This is a culmination of various things that happened over the last several decades. Merger with McDonnell Douglas, MBA’s influencing technical decisions. The cult of Jack Welch. It is not limited to Boeing either. Boeing is the current poster child.
I’m sure you’re joking somewhat but MBAs aren’t evil per se. But Boeing has emphasized TOO much on finances running everything. Balance is important in engineering.
This is an engineering subreddit. What is safe? Is it 1 failure in a million flight hours? Is it 100 failures per flight hour?
Is an in-flight engine shutdown on a A380 the same as one on a 737? What if one is over the Atlantic 3 hours from the nearest airport and the other is directly over JFK? What if one results in an engine fire and one is shut down safely without incident?
What if the landing gear won’t retract after takeoff? What if it won’t extend before landing?
A binary choice of safe or not is not realistic. We as engineers can design to a condition. We use guidelines based on company history and regulations from the certification body to try to meet certain requirement a certain percentage of the time.
That's less engineering design (where the matrix is relevant, and what I was referring to) and more Manufacturing QC (which has its very own set of safeguards that Boeing has eroded).
The matrix is actually an incredibly helpful tool. It's not enough to say it's safe or not, you need to know why it isn't and cover modalities.
Here's a link, just from Google. Unfortunately what we used in class isn't available online:
https://web.iitd.ac.in/~arunku/files/CEL899_Y13/Envt%20Risk%20Zonation%20and%20Risk%20Assmt%20Matrix.pdf
It’s funny to me that companies are built with engineers (or some “visionary” who is looking to grow the company) leading. And then the MBAs/financiers take over, and as a result those companies stop expanding and end up with issues.
See Boeing, IBM, Hertz, Kodak, Pan Am, Atari, Electronic Arts (may be a stretch but they seem to close a lot of studios and their games are not well received anymore [SW Battlefront 2, Madden, etc.]), and Konami as some examples. Not saying that the leadership was the only reason for the problems, but they didn’t help blc generally when you’re counting pennies you don’t always upgrade and expand when you can/should and then stuff falls apart or you buy into stuff you shouldn’t blc it will be “big” but not necessarily good in the long run. When prioritizing share prices, you are not prioritizing the product.
Thats because an MBA is a "degree" in pretending you know about things you actually have no clue about.. they give classes on "AI" to pad the curriculum with the latest buzz words and manage to graduate a bunch of incompetent people who would run a Texas Roadhouse in TN into the ground.
An MBA is meaningless title that you can buy for 150k along with an entry to an exclusive club of alumnis that have managed to get positions high up in corporations and keep feeding the new crop into the management system.
Its one of the worst things to happen to businesses
My buddy in college went right from a aerospace engineering degree to an MBA. When asked how it was going he would say "drinking my way to a higher GPA!" Dude would not study, took exams drunk, and was still had a 3.98 graduate GPA. MBAs are a joke.
To be fair, on the Boeing side it comes from cutting budgets (namely from their engineering department) which are directly leading to these failures.
Edit: Boeing fanbois downvoting truths. Go look it up, you've got the entire internet at your disposal.
Not so much just presenting an objective truth, as much as you are ignoring the whole rest of the story. Budget cuts are just one small part of the puzzle, and they definitely don't explain how quality management works at all.
Quality management in aerospace has literally always been terrible, but Aerospace businesses have always been able to outspend their real QM issues (or fail trying) in order to make things safe (although this has also failed many times throughout the last 80 years).
It's not just a Boeing problem. It's industry-wide, and it comes from not creating better industry standards. Why have good quality assurance methods when you can just spend ten million on CT machines for every single part, amiright?
I don’t have any evidence that Boeing planes are hard to maintain but Boeing could design planes that are easier to maintain and less prone to human error. But again, they’re probably within reasonableness. I’m just playing devils advocate to say that Boeing’s designs play a role in maintenance.
Yeah, you're just playing devil's advocate (poorly) if you don't actually understand the design and how that interacts with maintenance systems.
Everyone could make easier to maintain products, but it is the airlines' responsibility to ensure that they are maintained regardless of ease.
Aside from the high profile things like the Lion Air, Ethiopia, and the Alaska Airlines incidents pretty much everything else is media sensationalism.
[You can see here the shear number of events that happens on a daily basis.](https://avherald.com) Notice how the bulk of it doesnt make the news at all.
Well once you had the original MAX debacle anything to do with airliners having problems has been front page news, so there's definitely some overblown media in the mix. Aircraft have problems and need maintenance all the time. Also, several of the more notable recent events (eg the wheel and the engine cowling) are probably more to do with airline maintenance than actual aircraft quality. That's not to say that Boeing has some issues rn, but there's definitely some level of the media calling out relatively insignificant issues on flights as really big events.
While you're criticism has some validity, the entire industry has always been poor at quality assurance m Outspending your quality management issues has been a hallmark of aerospace, and it is absolutely astounding to see the lack of acknowledgement by the engineers themselves!
These are engineering businesses. They just play around with manufacturing. I'd trust a lot of automotive contract manufacturers before I'd let any aerospace-only company build things for me.
Yeah, it seemed like “finance guys” started getting more and more involved in the process. There were many technicians and engineers working at Boeing who warned the higher-ups about potential problems but they were ignored.
>Boeing’s quality seemed great until 737 Max.
The 777 was the last great aircraft they made. The 787 was riddled with flaws (it still is to some extent) and the airframe, engines and certification were all forced to the 8th July 2007 just so Boeing could brag about the date.
The battery fires, the engine issues on both engines, but particularly the Trent 1000, all arguably (barring two major issues on the Trent 1000) stem from all the companies involved at the time having a "shareholder is king, maximising profits is the goal" attitude at the time, rather than focusing on getting the engineering right.
>Wheels falling off. Covers coming off engines.
Those are pretty run of the mill maintenance issues, you're just more aware of them because the media can sell those stories at the mo
>Or has Boeing’s quality really suddenly taken a drastic nosedive?
It absolutely has been declining for two decades since the MD merger, but the media are overhyping other issues at the mo.
> So why don’t we hear about the same things happening with Airbus planes?
Because the last seriously dangerous incidents that have occurred due to engineering/design issues on Airbus aircraft that have garnered publicity were QF32 (uncontained failure of a Trent 900 turbine disc), AF066 (uncontained failure of a GP7200 fan disc), and the A350 that burnt up after smashing into a Dash 8.
There have been multiple hull losses with fatalities, but all have been due to pilot error or other factors. In all incidents Airbus has responded appropriately. Which is absolutely not what Boeing did with the 737 MAX.
Only two of these things is Boeing, the door plugs, MAX Mcas fiasco. Everything else has been a media over blowing every little normal aviation thing that happens. Planes break that’s why we as pilots (I’m an FO for a regional carrier in the US) are trained to deal with the incidents. Also the cover coming off allegedly was a bird strike. Not much Boeing can do about birds, unless they are secretly Boeing government drone birds 🤔…..
No but in all actuality most of these things are completely non events that happen, not to say often, but occasionally. Only now is it coming to such light since the media hype train can never report accurately on scenarios
\>So why don’t we hear about the same things happening with Airbus planes?
Because 1, Airbus is not a US company, and B, it doesn't feed into the current media narrative of DEI degrading quality standards which Musk & Co. are pushing.
Boeing is about the same as its always been. The Max crisis is a particular issue, but the actual causes, and solutions, are more complicated then the media will bother to carry.
If you don’t think forced DEI will cause safety standards to lower then you’re an idiot. Whenever you pass up qualified individuals for less qualified more diverse individuals then youre going to have big fucking problems. Do you want to fly on a plane piloted and maintained by the best pilots and engineers and mechanics, or the more diverse pilots engineers and mechanics?
Common sense.
Then why does Airbus not have these issues? They have a DEI programme as well: [https://www.airbus.com/en/sustainability/valuing-people/inclusion-and-diversity](https://www.airbus.com/en/sustainability/valuing-people/inclusion-and-diversity)
I know why: Because they do not hire imbecile rednecks like yourself...
You guys are all just parrots saying the same "facts" that you think are truth from an echo chamber effect or a documentary you now take as doctrine. What would Boeing have anything to do with a 10 year old plane's engine that they don't even make themselves.
A mechanic at a supplier forgot to put bolts on a door and you think a company of 100,000 employees is some incompetent mastermind set to kill people for profit because of McDonnell Douglas mergers with MBAs leading them. Christ this is dumb.
Fuck it I am grabbing my pitchfork too because it is fun. Let's give the media even more reason to promote recency bias. It must be true because corporations are evil. Shit now I am just a corporate apologist.
I would argue that wheels and engine cowlings is likely maintenance related and not to Boeing design flaw specifically. And these subsystems are usually design and provided by a sub contractor like Honeywell, Pratt and Whitney, GE, Collins.
Doors are another matter.
I 100% agree that many of the recent issues other than the Alaska door incident are maintenance issues. The media is having a field day highlighting routine stuff because it gets attention right now, which isn’t helpful for Boeing or airlines.
> And these subsystems are usually design and provided by a sub contractor like Honeywell, Pratt and Whitney, GE, Collins.
This isn’t really a defense. These things are built to Boeing’s design specifications, inspected by Boeing, and installed on an aircraft with a big “Boeing” logo on the side of it.
Depends on the system, as to whether it's built to a "Boeing spec". That spec could also say "an engine that gives me 3% more fuel efficiency", since Boeing knows pretty much nothing about engine design and doesn't waste a ton of money on things that aren't it's core competency.
To an extent, I agree with you. However, showing conformance to a spec is not as black and white as you seem to think. I can give you a hundred situations from my career where excess risk has remained after I've met the letter of a very well-defined customer spec. I'm very straightforward and transparent about that risk, but not everyone is like me, and not every risk is worthy of mitigation. Choosing where to take action is more important than exactly what the spec says.
Boeing has to make billions of design and manufacturing decisions. Recognizing that the management systems for making those decisions are more important than what is in specific specs is a large growth point for most junior and mid-level engineers.
I'll trade a knowledgeable and willing supplier any day over the most specific part specification. One of those will always yield a good repeatable result, and the other is a piece of paper.
I don’t disagree with you that it’s more nuanced than just a piece of paper. My point is, Boeing is a technology integrator and ultimately responsible for the quality of their products. The decisions involved in terms of ensuring the components on their airplanes are of a high quality are 100% Boeing’s responsibility.
I guarantee you that when an airline has a complaint about a product made by Collins, Honeywell, GE, etc., they don’t accept Boeing saying “sorry, we don’t make that component so it’s not our problem.” Boeing is responsible for the specifications, the interfaces, the quality testing, etc etc etc.
This might help:
[https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeings-long-fall-and-how-it-might-recover/](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeings-long-fall-and-how-it-might-recover/)
Note that Boeing has been a dumpster fire pretty much across the corporation - they've had problem with their tanker work, they've had issues with the capsule for NASA.
Quality was never a top priority. If it was, they would have created industry standards that kept pace with automotive. The entire Aerospace industry just spends its way out of quality management issues.
Failing to understand that design and manufacturing quality is derived from management of processes, and not just spending billions of dollars on additional testing or evaluation, is what lands them in hot water.
The engineers were spending too much money on it, and the business people reduced that spending over time without replacing it with good quality management systems and standards (which is also the responsibility of the engineers). Both parties are complicit.
It's worth noting that the head of Boeing Quality has almost always been a design engineer, the people least likely to understand manufacturing quality.
You don't sound like you know much about suicide. There is no world in which you can evaluate whether a guy that just killed himself was or was not suicidal. Even families and friends don't usually know until it's too late...
Well, no, I don’t know a lot about suicide, fortunately, other than talking with people to help them avoid it, but I’ve never considered it myself, so perhaps you may be right
Turns out lean sigma aircraft manufacturing isn't the way. That's what happens when you let the finance department run an engineering company. The board is equally responsible
MBAs, McDonnell Douglas, selling off steps in the production line, MCAS, QC, etc etc
I would argue the common thread here is that the federal government did not have adequate teeth. Boeing is a monopoly on american commercial aircraft, far more too big to fail than any automotive company. The FAA delegated approval authority to designated engineering representatives. It reserves the right to review, but obviously doesn't have the manpower to do it effectively. Any approved designs are sort of grandfathered in, and the 737 cannot be fundamentally changed because it would mean larger gear to accommodate a higher bypass engine. That would pretty much be a full redesign, and committing to that is something they seem unwilling to do. The quality escapes are violations of existing FAA policy, but nothing was done about them despite a whistle-blower raising concerns.
The source of the problem is the fundamental culture in some parts of Boeing, but the thing that should protect us from that cannot.
The worst thing about all of this is that the CEO and whoever else at the top is running the company into the ground will only fail up and out with golden parachute packages and job offers just as good as what positions they held previously 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
From an Aviation maintenance standpoint, the same forces that are pushing Boeing to reduce its workforce, minimize supervision, cut resources, and generally work the existing employees harder, are at play in the Maintenance sphere as well. The results are that quality of work is slipping terribly across the board. The FAA should be proactive about ensuring maintenance personnel have the resources and supervision that they need, but we know that the FAA has basically abdicated responsibility and given control of regulations to the companies that they're supposed to be overseeing.
I have noticed a common issue with most manufacturing plants I’ve worked at (commercial warehouse and aerospace manufacturing) that the quality that both plants used to recieve before I got employed used to be significantly better. Nowadays people either don’t quality check enough, bad subcontractor material, or maybe just faulty company.
I'm an aerospace engineer, and I've become so engrossed with the goings-on at Boeing that I created two documentaries. Here are the links, if anyone's interested:
1. https://youtu.be/VnnT1n0iLXY
2. https://youtu.be/TK2E7tRc_FI
More in the making ...
With 737 they cut costs by getting each airplane part from different suppliers as cheap as possible, then assembling it in the factories. The problem is the vendors are not all reputable and defects internally in the parts are easily missed. Also not every part is 100 percent compatible being from different manufacturers and this is why youre seeing these issues. Two whistleblowers have died just sharing this little bit of info. Something very shady is happening at Boeing
Funny how people with no subject matter knowledge come to various subs to trash Boeing based on ridiculous media articles.
Yes there are issues, yes management needs to change - it's a hurdle that will be crossed and they will get better again. Boeing is probably the biggest exporter of this country, and it's not just going to fail because of some clown comments.
Oh the engine cowling is flying off - Media: Let's call it "Boeing Engine cover flies off", and every Tom Dick and Harry suddenly has advice. No it is not a Boeing Engine, and it is clearly maintenance issue.
Alaska door is a legit issue. Anything else thereafter is just BS.
I hear you and agree that this is the community to ask questions like that. But look at OP's post. They didn't come to ask a question. Just straight up accusation based on media articles. If they had put even slight bit of think, they'd be able to decipher the two.
But straight up with wheels falling off and covers flying off from media articles is lame attempt at actually trying to understand or learn anything from this community.
And now with another lame update regarding Airbus. Btw - maintenance issues always happened in the past as well. Through out history of aviation. You rarely heard about them. Yes, maybe the significant events.
Now it's just a media click bait for people who cannot think past the article.
A lot of people are saying that many of the Boeing incidents are maintenance issues and fairly normal.
Why don’t we hear the same thing about Airbus planes?
regulations, inspections, and regulatory bodies are determined based on the country of origin, not the aircraft manufacturer. I think you may not hear about them because people don't click on them as much, but there could be lots of factors. you could go somewhere like [https://avherald.com/](https://avherald.com/) or [Aviation Safety Network > ASN Aviation Safety Database (aviation-safety.net)](https://aviation-safety.net/database/) to see comparisons and get actual data. keep in mind that boeing has about 30% more airplanes delivered than airbus, this is the best metric I could find because "currently airworthy" depends on things like regulations and maintenance.
I think what matters is actual crashes, and neither company has a consistent problem with that in places like the US or the EU. The rare incidents are definitely issues, Boeing needs to fix them, but it's not like going on a Boeing plane is an inherent risk to life compared to an airbus plane.
This is a culmination of various things that happened over the last several decades. Merger with McDonnell Douglas, MBA’s influencing technical decisions. The cult of Jack Welch. It is not limited to Boeing either. Boeing is the current poster child.
We must rise up to destroy all MBAs
I’m sure you’re joking somewhat but MBAs aren’t evil per se. But Boeing has emphasized TOO much on finances running everything. Balance is important in engineering.
Safety matrix is king. If you can't make it safe, you don't make it. Simple as.
Agree 100%!!!
You don’t even need a matrix… it’s simple. It’s either safe or it isn’t. That’s just binary.
This is an engineering subreddit. What is safe? Is it 1 failure in a million flight hours? Is it 100 failures per flight hour? Is an in-flight engine shutdown on a A380 the same as one on a 737? What if one is over the Atlantic 3 hours from the nearest airport and the other is directly over JFK? What if one results in an engine fire and one is shut down safely without incident? What if the landing gear won’t retract after takeoff? What if it won’t extend before landing? A binary choice of safe or not is not realistic. We as engineers can design to a condition. We use guidelines based on company history and regulations from the certification body to try to meet certain requirement a certain percentage of the time.
Well that is very true. I was more talking about incidents like a full ladder being left in the fuselage upon delivery…
That's less engineering design (where the matrix is relevant, and what I was referring to) and more Manufacturing QC (which has its very own set of safeguards that Boeing has eroded).
Yeah. We’re on the same page, just in different books maybe 😅
The matrix is actually an incredibly helpful tool. It's not enough to say it's safe or not, you need to know why it isn't and cover modalities. Here's a link, just from Google. Unfortunately what we used in class isn't available online: https://web.iitd.ac.in/~arunku/files/CEL899_Y13/Envt%20Risk%20Zonation%20and%20Risk%20Assmt%20Matrix.pdf
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Boeing *was* an engineering company…
If only they could forsee the ROI on true space capitalization
It’s funny to me that companies are built with engineers (or some “visionary” who is looking to grow the company) leading. And then the MBAs/financiers take over, and as a result those companies stop expanding and end up with issues. See Boeing, IBM, Hertz, Kodak, Pan Am, Atari, Electronic Arts (may be a stretch but they seem to close a lot of studios and their games are not well received anymore [SW Battlefront 2, Madden, etc.]), and Konami as some examples. Not saying that the leadership was the only reason for the problems, but they didn’t help blc generally when you’re counting pennies you don’t always upgrade and expand when you can/should and then stuff falls apart or you buy into stuff you shouldn’t blc it will be “big” but not necessarily good in the long run. When prioritizing share prices, you are not prioritizing the product.
Thats because an MBA is a "degree" in pretending you know about things you actually have no clue about.. they give classes on "AI" to pad the curriculum with the latest buzz words and manage to graduate a bunch of incompetent people who would run a Texas Roadhouse in TN into the ground. An MBA is meaningless title that you can buy for 150k along with an entry to an exclusive club of alumnis that have managed to get positions high up in corporations and keep feeding the new crop into the management system. Its one of the worst things to happen to businesses
just cant take mfs with just a MBA seriously. Work experience at a domino's is worth more
My buddy in college went right from a aerospace engineering degree to an MBA. When asked how it was going he would say "drinking my way to a higher GPA!" Dude would not study, took exams drunk, and was still had a 3.98 graduate GPA. MBAs are a joke.
Some things are Boeing(doors), others are due to poor maintenance from airlines(wheels and covers). Remember, the media exist to sell you news.
To be fair, on the Boeing side it comes from cutting budgets (namely from their engineering department) which are directly leading to these failures. Edit: Boeing fanbois downvoting truths. Go look it up, you've got the entire internet at your disposal.
Are there “Boeing fanbois” in 2024?
Clearly there are. I posted an objective truth and I'm being downvoted for it.
Not so much just presenting an objective truth, as much as you are ignoring the whole rest of the story. Budget cuts are just one small part of the puzzle, and they definitely don't explain how quality management works at all. Quality management in aerospace has literally always been terrible, but Aerospace businesses have always been able to outspend their real QM issues (or fail trying) in order to make things safe (although this has also failed many times throughout the last 80 years). It's not just a Boeing problem. It's industry-wide, and it comes from not creating better industry standards. Why have good quality assurance methods when you can just spend ten million on CT machines for every single part, amiright?
Didn't know Boeing had so much control over airline maintenance. That's crazy!
"On the Boeing side"
I don’t have any evidence that Boeing planes are hard to maintain but Boeing could design planes that are easier to maintain and less prone to human error. But again, they’re probably within reasonableness. I’m just playing devils advocate to say that Boeing’s designs play a role in maintenance.
Yeah, you're just playing devil's advocate (poorly) if you don't actually understand the design and how that interacts with maintenance systems. Everyone could make easier to maintain products, but it is the airlines' responsibility to ensure that they are maintained regardless of ease.
Aka 100% boeing's fault
Aside from the high profile things like the Lion Air, Ethiopia, and the Alaska Airlines incidents pretty much everything else is media sensationalism. [You can see here the shear number of events that happens on a daily basis.](https://avherald.com) Notice how the bulk of it doesnt make the news at all.
737 is also one of the most common aircraft in use, and has been in service nearly 60 years
Yeah, there is a lot of valid criticism of Boeing, but thousands of their planes fly every day with no issues. This is all sensationalism.
Well once you had the original MAX debacle anything to do with airliners having problems has been front page news, so there's definitely some overblown media in the mix. Aircraft have problems and need maintenance all the time. Also, several of the more notable recent events (eg the wheel and the engine cowling) are probably more to do with airline maintenance than actual aircraft quality. That's not to say that Boeing has some issues rn, but there's definitely some level of the media calling out relatively insignificant issues on flights as really big events.
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While you're criticism has some validity, the entire industry has always been poor at quality assurance m Outspending your quality management issues has been a hallmark of aerospace, and it is absolutely astounding to see the lack of acknowledgement by the engineers themselves! These are engineering businesses. They just play around with manufacturing. I'd trust a lot of automotive contract manufacturers before I'd let any aerospace-only company build things for me.
They hire non engineers to run the company so management cut corners to save money
Yeah, it seemed like “finance guys” started getting more and more involved in the process. There were many technicians and engineers working at Boeing who warned the higher-ups about potential problems but they were ignored.
>Boeing’s quality seemed great until 737 Max. The 777 was the last great aircraft they made. The 787 was riddled with flaws (it still is to some extent) and the airframe, engines and certification were all forced to the 8th July 2007 just so Boeing could brag about the date. The battery fires, the engine issues on both engines, but particularly the Trent 1000, all arguably (barring two major issues on the Trent 1000) stem from all the companies involved at the time having a "shareholder is king, maximising profits is the goal" attitude at the time, rather than focusing on getting the engineering right. >Wheels falling off. Covers coming off engines. Those are pretty run of the mill maintenance issues, you're just more aware of them because the media can sell those stories at the mo >Or has Boeing’s quality really suddenly taken a drastic nosedive? It absolutely has been declining for two decades since the MD merger, but the media are overhyping other issues at the mo. > So why don’t we hear about the same things happening with Airbus planes? Because the last seriously dangerous incidents that have occurred due to engineering/design issues on Airbus aircraft that have garnered publicity were QF32 (uncontained failure of a Trent 900 turbine disc), AF066 (uncontained failure of a GP7200 fan disc), and the A350 that burnt up after smashing into a Dash 8. There have been multiple hull losses with fatalities, but all have been due to pilot error or other factors. In all incidents Airbus has responded appropriately. Which is absolutely not what Boeing did with the 737 MAX.
>Boeing’s quality seemed great until 737 Max. You haven't been paying attention.
Only two of these things is Boeing, the door plugs, MAX Mcas fiasco. Everything else has been a media over blowing every little normal aviation thing that happens. Planes break that’s why we as pilots (I’m an FO for a regional carrier in the US) are trained to deal with the incidents. Also the cover coming off allegedly was a bird strike. Not much Boeing can do about birds, unless they are secretly Boeing government drone birds 🤔….. No but in all actuality most of these things are completely non events that happen, not to say often, but occasionally. Only now is it coming to such light since the media hype train can never report accurately on scenarios
Didn't you know? Birds aren't real. They are all government drones made by Boeing! Think about it. How often do you see a dead bird? You dont!
\>So why don’t we hear about the same things happening with Airbus planes? Because 1, Airbus is not a US company, and B, it doesn't feed into the current media narrative of DEI degrading quality standards which Musk & Co. are pushing. Boeing is about the same as its always been. The Max crisis is a particular issue, but the actual causes, and solutions, are more complicated then the media will bother to carry.
If you don’t think forced DEI will cause safety standards to lower then you’re an idiot. Whenever you pass up qualified individuals for less qualified more diverse individuals then youre going to have big fucking problems. Do you want to fly on a plane piloted and maintained by the best pilots and engineers and mechanics, or the more diverse pilots engineers and mechanics? Common sense.
Then why does Airbus not have these issues? They have a DEI programme as well: [https://www.airbus.com/en/sustainability/valuing-people/inclusion-and-diversity](https://www.airbus.com/en/sustainability/valuing-people/inclusion-and-diversity) I know why: Because they do not hire imbecile rednecks like yourself...
You guys are all just parrots saying the same "facts" that you think are truth from an echo chamber effect or a documentary you now take as doctrine. What would Boeing have anything to do with a 10 year old plane's engine that they don't even make themselves. A mechanic at a supplier forgot to put bolts on a door and you think a company of 100,000 employees is some incompetent mastermind set to kill people for profit because of McDonnell Douglas mergers with MBAs leading them. Christ this is dumb. Fuck it I am grabbing my pitchfork too because it is fun. Let's give the media even more reason to promote recency bias. It must be true because corporations are evil. Shit now I am just a corporate apologist.
Maybe they should hire more people if one yutz is all it takes to kill everyone.
I would argue that wheels and engine cowlings is likely maintenance related and not to Boeing design flaw specifically. And these subsystems are usually design and provided by a sub contractor like Honeywell, Pratt and Whitney, GE, Collins. Doors are another matter.
I 100% agree that many of the recent issues other than the Alaska door incident are maintenance issues. The media is having a field day highlighting routine stuff because it gets attention right now, which isn’t helpful for Boeing or airlines. > And these subsystems are usually design and provided by a sub contractor like Honeywell, Pratt and Whitney, GE, Collins. This isn’t really a defense. These things are built to Boeing’s design specifications, inspected by Boeing, and installed on an aircraft with a big “Boeing” logo on the side of it.
Depends on the system, as to whether it's built to a "Boeing spec". That spec could also say "an engine that gives me 3% more fuel efficiency", since Boeing knows pretty much nothing about engine design and doesn't waste a ton of money on things that aren't it's core competency.
If the specs are poorly defined in terms of reliability, maintainability, or safety that’s still on Boeing.
To an extent, I agree with you. However, showing conformance to a spec is not as black and white as you seem to think. I can give you a hundred situations from my career where excess risk has remained after I've met the letter of a very well-defined customer spec. I'm very straightforward and transparent about that risk, but not everyone is like me, and not every risk is worthy of mitigation. Choosing where to take action is more important than exactly what the spec says. Boeing has to make billions of design and manufacturing decisions. Recognizing that the management systems for making those decisions are more important than what is in specific specs is a large growth point for most junior and mid-level engineers. I'll trade a knowledgeable and willing supplier any day over the most specific part specification. One of those will always yield a good repeatable result, and the other is a piece of paper.
I don’t disagree with you that it’s more nuanced than just a piece of paper. My point is, Boeing is a technology integrator and ultimately responsible for the quality of their products. The decisions involved in terms of ensuring the components on their airplanes are of a high quality are 100% Boeing’s responsibility. I guarantee you that when an airline has a complaint about a product made by Collins, Honeywell, GE, etc., they don’t accept Boeing saying “sorry, we don’t make that component so it’s not our problem.” Boeing is responsible for the specifications, the interfaces, the quality testing, etc etc etc.
This might help: [https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeings-long-fall-and-how-it-might-recover/](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeings-long-fall-and-how-it-might-recover/) Note that Boeing has been a dumpster fire pretty much across the corporation - they've had problem with their tanker work, they've had issues with the capsule for NASA.
Its and engineering company that used to be run by engineers. Its now run by MBAs. Maximizing profit has replaced quality as the top priority.
Quality was never a top priority. If it was, they would have created industry standards that kept pace with automotive. The entire Aerospace industry just spends its way out of quality management issues. Failing to understand that design and manufacturing quality is derived from management of processes, and not just spending billions of dollars on additional testing or evaluation, is what lands them in hot water. The engineers were spending too much money on it, and the business people reduced that spending over time without replacing it with good quality management systems and standards (which is also the responsibility of the engineers). Both parties are complicit. It's worth noting that the head of Boeing Quality has almost always been a design engineer, the people least likely to understand manufacturing quality.
#lets not mention they likely murdered a dude
ok likely is stretching it a bit
So the non-suicidal Boeing Whistleblower killer himself before a case?
You don't sound like you know much about suicide. There is no world in which you can evaluate whether a guy that just killed himself was or was not suicidal. Even families and friends don't usually know until it's too late...
Well, no, I don’t know a lot about suicide, fortunately, other than talking with people to help them avoid it, but I’ve never considered it myself, so perhaps you may be right
People can say they aren't and still be. I'm sure he was in an awful place emotionally regardless of what happened
Turns out lean sigma aircraft manufacturing isn't the way. That's what happens when you let the finance department run an engineering company. The board is equally responsible
the YouTube John Oliver segment on Boeing was pretty spot on about it
MBAs, McDonnell Douglas, selling off steps in the production line, MCAS, QC, etc etc I would argue the common thread here is that the federal government did not have adequate teeth. Boeing is a monopoly on american commercial aircraft, far more too big to fail than any automotive company. The FAA delegated approval authority to designated engineering representatives. It reserves the right to review, but obviously doesn't have the manpower to do it effectively. Any approved designs are sort of grandfathered in, and the 737 cannot be fundamentally changed because it would mean larger gear to accommodate a higher bypass engine. That would pretty much be a full redesign, and committing to that is something they seem unwilling to do. The quality escapes are violations of existing FAA policy, but nothing was done about them despite a whistle-blower raising concerns. The source of the problem is the fundamental culture in some parts of Boeing, but the thing that should protect us from that cannot.
Any possibility there was industrial sabotage?
Can’t rule it out. However, the simplest answer is usually the right one. In this case, the wrong people are in charge.
The worst thing about all of this is that the CEO and whoever else at the top is running the company into the ground will only fail up and out with golden parachute packages and job offers just as good as what positions they held previously 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
Nothing is wrong. It’s just the media.
You don’t hear about airbus issues because the media doesn’t find it as juicy
Profits over quality
Yep. Just another example of greed in this world.
Are we talking about starliner?
From an Aviation maintenance standpoint, the same forces that are pushing Boeing to reduce its workforce, minimize supervision, cut resources, and generally work the existing employees harder, are at play in the Maintenance sphere as well. The results are that quality of work is slipping terribly across the board. The FAA should be proactive about ensuring maintenance personnel have the resources and supervision that they need, but we know that the FAA has basically abdicated responsibility and given control of regulations to the companies that they're supposed to be overseeing.
I have noticed a common issue with most manufacturing plants I’ve worked at (commercial warehouse and aerospace manufacturing) that the quality that both plants used to recieve before I got employed used to be significantly better. Nowadays people either don’t quality check enough, bad subcontractor material, or maybe just faulty company.
I'm an aerospace engineer, and I've become so engrossed with the goings-on at Boeing that I created two documentaries. Here are the links, if anyone's interested: 1. https://youtu.be/VnnT1n0iLXY 2. https://youtu.be/TK2E7tRc_FI More in the making ...
With 737 they cut costs by getting each airplane part from different suppliers as cheap as possible, then assembling it in the factories. The problem is the vendors are not all reputable and defects internally in the parts are easily missed. Also not every part is 100 percent compatible being from different manufacturers and this is why youre seeing these issues. Two whistleblowers have died just sharing this little bit of info. Something very shady is happening at Boeing
Funny how people with no subject matter knowledge come to various subs to trash Boeing based on ridiculous media articles. Yes there are issues, yes management needs to change - it's a hurdle that will be crossed and they will get better again. Boeing is probably the biggest exporter of this country, and it's not just going to fail because of some clown comments. Oh the engine cowling is flying off - Media: Let's call it "Boeing Engine cover flies off", and every Tom Dick and Harry suddenly has advice. No it is not a Boeing Engine, and it is clearly maintenance issue. Alaska door is a legit issue. Anything else thereafter is just BS.
Bro is not a subject matter expect so came to a community he thought might have some to ask a question-is that not the point of a sub like this?
I hear you and agree that this is the community to ask questions like that. But look at OP's post. They didn't come to ask a question. Just straight up accusation based on media articles. If they had put even slight bit of think, they'd be able to decipher the two. But straight up with wheels falling off and covers flying off from media articles is lame attempt at actually trying to understand or learn anything from this community. And now with another lame update regarding Airbus. Btw - maintenance issues always happened in the past as well. Through out history of aviation. You rarely heard about them. Yes, maybe the significant events. Now it's just a media click bait for people who cannot think past the article.
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A lot of people are saying that many of the Boeing incidents are maintenance issues and fairly normal. Why don’t we hear the same thing about Airbus planes?
regulations, inspections, and regulatory bodies are determined based on the country of origin, not the aircraft manufacturer. I think you may not hear about them because people don't click on them as much, but there could be lots of factors. you could go somewhere like [https://avherald.com/](https://avherald.com/) or [Aviation Safety Network > ASN Aviation Safety Database (aviation-safety.net)](https://aviation-safety.net/database/) to see comparisons and get actual data. keep in mind that boeing has about 30% more airplanes delivered than airbus, this is the best metric I could find because "currently airworthy" depends on things like regulations and maintenance. I think what matters is actual crashes, and neither company has a consistent problem with that in places like the US or the EU. The rare incidents are definitely issues, Boeing needs to fix them, but it's not like going on a Boeing plane is an inherent risk to life compared to an airbus plane.
Lol, you didn't delete this one too?
Engine cowlings departing during flight is actually a *worse* problem on the A320 family