The actions and inactions of Boeing senior executives has resulted in avoidable costs exceeding 25 Billion dollars. It has crippled the company, likely permanently, and yet the same old pathologies of cheap and nasty shortcuts to maximize short term profits at the expense of long term viability, still seem prevalent, thus my comment about consequence free incompetence.

I rather doubt that - CNC is typically far faster and less expensive than 'hand crafted' - once the machine is programmed it'll pump out dozens of parts with little if any human input (that's why automation is taking over so many formerly hands-on jobs - it's cheaper).
Educated guess is that they flubbed something in the 'finishing' process - possibly a heat treat or similar - or perhaps the part is made from the wrong alloy. The 'no immediate' safety of flight usually means the ultimate strength of the part is unaffected but the fatigue life is. So some straight forward analysis can provide a revised fatigue life - letting them know how long they have to repair/replace in-service parts. Ideally they can perform corrective action during a normal maintenance cycle with minimal disruption.
Delivery is a different issue - it's a real problem to deliver aircraft with a known defect - hence the impact on deliveries rather than in-service aircraft.

BTW, Spirit is an independent company - hasn't been part of Boeing for a couple decades. So blaming Boeing is a little unfair.

Thanks for the educated guesses as of what the issue at hand is.
I am probably way too naive but what is there to gain in obfuscating the matter to the degree the PR does ? Obviously you don’t want to jump to conclusions but given the overall MAX context I’d day frank and transparent communication would be a good start…

Technically yes, practically they are captive to Boeing and the Boeing way of doing business...

From Spirit:

https://www.spiritaero.com/programs/mro-services/

I expect Boeing to be a top customer, but Spirit doesn't appear interested in being captive - given the turmoil from COVID and from the 737 MAX stoppage, it would be insane not to diversify.

Random Thoughts.

The Frames for an earlier type were supposed to be made by CNC machining to a tolerance of 3000th of an - inch perhaps? When the women swat team arrived there was a frame or frames on cloth covered tables being shaped effectively by hand.
When building the fuselage it seemed that, for one reason or another, they had to be "persuaded" to fit. The points of failure on more than one hull loss showed clearly that the fuselage often failed exactly on the frames.

The failure of two AoA sensors (let alone the surviving flight) in five months was an horrific coincidence, since they failed for quite disparate reasons. (In that early era the part was not deemed to be capable of causing a 'catastrophic' series of events.) I'm mindful of the vulnerability of a dual-sensor system. It's not beyond the bounds of possibility to have both units fail due to a common bombardment. Sully comes to mind. It seems almost certain the Ethiopian unit failed in such a manner. So, if two are lost, the new software can, or will be able to access a computed AoA, and the dangers will be radically muted anyway. Why is it that I still wish the system just wasn't there?

Real flying. I recall being a non-operating pilot on an almost new DC10 for my first visit to New York. At less than 1,000' at night, the bloke grabbed a handful of power and positioned for another runway. It was nifty flying, but I can imagine pulling a smidgen of g during such a manoeuvre and the thought of the elevators becoming a soft wet mush is all too real. Why should an aircraft exist that needs MCAS? I know the history, and have a certain sympathy if the cowling lift came as a compete surprise. With the benefit of hindsight, that would have been the moment to take the hit and call a meeting with investors.

The actions and inactions of people after the first crash is case-study material for university level psychology research. My own hobby-horse is the effect the meagre warning had on the Ethiopian flight crew. That is, knowing the end result had ended in a crash probably made the warning briefing counterproductive.

Spirit is a major supplier to Airbus...

Willow, any idea if the content of the conference might become public? Their thoughts would be of interest.

Yep, that unfortunate event happened, because (senior) managers think, they can overrule the rules of physics (see how Trump "ruled", how Bojo "ruled", how Putin "rules", how Hitler did, etc). Some time in the future, they all find their graves, "this is enough". Even Putin will get evicted now or later (the sooner, the better). Some 40 years ago, I did have a discussion with such a business high-potential, being convinced the speed of light limitation would be "overcome" and traveling faster would become the normalcy. Boink.

For Boeing, these senior management actions still gave the profit to the shareholders in the form of share-buy-back over a long period of time. Oh, and the shareholders do think in the same framework, still do expect Boeing to emerge from its current engineering mess (or sold in parts for a profit). These people understand, they have a miss, every now and then, as long as the long term implementation of their goals works out OK, so be it. Unforeseen was, this MAX debacle has become such a big miss.......

I agree with you, unless the CNC "part" becomes very big (or in an unreachable position). In which case the manual handling would be much easier. For example, a CNC'd mating surface all around the circumference of the body.

The example I referred to is what Loose rivets refers to in its first paragraph:

Quote:

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The Frames for an earlier type were supposed to be made by CNC machining to a tolerance of 3000th of an - inch perhaps? When the women swat team arrived there was a frame or frames on cloth covered tables being shaped effectively by hand.
When building the fuselage it seemed that, for one reason or another, they had to be "persuaded" to fit. The points of failure on more than one hull loss showed clearly that the fuselage often failed exactly on the frames.

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Maybe, we really don't know at the moment. It has to do with the whole frame as delivered by Spirit, not a small part. So probable something that gets mounted "fixed" (welded ???) and subsequently being machined/treated to spec.

Yep, in general, though, when the defect isn't serious, it could be a deferred repair (the Tesla approach, with their "Autopilot" vaporware). Currently, airlines are really chasing after their ordered airplanes, and might be willing to accept something "non-serious".

OK, let me elaborate:
- When the leader of a team is prepared to accept sloppy work, the team's delivered quality will gradually degrade.
- When a degraded team gets a new leader, that leader has a very difficult job to bring back suitable standards.
- When a supplier does deliver shoddy quality products and the "customer" does not take action, the supplier's standards will not improve.
- When the customer shows shoddy behavior, the suppliers will gradually start to deliver degraded quality to that customer, since, hey, nobody cares, so why should we ?
- When customer A accepts shady quality and customer B keeps up the standard, the supplier will gradually move its second grade staff to work for customer A projects and the better ones for customer B projects.

So, yeah, degrading standards also influence independent suppliers. So, when the customer (Boeing) lets slip on quality standards, the supplier will be very tempted to follow (over time), since quality is expensive, and it'll save a lot of money to follow the lower customer's quality standards. Oh, see YT for reports about this.

Well, Boeing clearly decided to rework its future along another pathway. Their choice usually flies well in boardrooms, among investors and the like. It is less appreciated by the general public, independent press, governments (when pressed to open up), etc.

Oh, of course, Boeing's secrecy pathway could very well be needed to avoid another (large?) batch of scandals........

In 1992, 26 coal miners in Nova Scotia died in a massive coal dust blast. During the resulting inquiry, it was discovered that the hazards of this particular mine were well known to all, including government inspectors, and that mine management had been informed of the dangers but had not acted. The positive fallout of this accident (can we even call it an accident when the dangerous situation is known to all and sundry?) was the Westray Bill which established, amongst other things, that criminal liability can extend all the way to the C-Suite and BOD. In the wake of a tragedy, all it takes is the political will to make such a law happen.

I do wonder though, whether the passage of 30 years has dulled the institutional memory of the consequences of corporate negligence as regards safety. I suppose however, that’s the job of the corporate legal team to keep upper management aware of their legal duty of care.

Well the hull certainly isn't going to fail in the middle of the wing box; it will fail fore and/or aft of the box.

Would like some more statistics on this. It has been suggested that 737s are more prone to fuselage failure like that than the 320 in similar accidents, like runway overruns.

Could not agree more.

I think, the Internet is littered with examples of that.......

But, that's not due to the manufacture deviation, needing hammering to let the parts fit on assembly, though simply due to the ancient B737 design, grandfathered into the current MAX, so, the MAX will have the same fuselage breakups, when the time comes for those kinds of incidents.

There was someone who wrote a short while ago, possibly on here, that they needed to visit the production lines at both Renton and Toulouse.

At Renton it was all activity - and noise. Production was in full swing. Long-service riveters getting stuck in putting it all together, laid in various uncomfortable positions to do so, blue jeans and workboots sticking out from various places. Not quite Betty and Margo assembling a B-17 in WW2, but it did make the observer recollect those old photos.

At Toulouse there were few staff around, just a handful in white coats looking at the CNC machine displays. The machines were just getting on with it.

I suppose others here, like me, have looked out on 737 wings and noticed the lines of riveting. Sort-of in a straight line, but somehow not perfectly evenly spaced. Now that maybe just what the designer intended, but some here will look and wonder ...

Often legal conferences, are held to aid attorneys with defense counsel practices as well as the gun-slingers who haul alleged wrong-doesr into court, to "keep up" with both the sublime and ridiculous of current "stuff" going on. Sometimes informal (or very informal) papers, at least "the slides" used in the presentations are made available. This conference, though, is more informal yet, with panel discussions provoked or encouraged by moderators who, typically, brief panelists beforehand on topics to be prepared to address. It's often highly interesting and almost always useful to some degree. (And in many fields of law; my prior practice career in employment law, and in-house at a university, saw many such gab-fests - positively crucial for keeping up with new developments which, in those fields were frequent, and many.)

There are other types of lawyerly get-togethers where ""Chatham House" rules, which stipulate non-attribution, are adhered to. These are found predominantly in the academic world (especially "working groups" reviewing drafts of publications).

Perhaps someone at the conference, happily realizing its resumption after a long Covid-induced hiatus, will live-tweet impressions or summaries of panel discussions. I wouldn't hold my breath however awaiting this (but if it occurs, I can let it be known).

My own interest is particularly focused on the "trans-Atlantic" aspects of current affairs in international aviation liability, insurance and finance matters. Whereas U.S. once was said to hold and preserve a "gold standard", the devaluation which has occurred might in fact be continuing, and not yet arrested let alone reversed. And needless to elaborate, with the disruptions of normal commercial compliance with aircraft registration, leases, insurance and so on, and "bombs bursting in air" in fairly major warfare, problems ordinarily situated at nominal degrees of difficulty become closer to crisis, or intractable. (EUROCONTROL's October conference last year, anticipating the application of lessons learned from the difficulties of summer 2022 to expected traffic loads in 2023's summer season, is a good example.)

Not only across the Atlantic, but back home too. FAA reauthorization pends in the den-of-thieves, Washington, and the Congress of the United States. There is no Senate-confirmed Administrator; who knows what will become of the safety-conclave outputs produced recently? What I'm rambling on trying to say, it seems, is that this feels like a pretty crticial time in civil aviation especially insofar as a conference in Brussels or Paris or Montreal would see things. And skeptics could be surprised just how seriously the quite significant majority of lawyers who really work in this field take the very same considerations as pilots, particulalry professional ones, are concerned with.

There is regulatory theatre and then there is regulatory action. The theatre happens at the political level and won’t measurably move the needle. The real change is enabled by the senior management at the working level.

In Industry the metric for measuring manager worth is money, in government it is people.
I don’t really see in the FAA any substantive organizational changes that will create the effective teams that are adequately resourced with the right people to provide the day to day oversight that has been lost due to regulatory capture in the last 20 years.

Lawyers provide reactive oversight. The bad thing happens and then they engage to right the wrong. The regulator is supposed to provide the proactive oversight so that the bad thing doesn’t happen in the first place. Sadly the expectation that industry will spontaneously do the right thing is made a mockery of by what happened at inter alia Enron, BP, Exxon and of course the poster child of C Suite malfeasance, Boeing.

Effective oversight in aviation is really hard. Too much and you stifle innovation, too little and people die. Sadly I think the polarization and politicization in most Western governments has made effective aviation regulation almost impossible.

Sorry, but that entire story smells of BS. For starters, they don't build 737 fuselages in Renton - they are assembled at Spirit in Wichita and shipped by rail to Renton as a complete structure - structural work on the fuselage in Renton is minimal. About all that happens to the fuselage assembly in Renton is the various wiring and systems are added (and of course the wings and tail are bolted on.
As for the 737 wing - it's assembled on the same type of Gemco automated machinery that puts together the 767 and 777 wings (except of course for the 777X composite wing).