Boeing Names Independent Quality Review Leader

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Hire back the guys who built the BUFF, which is neither Fat nor Ugly.

Its not about the people hired, its about the pressure put on the people to deliver.

The industry has become so competitive, and the airlines want their aircraft built fast.

Anyone who thinks this is a "Boeing" problem, well I've got a Bridge to sell you.
 
I just don't like disparaging remarks about the Stratofortress.

The BUFF is in a league of its own.

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I wonder about some aspects of the F-22. In a procurement class I was taking a representative of the F-22 SPO said that the SPO chief and his deputy decided to see what mechanics have to put up with and changed the engine on an F-15. As a result they vowed there would be NO use of safety wire on the F-22. Now, I am no good at safety wiring and I never had class on how to do it properly. I can't even make it look good with being ineffective. But I am quite sure that I know more about safety wiring on an aircraft than those guys did. True, getting holes stuck in your hands is no fun but it is an inexpensive practice, even though it sometimes takes me three times to get it even close to being right. So how much did the taxpayers have to pay for an alternative method just because some guys who did not know what they were doing got their fingers stuck?
I think it was in the 1990's that there was talk about eliminating safety wire because it could damage the NBC(nuclear biological chemical) suits that might have to be worn by mechanics. Since I was working on supporting old aircraft it didn't affect me as it never got to be a requirement for us.
 
Hire back the guys who built the BUFF, which is neither Fat nor Ugly.

It wasn't fat, you're right, pretty slender -- but if you were on the wrong end, there was nothing pretty about it. A three-ship flight carrying 51 750-lb bombs apiece could put a piece of shrapnel into every square yard of a space one mile wide and three miles long, so our aircrew told us.
 
I've still got a pair of safety pliers - the ones that locked onto the wire and spun themselves as you pulled out the center rod.
I have one of those and still use them on my airplane and recently for other things as well. I have them here at home right now because I have gotten so irritated at trying to find the right size spring clips that secure the fuel hose on lawnmowers that I have started using safety wire instead. And on the airplane there are spots where those screw clamps for hoses will not fit but the safety wire does just fine.
 
It wasn't fat, you're right, pretty slender -- but if you were on the wrong end, there was nothing pretty about it. A three-ship flight carrying 51 750-lb bombs apiece could put a piece of shrapnel into every square yard of a space one mile wide and three miles long, so our aircrew told us.
Fortunately for me, I'm on the right end. Go Boeing!
 
New from Avweb:

"Boeing is facing new scrutiny over its handling of the 737 MAX MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) situation. The New York Times (NYT) reported today (Oct. 9) it has uncovered emails supporting claims that Ethiopian Airlines' chief pilot reached out to the manufacturer in late 2018 with an "urgent" request for information a month after the MCAS-related crash of a Lion Air 373 MAX in Indonesia, but Boeing declined to respond. Three months after the chief pilot's request, an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX crashed shortly after takeoff killing all 157 on board. The main cause of the accident was determined to be a failure of the MCAS related to a faulty angle-of-attack sensor."

"The Allied Pilots Association (APA), which serves pilots for American Airlines, supports Ethiopian in its claim, citing that after the Lion Air crash, Boeing had proactively reached out to U.S. airlines and pilots to explain technical MCAS safety issues, such as how the system interacts with angle-of-attack data. American Boeing 737 MAX pilot Dennis Tajer, APA's spokesman, said, "Who knows what [Ethiopian Airlines] would have done with the information, but not having it seals the deal. Any information given the Ethiopian pilots, like we had, could have made the difference between life and death."

"The December 2022 Ethiopian aviation authority's accident report read, in part, "The investigation found the questions raised by the airline to be safety critical, and if Boeing had answered the questions raised by the training department either directly or indirectly [the accident might not have happened]."

"Boeing's claim that it was prohibited from discussing details of the MCAS technology with Ethiopian Airlines was based on Annex 13 established by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to address crash investigations. One of the elements of Annex 13 is that it is meant to provide safety information but is also designed to avoid establishing blame in accidents. Boeing claimed that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) supported its decision not to share information with Indonesian Airlines based on the Annex 13 provision. But former NTSB Chair Jim Hall said of Annex 13, "I am not aware of any incidents where that article has been used to prevent the transfer of critical safety information."
 

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Relatives of some of the 346 people who died in two crashes involving Boeing 737 Max planes are in court Friday, where their lawyers are asking a federal judge to throw out a plea agreement that the aircraft manufacturer struck with federal prosecutors.

The family members want the government to put Boeing on trial, where the company could face tougher punishment.

In July, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to a single felony count of conspiracy to commit fraud in connection with winning regulatory approval of the Max. The settlement between Boeing and the Justice Department calls for Boeing — a big government contractor — to pay a fine and be placed on probation.

Passengers' relatives call it a sweetheart deal that fails to consider the lives lost.

[...]

Lawyers for the government and the company filed court briefs defending the settlement, and lawyers for the passengers' families explained their opposition to the deal. U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor will get to question both sides during Friday's hearing in Fort Worth, Texas.

If the judge accepts the guilty plea, he must also approve the sentence that Boeing and prosecutors agreed upon — he can't impose different terms. It is unclear when O'Connor will decide the matter.


 
In July, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to a single felony count of conspiracy to commit fraud
In my USC Masters program in the mid-80's, one particularly interesting professor (who had flown P-51's in WW2 and worked a great deal with the US automotive industry after the war) pointed out that some court cases indicated that companies were going to have to designate a position he described as "The Vice President In Charge of Going to Jail."
 

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