In the first, Boeing 737 MAX changes beyond MCAS, Fehrm lays out the cascade of warnings that resulted from a single angle-of-attack sensor failure:
As FAA and Boeing played through what happened in the MAX crashes in Boeing’s engineering simulators, the cascading alerts triggered by a faulty single Angle of Attack (AoA) sensor stood out:This is an example of the hand-off problem that is inherent in sophisticated automation (see First We Change How People Behave and the numerous comments). Clearly, giving even expert pilots only 4 seconds to comprehend and react to this confusing rush of warnings would have been unrealistic, even if the pilots had been informed about and trained on the MCAS system that was causing them, which they weren't.
Several trim related failures in such an environment relied on the Pilots identifying the trim misbehavior within four seconds. When flight crews from different airlines were flying these scenarios, it became clear such assumptions were unrealistic.
- Stick shaker went on on the affected side from rotation and stayed on all the time, despite the aircraft flying with the correct speed and not being close to stall.
- IAS (airspeed) UNRELIABLE alert triggered
- ALT (altitude) UNRELIABLE alert triggered
- AOA (Angle of Attack) UNRELIABLE should have shown but didn’t because of a bug in MAX’s software that tied it to the optional display of AoA on the Pilot’s Primary Flight Display (PFD, the Pilot’s electronic horizon display).
- The speed tapes on the Pilot’s Primary Flight Display behaved strangely, showing too low speed and high speed concurrently in the ET302 case.
In the second, Fehrm points out an interesting difference between the FAA's and the EASA's requirements for re-certifying the 737 MAX in 737 MAX ungrounding, ANAC’s and EASA’s decisions:
The other condition has its root in the disconnection of Speed Trim, MCAS, Autopilot, and Flight Directors should the two Angle of Attack systems disagree. EASA will temporarily revoke the 737 MAX certification for Required Navigation Performance – Authorization Required (RNP AR) approaches.Duplicating systems is never a good approach to fault tolerance, they must be triplicated. In the 70s BA used Tridents on the Edinburgh to London shuttle. Their autoland systems were triplcated, and certified for zero-visibility landing. I experienced my first go-round when, on my way from Edinburgh to Miami for a conference, the approach to LHR in heavy cloud was interrupted by the engines spooling up and an abrupt climb. The captain calmly announced that one of the autopilots disagreed with the other two and, as a precaution, we were going around for another try. On the second approach there was no disagreement. We eventually landed in fog so thick I couldn't see the wingtips. Only the Tridents were landing, nothing was taking off. My Miami flight was delayed and after about 10 hours I was re-routed via LGA.
...
Should the AoA monitor trip, Speed Trim, MCAS, and more importantly, Autopilot and Flight Directors disconnect, it puts a crew in a very tight spot as the difficulty of such approaches are high (they require special crew training and certification). You need all the tools you have in such approaches and don’t want a sudden disconnect of the Autopilot and Flight Directors combined with Speed Trim warning, followed by AOA, IAS and ALT DISAGREE.
The revoke of the RPN AR approach certification is temporary. One can guess it will be allowed again once a synthetic third AoA sensor is introduced to the MAX. It creates a voting “two versus one” situation when one of the sensors presents suspicious values. It would then result in an AOA DISAGREE warning, but the Autopilot and Flight directors would stay on and IAS and ALT would still get the required AoA corrections. The AOA DISAGREE is then an indication for required maintenance rather than a major system hiccup.
60 comments:
Lori Aratani and Ian Duncan report that Boeing ‘inappropriately coached’ FAA test pilots during review of 737 MAX after deadly crashes, Senate investigators say:
"Senate investigators concluded that Boeing “inappropriately coached” Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) pilots for a simulator test last year conducted during the effort to test and recertify the company’s 737 MAX as safe to fly again after two deadly crashes.
The conclusion is contained in a report issued Friday by the Republican majority in the Senate Commerce Committee on an investigation that was launched after the two MAX crashes but that ultimately broadened to unearth numerous safety problems across the FAA.
...
The FAA inspector alleged the Boeing official told the pilots, “Remember, get right on that pickle switch” — meaning an electrical thumb switch on the control column used to pitch up the jet’s nose."
Bryan Corliss' Boeing should build 757 replacement in Washington looks ahead to the next big mistake Boeing is going to make:
"Washington, by every relevant objective measure The Teal Group could think of, is categorically the best place for Boeing to keep its commercial operations. And Washington, by every subjective measure that Boeing uses, is absolutely a terrible place for Chicago to run its business the way it wants.
Since the 1997 McDonnell Douglas merger, Boeing adopted the Jack Welch/GE management model. Former CEO Harry Stonecipher was a Welch acolyte. So was his successor, Jim McNerney. Current CEO David Calhoun spent 26 years at GE, sitting on that company’s board of directors for eight years and rising to the rank of vice chairman.
The GE model is based on a foundation of ruthless competition, among suppliers, among employees and among communities where a company bases its business units. Welch famously once said his dream would be to put factories “on a barge” where he could move them – or threaten to move them – to lower cost sites that are “more competitive.”
That business culture clashes severely with the traditional Seattle culture, which is heavily, maybe obsessively, based on consensus building and “win-win” solutions. It also views unions favorably."
Boeing is very late responding to the A321 Neo. Moving the headquarters to Chicago and the 787 to Charleston have proven to be disasters:
"With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, we can see that the road to where we are today was paved the day in June 2005 when the Boeing board chose McNerney to be CEO, thus embracing the ethos of ruthless competition and rejecting Alan Mulally’s brand of “Working Together” leadership. Mulally went on to guide Ford through one of the greatest crises of its history; McNerney’s tenure led Boeing to … this, a situation so bad they’ve sold off the corporate yacht."
Dominic Rushe reports that US fines Boeing $2.5bn following fraud charges tied to 737 Max crashes:
"Boeing has been fined $2.5bn by the US justice department after being charged with fraud and conspiracy in connection with the fatal crashes of its 737 Max airliner.
The Max was grounded worldwide in March 2019 after crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people. A March 2020 congressional concluded that Boeing promoted a “culture of concealment” and was “grossly inefficient” in its oversight of the Max’s development.
“The tragic crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 exposed fraudulent and deceptive conduct by employees of one of the world’s leading commercial airplane manufacturers,” acting assistant attorney general David Burns of the justice department’s criminal division wrote in a release."
It turns out that the headline Boeing to pay $2.5 billion to settle fraud charges tied to 737 MAX crashes
is misleading, and this is actually the usual "cost-of-doing-business" settlement:
"Boeing has agreed to pay just over $2.5 billion to resolve a federal charge of “criminal misconduct” for how its employees misled regulatory officials during certification of the 737 MAX, the Department of Justice announced Thursday.
Of that amount, only $243.6 million, less than 10%, is a fine paid to the U.S. government for the criminal conduct, “which reflects a fine at the low end” of the sentencing guidelines, the court agreement states.
The rest includes an additional $500 million Boeing commits to pay in compensation to the families of the 346 people who died in two crashes of the MAX.
However, 70% of the $2.5 billion cited in the settlement, or $1.77 billion, is compensation to Boeing’s airline customers that the company has already agreed to pay. (Indeed, that’s just a fraction of what it has agreed to pay them.)"
The Economist summarizes Boeing's predicament in Can Boeing fly without government help?. (Spoiler: No):
"Boeing got away with a slap on the wrist from regulators over lax safety practices. But the firm, which has destroyed $140bn in shareholder value over the past two years, is not in the clear. Without America’s doting government, it may never be.
...
Its gross debt has more than doubled to $63bn over the past year. ... Its free cashflow ... was minus $20bn in 2020. Operational fragility, meanwhile, extends beyond the MAX. Last quarter Boeing shipped just four 787 Dreamliners, after wrinkles were discovered on the plane’s fuselage. Compensation claims for delayed deliveries may result in a charge of up to $3bn. Boeing is taking a $6.5bn charge against another wide-body model, the 777X, delivery of which has been pushed back three years owing to uncertain demand for air travel.
...
Boeing’s capital expenditure slumped from $1.7bn in 2019 to $1.3bn in 2020. Despite pandemic-related cuts, that of Airbus is closer to $2bn"
Cutting investment won't help it compete with:
"Airbus, which bagged 1,200 more orders than Boeing in 2015-19"
Richard Aboulafia at Aviation Week writes Opinion: Will Boeing Become The Next McDonnell Douglas?. The only scenario envisaging Boeing's survival is:
"Yet if Boeing does not launch a new product, industry competitive dynamics might still save BCA or at least prolong its decline. The slow death of Douglas Aircraft took 30 years. But Douglas faced two very aggressive competitors that were constantly investing in the future. If Airbus refrains from new clean-sheet launches and is content with a 60-65% market share, Boeing, even without a new airplane, might be able to maintain its current position for decades. This remains an industry with very high barriers to entry."
Reuters reports that Boeing 777s grounded by airlines after FAA issues emergency order:
"Boeing 777s have been grounded in the US and Japan after the US Federal Aviation Administration issued an emergency airworthiness directive following a catastrophic engine failure on one of the planes in Denver on Saturday.
United Airlines said it was temporarily grounding all 24 of its Boeing 777s in active duty after one of its Boeing 777-200s had to make an emergency landing at the weekend, scattering engine debris across the ground.
...
Japan’s transport ministry said a JAL flight from Naha to Tokyo had to return to the airport on 4 December last year due to a malfunction in the left engine. That plane is the same age as the 26-year-old United Airlines plane involved in Saturday’s incident."
Reuters reports that Engine parts drop from Boeing 747 cargo plane in Netherlands:
"Dutch authorities are investigating after a Boeing 747-400 cargo plane dropped engine parts shortly after takeoff from Maastricht airport.
The Longtail Aviation Flight 5504 cargo plane scattered mostly small metal parts over the southern Dutch town of Meerssen on Saturday, causing damage and injuring a woman.
The Bermuda-registered plane, which was headed from Maastricht to New York, was powered by Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines, a smaller version of those on a United Airlines Boeing 777 involved in an incident in Colorado on Saturday."
Two incidents in one day.
Linea Ahlgren's 222 Boeing 787s Affected By New FAA Airworthiness Directive reports on yet another Boeing safety issue:
"On Friday, February 19th, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will publish an Airworthiness Directive (AD) requiring the inspection of approximately 222 Boeing 787 Dreamliner jets. The deadline for initial checks of the jets’ decompression panels in the bilge barriers is set to 45 days from the AD’s publication."
Dominic Gates' FAA safety engineer goes public to slam the agency’s oversight of Boeing’s 737 MAX
reports that:
"A week after the Lion Air crash on Oct. 29, 2018, Jacobsen received an email from a colleague asking if there was an issue paper on MCAS.
“This was the first day that I heard about MCAS,” he wrote. “We had no issue papers, and if we had, I would have been the engineer responsible for providing technical content and comment on such an issue paper.”
When he did get a look at the system, Jacobsen said he was “shocked to discover that the airplane was purposely designed and certified to use just one AOA (Angle of Attack) input for a flight critical function.”
If given the chance during the original certification, he’s certain that he and “6 to 8 of our most experienced engineers in the Seattle office” would have identified that as a serious design flaw because there’s “a long history of AOA sensor failures.”
Instead, Boeing minimized MCAS and kept the details of its assessment to itself."
Gates earlier reported that Boeing 737 MAX program leaders who approved flight control system say they didn’t know key details:
"In testimony to congressional investigators probing the fatal crashes of two 737 MAX jets,Michael Teal, the chief engineer on Boeing’s 737 MAX program who signed off on the jet’s technical configuration, said he was unaware of crucial technical details of the flight control system that triggered inadvertently and caused the crashes."
Boeing tells airlines to stop flying some 737 Max planes because of an electrical issue by Niraj Chokshi starts:
"Boeing said Friday it had notified 16 customers of a potential electrical issue with its troubled 737 Max plane and recommended that they temporarily stop flying some planes.
The affected airlines should verify “that a sufficient ground path exists for a component of the electrical power system” on certain Max planes, Boeing said.
...
American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines, the top three operators of the Max, said they had removed more than 60 planes from service. It is not clear how long the planes will be sidelined."
In Pontifications: More of the same expected at Boeing’s annual meeting Scott Hamilton points out that no-one on Boeing's board has experience either making or using their major product, commercial aircraft.
Reuters reports that Boeing still working on fix for 106 grounded 737 MAX planes -U.S. FAA:
"Boeing disclosed an electrical power system issue on April 7 and recommended operators temporarily remove these airplanes from service.
The problem involved the electrical grounding - or connections designed to maintain safety in the event of a surge of voltage - inside a backup power control system. The FAA said Thursday "subsequent analysis and testing showed the issue could involve additional systems."
Bloomberg reports that Boeing faces FAA audit of latest manufacturing flaw in 737 Max:
"The flaws in the electrical components raise new questions about Boeing’s ability to monitor safety issues within the company. The lack of a robust internal safety review and oversight system was cited repeatedly by multiple reviews of the 737 Max crashes.
Until recent months, Boeing didn’t have what is known as a Safety Management System, which requires an organization to conduct more robust risk analyses of design features, open channels for employees to raise concerns and involve senior management."
Bryan Corliss reports in Boeing rehires aircraft inspectors that:
"The Boeing Co. has quietly recalled at least some of as many as 900 quality control inspectors who were laid off in 2019 as part of a drive to adopt car-industry manufacturing processes in aerospace manufacturing.
The move comes after the union for the inspectors – Machinists District Lodge 751 – pushed the company to prove that getting rid of inspectors could be done without risking quality issues and would actually improve production times."
Who could have predicted that firing the inspectors would cause quality problems?
Another Boeing quality problem. Reuters reports Emirates warns Boeing it will refuse 777x jets if they don't meet commitments:
"In an interview broadcast on Monday, President Tim Clark said he had not received any performance details of the jet's engines so far even though test flights began in 2020.
The influential industry veteran has raised concerns that Boeing had a recent history of over-promising on performance of new jets, including the in service 737 MAX and 787 Dreamliner."
The drip-drip-drip continues. Gareth Corfield reports that Boeing fined $17m after fitting uncertified sensors to 737 Max and NG airliners for 4 years:
"Boeing has paid the US Federal Aviation Administration $17m after fitting hundreds of 737 NG and Max airliners with heads-up guidance system sensors (HUGSS) that hadn’t been properly certified as safe for use.
...
The affected sensors have since been formally tested and certified as safe to use. Nonetheless, Boeing will still pay $17m for fitting the sensors in violation of US airworthiness regulations."
Marie Christine Duggan's Boeing Hijacked By Shareholders and Execs! is a detailed look at Boeing's slow corporate suicide:
"The failure of Boeing management to fund innovation and quality control has had repercussions for the tens of thousands of workers at Boeing. The company’s supply chain even reaches into my town in rural New Hampshire, where a firm that supplies parts to commercial airplanes trains high school students as machinists and pays employees to get computer science degrees. One of the reasons Boeing is “too big to fail” is that those independent, well-managed suppliers hold up what is left of the social fabric in a multitude of small towns across the country.
The mismanagement of Boeing—and the struggle of its employees to stem the decline—is not simply the story of one company gone terribly wrong. It is the story of incentives for all publicly held corporations in the United States gone horribly wrong. And it is also the story of many in lower levels of the hierarchy inside the firm putting their jobs on the line in a struggle to retain a focus on quality."
It is well worth a read.
In addition to the 737MAX and 787 problems I've written about, I should also have mentioned the debacle of their space program, the KC-46 tanker's persistent fuel leaks, and now the long delay in certifying the 777X. Boeing's engineering culture is in ruins.
The FAA just mandated that every single 737 be inspected:
"The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is instructing airlines to inspect their Boeing 737 fleet for faulty altitude pressure switches that could potentially pose a safety risk.
The switches are part of a system designed to warn flight crew of cabin depressurization. Planes are equipped with two cabin altitude pressure switches so there is a backup if one fails. But the crew and maintenance personnel are not alerted of switch failures."
Boeings deluge of quality problems continues, as Andrew Tangel reports in Boeing faces new Dreamliner production problem:
"A new production problem has surfaced with Boeing Co.'s 787 Dreamliner, likely further delaying deliveries of the popular wide-body jets, people familiar with the matter said.
Boeing expects the newly discovered defect to take at least three weeks to address, according to some of these people. That means its customers may not get new Dreamliners for much of the traditionally busy summer travel season.
Boeing halted handing over Dreamliners to airlines in late May, after federal air-safety regulators declined to approve the plane maker’s proposed method of inspecting the jets for previously disclosed production defects. It was the second such pause in the past year."
Dominic Gates reports that FAA demands that Boeing flight manuals give more detail on pilot emergency procedures:
"Boeing, under intensifying regulatory scrutiny after the fatal MAX crashes, has been directed by the Federal Aviation Administration to rework its flight manuals for both the 777X and MAX 10 to include detailed emergency pilot procedures.
The FAA has told Boeing to incorporate into the Airplane Flight Manuals, formal documents that are required for certification of both jets, precise details of the procedures and checklists the crew must follow to handle the kind of emergencies that killed 346 people in the MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia."
Alan Levin reports that Boeing Employees’ Safety Independence Under Scrutiny by U.S. FAA:
"U.S. aviation regulators are opening a new review of Boeing Co. after a survey of company engineers found a sizable percentage said they couldn’t raise safety concerns without interference.
A survey conducted by the Federal Aviation Administration from May through July found that 35% of Boeing employees raised issues of conflicts of interest and a lack of independence, according to an Aug. 19 letter from the head of the agency division overseeing the company."
Dominic Gates reports that Ethiopian Airlines settles with Boeing following 737 MAX crash and expects to fly the jet again by January:
"The financial terms of the settlement were not disclosed. The Seattle Times reported exclusively in January that Boeing had then offered an amount on the order of $500 million to $600 million, a large portion of which was not cash but concessions, including discounts on future airplane sales and waivers on maintenance costs.
A Chicago law firm advising the airline wrote a letter to CEO Tewolde then urging him to reject a settlement and instead to sue the manufacturer for punitive damages in the U.S., hoping to win “not less than $1.8 billion in cash.” That advice wasn’t taken."
But:
"This summer, the FAA slowed certification of Boeing’s next new plane, the 777X; directed Boeing to rework its flight manuals for the 777X and MAX 10 to include detailed emergency pilot procedures; and ordered Boeing to improve the independence of engineers working on airplane certification, after a third of those surveyed by the FAA said they feel they cannot raise safety concerns without interference."
And:
"In January, Boeing escaped serious consequences from a criminal investigation into the MAX crashes when the Department of Justice imposed a fine of $244 million, a relatively small amount for Boeing.
Boeing’s ongoing estimate of the total cost of the MAX crisis in financial filings has stabilized at about $21 billion, of which almost $9 billion is compensation to airline customers. Wall Street doesn’t expect that to grow."
$21B is about 2/3 of what it would have cost Boeing to deliver the first of a new airframe replacing the 737.
Scott Hamilton's Pontifications: David Joyce fills key void on Boeing’s Board reports:
"Last week’s election of David Joyce to the Boeing Board of Directors fills a glaring hole of talent and expertise that’s been missing from the Board for years.
Joyce, an outside director, brings commercial aviation and engineering experience to a Board that has been dominated by political, defense and financial expertise."
But it has a string in the tail:
"Calhoun, a GE alumni, picked a former GE exec to succeed former EVP and CFO Greg Smith. The GE influence at Boeing that began with the 1997 acquisition of McDonnell Douglas Corp., where another GE alumni, Harry Stonecipher, was CEO, is viewed by many as a long-term contributor to Boeing’s slide from an engineering company to one overly focused on financial performance and shareholder value.
The GEntrification of Boeing has long been a concern, especially as the financial world saw the decline of GE itself as a global leader that has been in a long financial decline of its own."
Daniel Thomas reports that Boeing: Directors to face investor lawsuit over fatal crashes:
"Boeing's board of directors must face a lawsuit from shareholders over two fatal crashes involving its 737 Max plane, a US judge has ruled.
Morgan Zurn said the first crash was a "red flag" about a key safety system on the aircraft "that the board should have heeded but instead ignored".
She said the real victims were the dead and their families but investors had also lost billions of dollars."
Dominic Gates reports that Criminal indictment imminent for former Boeing 737 MAX chief technical pilot, report says:
"Federal prosecutors plan to criminally indict Mark Forkner, the former Boeing 737 Chief Technical Pilot who is alleged to have deceived aviation regulators and airlines about a critical new flight control system on the 737 MAX, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Bringing Forkner to trial could shed more light on why the flaws in the MAX flight controls that killed 346 people in two crashes were overlooked during certification."
E-mails show he misled the FAA. Boeing's Deferred Prosecution Agreement exonerated Boeing's senior management but:
"Internal emails show Forkner felt intense pressure to comply with a “program directive” to keep down costs and protect the jet’s development schedule by ensuring that regulators and airlines perceived the MAX as so minimally changed from the previous 737 model that pilots would find little difference."
So this looks like Forkner is the scapegoat so that Boeing's disastrous management can escape accountability. I agree with Ellen Pao that the comparison between Elizabeth Holmes and, for example Adam Neumann and Travis Kalnick (and Elon Musk) shows that there is a different standard of accountability for women and men (none).
The DoJ announced the sacrifice of Mark Forkner to avoid accountability for Boeing's top management.
Gwyn Topham reports that Boeing admits full responsibility for 737 Max plane crash in Ethiopia:
"The legal stipulation, filed in Chicago on Wednesday and awaiting court approval next Tuesday, states the aircraft manufacturer accepts responsibility for the crash of Ethiopian airlines flight 302 in March 2019, having “produced an airplane that had an unsafe condition”, and would not seek to blame any other party, specifically including the pilots."
A quick update on Boeing's accumulating incompetence.
1) Titanium Plates: Boeing Up Against A New 787 Dreamliner Issue by Andrew Curran:
"The plane builder says some titanium parts in some planes built over the last three years are not as strong as they should be."
2) FAA memo reveals more Boeing 787 manufacturing defects, including contamination of carbon fiber composites by Dominic Gates:
"The FAA memo, which was circulated internally Monday and reviewed by the Seattle Times, points to new concerns about a previously unreported defect caused by contamination of the carbon fiber composite material during fabrication of the large structures that make up the 787’s wing, fuselage and tail.
The memo also adds detail about the small out-of-tolerance gaps that have been discovered throughout the airplane structure: at the joins of the large fuselage sections, at a forward pressure bulkhead and in the structure surrounding the passenger and cargo doors."
3) Boeing Employee Safety Independence Under Review by U.S. FAA by Adam Levin:
"U.S. aviation regulators are opening a new review of Boeing Co. after a survey of company engineers found a sizable percentage said they couldn’t raise safety concerns without interference.
A survey conducted by the Federal Aviation Administration from May through July found that 35% of Boeing employees interviewed raised issues of conflicts of interest and a lack of independence, according to a letter to the company released by the agency Tuesday."
And, problem at the FAA not Boeing:
4) Investigator says FAA training inspectors weren't qualified by David Koenig:
"Federal investigators say some safety inspectors who helped set pilot-training standards for the Boeing 737 Max were unqualified and the Federal Aviation Administration seemed to mislead Congress about their competency."
And another Boeing problem. Dominic Gates reports that FAA says Boeing is appointing people lacking expertise to oversee airplane certification:
"The Federal Aviation Administration this summer found Boeing had appointed engineers to oversee airplane certification work on behalf of the agency who lack the required technical expertise and often “are not meeting FAA expectations.”
An FAA letter of complaint to Boeing last week, the latest in a series this year from the local office that oversees the jet maker, states that many of the Boeing safety appointees the agency interviewed this summer did not measure up.
The need for those recent appointments arose because during the downturn from the pandemic Boeing offered early retirement to many more senior FAA-authorized safety engineers."
In Built to Lie, Maureen Tkacik reviews Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing by Peter Robison.
It isn't just Boeing that has quality issues, although these are less serious. Qatar Airways criticizes lack of progress on A350 paint issue by Richard Schuurman reports that:
"The issue has been lingering on since early this year and was revealed by Reuters in May. In August, Qatar release a statement, publicly condemning Airbus for failing to address the problem in a proper way. Qatar noted that paint on the upper fuselage has degraded “at an accelerated rate”, exposing the composite structure underneath to potential corrosion. The Qatar aviation regulatory agency instructed Qatar Airways to ground the affected aircraft, which in August were thirteen A350s but which according to Al Baker are now twenty."
Thomas Claburn's After deadly 737 Max crashes, damning whistleblower report reveals sidelined engineers, scarcity of expertise, more discusses the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation report:
"It is based on testimony from seven industry whistleblowers from Boeing, GE, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
...
It details testimony from Ed Pierson, a former Boeing senior manager, who described 13 other reported safety incidents with the 737 Max that did not result in any loss of life. He observed:
'Most shocking of all, 11 of these 13 safety incidents occurred in the five months between the Lion Air crash and the Ethiopian Airlines crash. Thus 2 safety incidents per month.'
...
Richard Kucera, a former GE Aviation engineer, recounted "being placed in an untenable position where he was responsible for conducting engine conformity tests on behalf of [the] FAA, while also being charged with preparing GE engines to pass these same tests." And Boeing personnel, it's said, faced "relentless" schedule pressure with regard to the 737 Max."
Chris Isidore reports that Boeing posts massive charge for 787 Dreamliner problems, sending losses soaring:
"Boeing has essentially been unable to deliver the widebody 787 jet for a year because of quality control issues.
The company said it will have to pay $3.5 billion to compensate customers for the delayed deliveries. It delivered only 14 of the jets in 2021, and none since June. It also said the delays would increase the costs of producing the plane by an estimated $2 billion, with most of those costs coming at the end of this year. It booked $285 million of those increased costs in the just completed quarter.
...
The charges caused the company to report a net loss of $4.3 billion for the year, which is actually an improvement from the $11.9 billion it lost in 2020. Its core loss, excluding special items, came to $4.1 billion for the year, reversing a narrow profit on that basis in the first nine months of 2021. It's a core quarterly loss on that basis of $4.5 billion. That was far worse than analysts had forecast."
Charles Bramesco's ‘All those agencies failed us’: inside the terrifying downfall of Boeing reviews Rory Kennedy's Netflix documentary Downfall: The Case Against Boeing (trailer here):
“It’s the profit-driven running of companies into the ground,” Kennedy says. “You can look at the energy industry, fossil fuels, the destruction of the environment, all for the sake of profit. You can see it in healthcare, media. Part of my interest in making this film was the hope that it could rise to something bigger. We need to be skeptical of all these industries. There were many decades when Boeing did extraordinary things by focusing on excellence and safety and ingenuity. Those three virtues were seen as the key to profit. It could work, and beautifully. And then they were taken over by a group that decided Wall Street was the end-all, be-all. There needs to be a balance in play, so you have to elect representatives that hold the companies responsible for the public interest, rather than just lining their own pocketbooks.”
Bob Lefsetz provides another recommendation for Downfall: The Case Against Boeing:
"this one film is going to dent Boeing in a way years of news stories has not. But the reason I watched the film was the personal recommendations from my readers. The rest of the hype just flew right by me.
It shouldn’t fly right by you.
Watch this."
Chris Isidore reports that Boeing needs to get its 's*** together,' Ryanair CEO says:
"The CEO of Ryanair let loose a scathing, obscenity-laden attack on Boeing management Monday, saying company executives need either an immediate "reboot, or a boot up the a**."
"At the moment we think Boeing management is running around like headless chickens, not able to sell aircraft, and then even the aircraft they deliver, they're not able to deliver them on time," said Michael O'Leary, CEO of Ryanair, Europe's largest discount carrier, which has ordered nearly 400 jets from Boeing since 2010."
Boeing 737 MAX mid-air emergencies revealed as US agency prepares to probe production issues by Kathryn Diss, Kevin Nguyen and Meghna Bali reveals that 737 MAXs:
"have experienced at least six mid-air emergencies and dozens of groundings in the year after an extensive probe cleared them to fly.
The incidents, pulled from US government air safety databases, are among more than 60 mid-flight problems reported by pilots in the 12 months after the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recertified the plane's airworthiness in late 2020.
...
In one incident in December 2021, a United Airlines pilot declared a mayday after the system controlling the pitch and altitude of the plane started malfunctioning.
An ABC investigation can also reveal the US government will announce a new audit examining Boeing's production oversight of the 737 MAX planes."
Dominic Gates reports that Boeing CEO threatens to cancel 737 MAX 10 unless Congress acts:
"Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said he’s ready to cancel the 737 MAX 10 program if Congress doesn’t extend a regulatory deadline that would allow the jet to enter service without an upgrade to the 737 crew alerting system.
Canceling plans for the largest member of the MAX family — which has about 640 orders with prospects for more, including from Delta — would be a big blow to the MAX program that would curtail future job growth at the Renton assembly plant.
It would leave Boeing with no viable competitive plane against the successful Airbus A321neo."
David Shepardson's U.S. judge: Passengers in fatal Boeing 737 MAX crashes are 'crime victims' doesn't sound good for Boeing:
"In December, some crash victims' relatives said the U.S. Justice Department violated their legal rights when it struck a January 2021 deferred prosecution agreement with the planemaker over two crashes that killed 346 people.
The families argued the government "lied and violated their rights through a secret process" and asked U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor to rescind Boeing's immunity from criminal prosecution - which was part of the $2.5 billion agreement - and order the planemaker publicly arraigned on felony charges.
O'Connor ruled on Friday that "in sum, but for Boeing's criminal conspiracy to defraud the (Federal Aviation Administration), 346 people would not have lost their lives in the crashes."
Boeing’s New 737 Woes Are an Ugly Plot Twist in a Comeback Tale by Julie Johnsson reports that:
"The new 737 problem involves two of the eight fittings where the jet’s vertical stabilizer is attached to the rear of its fuselage. A contractor, Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc., discovered that since 2019 two of its suppliers for the fittings — but not a third — had at times used non-standard manufacturing processes, according to Cai Von Rumohr, an analyst at Cowen & Co.
Spirit assembles most of the 737’s aluminum frame on Boeing’s former Wichita, Kansas, campus.
Boeing and Spirit said they’ve determined, along with the Federal Aviation Administration, there’s no safety threat, meaning they’ve avoided a major crisis."
It isn't just the 737 MAX, the 787 and the USAF tanker, as Eric Berger reports in To keep Starliner flying, Boeing must make some hard choices:
"In recent years, both of the two top leaders of NASA in 2009—former Administrator Charlie Bolden and Deputy Administrator Lori Garver—have pointed to Boeing's entry into the commercial crew program as essential to its long-term success.
"Boeing entering the commercial crew program meant that you got a lot more support from Congress because they tend to have a very robust lobbying program," Garver said last year
...
To date, Boeing has taken nearly $900 million in charges against its earnings for setbacks in Starliner's development, and this latest delay, which is likely to take at least six months to resolve, if not much longer, will undoubtedly push those charges higher. It is difficult to see Boeing ever making money on Starliner after nearly 14 years of involvement in commercial crew."
John Ostrower reports that Boeing and Spirit grapple with newly discovered 737 Max quality issue:
"Boeing has inspected multiple fuselages and found some aircraft with hundreds of misaligned and duplicated holes. These holes, called “snowmen” because of their elongated shape of two overlapping holes of differing size, were filled with fasteners and passed quality inspections at Spirit before being shipped by rail to Boeing."
Mentour Pilot's NEW Problems with the B737MAX! is a very clear explanation of the two problems holding up 737 production, the attachment of the vertical stabilizer, and the "snowmen" holes in the rear bulkhead, and their implications for Boeing and Spirit.
Dominic Gates reports that Boeing wants FAA to exempt MAX 7 from safety rules to get it in the air :
"Little noticed, the Federal Aviation Administration in December published a Boeing request for an exemption from key safety standards on the 737 MAX 7 — the still-uncertified smallest member of Boeing’s newest jet family.
Since August, earlier models of the MAX currently flying passengers in the U.S. have had to limit use of the jet’s engine anti-ice system after Boeing discovered a defect in the system with potentially catastrophic consequences.
The flaw could cause the inlet at the front end of the pod surrounding the engine — known as a nacelle — to break and fall off."
Thomas Mackintosh and Kathryn Armstrong report Alaska Airlines grounds 737 Max 9 planes after section blows out mid-air:
"A passenger plane lost a section of its fuselage in mid-air forcing it to make an emergency landing in the US state of Oregon.
The Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 turned back minutes into its flight to California after an outer section, including a window, fell off on Friday.
There were 177 passengers and crew on board and it landed safely in Portland.
The airline said it would temporarily ground all 65 of its 737 Max 9 aircraft to conduct inspections."
Mary Schlangenstein, Julie Johnsson, Siddharth Vikram Philip, and Ryan Beene report that FAA Orders Temporary Grounding of Some 737 Max Jets After Mishap:
"The Federal Aviation Administration ordered the temporary grounding and inspections of some Boeing Co. 737 Max 9 aircraft, a day after a fuselage section on a brand-new Alaska Airlines jet blew out shortly after takeoff, leaving a gaping hole.
The move affects about 171 planes worldwide, according to a statement by the FAA. Alaska, the world’s second biggest operator of the type, had already grounded its Max 9 fleet in the wake of Friday’s incident after takeoff from Portland, Oregon. United Airlines Holdings Inc., the model’s top operator, also took some of the jets out of service for inspections, while Aeromexico also said it will ground its Max 9 planes for checks."
Indrajit Samarajiva's The Boeing 737 MAX and The Crash Of Capitalism is w orthy rant:
"If anything symbolizes the suck of late-stage capitalism, it’s the ‘door’ blowing off a 737 MAX, sucking a boy’s clothes out, and falling into a schoolteacher’s backyard. These planes fucking suck, but people have to keep riding around in them because they’re somebody’s investment. The 737 MAX is simply too big to fail, despite being an obvious failure, over and over again.
America doesn’t make things anymore, and neither does Boeing. They just rebrand, reboot, and loot the corpse of the 20th century until it’s unrecognizable. The Boeing 737 is a 50-year-old airframe that some marketing idiot just slapped the word MAX on, like it’s a flavor of Mountain Dew. They might as well call it the 737 EXTREME, which is the experience of riding one. The thing has crashed itself, blown out doors midair, and the engine can melt itself if the pilot isn’t careful. These are not isolated problems, they are simply the downstream effects of having stupid fucking ideas in the first place."
A pseudonymous Boeing employee has a pair of must-read comments [one, two] on Leeham News' post “Unplanned” removal, installation inspection procedure at Boeing that reveal the appalling state of Boeing's quality management now the company is really McDonnell-Douglas.
Freddy Brewster's The Hole In Boeing’s Inspection Program is a detailed account of how Boeing's lobbying gradually eased the FAA out of overseeing safety by delegating "96%" of the work to Boeing employees, who feared reprisals for reporting problems:
"For the past 15 years, the government has allowed Boeing to conduct its own inspections related to many manufacturing and safety issues — and during that time, government reports, experts, and whistleblowers have issued more than a dozen warnings that the self-inspection program has led to serious production issues and contributed to two fatal crashes.
During much of that period, federal regulators shifted an ever-larger amount of the plane-certification process to Boeing, even as the plane manufacturer cut production corners and pledged to focus on “removing layers that help us be faster.”"
Two really good YouTube videos on the crisis at Boeing:
- How Boeing Lost Its Way from Wendover Productions with help from Air Currents describes how concentrating on design and final assembly while outsourcing manufacturing to subcontractors who had almost zero negotiating leverage so were losing money was such a disaster.
- Mentour Pilot's Is this THE END of the Boeing 737?! is a history of the repeated efforts to update the 737. Starting at 20:07 he covers the deadly threat a stretched Airbus 220 poses to the 737, and how this will force Boeing to finally develop a clean-sheet 737 replacement, which they can neither afford to do, or not to do.
David.
Brian Potter's A Cycle of Misery: The Business of Building Commercial Aircraft looks at the whole industry, not just Boeing:
"Nearly every source points to the same instigating event: the 1997 merger with McDonnell-Douglas, which changed Boeing from an engineering-driven company focused on building the best airplanes possible to one which focused overwhelmingly on financials and stock price.
As far as I can tell, this characterization is accurate. And yet it misses a big part of the picture: the brutal structure of the commercial aircraft industry that drives companies like Boeing to create things like the 737 MAX (an update to a 50-year-old airplane) instead of creating a new model from scratch. By unpacking how the commercial aircraft industry works, we can better understand Boeing’s behavior."
A bad week for Boeing's PR reported in United Plane Veers Off Runway in Third Boeing Mishap of Week by Mary Schlangenstein and Alan Levin:
"A United Airlines Holdings Inc. aircraft ran off the taxiway into a grassy area after landing at Houston on Friday, marking the third headline-grabbing incident this week involving the carrier’s Boeing Co. planes.
...
Friday’s incident involves a 737 Max built four years ago that has been in service for less than a year. It follows the mid-air loss of a tire from a United Boeing 777-200 Thursday, just after the plane took off from San Francisco on a flight to Osaka, Japan, and an engine failure on a United flight from Houston to Fort Myers, Florida, earlier this week.
The plane in the Houston-to-Florida flight had to make an emergency landing after one of its engines began belching flames 10 minutes after takeoff. The engine ingested plastic bubble wrap that had been left on the airfield prior to departure, according to United."
That's an older 737, a 777 and a 737 MAX. Then there is another 737 MAX in Alan Levin's Boeing 737 Max Recent Rudder Failure Under Investigation:
"Pilots on a United Airlines Holdings Inc. 737 Max 8 said the pedals that control the rudder, a key device to help maneuver a plane, became stuck as they touched down at Newark Liberty International Airport on Feb. 6, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a preliminary report Thursday."
Dominic Gates has a must-read, long-form discussion of Boeing's decline in Boeing’s long fall, and how it might recover.
David Koenig and Alanna Durkin Richer report for AP that Justice Department says Boeing violated deal that avoided prosecution after 737 Max crashes:
"Boeing has violated a settlement that allowed the company to avoid criminal prosecution after two deadly crashes involving its 737 Max aircraft more than five years ago, the Justice Department told a federal judge on Tuesday.
It is now up to the Justice Department to decide whether to file charges against Boeing. Prosecutors will tell the court no later than July 7 how they plan to proceed, department said.
...
In a letter filed Tuesday in federal court in Texas, Glenn Leon, head of the Justice Department criminal division’s fraud section, said Boeing violated terms of the settlement by failing to make promised changes to detect and prevent violations of federal anti-fraud laws.
The determination means that Boeing could be prosecuted “for any federal criminal violation of which the United States has knowledge,” including the charge of fraud that the company hoped to avoid with the settlement, the Justice Department said."
Chris Isidore and a tean from CNN report that Boeing chief admits the company has retaliated against whistleblowers:
"He acknowledged that the company had retaliated against employees who have raised safety concerns.
...
Sen. Richard Blumenthal on Tuesday gave a hint about how many Boeing whistleblowers there are. “We have more than a dozen whistleblowers by this point, and we encourage more to come forward,” the senator said early in the hearing.
And a memo by committee staff on Boeing – clocking in at more than 200 pages with attachments – mentions the range of people who have stepped forward, as well."
Three more bad headlines for Boeing:
- Sean Previll's How potential Boeing criminal charges could have ‘huge’ impact globally.
- Gabe Cohen, David Goldman and Gregory Wallace's Whistleblower warned Boeing of flaws in 787 planes that could have ‘devastating consequences’.
- Jon Ostrower et al's NTSB sanctions Boeing for sharing unauthorized Alaska 1282 information during media briefing.
Boeing to Plead Guilty to Fraud for Violating Deal Over 737 Max Crashes by Chris Strohm, Allyson Versprille, and Julie Johnsson documents something only a little more than a wrist-slap:
"Under the agreement with US prosecutors, Boeing faces a criminal fine of as much as $487.2 million — the maximum allowed by law — though the actual amount will be determined by a judge, according to the Justice Department. The DOJ asked the judge to credit Boeing for the prior fine it paid, which would bring the new penalty down to $243.6 million, if approved.
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The agreement also has the potential to complicate Boeing’s interaction with the government as a major defense contractor and builder of the presidential aircraft, though the company is likely to seek a waiver or turnaround that allows it to keep doing business in those areas."
Boeing faces fresh safety questions after engine fire on flight from Scotland by Severin Carrell reports that:
"Flames were seen by passengers briefly shooting from the engine of a Delta Air Lines 767 soon after it took off for New York in February last year, after a turbine blade broke off during takeoff.
The flames subsided while the plane was airborne but it made an emergency landing at Prestwick airport south of Glasgow, where ground crew noticed fuel leaking from the plane’s right wing."
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