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Comment by krona | Hacker News Reader

> How did this pass Boeing QA?

https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/safety/146074-boeing-inte...

It's crazy their supplier is delivering so many must-fix defects they have to have a warranty team on site to help fix them. Crazier that Boeing just let that get more and more out of hand instead of making Spirit get their shit together on their end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIAfCupuZ3w

Edit: Also that entire culture and dynamic between Boeing and Spirit on the production floor seems very toxic and driven by misaligned incentives. There should be zero place for bickering, aggressiveness, and finger pointing in that SAT channel. If something needs to be fixed Spirit needs to fix it with a smile. If Boeing and Spirit need to review who is responsible for what, and what needs fixing and doesn't, that should happen in review in a different setting. The production crews need to be able to execute on their processes and focus on the quality of the product without having timeline and budget concerns seeping into their day-to-day.

Spirit has no competition. How do you threaten the supplier who owns your production when you have no other options?

It sure would be great if they just owned the supplier outright and could align incentives that way.

That you Dave Calhoun? I guess your replacement will figure it out and let us know.

Seriously though, that's a problem people getting paid sh* tons of money are supposed to be on top of.

These sorts of what I like to call "reverse monopolies" are all over the place in US industry now. So many companies dumped out pieces of themselves to a single company that then supplies for all of them, removing the ability of those companies to actually compete with each other by differentiation.

Considering we're talking about Boeing, who actually do the work Spirit does for them for the 737 for other airframes (making the fuselages), and used to do it in house for the 737 before too (in that same Wichita factory complex where Spirit is now, Spirit being the result of Boeing's monumentally stupid decision to divest), I think it's fair to say that Boeing can bring production back in house.

When you gut a part of your company to spin it out as separate company that isn't going to have same union contracts and can be then squeezed as hard as possible...

First you create the reverse monopoly then ensure the toxicity, all in chasing supposed "value add" of final assembly and coordination (to paraphrase the Boeing CEO who made the strategy, who wasn't from McDonnell but was a Boeing lifer)

Great link!

I like how that comment is from an anonymous source, but now that the NTSB preliminary report is out, it seems thoroughly corroborated to me. The dates of certain events and the reason for the door's removal—er, "opening"—both match the comment in your link.

Thanks.

So were the bolts missing because the Spirit team did not know they had to be put back (i.e. it was not recorded as a task that needed to be done) or was that simply just another mistake in the long line of mistakes they've made?

Reading through that post gave me nightmares of dealing with outsourcing software teams where you send them a small issue to fix and their fix breaks 3 existing items.

As things stand, it seems the anon insider report from 3 weeks back was legitimate and accurate, and holds answers to your question: https://leehamnews.com/2024/01/15/unplanned-removal-installa...

I read that but could not work out which of my two statements are true. Might just be bad reading comprehension on my side...

From my understanding, both Boeing and Spirit have been employing very shoddy practices, but at that point in the production line it's Boeing who is responsible for QA

I took it to mean that someone forgot but the mistake would have been caught if the removal was documented in the authoritative record system, since that kicks off an automatic workflow where QA is notified and must sign off.

But they didn’t for whatever reason so two mistakes stacked.

> were the bolts missing because the Spirit team did not know they had to be put back

It would be interesting to know what ultimately happened to the bolts if they indeed were removed.

When I disassemble something, I do as I was taught in my mechanical class in high school, and always keep all parts I take of in the same box. If I am left with some extra bolts when finished, that would be a worrisome sign.

When I was a teen, I rebuilt the engine on my first car. When done, there was a spring left over. I had no idea what it was for, the engine ran fine.

So I drove it around. The oil pressure was very low, but I figured it was just a broken gauge.

Then, the engine got way, way too hot.

It turns out, the spring was for the pressure regulator from the oil pump. The oil was pumped out of the pan right back into the pan. The engine needed to be rebuilt again.

Just comment out the tests and they pass

Instead of Software Development becoming more like Aeronautical Engineering, every day, Aeronautical Engineering becomes more like Software Development...

Almost every software engineering book:

Halting on an error is often best, as is raising the error after catching it, unless you're certain it should be subdued or aware, expect the issue, and have limited risk.

Every dev project:

Hold up, couldn't this raise an exception? That's bad!

Well, to be clear, I don't usually put people in danger. There's a lot these engineers could learn from software engineers: who are really the highest performance at engineering as a craft. One base rule: Above all, kill no one.

I think that software engineers put people in danger more often than they would like to believe; have a look at the UK Postal Service scandal for a great example of a seemingly innocuous bit of software absolutely destroying numerous lives.

https://xkcd.com/2030/

Indeed. And yet immediately outmatched by the number of lives destroyed by motor vehicles (probably per day).

Neither the software nor the software engineers were the ones who destroyed people's lives. That's on managers of the software company, managers of the postal service, prosecutors and judges who all conspired to hide the truth and condemn innocent people. I believe software engineers actually testified that the software had bugs, and the prosecutors hid that particular testimony.

I’m trying to convince a group of devs that catching (and ignoring) every exception is not actually a solution to their crash bugs.

Ya know.. you can also just do that and then change the requirements:

> In a revision to the Flight Crew Operations Manual, issued on January 15, 2024, Boeing confirmed that the door functioned as designed.

Problem solved for the current level in the hierarchy.

The same group I’m talking about did exactly that: they got an exemption for any security issues from the CISO.

Literally turning a blind eye, but officially, so that’s okay!

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