Claims of Shoddy Production Draw Scrutiny to a Second Boeing Jet
When Boeing broke ground on its new factory near Charleston in 2009, the plant was trumpeted as a state-of-the-art manufacturing hub, building one of the most advanced aircraft in the world. But in the decade since, the factory, which makes the 787 Dreamliner, has been plagued by shoddy production and weak oversight that have threatened to compromise safety.
A New York Times review of hundreds of pages of internal emails, corporate documents and federal records, as well as interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees, reveals a culture that often valued production speed over quality. Facing long manufacturing delays, Boeing pushed its work force to quickly turn out Dreamliners, at times ignoring issues raised by employees.
Complaints about the frenzied pace echo broader concerns about the company in the wake of two deadly crashes involving another jet, the 737 Max. Boeing is now facing questions about whether the race to get the Max done, and catch up to its rival Airbus, led it to miss safety risks in the design, like an anti-stall system that played a role in both crashes.
Safety lapses at the North Charleston plant have drawn the scrutiny of airlines and regulators. Qatar Airways stopped accepting planes from the factory after manufacturing mishaps damaged jets and delayed deliveries. Workers have filed nearly a dozen whistle-blower claims and safety complaints with federal regulators, describing issues like defective manufacturing, debris left on planes and pressure to not report violations. Others have sued Boeing, saying they were retaliated against for flagging manufacturing mistakes.
Joseph Clayton, a technician at the North Charleston plant, one of two facilities where the Dreamliner is built, said he routinely found debris dangerously close to wiring beneath cockpits. "I've told my wife that I never plan to fly on it," he said. "It's just a safety issue."
Related: Boeing 737 Max Aircraft Grounded in the U.S. and Dozens of Other Countries
Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan's Ties to Boeing Under Investigation
Initial Findings Put Boeing's Software at Center of Ethiopian 737 Crash
Related Stories
U.S. Grounds Boeing Planes, After Days of Pressure
After days of mounting pressure, the United States grounded Boeing's 737 Max aircraft on Wednesday, reversing an earlier decision in which American regulators said the planes could keep flying after a deadly crash in Ethiopia.
The decision, announced by President Trump, followed determinations by safety regulators in some 42 countries to ban flights by the jets, which are now grounded worldwide. Pilots, flight attendants, consumers and politicians from both major parties had been agitating for the planes to be grounded in the United States. Despite the clamor, the Federal Aviation Administration had been resolute, saying on Tuesday that it had seen "no systemic performance issues" that would prompt it to halt flights of the jet.
That changed Wednesday when, in relatively quick succession, Canadian and American aviation authorities said they were grounding the planes after newly available satellite-tracking data suggested similarities between Sunday's crash in Ethiopia and one involving a Boeing 737 Max 8 in Indonesia in October.
Previously: Second 737 MAX8 Airplane Crash Reinforces Speculation on Flying System Problems
Related: Boeing 737 MAX 8 Could Enable $69 Trans-Atlantic Flights
Patrick Shanahan: Pentagon chief's ties to Boeing investigated
The Pentagon has launched an inquiry into acting US Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan for alleged favouritism to his ex-employer, Boeing. The Defence Department's inspector general will look into the matter following a complaint from a watchdog group.
Mr Shanahan is accused of frequently praising Boeing in meetings about government contracts and acquisitions. Mr Shanahan, who denies any wrongdoing, spent 30 years at Boeing. He rose through the ranks to become a senior executive at the world's biggest planemaker.
Last week Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint with the Pentagon inspector general about Mr Shanahan.
[...] The inquiry casts a shadow over Mr Shanahan as the White House considers whether to formally nominate him to fill the defence secretary post left vacant by Jim Mattis, who stepped down in December.
Boeing is already under pressure after the deadly crash of one of its 737 Max 8 passenger jets in Ethiopia last week.
Also at NYT.
See also: How Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan May Have Promoted Boeing Over Competitors
Related: DoJ Issues Subpoenas in 737 Max Investigation
Initial Findings Put Boeing's Software at Center of Ethiopian 737 Crash:
At a high-level briefing at the Federal Aviation Administration on March 28, officials revealed "black box" data from Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 indicated that the Boeing 737 MAX's flight software had activated an anti-stall feature that pushed the nose of the plane down just moments after takeoff. The preliminary finding officially links Boeing's Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) to a second crash within a five-month period. The finding was based on data provided to FAA officials by Ethiopian investigators.
The MCAS was partly blamed for the crash of a Lion Air 737 MAX off Indonesia last October. The software, intended to adjust the aircraft's handling because of aerodynamic changes caused by the 737 MAX's larger turbofan engines and their proximity to the wing, was designed to take input from one of two angle-of-attack (AOA) sensors on the aircraft's nose to determine if the aircraft was in danger of stalling. Faulty sensor data caused the MCAS systems on both the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines flights to react as if the aircraft was entering a stall and to push the nose of the aircraft down to gain airspeed.
On March 27, acting FAA Administrator Daniel Ewell told the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee's aviation subcommittee that there had been no flight tests of the 737 MAX prior to its certification to determine how pilots would react in the event of an MCAS malfunction. He said that a panel of pilots had reviewed the software in a simulator and determined no additional training was required for 737-rated pilots to fly the 737 MAX.
What follows is from memory from what I've gleaned from reading several news accounts over the past few weeks. I am not a pilot, so take this with the proverbial $unit of salt.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @01:02AM (10 children)
Boeing and Airbus
PCs and Macs
Beta and VHS
Republicans and Democrats
We always pick the worse two out of the whole lot.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @01:21AM (1 child)
Agile? Maybe that's why the Universe exploded after it was created ... we were never off to a great start ..
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @01:24AM
motd: "I'm sorry if the correct way of doing things offends you."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @01:24AM (1 child)
Easy -- low price (almost) always wins, we (collectively) do it to ourselves.
A wise friend (now dead) would often say, "Everything good goes out of the market."
I took as a corollary, "See something you like that is fit for purpose, looks nice and is well made? Buy one (or two) now, soon that product will be unavailable, driven out by a lower cost, lower quality copy."
Obviously there are exceptions, for example, anything subject to Moore's Law.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday April 22 2019, @06:08PM
Good/Fast/Cheap: Pick Two
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @01:23PM (4 children)
> Boeing and Airbus
There are others, but big companies like similar planes to reduce maintenance costs.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-17/first-japan-built-airliner-in-50-years-takes-on-boeing-airbus [bloomberg.com]
On smaller planes you have many alternatives, but on bigger ones, there is very little
>PCs and Macs
linux! :D
>Beta and VHS
streaming :)
>Republicans and Democrats
well you also have alternatives, but most people vote as football teams, they choose one and do not care about anything else.
you also have a broken voting system, winner takes all is stupid... and that shows, you keep electing stupid people to the job
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday April 22 2019, @04:53PM (2 children)
I find it annoying that everyone uses the term PC for Windows PCs. PC means Personal Computer and fits an Apple Computer, Windows Computer, Linux Computer, FreeBSD Computer, FreeDOS Computer, ReactOS Computer, etc. Perhaps, my next computer will be a Steam Machine, because reasons.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday April 23 2019, @04:03AM (1 child)
One of these [youtu.be] you mean?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday April 23 2019, @04:37PM
As in, build a custom desktop computer and install SteamOS on it, instead of purchasing Windows.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @02:04AM
>PCs and Macs
linux! :D
It's the hardware, stu...! No wait, I gotta be nice
you also have a broken voting system
Like it's any better with the other systems? Look at UK and NZ and Australia and France and Italy and Germany and Denmark and Belgium and on and on and on... Their governments have all gone whack also. Cameras and copyright and censorship are everywhere. Even Sweden and Norway are starting to crack a little. What makes fifty bickering parties any better than two? Hell! Europe would still be in the midst of feudal warfare if not for American occupation. If anything they prove that the American's two party system is the best of all of them. We just have to pick better parties.
All these things are the peoples' choice. The biggest issue is denial. Until that is cleared up, everything else is bullshit. It's just like Alcoholics Anonymous, you gotta take that first step.
Oh, and at the time, very few people could afford to "stream" their material, much less on demand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @02:17AM
PCs and Macs
Or even worse, AMD and Intel. Horrible! Horrible!
We could have nice DECs and Alphas running real machine code* created by monks on top of Mount McKinley (Hey, buy American, alright?) and a flat floor for the memory, not some split level Frank Loyd Wright monstrosity!
*Entire OS and office suite on a single 1.44 meg floppy.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday April 22 2019, @01:25AM (2 children)
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market (C) (R) (TM) *ensures* that only the best products will ever be created, because otherwise people will buy their airplanes from elsewhere! No one would ever deliberately cut corners because they'd lose the competition!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday April 22 2019, @06:59AM (1 child)
Moderation suggests people have missed your point..
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Monday April 22 2019, @11:21PM
Or that they understand it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @02:26AM (5 children)
MD sent recruiters to auto repair shops looking for workers. They hired anyone that knew how to hammer a screw. One day they called me for references on a guy I fired for putting a fan blade in backwards and ruining a new radiator. He was hired as an inspector. Another tech that went to work for them said they just put a patch on an improperly drilled section, and that was a certified fix.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @03:03AM (4 children)
Obviously, nobody would hire such people unless they intended to pay below what the invisible hand should theoretically set as a wage for such work. Why would we want people like that assembling airplanes? Shouldn't we offer better wages to attract people who have more attention to detail and workmanship?
Well, it seems the invisible hand doesn't have a goal that serves human needs. The invisible hand is fine with hiring clumsy and inattentive workers for a dime a dozen. The invisible hand provides no disincentive for cutting corners, and in fact it provides every incentive. Caveat emptor.
In early stage capitalism, the invisible hand seems to be aligned with human needs. However, once capitalism evolves to a certain point where all of the economic power becomes concentrated in the hands of a small elite, we get stuff like this.
We can do better than that. We need to stop pretending that we live in early stage capitalism. Objectively, we do not. Once we accept where we are, we will be able to come up with a better way of organizing society.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by crafoo on Monday April 22 2019, @03:25AM (1 child)
So just throw it all out and "find a better way of organizing society"? I hope you aren't advocating for some sort of collectivism ideology. 100 to 200 years ago that might have been excusable. Now we have over 100 years of proof that such ideologies and organizations are murderous and supremely destructive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @02:53PM
Maybe if you slept through history class.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday April 22 2019, @03:43AM
The Unenviable Safety Sponge can soak up enough Blood Money to keep the System afloat. Only when a Boeing jet is falling out of the sky every day will revolutionary changes be in order. As it is, Boeing will address the problems, the stock will go back up, and everyone will forget about it.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @06:34PM
i started listening to markets: not capitalism lately and it's pretty interesting though i don't know enough of the economics yet, to have an opinion as to it's feasability.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @04:30AM (1 child)
>they were retaliated against for flagging manufacturing mistakes.
An honest company the rest of us can trust would welcome finding out about manufacturing mistakes.
One that retaliates against people who try to make things right has no ethical right to sell safety-critical machinery until they credibly permanently mend their ways.
Preventing things from being done right is no better than sabotage.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 22 2019, @07:07PM
I hate to break it to you, but pretty much all organizations punish employees who point out problems.
It upsets the internal power structure.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday April 22 2019, @11:38PM
It's news, now that the New York Times, CNN, and CNBC report on it.
I read those claims many years ago [aljazeera.com], but of course, you can't believe those people ...