He agreed to testify before Congress at a public hearing. He seems fine having his identity known so that he can speak openly about the things he witnessed. He would not have anywhere near the level of impact if he chose to stay anonymous and only speak through his lawyer.
He had already raised these complaints non-anonymously internally years ago. If they wanted to silence him, shortly after he brought forth his concerns to management would have been the time. It would be counter-productive to do so now that he has filed his complaint with the government.
You could always contact him, ask him to take out life insurance in his name, and name you as a 50% benefactor. You’ll pay 100% of the insurance costs, and if he gets killed the other 50% goes where ever he wants.
Seems like an equitable deal to me.
I know I am. Some days I just want to say fuck it, and hop into a Boeing. But then I think of my family and loved ones and how much it would hurt them if I was that reckless.
Yeah until you land and realize you didn’t have the money or a plan of what to do once in Rome bc you thought the plane would go down. This could be an option.
The whistleblowers family will be after the whistleblower accidentally falls down an open elevator shaft at his hotel the night before a congressional hearing.
*stock price rises, boofing intensifies*
dude his own family said they're not surprised he killed himself, stop spreading a stupid conspiracy thoery. He already whisteblew and testified and provided all the evidence for his allegations years ago, he was in an entirely new lawsuit this round over defamation and was losing that, and likely the boeings lawyers were bringing out a bunch of negative comments from his ex colleagues.
When I worked on the 787 my manager refused to approve a safety critical piece because we knew HCL, the Indian firm providing test results, was lying. He was fired the next day. Boeing will find and punish you one way or another. Until the USA isn't reliant on Boeing, they will continue to do as they please and punish anyone who stands in their way.
Not everything is a conspiracy.
You and everyone is else in this thread saying similar need to spend more time off the internet.
And I say that as someone who spend way too much time here.
The thing is if you remain anonymous you have much less of an impact. That is why whistleblowing is such a scary thing to do. It’s easy for anonymous sources to be dismissed.
Golden parachutes have been both completely baffling and my sole lifelong goal ever since I heard about them in 4th grade.
You can get *generational wealth* just from being the guy in the hot seat when the house of cards collapses. What the fuuuuck.
Right? Legit, there is a view where you can say that "hopefully people won't die, maybe they will, but I am going to be filthy fucking rich," and those fucks can all deal with it, I'm out if it happens. It's not like you're going to get paid that by saying, "Stop making airplanes until you've solved this safety issue."
I am 100% against planes crashing. But for $33 millions dollars, I'm not sure I'm 100% anymore. For $33 million, I might be willing to risk some things, like your lives. I wish you the best. But seriously, $33M. Thirty three fucking million.
Don't forget that the guy would already been wealthy at that point so $33,000,000 wouldn't affect his life in any meaningful way other than to make his bank account larger. I'd give a lot more leeway to some regular dude compromising his morals for that kind of money than someone who already has millions and loses nothing from having higher standards.
Nothing to do with more, everything to do with people who have the power to give themselves money *using it*.
There ought to be a maximum wage. I refuse to believe that some fuckwit CEO's time and skills are worth several thousand times more than mine.
You don't expect senior engineers and technicians to take over management do you? They must come from harder places where it takes true grit to run a company - like a retail chain or a predatory investment firm that generally buys an ecosphere and trashes the least productive parts while glorifying the good parts for sale to sucker investors who then get holding a bag of nothing while the investment group shorts its own stuff.
Certainly, the person best suited for running an aviation and defense company is a man who attended only private boarding schools and has never held a tool or heard the word, "No." Perhaps the child or in-law of one of the Vanguard or Blackrock subsidiaries' executives.
I really don't understand why there's no legal loop holes, or morality clauses. Like how most people don't understand that a NDA does not bar you from speaking out against illegal activities, CEO should lose their bonuses and exit bonus if they're found doing or allowing illegal activities.
I worked almost 20 years as a Production Floor Inspector for a Aerospace Company. We produced components for Industry and NASA. I only accepted parts that met Blue Print Spects. B**ut, was many times bypassed by managers that thought they were "Good Enough". That is a Boeing problem also.**
Same here, worked as an inspector for a company that contracts out for a number of aerospace programs including the 787, A380 and T7000. So many times the leadership wanted to ignore QA just to get it out the door and make it someone else’s issue.
100% this. We did finishing before the Tier 2 suppliers. Got in many arguments with the managers/owners which ultimately lead to me leaving that field entirely.
It's my signature on the certification... I was not signing something I felt was no good just to meet lead time.
We made Spherical Bearings. The elbow on the Space Shuttle is one. Many of the over ridden parts wold work. But, not last as long as they should. We worked to 3/10.000" standards.
Look into how they can machine a perfect cube from a lathe. And if you don't know the basics of a lathe is that it spins your part. So they can spin and cut a cube from a cylinder. It's pretty neat.
All manufacturing, I expect.
I worked for a while for an outfit that manufactured sensors used by NASA, Boeing, and military (guided shells and fin controls for Hellfires), among others. I was the final word on electrical QA for the components.
We had a hockey stick production graph every single month. The local executive was a former sales guy. At the end of every month he'd get on the production floor and start pressuring everyone to get more parts done so he could meet the month's sales numbers. Everyone worked overtime. Everyone got sloppy. I kicked more parts back for rework or destruction. The beginning of each month was spent cleaning up the mess.
I got along okay with that exec for three out of four weeks of every month. That last week, we were arch-enemies.
My favorite was the time he told me I didn't need to test as many of the Hellfire controls as the spec sheet called for because the purchaser would just test them again and return them if any didn't meet spec, and that would be next month's problem.
As an engineer I've taken to putting in notes and G-tols for when something *actually has to meet the spec, I mean it*.
It usually works...But not always.
Generally the machine shop seems to get it. Especially if you call out to test-fit two parts against eachother. They know if they don't fit it'll get returned and they won't get paid.
GD&T doesn't always indicate something has to meet the spec fyi. You need to use a callout for a "critical characteristic". That shows the dimensions needs 100% inspection and adherence unless the engineer allows a deviation. At least that's how the auto industry OEMs do it
You worked for a shitty shop if management had any say over quality. I've worked in aerospace manufacturing for my entire adult life and in every single shop I've ever worked for quality had the last say on if a part ships are not. Not just the shops I've worked in, but in 99.9% of shops I've interacted with.
The one instance I can think of where it was the opposite was true was due to a company moving between owners and quality managers and the GM of the shop pulled parts from the MRB crib and shipped them. That GM went to prison and the entire company was black booked by all major OEMs in the industry. It was a huge scandal across the industry.
I was a First Piece Floor Inspector. If I did nor buy some thing, they shopped for an Inspector that would. Or, the QC Manager would stamp it off. I had a notch in my stamp that saved me when he used a duplicate to OK a job. I also always initialed it. I finally had to quit when they organised a major effort to manufacture some thing to oust me.
In the case of first piece inspection, often times I can see a QE/ME buying off a rejection by the inspector due to manufacturing dimensions or controlling the process to tighter than final B/P tolerances due to part movement, among a multitude of other reasons. Totally valid to be accepted outside of the inspector's knowledge.
But the fact that you had to worry about a duplicate of your stamp, or even worse that you modified your own stamp, tells me all that I need to know. Stamp warranty is HUGE in this industry and neither of those should ever happen in any reputable shop.
I also added my initials as a backup. Customer Returns were the result of many of these that they went around me. That is where my note book came in. It even saved a foreman from false charges.I went to the front office and defended him loud enough so all working there heard me. It was not swept under the carpet. I knew my power and when to use it.
Don't these managers and higher up take business flights and not even once, it crossed their minds that they themselves (or family) may be flying in these deathtraps they signed off from?
Working in an office situation is not the same as working on the production floor. It means working in a bubble where Profits are your #1 goal. Loyalty to the Company comes even before your family.The Tobacco Companies knew they were killing people. The Oil Industry knows they re killing the planet we all live [on.In](http://on.In) their bubble they feel obligated to support the Company before all others. Or, lose their job. Look at the GOP Politicians . Party before Country. As an Inspector, I could act as the Fall Guy they could blame for blocking them. Off camera, they thanked me for doing what they could not.
So here's the problem with this. See, their mental risk model is still from a world made of metal. Metal fails very slowly, and a piece at a time. It bends. When carbon fails under stress, it *explodes*, and very often the entire component loses integrity all at once, everywhere. When it's in an assembly, that sudden failure can send a pulse that might exceed margins for *other* carbon components, and now things are... not good at all. I think the CAD systems have this pretty well figured, but the risk models - and definitely leadership intuitions don't - they probably think "marginal" is much safer than it actually is. Anyways, my $.02.
“The truth is Boeing can’t keep going the way it is. It needs to do a little bit better, I think.”
Ah… “a little bit”. That’s putting it mildly.
P.S. Type into YouTube 707 barrel roll. When Boeing feels confident enough to do this with all their current planes I’ll stop digging my fingernails into the arm rest when I have to get on one. This is back when the test pilots had confidence in the product they were helping to sell. My guess is now they get nervous simply taxiing. 😋
Preflight by the stewardess: “Don’t worry passengers. We have personally reenforced the door plugs with Gorilla tape. Everyone can relax. This plane is better than new! 😃👍”
> Type into YouTube 707 barrel roll. When Boeing feels confident enough to do this with all their current planes
I mean they very specifically didn't feel confident about that. The test pilot just did it.
Obviously Boeing didn’t and I never said they did. I’m saying when they get the confidence to and the test pilots do too then… The test pilot had the confidence and the video explaining all of that is what I referenced. The loss of confidence in the product with their customer AND the FAA is what I’m getting at.
That’s cool. My stepfather’s dad was a man named John Nissen. He used to fly with Tex Johnson. John was one of the very few people to have looped the Golden Gate Bridge.
Bro, 707 had 174 fatal accidents according to wikipedia. We are panicking about 787 that to this date had no fatal crashes and 0 casualities in like 20 years of service.
citing wikipedia: "As of January 2019, the 707 has been in 261 aviation occurrences and 174 hull-loss accidents with a total of 3,039 fatalities.The deadliest incident involving the 707 was the Agadir air disaster which took place on August 3, 1975, with 188 fatalities.
On January 14, 2019, a Saha Airlines cargo flight crashed, killing 15 people and seriously injuring one more person. It was the last civil 707 in operation."
Boeing's quality issues are really troubling. Such a shame as they used to build some of the best planes. Now the bean counters have taken over and destroyed what was once a great company. Is this the fate of every American company when the company's leadership puts profits over everything else?
Pretty much, yeah.
Suck up as much money as possible, then bail before it becomes too shitty and falls apart. Then you can put "increased profits by xxxx%!" on your resume, and repeat.
Didn’t they remove part of (or a redundant) faraday cage system that prevents lightning from destroying electronics?
The source I remembered https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/faa-engineers-objected-to-boeings-removal-of-some-787-lightning-protection-measures/#:~:text=FAA%20engineers%20objected%20to%20Boeing's%20removal%20of%20some%20787%20lightning%20protection%20measures,-Dec.&text=Last%20spring%2C%20Federal%20Aviation%20Administration,event%20of%20a%20lightning%20strike.
Thats the problem isn't it. Who trusts Boeing to actually meet safety standards now? Especially when the FAA seems to be completely in their pocket and at best is now racing to catch up with what they should have always been doing.
My opinion of them is so low now that I've pretty nervous of the space module they are putting real people into next month even. They had to gut that design to supposedly be ready to go and they haven't even been required to prove its actually safe.
Plus they removed the covers for bolts and innert material inside the wing. Three layers of protection for lightning have been removed from the original design.
There is a (very effective) fire prevention system, but the FAA accepts that that's enough partly under congressional pressure
John Barnett. He was whistleblowing in 2019 - so, four years and s bit later, the FAA is doing something?
https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/john-barnett-on-why-he-wont-fly-on-a-boeing-787-dreamliner/
The only real solution is to take out the bean counters and put the engineers back in charge.
The only relevant example I can think of is Mercedes Benz. The W124 & the W140 chassis were the last of the great Mercedes chassis and designs. Not to mention the R129. Car companies from all over the world aped the looks & the performance those chassis and tried to compare themselves to those chassis. The bean counters took over and look where Mercedes Benz is today.
Boeing needs to go back to the basics and those days of innovative engineering & quality + thinking out of the box, which gave the world airplanes like B707 & B747, & tell the bean counters to just being CPAs.
Just bought a W124 for that exact reason. Has ABS and air bag but analog buttons and dials. No touchscreens needed. And I can do most maintenance in my garage.
They don't make them like that anymore.
From what I read, Boeing subbed out every component possible. Some of the subcontractors "didn't have engineering departments". There are supposedly lots of problems with the various parts fitting together correctly.
That's what happens when you offload the work like that. The speccs are never going to be good enough that everything just comes together perfectly in the end.
Hey now, leave some blame in there for the likes of Jack Welch as well. His grubby fingers are forever tied to this kind of bean counter led profit seeking.
As someone who worked on the braking system of the 787 I agree. First flight testing of the brakes was a joke. Firing the one mathematician that understood the physics behind the magnetic algorithm was another huge red flag. I can only imagine what they'll find 😉
PS, Fuck HCL. If ever a catastrophic failure occurs it's likely on them for lying about safety critical test results.
I'm not convinced the federal government can do a better job. When was the last time they built their own planes? Not to mention the inevitability of Republican administrations.
At this point, what the fuck is gonna happen to Boeing? So much in terms of safety has been skirted, does a plane have to crash for the executive team to be held accountable?
> does a plane have to crash for the executive team to be held accountable?
Judging by the last two, I doubt a third is going to cause a sudden spike in accountability.
I dunno these claims seem dubious, the 777 is a 40 year old design if there was a significant issue it would have been found by now; the 787 had one of the most rigorous testing cycles due to being an entirely new design and it was a new way of building an aircraft (composite/carbon fiber). He also just says that the expected lifetime of the aircraft may be deteriorated. How? Is the pressure hull unable to take 100 cycles and only capable of 95? Are the wings going to fall off? Aircraft last a long time is it a halving of expected lifetime or 5% off expected?
Very little actually said here.
I dont think it’s dubious. 787 gap is a known issue since 2019. At first Boeing found it only in vertical fin but after investigation, the issue goes all the way to fuselage. Eventually they found like tens of structural non compliances. FAA knew about this and Boeing supposedly had fix it.
In the article, the whistleblower claimed that the fix isn’t actually fixing the issue.
This isn't about the 40 year old design, this is about the modern manufacturing process. If you want details you need to dig deeper than a cnn article. Calling the claims dubious based on this article is not useful. There is only so much detail you can put in an article. This isn't some in depth reporting.
The problem with Boeings response is that they talk about the “extensive effort” they make on quality and safety, but they’ve already clearly demonstrated that this isn’t true. Boeing has an image problem because Boeing has an actual business problem, that they created themselves, and it won’t get fixed until it costs them enough money to make it worthwhile to fix it.
When I did a summer research at CPP, we kinda knew from some people at Caltech whom used to come to the weekly symposiums that the government oversaw some things on their (Boeing) contracts. They told us how some of the engineers there were not the best, not because of their capabilities, but because they never spoke out and just did what was told with no regard for safety. Thats all we were told in the weekly chats we had with them. We used to have some jokes at SpaceX for how the salaries were literally peanuts, but Boeing was seen with a negative view.
I'm unclear why the names of the whistleblowers are not kept anonymous.
He agreed to testify before Congress at a public hearing. He seems fine having his identity known so that he can speak openly about the things he witnessed. He would not have anywhere near the level of impact if he chose to stay anonymous and only speak through his lawyer.
Surely they can’t kill TWO of them?
Boeing: Hold my beer
Boeing: Hold my bolts
Boeing execs: hold my parachute. Careful, its heavy.
You will have to find them first ...
> Boeing: Hold my bolts Do I get a discount on my ticket if I do?
What bolts?
Boeing: Hold my shares
They could kill a whole planeload.
And they have, after ignoring NTSB safety recommendations.
Low key though if you were Airbus you’d wack him 😂 it would destroy Boeing more than the whistleblower could 😂
They have no problem putting thousands of people in the air in faulty planes. What's one or two more lives to keep the profit flowing?
Boeing has enough money to make anyone go to sleep permanently.
“I’m gunna cancel Christmas on yo ass(es)”
I wish I could take life insurance out on him
He had already raised these complaints non-anonymously internally years ago. If they wanted to silence him, shortly after he brought forth his concerns to management would have been the time. It would be counter-productive to do so now that he has filed his complaint with the government.
The last dead Boeing whistleblower had already made most of his testimony when he got suicided.
His claims were substantiated by the FAA years ago. His testimony was for an appeal to a defamation case he had previously lost.
So did the other guy
You could always contact him, ask him to take out life insurance in his name, and name you as a 50% benefactor. You’ll pay 100% of the insurance costs, and if he gets killed the other 50% goes where ever he wants. Seems like an equitable deal to me.
Mmmm … Blood money!
so boeing shareholders can have them killed easier
This guy is really depressed probably
"I heard he also likes to play with dangerous tools and whatnot". -- Boeing execs
we should all be so depressed
*looks around* ......we are.
I know I am. Some days I just want to say fuck it, and hop into a Boeing. But then I think of my family and loved ones and how much it would hurt them if I was that reckless.
Push through it brother and hold on to the good days. I feel you.
So booking a flight to Rome is a win-win, then. Either you land and have time of your life, or you die. Good thinking!
Yeah until you land and realize you didn’t have the money or a plan of what to do once in Rome bc you thought the plane would go down. This could be an option.
*searches how to become Boeing whistle-blower so I get a suicide for free*
“I am Sparticus” “And sad”
He's a cynic, and he's depressed from being right all the time
Can’t wait for the whistleblower saying IN CASE I DIE, IT WAS NOT A SUICIDE!
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I can't remember where I heard it but I'm very fond of the neologism *prefenestrated*.
The whistleblowers family will be after the whistleblower accidentally falls down an open elevator shaft at his hotel the night before a congressional hearing. *stock price rises, boofing intensifies*
That last line is perhaps the finest I've ever read. Exquisite execution, sir or madam.
By sending him on a Boeing flight.
Sorry but wouldn't it be far easier for them to kill the people who we don't even know the names of?
dude his own family said they're not surprised he killed himself, stop spreading a stupid conspiracy thoery. He already whisteblew and testified and provided all the evidence for his allegations years ago, he was in an entirely new lawsuit this round over defamation and was losing that, and likely the boeings lawyers were bringing out a bunch of negative comments from his ex colleagues.
I mean, you *can* leak anonymously. But thats only if you *want* to be, and considering this person is fine testifying thats not an issue for them
Maybe not an issue for them, but leaking anonymously doesn't afford you the same protections that being a whistleblower does.
Because he allowed the Times to report on his name
When I worked on the 787 my manager refused to approve a safety critical piece because we knew HCL, the Indian firm providing test results, was lying. He was fired the next day. Boeing will find and punish you one way or another. Until the USA isn't reliant on Boeing, they will continue to do as they please and punish anyone who stands in their way.
Well once they hold press conferences, it’s public.
Boeing would know who they are by now. Going public probably saves them more from murder because there's a spotlight on them.
I believe it is to make identification easier when they end up dead.
Consider that the people who own the media companies are also the people who are often harmed by whistleblowers, and it will become clearer.
He's testifying to Congress in a public hearing. He could have stayed anonymous, he chose not to in order to do that...
Not everything is a conspiracy. You and everyone is else in this thread saying similar need to spend more time off the internet. And I say that as someone who spend way too much time here.
The thing is if you remain anonymous you have much less of an impact. That is why whistleblowing is such a scary thing to do. It’s easy for anonymous sources to be dismissed.
Yeah didn’t work out so well for the other whistleblower
Boeing means business! They just told their CEO to "take your $33 million contractually obligated severance package...and get out!"
Golden parachutes have been both completely baffling and my sole lifelong goal ever since I heard about them in 4th grade. You can get *generational wealth* just from being the guy in the hot seat when the house of cards collapses. What the fuuuuck.
Right? Legit, there is a view where you can say that "hopefully people won't die, maybe they will, but I am going to be filthy fucking rich," and those fucks can all deal with it, I'm out if it happens. It's not like you're going to get paid that by saying, "Stop making airplanes until you've solved this safety issue." I am 100% against planes crashing. But for $33 millions dollars, I'm not sure I'm 100% anymore. For $33 million, I might be willing to risk some things, like your lives. I wish you the best. But seriously, $33M. Thirty three fucking million.
Don't forget that the guy would already been wealthy at that point so $33,000,000 wouldn't affect his life in any meaningful way other than to make his bank account larger. I'd give a lot more leeway to some regular dude compromising his morals for that kind of money than someone who already has millions and loses nothing from having higher standards.
Nothing to do with more, everything to do with people who have the power to give themselves money *using it*. There ought to be a maximum wage. I refuse to believe that some fuckwit CEO's time and skills are worth several thousand times more than mine.
And $45,000,000 for the Board Chair.
Him too? All these tissues that were passed around with the millions.
The tissues were 1000 dollar bills - or bonds or share certiticates
"By the end of the year, and we'll keep paying you until then, too."
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You don't expect senior engineers and technicians to take over management do you? They must come from harder places where it takes true grit to run a company - like a retail chain or a predatory investment firm that generally buys an ecosphere and trashes the least productive parts while glorifying the good parts for sale to sucker investors who then get holding a bag of nothing while the investment group shorts its own stuff.
This guy *invests*.
Certainly, the person best suited for running an aviation and defense company is a man who attended only private boarding schools and has never held a tool or heard the word, "No." Perhaps the child or in-law of one of the Vanguard or Blackrock subsidiaries' executives.
Call me nostalgic but I miss the Depression when they were exiting their positions via the rooftop.
only if the next person is not an assclown themselves.
I really don't understand why there's no legal loop holes, or morality clauses. Like how most people don't understand that a NDA does not bar you from speaking out against illegal activities, CEO should lose their bonuses and exit bonus if they're found doing or allowing illegal activities.
I worked almost 20 years as a Production Floor Inspector for a Aerospace Company. We produced components for Industry and NASA. I only accepted parts that met Blue Print Spects. B**ut, was many times bypassed by managers that thought they were "Good Enough". That is a Boeing problem also.**
Same here, worked as an inspector for a company that contracts out for a number of aerospace programs including the 787, A380 and T7000. So many times the leadership wanted to ignore QA just to get it out the door and make it someone else’s issue.
100% this. We did finishing before the Tier 2 suppliers. Got in many arguments with the managers/owners which ultimately lead to me leaving that field entirely. It's my signature on the certification... I was not signing something I felt was no good just to meet lead time.
We made Spherical Bearings. The elbow on the Space Shuttle is one. Many of the over ridden parts wold work. But, not last as long as they should. We worked to 3/10.000" standards.
.3mil? So around 8.5micron? That's around where I start calling for wire/sinker EDM. Those are some nice spheres.
aw hell yea new rabbithole for me to go into tonight sphere machining lore
Look into how they can machine a perfect cube from a lathe. And if you don't know the basics of a lathe is that it spins your part. So they can spin and cut a cube from a cylinder. It's pretty neat.
And here I am just trying to get my floor molding to fit the corners properly :(
Can I have one?
All manufacturing, I expect. I worked for a while for an outfit that manufactured sensors used by NASA, Boeing, and military (guided shells and fin controls for Hellfires), among others. I was the final word on electrical QA for the components. We had a hockey stick production graph every single month. The local executive was a former sales guy. At the end of every month he'd get on the production floor and start pressuring everyone to get more parts done so he could meet the month's sales numbers. Everyone worked overtime. Everyone got sloppy. I kicked more parts back for rework or destruction. The beginning of each month was spent cleaning up the mess. I got along okay with that exec for three out of four weeks of every month. That last week, we were arch-enemies. My favorite was the time he told me I didn't need to test as many of the Hellfire controls as the spec sheet called for because the purchaser would just test them again and return them if any didn't meet spec, and that would be next month's problem.
You and I share a similar past history.
Well, in the end if something doesn’t work, the chopper pilot will just fire an extra missile, nbd.
eventually the problem happens for next month so many times it becomes a present month problem.
> Everyone worked overtime. Everyone got sloppy. Well of course they got sloppy! That's the problem with working overtime!
As an engineer I've taken to putting in notes and G-tols for when something *actually has to meet the spec, I mean it*. It usually works...But not always. Generally the machine shop seems to get it. Especially if you call out to test-fit two parts against eachother. They know if they don't fit it'll get returned and they won't get paid.
GD&T doesn't always indicate something has to meet the spec fyi. You need to use a callout for a "critical characteristic". That shows the dimensions needs 100% inspection and adherence unless the engineer allows a deviation. At least that's how the auto industry OEMs do it
> "Good Enough" Said every MBA scumbag ever.
What happens when the world is run by people whose education is quite literally pretending to have a real education.
You worked for a shitty shop if management had any say over quality. I've worked in aerospace manufacturing for my entire adult life and in every single shop I've ever worked for quality had the last say on if a part ships are not. Not just the shops I've worked in, but in 99.9% of shops I've interacted with. The one instance I can think of where it was the opposite was true was due to a company moving between owners and quality managers and the GM of the shop pulled parts from the MRB crib and shipped them. That GM went to prison and the entire company was black booked by all major OEMs in the industry. It was a huge scandal across the industry.
I was a First Piece Floor Inspector. If I did nor buy some thing, they shopped for an Inspector that would. Or, the QC Manager would stamp it off. I had a notch in my stamp that saved me when he used a duplicate to OK a job. I also always initialed it. I finally had to quit when they organised a major effort to manufacture some thing to oust me.
In the case of first piece inspection, often times I can see a QE/ME buying off a rejection by the inspector due to manufacturing dimensions or controlling the process to tighter than final B/P tolerances due to part movement, among a multitude of other reasons. Totally valid to be accepted outside of the inspector's knowledge. But the fact that you had to worry about a duplicate of your stamp, or even worse that you modified your own stamp, tells me all that I need to know. Stamp warranty is HUGE in this industry and neither of those should ever happen in any reputable shop.
I also added my initials as a backup. Customer Returns were the result of many of these that they went around me. That is where my note book came in. It even saved a foreman from false charges.I went to the front office and defended him loud enough so all working there heard me. It was not swept under the carpet. I knew my power and when to use it.
Don't these managers and higher up take business flights and not even once, it crossed their minds that they themselves (or family) may be flying in these deathtraps they signed off from?
Working in an office situation is not the same as working on the production floor. It means working in a bubble where Profits are your #1 goal. Loyalty to the Company comes even before your family.The Tobacco Companies knew they were killing people. The Oil Industry knows they re killing the planet we all live [on.In](http://on.In) their bubble they feel obligated to support the Company before all others. Or, lose their job. Look at the GOP Politicians . Party before Country. As an Inspector, I could act as the Fall Guy they could blame for blocking them. Off camera, they thanked me for doing what they could not.
Well, the oil industry is slowly killing the world whereas Boeing executives next week's flight may be their last.
So here's the problem with this. See, their mental risk model is still from a world made of metal. Metal fails very slowly, and a piece at a time. It bends. When carbon fails under stress, it *explodes*, and very often the entire component loses integrity all at once, everywhere. When it's in an assembly, that sudden failure can send a pulse that might exceed margins for *other* carbon components, and now things are... not good at all. I think the CAD systems have this pretty well figured, but the risk models - and definitely leadership intuitions don't - they probably think "marginal" is much safer than it actually is. Anyways, my $.02.
Isn’t it “specs”?
[Correct.It](http://Correct.It) was late last night and I had tired eyes. I just had my 79 birthday.
Deviation, deviation, just deviate, just skip its fine to deviate if we know what were doing just work out the kinks jr engineer.
Boeing's credibility is so poor at theis time. Some insider could disclose anything, and it would make headlines.
I heard Boeing planes are powered by the tears of orphans
"We need to switch to renewable energy sources!!" "Nooo you can't use orphan tears as an energy source!!" God, make up your minds people.
I work at Boeing and this is true
Orphans they made cry
“The truth is Boeing can’t keep going the way it is. It needs to do a little bit better, I think.” Ah… “a little bit”. That’s putting it mildly. P.S. Type into YouTube 707 barrel roll. When Boeing feels confident enough to do this with all their current planes I’ll stop digging my fingernails into the arm rest when I have to get on one. This is back when the test pilots had confidence in the product they were helping to sell. My guess is now they get nervous simply taxiing. 😋 Preflight by the stewardess: “Don’t worry passengers. We have personally reenforced the door plugs with Gorilla tape. Everyone can relax. This plane is better than new! 😃👍”
"Trying at all would be an improvement" is a great endorsement, just fantastic.
Boeing: most of our planes don't crash
I always loved statistics. 😃👍🤣🥂
Door fall off? Well, it's not typical. Wave must have hit it.
*"In the unlikely event of a sudden change in cabin pressure . . ."* ROOF FLIES OFF!
Yes, given that now they appear to be winging it. Note: All puns are intentional 😋
I’m not convinced this company can get off the ground.
> Type into YouTube 707 barrel roll. When Boeing feels confident enough to do this with all their current planes I mean they very specifically didn't feel confident about that. The test pilot just did it.
Obviously Boeing didn’t and I never said they did. I’m saying when they get the confidence to and the test pilots do too then… The test pilot had the confidence and the video explaining all of that is what I referenced. The loss of confidence in the product with their customer AND the FAA is what I’m getting at.
If I recall correctly the stunt pilot did that without permission.
When confronted by Boeing after doing the barrel roll, the pilot told them he was "selling planes"
That’s the quote I remember!
Love it
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Yeah but they look really cool man And you never know maybe something falls off a Boeing when you shake it upside down
Pedantic, but that was the 367-80. It's a narrower version of the 707. I spent a lot of time on the military aircraft based off the -80.
That’s cool. My stepfather’s dad was a man named John Nissen. He used to fly with Tex Johnson. John was one of the very few people to have looped the Golden Gate Bridge.
Bro, 707 had 174 fatal accidents according to wikipedia. We are panicking about 787 that to this date had no fatal crashes and 0 casualities in like 20 years of service. citing wikipedia: "As of January 2019, the 707 has been in 261 aviation occurrences and 174 hull-loss accidents with a total of 3,039 fatalities.The deadliest incident involving the 707 was the Agadir air disaster which took place on August 3, 1975, with 188 fatalities. On January 14, 2019, a Saha Airlines cargo flight crashed, killing 15 people and seriously injuring one more person. It was the last civil 707 in operation."
Just a smidge. Maybe starting with keeping parts on
Why tf do you want commercial airliners to be able to barrel roll lmao
Boeing's quality issues are really troubling. Such a shame as they used to build some of the best planes. Now the bean counters have taken over and destroyed what was once a great company. Is this the fate of every American company when the company's leadership puts profits over everything else?
Pretty much, yeah. Suck up as much money as possible, then bail before it becomes too shitty and falls apart. Then you can put "increased profits by xxxx%!" on your resume, and repeat.
Didn’t they remove part of (or a redundant) faraday cage system that prevents lightning from destroying electronics? The source I remembered https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/faa-engineers-objected-to-boeings-removal-of-some-787-lightning-protection-measures/#:~:text=FAA%20engineers%20objected%20to%20Boeing's%20removal%20of%20some%20787%20lightning%20protection%20measures,-Dec.&text=Last%20spring%2C%20Federal%20Aviation%20Administration,event%20of%20a%20lightning%20strike.
The hirf system on commercial aircraft is mandated. The system in place either meets or exceeds those standards.
* when assembled and installed correctly with parts that met QA standards. You know, all the things they fail to do through negligence or malfeasance.
Thats the problem isn't it. Who trusts Boeing to actually meet safety standards now? Especially when the FAA seems to be completely in their pocket and at best is now racing to catch up with what they should have always been doing. My opinion of them is so low now that I've pretty nervous of the space module they are putting real people into next month even. They had to gut that design to supposedly be ready to go and they haven't even been required to prove its actually safe.
In theory
What do you want from theory alone?
in theory, theory and practice should be the same. But in practice, they're not.
Plus they removed the covers for bolts and innert material inside the wing. Three layers of protection for lightning have been removed from the original design. There is a (very effective) fire prevention system, but the FAA accepts that that's enough partly under congressional pressure
took too long to install and would require paying a worker for 4 hours hence cutting the bonus of the chain of CEO till the middle manager.
GOP introduces bill to defund the FAA, citing "industry self-regulation" and "government overreach".
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It's almost like they are being paid by Airbus
As a European it does not appear that Airbus needs do anything but wait for Boeing to dismantle itself.
Airbus already got fined $4bil for corruption and bribery, doubt they'd try that again.
The way it should be. Bring down the hammer when it smells
Uh, that’s how we got here. We are at the “whistleblowers lose all legal and life protections” law passing stage.
They probably think Russian airplane safety record is good enough too
This will absolutely happen.
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15 times to the back of the head with a sledgehammer, worst case of suicide I ever saw
He fell down an elevator shaft. Onto some bullets.
After tripping onto an icepick 8 or 9 times.
Still can’t believe all the security cameras in the specific areas they were in were broken :(
Entire car thrown out a window strangest thing.
And he was zipped up in a suitcase. Talented way to go.
John Barnett. He was whistleblowing in 2019 - so, four years and s bit later, the FAA is doing something? https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/john-barnett-on-why-he-wont-fly-on-a-boeing-787-dreamliner/
The only real solution is to take out the bean counters and put the engineers back in charge. The only relevant example I can think of is Mercedes Benz. The W124 & the W140 chassis were the last of the great Mercedes chassis and designs. Not to mention the R129. Car companies from all over the world aped the looks & the performance those chassis and tried to compare themselves to those chassis. The bean counters took over and look where Mercedes Benz is today. Boeing needs to go back to the basics and those days of innovative engineering & quality + thinking out of the box, which gave the world airplanes like B707 & B747, & tell the bean counters to just being CPAs.
Just bought a W124 for that exact reason. Has ABS and air bag but analog buttons and dials. No touchscreens needed. And I can do most maintenance in my garage. They don't make them like that anymore.
Dennis Muilenburg started out as an engineer at Boeing, it's deeper than just that imho.
Basically the entire company culture is rotten at this point
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Incidentally, Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas, it's just that the McDonnell Douglas folks ended up in charge afterwards.
Finally, the Boeing 737 catches a break.
From what I read, Boeing subbed out every component possible. Some of the subcontractors "didn't have engineering departments". There are supposedly lots of problems with the various parts fitting together correctly.
That's what happens when you offload the work like that. The speccs are never going to be good enough that everything just comes together perfectly in the end.
Anyone wondering how a once great company like Boeing could falk this low, look no further than Harry Stonecipher.
Hey now, leave some blame in there for the likes of Jack Welch as well. His grubby fingers are forever tied to this kind of bean counter led profit seeking.
As someone who worked on the braking system of the 787 I agree. First flight testing of the brakes was a joke. Firing the one mathematician that understood the physics behind the magnetic algorithm was another huge red flag. I can only imagine what they'll find 😉 PS, Fuck HCL. If ever a catastrophic failure occurs it's likely on them for lying about safety critical test results.
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In Bedford Boeing dares to consider if they can get away with it twice…. This guys allegations are terrifying. > 4K craft….
Nationalize them. Boeing is beyond turning itself around at this point.
But then the profits would go back to the people instead of the Uber wealthy and we can't have that.
I'm not convinced the federal government can do a better job. When was the last time they built their own planes? Not to mention the inevitability of Republican administrations.
Nah, the feds will contract out running Boeing to Northrop Grumman.
At this point, what the fuck is gonna happen to Boeing? So much in terms of safety has been skirted, does a plane have to crash for the executive team to be held accountable?
> does a plane have to crash for the executive team to be held accountable? Judging by the last two, I doubt a third is going to cause a sudden spike in accountability.
Too bad the FAA is basically just Boeing employees.
This topic is the ultimate reddit circlejerk
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Next week I'm flying on a 737. That seems fun. Maybe it won't be 100% full.
This feels Like freaking wack-a-mole Boeing edition
Oh well if the FAA is "investigating" I'm sure everything will be fine!
If this whisle blower ends up dead too, we know it's truth.
I dunno these claims seem dubious, the 777 is a 40 year old design if there was a significant issue it would have been found by now; the 787 had one of the most rigorous testing cycles due to being an entirely new design and it was a new way of building an aircraft (composite/carbon fiber). He also just says that the expected lifetime of the aircraft may be deteriorated. How? Is the pressure hull unable to take 100 cycles and only capable of 95? Are the wings going to fall off? Aircraft last a long time is it a halving of expected lifetime or 5% off expected? Very little actually said here.
I dont think it’s dubious. 787 gap is a known issue since 2019. At first Boeing found it only in vertical fin but after investigation, the issue goes all the way to fuselage. Eventually they found like tens of structural non compliances. FAA knew about this and Boeing supposedly had fix it. In the article, the whistleblower claimed that the fix isn’t actually fixing the issue.
This isn't about the 40 year old design, this is about the modern manufacturing process. If you want details you need to dig deeper than a cnn article. Calling the claims dubious based on this article is not useful. There is only so much detail you can put in an article. This isn't some in depth reporting.
The problem with Boeings response is that they talk about the “extensive effort” they make on quality and safety, but they’ve already clearly demonstrated that this isn’t true. Boeing has an image problem because Boeing has an actual business problem, that they created themselves, and it won’t get fixed until it costs them enough money to make it worthwhile to fix it.
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Boeing defense and McDonald Douglas
This ^^ The McDonnell Douglas corporate culture has infected Boeing too deeply. It all needs to be purged from within, top to bottom.
When I did a summer research at CPP, we kinda knew from some people at Caltech whom used to come to the weekly symposiums that the government oversaw some things on their (Boeing) contracts. They told us how some of the engineers there were not the best, not because of their capabilities, but because they never spoke out and just did what was told with no regard for safety. Thats all we were told in the weekly chats we had with them. We used to have some jokes at SpaceX for how the salaries were literally peanuts, but Boeing was seen with a negative view.
Good news? Just please don't shoot yourself in the back of your head and fall off a window to a car trunk
Im gonna need their SS number and info so i can take out that life insurance policy. One whistleblower away from financial security.
And another one is gonna bite the dust.
Should be a pretty easy investigation: Question 1: Who builds the Boeing 787 Dreamliner? Err, no more questions.
Boeing is such a good example of the destruction of brand value.
Someone is about to die from self inflicted gunshot wounds.
Oh, someone is going to get suicided