Originally Posted by
Big Pistons Forever
Was the work done as a result of a Boeing work order, Yes/No Boeing issued a rejection back to Spirit, not a work order. Spirit did the work required to overcome the rejection and Boeing properly inspected that result. Spirit failed to follow their own door installation procedures and did not notify Boeing they had failed to do so. We know that Boeing inspects the doors because the door on the opposite side got a rejection for other hardware that was loose and Spirit corrected that. I expect there is documentation that the door/plug that departed was inspected and found to have all bolts properly installed before Spirit workers removed them.
Was there a Boeing QC system in place to ensure that bolts critical for the security of the door plug was properly installed. Yes/No Both. Lacking evidence to the contrary I believe Boeing had inspected the door and found it was installed correctly, so yes there is a Boeing system in place to ensure the bolts critical for the security of the door were properly installed. Spirit failed to report to Boeing that the door needed to be reinspected due to removal of the bolts.
Was Boeing responsible for the airworthiness of this aircraft when it was delivered to Alaska. Yes/No However, detecting what is essentially sabotage is also not a typical factory function. There can be other cases where Boeing QC signed off and someone came along later to do some damage intentional or accidental. One would not consider detecting unauthorized work after inspection a normal company function. Mostly aircraft workers do not do work that is not authorized and the authorization for removal of the bolts was from Spirit management.
I found it amusing that a writer making a story about shoddy work would do such obviously shoddy work themselves. It is essentially absolving the party at fault for removing the bolts and failing to reinstall them and laying blame for that on Boeing directly.
The whistleblower account suggests that Spirit management made efforts to minimize reporting to Boeing the extent of the work they did and Spirit did not have proper controls for this particular task. There is enough electronic trail to see that path back to Spirit, but it would take a fundamental distrust of a supplier of the largest single component to figure out why there was a delivery of a door seal and what that delivery would mean in the hands of Spirit.
There is a cartoon from Scott Adams about a reward system for finding software bugs, where one programmer, on hearing about the bonus, replies "I'm about to code myself a minivan."
With that in mind, it is difficult to craft a suitable system of control beyond finding and firing the people who touched the door/plug and any QA and QC people who oversaw the Spirit work order to replace the rivets. Had they refused to work without appropriate QA involvement and their boss retaliated, then fire that person.