Posted on 01/12/2024 5:12:45 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
A former senior manager at Boeing’s 737 factory told “NewsNation Now” that he specifically avoids flying on Max airliners due to safety concerns.
“I fly all the time. And even I schedule myself away from a Max,” said Ed Pierson, a former manager at Boeing’s facility in Renton, Washington.
Pierson said he’s even walked off planes after learning they’re a Max.
“They swapped the planes at the last minute, and I walked on the plane, sat down, and realized it’s a Max. I got up and walked off the plane,” said Pierson. “I didn’t take that flight.”
(Excerpt) Read more at newsnationnow.com ...
Those Indian and Karen engineers are really working out well. Too bad 50 year old white men have been forced out of corporations. We live in a fallen, stupid, stupid world.
Nikki Haley is on Boeing payroll as well maybe she should fly 737 MAX planes?
Flawed: Why the Boeing 737 Max Should Be Permanently Grounded
https://observer.com/2019/05/boeing-737-max-software-fix-permanently-ground/
I don't blame this snafu on engineering.
Not all facts are known yet, but it looks like this blunder is due to poor training, poor craftsmanship, poor inspection and poor management on the shop floor.
Sorry, but you can't blame the engineer for loose and missing bolts.
We live in a fallen, stupid, stupid world country.
I bet they wish they could take that decision back.
-PJ
British Comets, Lockheed Electras, and 727’s had some early problems. I suspect the causes in those days were different than Max’s.
Not dismissing the concerns Of rather not fly in one, but fun the article:
“Pierson, who now works as a safety advocate for air travelers, said Boeing’s leadership is directly responsible for the company’s recent mishaps.”
Just saying he might dramatize things a bit.
You can add DC-10s, B-52s, and a a lot of foreign manufactured planes to that list too, in fact, everything that moves. It is the nature of manufacturing.
Even at six sigma quality assurance, there are escapes. Unfortunately they are found in unexpected and often unpleasant ways.
I always say the most dangerous part of your trip is
driving to and from the airport.
DID YOU KNOW?
October, 2023
Each year, thousands of American aircraft are serviced by nearly one thousand FAA-certified maintenance and repair stations outside the United States, but those foreign facilities are not required to meet the same standards as their U.S. counterparts.
https://www.twu.org/twu-lawmakers-push-for-aircraft-maintenance-in-america-not-china-to-protect-fliers-u-s-jobs/#:~:text=Each%20year%2C%20thousands%20of%20American,standards%20as%20their%20U.S.%20counterparts.
Correct. Design flaws and errors you sure can, but engineers aren’t usually out there bolting them together.
Not (just) recertification.
(The following rant is not directed at you P.J., and for many it is old news but as a commercial/intrument ASMEL pilot and P.E. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, who took graduate coursework in Flight Test and Simulation, Control Theory, etc, and designed, integrated, verified, validated, simulated and otherwise developed computers, chips, software, firmware, interfaces, and software and workflow for talented people doing those things for over a 40 year career, I want to speak my perspective to this.)
Boeing management, informed by Sales, wanted to avoid requiring any additional sim or actual flying time to train pilots on the differences if they were rated in earlier models. The potential airline customers would have had their flight operations disrupted almost as much as if they had bought an Airbus designed from the beginning for the engine. So, Boeing committed to a con, told them there was nothing to it, just view an ipad familiarization app.
Maybe if thousands of transitioning airline pilots had tried flying and emergencies with an accurate sim model the MCAS issues would have surfaced and been taken seriously like they should have with internal verification by engineering test pilots during development and validation afterwards.
The Atlantic article ( https://fortune.com/2020/01/10/designed-clowns-supervised-monkeys-internal-boeing-messages-slam-737-max/ ) all but says they got cheap offsite H1Bs (Indians, etc) to develop the MCAS. The irony is Muhlenberger was the lead engineer on the Boeing entry in the air superiority fighter design and prototype flyoff competition, which was fully fly-by-wire. (the fly-off the F-22 won)
People who take life-critical firmware for granted and call engineers the reductionist ‘coders’, who try to get software cheap, fast, and good (or even safe), well they FAFO’d. Except they still don’t get it.
Better to pay the best experienced, educated, and talented programmers in the world than get cheap H1Bs. That approach to talent can cost lives, or cost your company billions in revenue loss and unrecoverable market share loss. And not just that product. Boeing has reversed a lifetime of goodwill it had earned. Boeing should have recruited and paid this team like a pro basketball team, rather than importing the cheapest, least likely to make management uncomfortable people they could bring from the Third World.
DEI didn’t create this but diversity and inclusion crap will ultimately be used as an excuse for management and HR overriding the engineersand hiring the wrong flight firmware developers.
The test and validation “chief technical pilot” could not get management to see there was a real problem. He later wrote in an internal email the airplane “designed by clowns who were in turn supervised by monkeys”.
( https://fortune.com/2020/01/10/designed-clowns-supervised-monkeys-internal-boeing-messages-slam-737-max/ )
Then Boeing apologised FOR THE TONE OF THE COMMUNICATION not the message and desperation it telegraphed when it came out in a doc dump.
Before I was an Engineer I believed shoddily engineered products were due to poor engineers and manufacturing staff. Now I know, that is rarely the case. A manager has to insist that an engineer or skilled manufacturing employee do a bad job and push trash out the door.
Another good article here that wasn’t paywalled https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/failed-certification-faa-missed-safety-issues-in-the-737-max-system-implicated-in-the-lion-air-crash/
Inviting you to read 14, often we never see comments that pertain to our posts and opinions if we read a thread, post to it, and move on.
Well, we engineers also need to consider assymbly concerns in the any design. I am not familiar with this issue, but if bolts are not accessible, then the design needs to be partly to blame.
That said, once the issue is known, ground the plans and reconsider the design and the assembly and the insperction.
This is a serious issue and not something you leave up to people who are not the best at what they are doing.
Bolts not being accessible are a design flaw, which I mentioned.
-PJ
Probably got fired or passed over.
Boeing stressed wokeness, not quality.
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