Debris found in fuel tanks of 70% of inspected 737 Max jets

[Sqrt]

Edit: 70% of the planes affected:

Debris found in fuel tanks of 70% of inspected 737 Max jets

CHICAGO (AP) — Debris has been found in the fuel tanks of 70% of grounded Boeing 737 Max jets that have been inspected by the company, Boeing confirmed on Saturday.

apnews.com

CHICAGO (AP) — Debris has been found in the fuel tanks of 70% of grounded Boeing 737 Max jets that have been inspected by the company, Boeing confirmed on Saturday.

Inspectors found the debris in 35 out of about 50 jets that were inspected. They are among 400 built in the past year that Boeing hasn't been able to deliver to airline customers.

Boeing temporarily halted production last month because the planes were grounded after crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people.

Although debris hasn't been linked to those crashes, metal shavings, tools and other objects left in planes during assembly can raise the risk of electrical short-circuiting and fires. On Tuesday the company had said debris was found in "several" planes but it did not give a precise number.

The debris was discovered during maintenance on parked planes, and Boeing said it immediately made corrections in its production system to prevent a recurrence. Those steps include more inspections before fuel tanks are sealed.

"This is unacceptable and won't be tolerated on any Boeing aircraft when it's delivered to the customer," the company said in a statement Saturday.

Boeing previously said the issue does not change the company's belief that the Federal Aviation Administration will certify the plane to fly again this summer.

A Boeing spokesman cautioned against applying the 70% to all 400 jets, saying there's no way to know how many have the same problem until they're all inspected.

Click to shrink...

Boeing has ordered inspections of its entire fleet of grounded 737 Max planes after it found debris in the fuel tanks of some of the aircraft, in the latest setback for the US plane-maker.

Mark Jenks, the general manager of the 737 programme, said in a memo to employees that the debris was "absolutely unacceptable" and that the company was taking steps to address the problem in its production system.

Click to shrink...

Boeing 737 Max: debris found in fuel tanks of grounded planes

‘Absolutely unacceptable’ discovery a new setback for US firm, which orders inspection

www.theguardian.com

The plane that keeps on giving.

 

[kami_sama]

Will they ever fly again?
All signs point to no.

BTW, you link is incorrect.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

Yikes.

 

[Sqrt]

Will they ever fly again?
All signs point to no.

BTW, you link is incorrect.

Click to shrink...

Fixed, thanks.

 

[Mr Swine]

JFC, how can this plane keep getting more and more problems??? How in the world did Boeing think this was ok when they created the plane

 

[Stinkles]

This is a really uneducated reaction to the new "Mr Fusion" engines.

 

[TrafficCoen]

I used to fix commercial planes and this is an insane hazard

 

[Arkanim94]

I would love to see the conference call when they decided that those planes where a ok to fly

 

[cameron]

Bit from BBC News:

737 Max: Debris found in new planes' fuel tanks

The discovery raises fresh concerns about potential safety issues for the US plane-making giant.

www.bbc.com

The US plane maker said it discovered so-called "Foreign Object Debris" left inside the wing fuel tanks of several undelivered 737 Maxs.​

​

A company spokesman told the BBC: "While conducting maintenance we discovered Foreign Object Debris (FOD) in undelivered 737 Max airplanes currently in storage. That finding led to a robust internal investigation and immediate corrective actions in our production system."​

​

Foreign Object Debris is a technical term that covers any substance, debris or article that isn't part of a plane which would potentially cause damage.​

​

​

Boeing has had this issue before:

Boeing tanker jets grounded due to tools and debris left during manufacturing

Boeing leadership was forced to ground its 767-based KC-46 tankers for the past week after the Air Force expressed concern about loose tools and other foreign object debris (FOD) found in various locations inside the completed airplanes, according to internal...

www.seattletimes.com

​

Boeing was forced to ground its 767-based KC-46 tankers for the past week after the Air Force expressed concern about loose tools and bits of debris found in various locations inside the completed airplanes, according to internal company memos.​

​

"We have USAF pilots here for flight training and they will not fly due to the FOD (foreign object debris) issues and the current confidence they have in our product that has been discovered throughout the aircraft," factory management wrote in a Feb. 21 memo to employees on the 767 assembly line.​

​

"This is a big deal," the memo emphasized.​

​

The lapse in standards raises questions about Boeing's plan for a major shift in its quality-control procedures.​

 

[CDX]

Nobody will EVER want to fly in those planes.

Like WTF was Boeing doing with that plane.

 

[Serene]

I would love to see the conference call when they decided that those planes where a ok to fly

Click to shrink...

 

[ShadowAUS]

Boeing: The gift that keeps on giving.

 

[Stinkles]

Nobody will EVER want to fly in those planes.

Like WTF was Boeing doing with that plane.

Click to shrink...

cost saving, mismanagement and what sounds like a really bad layer of culture. I hope they address all of those things for the sake of passengers and people who rely on their aircraft for their livelihoods. Boeing knows how to do things correctly but they need to eliminate the people who don't or won't.

 

[dhlt25]

This is what happen when you have 0 competition and billions of sweet government nectar every year

 

[lexible]

This is what happen when you have 0 competition and billions of sweet government nectar every year

Click to shrink...

Airbus is pretty good competition

 

[Deleted member 10612]

ISO 9001 much?

 

[Deleted member 31104]

Boeing have persistent issues with this the KC-46 had similar issues, and the Dreamliner has had reports of poor quality control

 

[Rand a. Thor]

Was boeing trying to see how many people they can kill before the world caught on or something? JFC this plane is a disaster sandwich.

 

[Greigor the FellHand]

Oh my God.......

Boeing have persistent issues with this the KC-46 had similar issues, and the Dreamliner has had reports of poor quality control

Click to shrink...

From my understanding, it's boeings engineers/quality team being fucky/not accurate when it comes to what that want suppliers to do.

 

[Mr Swine]

Airbus is pretty good competition

Click to shrink...

not when it comes to competition in America I guess

 

[Greigor the FellHand]

cost saving, mismanagement and what sounds like a really bad layer of culture. I hope they address all of those things for the sake of passengers and people who rely on their aircraft for their livelihoods. Boeing knows how to do things correctly but they need to eliminate the people who don't or won't.

Click to shrink...

Odds are that's most of their management/super team now.

 

[Lcs]

I think this will end up as (or already is) the most expensive fuck-up a company has ever done.

I read some figures that said 0.5% of US GDP would be affected by this fiasco.

 

[Dr. Mario]

At this point you kind of figure it's willful sabotage from the production crew, that said the 737 MAX was "designed by clowns and supervised by monkeys" and had warned family members from not flying in the plane half a year before it crashed. I could imagine that if you're an engineer and you're forced to keep working on this plane that you would go to work very unmotivated.

However, it's probably not even that and still complete criminal negligence. This is what NY Times reported over half a year ago.

Natalie Kitroeff
What was your title when you moved to Charleston?

Swampy
Quality manager, multifamily quality manager.

Natalie Kitroeff
So as a quality control manager, part of Swampy's job was to check the insides of planes to make sure that, as workers are building the planes, nothing is left behind, no debris is left inside the aircraft.

Swampy
So I was called out to the airplane to look at an issue. And that's where we discovered all this debris, these three-inch-long titanium slivers laying around. It's just debris everywhere.

Natalie Kitroeff
And while he's doing these inspections, he begins to notice that there are clusters of metal slivers that are hanging over the wires that control the plane.

Swampy
The risk here is these metal slivers will migrate into a power panel, any kind of power, any kind of electronic equipment, and short it out and cause a fire. And if it's at 40,000 feet, that's a problem.

Natalie Kitroeff
Is this normal?

Swampy
No. No. Absolutely not. This is a first.

Natalie Kitroeff
And so he brings the issue to his managers. And he says, we need to clean this.

Swampy
I physically showed him the airplane. I took pictures, sent him pictures. And a peer of mine walked in on the conversation. And he was telling my peer, you need to go inspect line 230. I said, that's what we just looked at. These are the pictures I sent you. I said, I won't sign off on it. I won't accept it. So I was removed from it.

Natalie Kitroeff
So you're saying, you alerted your manager to the debris that you found on this plane. And in response, he took you off the plane and gave it to someone else to inspect.

Swampy
Yes, that's correct.

Natalie Kitroeff
Did that ever get cleaned?

Swampy
It was delivered without being cleaned.

Click to shrink...

The Whistle-Blowers at Boeing (Published 2019)

Problems at a plane factory in South Carolina led some workers to question whether safety was always the company’s first priority.

www.nytimes.com

So they never fixed this problem and most likely there are airplanes out there with debris in their fuel tanks.

In the mean time...

Boeing Co (BA.N) booked no new orders for airplanes last month, the first time it has come up empty-handed in January since 1962, as the U.S. planemaker's once best-selling jet, the 737 MAX, remained grounded following two fatal crashes.

...

[Airbus] The Paris-based planemaker last week posted its biggest January order haul in at least 15 years, as it booked gross orders for 296 aircraft, or 274 net orders after cancellations.

Click to shrink...

Boeing scores no January orders for first time since 1962

Boeing Co <BA.N> booked no new orders for airplanes last month, the first time it has come up empty-handed in January since 1962, as the U.S. planemaker's once best-selling jet, the 737 MAX, remained grounded following two fatal crashes.

www.reuters.com

Yeah no shit, what a complete shit show of a company.

 

[des0lar]

Are they still producing those death machines? What a trash company.

 

[jelly]

What a disaster of a company, chasing profits over safety. Shame.

 

[Ryu]

Airbus is pretty good competition

Click to shrink...

Ahahaha, Airbus has a lot of other issues ongoing right now. Especially with fraud. Airbus has quite nice tech but damn is this company fucked too.

 

[kami_sama]

At this point you kind of figure it's willful sabotage from the production crew, that said the 737 MAX was "designed by clowns and supervised by monkeys" and had warned family members from not flying in the plane half a year before it crashed. I could imagine that if you're an engineer and you're forced to keep working on this plane that you would go to work very unmotivated.

However, it's probably not even that and still complete criminal negligence. This is what NY Times reported over half a year ago.

The Whistle-Blowers at Boeing (Published 2019)

Problems at a plane factory in South Carolina led some workers to question whether safety was always the company’s first priority.

www.nytimes.com

So they never fixed this problem and most likely there are airplanes out there with debris in their fuel tanks.

In the mean time...

Boeing scores no January orders for first time since 1962

Boeing Co <BA.N> booked no new orders for airplanes last month, the first time it has come up empty-handed in January since 1962, as the U.S. planemaker's once best-selling jet, the 737 MAX, remained grounded following two fatal crashes.

www.reuters.com

Yeah no shit, what a complete shit show of a company.

Click to shrink...

Oh wow. I remember reading that quite some time ago.
Boeing's fucked.

 

[rsfour]

Gotta lock some people up

 

[neoak]

not when it comes to competition in America I guess

Click to shrink...

Uh, some US airlines are replacing their old 757 and 767 fleet with Airbus 321XLs... So yeah?

As for the American continent airlines, true, because a lot use Embraer planes in Latin America, and they use mostly Boeing planes for their longer routes

 

[Ragnorok64]

At this point you kind of figure it's willful sabotage from the production crew, that said the 737 MAX was "designed by clowns and supervised by monkeys" and had warned family members from not flying in the plane half a year before it crashed. I could imagine that if you're an engineer and you're forced to keep working on this plane that you would go to work very unmotivated.

However, it's probably not even that and still complete criminal negligence. This is what NY Times reported over half a year ago.

The Whistle-Blowers at Boeing (Published 2019)

Problems at a plane factory in South Carolina led some workers to question whether safety was always the company’s first priority.

www.nytimes.com

So they never fixed this problem and most likely there are airplanes out there with debris in their fuel tanks.

In the mean time...

Boeing scores no January orders for first time since 1962

Boeing Co <BA.N> booked no new orders for airplanes last month, the first time it has come up empty-handed in January since 1962, as the U.S. planemaker's once best-selling jet, the 737 MAX, remained grounded following two fatal crashes.

www.reuters.com

Yeah no shit, what a complete shit show of a company.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I was going to try and find a link to this story if no one else had. In the case of the Dreamliner it was kinda of framed that a lot of this issues were because of an overall cultural/environmental shift in the new South Carolina factory. We're these 737 max made there or at thier facilities in Washington?

 

[Greigor the FellHand]

Gotta lock some people up

Click to shrink...

Prison and asset forfeiture.

And if the u.s. has to bail out Boeing, then ni want the u.s. To have a permanent stake in Boeing. At minimum 10%. And bi mean permanent

 

[Dr. Mario]

Yeah, I was going to try and find a link to this story if no one else had. In the case of the Dreamliner it was kinda of framed that a lot of this issues were because of an overall cultural/environmental shift in the new South Carolina factory. We're these 737 max made there or at thier facilities in Washington?

Click to shrink...

I tried to look into that. The 737M is being assembled in Washington. The propulsion is developed in South Carolina, in a plant that just closed down, so it could be that the debris came in here, but it also seems to be a different building than where the Dreamliner is assembled.

 

[Snake Eater]

I would love to see the conference call when they decided that those planes where a ok to fly

Click to shrink...

I'm sure it went something like this, will we make money? yes or no

 

[Brown Intruder]

At this point you kind of figure it's willful sabotage from the production crew, that said the 737 MAX was "designed by clowns and supervised by monkeys" and had warned family members from not flying in the plane half a year before it crashed. I could imagine that if you're an engineer and you're forced to keep working on this plane that you would go to work very unmotivated.

However, it's probably not even that and still complete criminal negligence. This is what NY Times reported over half a year ago.

The Whistle-Blowers at Boeing (Published 2019)

Problems at a plane factory in South Carolina led some workers to question whether safety was always the company’s first priority.

www.nytimes.com

So they never fixed this problem and most likely there are airplanes out there with debris in their fuel tanks.

In the mean time...

Boeing scores no January orders for first time since 1962

Boeing Co <BA.N> booked no new orders for airplanes last month, the first time it has come up empty-handed in January since 1962, as the U.S. planemaker's once best-selling jet, the 737 MAX, remained grounded following two fatal crashes.

www.reuters.com

Yeah no shit, what a complete shit show of a company.

Click to shrink...

The conversation with swampy is fucking beyond belief.
Fuck Boeing

 

[EpicDrop]

ISO 9001 much?

Click to shrink...

As someone who was responsible for implementing AS9100 at my employer, every time Boeing has a FOD issue I can't help but die a little inside. Their requirements for FOD systems at suppliers are insane, but they can't even keep debris out of the engine....

 

[CelestialAtom]

Unchecked Capitalism at its finest. THIS is why we need regulations.

 

[Rotkehle]

ISO 9001 much?

Click to shrink...

ISO 9001:2015 isn't capable for a company like this. The aerospace and car industry in Europa at least uses much harder management standards.
Boings Problem are on another level. Are they even certified?

btw. I'm and an ISO 9001/14001/50001, IFS, BRC auditor.

 

[Marin-Lune]

Ahahaha, Airbus has a lot of other issues ongoing right now. Especially with fraud. Airbus has quite nice tech but damn is this company fucked too.

Click to shrink...

Shoddy QC and corner-cutting measures vs airlines CEO's treated with prostitutes and cocaine. As a regular pax, I'll choose the latter, thanks.

 

[Hesemonni]

I know the problems are pretty much isolated to 737 MAX model, but I've began inquiring which plane my flights are operated with and if possible go with the Airbus option. Hugely anecdotical, but the two reps on two different airlines I've spoken with this week said I'm definately not the only one.

 

[Ragnorok64]

At this point you kind of figure it's willful sabotage from the production crew, that said the 737 MAX was "designed by clowns and supervised by monkeys" and had warned family members from not flying in the plane half a year before it crashed. I could imagine that if you're an engineer and you're forced to keep working on this plane that you would go to work very unmotivated.

However, it's probably not even that and still complete criminal negligence. This is what NY Times reported over half a year ago.

The Whistle-Blowers at Boeing (Published 2019)

Problems at a plane factory in South Carolina led some workers to question whether safety was always the company’s first priority.

www.nytimes.com

So they never fixed this problem and most likely there are airplanes out there with debris in their fuel tanks.

In the mean time...

Boeing scores no January orders for first time since 1962

Boeing Co <BA.N> booked no new orders for airplanes last month, the first time it has come up empty-handed in January since 1962, as the U.S. planemaker's once best-selling jet, the 737 MAX, remained grounded following two fatal crashes.

www.reuters.com

Yeah no shit, what a complete shit show of a company.

Click to shrink...

I had to go digging for this interview.

For Boeing, A New CEO — And The Same Unresolved Issues

Boeing used to have high safety standards. One recently revealed employee email said the company now has a "culture of 'good enough.'" What will it take to turn Boeing around?

www.wbur.org

The issues with Boeing are layered. There's the mind blowing quality control stuff you get from the Swampy interview.
In this one with Cynthia Cole you get to hear first hand how the culture changed from an engineering focused company culture to one focused on growing wealth for stockholders after the McDonnell Douglas merger.

...And what's really interesting is that in 2004, Stonecipher then became CEO of Boeing, actually made it very explicit that the intention was to change the culture. He said … that was the intention. 'So that it's run' — this is a quote – 'So it's run like a business rather than a great engineering [firm].'"

Click to shrink...

 

[Sqrt]

I had to go digging for this interview.

For Boeing, A New CEO — And The Same Unresolved Issues

Boeing used to have high safety standards. One recently revealed employee email said the company now has a "culture of 'good enough.'" What will it take to turn Boeing around?

www.wbur.org

The issues with Boeing are layered. There's the mind blowing quality control stuff you get from the Swampy interview.
In this one with Cynthia Cole you get to hear first hand how the culture changed from an engineering focused company culture to one focused on growing wealth for stockholders after the McDonnell Douglas merger.

Click to shrink...

That's good info. So, bean counters ruin another company?

 

[Rolodzeo]

737 MAX should never fly again.

 

[Dan]

not when it comes to competition in America I guess

Click to shrink...

Boeing sells aircraft outside the US, fyi.

and one of the reasons the 737 Max was rushed and has it's issues is because of competition from the Airbus A320 NEO.

 

[Deleted member 1476]

Shoddy QC and corner-cutting measures vs airlines CEO's treated with prostitutes and cocaine. As a regular pax, I'll choose the latter, thanks.

Click to shrink...

If that's it I'll take the cocaine and the prostitutes all day.

 

[Pai Pai Master]

and Boeing was pumping out like 40 of these planes a month, for almost a year after they got grounded?

 

[NTGYK]

This plane should never fly again. I'm glad Boeing is hurting now. Regulators and politicians in the current political climate aren't gonna do much to Boeing, so I'm glad their customers are canceling orders and people are freaked out about Boeing. Market has to speak when regulators won't or can't.

 

[DIE BART DIE]

Surely the Max name is tainted beyond repair now.

 

[KingSnake]

Boeing Max Negligence.

 

[Deleted member 10629]

Airbus laughing all the way to the bank

 

[V_Arnold]

Anyone still believe the myth that these corporations rise to the top because they are the best and the market just decided in its pure wisdom?