What Went Wrong At Boeing

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Good article - one comment;

"In other words, we should put safety conscience civilian engineers back in charge of both building planes and regulating them. Otherwise, planes fall out of the sky."

"safety conscience civilian engineers WITH A STRONG AVIATION BACKGROUND IN EITHER DESIGN OR OPERATIONS back in charge of both building planes and regulating them"
 
True! The "this stuff is just like computers and we can manage it the same way" approach, has, shall we say, its drawbacks.

I think one problem we have in many fields is the rise of management as a profession in its own right. Studying,management is worthwhile. Studying nothing but management and thinking you can manage anything is a big mistake.

Used to be, you learned how to do something as a young man and in so doing learned now to manage it. Now, managers who only know management theory do things like decide to offshore activities to lighten their own load.

P.S. I have a BS in Mech Engineering and a Masters in System Management. .
 
OH GEE WHIZ GOLLY!!! So big companies actually do not put safety and human life above all things including their profits. That is impossible to believe.

After one year of production (1972) several Ford Pintos had been involved in rear-end collisions. NTSB accident investigations in many of the cases revealed that victims had few, if any, trauma injuries as a result of the impacts, but had burned to death when the cars exploded into flames. Some had been trapped inside the cars due to the body buckling and doors becoming jammed shut.

Anybody think that that surprised Ford?
Ford had first conducted rear-end collision tests on the Pinto in December 1970, months after it was already in production. Initially, 11 crashes were conducted, and in all but three of them, gas tanks ruptured and burst into flames. In the three tests that didn't result in fires, the cars had prototype safety devices that engineers had developed while working with suppliers.

#1 was the use of a rubber bladder/liner produced by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. Despite rupturing the exterior of the tank, no fuel was spilled, and no fire resulted. It was estimated that the unit cost of bladders would have amounted to $5.08 per car.

#2 was an extra steel plate attached to the rear of the car just behind the bumper, isolating the tank from direct contact during impact. It was estimated that this part could have cost up to $11 per car to install.

#3 was a rather simple plastic insulator fitted on the differential that would keep the bolts from ever making contact with the fuel tank. Cost of this item was less than $1. This $1 plastic part was added to all Canadian Pintos because Canadian government regulations required that cars sold in Canada had to pass much stricter crash tests than those sold in the US

Ford senior management was of course fully aware of all these problems. They had been listed in a secret company memo circulated to all senior management.
Here are the highlights of the memo on the altar worshiping the Almighty Buck:

1. With expected unit sales of 11 million Pintos, and a total cost per unit to modify the fuel tank of $11, a recall would have cost Ford $121 million.

2. But, using mathematical formulations of a probable 2,100 accidents that might result in 180 burn deaths, 180 seriously burned victims, and 2,100 burned-out vehicles, the "unit cost" per accident, assuming an out-of-court settlement, came to a probable $200,000 per death, $67,000 per serious injury, and $700 per burned-out vehicle, leaving a grand total of $49.53 million.

3. Allowing the accidents to occur represented a net savings of nearly $70 million.

4. Therefore, a human life was mathematically proven to be worth less than an $11 part.

Ford continued to build and market the Pinto without modifications until news of the memo broke. It led to criminal charges, an avalanche of lawsuits, and a recall of all Pintos; the mess went on for years. Not to mention the fact that Ford got some of the worst press an American car company has ever received.
 
In my masters program, one of the professors, a Phd with a long history with the automotive industry (and also a P-51 pilot in WWII) said,

"You people in the aerospace industry don't realize what it is like in the auto industry. People will kill literally to save a nickel, 5 cents, in the production process."

One of the things I like about Toyotas is that I do not get the impression that they were trying to save 5 cents.
 
DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
Defense side of things, totally different animal.
Click to expand...

I really really hope that that is true but personally I remember the "precision instrument, self-cleaning Colt M-16" . Wonder how many were killed as their corroded M-16s jammed in combat. I also remember cases of the new LAWs that one after another failed to fire or simply bounced off their targets.
Or the F-4 Phantoms without a cannon 'cause no body gonna dogfight anymore.
Recently:
Thousands of soldiers received dual-ended Combat Arms earplugs, especially those deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 2000s.
But in 2016, a Moldex-Metric Inc. whistleblower lawsuit against 3M said the dual-ended Combat Arms earplugs were defective. The lawsuit accused 3M of fraud and said the company had sold the product to the military for more than a decade without informing the government of the defect.

In 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice reached a $9.1 million settlement with 3M to resolve allegations that the company "knowingly sold the dual-ended Combat Arms Earplugs, Version 2 (CAEv2) to the United States military without disclosing defects that hampered the effectiveness of the hearing protection device," according to a Justice Department press release.

Ramin Kohanbash, who owned a New Jersey-based supply company called California Surplus. He had gotten a $20 million contract to supply the US military with a variety of specialized uniforms, including parkas that were designed to hide a soldier from enemy night vision goggles.
The Justice Department alleges that Kohanbash conspired with other members of his company to outsource their orders to to China, sending uniform samples to China, where they were copied and produced. He also arranged for the items to be labeled as though they were produced legitimately.
Between 2013 and 2018, Kohanbash and his associates sold the gear to other wholesalers, and that 200 counterfeit uniforms ended up in the hands of US Air Force members in Afghanistan. The Military Times notes that the real parkas would have had a "near-infrared technology woven into the fabric," which the counterfeits lacked. Other products included hoods which were touted as "permanently flame resistant," but which actually weren't.


Consider seven contracts for $2.5 billion worth of Interceptor Body Armor (IBA) inserts bought between 2004 and 2006. IBA consists of a vest that holds a series of inserted plates designed to stop bullets and other fast moving objects.
On two contracts, the Army's Project Manager Soldier Equipment (PM SEQ) didn't perform tests to find out the velocity at which a projectile would penetrate plates because they said they weren't concerned about the design. On six out of seven contracts, PM SEQ simply didn't do weather and altitude tests on the inserts or substituted less. The PM SEQ Director of Technical Management stated that the more rigorous tests would take longer and the inserts needed to meet the "urgent wartime operational requirement" for body armor.
In addition PM SEQ didn't always test the right size insert plates on about 30 percent of tests. About half of the inserts tested for humidity and temperature weren't tested in the right temperature range.
The most recent report is only the latest in a series of investigations carried out by the Defense Department's Inspector General on body armor testing. In March 2008, the IG found 13 body armor contracts where proper testing wasn't performed. Following a request from Rep. Louise Slaughter, the IG dug deeper into the 13 contracts and found a series of problems with quality assurance. A year later, the Army recalled 16,000 of the ceramic plates.
 
You comparing apples to oranges, and not what I was referring to. Most testing of military aircraft today is a decade long process. Testing, and lots of testing...

And the F4 without cannon had nothing to do with McDonald Douglas, but what the Air Force or Navy's requirements were.
 
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Well, the USN set the requirements for the original F4H missile-armed interceptor, and never added a cannon to theirs. They thought that missiles were the best way to defend the Fleet and their original concept for what became the F-111B was for something along the lines of an A-6 armed with AIM-54 missiles.

In the case of the M-16 the problem was that the Army invented a requirement for a higher muzzle velocity - essentially out of thin air. Remember that the AR-15 was a USAF innovation and the Army felt that McNamera had jammed it down their throat. It Just So Happened that muzzle velocity requirement meant that the powder had to be bought from Olin, the Army's long time supplier, rather than the nitrocellulose propellant that the gun was designed to use. The higher muzzle velocity meant the M-16 fired a a much higher cyclic rate, beyond what it had been designed to handle. The Army-specified powder also was much dirtier than the original nitrocellulose. The excessive cyclic rate and dirtier powder led to jamming.

One thing I am not sure I understand in the article is how the defense-style management approach was brought to the airliner business. I think what they mean is that the politically-driven selection of suppliers to broaden the base of support was used, so that the FAA could not interfere with with the process too much for fear of POing too many Congressmen.

Note that the 737 Max experience was a near duplicate of MDAC's Delta III program. They modified the Delta II radically and convinced the USAF that it was no big deal, just a mod to a reliable rocket. Then they used the Delta II guidance software, which no doubt saved a lot of time and money. The first Delta III blew itself all over the sky when the guidance software proved to be inadequate. The second Delta III had a upper stage failure. And that was the end of the program.
 
I'll jump in with comments on two counts:

Ref. the gunless Navy F-4. I knew Swede Vejtasa tolerably well, and he was the BuOrd (or NavWeps, etc) delegate who viewed the F4H mockup. Swede of course was an old-timey gunfighter and asked, "Where's the gun?" He was informed by brassy & tweedy Experts that dogfighting was over, because Everybody Knew that missiles were the future. Now, Swede talked slow(ly) sometimes but he thought fast. He knew that AAMs were still immature technology (this was 54-55) and had lots and lots and lots of growth to finish. (Decades, in fact.) But he was too much a gent to say I TOLD YOU SO.

Ref. management: Ed Heinemann was vocal on the subject. He held that things headed south when Aviation became Aerospace, and more specifically "Things went to hell when accountants and lawyers took over." His assessment was not limited to Douglas.
 
I worked on the USAF F-4 and the funny thing about it was where the air conditioning packs were. And it had packs, not a single pack, one on each side of the nose.just aft of the radome.

The correct place for an air conditioning pack on a fighter of that design is just aft of the cockpit, close enough to get bleed air from the engines and ram air from the intake ducts and easily able to blow cool air to the cockpit and avionics. But when they revised the F3H design into the F4H they decided to remove the 20MM guns that were on the F3H and replace them with Sparrow missiles. So they needed a radar operator, Sparrows not being Fire and Forget. That extra crewman took up the space where the air conditioning pack would have gone and they gave the air conditioning guys at AiResearch the place where the cannons would have been placed. So, without enough space for one pack they built two strange looking smaller ones, one for the cockpit and a less powerful one for the avionics. Ram air came in through two scoops where the muzzle for the guns would have been and was exhausted to the rear and downward, where the empty shell casings would have fallen.

Trying to come up with ducts to do tests of repaired heat exchangers was a challenge that I had to accomplish.
 
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DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
Most testing of military aircraft today is a decade long process
Click to expand...
Chris agreed and depending upon what kind of testing I would agree that the people doing that work are cognizant of the fact that this is a warcraft in combat at some point. However my point was that even though the aircraft has been tested and found combat ready, at some point a component is going to fail and have to be replaced. That's when these money hungry sub-contractors come into play:

During the 1991 Gulf War an F-18 jet launched off the U.S. carrier Theodore Roosevelt on a combat mission that was cut short less than an hour later after a jet engine gearbox failed. The $40-million plane lurched out of control and crashed into the Persian Gulf, according to a confidential Navy investigation report. The pilot ejected and was later rescued.
The faulty gearbox was produced by Lucas Aerospace, a British firm that pleaded guilty last month to 37 counts of criminal fraud, admitting that it supplied defective gearboxes, bypassed required inspections and falsified test records at plants in City of Industry and Park City, Utah. When federal agents searched the firm's plants, they found 81 gearboxes ready for delivery--all with defective parts.
After paying a record $18.5-million criminal fine, Lucas officials insisted that the gearboxes performed up to Navy requirements and never caused a safety problem. But prosecutors said in interviews that Lucas' frauds were particularly egregious and triggered not only the Persian Gulf incident but scores of other flight emergencies

From approximately April 2010 through January 2014, the DoD issued purchase orders to Boggs & Associates for a variety of military parts and components used on various military weapons systems including aircraft, vehicles and vessels. The parts were required to meet certain military specifications. The majority of these parts are considered critical application items. A critical application item is defined as an item essential to weapon system performance or operation, or the preservation of life or safety of operating personnel, as determined by military services.
Boggs knowingly supplied non-conforming parts to the DoD through purchase orders issued by the Defense Logistics Agency.
The Agency's testing center found that parts from 30 different purchase orders were non-conforming. Specifically, the parts were made from unauthorized substituted material, were dimensionally defective, used unauthorized inferior fittings, not heat treated properly, not plated properly and/or did not pass specified testing requirements

Ross Hyde, 63, has been charged in federal court with making false claims about the type of aluminum he provided under a contract for aircraft landing gear. His latest company, Vista Machining Co., has supplied the Pentagon with parts for tanks, aircraft and other military equipment — mostly hardware and machined metals — since 2008. But inspectors said many of his products were cheap replacements, some illegally obtained from China, which he tried to hide from the government. Hyde billed the government $12,897 for a part that he falsely claimed used a superior type of aluminum. In fact, he substituted a weaker and less expensive variety of the metal. The contract was for aircraft landing equipment, according to a federal contract database. Vista also used vendors not authorized to receive "technical data that discloses critical technology with military and space application." The Fort Worth company had obtained quotes from approved vendors but instead chose low-bidders from Chinese companies, the agency said. In one case, Vista paid another company to "grind off" a marking indicating the part was made in China, the agency's report said.
 
mikewint said:
Chris agreed and depending upon what kind of testing I would agree that the people doing that work are cognizant of the fact that this is a warcraft in combat at some point. However my point was that even though the aircraft has been tested and found combat ready, at some point a component is going to fail and have to be replaced. That's when these money hungry sub-contractors come into play:

During the 1991 Gulf War an F-18 jet launched off the U.S. carrier Theodore Roosevelt on a combat mission that was cut short less than an hour later after a jet engine gearbox failed. The $40-million plane lurched out of control and crashed into the Persian Gulf, according to a confidential Navy investigation report. The pilot ejected and was later rescued.
The faulty gearbox was produced by Lucas Aerospace, a British firm that pleaded guilty last month to 37 counts of criminal fraud, admitting that it supplied defective gearboxes, bypassed required inspections and falsified test records at plants in City of Industry and Park City, Utah. When federal agents searched the firm's plants, they found 81 gearboxes ready for delivery--all with defective parts.
After paying a record $18.5-million criminal fine, Lucas officials insisted that the gearboxes performed up to Navy requirements and never caused a safety problem. But prosecutors said in interviews that Lucas' frauds were particularly egregious and triggered not only the Persian Gulf incident but scores of other flight emergencies

From approximately April 2010 through January 2014, the DoD issued purchase orders to Boggs & Associates for a variety of military parts and components used on various military weapons systems including aircraft, vehicles and vessels. The parts were required to meet certain military specifications. The majority of these parts are considered critical application items. A critical application item is defined as an item essential to weapon system performance or operation, or the preservation of life or safety of operating personnel, as determined by military services.
Boggs knowingly supplied non-conforming parts to the DoD through purchase orders issued by the Defense Logistics Agency.
The Agency's testing center found that parts from 30 different purchase orders were non-conforming. Specifically, the parts were made from unauthorized substituted material, were dimensionally defective, used unauthorized inferior fittings, not heat treated properly, not plated properly and/or did not pass specified testing requirements

Ross Hyde, 63, has been charged in federal court with making false claims about the type of aluminum he provided under a contract for aircraft landing gear. His latest company, Vista Machining Co., has supplied the Pentagon with parts for tanks, aircraft and other military equipment — mostly hardware and machined metals — since 2008. But inspectors said many of his products were cheap replacements, some illegally obtained from China, which he tried to hide from the government. Hyde billed the government $12,897 for a part that he falsely claimed used a superior type of aluminum. In fact, he substituted a weaker and less expensive variety of the metal. The contract was for aircraft landing equipment, according to a federal contract database. Vista also used vendors not authorized to receive "technical data that discloses critical technology with military and space application." The Fort Worth company had obtained quotes from approved vendors but instead chose low-bidders from Chinese companies, the agency said. In one case, Vista paid another company to "grind off" a marking indicating the part was made in China, the agency's report said.
Click to expand...

Sorry Mike - but this is cherry picking. No doubt there have been many defense contractors, especially mid-sized subcontractors who have done some extremely underhanded things but this is more the exception than the rule. Understand that in this day the money hungry sub-contractor comes under a lot of scrutiny and government oversight. Shenanigans still occur but I think that many of these folks will play nice as they now know what will happen to them if they are caught.

Now with that said, this is on an a different level than what the OP put out. The playing field is a lot different when building commercial aircraft.
 
mikewint said:
Chris agreed and depending upon what kind of testing I would agree that the people doing that work are cognizant of the fact that this is a warcraft in combat at some point. However my point was that even though the aircraft has been tested and found combat ready, at some point a component is going to fail and have to be replaced. That's when these money hungry sub-contractors come into play:

During the 1991 Gulf War an F-18 jet launched off the U.S. carrier Theodore Roosevelt on a combat mission that was cut short less than an hour later after a jet engine gearbox failed. The $40-million plane lurched out of control and crashed into the Persian Gulf, according to a confidential Navy investigation report. The pilot ejected and was later rescued.
The faulty gearbox was produced by Lucas Aerospace, a British firm that pleaded guilty last month to 37 counts of criminal fraud, admitting that it supplied defective gearboxes, bypassed required inspections and falsified test records at plants in City of Industry and Park City, Utah. When federal agents searched the firm's plants, they found 81 gearboxes ready for delivery--all with defective parts.
After paying a record $18.5-million criminal fine, Lucas officials insisted that the gearboxes performed up to Navy requirements and never caused a safety problem. But prosecutors said in interviews that Lucas' frauds were particularly egregious and triggered not only the Persian Gulf incident but scores of other flight emergencies

From approximately April 2010 through January 2014, the DoD issued purchase orders to Boggs & Associates for a variety of military parts and components used on various military weapons systems including aircraft, vehicles and vessels. The parts were required to meet certain military specifications. The majority of these parts are considered critical application items. A critical application item is defined as an item essential to weapon system performance or operation, or the preservation of life or safety of operating personnel, as determined by military services.
Boggs knowingly supplied non-conforming parts to the DoD through purchase orders issued by the Defense Logistics Agency.
The Agency's testing center found that parts from 30 different purchase orders were non-conforming. Specifically, the parts were made from unauthorized substituted material, were dimensionally defective, used unauthorized inferior fittings, not heat treated properly, not plated properly and/or did not pass specified testing requirements

Ross Hyde, 63, has been charged in federal court with making false claims about the type of aluminum he provided under a contract for aircraft landing gear. His latest company, Vista Machining Co., has supplied the Pentagon with parts for tanks, aircraft and other military equipment — mostly hardware and machined metals — since 2008. But inspectors said many of his products were cheap replacements, some illegally obtained from China, which he tried to hide from the government. Hyde billed the government $12,897 for a part that he falsely claimed used a superior type of aluminum. In fact, he substituted a weaker and less expensive variety of the metal. The contract was for aircraft landing equipment, according to a federal contract database. Vista also used vendors not authorized to receive "technical data that discloses critical technology with military and space application." The Fort Worth company had obtained quotes from approved vendors but instead chose low-bidders from Chinese companies, the agency said. In one case, Vista paid another company to "grind off" a marking indicating the part was made in China, the agency's report said.
Click to expand...

Your barking up the wrong. None of the things you describe have anything to do with the manufacturer (i.e., Boeing, Lockheed, etc.). At the time of selection, a quality product was provided. Believe me, the selection process is rigorous. Now if the provider started providing a sub standard quality product after selection (as in the cases you have provided) then they are held accountable as they should.
 
FLYBOYJ said:
Sorry Mike - but this is cherry picking. No doubt there have been many defense contractors, especially mid-sized subcontractors who have done some extremely underhanded things but this is more the exception than the rule. Understand that in this day the money hungry sub-contractor comes under a lot of scrutiny and government oversight. Shenanigans still occur but I think that many of these folks will play nice as they now know what will happen to them if they are caught.

Now with that said, this is on an a different level than what the OP put out. The playing field is a lot different when building commercial aircraft.
Click to expand...

Ding, ding, ding. 100% correct.

The program I work, none of that would even fly.
 
I wrote a letter to the Editor at Aviation Week several years ago that was published. What triggered the letter was an interview with the CEO of Boeing where he stated that they were no longer going to develop innovative airplanes like the 787 because they cost to much to develop and have too much risk. They were going to manage to share price. The result of this is the 737 Max. In my letter I stated that the company that gave us the 707 and the 747 would never have built them today. And I also said that they were in a death spiral. These deaths take a long time, but they are inevitable. I said that if I was a young engineering graduate I wouldn't touch Boeing with someone else's 10 foot pole. I would go work for Space X or Blue Horizon. And tonight in a discussion with an engineering professor at University of Louisville I find that my prediction was dead on. All young grads are looking to work for those two companies. Which would you want, a company that's shooting for Mars or shooting for higher share prices?
 
mikewint said:
Lucas Aerospace, a British firm that pleaded guilty last month to 37 counts of criminal fraud, admitting that it supplied defective gearboxes, bypassed required inspections and falsified test records
Click to expand...
So what's new? Back in the 80s, our airline ran Fokker F27s and Shorts SD30s, so we were stuck with Lucas parts on 2/3 of our fleet. Expensive, troublesome, not ergonomic, and prone to failure. Our SD30s had PT6 - 45s, and our 1900s had - 65s, which were essentially the same engine, just running at different temperatures and power outputs. The - 65s used Lear Siegler starter/generators at $13K a pop, which generally lasted 1500-2000 flight hours, failed incrementally, generally avoiding emergency situations, AND could be rebuilt in our own shop. The Lukes on the - 45s, OTOH, cost $41K each, seldom went more than 5-600 hours, had a way of failing suddenly and spectacularly, then had to be packed off to Montreal for an exchange unit. On American designed airplanes, both -# PT6s used Lears, but the Short was originally type certificated in the UK and by manufacturer spec Lears were not approved on it. Messy job changing out a Luke, as they tended to ooze a toxic black gunk over everything. "Prince of Darkness" strikes again!
Cheers,
Wes
 
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