Posted on 02/06/2024 12:15:05 PM PST by FarCenter
Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday said evidence shows four bolts that hold the door plug in place on the Boeing 737 Max 9 were missing at the time of last month’s blowout on Alaska Airlines flight 1282.
The bombshell new finding from federal investigators comes one month and a day after the January 5 incident that triggered a 19-day emergency grounding of all Max 9s, and re-ignited scrutiny of Boeing following the fatal Max 8 crashes of 2018 and 2019.
...
In their 19-page preliminary report released Tuesday, NTSB investigators included observations from a laboratory disassembly of Alaska 1282’s door plug, which fell 16,000 feet into an Oregon backyard. It said the lack of damage to the plug where the bolts were supposed to attach it to the fuselage of the plane pointed to the conclusion that the bolts were missing at the time of the flight.
“Overall, the observed damage patterns and absence of contact damage or deformation around holes associated with the vertical movement arrestor bolts and upper guide track bolts in the upper guide fittings, hinge fittings, and recovered aft lower hinge guide fitting indicate that the four bolts that prevent upward movement of the MED plug were missing before the MED [mid exit door] plug moved upward off the stop pads,” the report said referring to the mid exit door.
The report included a photo taken in September, more than a month before the plane was delivered to Alaska Air, that show the bolts missing during work on the aircraft, taken from a text message between two Boeing employees obtained by NTSB investigators. It means that the plane flew for a couple of months before the January 5 blowout with the bolts missing.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
24 years ago I quit Boeing after serving there almost 21 years.
I was in engineering so was not IAM who assemble the aircraft. My brother was IAM(union) who made parts for the 737.
I know for a fact they all take their job seriously. Besides everything they do, used to get inspected and bought off on by an inspector who stamps off on the work.
So every thing that was critical was traceable back to the person that bought off the job as being done per specification.
Boeing has lots of books telling you how to do stuff correctly. Technical orders. You break one and you will answer for it, I know from personal experience.
Boeing’s present day problems are it was taken over by “Bean Counters”and is no longer run by Engineers. That is why I left in 2000.
If I wanted to make crap and get lots of stock options, I’d have went over to Microsoft.
Boeing used to make the best aircraft in the world, now all it does is make a few people rich.
Whoever pulled the flagging tape without the bolts in place needs to go down for it as well.
Another person who should go down for it is whoever didn't secure the bolts as part of the work order. The bolts likely sat in a tool box, violating tool control, and then someone found them later but kept their mouth shut. That's criminal.
The door plug/hatch designer needs to be called on the carpet as well. Optimally that hatch would only be removed to the inside and never fit out the opening.
Who here has not worked on their car or lawnmower and not had a few bolts missing or a few extra?
Maybe they took it seriously 24 years ago. The product assembled now falls apart like a soviet car.
I’m sure the union, now, is filled with illiterates and idiots because they tick a non-white male box.
And, any discovered leftover bolts (perhaps in a toolbox, perhaps a pocket?) should be an issue worth reporting.
So glad that nobody was seriously injured.
My son is a rocket engineer. He just had an initial interview with a Boeing/Lockheed joint venture. I’m not sure what the job is. Not sure what kind of hornets nest he might be going into.
Well at least they had the wings bolted on. What do they want...perfection?
Airbus A320 doors open outward too. I’ll be flying on four of them over the next few weeks. Some aircraft doors have to go to inwards before rotating outward. The differential pressure keeps them closed. This Boeing 737 flew for two months without hardware and it stayed in place. As it was working its way out, the crew had been getting intermittent depressurization alarms on several flights. This exact plug design isn’t unique to the 737-9 MAX. The older 737-900 NG also had them. I think this is the first problem in decades. Probably best to install those bolts.
Your experience with quality control and pride in workmanship was when America was still America.
I will never forget watching an technician from the propulsion shop lying on a padded plank inside an engine bay with a flashlight and a magnetic wand slowly calling out each section of aircraft that he cleared while an assistant crew chief initialed the checklist. That engine was not going back in until every nook and cranny had been inspected.
I also remember the technicians lined up with their wheeled toolboxes for inspection before going into a maintenance hanger while the departing shift lined up for inspection as they were departing. Every tool was accounted for. The maintenance NCOs would confiscate knives and Leatherman tools to be returned after shift. They'd also confiscate the black crayons as they chemically interacted with the metal on some parts of the engines and it just wasn't worth the risk.
I remember a hatch that had a small electrical cable bracket that needed to be replaced. The technician had to bag and tag the old bracket and sign out a replacement one from the tool crib. It was probably a $.50 component but it could bring down an entire aircraft if it got into the wrong place.
There is no room for error when it comes to loose tools, parts, or improperly re-installed components on an aircraft.
I’ll take incompetent diversity hires for $500 Alex..
That COULD have been an accident. Maybe. Or maybe not.
Hatches behind panels are a whole other issue, in this case completely dependent on bolts.
It's not an emergency hatch, it's a plug. It should never fit out of the opening, at least not without zero pressurization and being rotated close to 90 degrees.
I was a master at aerospace fastening and joining including cutting edge “hot” systems. The aerospace stories I could tell. There is something very whacked with the slot size on this actuator bracket in respect to the bolt size in the picture. There is a standard relationship between the two.
Union made!
I guess the airlines like the flexibility. The A321 can also be ordered with hidden door plugs in lower capacity seating configurations. I don’t know what holds their plugs in, but the A320 doors also move up and out like the B737, so I’d imagine when you order door plugs on an Airbus, they are going to be quite similar to the Boeing design.
Hardly a bombshell. That has been all over the internet since the incident.
Kudos on you, bro. I worked with some Boeing engineers on an optical glass window project once. I even “made” some of the hardware for that project. We got ‘er done.
I think much of the dumbassery for some time now is related to cell phones. We used books back in the day for many things.
I once drove through 2 states in the snow to introduce my project to a company that was to be our sub-contractors. Some dozen people there and all but 2 left the meeting in 5 minutes. My boss knew I was livid and would have fired this bunch on the spot if it was up to me. We paid for that, one screw-up after another. Cell phone engineers, spit.
I can imagine a worker getting fired before all the bolts were installed. When he was stopped from finishing the job, he decided to leave without telling anyone. Let Boeing pick up the pieces.
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