Airline Industry

[neonzx]

Seemed like sloppy journalism not mentioning the aircraft type right up front in the article given the 737 Max recent issue in the news.

[RTH10260]

United Airlines flight to Chicago makes emergency landing in Tampa after door indicator light turns on

https://wgntv.com/news/national/united- ... ns-on/amp/

I cant read it as its region restricted. but apparently it was an Airbus, not a Boeing plane but the article barely mentions that.

From an airline expert (ex pilot) I take it that certain warnings require an immediate landing and not to proceed to the target airport. The warning light could be a real situation or just a failed sensor, it's not the pilots choice to assume that the warning is not critical. It's one of many warnings that can pop up with the same requirement.

[Frater I*I]

So how sound was their alternative plan, Don’t Fly Over Water? Is that a thing? It seems like if a plane is not safe to fly over water, it probably isn’t safe to fly at all.

The aircraft in question is ETOPS [Extended Twin-Engine Operation] rated, twin engine aircraft without such a rating when flying over oceans or seas must flay a path that keeps them within 60 minutes of a suitable landing site in case of engine or other failure. An ETOPS rating, depending on its level, can extend that range to 120, 180, or 240 minutes.

Over land the aircraft will usually be only a short time away from a site where it can be landed safely.

[RTH10260]

The Boeing model 737-900ER uses the same construction like on the problem Alaska Airline plane some emergency exit doors.

The FAA has ordered extra inspections after some airline reported an issue with bolts during regular maintenance.

[neonzx]

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/busine ... rcna135316

The CEO of Alaska Airlines said new, in-house inspections of the carrier's Boeing 737 Max 9 planes in the wake of a near-disaster earlier this month revealed that “many” of the aircraft were found to have loose bolts.

In an exclusive interview with NBC News senior correspondent Tom Costello, Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci discussed the findings of his company's inspections so far since the Jan. 5 incident, in which a panel on one of its Max 9 jets blew out midair on a flight carrying 177 people.

“I’m more than frustrated and disappointed,” he said. “I am angry. This happened to Alaska Airlines. It happened to our guests and happened to our people. And — my demand on Boeing is what are they going to do to improve their quality programs in-house.”

[RTH10260]

when not screws but window panes come lose ...

from last year, a story of interest to our local plane mechanic

The strange reason windows blew out on an Airbus passenger jet
A bizarre circumstance caused the in-flight accident.

Jeffrey Quiggle
Updated:Nov 3, 2023 5:36 PM EDT

An unusual incident occurred on an aircraft recently that caused what officials called "substantial damage." No injuries were reported.

A Titan Airways Airbus A321-200N, attempting to fly from London to Orlando, Fla. on Oct. 4 with 21 crew, was forced to abort its climb after takeoff and return to Stansted Airport.

At about 10,000 feet, the Titan Airways crew on board the Airbus (EADSF) aircraft had reportedly noticed loud noise in the cabin.

The British Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) discovered after an investigation by Titan Airways that three windows were missing or loose and reported the incident as an accident.

Titan Airways reported Oct. 15 that the 21 staff members on board were in the process of repositioning for their next flights.

"The crew became aware of increased noise and an issue with one of the windows and returned to London according to standard operating procedures without requesting assistance," the Aviation Herald wrote. "Following landing it was discovered that the outer panes of three windows were missing."



How the windows were damaged

The windows reportedly had been compromised before the flight by lights outside the aircraft that were being used for a photoshoot.

"The day before the occurrence flight the aircraft had been used for filming on the ground, during which external lights had been shone through the cabin windows to give the illusion of a sunrise," the special bulletin said, according to the Aviation Herald. "The lights were first shone on the right side of the aircraft for approximately five and a half hours, with the light focused on the cabin windows just aft of the overwing exits."

"The lights were then moved to the left side of the aircraft where they illuminated a similar area on the left side for approximately four hours," it continued. "Photographs taken during filming showed six sets of flood lights on both sides of the aircraft."

The report then explained what specifically had happened to damage the windows.

"The windows appear to have sustained thermal damage and distortion because of elevated temperatures while illuminated for approximately four to five and a half hours during filming activity the day before the flight," according to the AAIB. "It is likely that the flood lights were positioned closer than 10 meters."



https://www.thestreet.com/travel/the-st ... senger-jet

[RTH10260]

Nose wheel falls off Boeing 757 passenger jet awaiting takeoff
Delta Air Lines jet was due to depart from Atlanta airport and none of six crew or 184 passengers were hurt

Oliver Holmes
Wed 24 Jan 2024 07.17 CET

A nose wheel fell off a Delta Air Lines Boeing 757 passenger jet and rolled away as the plane lined up for takeoff over the weekend from Atlanta’s international airport in the US, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

According to a preliminary FAA notice, none of the 184 passengers or six crew onboard were hurt in the incident, which took place on Saturday at Hartsfield-Jackson airport.

The report said the aircraft was lining up and waiting for takeoff when the “nose wheel came off and rolled down the hill”.

Boeing 757 planes have two rubber nose wheel tyres positioned side by side and are checked before flight.

The aircraft had been scheduled to fly to Bogotá, Colombia, and Delta said the passengers were put on a replacement flight, according to the New York Times.



https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... -falls-off

[neonzx]

Oooops.

[Rolodex]

Oh great.

I'm taking a Delta flight out of ATL today. On a 757.

[northland10]

Damn, wrong 757.

[Slim Cognito]

I had trouble getting back from Kansas City after Hubs Memorial last week. My Allegiant flight was canceled two days in a row before I finally booked on American. I eventually got home, but a lot of the customers swore off Allegiant forever. Sure, I was pissed, but it wasn’t anything I haven’t experienced on another airline.

[Maybenaut]

Oh great.

I'm taking a Delta flight out of ATL today. On a 757.

I’m sure it’ll be the most heavily inspected aircraft in the fleet. They’re not going to want a repeat of that!

[Rolodex]

While it's gone in cycles, I've had some years where I few fairly frequently (10-12 flights a year) and have never had any kind of emergency (knock wood!). I'm one of those nerds who always pays attention to the FA spiel and keep my seat belt fastened whenever I'm sitting. Even on overnight flights in a lie-flat seat I wear my seat belt. I'm not a nervous flyer - I love looking out the window and the feeling of going reallyfast right before takeoff. LOL

Which reminds me, I need to pick up a bag of candy - I usually give one to the FAs as I'm boarding. Now that I'm a grandparent, I can bring Werther's!

[MN-Skeptic]

This thread has certainly had me checking out what planes my sister-in-law, niece, and niece's cello are flying on. My niece is visiting five grad schools over two months, flying all on Delta. They haven't booked the flight to New York City yet, but all the other flights have been or will be on Airbuses or a Bombardier (whatever that is). So I guess that's good.

[Frater I*I]

This thread has certainly had me checking out what planes my sister-in-law, niece, and niece's cello are flying on. My niece is visiting five grad schools over two months, flying all on Delta. They haven't booked the flight to New York City yet, but all the other flights have been or will be on Airbuses or a Bombardier (whatever that is). So I guess that's good.

Made in Germany with parts being made in the UK and France, maintenance manuals are written in German and translated into English by the French...

A CRJ [Canadair Regional Jet] 700 or 900 most likely, the company sold to Airbus for them to take over the C Series aircraft then the rest was sold to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, including the CRJ series...

[Sam the Centipede]

This thread has certainly had me checking out what planes my sister-in-law, niece, and niece's cello are flying on. My niece is visiting five grad schools over two months, flying all on Delta. They haven't booked the flight to New York City yet, but all the other flights have been or will be on Airbuses or a Bombardier (whatever that is). So I guess that's good.

Made in Germany with parts being made in the UK and France, maintenance manuals are written in German and translated into English by the French...

A CRJ [Canadair Regional Jet] 700 or 900 most likely, the company sold to Airbus for them to take over the C Series aircraft then the rest was sold to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, including the CRJ series...

Airbus performs final assembly of its planes in several countries, more than I (a non-aviation person) appreciated. I thought most of the big stuff was at its big plant in Toulouse but, as you indicate, Hamburg has 4 lines for A320s, and there are lines too in Tianjin and Mobile, yes, that mo-beel.

Airbus website: Production: Building aircraft on time and at top quality

[RTH10260]

our flying reporter of Oroville spillway fame comments on the lost cabin door preliminary investigation results

[northland10]

I had trouble getting back from Kansas City after Hubs Memorial last week. My Allegiant flight was canceled two days in a row before I finally booked on American. I eventually got home, but a lot of the customers swore off Allegiant forever. Sure, I was pissed, but it wasn’t anything I haven’t experienced on another airline.

Since the 757 is an older plane, the front wheel issue would most likely be on Delta maintenance and not Boeing. Too also, being an older plane, it was designed before the merger with MD.

The exact plane in question was manufactured and received its certificate in 1992.

I don't know about any after-market parts it may have received since 1992.

[neeneko]

Oh great.

I'm taking a Delta flight out of ATL today. On a 757.

I’m sure it’ll be the most heavily inspected aircraft in the fleet. They’re not going to want a repeat of that!

Nah. A rousing speech about having a culture of safety and transparency is much cheaper than detailed inspections.

[Frater I*I]

Nah. A rousing speech about having a culture of safety and transparency is much cheaper than detailed inspections.

Until the FAA issues an Airworthiness Directive [AD]...then it is inspection time...

[Foggy]

neeneko seems ... cynical. My favorite!

[chancery]

From the blog Balloon Juice, https://balloon-juice.com/2024/01/24/sk ... our-wings/

quoting something called Leeham News, which follows the aerospace industry https://leehamnews.com/2024/01/15/unpla ... at-boeing/

Current Boeing employee here – I will save you waiting two years for the NTSB report to come out and give it to you for free: 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.

A couple of things to cover before we begin:

Q1) Why should we believe you?
A) You shouldn’t, I’m some random throwaway account, do your own due diligence. Others who work at Boeing can verify what I say is true, but all I ask is you consider the following based on its own merits.

Q2) Why are you doing this?
A) Because there are many cultures at Boeing, and while the executive culture may be throughly compromised since we were bought by McD, there are many other people who still push for a quality product with cutting edge design. My hope is that this is the wake up call that finally forces the Board to take decisive action, and remove the executives that are resisting the necessary cultural changes to return to a company that values safety and quality above schedule.

With that out of the way… why did the left hand (LH) mid-exit door plug blow off of the 737-9 registered as N704AL? Simple- as has been covered in a number of articles and videos across aviation channels, 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, and these 4 bolts were not installed when Boeing delivered the airplane, our own records reflect this.

The mid-exit doors on a 737-9 of both the regular and plug variety come from Spirit already installed in what is supposed to be the final configuration and in the Renton factory, there is a job for the doors team to verify this “final” install and rigging meets drawing requirements. In a healthy production system, this would be a “belt and suspenders” sort of check, but the 737 production system is quite far from healthy, its a rambling, shambling, disaster waiting to happen. As a result, this check job that should find minimal defects has in the past 365 calendar days recorded 392 nonconforming findings on 737 mid fuselage door installations (so both actual doors for the high density configs, and plugs like the one that blew out). That is a hideously high and very alarming number, and if our quality system on 737 was healthy, it would have stopped the line and driven the issue back to supplier after the first few instances. Obviously, this did not happen. Now, on the incident aircraft this check job was completed on 31 August 2023, and did turn up discrepancies, but on the RH side door, not the LH that actually failed. I could blame the team for missing certain details, but given the enormous volume of defects they were already finding and fixing, it was inevitable something would slip through- and on the incident aircraft something did. I know what you are thinking at this point, but grab some popcorn because there is a plot twist coming up.

The next day on 1 September 2023 a different team (remember 737s flow through the factory quite quickly, 24 hours completely changes who is working on the plane) wrote up a finding for damaged and improperly installed rivets on the LH mid-exit door of the incident aircraft.

A brief aside to explain two of the record systems Boeing uses in production. The first is a program called CMES which stands for something boring and unimportant but what is important is that CMES is the sole authoritative repository for airplane build records (except on 787 which uses a different program). If a build record in CMES says something was built, inspected, and stamped in accordance with the drawing, then the airplane damn well better be per drawing. The second is a program called SAT, which also stands for something boring and unimportant but what is important is that SAT is *not* an authoritative records system, its a bullentin board where various things affecting the airplane build get posted about and updated with resolutions. You can think of it sort of like a idiots version of Slack or something. Wise readers will already be shuddering and wondering how many consultants were involved, because, yes SAT is a *management visibilty tool*. Like any good management visibilty tool, SAT can generate metrics, lots of metrics, and oh God do Boeing managers love their metrics. As a result, SAT postings are the primary topic of discussion at most daily status meetings, and the whole system is perceived as being extremely important despite, I reiterate, it holding no actual authority at all.

We now return to our incident aircraft, which was written up for having defective rivets on the LH mid-exit door. Now as is standard practice kn Renton (but not to my knowledge in Everett on wide bodies) this write-up happened in two forms, one in CMES, which is the correct venue, and once in SAT to “coordinate the response” but really as a behind-covering measure so the manager of the team that wrote it can show his boss he’s shoved the problem onto someone else. Because there are so many problems with the Spirit build in the 737, Spirit has teams on site in Renton performing warranty work for all of their shoddy quality, and this SAT promptly gets shunted into their queue as a warranty item. Lots of bickering ensues in the SAT messages, and it takes a bit for Spirit to get to the work package. Once they have finished, they send it back to a Boeing QA for final acceptance, but then Malicious Stupid Happens! The Boeing QA writes another record in CMES (again, the correct venue) stating (with pictures) that Spirit has not actually reworked the discrepant rivets, they *just painted over the defects*. In Boeing production speak, this is a “process failure”. For an A&P mechanic at an airline, this would be called “federal crime”.

Presented with evidence of their malfeasance, Spirit reopens the package and admits that not only did they not rework the rivets properly, there is a damaged pressure seal they need to replace (who damaged it, and when it was damaged is not clear to me). The big deal with this seal, at least according to frantic SAT postings, is the part is not on hand, and will need to be ordered, which is going to impact schedule, and (reading between the lines here) Management is Not Happy.

However, more critical for purposes of the accident investigation, the pressure seal is unsurprisingly sandwiched between the plug and the fuselage, and you cannot replace it without opening the door plug to gain access. All of this conversation is documented in increasingly aggressive posts in the SAT, but finally we get to the damning entry which reads something along the lines of “coordinating with the doors team to determine if the door will have to be removed entirely, or just opened. If it is removed then a Removal will have to be written.” Note: a Removal is a type of record in CMES that requires formal sign off from QA that the airplane been restored to drawing requirements.

If you have been paying attention to this situation closely, you may be able to spot the critical error: regardless of whether the door is simply opened or removed entirely, the 4 retaining bolts that keep it from sliding off of the door stops have to be pulled out. A removal should be written in either case for QA to verify install, but as it turns out, someone (exactly who will be a fun question for investigators) decides that the door only needs to be opened, and no formal Removal is generated in CMES (the reason for which is unclear, and a major process failure). Therefore, in the official build records of the airplane, a pressure seal that cannot be accessed without opening the door (and thereby removing retaining bolts) is documented as being replaced, but the door is never officially opened and thus no QA inspection is required.
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.

I told you it was stupid.

So, where are the bolts? Probably sitting forgotten and unlabeled (because there is no formal record number to label them with) on a work-in-progress bench, unless someone already tossed them in the scrap bin to tidy up.

There’s lots more to be said about the culture that enabled this to happened, but thats the basic details of what happened, the NTSB report will say it in more elegant terms in a few years.

[Uninformed]

Thankyou. I can understand how disheartening this must be.

[RTH10260]

Latest news:
Do not use engine de-icing longer than 5 minutes on this model or the engine may explode...

[RTH10260]

Update on Boeing