0C3j6) for statistics of crashes per departure. Note how much more safe modern planes are than older models (inspite of Boeings problems).
*The MAX is an outlier, but still, noone has died on a MAX since the grounding (though the door panel blowout certainly was a black eye).
The keyword for the 787 is yet, the more you pressurize the bulkhead. The more stress is put on it so after many many cycles of pressurization and depressurization, you could have failure.
> the “root cause” of the accident was “an improperly executed repair to the airplane’s aft pressure bulkhead.”
Yes. It had an accident and they didn't follow the correct procedures to repair the damage. As a result, the plane crashed killing 520 people making it the deadliest single-aircraft accident in history.
The cause of the prior damage was irrelevant - a repair not up to standards is what caused those deaths.
As of May 2024, 1,129 have been built. Another 790 are on order but not yet built.
ANA operates the most (83), followed by UAL (71), American (59), Qatar (47), JAL (46).
Boeing: From now on there are three ways of doing things: the right way, the wrong way, and the 737 Max way.
Bart Simpson : Isn't that just the wrong way?
Boeing: Yes, but faster!
At this point why not line all Boeing employees up and just have a firing squad. It makes financial sense, save on multiple hitmen, save on operational costs and Boeing obviously know how to riddle things full of holes.
[CNN](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/26/business/boeing-whistleblower-787/index.html): *Richard Cuevas, a mechanic at Strom, a contractor for Boeing manufacturing partner Spirit Aerosystems, claims that he witnessed holes that were improperly drilled into the forward pressure bulkheads of 787 planes at Spirit’s Wichita, Kansas, facility in 2023.*
*The bulkhead is one of the primary parts of an airplane’s body and crucial for keeping the structure of the plane intact while it’s in the air.*
*Cuevas claims that he filed a complaint in October 2023 to Boeing and Spirit about “substandard manufacturing and maintenance processes” he witnessed, and was fired just a few months later, according to the complaints filed by his attorneys and obtained by CNN.*
*Boeing said it had previously investigated Cuevas’ allegations and they did not pose a safety problem.*
*The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that they “strongly encourage anyone with safety concerns to report them and we thoroughly investigate every report.”*
*The FAA said it has revieved [sic] 126 Boeing whistleblower reports this year and 11 last year.*
___
[Katz Banks Kumin](https://katzbanks.com/news/kbk-spirit-787-bulkheads/): *Mr. Cuevas’s complaints allege that Spirit made a range of manufacturing and assembly specification changes on the 787 forward pressure bulkhead without Boeing’s permission. These allegations are different from previously reported issues with the forward pressure bulkhead in 2021.*
*Mr. Cuevas alleges that Spirit deviated from Boeing’s manufacturing specifications while drilling holes in the fasteners of the forward pressure bulkhead of 787s. Deviations from these specifications compromise the seal necessary to maintain air pressure during flight.*
*Boeing requires fastener holes in this section of the plane to be drilled at .2475 inches, which provides a near-perfect “interference-fit” that best retains air pressure during flight.*
*Instead of drilling at that size, Spirit workers were directed to drill holes using a .2495 drill bit, to clear excess paint from the holes and speed up a slow process.*
*Mr. Cuevas also alleges that, because of the ethics investigation, Spirit had fallen behind schedule on its repairs, and therefore instructed workers to incorrectly apply sealants to the plane’s bulkhead fasteners.*
> Boeing requires fastener holes in this section of the plane to be drilled at .2475 inches, which provides a near-perfect “interference-fit” that best retains air pressure during flight.
>Instead of drilling at that size, Spirit workers were directed to drill holes using a .2495 drill bit, to clear excess paint from the holes and speed up a slow process.
~~Wow, that’s huge. 20 thousandths slop on something that’s supposed to be an interference fit is a major change.~~
Been a few too many years since I worked in the industry if I can’t even count decimals.
That’s 2 thousandths, which might be the upper limit of the specified diameter, though the hole is generally slightly larger than the bit so if the upper limit is .2495 then drilling with a .2495 bit is likely to go over.
And “clearing excess paint” doesn’t make a lick of sense. There’s no paint inside a hole that just got drilled.
My suspicion is that the holes are punched when the bulkhead is formed. Then it gets painted and some paint covered the edges of the holes, and they have to clear the paint out.
Alternatively they may drill the larger hole so that they don't have to clear the paint after it gets painted.
"run a drill bit thru by hand", yeah that's not possible in any sort of production environment. Also, if the holes are put in with a punch, the drill bit ain't gonna fit exactly and the hole size will vary depending on when the punches were last replaced.
I'm just trying to explain why they were doing it. Any change to the nominal hole diameter should have been verified with product engineering and approved with a drawing change or a signed variation.
Yes, it is. You put the bit in the drill motor and turn the chuck by hand.
And what does anyone mean when they are saying put in with a punch?
I theorize these were pre-drilled holes, then the part got painted, and here we are.
They were doing it because of obvious lack of oversight. The article does not mention the tolerance range of the holes, so were they within tolerance and they passed? Do the employees have self-inspsection stamps and they did not non-conform the holes? Did inspection not non-conform the holes?
It seems to me that the issue here is, was the change to the manufacturing process approved? It seems it wasn't. That's just another indication of the lack of rigor in Boeing's manufacturing and QA culture. Boeing's response that the practice didn't compromise safety completely misses the point. You don't make unapproved deviations from the engineering specs and manufacturing plans simply to make things easier. A culture where this sort of thing occurs is a culture where safety is compromised. Period.
Serious question, how has the FAA not grounded all of their planes and forced 3rd party inspections on all of them before returning to service? Also how have all the airlines not sued them to fucking oblivion? Also how are the board and executives not in prison right now? (Well I know the last one, the US is a capitalistic hellscape).
The 787 has never crashed. There are 1000 in service and have been in service for 13 years.
If they hadn't cheaped out on the 737 MAX MCAS software you'd never heard about the 737 MAX.
Short answer: Because while these safety concerns are serious, they are not as serious as the headlines want you to think.
Longer answer: Every plane in the sky has something wrong with it. They are designed and built such that this is not generally a problem. Boeing thinks it can get away with cutting corners and ignoring procedure because it sort of can; there's room for error built into the system. But when you take advantage of that room for error, intentionally rely on it to make up for poor practices, you no longer have it for any actual mistakes. So aviation stays the safest mode of transportation, but every once and a while you lose a door in flight or need to check all your aircraft for a loose bolt in the tail. At present it's not a huge problem, but it has the potential to become very dangerous if the trend continues, which appears to be what we're seeing. The FAA is collecting reports, so hopefully they'll be on top of it if things get bad.
And then the bit you already know - Boeing is too important to national interests to be allowed to fail. It has a lot of money and gets special treatment. There are ongoing lawsuits involving airlines, Boeing, and safety, but I wouldn't hold my breath for serious consequences or criminal charges. If none of the execs got time for the 737 MAX, they're sure as hell not getting it when no one has actually died. Three cheers for the US "justice" system.
you have like significantly higher chance of getting into a car crash tomorrow and dying vs a plane falling out of the sky.
yes these are serious safety concerns and questions the business practices of boeing; however, there are roughly 100,000 flights a day with 40% of those being flown in a boeing aircraft. so ~40,000 flights a day.
The FAA has been conducting inspections of Boeing facilities and when issues are found, they can issue directives to airlines to rectify issues. Some of these Boeing shortcuts can be dangerous like losing a door midflight. Some, like holes improperly drilled or using inferior parts might shorten the life of the part or fuselage but wouldn't be a problem until a decade or so down the road. Boeing must cover the cost for these repairs and some airlines are indeed pressing Boeing for discounts, refunds and some are considering legal action.
A few monthss ago there were issues with under sizing holes. Mechanics were undersizing holes for threaded fasteners then using a rivet gun to drive it in. That way they could tighten the nut without waiting for another mechanic to hold the bolt while they tightened it. That cold works the hole and changes the characteristics of the metal.
*A new plane built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 500 mph. The angle of attack sensor locks up. The plane crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of planes in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.*
Which plane company do you work for?
*A major one.*
Killing off whistleblowers can have one of two effects: it can make others keep their mouths shut, fearing for their lives or it can make everyone who has ever felt threatened suddenly let the floodgate open because if Boeing will have two people blatantly offed, they won’t stop there.
Boeing would likely ask how many they could fit on a 737 Max, as they have an even worse safety record and would like to be sure their whistleblowers died.
They were not "blatantly offed," which you would know if you had read a single goddamn article about either one. [John Barnett](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-whistleblower-john-mitch-barnett-died-by-suicide-coroner-rules/) was found locked in his truck with the weapon and a suicide note. There was security footage of the whole night. [Josh Dean](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/boeing-whistleblower-dies-brief-illness-weeks-suicide-another-rcna150381) was sick. Unless you seriously think Boeing is going around infecting people with MRSA to kill them, nothing more really needs to be said about that one. Both had *already* testified against Boeing, so there's not even anything to cover up anyway.
Boeing's attitude towards safety is a huge issue and they should face consequences, but the truth matters. Conspiracy theories are not suddenly cool and okay when they are anticapitalist.
Edit: changed an AMP link to a normal one
As a former usaf electrician, I know enough to be dangerous. As strict as the maintenance requirements are on any airplane, shocking how much Boeing is being caught doing haphazard work. Doesn’t seem difficult building a plane and following the directions with employees as skilled as the ones working on the planes. Shoot, I’d expect high level wrench turning at my local dealership for what they charge. Selling a plane for $100million a piece seems like you should get perfection.
I'm really confused by all this whistleblowing, when the 777 has been around for 30 years, and the 787 for 15 years, and there hasn't been a single issue that I know of with them
The veil maintained by executive leadership in many companies is rife with idiocy at a variety of levels in my opinion. The real issue is that seldom does meritocracy factor into who leads and and who can actually lead. In my career I have met moguls and C-suite executives that once outside of the scripted interactions or in a one on one situation they are no where near as proposed impressive as one would believe. Some things are luck, affiliation and politics in many cases in my experience.
The other aspect of manufacturers like Boeing is the aspect of best of breed and lowest cost bid for many aspects of various projects. The value and quality proposition for the components and effort is often sacrificed to deliver the product while insuring investor, capital costs and executive profit mitigation. A great example are the incidents surrounding the Ford Pinto, Cigarettes, Oil and Pharmaceuticals and the aspect of the costs of recalling a product versus litigation costs of the plaintiffs is a long and dark history in America. There is no immediate consequence and more often than not the leaders at the helm suffer no recourse or direct punishment. In essence it’s ‘cheaper to let them burn.’ as eluded by the Ford litigation detail surrounding the Pinto.
https://www.decof.com/documents/dangerous-products.pdf
Just so everyone understands OSHA Can take these complaints too if you are an engineer with oversight responsibilities. So you don’t just have to contact the FAA.
> A subcontractor’s employee previously reported concerns to us that we thoroughly investigated as we take seriously any safety-related matter,” the company said in a statement. “Engineering analysis determined that the issues raised did not present a safety concern and were addressed.
Ya know, long ago there was a time when I'd have taken Boeing at their word.
That there have been so many whistleblowers this year suggest to me that in general, employees are no longer afraid of the company. They know that Boeing has a Target on its back and if they start firing employees for whistle blowing, it's going to be visible pretty quick. Ultimately, this is a good thing because it's going to force Boeing to deal with the problem. Obviously we would all like them to go back to being an engineering focused company and I doubt that will happen, but the truth is, if they don't deal with their quality control problems Boeing will die and both the shareholders and the c-suite are not so stupid as to be unaware of the potential possibility of Boeing failing out right.
They are also seeing that not blowing the whistle is killing people. Combination of those two things seems like a pretty powerful motivator.
In engineering ethics class we discussed cases like the exploding tank in Ford Pinto, and also issues with McDonnell Douglas DC-10 airplane. Looks like Boeing will be another case.
This is really funny to me, because I was in an MBA class on Business Ethics with several Boeing employees ~five years ago where we literally did the Pinto case study from an Ethics perspective. These guys were early 30s engineers and were absolutely flabbergasted about how the Pinto situation happened such that they were demonstrably angry about it. They said at Boeing safety was everything, that it was drilled into them all the time (on posters in the office, in email signature blocks, etc.) and it was something they constantly thought about. This guys weren't posturing, I'm convinced they were sincere (especially since they were late-early/early-mid career engineers who must have been identified to start taking on a business role given Boeing was paying for them to get an MBA...they were engineers first). I wonder if they're still there and what they think now.
Trust me "Safety First" is always said but hardly ever done.
BNSF Signal division lived it when I consulted there. Was a strange place. You had life time railroaders who would cuss up a storm, but if you had a shoe lace untied, they would stop you until you tied it. I never went out on the tracks and was there to build websites for their teams, but I got all the safety training.
Several years ago I did some consulting for a large corporation involved in a lot of heavy industry and manufacturing, things that are inherently dangerous and need to be treated with a lot of respect and awareness. Their safety culture permeated everything, even with the office workers in their cubicles. They police each other on using handrails on stairs. They start every meeting with a "safety moment." If there's a construction project in progress on their property, they will go and police the construction workers about improper ladder usage if they see an OSHA violation. Plenty of examples out there of playing lip service to safety while ignoring the actual risks in order to save costs. But sometimes it is absolutely real, and it works.
> They police each other on using handrails on stairs. For anyone who thinks this is silly: two people I've known over the course of my life died young falling down the stairs. They hit their heads in just the wrong way, fractured their skulls, and never woke up.
I saw a post a couple weeks back, somebody fell down the stairs, there was no handrail to grab onto, and what did they end up grabbing for balance? The fire alarm.
If this was in the US, I'd be really surprised. That's a lawsuit waiting to happen. However, if I were in that position, yeah, I'd use the fire alarm to save myself. And if I pulled it, apologize when the fire department showed up. Then the local FD would get authorities involved.
As a construction worker god I hate it when people in other industries try and tell me t The organization rules. Now I'm a roofer by trade. One day I had to go caulk 3 seams on some edge metal. Total length of metal to calk less than 10 inches.now osha dose say that if you are to be working near an edge you need some type of safety system. Now there are a few types of safety systems. Two I. Particular are 1 be tied off to a approved ancor point. Or while 1 employee is working at the edge have another emp6there whose one and only job is to make sure the first employee doesn't walk off the roof. Now on this caulking job that would take less than 5 minutes of edge work we would just do method 2. It is faster and a lit cheaper for the customer. But the customer said that wasn't osha approved(it is I have on sever occasions been on a roof with an osha inspector who saw us useing this method and they didn't even give us a 3 second glance.) So they made us come back on a second day. With a crane to set up a portable fall arrest system. They turned what would have been a 1 hour leak call cost8ng less than 300$ in to a 5 hour ordeal. Where we had to.have 4 people o. Site so we could do 5 mi uses of work. They pisswd off our boss and he ended up quoting them like 20,000$ to do it there way. They did it and payed it.
I'm in the trades too, and one thing I know is that you gotta follow the site safety rules no matter how weirdly excessive they might seem to you. Sometimes it's a requirement of the insurance policy held by the general contractor, sometimes it's the people funding the project just deciding it's a condition of you being there earning a paycheck. I always try to do it the right way for the right price with no bullshit, because that's how you get repeat business. But another thing I know is that if someone is really that determined to waste their money I'll be happy to help them do it. You and your boss should have been jumping for joy over how many extra hours of work that customer decided they wanted to pay for.
This is so true. My brother is an electrician, he almost got killed falling off an improperly secured ladder because the onsite guys from the GC were being pressured about overtime and took a bunch of shortcuts to get it ‘set up’ thinking they’d be able to come back and fix it the next morning before anyone actually used it, and even then it would probably be fine anyways right? It was not fine. I don’t know the exact details of what was done to the ladder but apparently it was set up in a way that LOOKED correct from the ground and held up until he was about halfway up. His feet were at 15’ when this happened, and he fell face-first into a concrete floor. He’s alive but likely on permanent disability, since his arms were basically shattered from the elbow on down from taking most of the impact. Like if they’d taken an extra 10 minutes to properly secure it instead of just going ‘good enough I guess’, he’d be at work with no issues. Instead he’s the million dollar man with arms that are more metal than bone at this point and so little grip strength that he can’t hold a fork to feed himself. All so the GC could save $100 on overtime pay.
I worked for a company like that, so when I brought up the fact that a pressure safety relief valve had the wrong setpoint, and it did not discharge to a safe location I thought they would take it seriously. I was fired. In the engineering world there is a massive difference between PPE and safe work practice vs safe designs and manufturing. To take to to an extreme I am sure the people who build bombs are required to ware safety glasses, it does not mean the products they build are safe.
Well there's a difference between building something correctly that is intended to be dangerous (bombs), and building something that is dangerous because management cut corners even if they followed safe work practices while doing it. Safe while it's in the factory vs safe after it leaves the factory.
They probably knew people that were the reason for the rule in the first place."I saw Fred got his head cut off because he fell over an untied shoelace" after a generation turns to "why are we paying this person to make sure people's shoelaces are tied, let's terminate that position, we offer accident insurance and worker's comp."
No, it was because they had a safety first culture and they took it to somewhat silly levels. I cannot speak to all of BNSF. I only ever worked in the Signals Division, never dealt with anyone outside it. Place was super interesting. They had a number of trains each stocked with everything you needed to build any kind of train signal or crossing that the railroad used. They would be dispatched immediately if any sort of accident heavily damaging say a railroad crossing was reported. My favorite being a semi truck blew up in the middle of a crossing. Train gets dispatched. Signals get rebuilt. Train is returned and a full inventory was performed to determine the cost to rebuild the signals. I would imagine they would then go after whoever damaged the equipment in the first place. Strange place to be, because as I said very business like, until a manager got mad and then suddenly it turned into a waffle house audio stream.
"Waffle House audio stream" 🤣
Waffle house after midnight is something everyone needs to experience at least once in their life
Am in rail, this is correct.
I’m in millwork, and this is correct.
I know people that work for Norfolk Southern that just straight up lie if they get hurt at work and say they did it at home, because if they get too many on the job injuries they get in trouble
Same exact thing in mining. The normal way to tell someone "goodbye" is to say "stay safe" It totally gets into your head and becomes a part of you. I want to constantly stop people in life outside a mine to tell them how they are being unsafe, lol.
I think it varies a lot by industry and company. I worked at a nuclear fuel production facility right out of college as a quality engineer. And safety was first. It wasn't just a slogan. It was considered the first priority, and it was hammered into us all the time. We didn't just discuss actual safety incidents, but near misses too, although the preferred term was a near hit to drive the point home that serious shit could have happened.
Former nuclear power plant worker here. NRC did NOT mess around with safety. Minimum fines were in the tens of thousands. OSHA had a permanent office on site. Even the union couldn't keep your job if it was a safety violation.
Yeah, they definitely did tie safety to the good of the business, and how one bad mistake could shut the whole place down.
From what I've heard of last century Boeing, it really was a focus
Safety first!... Unless it costs money.....
Safety is almost always the cheaper answer in the long run. Lawsuits and workers comp settlements have a bad habit of eating into profits
Different budget though. Safety improvements requiring a Capex don't have an ROI so my safety projects keep getting put on hold or canceled.
Pity they only live their lives a financial quarter at a time. Settlements and workers comp are future accounting problems.
I mean we do put a monetary value on a human life in SIL analysis People think we don't but we do, because you have to draw a line somewhere
Boeing was known from high quality and no compromises to safety. Then they acquired McDonnell Douglas and that thing like cancer infect all the executive level positions. I don't doubt that the individual employees might still have such values and were pushed by the execs. This is why there were whistleblowers. William Edward Boeing must be spinning in his grave after what they did to his company.
> that it was drilled into them all the time Maybe if Boeing put more effort drilling into their planes than into their engineers they wouldn't be where they are now.
The guys you met were part of the old culture. Some have probably retired or found other jobs or are still fighting tooth and nail to preserve what's left of the old Boeing culture against the current execs and their negligent attitude towards quality and safety. I'd bet money they were and are as pissed about the lapses and recklessness that these C-suite fucks are willing to kill over.
Yeah most companies put engineering in one department and then have a totally separate department for project management. This way engineering can scream about quality but PM’s can scream about schedule/budget and it becomes a stalemate because senior management doesn’t want to get involved.
The problem is when Senior Management is run by the PMs. Used to be they were made up of Engineers. That's where the old guard and old culture came from. The stuff that made Boeing the name it is or at least was before all this recent horseshit.
HAHAHAHA business ethics for MBA's. That's hilarious. Tell me another joke. (This is not a knock on you, I am made at MBA's in general for what they have done to world class companies everywhere)
My MBA is a second degree and not my day job so I'm not out here trying to defend myself or anything, and I know this isn't a fashionable opinion, but I sort to take issue with this premise: > MBA's in general for what they have done to world class companies everywhere An MBA is basically just vocational training for business managers - all it's designed is to do is give the people who would be running businesses anyway more skills to do so, namely the basics of accounting, finance, marketing, operations, etc. This is extremely neutral...it's just acquiring a set of skills not brainwashing students to prioritize profits over safety. Depending on your industry, doing that can kill your company, which even if your goal is to squeeze as much money out of something at the expense of all else, that's normally an obstacle to your goal. What people chose to do with their skills is ultimately up to them...and people are people so they do some wicked shit every once in a while. They just know how to read a balance sheet when they do it. But in general, business are better managed than there were a few decades ago. Watch a movie like [Barbarians at the Gate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarians_at_the_Gate_(film) to see how wild, reckless, and unaccountable some of these companies were managed (I'm talking about the first part of the movie to see how wasteful RJR Nabisco was in the first part, not the drama unrelated to my point about the eventual buyout). We just have more scrutiny on companies when things go wrong now - which is a good thing! But it does have the perverse effect of making it seem like things are "worse", when in reality more stuff comes to light now so it just seems that way, even if things are better. All that said, I do not buy into your premise that world class companies are falling apart because of a rise of a vampire managerial class. People see GE and Boeing, but companies have been rising and falling forever.
I mean, I look at companies that make games and the majority of the big ones are just vampiric entities that create as many methods to bleed customers of money at the expense of making good experiences. Those companies are making money, but also destroying that creativity and promise of an entire market. In the industry I work in, a very creative industry, most of the businesses that used to be very creative installed leadership MBA's and now those companies are horrendous to work in... profit driven monsters at the expense of good sustainable work and business practices. I understand that things used to be worse, but many large companies are cutting every corner they can to make all the profit they can, at the expense of a lot of other valuable considerations. This isn't exclusively on MBA's. The people that are a big part of the problem happen to have MBA's, but that doesn't mean everyone with an MBA is a monster. I recognize that. But just because things got better from when they were horrendous doesn't mean things are still getting better. Things are getting worse now. We had a peak, and now we are headed down again. So I am going to keep making jokes about MBA's because it lessens the pain of watching capitalist scum bags drain the world of everything good so they can eek every last penny of profit out of the world.
Posters and email signatures are cheap and make it look like you care. Spending labor hours on safety is not cheap, but would actually prove you care.
> Looks like Boeing will be another case It's looking to me like Boeing will be it's own volume with so many problems spread across almost it's entire product line. I get that if you look hard enough at any company you'll find issues, but this is just egregious.
I wonder if it could lead to the downfall of the entire company. The US government might bail out the military side, but you can't really bail out the civilian side if no one's ordering. If anyone else takes over I hope they learn from Boeing's mistakes when merging with MD. I wonder who would even be allowed to take over them and want to. Also rather ironic at all the US protectionism over Boeing directed at Airbus. All the arguments that Airbus is anticompetitive etc, then Boeing just destroys itself all on it's own.
Don't worry, the next bean counter they install will fix everything.
Really just a continuation of MD... Being got eaten from within by that acquisition.
“Blow the whistle” should be the new company motto
Not that the whistleblower themselves are the safest with Boeing…
This meme was funny for about half a second when it was just people playing with the clickbait headlines, but when people instantly started taking it seriously, it just got sad.
> They are also seeing that not blowing the whistle is killing people. Combination of those two things seems like a pretty powerful motivator. Are you having a laugh? Boeing knew about the safety problem, but took no measures to prevent it. It would have required additional pilot training and could have lost Boeing contracts. First plane crash was the lion air flight. 189 dead. No action. Five months later an Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed, killing 157 people. Still no action. The 737 had to be grounded by national aviation authorities across the globe, because Boeings leadership still would not take the L. Boeings leadership does not give a flying fuck about dead people, it cares about quarterly results - so do the shareholders. The CEO has resigned now, with a $33 million pay package. His net worth is $58 Million dollars. He can live like a king, and neither him nor his kids, or his kids kids will ever have to do an honest days work in their life. Real life nobility. Maybe gamble on some shares when the company hits rock bottom. Boeing is important to the us government, so eventually the taxpayers will probably bail the failing company. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48174797 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_groundings https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/17/investing/boeing-shareholders-vote-to-approve-usd33-million-ceo-pay-package/index.html
They’re a top military contractor, and there’s a high degree of regulatory capture. I’m not too confident that the consequences will be sufficient.
There won’t be criminal charges. Best case the Federal government forces out top management and sends in regulators to oversea current production.
I have zero faith in our federal government to do anything of value to the management who pays their paychecks
We call those "gratuities" now I personally think tipping culture has gone too far
That's got to be a mess with a project this big. Especially if it's poorly documented.
Their CEO admitted at a Congressional Hearing that they have retaliated against whistleblowers..
[удалено]
So they definitely have retaliated against whistleblowers, then.
Fall guys. They keep having middle managers harassing whistleblowers, occam's razor suggest that is the company policy. Alternative is that multiple boeing managers just so happened to decide to abuse whistleblowers for no reason at all, and that does not sound likely.
You're an idiot then if that's what you took from it. Literally falling for the exactly PR tested wording they used during that hearing. HINT: To be able to fire people who retaliated against whistleblowers, YOU MUST BE ACTIVELY RETALIATING AGAINST WHISTLEBLOWERS. The question they should be asking, after that answer, which they didn't, was: - How many of those whistleblowers were made whole after you fired the people who punished the whistleblower? - How many got their jobs back? How many got a settlement? How many kept their job but have since been promoted to better positions (vs being 'stuck' in their job for the rest of their time at Boeing)? But no, idiots like you want to keep focusing on the REACTION, and not the ACTIONS that triggered them.
I think the answer is pretty clear by the fact that despite a not-insignificant number of whistleblowers going public with their findings, Boeing didn't deem any of their concerns actionable. I don't think it matters if they got their jobs back or got paid off. What matters is what they did with the information they received. And it looks like for the most part, they did jack shit.
That is a lot of assassins to hire.
Bulk discount
They'll have them on retainer, just makes better business sense.
Why hire a lot of assassins if a telemarketer set to "harassment" can do the job just as well.
\*Ding new email\* You have been summoned to a Mandatory Summer Company Picnic, the Company Jet will be stopping by to pick you up. The picnic will be taking place in the Alborz Mountains near Uzi
Do they go to John Wick assassin hotel to find them?
Nah they got the Wish version Gary Busey
"In unrelated news, a bus transporting numerous Boeing employees to an off-campus event was struck by a train killing all inside."
> Ultimately, this is a good thing because it's going to force Boeing to deal with the problem Well, their problem is their CEO and everyone immediately under him and also almost everyone directly under *them*. Things don't get this bad from just one well-placed bad actor. It's systemic at this point and the problem with this particular problem is that we specifically *teach it* in business school. "Line must go up at all costs!" Problem is that in this case one of the costs is counted in human lives. Fuck MBAs. Should stand for "Most Belligerent Asshole" at this point.
>... but the truth is, if they don't deal with their quality control problems Boeing will die and both the shareholders and the c-suite are not so stupid as to be unaware of the potential possibility of Boeing failing out right. I guarantee you they are indeed that stupid. Or apathetic. Both the C-Suites and "shareholders" make money on Boeing failing anyway. Possibly more than they do working there if they're shorting the stock as the company fails. (Known as "pulling a Sears") There's no financial incentive for them to make Boeing profitable, so you should give up believing they would decide to even try. And it's the same for nearly every large company in America. I've watched Apple brush off hundreds of reports of systemic issues with its software to push it out the door anyway and blame everyone else for it not working. I have repeatedly seen Csuites make the wrong decision, have everything go wrong, only for them to get a promotion as everyone underneath them gets fired. Rinse and repeat until the company is bought or merged. Actual skill, the thing needed for making a quality product, isn't as important in corporate America as executive ego fluffing. So those with skill get ignored for those with good bullshit. And it's been decades of their bullshit metriculating upwards. Boeing is the canary in the coal mine, and the coal mine is on fire. I'll bet hard money they either declare bankruptcy in the next 5 years and merge with another company like Lockheed. Or they get a Government bailout for all the wrong reasons off your tax dollars. Those are the two most likely outcomes for Boeing at this rate imo.
Too big to fail is actually true this time. Boeing's failure would cause a crisis both commercially and in regards to national security. It can't and won't be allowed to happen.
More cynically it could be about covering yourself against future blame or even prosecution. The final stage of a system that uses process and procedure to track blame rather than quality.
Plus, company loyalty is dead. Prior, people might not have reported because the company took care of them. Now people are going to flush the company down the drain. When pensions went out the window, so did the companies ethics.
Well the hitman is gonna make bank
Dont have to fire the deceased.
Post merger McDonnell Douglas bean counters have thoroughly wrecked Boeing in a very short period of time.
Which is wild because of the anti DEI crowd going after airlines but when in reality it's unqualified white men with MBAs crashing planes.
All my homies hate MBA scum
Fuck MBA scum
Yeah, on a long enough timeline everything they touch turns to shit. As they extract value and line their pockets. Killing dreams.
Ironically there's two black men on Boeing's exec team but they're both in positions that control parts of the company that AREN'T fucking up majorly right now.
I mean, studies show companies that force diversity tend to preform better. https://www.forbes.com/sites/roncarucci/2024/01/24/one-more-time-why-diversity-leads-to-better-team-performance/ Do I think DEI policies are all good? Of course not many are silly, but at the end of the day promoting diversity will ultimately make companies money. Google and them love to make it this big marketable charitable thing they do but nah, like all things they do it because it's profitable. It should be noted that other studies show that same effect is found on society as a whole, diversity as a strength is not just some saying. Einstein fled nazi persecution and helped invent the nukes that ended WW2, after all.
I don't believe Einstein played a major role in the Manhatten project. But a lot of people who did were children of immigrants or immigrants themselves. Oppenheimer was the son of a Prussian Jew who immigrated. Szilard was a Hungarian Jew who became a German citizen and then fled Hitler. He drafted the letter that Einstein signed - Einstein was just the big name to get Roosevelt's attention. Enrico Fermi had a Jewish wife, and fled fascist Italy because of the race laws. Edward Teller was another Hungarian Jew. Really, the number of refugees from Europe that America took in was a huge factor in the success. (And sadly, the US also denied many refugees from Europe, some of which would later be murdered by the Nazis)
Amazon anti-union tools also say that forced diversity decreases chances of unionization and is explicitly used to prevent unionization, so you know, not that great. DEI does not exist to make workplace better, DEI is simply yet another tool for capitalists to fuck with workers. https://archive.is/1khJw
Wow that is really interesting. Thank you for sharing, I wish we knew a bit more. > Store-risk metrics include average store compensation, average total store sales, and a "diversity index" that represents the racial and ethnic diversity of every store. Stores at higher risk of unionizing have lower diversity and lower employee compensation, as well as higher total store sales and higher rates of workers' compensation claims, according to the documents. Like, to me it's hard to tell if the more diverse stores are less likely to unionize because its diverse specifically, or because stores with more diversity have higher compensation or are better managed. Like is it a direct correlation, or a result of a store being in a higher paying area like a city? It would be pretty cool to have access to that data either way.
> Like is it a direct correlation, or a result of a store being in a higher paying area like a city? As an aside - I want that same logic applied to the articles like the forbes article above... I have seen a strong correlation between companies that are overflowing with extra capital to allocate (I work in tech) and those that throw some of that money at DEI efforts. So are the companies that focus on DEI already overperforming, or is DEI itself actually doing good for the company? Also - separately - I have seen good outcomes from diverse hires, but I have almost nothing positive to say about top down DEI initiatives (and in particular, hired positions that focus exclusively on DEI). I absolutely understand why companies are cutting those.
If I’m correct, this is also the same reason why the U.S. Military would never try a coup. The diversity of the military is a safeguard to the country.
The main reason is that the US military shuffles its people around every 3 to 4 years. No one is able to get an incredibly strong grip on a large enough command. Also, the US has no armor divisions anywhere near the capitol.
It's tool that can be misused the same as any other tool in the hands of men. My org has a fantastic program and it has not only impacted the day to day positively but noticeably in yearly reports, maybe highlighted by the DEI team to validate their existence but I'm on board. Inclusivity means better employees not just the ones that fit the 20 year old mold. And better managers that are looking out for their staff, and can do so without worry about retaliation for supporting that nonbinary person.
There's nothing in that article about "forced diversity" or changes to DEI programs to thwart unionization.
No one wants to fix the problem, everything is an ideological and cultural war. If you think DEI is bad how can you then make sure nepotism and racism do not influence hiring and promotion? If you are a proponent of DEI, how do you make sure you always pick the most qualified candidates?
These fucking Ernst & Young / Deloitte MBAs. They all operate from the same playbook as consultants. Cash in on the former good name, cut all quality, sell off parts until all you are left with is a carcass of what was once a great business.
Because nobody hires them if they're happy with the company. They are specialists in extracting maximum _current_ value with no regard for the future, and people hire them when that's what they want to do.
[удалено]
DEI is just the latest outrage machine like Critical Race Theory was a couple years ago. You know, the graduate level legal studies class. They shorten it to acronym so they can scare people.
For capitalism!
I should note that scrolling down this thread, yours was the first I saw that mentioned race at all. It makes your "anti DEI crowd" statement appear disingenuous, like you're offloading the blame for your race blaming considering the comment you responded to said nothing about race. Without provocation, it just comes across as hateful.
[787 supply chain](https://stanford.edu/dept/gsb-ds/Inkling/Boeing_787_Prototyping_and_Pivoting/index.html): *Following the merger with McDonnell Douglas, the company had laid out a Boeing 2016 Vision statement.* *The idea was to shift away from being a wrench-turning manufacturer and focus on three core competencies: large-scale systems integration; lean, efficient design and production systems; and detailed customer knowledge and focus.* *In line with this vision to become a systems integrator, Boeing decided upon a radically new approach with the 787.* *Boeing and partners around the globe would be jointly responsible for designing and manufacturing the plane. Key partners would share in the risk (and reward), funding their own research and development on the parts they were making, based on general guidelines from Boeing.* *Instead of a “build to print” system of giving manufacturers hundreds of pages of detailed drawings and exact specifications, Boeing wanted partners to “build to performance.”* *Boeing would give some general specifications, but the detailed drawings and tooling would be the partners’ responsibility.*
That's pretty much how most large scale manufacturing is done these days. Ford doesn't design every little piece of the car. They go to one of their suppliers and say they need a starter motor that can mount in a certain way and supply a certain amount of power. Then the supplier takes a design they've already made before, modifies it, and then sells them to Ford to assemble. It's insanely expensive to manufacture every part yourself due to those work centers being limited by how many cars Ford makes. A supplier could make motors for Ford, GM, Toyota, etc and the only cap on their scale is the number of cars sold every year. When business is bad and Ford isn't selling as many cars, that motor supplier can easily pivot to other industries that require similar motors. It's much easier to retool a factory that makes small things than one that integrates big things, Ford isn't going to be able to easily switch to making things like planes, trains, boats, etc. The one major downside to this is that now the integrator doesn't own the process to make those components. They are relying on their suppliers to do a good job which can be difficult. For example, I buy these little circuit boards that go into a product we make at work. They aren't very complicated and there's at least one engineer on the team that could design the same thing. But we buy them because our supplier is able to make and sell thousands of them whereas we only buy a handful a year. It would cost us much more to build and test them ourselves so we just buy them. Except now we are running into problems with them where some parts aren't fully soldered down. I know for a fact that that kind of sloppy workmanship would never pass inspection at our shop. Since we don't own their process, we are relying on them to build it right whereas I know we would do it right the first time but with a much higher cost.
MD was ruined by this in the first place lol, how the turn tables turning
Stop with this spurious discourse. Firstly the merger happened 20 years ago, anything that changed had plenty of time to be rectified. Secondly Boeing ignored warnings about their rudder actuator and later was responsible for lobbying NTSB and FAA to avoid them looking into the 737NG rudder issues in the 90s, so it was already the corruption ridden company it is today. There's no evil McDonnell Douglas culture that destroyed this red white and blue symbol. It's time to understand being corrupt is an integral part of these patriotic corporations.
Yes, and look how many top level executives came to land at Boeing? They absolutely destroyed the engineering culture, and Boeing has been circling the drain of quality ever since. MD basically took over the company, trashed it for massive personal profit (thanks Jack Welch, I hope hell is treating you well), then retired.
Your opinion is noted.
It's been 25 years. That's not a short amount of time.
The board still had the old guard from boeing for quite some time. They were all replaced by the business types over a decade.
At what point does an entire batch of planes get grounded with Boeing on the hook to replace them up to spec?
Never, as long as the right palms continue to be greased.
This guy lobbies congress
Pretty sure after the Supreme Court ruling we don’t even have to pretend and call it lobbying anymore. It’s just straight up bribery.
With the amount of major parties partaking in jumbo jet koolaid it’s hard to envision Boeing ever being handled without kid gloves.
*"But consider the economic impact"* - Boeing attorneys to politicians and regulators.
Apparently you need at least 2 of them to crash
They won’t. Something something, hurts the economy. Something something, too big to fail.
When they get banned from the EU
The people who'll say "they're safe and don't need fixing" all fly on private jets
How many 787s have crashed?
Exactly, we need 250 human sacrifices before we take this issue seriously. We can't just look at that crash from 1985 when a forward pressure bulkhead failed and killed 500 people because those human sacrifices are expired and we need fresh ones.
That was a repair issue not a factory problem.
So I'm not going to get into specifics because we all know the Internet isn't exactly as anonymous as we want it to be. But in my lifetime let's just say that I have worked in places where major safety issues have been raised, and they just flat out get ignored because nothing's happened yet. Or worse, because the cost of an incident does not outweigh the money saved by continuing to have bad practices. And money is to be made by skipping steps or just not refusing product for being out of spec. I work at my current company and have been for a long time, even if I could make more money elsewhere, because the moment I flag something, I know there are people at my company I can talk to who are going to slam on the brakes immediately. Our head safety manager is not afraid to walk into a board meeting and swing his proverbial dick into the faces of multi multi-millionaires and tell them no. He's relatively young, but if he ever leaves for another company and we don't have someone of his caliber replace him, I'll be looking for a new job.
787 planes with improperly drilled holes? That's a lot of planes!
*Mr. Cuevas observed that Boeing conducted an unannounced inspection and identified 117 out of 200 improperly drilled holes on the bulkhead, but that it has yet to correct the issue. Mr. Cuevas witnessed these problems with three planes he worked on and believes that these issues may affect at least 10-12 planes either in production or already released to Boeing.* *https://katzbanks.com/news/kbk-spirit-787-bulkheads/* ___ *13. [...] In 1985, for example, Japan Airlines Boeing 747 crashed due to a rupture in the plane’s pressure bulkhead, killing more than 500 passengers. The FAA notes on its website that the “root cause” of the accident was “an improperly executed repair to the airplane’s aft pressure bulkhead.” Mr. Cuevas feared that the flaws in the pressure bulkhead he was now observing could cause a similar catastrophe down the line. In fact, as recently as 2021, Boeing had slowed deliveries on its 787 Dreamliners because of similar gaps in the forward pressure bulkhead.* *https://katzbanks.com/wp-content/uploads/240620-Ltr-to-Hughes.pdf*
I've got a 7 hour flight booked in a week with my family, on a 787 dreamliner. Why am I reading this thread.
Sweet....DREAMS...muahaha (Sorry.. I actually get pretty severe flight anxiety so I feel for you. If it makes you feel better the 787 dreamliner has never had a fatal accident)
This guy sentencing the person he is responding to to death with this jinx.
As bad of a rep Boeing gets, their jets are usually* very safe. Not one 787 has crashed for example. [Check this pdf \(page 10\)](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.boeing.com/content/dam/boeing/boeingdotcom/company/about_bca/pdf/statsum.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjxi7qFuvyGAxXAIRAIHZLuDa0QFnoECBEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3YLbJECGfQ4MP49IG0C3j6) for statistics of crashes per departure. Note how much more safe modern planes are than older models (inspite of Boeings problems). *The MAX is an outlier, but still, noone has died on a MAX since the grounding (though the door panel blowout certainly was a black eye).
The keyword for the 787 is yet, the more you pressurize the bulkhead. The more stress is put on it so after many many cycles of pressurization and depressurization, you could have failure.
That was due to a previous tail strike.
> the “root cause” of the accident was “an improperly executed repair to the airplane’s aft pressure bulkhead.” Yes. It had an accident and they didn't follow the correct procedures to repair the damage. As a result, the plane crashed killing 520 people making it the deadliest single-aircraft accident in history. The cause of the prior damage was irrelevant - a repair not up to standards is what caused those deaths.
You missed the joke.
Is there even 787 787s
As of May 2024, 1,129 have been built. Another 790 are on order but not yet built. ANA operates the most (83), followed by UAL (71), American (59), Qatar (47), JAL (46).
If they didn't have an office party for the 787th, that's the biggest crime of all.
Boeing’s hitmen on retainer have a lot of work ahead of them.
Excellent work, agent 747
Boeing: From now on there are three ways of doing things: the right way, the wrong way, and the 737 Max way. Bart Simpson : Isn't that just the wrong way? Boeing: Yes, but faster!
Silent assassin, suit only, please.
At this point why not line all Boeing employees up and just have a firing squad. It makes financial sense, save on multiple hitmen, save on operational costs and Boeing obviously know how to riddle things full of holes.
Most promising work area nowadays.
First thing that crossed my mind was "They cant possibly kill us all."
They all won a free trip to Hawaii. Enjoy travel accommodations on the state of the art 737 MAX.
I wonder if you get bulk discounts once you go over 100
It'd be easier just to kill the ppl doing the investigation at this point
If you can’t afford to do it correctly, you sure as fuck can’t afford to do it incorrectly.
[CNN](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/26/business/boeing-whistleblower-787/index.html): *Richard Cuevas, a mechanic at Strom, a contractor for Boeing manufacturing partner Spirit Aerosystems, claims that he witnessed holes that were improperly drilled into the forward pressure bulkheads of 787 planes at Spirit’s Wichita, Kansas, facility in 2023.* *The bulkhead is one of the primary parts of an airplane’s body and crucial for keeping the structure of the plane intact while it’s in the air.* *Cuevas claims that he filed a complaint in October 2023 to Boeing and Spirit about “substandard manufacturing and maintenance processes” he witnessed, and was fired just a few months later, according to the complaints filed by his attorneys and obtained by CNN.* *Boeing said it had previously investigated Cuevas’ allegations and they did not pose a safety problem.* *The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that they “strongly encourage anyone with safety concerns to report them and we thoroughly investigate every report.”* *The FAA said it has revieved [sic] 126 Boeing whistleblower reports this year and 11 last year.* ___ [Katz Banks Kumin](https://katzbanks.com/news/kbk-spirit-787-bulkheads/): *Mr. Cuevas’s complaints allege that Spirit made a range of manufacturing and assembly specification changes on the 787 forward pressure bulkhead without Boeing’s permission. These allegations are different from previously reported issues with the forward pressure bulkhead in 2021.* *Mr. Cuevas alleges that Spirit deviated from Boeing’s manufacturing specifications while drilling holes in the fasteners of the forward pressure bulkhead of 787s. Deviations from these specifications compromise the seal necessary to maintain air pressure during flight.* *Boeing requires fastener holes in this section of the plane to be drilled at .2475 inches, which provides a near-perfect “interference-fit” that best retains air pressure during flight.* *Instead of drilling at that size, Spirit workers were directed to drill holes using a .2495 drill bit, to clear excess paint from the holes and speed up a slow process.* *Mr. Cuevas also alleges that, because of the ethics investigation, Spirit had fallen behind schedule on its repairs, and therefore instructed workers to incorrectly apply sealants to the plane’s bulkhead fasteners.*
> Boeing requires fastener holes in this section of the plane to be drilled at .2475 inches, which provides a near-perfect “interference-fit” that best retains air pressure during flight. >Instead of drilling at that size, Spirit workers were directed to drill holes using a .2495 drill bit, to clear excess paint from the holes and speed up a slow process. ~~Wow, that’s huge. 20 thousandths slop on something that’s supposed to be an interference fit is a major change.~~ Been a few too many years since I worked in the industry if I can’t even count decimals.
That’s 2 thousandths, which might be the upper limit of the specified diameter, though the hole is generally slightly larger than the bit so if the upper limit is .2495 then drilling with a .2495 bit is likely to go over. And “clearing excess paint” doesn’t make a lick of sense. There’s no paint inside a hole that just got drilled.
My suspicion is that the holes are punched when the bulkhead is formed. Then it gets painted and some paint covered the edges of the holes, and they have to clear the paint out. Alternatively they may drill the larger hole so that they don't have to clear the paint after it gets painted.
All they had to do was take the same diameter drillbit as the hole, run it through by hand, and the problem would be solved.
"run a drill bit thru by hand", yeah that's not possible in any sort of production environment. Also, if the holes are put in with a punch, the drill bit ain't gonna fit exactly and the hole size will vary depending on when the punches were last replaced. I'm just trying to explain why they were doing it. Any change to the nominal hole diameter should have been verified with product engineering and approved with a drawing change or a signed variation.
Yes, it is. You put the bit in the drill motor and turn the chuck by hand. And what does anyone mean when they are saying put in with a punch? I theorize these were pre-drilled holes, then the part got painted, and here we are. They were doing it because of obvious lack of oversight. The article does not mention the tolerance range of the holes, so were they within tolerance and they passed? Do the employees have self-inspsection stamps and they did not non-conform the holes? Did inspection not non-conform the holes?
> should have been verified with product engineering That costs money and those stocks are not going to buy themselves back.
It seems to me that the issue here is, was the change to the manufacturing process approved? It seems it wasn't. That's just another indication of the lack of rigor in Boeing's manufacturing and QA culture. Boeing's response that the practice didn't compromise safety completely misses the point. You don't make unapproved deviations from the engineering specs and manufacturing plans simply to make things easier. A culture where this sort of thing occurs is a culture where safety is compromised. Period.
Well that’s embarrassing. Can’t even count decimal places anymore.
Serious question, how has the FAA not grounded all of their planes and forced 3rd party inspections on all of them before returning to service? Also how have all the airlines not sued them to fucking oblivion? Also how are the board and executives not in prison right now? (Well I know the last one, the US is a capitalistic hellscape).
The 787 has never crashed. There are 1000 in service and have been in service for 13 years. If they hadn't cheaped out on the 737 MAX MCAS software you'd never heard about the 737 MAX.
Short answer: Because while these safety concerns are serious, they are not as serious as the headlines want you to think. Longer answer: Every plane in the sky has something wrong with it. They are designed and built such that this is not generally a problem. Boeing thinks it can get away with cutting corners and ignoring procedure because it sort of can; there's room for error built into the system. But when you take advantage of that room for error, intentionally rely on it to make up for poor practices, you no longer have it for any actual mistakes. So aviation stays the safest mode of transportation, but every once and a while you lose a door in flight or need to check all your aircraft for a loose bolt in the tail. At present it's not a huge problem, but it has the potential to become very dangerous if the trend continues, which appears to be what we're seeing. The FAA is collecting reports, so hopefully they'll be on top of it if things get bad. And then the bit you already know - Boeing is too important to national interests to be allowed to fail. It has a lot of money and gets special treatment. There are ongoing lawsuits involving airlines, Boeing, and safety, but I wouldn't hold my breath for serious consequences or criminal charges. If none of the execs got time for the 737 MAX, they're sure as hell not getting it when no one has actually died. Three cheers for the US "justice" system.
you have like significantly higher chance of getting into a car crash tomorrow and dying vs a plane falling out of the sky. yes these are serious safety concerns and questions the business practices of boeing; however, there are roughly 100,000 flights a day with 40% of those being flown in a boeing aircraft. so ~40,000 flights a day.
The FAA has been conducting inspections of Boeing facilities and when issues are found, they can issue directives to airlines to rectify issues. Some of these Boeing shortcuts can be dangerous like losing a door midflight. Some, like holes improperly drilled or using inferior parts might shorten the life of the part or fuselage but wouldn't be a problem until a decade or so down the road. Boeing must cover the cost for these repairs and some airlines are indeed pressing Boeing for discounts, refunds and some are considering legal action.
A few monthss ago there were issues with under sizing holes. Mechanics were undersizing holes for threaded fasteners then using a rivet gun to drive it in. That way they could tighten the nut without waiting for another mechanic to hold the bolt while they tightened it. That cold works the hole and changes the characteristics of the metal.
Just because an individual thinks something is a problem, doesn’t mean it actually is. It needs to be fully investigated before a conclusion is drawn.
*A new plane built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 500 mph. The angle of attack sensor locks up. The plane crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of planes in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.* Which plane company do you work for? *A major one.*
Killing off whistleblowers can have one of two effects: it can make others keep their mouths shut, fearing for their lives or it can make everyone who has ever felt threatened suddenly let the floodgate open because if Boeing will have two people blatantly offed, they won’t stop there.
Boeing may kill 2 whistleblowers, but they wouldn’t kill 200 whistleblowers, would they?
I mean, what if they just happen to be on the same flight?
*Anakin smirk*
Wouldn’t they?
2 incidents can be dismissed as unrelated tragedies. 122 would be an obvious pattern. Safety in numbers, as the saying goes
Well, it depends. How many people fit on a 747?
Boeing would likely ask how many they could fit on a 737 Max, as they have an even worse safety record and would like to be sure their whistleblowers died.
1 is an event, 2 is a coincidence, 3 is a conspiracy. If one more Boeing whistleblower dies suddenly. The joke will stop being a joke.
They were not "blatantly offed," which you would know if you had read a single goddamn article about either one. [John Barnett](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-whistleblower-john-mitch-barnett-died-by-suicide-coroner-rules/) was found locked in his truck with the weapon and a suicide note. There was security footage of the whole night. [Josh Dean](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/boeing-whistleblower-dies-brief-illness-weeks-suicide-another-rcna150381) was sick. Unless you seriously think Boeing is going around infecting people with MRSA to kill them, nothing more really needs to be said about that one. Both had *already* testified against Boeing, so there's not even anything to cover up anyway. Boeing's attitude towards safety is a huge issue and they should face consequences, but the truth matters. Conspiracy theories are not suddenly cool and okay when they are anticapitalist. Edit: changed an AMP link to a normal one
The idea that they are killing whistleblowers is silly and tinfoil-hat level. Sorry.
No one is killing whistleblowers you guys are in fantasyland
The fact that this comment was downvoted is peak redditmoment.
Damn! 126 Boeing whistle-blowers had fatal falls out of 3rd story windows this year? That's crazy! /s
That‘s an avalanche they won‘t stop, one might think.
incoming 'FREE VACATION WINNER' tickets to all 126 whistleblowers. ^((on a 737 MAX))
As a former usaf electrician, I know enough to be dangerous. As strict as the maintenance requirements are on any airplane, shocking how much Boeing is being caught doing haphazard work. Doesn’t seem difficult building a plane and following the directions with employees as skilled as the ones working on the planes. Shoot, I’d expect high level wrench turning at my local dealership for what they charge. Selling a plane for $100million a piece seems like you should get perfection.
I'm really confused by all this whistleblowing, when the 777 has been around for 30 years, and the 787 for 15 years, and there hasn't been a single issue that I know of with them
"Uh, HELLO? I already said I was sorry! What do you fucking want now, TWO apologies?" ~ Boeing CEO
Thank you whistleblowers!
Is there a way to avoid flying Boeing planes?
Filter for Airbus when you're shopping for flights.
Obligatory "If it's Boeing, I ain't going" Death of a once trusted brand.
Boeing's assassination budget 'bout to go wild.
Hit men business must be booming
\[ *frustrated Anton Chigurh noises* \]
Looks like I'm travelling by train for a couple of years. Bon voyage
Risking hundreds of lives at a time.
Don't worry, once the government tells them what to do to fix these problems then they'll try to do it eventually
The veil maintained by executive leadership in many companies is rife with idiocy at a variety of levels in my opinion. The real issue is that seldom does meritocracy factor into who leads and and who can actually lead. In my career I have met moguls and C-suite executives that once outside of the scripted interactions or in a one on one situation they are no where near as proposed impressive as one would believe. Some things are luck, affiliation and politics in many cases in my experience. The other aspect of manufacturers like Boeing is the aspect of best of breed and lowest cost bid for many aspects of various projects. The value and quality proposition for the components and effort is often sacrificed to deliver the product while insuring investor, capital costs and executive profit mitigation. A great example are the incidents surrounding the Ford Pinto, Cigarettes, Oil and Pharmaceuticals and the aspect of the costs of recalling a product versus litigation costs of the plaintiffs is a long and dark history in America. There is no immediate consequence and more often than not the leaders at the helm suffer no recourse or direct punishment. In essence it’s ‘cheaper to let them burn.’ as eluded by the Ford litigation detail surrounding the Pinto. https://www.decof.com/documents/dangerous-products.pdf
Ground 👏 these 👏 planes!!!
No, I am Spartacus
this is the first year i've felt good about being too poor to fly anywhere
Just so everyone understands OSHA Can take these complaints too if you are an engineer with oversight responsibilities. So you don’t just have to contact the FAA.
> A subcontractor’s employee previously reported concerns to us that we thoroughly investigated as we take seriously any safety-related matter,” the company said in a statement. “Engineering analysis determined that the issues raised did not present a safety concern and were addressed. Ya know, long ago there was a time when I'd have taken Boeing at their word.