| To: Jeff Hayden who wrote (3624) | 3/12/2024 7:59:30 PM | | From: John Koligman | | | | Exactly what I was thinking! In addition, I'm no aviation expert, and I'm sure warning lights in the cockpit are common, but I still found it disturbing that multiple iterations of a pressurization warning kept the plane flying.
Alaska Airlines Flight Was Scheduled for Safety Check on Day Panel Blew Off
The 737 Max remained in service for a day after the airline’s engineers, concerned about warning lights, scheduled it to come in for maintenance. During that period, a door plug came off in flight.
The Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 that had a door plug blow out midflight focused new attention on Boeing’s manufacturing processes and the safety procedures followed by airlines.Credit...Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
 
By Mark Walker and James Glanz
March 12, 2024Updated 6:02 p.m. ET
A day before the door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines flight on Jan. 5, engineers and technicians for the airline were so concerned about the mounting evidence of a problem that they wanted the plane to come out of service the next evening and undergo maintenance, interviews and documents show.
But the airline chose to keep the plane, a Boeing 737 Max 9, in service on Jan. 5 with some restrictions, carrying passengers until it completed three flights that were scheduled to end that night in Portland, Ore., the site of one of the airline’s maintenance facilities.
Before the plane could complete that scheduled sequence of flights and go in for the maintenance check, the door plug blew out at 16,000 feet, minutes after embarking on the second flight of the day, from Portland to Ontario International Airport in California.
The plane landed safely and no one was seriously injured, but the incident focused new attention on Boeing’s manufacturing processes and the safety procedures followed by airlines.
The scheduling of the maintenance check on the plane has not previously been reported. It demonstrates that the airline chose to keep the plane in service while it made its way toward the maintenance facility rather than flying it to Portland without passengers.
Alaska Airlines confirmed the sequence of events. But the airline said the warnings it had on the plane did not meet its standards for immediately taking it out of service.
Donald Wright, the vice president for maintenance and engineering for Alaska Airlines, said the warning signals — a light indicating problems with the plane’s pressurization system — had come on twice in the previous 10 days instead of the three times the airline considers the trigger to take more aggressive action.
Alaska Airlines has repeatedly asserted that there is no evidence that the warning lights, which could also be caused by electronic or other problems, were related to the impending plug blowout.
“From my perspective as the safety guy, looking at all the data, all the leading indicators, there was nothing that would drive me to make a different decision,” Max Tidwell, the vice president for safety and security for Alaska Airlines, said in an interview.
The airline’s engineers had called for the plane to undergo a rigorous maintenance check on Jan. 5 to determine why the warning lights were triggering based on their use of “a predictive tool” rather than on the number of times the warning lights had gone off, the airline said.
While it kept the plane in service, the airline did put restrictions on it following the recommendation of the engineers. It restricted the plane from flying long-haul routes over water, like to Hawaii, or remote continental areas in case of the need for an emergency landing.
Extensive evidence of a potential problem with the plane had been accumulating for days and possibly weeks, according to interviews with the airline and records of the investigation into the blowout. In addition to the flashing lights, investigators say the door plug had been gradually sliding upward, a potentially crucial link in the accumulating string of evidence. The airline said its visual inspection in the days leading up to the blowout did not reveal any movement of the door plug.
A door plug is a panel that goes where an emergency exit would be located on a plane with the option of expanding the number of passenger seats.
A preliminary report released by the National Transportation Safety Board last month said that four bolts meant to secure the door plug in place were missing before the panel came off the plane. It outlined a series of events that occurred at Boeing’s factory in Renton, Wash., that may have led to the plane being delivered without those bolts being in place.
Mark Lindquist, a lawyer representing passengers on the Jan. 5 flight, said the series of mishaps involving the Alaska Airlines jet were alarming, adding that both the carrier and Boeing, the 737 Max 9’s manufacturer, would struggle to explain the events in court.
“When jurors find out they’d actually been cautioned by engineers to ground the plane and they put it into commercial rotation instead, jurors will be more than mystified — they’ll be angry,” Mr. Lindquist said.
In his court filing, Mr. Lindquist said that passengers on a previous flight heard a “whistling sound” coming from the area of the door plug. The documents say passengers brought the noise to the attention of the flight attendant, who then reported it to the pilots. When asked about the report, Alaska Airlines said it could not find any record of a report of whistling coming from the plane.
Almost a week before the blowout, the 737 had been taken out of service on Dec. 31 because of an issue with the front passenger entry and exit door. Records show the plane resumed service on Jan. 2. However, on Jan. 3, a pressurization warning light was triggered during at least one of the plane’s flights. Alaska Airlines officials said the plane was inspected by engineers and the carrier determined it was safe enough for the plane to continue flying.
The next day, the same light was again triggered.
A spokeswoman for Alaska Airlines said it was then that engineers and technicians scheduled the deeper inspection of the plane for the night of Jan. 5 in Portland. But the airline chose to keep the plane flying with passengers as it made its way across the country that day.
The revelations about the warning signs of a potential problem have raised questions about whether routine inspections should have been able to weave together various indications of an issue and avert the incident.
Jennifer Homendy, the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, told reporters last week that over the 154 flights the plane had flown since entering service in the fall, small upward movements of the door plug had left visible marks, and possibly created a gap between the panel and the fuselage.
Alaska Airlines officials said they did not notice any unusual gaps between the door plug and the plane’s fuselage during inspections on the days leading up to the door plug coming off.
Additional evidence includes the pressurization system lights on previous flights and the unconfirmed reports of a whistling noise.
Mark Walker is an investigative reporter focused on transportation. He is based in Washington. More about Mark Walker
James Glanz is a Times international and investigative reporter covering major disasters, conflict and deadly failures of technology. More about James Glanz
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| To: John Koligman who wrote (3625) | 3/13/2024 8:17:35 AM | | From: Jeff Vayda | | | | | As with most 'incidences' you need multiple failures. Anyone of the escapes could have been captured and averted the mishap - plenty of blame to go around. Might look on the other side and appricate the robust engineering which allowed so many people to 'miss' the preferred action and still get out with out significant harm. |
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| To: Jeff Hayden who wrote (3622) | 3/14/2024 2:16:37 PM | | From: John Koligman | | | | So the CEO they hired is an 'accountant'.....
"Boeing hired Calhoun to right the ship and help return the plane maker to its engineering roots. Some questioned the move at the time, given that Calhoun himself was trained as an accountant and has no engineering background. Calhoun, who previously worked at the Blackstone Group, Nielsen and GE, was cut from the same cloth as Jim McNerney, who ran Boeing as CEO from 2005-2015, a tumultuous era marked by strained labor relations and cost-cutting."
Dave Calhoun was hired to fix Boeing. Instead, ‘it’s become an embarrassment’
Analysis by Allison Morrow, CNN
4 minute read
Updated 10:37 AM EDT, Thu March 14, 2024
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun, pictured in January.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
New YorkCNN —
Hardly a day has gone by in 2024 without a bad headline for Boeing, from life-threatening mid-flight crises up above to entrenched business debacles happening on the ground. So how does CEO Dave Calhoun still have a job?
“It’s become an extreme embarrassment,” Richard Aboulafia, a longtime aviation analyst, told me. “The board seems weirdly absentee, investors seem weirdly complacent, and the government doesn’t seem to have a mechanism for dealing with this.”
Let’s step back: Boeing’s ( BA) stock has shed more than a quarter of its value this year, and it’s only March. One of its planes suffered a mid-flight blowout on January 5, prompting multiple federal investigations that increasingly suggest Boeing workers failed to put crucial bolts in place after making repairs. Last week, investigators called the company out for dragging its heels in response to their requests for key evidence.
Boeing said it is working closely with regulators’ investigations and has plans in place to improve safety measures at its production facilities.
“We will continue supporting this investigation in the transparent and proactive fashion we have supported all regulatory inquiries into this accident,” Boeing said in a statement.
Boeing’s 737 Max problems would be egregious enough on their own.
But wait, there’s more.
RELATED ARTICLEBoeing is in big trouble
On Monday, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner flying from Australia to New Zealand plunged suddenly mid-flight, injuring 50 passengers before landing safely. On Tuesday, news began emerging that a Boeing whistleblower, John Barnett, died in an apparent suicide on the same day he was scheduled to give testimony about safety concerns he raised over the company’s safety protocols.
It’s not clear whether Boeing bears any responsibility in either case. The company said it was gathering information about what went wrong on the 787. And in response to its former employee’s death, the company said: “We are saddened by Mr. Barnett’s passing, and our thoughts are with his family and friends.”
Boeing lost its wayIf Boeing were any other company, its CEO would be out the door. But Dave Calhoun, Boeing’s chief executive since 2020, remains in his job, as does the entire C-suite at the time of this writing.
“It’s been three years of ‘there’s no way Calhoun can stay at the helm,’” said Aboulafia, managing director of the consulting firm AeroDynamic Advisory. “But he seems to be staying at the helm … I do not get it.”
Boeing actually raised Calhoun’s total compensation in 2022, to $22.5 million, despite problems with the 777 program and quality control issues with the 787 that forced regulators to halt the company’s deliveries. Calhoun’s 2023 compensation has not yet been announced — Boeing typically reveals that information in April.
To be fair to Calhoun, he took over a company in deep distress following two fatal 737 Max crashes that landed the crucial plane in a nearly two-year-long grounding and put the company in a yearslong crisis. And the plane maker’s problems didn’t start there: The 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas is widely cited as Boeing’s poisoned chalice. It was after the merger that the bean-counter executives began taking over, gutting the joint, and putting accountants into roles once held by engineers. Maximizing profit took precedence over quality. In the short term, margins improved. But in the long term, Boeing lost the plot.
Executives at Boeing, starting in the mid-aughts, “identified an industry with tons of cash flow, high barriers to entry and only two players,” Aboulafia said, referring to Boeing’s European rival, Airbus. “It’s a recipe for getting away with bad things.”
Critics of the 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019 weren’t just a problem of flawed design but also deeply flawed management that eroded Boeing’s corporate culture.
Boeing hired Calhoun to right the ship and help return the plane maker to its engineering roots. Some questioned the move at the time, given that Calhoun himself was trained as an accountant and has no engineering background. Calhoun, who previously worked at the Blackstone Group, Nielsen and GE, was cut from the same cloth as Jim McNerney, who ran Boeing as CEO from 2005-2015, a tumultuous era marked by strained labor relations and cost-cutting.
RELATED ARTICLEBoeing sales unfreeze but they’re still well below normal
Under Calhoun, Boeing still hasn’t been able to shake its enormous problems. This year’s mounting concerns prove his efforts haven’t resulted in sufficient quality and safety improvements.
CNN has reached out to Boeing for comment.
“If you ask me, the first thing that needs to happen for Boeing to gain trust is to basically fire the entire C suite,” Gad Allon, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, told me Tuesday. “I know that will not happen, but … there is not a single person that has a C in front of their title that is not responsible for what we’re seeing now.”
But Allon isn’t holding his breath for Boeing’s board of directors to act.
“If there is a functioning board, that’s what should happen. |
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| To: John Koligman who wrote (3627) | 3/14/2024 7:16:27 PM | | From: Jeff Hayden | | | | | It's been since 1997 that Boeing was poisoned by the MacDac merger that brought in management incompetence. That's nearly 3 decades of upper level rot, including the board. That board needs to be replaced with technically competent people also. Maybe pilots and some customer people. |
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| From: Thomas M. | 3/14/2024 7:50:17 PM | | | | | | In 2014 an Al Jazeera reporter visited a Boeing 787 plant in South Carolina, and found that of the 15 respondents, 10 said the planes were not ready. Plant workers said that management turns a blind eye to 90% of production problems. Many employees were addicted to drugs.
Tom |
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| To: Thomas M. who wrote (3629) | 3/14/2024 8:01:15 PM | | From: Selectric II | | | | Looks and sounds frightening.
Yet, look at the admirable safety record.
Every hour, every day, every week, all month long, 24/365, nonstop around the clock.
Pretty darn good.
I'm more concerned about airline maintenance, given the recent stories. Airlines are piling on the current Boeing hate, but why would a wheel fall off a plane that's been in service long enough to have its wheels and tires inspected, and its tires replaced -- by the airline, not Boeing? |
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| To: Jeff Hayden who wrote (3628) | 3/15/2024 8:40:19 AM | | From: Jeff Vayda | | | | | Bit of a revisonist history there. MacD was the struggling company. Boeing bougt them to 'balance' their cyclic commercial airline business with MacD's stable defense business. The 'blame' is Boeing's for not identfying the best people for ANY job - much less top management. |
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| From: Thomas M. | 3/15/2024 12:14:08 PM | | | | | | Boeing's 737 Max Software Outsourced to $9-an-Hour Engineers
It remains the mystery at the heart of Boeing Co.’s 737 Max crisis: how a company renowned for meticulous design made seemingly basic software mistakes leading to a pair of deadly crashes. Longtime Boeing engineers say the effort was complicated by a push to outsource work to lower-paid contractors.
The Max software?plagued by issues that could keep the planes grounded months longer after U.S. regulators this week revealed a new flaw?was developed at a time Boeing was laying off experienced engineers and pressing suppliers to cut costs.
Increasingly, the iconic American planemaker and its subcontractors have relied on temporary workers making as little as $9 an hour to develop and test software, often from countries lacking a deep background in aerospace?notably India.
In offices across from Seattle’s Boeing Field, recent college graduates employed by the Indian software developer HCL Technologies Ltd. occupied several rows of desks, said Mark Rabin, a former Boeing software engineer who worked in a flight-test group that supported the Max.
The coders from HCL were typically designing to specifications set by Boeing. Still, “it was controversial because it was far less efficient than Boeing engineers just writing the code,” Rabin said. Frequently, he recalled, “it took many rounds going back and forth because the code was not done correctly.”
industryweek.com
Tom |
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| From: Eric | 3/15/2024 2:43:58 PM | | | | | | Pilot-seat blunder led to Boeing 787’s midair plunge, WSJ reports
March 15, 2024 at 4:31 am
By
Angus Whitley
Bloomberg
A mishap with a cockpit seat may have thrust the pilot into the controls of a Boeing Co. 787 plane flying to New Zealand this week, triggering the sudden plunge that injured 50 passengers, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing US officials familiar with the investigation.
A flight attendant serving a meal on the Latam flight hit a switch on the seat, propelling the pilot forward and pushing down the aircraft’s nose, the newspaper said. According to the report, the switch is fitted with a cover and isn’t meant to be pressed if a person is in the seat.
The plane was on its way to Auckland from Sydney on Monday when it suddenly lost altitude. Multiple media reports have described how the incident sent passengers, including at least one baby, flying into the ceiling of the cabin. While no one was seriously injured, seven passengers and three crew members were taken to the hospital after the flight landed in Auckland.
Related
50 people are injured by a ‘strong movement’ on a plane traveling from Australia to New Zealand
Boeing told the WSJ that it’s in contact with Latam Airlines Group SA and is on hand to help the investigation. The US planemaker may issue a memo about the seat switch to airlines flying the popular 787 Dreamliner, the newspaper said.
Boeing currently faces scrutiny for separate safety lapses after the Jan. 5 blowout of a door plug on a 737 MAX 9 operated by Alaska Airlines shortly after takeoff. No one was injured and the plane landed safely.
US regulators last month gave the company 90 days to devise a plan to fix what it called “systemic” quality-control issues, while the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into the Alaska Air incident. Accident investigators say they remain in the dark about who performed the work on the panel that failed in January, despite high-level pleas being made to Boeing and interviews with people at the factory where the work was performed.
Latam has described the midair plunge as a “technical event during the flight, which caused a strong movement.”
Two investigators from Chile’s civil aviation agency arrived in New Zealand on Wednesday to lead the probe, the WSJ said. The newspaper cited US industry officials who had been briefed on initial evidence.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
This story was originally published at bloomberg.com. Read it here.
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| From: John Koligman | 3/15/2024 8:09:28 PM | | | | | | United flight from SFO missing external panel after landing in Oregon
The incident involving United Airlines flight 433 is the latest in a string of recent mechanical problems on United airplanes
By Kristofer Noceda • Published 49 mins ago • Updated 2 mins ago
A United Airlines plane that departed Friday from San Francisco International Airport was missing an external panel when it landed at its destination in Medford, Oregon.
A United Airlines plane that departed Friday from San Francisco International Airport was missing an external panel when it landed at its destination in Medford, Oregon.
United released the following statement:
"This afternoon, United flight 433 landed safely at its scheduled destination at Rogue Valley International/Medford Airport. After the aircraft was parked at the gate, it was discovered to be missing an external panel. We’ll conduct a thorough examination of the plane and perform all the needed repairs before it returns to service. We’ll also conduct an investigation to better understand how this damage occurred."United said the Boeing 737-800 had 139 passengers onboard the plane, with six crew members. The plane also did not declare an emergency while en route to Medford "as there was no indication of the damage during the flight," United said.
The incident involving United Airlines flight 433 is the latest in a string of recent mechanical problems on United airplanes.
On Thursday, United Airlines flight 1816 took off from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport at 5:30 a.m. Just before landing in SFO at 7:30 a.m. local time, the United Airbus experienced a hydraulic leak. It was able to land safely, according to officials.
On Mar. 7, a Japan-bound United flight out of SFO was diverted to Los Angeles after a wheel fell off during takeoff.
Then on Mar. 8, in passengers had to be evacuated from a United Airlines plane in Houston after it rolled off a runway during landing and got stuck in the grass.
Also on Mar. 8, a United flight to Mexico City from SFO was diverted to LAX because of a hydraulics issue.
Last Monday, a United flight headed to SFO from Sydney, Australia had to turn around midflight after fluid was seen spewing out from the right rear landing gear. |
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