If this is true, it is impressive the door stayed attached to the plane as long as it did. If they really forgot to install all of the bolts intended to hold it in place, I would have expected to to fail much sooner.
I guess that's why it doesn't immediately fall out.
Has anyone seen mechanical or assembly drawings of these things?
The doors are very heavy, the pressure keeps them in place in only one direction. Without the bolts, only friction from the pressure would hold them up.
I guess presumably because the plug does double-duty as a door depending on the floor plan.
It's up to chance that the door plug could bounce up, and thus ready to open when the pressure builds.
What seems odd is the springs that assist opening an emergency exit are left in place. Might not have made a difference.
I would completely believe it if they claimed that they didn't manufacture up to specs, didn't install it correctly, cheaped out on the materials.. but painting over the plugs? Yeah....
That said, I worked in commercial aircraft engine component repair for years and everything I read in this is 100% plausible to me.
One time we shipped a part back to the customer before it was even done being repaired. It had labels and stickers marking stuff that needed to be done still on it. When the customer got it they emailed us some photos of the markings and said "It doesn't look done to us...". We had to tell them to send it back so we could finish it. Whoops!
I agree that the situation you are describing is very plausible. But correct me if I'm wrong but he's saying that Boeing knew (as in, their systems were aware) about it, even after the botched repair that there was no bolt. In this case, it would be closer to the customer knowing the repair wasn't done and still going forward with not sending it back. No checks are done even after malicious actions from spirit:
>the reason the door blew off is stated in black and white in Boeings own records. It is also very, very stupid and speaks volumes about the quality culture at certain portions of the business
>This entire sequence is documented in the SAT, and the nonconformance records in CMES address the damaged rivets and pressure seal, but at no point is the verification job reopened, or is any record of removed retention bolts created, despite it this being a physical impossibility. Finally with Spirit completing their work to Boeing QAs satisfaction, the two rivet-related records in CMES are stamped complete, and the SAT closed on 19 September 2023. No record or comment regarding the retention bolts is made.
To me that's just hard to believe. Errors happen, but this involves fraud from spirit and also just no process at all from Boeing. I get that the system that deals with this for the 737 is apparently bad, but this just very very basic process management (aka step y needs to be done so that step x can be marked as started or confirmed). In this case, Spirit earlier lied about repairing it, then still didn't repair it... for reasons (hard to procure parts for a manufacturer is an... odd reason to just not fix a critical part especially since it would mean that they actively decided to not install the missing parts). And Boeing caught it the first time but then stopped caring the second? Idk, possible, but I'll wait for sure for more info before drawing conclusions
the quote:
> there are 4 bolts that prevent the mid-exit door plug from sliding up off of the door stop fittings that take the actual pressurization loads in flight
I mean sure maybe but at best I'd guess the comment is based on the truth but with heavy hyperbole. And no matter what is said about Boeing, they still have in house inspectors and Qa. Even the laziest QA with no process management other than a spreadsheet would've caught this or raised a red flag. Would've also been believable if QA was overridden by management or something, but nope, nothing was raised according to the comment
quote from annother comment of that thread: https://leehamnews.com/2024/01/15/unplanned-removal-installa...
> Context: CMES – Common Manufacturing Execution System SAT – Situation Action Tracker
Spirit employees cannot get write access to CMES, by process. Going back to P poor quality of fuselage deliveries in 2018 Spirit teams have been onsite in Renton & Moses Lake.
It was common that Spirit could be doing out of sequence work all the way after factory rollout.
Frequently Boeing Senior Managers demanded CMES access for Spirit teams, but it can’t be allowed. Access to SAT is fine because it is not a production system.
When Wichita was part of Boeing system access was not an issue. The only way to integrate Spirit SAT entries & info into CMES is manually, and that is tedious and error prone. Information escapes are unavoidable when 2 companies are working in multiple systems of “record”.