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Comment by strangattractor | Hacker News Reader

Many people seem to think this couldn't/wouldn't have happened if someone else had been doing the inspections. This problem was likely caused by a flaw in the process. A mistake a 3rd party could also make. It is not a mistake where Boeing is doing nefarious cost cutting and needs to hide it or has made a huge engineering mistake affecting all the aircraft. Somebody put the plug in - got a phone call, or shift change, put your diversion here - and forgot to put in the bolts. The inspection - if it occurred - failed to notice. I suspect the documentation on the plane will help identify how and by whom. It could just as easily been some other 3rd party mechanics doing routine maintenance.

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The company responsible for the door installation is Spirit AeroSystems. They've been sued for "widespread quality failures" before [0]. The workers raised issues and were ignored [1] and allegedly told to falsify records.

[0] https://news.yahoo.com/maker-boeing-door-plugs-sued-00335449...

[1] https://jacobin.com/2024/01/alaska-airlines-boeing-parts-mal...

They were spun off from Boeing though and I think focusing on them as an entity separate from Boeing for finding fault is the kind of reason why Boeing spun them off. We shouldn't take that bait and should be considering them a division of Boeing (yeah, even though they also sell parts to Airbus).

And Spirit seems entirely financially screwed as a company, they haven't had a positive gross margin since before Covid and on top of that they're now spending half their revenue on interest on their debt. Having Spirit eat those losses is probably great for Boeing's financials and stock price. They should likely be forced by the government to take Spirit over again.

Let's not pretend that Spirit AeroSystems isn't just basically a sub devision of Boeing.

I was with you until midway. You're making quite an assumption while the NTSB's investigation is still ongoing. We don't know the root cause - Those bolts may have very well been in place and passed an inspection during install, but rattled loose and fell out (and then subsequently were blown out of the plane when the plug failed.)

United reported loose bolts, not missing bolts. This indicates a more systemic issue and not just a miss by an Alaska Airlines maintenance worker taking a phone call. If the systems involved in the failure are all "Boeing", it doesn't seem unreasonable to consider changes, such as requiring a 3rd party with no self-interest in rubber-stamping the go-ahead, to inspect the work.

> Those bolts may have very well been in place and passed an inspection during install, but rattled loose and fell out (and then subsequently were blown out of the plane when the plug failed.)

The bolts the NTSB can't find are not the ones that have been found to be loose. The bolts they can't find are the ones with the castellated nuts and cotter pin. Very hard to imagine those vibrating loose. And for the door to transit in an upward direction it would really require all four of those to fail or for them to not exist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maLBGFYl9_o at around the 7:26 mark has a great explanation of how the door is secured and it seems like as long as there is at least one of the four bolts installed the door can't move.

Agreed, those are not going to rattle loose. Even if the cotter pins were all missing, 4 nuts would have had to back off fully and 4 bolts would have had to wiggle out, not to mention they would likely be under pressure from the guide pin during flight. Again, the final report will tell all but it really seems to me that they were just not there.

I do not think using words such as "likely" and "I suspect" constitute asserting anything. Those doors and plugs are designed to wedge themselves against the seal when they are in place. Just looking at them from the outside will not give any indication as to whether they are bolted. A few rapid vertical jolts (which might occur in flight) could jar them loose without the bolts. There is no damage to the structure of the plane. Bolts on planes are either carter pinned, safety wired or have a nylon ring to prevent loosening. They generally don't just fall off - not to mention having several fall off simultaneously.

The same problem has been found on several plans. Far too many and too high a percent to not be a systemic issue. A phone call or shift change might explain one or two errors, not the same error in many planes across multiple airlines.

They don’t build 100 of those things a day. They don’t even average one a day. Whatever the issue, it went on over quite a period of time.

Given the other issues with the 737 Max line, it is reasonable to believe there would be a good chance of improvement if regulators were more heavily involved.

Just a note that the bolts problem on other planes is not the same as this one. This plane it seems that the locking bolts were missing entirely, not just loose. Their design requires a cotter pin and castelated nut to disappear and then for them to be completely removed, all 4, before the door can move. They act like a pin locking the door in place so all 4 have to no longer exist vs. just being loose. Of course the final report will tell but it looks like they were just not there. The other loose bolts found do however indicate a lack of attention and inspection in this area on a whole which may have contributed to this slipping through.

That seems doubtful since it's not happening on airplugs in other planes. Sure a third party could have failed as well, but Boeing's currently suspect inspection standards are far more likely to fail (if true and with the incentive to cut costs as much as possible) than a 3rd party whose sole reason for survival/earnings is to get paid for doing inspections. I trust greed more than I trust a "gentlemen's agreement" to do the right thing.

Hmm they have already found 7 other planes with loose bolts in the same section. On other airlines besides Alaska. Don’t think distracted 3rd party is the issue… seems more like a production problem considering the Alaska airlines 737 was only 2 months old

> It is not a mistake where Boeing is doing nefarious cost cutting and needs to hide it or has made a huge engineering mistake affecting all the aircraft.

Is this sarcasm? If not you really need to read the notes from the MAX 7 crash investigation, starting here [0]. That is exactly what Boeing did. MCAS was a hack to fix a plane badly designed to save costs. They rushed to release, ignored incomplete testing, hide information from the FAA, buried MCAS inside another features notes and forced engineers to say that only computer based training was needed for pilots for the new MAX planes despite big differences, all to save themselves and airlines costs.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_certification

I agree 100%! As a proud, patriotic American I don't want BIG GOVERNMENT interfering with the free market either - even if the windows of airplanes are being blown off mid-flight.

However, do not take this to mean I want the end of the billions of dollars the government gives to Boeing every year, for the R&D to build planes for the military.

This entire narrative about Boeing in the media to me just screams of insider trading. The stock went up 68% in a month, then held flat for two weeks, only breaking down the day the screw story breaks. People definitely knew this was coming in December and were selling off what they could without triggering a panic sell off. Perhaps even that November pump and favorable headlines about order sheets at the time was also orchestrated. Interesting to speculate.

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