Boeing Names Independent Quality Review Leader

[buffnut453]

Why do you call them idiots if there was no sign to keep the belt on?

Because every flight I've been on has a verbal announcement recommending that passengers keep their seatbelts fastened while seated, even though the light may be turned off.

Air travel has become so commonplace, and flight safety has improved so much, that people have become immune to the risks that still exist. Despite weather radar, improved forecasting, and sharing of weather conditions between aircraft, it's still entirely possible for an aircraft to encounter unexpected, and pretty severe, turbulence. Even sitting on the ground, the passengers are about 10 feet off the ground, which is quite a drop if an undercarriage leg fails or the aircraft slips off the texiway. The latter are, thankfully, rare but they aren't unknown...so why take the risk by not keeping yourself strapped in until the very end?

 

[buffnut453]

The originally story totally made it seem like "another Boeing incident."

It most certainly was not. Just like the one that went off the runway, the one that lost a wheel, the one that leaked hydraulic fluid, and the one that burst a tire.

Hell it could be a cessna and the press will still somehow blame Boeing for it

Re your first point...that's why I didn't post the original article until a determination had been made on the nature of the "technical" issue.

Agree there's a rush to associate any aviation incident with Boeing. I am trying to be balanced, though.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Re your first point...that's why I didn't post the original article until a determination had been made on the nature of the "technical" issue.

Agree there's a rush to associate any aviation incident with Boeing. I am trying to be balanced, though.

I personally was expecting every day for someone to post the story in this thread, fully placing blame on Boeing. I'm honestly surprised it was not.

Boeing has its problems that must be fixed, and fixed immediately. No one can deny that, but the press is almost taking it to an extreme. An Airbus A320 could have an accident tomorrow, and the news article will be one paragraph about the accident, and 5 paragraphs about it was Boeing's fault.

 

[MIflyer]

Well, it turns out it was not just "Operator Error." The pilot's seat is moved by a motor (like on my neighbor's Porsche) , not by sliding on rails manually (like on my 1997 Toyota) . In order to move it you have to lift a cover on the back of the seat and then reach under the cover and push a switch. But a flight attendant came into the cockpit and leaned on the back of the pilot's seat. The seat movement switch should not have activated, since the cover over the switch had not been raised and as a result the seat moved forward, shoving the captain into the control yoke, overriding the autopilot as designed, and resulting in a sudden nose down pitch movement. The seat movement switch installation was defective because it should not have activated as a result someone leaning on the back of the seat and not raising the cover over the switch.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Why do you call them idiots if there was no sign to keep the belt on?

If I'm in my seat, I'm belted. Turbulence happens. I rode through a thunderhead over Dallas in a Fokker F-27 in 1978, and I'm sure we were hopping and dropping twenty foot at a pop. Ever since then, unless I'm peeing, I'm buckled.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Well, it turns out it was not just "Operator Error." The pilot's seat is moved by a motor (like on my neighbor's Porsche) , not by sliding on rails manually (like on my 1997 Toyota) . In order to move it you have to lift a cover on the back of the seat and then reach under the cover and push a switch. But a flight attendant came into the cockpit and leaned on the back of the pilot's seat. The seat movement switch should not have activated, since the cover over the switch had not been raised and as a result the seat moved forward, shoving the captain into the control yoke, overriding the autopilot as designed, and resulting in a sudden nose down pitch movement. The seat movement switch installation was defective because it should not have activated as a result someone leaning on the back of the seat and not raising the cover over the switch.

Just because there was a system or mechanical failure does not make it the manufacturers fault. Especially since Boeing issued a service bulletin in 2017 directing all airlines to regularly inspect the switch.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Here is another one.

Older Boeing plane found to have missing panel after flight from California to southern Oregon

A post-flight inspection revealed a missing panel on an older Boeing 737-800 that had just arrived at its destination in southern Oregon on Friday after flying from San Francisco, officials said, the latest in a series of recent incidents involving aircraft manufactured by the company. United...

www.yahoo.com

The plane was delivered in 1998 to Continental Airlines, and United has used it since 2011. This was an airline maintenance issue (just like the wheel falling off), but look at the headline…

Boeing plane found to have missing panel after flight from California to southern Oregon

It should be United plane, not Boeing plane.

Then you have the first paragraph, which states "A post-flight inspection revealed a missing panel on a Boeing 737-800 that had just arrived at its destination in southern Oregon on Friday after flying from San Francisco, officials said, the latest in a series of recent incidents involving aircraft manufactured by the company."

As if Boeing was somehow involved in a panel falling off a 26 year old airplane.

Edit: looks like something hit the plane.

 

[SaparotRob]

In the years I travelled by air, I kept the belt on. The Captain used to say, "We recommend you keep your belt fastened as we do in the cockpit".
The one memorable downdraft, a relatively gentle but continuous, occurred just after I received a cup of coffee. I realised as the coffee began to rise up from the cup, a mess would be next if I didn't do something. I hit the belt release and slowly stood keeping the coffee just above the cup. Just at the moment before the coffee reached the ceiling panel, positive G returned and I resumed my seat with my coffee returned to my cup.

And looked cool doing it!

 

[SaparotRob]

...so why take the risk by not keeping yourself strapped in until the very end?

I love the sound of the synchronized seatbelt release when the plane stops at the gate. It's kinda' like my snooze button going off.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Because every flight I've been on has a verbal announcement recommending that passengers keep their seatbelts fastened while seated, even though the light may be turned off.

If I can get my usual preference of window seat I don't even get out of my seat when the plane has stopped. Notwithstanding People's take, instead I wait until my row has deplaned and then I get up and walk off. The trick is to have limited or easily accessible carryon luggage so that you cause zero delay to those behind you. I always laugh at the poptart or wackamole leap to stand up and block the aisle everyone does as soon as the engine's switch off. You're not getting out any faster, so just chill and wait.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

If I can get my usual preference of window seat I don't even get out of my seat when the plane has stopped. Notwithstanding People's take, instead I wait until my row has deplaned and then I get up and walk off. The trick is to have limited or easily accessible carryon luggage so that you cause zero delay to those behind you. I always laugh at the poptart or wackamole leap to stand up and block the aisle everyone does as soon as the engine's switch off. You're not getting out any faster, so just chill and wait.

Patience, at least in a sardine can, er, passenger jet, is indeed a virtue.

 

[SaparotRob]

I prefer a window seat. I wear noise cancelling headphones, sleep mask and face mask. No, I don't want to look at pictures of your....

I also wait for the herd to finish stampeding before exiting.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Patience, at least in a sardine can, er, passenger jet, is indeed a virtue.

I stand up, not because I am going to get off any quicker, but because I have knees that I injured that hurt really bad after 10+ hours on a plane.

I don't see it as a "poptart or wackamole leap to stand up and block the aisle" because I am not blocking anyone, because no one is moving. I mean seriously, whats the big deal if someone wants to stand?

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

I stand up, not because I am going to get off any quicker, but because I have knees that I injured that hurt really bad after 10+ hours on a plane.

I don't see it as a "poptart or wackamole leap to stand up and block the aisle" because I am not blocking anyone, because no one is moving. I mean seriously, whats the big deal if someone wants to stand?

I hear you; I have an incurable bone disease in my hip and stand ASAP after a long flight. What irks me is not the standing, it's the taking ten minutes to get one carry-on out of the overhead, blocking the aisle.

 

[MIflyer]

I prefer a window seat.

I prefer a window seat, with a window you can open, even when flying, and no herd at all.

Admittedly in-flight service is very poor and the bathroom is nonexistent. There are also very limited entertainment options and mostly you are too busy being scared to take advantage of them. Many years ago I recall pulling out a teeny tiny FM radio/Calculator and listening to Car Talk while flying back from Kissimmee, but that is about it.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I hear you; I have an incurable bone disease in my hip and stand ASAP after a long flight. What irks me is not the standing, it's the taking ten minutes to get one carry-on out of the overhead, blocking the aisle.

Yeah, I get that.

It does not help though that the airlines use the most inefficient way to load and unload planes.

 

[OldGeezer]

Boeing's current sad mess is 100% of its own making. I spent decades working for them before retiring, and the environment was just completely toxic. Seattle hated St Louis, even though it was the Defense side that kept the Commercial side afloat for several years of catastrophically reduced/canceled orders after 9/11. Wars were being fought with the aircraft and helicopters and missiles and bombs that Boeing was producing, but the subject was strictly off-limits for Boeing's own internal corporate magazine; that's how much of a philosophical problem Corporate had with military products in general. In turn, St Louis bitterly resented Seattle for sending a succession of senior managers to run things, who had zero experience with military customers and no interest in learning how they and their procurement processes differ from commercial customers. Seattle mid-level managers and line workers similarly bitterly resented the opening of the Charleston production line, considering it (rightly) as a response to union strikes in Puget Sound that had disrupted too many programs over the years. That resentment, incidentally, was rumored to have resulted in deliberate sabotage to subassemblies shipped from Seattle to Charleston for final assembly there, causing SC's costs to go up due to the need to inspect for, and fix, any such damage before final assembly could begin. Or so we heard at the time, and even if it had turned out not to be true, the very fact that it was actually believable gives a good picture of how high feelings were running between the two sites.

The fatal blow, though, came in 2 phases. First, senior executives announced that the accumulated "excess cash" reserve, billions of dollars worth, was going to be distributed to shareholders instead of being retained for its intended purposes of tiding the Company over temporary setbacks, funding R&D, etc. We ordinary workers couldn't help noticing that this decision was made by people who themselves owned millions of shares of Boeing stock, so handing over the cash reserve to shareholders really meant adding hundreds of millions to their own wealth. Second, in order to cut costs (and thus increase profits) it was decided to replace high-grade workers with lower-grade ones who would be expected to do the same work for lower salaries. It's illegal to arrange layoffs using age as a criterion, so instead they were tailored to specific grade levels. But since the only way to get into those high grades is to put in decades of work, the end result was the same. The hidden "gotcha" though is that it's the workers in precisely those high grades who have the most experience, and so getting rid of them just naturally gets rid of the knowledge they have about designing and building and maintaining airplanes and missiles and everything else Boeing makes.

So that's the situation that Boeing is in. Cross-site mistrust, empty cash coffers, and massive loss of experience; how do you recover from a mess like that?

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Yeah, I get that.

It does not help though that the airlines use the most inefficient way to load and unload planes.

I say ejection seats for everybody.

 

[MIflyer]

deliberate sabotage to subassemblies shipped from Seattle to Charleston for final assembly there

As I understand it, one advantage that Charleston has over Seattle is that the layout there - and the union - allows subcontractors to enter the production line "sideways" and install the hardware they built into the airframes rather than simply supplying it to be installed by the regular production workers. This of course reduces the number of production line workers required, and in Seattle, at least, means that non-union contractors are replacing strongly unionized ones.

I heard of a couple of things over the years that show a huge contrast. Michael Moore, the infamous filmmaker, described how proud he was that his uncles, employed by GM, had helped shut down the company's factories. Meanwhile, an interview with a worker at a new auto plant in Alabama talked about how proud they were of starting up a new factory. That led me to wonder. Which kind of car do you want to drive? One built at a place where they are proud to shut down the factories or one built where they are proud to start them up?

 

[Admiral Beez]

It does not help though that the airlines use the most inefficient way to load and unload planes.

Even if the airlines tried to do this….


View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oAHbLRjF0vo&pp=ygUgSGl3IHRvIGxvYWQgYW5kIHVubG9hZCBhaXJwbGFuZXM%3D

…the passengers wouldn't follow instructions.

What I'd rather the airports do is use more than one door, like with the A380 below.

But instead use bridges/fingers at one fore and one aft door. Like this.

It's inefficient to have passengers at the back of the plane walk all the way to the front of the plane when there's a door at the back of the plane. Like Ryan Air below when loading with stairs.

Why Don't More Narrowbody Planes Use Multiple Doors To Board?

simpleflying.com