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.
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.
Exactly. Now knowing more about the rivet rework associated with removing the plug to accomplish.
There is a standard instruction on the floor for dealing with removal and reinstallation of the plugs/exits etc. for co-lateral reasons.
This is a FUBAR first at at the worker level for not following the standard instruction. Second it is an inspection escape. The floor inspector absolutely rubber stamped completion of the required work.
Culturally, this flows back to the 1990's trend of implementing TQM and six sigma QA where each progressive step of an assembly was verified for compliance by the next worker in line. Culturally, as QA manager in a major aerospace company, I can vouch that there was a lot of resistance to accept the TQM approach from both management and union perspective. We had to do it because it was a contract flow-down requirement but it was "half fast" in implementation.