The most fascinating part of that excellent video, for me, is why it switched to manual pitch trim law: because one computer thought the plane was on the ground, while the other thought the plane was in the air – because the nosewheel bounced for exactly one second, which happens to be the exact (deliberate) delay between the two computer inputs. One second – not a smidge more, not a smidge less.
(Whack-a-Mole alluded to this.)
Very interesting. Horrifying, but interesting. Certainly smells plausible. The big picture being that delivering on an under-resourced schedule has become more important than delivering a correct result. Disastrous if true.
The guy mentions culture went to hell “when McD bought us”. Except it was the other way around. Boeing bought McD-D. And promptly destroyed McD-D’s culture, processes, and products.
IIRC some execs from McD-D survived and got integrated into Boeing’s upper reaches.
Right, though I’m not sure what you’re implying about “McD-D’s culture, processes, and products”. These were the fine folks who brought us the DC-10, famous for its cargo doors flying off, engines falling off or exploding, and so many other mishaps that I found myself wondering at the time if the DC-10 wasn’t going to be permanently grounded. Too bad it wasn’t – later on, a DC-10 with pieces falling off on takeoff was directly responsible for the subsequent crash of the Air France Flight 4590 Concorde, which brought the supersonic era to an end.
This is unfortunately paywalled now, but I’ve read it previously:
And it argues the reverse of what you’re saying — Boeing was the acquiring company, but McD-D execs weren’t just integrated, they actually wound up taking over a lot of leadership, and this is when Boeing’s engineering-first culture started to dissolve into financials-first.
I don’t know enough to argue either side, but I thought it was interesting.
Paywalled, but it sounds like the story I heard on NPR this morning. An engineer had been working for McDonnel-Douglas when Boeing acquired them. He traces Boeing’s current problems to the merger. He said that up to that point, Boeing’s management were recruited from Engineers (as mentioned upthread somewhere). After buying MD, Boeing started putting the bottom line priority over engineering and quality. The engineer said it didn’t help that Boeing moved its headquarters to the opposite side of the country from where the planes are built.
I’d link the story, but I couldn’t find it. I found the story.
Boeing’s current troubles may trace back to the 1990s - Marketplace
Boeing has undergone a lot of change over nearly 30 years. Ronald Epstein was a young engineer working for McDonnell Douglas when it merged with Boeing in 1997. At that time, he says, Boeing’s top executives were engineers.
“The folks that designed the airplanes were on the top of the pile,” Epstein explained. “If you look at the pecking order of management today that’s not the case anymore.” …
“Maybe Boeing wasn’t as focused on some of the financial things that it should have been — ultimately it’s a business,” he said. “But I think the argument goes it went too far.”
Epstein says it doesn’t help that Boeing moved its headquarters to Arlington, Virginia, far from the factories where it makes commercial aircraft.
I think the comment was a reference to the old joke that “McDonnell-Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing’s money”. Which itself was a reference to the aforementioned executives that somehow ended up in Boeing leadership positions, bringing their culture with them.
Helicopter Crash in Terrace, BC, with 3 fatalities and 4 critically injured. I spent most of a week flying in that machine–a Koala, so not too common. Most of a week because we were flying out towards the end of the week and the was a loud BANG and half the skid came loose from the ship. A very quick turn around and the pilot had to hover at the pad for half an hour while the cribbed up under the ship with tires and firewood. Unrelated I’m sure but kinda sketchy.
Makes sense. I knew a couple of McD-D execs didn’t get hammered, but I wasn’t aware of how much McD-D’s top management took over.
For sure Boeing’s been thoroughly MBA-ed and is now paying the price. I just had not really noticed that the McD-D purchase was a major milestone or catalytic even in that process.
Thanks to everyone who brought up a piece of this puzzle.
They changed the wheel and forgot to tighten the bolts?
It’s a plug. “Open” shouldn’t even be an allowed verb here. You use “open” for doors or windows. Plugs are unstoppered, uncorked, unplugged… removed. And then replaced, with full process for any component that has to be uninstalled and reinstalled.
Sounds like Spirit cut out the hard part and passed the savings onto themselves.
You picked a fine time to leave me, loose wheel…
The plug is on hinges, and has straps to keep it from opening beyond a certain amount. Opening vs. removing the plug are very different operations, though both require removing the retaining bolts.
@gnoitall’s (valid, IMO) point is that a plug, by definition, doesn’t have an “opening” operation, it is either removed or not removed. If you were to “open” it by leaving it on its hinges, it is still being removed because removal is the only maintenance operation possible that separates it in any way from the fuselage. So it should have been “removed” from a maintenance paperwork perspective, even if that “removal” just entailed hinging it open. In other words, opening the plug is just a special type of removal that should still have triggered the remove and reinstall checks but apparently didn’t.
But opening vs. removal demand a different type of inspection. The retaining bolts obviously (should have) demanded inspection either way. But what about the bolts holding the retaining straps or hinges? If they’re unbolted (i.e., the door has been completely removed), then yes, clearly that demands an inspection. But hinges don’t get inspected after every normal use, and I wouldn’t expect the same to be true here, either. So if the plug is merely opened, it doesn’t demand the same level of inspection.
IOW, if not inspecting the retaining bolts slipped through the cracks here, it’s not because there’s no difference between opening and removal; it’s because there’s a defect in the procedures related to opening the plug (or that said procedures weren’t followed).
The removal reinstallation inspection should be used regardless of how much the door has been removed. It can’t be opened because it’s a plug, not a door, therefore if it is partially removed by “opening” it then it should be treated just the same as a removal in terms of putting it back together.
I have no idea if this is how it works as per Boeing procedures, but it makes sense to me that it should be this way.
But why not have two procedures, one for opening and one for removal? There’s no need to inspect the hinges if they haven’t been disconnected.
Well you could, but in this case it seems there wasn’t hence there was no requirement to check anything. In the absence of a door opening/closing check it should default to the removal/installation check rather than no check at all.
'Zactly.
If the disgruntled Boeing guy is to be believed, there is a management driven culture of finding ways to half-ass stuff whenever and wherever possible. By winking correctly with their blind eye, they could skip 8 man-hours of work & move the job to the next stage today, not 3 days from now. So they did.
When that attitude becomes the norm, it makes a mockery of everything else.
I certainly agree that in the absence of a more specialized procedure, one should default to the “safe” option. My original point was to gnoitall, who felt that “open” shouldn’t even be an “allowed verb” here. But opening vs. removal are clearly distinct with respect to the plug.
There is a certain point where elevating process over engineering sense is damaging. Having good processes is important. But it’s not good to ignore obvious things (like “make sure the retaining bolts are there”) even when there’s no documented procedure that says you need to.
Agreed. Grammar is not (or ought not be) the issue here. As well, “plug” is an ill-chosen term for the dummy doorway-filler panel, even though “plug” is indeed the official Boeing name for the thing.
As anyone in software knows choosing good names is both very difficult and very valuable when done well and the source of countless problems when done badly.