Posted on 02/07/2024 8:19:52 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Continuing our ongoing coverage of Boeing's "flying junkyards," the investigation into the blowout of a door plug on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 over Portland last month is still ongoing. FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker said yesterday that the investigation will take six weeks to complete in full and the company is roughly halfway through the process. But Boeing is already releasing some of their preliminary findings, including photographs of some of the inspections being done. One of these photos has led investigators to confirm earlier suspicions that four main bolts used to fasten the door plug in place were not even installed, leading to the near-catastrophe. That's a fairly major oversight and it will likely lead to calls for stricter inspection protocols at Boeing, particularly for the troubled 737 MAX 9 line. (Associated Press)
Bolts that helped secure a panel to the frame of a Boeing 737 Max 9 were missing before the panel blew off the Alaska Airlines plane last month, according to accident investigators.
The National Transportation Safety Board issued a preliminary report on the Jan. 5 incident Tuesday.
The report included a photo from Boeing, which worked on the panel, which is called a door plug. In the photo, three of the four bolts that prevent the panel from moving upward are missing. The location of the fourth bolt is obscured.
The NTSB is working with Boeing on this and the photograph in question told the inspectors a few things. In it, you can see three of four locations where the mounting bolts were supposed to be installed on the door plug. The holes are empty. If they had simply come loose and fallen out, that would have been worrisome enough, but that apparently wasn't the case because the bolts would have been found inside the interior of the frame. If they had been correctly installed and the plug had blown out anyway, there should have been damage to the threads in the holes. But that wasn't observed either, so the only conclusion remaining was that the bolts were not in place.
Further maintenance records from the plane explained more of how this probably happened. The plug was originally installed by Spirit AeroSystems, a Boeing supplier. The plane was taken in for maintenance at Boeing's facility near Seattle when five damaged rivets were found around the door plug. In the process of replacing the damaged rivets, workers would have had to remove the four bolts holding the plug in place. It appears that they were likely not replaced.
Given all of the stress the plane is under during each flight, perhaps it's somewhat miraculous that the plug stayed put for as long as it did. But that doesn't change the fact that a serious error took place and it could have wound up causing a tragedy. Whenever maintenance and repair work is done on one of these aircraft, it seems clear that some sort of supervisor or safety engineer should inspect the finished work before the equipment is reassembled. Having more than one set of eyes on the project should eliminate or at least vastly reduce the possibility that a technician might leave four empty boltholes sitting there.
What the NTSB seems likely to conclude is that this was less a failure of an individual technician and more of a process failure in general. A complete review of all of Boeing's procedures and inspection regimens is no doubt in order. It will be a major pain for them, but they have the lives of tens of thousands if not millions of people in their hands each day. Many people are nervous enough about flying, to begin with. Their confidence isn't bolstered when Boeing's own retired managers and engineers advise the public to not fly on the 737 MAX 9 planes. Everyone involved will simply need to do better.
DEI maintenance or construction staff at peak performance?
What’s the big deal? You always have extra pieces when the job is finished.
I wonder if there were union work rules at play concerning just who was allowed/not allowed to perform the task of bolt insertion?
The plane/ panel went in for maintenance and the bolts were not put back when it was reassembled.
This was a worker/ repair process error and not a defect in the plane. If true, that should go better for Boeing.
Another article seemed to say workers for the air carrier were responsible.
“You always have extra pieces when the job is finished.”
‘Most everything is over-engineered.
At least it used to be............
Anyone else think that the Feds already have this “in hand”?
What I can anticipate is that fewer flights will be allowed. Even if travelers are willing to take the risk, the government might limit air travel in various ways.
Will Pfizer need to roll out a clot shot for aircraft?
Very big deal for me.
My daughter was flying home from Australia the night the door blew off. I was up all night worrying whether she was on a Boeing plane.
All air travel is too CO2 intensive.
Trump is rascist and colluding with Ruzzians with Tucker.
Who needs bolts when Boeing has the most woke, diverse staff in the aviation world?
The 737 is an excellent design, even the door plug which blew out. The problem is quality control in the fabrication process of a most excellent aircraft.
In addition the 737 Max was a most excellent aircraft with a bad computer system that caused two crashes.
A friend of mine an ex Air Force Pilot and 737 airline captain now retired explained it to me very simply:
Computer 2
Pilots 0
It should also be noted that both those crashes were third world airlines. First world airlines had also encountered the computer problem and superior pilots coped with it. However, those two pilots in those third world airlines should have never been flying against a rouge computer program. They were inferior pilots. They are also innocent pilots. No where in their training is a chapter that says, today the computer in your aircraft will try to kill you.
I’m glad I wasn’t drinking anything when I read that.
Coffee hurts when you cleanse your sinuses with it upon laughing.
I have learned you have to be even more careful eating popcorn. At least coffee is liquid.
Hard boiled eggs and blueberry muffins are also a mistake when laughing.
What no one is talking about is the WARNINGS that the aircrew received on the pressurization. If we only had the cockpit voice recording… What were the maintenance squawks that were ignored? The aircrew became “heroes” because they saved the plane and passengers. It would be interesting to see the report on what the aircrew did with the warnings they received and previous flight aircrew. We are experiencing the beginning of third world countries with the DEI in the cockpits of our aviation industry. The warnings in that aircraft should have been investigated… but, they weren’t and here we are today.
Bolts are expensive, doods!
Last time I went to the hardware store for bolts I almost blew a plug.
I did a job where a 14 story building (about 4 years old) had to be torn down. I mentioned to one of the managers in the process of destroying it how it can be the small details that mess things up - like this one guy not putting epoxy on the end of rebar as it was cut. (The rebar was rusting away).
The manager said “Except it wasn’t just that one guy that didn’t do his job. His supervisor wasn’t doing HIS job. The company inspector wasn’t doing HIS job. And the city inspector wasn’t doing HIS job!”
Ironic part was, it was a building that was built and owned by some construction union, and the rent was supposed to go to help cover their retirement funds.
Re: 6 - well, didn’t Gomer have some extra parts left over when he put together the car in Andy’s office?
Plane Had Missing Bolts.
Those that put the door plug in have the bolts!
They could not have missed having 4 bolts laying around!
There is even an email from a maintenance crew with photo of the bolts missing.
They knew so why was it not reported?
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