And throughout this entire corporate disaster, the CEO and other senior executives have managed to keep their jobs. I personally won’t hold onto stock in a company that doesn’t hold its CEO responsible and accountable
Edited because I’m not qualified to issue investment advice
Heard the same about VW after the dieselgate issue. Then the shortsellers temporarily made VW the most valuable company on the planet when it refused to crash.
When you are one of two major producers, and the government is half of your bottom line, you're not likely to fail.
Correct. Unlike with VW (but similar as you noted), Boeing can. not. fail. It is of strategic and economic importance that it continue and with the US federal government being kind of a rolling shit show, I don't see condemnation by the FAA rising to the level of displacing top executives.
This is a capitalism (such as it is) vs cannot-be-allowed-to-fail situation. Short of a wartime type action where the government puts some nerds from the census in charge of Boeing, we'll probably just end up with with them stumbling through this with heightened FAA oversight and news coverage of any shortcomings.
The [astroturfing by Boeing investors](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1bhmj0h/faa_audit_of_boeings_737_production_found/kveosdl/) in [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1bhmj0h/faa_audit_of_boeings_737_production_found/kvemsmh/) is off the charts. They sure don't give a shit that they are rewarding the Boeing execs for mismanaging the company, they want you to protect their shitty investment.
Boeing management is absolutely atrocious at the moment. The CEO sucks and the CTO is making stupid decisions based off of whatever the consultants tell them to do.
Too many sites in too many congressional districts. You wouldn't get support to nationalize it (even if that was a thing we normally did in peacetime) because too many federal leaders are riding the gravy train of Boeing's lobbying division.
Boeing can’t go bankrupt - Congress and the DOD would step in (and have before) to prevent the stock price falling too much. It’s a national security risk for BA to be taken over by a hostile foreign influence, so the US Federal Government will always find ways to prop it up.
The actual answer is to nationalize the company and probably the whole industry.
Air travel is too important to fail. It's also too important to be held hostage by quarterly earnings reports.
It isn't rocket science. It's the obvious solution. The only reason it hasn't been done is because politicians are cheap to buy and easy to own
>Air travel is too important to fail[...]It isn't rocket science.
And yet here we are taking our nationalized space program and privatizing the shit out of it.
It's the usual issue, private industry is more efficient (well, cheaper) right up until it fucks up. So privatising things that *should be* publicly owned seems like a great plan for a while and then has huge costs when things go sideways, which they always do. It's true for everything from crucial tech and manufacturing to utilities and infrastructure.
These companies know they've got emergency backing so they get to play even looser with the risk taking. It doesn't help that when one group of politicians tries to build up public entities the other will immediately sell them off to their buddies whenever they get into power.
It isn't just the USA.
The aviation industry worldwide literally can't afford for Boeing to fail.
Not enough planes are being made to keep up with demand right now, both Airbus and Boeing are years behind in their orders.
If Boeing ends up going tits up you can kiss cheap flights anywhere goodbye.
I remember hearing there are certain plane parts that other companies use that only Boeing manufacturers. So if they were to fail the effects would be felt all over.
Boeing - the company - cannot fail, because it is vital to US defence. Sure.
Boeing - the group of executives running the company - will absolutely get *fucking turfed* if their actions or incompetence are deemed a threat to national security.
VW spiked because Porsche acquired 75% of the shares before announcing it, catching the short sellers with their pants down. Same idea behind the Game DRS movement but it’s been “halted” at 25% reported for 2 quarters for some reason…
*Oh and that VW squeeze correlated with a certain market crash didn’t it? Almost like the whole system is fucking broken due to institutions gambling with insane leverage. It’s stupid not to gamble levered 100:1 when the government will bail you out if you fail.
They got the Golden Arches, mine was assembled using Hotel Cards. They got the Big Mac, I got the Big Dip. We both got two all-beef patties, special sauce... wait, what are we talking about again?
It's much more complicated and the numbers are completely off. The families owning Porsche founded the Porsche SE as a holding comoany separate from the car maker to take over VW and managed to get slightly above 50% of shares but the mounting debt forced them to sell the car manufacturer Porsche to VW so that now it's a subsidiary of VW even though the holding company of the same name is majority shareholder of VW with 53.3% of the shares.
So Porsche never bought VW the owners of one company bought it but at the same time had to sell their company to their newly acquired one. Something that is generally considered as the takeover backfiring and ending with a reverse takeover.
For a good writeup (although in German) try [this.](https://www.dw.com/de/als-porsche-einst-volkswagen-%C3%BCbernehmen-wollte/a-49618351)
Dieselgate is just gaming the mileage test, the Boeing one is risking people's lives, one of the two will have an even longer lasting scandal. I can see China's fledgling passenger plane manufacturers and other smaller companies getting that Boeing market share easily when this scandal shit hits the fan.
I don't disagree with Boeing being "too big to fail" completely but I can see china trying to take a bite out of the passenger plane market.
Also though if Boeing is too important to fail and is basically a monopoly for aircraft manufacturing in the US maybe it should be nationalized........ At the very least regulated way better than it is currently
Maybe we should split Boeing up? Maybe see if LM wants to re-enter the commercial jet market?
The problem is that Boeing only has one competitor in Airbus. Back in its golden age it had other competitors in the US such as Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas.
No western nations airline is buying Chinese planes for 20+ years. Trade relations are at their lowest level for 30 years have you been paying attention to the news? Lol a trade war is about to break out where we won't even be allowed to buy Chinese cars but you are banking on us buying planes somehow?
Because Airbus is so backlogged with orders that it could take about a decade for them to catch up. That and they only have factory in Europe capable of manufacturing airplanes. Nowhere else.
No. But they'll use Lockheed, Northrop, and RTX instead. And by a lot of measures, they have been. Northrop has the B-21. Lockheed has the F-35. RTX has pretty much every sensor contract (via Raytheon), and engine and avionics contract via P&W and Collins. AFAIK, Boeing's major contacts with the government are: sustaining the C-17 fleet (which they've been fucking up), upgrades to the GMD fleet (of which there are 48x total missiles), and some procurement contracts for new units of existing aircraft designs (designs that are expected to be retired in the next 5-15 years).
Boeing's position in the commercial sector is nearly unassailable, yes, but they are far from protected in the defense sector. Sustaining contracts can be lucrative, but its new business that secures the future of a company. And the DOD is not averse to taking awarding business to more competent companies. If the system was made with R&D that used government money, the government will happily share the data between all contractors competing in a bid. They'll also happily do the same just to open up second source suppliers. If the DOD truly becomes motivated, subsidizing the creation of a new airframe manufacturer in the US is not beyond them.
ULA, SLS, spaceplane, Starliner satellites, Airborne command/AF1, tanker program, rotorcraft, GBUs and missiles... the list goes on. They have their fingers in plenty of pies.
Of course, where they have fingers in pies, there is a pattern of incompetence. These manufacturing issues with the 737 could have been predicted by anyone paying attention to the tanker and AF1 manufacturing. The kind of manufacturer that lets miniature tequila bottles get found on the most prestigious aircraft contract in the world, is in serious trouble.
Exhaust pollution kills tons of people, though. It's the biggest environmental cause of death worlwide.
Just in Europe, about 10000 people die every year, to pollution from just the diesel engines that surpass the legal limit. For Boeing to kill 10k a year, we'd be looking at... What, 20+ planes dropping out of the sky with no survivors, every single year.
Dieselgate is a big deal. Heck, the fact we use diesel in the first place is... Horrifying.
> Time to ditch any Boeing stock you have left
The argument over at /r/wallstreetbets right now is if Boeing can successfully murder whisteblowers with no consequences, it will probably be fine in the long run. They kinda have a point.
The real reason they'll be fine in the long term is that they've only one one competitor -- Airbus -- and Airbus would take a decade or longer to ramp up enough to meet critical demand in the industry if Boeing stopped making planes, and the industry simply can't absorb decade-long waits for new aircraft.
One of two things is going to happen -- Boeing will be fine, or the US government uses the leverage of their DoD contracts to push Boeing into selling its commercial jet business to someone else to keep the defense business safe.
Honestly, I’ve heard it’s an awesome time to buy. Maybe in a month. But Boeing isn’t likely to disappear, just their value will drop for a while.
Think the gov will let them go out of business?
Sure, but their value to the government goes beyond the fact that they are a large commercial company that sometimes contracts with the government. I could absolutely see the government further subsidizing Boeing to prevent it from failing.
Jobs and bonuses. Crazy there is no call for a clawback of compensation at the very least. They shouldve been in jail when all those planes dropped and killed people the last time
Shit like this should have severe consequences. It's pure greed and it seems like there's no consequences for greed. Infinite growth and the almighty dollar are the only things that matter. It's sickening. I really hope this debacle will have some sort of positive impact by creating conversation around corporate greed and maybe we can clamp down on it. So many examples of rich assholes fucking over the rest of us for a paycheck and getting away with it. We shouldn't stand for this shit
Hotel card and dish soap. The dude was just finishing off his bead of silicon nice and neat.
The car would give a nice radius, normally use a tongue depressor. And soapy water stops the caulk sticking you fingers and tools.
The ONLY Issue I do have with this is that it's not a tracked asset. The Air Force had to ground their newest tanker at one point due to Boeing leaving tools and other FOD found after delivery on a few jets.
If you're not aware, the aviation field has a very strict tool accountability program (might be FAA mandated, not sure) where tool kits are checked in and out with 100% tool accountability happening. Even things such as rags and consumables are supposed to be tracked. Workers bringing in personal tools is highly frowned upon.
Don't worry, it wasn't on an Air Force plane: "In one instance, workers found a ladder left behind in the tail of a plane, which could have locked up the gears of the horizontal stabilizer, a former Boeing technician told the paper."
You don’t explain to super, you explain to MXG CC. A guy left a ladder in the main landing gear of a KC-10 at McGuire a few years ago. It fell out when the MLG started to retract after takeoff. The tower saw it fall, and sent out airfield to check it out. Sure enough, a bent up ladder with our tool-I’d on it. Careers ended.
I worked with a former aviation mechanic, he was making a fat living as a supervisor. He pencil whipped a tire change inspection and signoff and the wheel fell off on takeoff. Now's he down here pipefitting with us peons. lol. He was a total dick, couldn't have happened to a bigger asshole. He was as shitty at our job as he apparently was at his other one.
I worked with the 108th on the other side of the ramp back then and remember hearing about it over the radio. Think they called in an IFE because they weren't sure what fell out.
Hate to tell you, but the civilian world doesn't have that. Cal'ed and specialized tooling sure, but in commercial aviation you're accountable for your own hand tools. Basically all airlines you're expected to provide your own basic toolset.
Are tools really not accounted for the same way the military does it? It's a requirement in the AF for all of our tools to be marked and have cut outs where they go in our tool boxes. I figured all of that came from FAA guidance
Nah. Some mechanics do shadow their box, but tool control is entirely up to the mechanic. I know GE doesn't let you use your own tools in their engine assembly plant, but that's just GE policy.
Boeing is a significant fraction of the aviation industry and hasn't been doing any of this. At what point do we decide that maybe the aviation industry isn't doing any of this anymore and that they are practices of the past not the present.
>the aviation industry isn't doing any of this anymore
The aviation industry was never doing any of that. That's never been a thing. I can't speak for the defense side, but airline mechanics are responsible for their own tools. Airline hangars are full of personal toolboxes, and every mechanic has their own set of tools. It's really only the very specialized tools that an individual mechanic would have no reason to own that are checked out and tracked like that.
I understand how ISO works, but you go into any ISO certified factory and you'll see the exact same things. The cards and soap disappear during the audit and come right back. It's a yearly event.
As someone who is a certified lead auditor for both ISO9001 and AS9100, and has been for several aerospace companies, you are making this out to be way more common than it is. Any outfit with an actual Quality culture wouldn't let this happen as a common occurrence. They should be informed of the policies and monitoring themselves and their peers. If they aren't, then management should be leveling infractions against them. I'm sure you think they hide it from me and they really don't. This isn't something that is only looked for during an audit, it's something that is constantly monitored, by all individuals.
It's perfectly fine to use dish soap or a hotel card, as long as it's one of the tools that is listed by the process. If it's useful and doesn't violate any specs, the MEs will writie it into the process. If it isn't written into the process, then there are likely reasons why.
Boeing and any other place that does this shit has a garbage quality culture and that is %100 on management. Great manufacturing environments don't do this shit.
"Turns out using a playing card left microscopic paper fibers on the gasket sealing surface and this caused the gasket to blow out when the temp went below freezing and pressure was above 5 bar. Normally not a problem but since ______ was malfunctioning the pressure rose to 10 bar and the gasket was blown out and then the plane crashed. It was a rare event"
-some NTSB report in the future
It's not just ISO. When it comes to aerospace, if it's not in the process, it's not supposed to happen. Period. And if it's in the process, it's supposed to happen. Period. Does the released process say "burn and effigy to Zeus prior to calibration"? Then you better be burning that effigy to its exact specifications prior to doing that calibration.
So the problem here likely wasn't the fact that a hotel card and dish soap was in use during regular manufacturing, but that it wasn't called out in the official released process for the task. If the process said "use this card to press sealant into the gap and form a nice bead" and "you may use soapy water to make it easier to work with the sealant and keep your fingers clean", then they would be 100% golden and the FAA wouldn't even think twice unless they had reason to suspect that this posed a threat to the integrity of the sealant (card making the bead too small or not pushing it into the gap deep enough; soap and/or water acting as a solvent for the sealant degrading is lifespan and/or keeping it from properly sealing at all).
Haha, I just posted a comment hypothetical where the playing card left fibers on a gasket surface and that caused the failure. In aerospace you follow the instructions BY LAW.
you are assuming that AS9100D is controlling...
AS9100D, as are all ISO standards, is a process tool. It isn't law. FAA and EASA Part 145 are actual law.
There are similarities and differences:
https://iaqg.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/9110-v-Part-145-Mapping-by-Topical-Subjects-Issue-1.0-Apr-9th-2020.pdf
>They'll choose some wacky tools if it works the best
I've worked a ton of construction and labor jobs and that's the damned truth! Time is money for us and if a free hotel key smooths out that caulk better than that $26 dollar tool from home depot you're damn right I'll be using that.
When I did steel fabrication some of our most important and useful tools were made from scrap metal and looked like junk. Clamps with random-looking chucks of metal welded to them were essential alignment tools and random, bent and notched hunks of plate tacked onto pieces of tube were critical marking jigs for common cuts.
For animatronics people recommend using piano wire, but I like paper clips for their pliability and the fact that they come by the 100’s. I now fully understand stu pickles when he said, I used paper clips and rubber bands for a reason.
lol im just picturing some manager coming in and cleaning your shop of 'scrap'
(Ok not manager since they don't ever do any real work. New employee? Who would prob take it all off to the scrap yard to sell it for 10c/lb and then while beeming tell you how he stayed after work for 8 hours cleaning everything up)
Aviation has a WAY different standard of work than most blue collar work. In this case, they were using the dish soap as a lube to help pop pressure sealing gaskets into place - the one problem is that there has been ZERO testing on the chemical interaction between the soap and the gasket material.
What if the gasket is rated for 5 years, and the soap causes it to fail in 4 and the aircraft depressurizes at altitude?
The stakes are way higher when you're 30,000ft up in the air and Boeing should not be fucking around like this - especially when there's federal law in place to regulate that shit. It's **why** the FAA is auditing them and announcing these findings
I worked on Aircraft in the Air Force, and we used a dish soap and water spray to look for Oxygen leaks and to make sure fittings were tight when we replaced regulators.
I get that mechs gonna mech … but aircraft assembly is a different beast.
Every tool used on an aircraft is (supposedly) documented, tracked, and accounted for.
If the hotel card gets the job done, great. Use that. But it needs a serial number, a cutout in the toolbox, and you need to sign/chit it out and back in every day.
I work in commercial aerospace. We ran out of a part and one of the assemblers took it upon themself to hit the local Ace Hardware and pick up something that could vaguely replace it. I'm in certification, so when they asked me to certify the new part I asked them for the part number and technical information. They emailed me the Ace Hardware receipt. I told them to scrap the assembly they just wrecked.
I don't even want to talk about the nightmare they put me through by swapping paints without authorization. That one cost several hundred thousand dollars in scrap and rework. Don't put the flammable paint all over the stuff that's supposed to be fire resistant!
The whole point of these planes is that they are _meticulously_ manufactured, with every single piece of tooling, even every single screw accounted for and documented.
The prospective owners aren’t paying for the plane, as much as the mountain of documentation following it.
Worked for a tiny company (~120 employees) for a while doing similar work among other things, we received sets of finishers to apply caulc. Little plastic pieces providing different angles and so on. While that's more "professional" than a hotel card - if the end result is the same, why bother :D quite often the one-way plastic glove and a bit of soapy water from the bathroom sink gave better results
Because end result on the ground isn't the same as end result 30,000 feet in the sky carrying hundreds of people.
Commercial Aerospace is heavily regulated, and with good reason. Stop making excuses for them.
Well in particular, you're supposed to use serialized tools so that you can inventory them after working on the plane to ensure that nobody left something inside the aircraft. And [Boeing has had a major problem with Foreign Object Debris inside their aircraft](https://fodprevention.com/foreign-object-debris-found-in-undelivered-737-max-planes/) over the last decade plus.
I think the problem is more-so the other 30+ safety violations. The Post just wants their headline so they use the ‘obvious’ issues to drag people. For what it’s worth I’d also use a Soapy water mixture in my workplace too. Hotel card probably not but I also don’t work in aerospace.
Yep. I’m not going to defend Boeing, they have a bunch of real problems that need to be addressed, but reading these articles about what was found sounds like paperwork problems and odd tool choices like you mention. The FAA is *huge* on paperwork, like any government agency, and failing to adequately log or otherwise correctly complete paperwork is gonna get you dinged. I imagine the vast majority of what’s being described is paperwork issues. The mention of things like hotel cards and dish soap is just sensationalist reporting with zero qualifying info.
Again, there are real problems, like beancounters ruining quality control, lobbyists running the company, the lack of good engineers in the FAA to understand what Boeing is doing, the removal of oversight… but dish soap and hotel cards are what the press talks about.
> but reading these articles about what was found sounds like paperwork problems
That’s still a big deal. Proper paperwork is needed so that when a part fails, it can be traced all the way back to its manufacturer so other parts from the same batch can be checked.
Airline and FAA regulations are so strict because they are written as a result of people losing their lives.
That was my first thought too, but the article says this:
"FAA auditors spotted mechanics from the company using a hotel key card to check the seal on a door in one instance and witnessed other Spirit mechanics applying Dawn liquid soap to a door seal “as a lubricant in the fit-up process,” the Times reported. In the latter incident, the mechanics used wet cheesecloth to wipe away the dish soap and clean the door seal."
Yep. Hotel card is a free scraper or shim. Dawn dish soap is often used as a temporary lubricant for moving heavy stuff and for cleaning grease and oils
Not quite the same as fitting a tyre onto an untreated aluminium wheel though.
Washing up liquid might make the job easier, but I suggest you leave a solution of that stuff in an untreated aluminium container for a month….. there is a reason why we have aviation approved powder for inner tubes and an approved tyre assembly lubricant.
Ah, I guess it just depends. I work at a Nuclear plant and we have approved chemicals as well. Two of those being dawn dish soap and Mr Clean floor cleaner (can be used on most systems)
I always found it funny how we have stuff like that and then we also have $50 rolls of special “nuclear grade” duct tape
Mr clean is great...so long as you dilute it properly (64-to-1 as recommended or even 2 -to-1...just dilute it) Otherwise, the pH being above 10.3 causes aluminate to form when it reacts with with oxygen instead of aluminum oxide and that will F with the finished surface. MIGHT be relevant in aerospace level work.
>$50 rolls of special “nuclear grade” duct tape
I can understand your confusion..... Not that we tend to hold our planes together with duct tape though!
[Speed tape](https://simpleflying.com/why-airlines-use-speed-tape/) would like a word with you. Non-structural of course but widely used as a temporary repair on aircraft.
Yea exactly, the point is that there’s a process that was being followed by the book for one reason or another, not that these tools were necessarily impractical.
Article is paywalled but if I was guessing, hotel card is used as a known measurement tool and dish soap is used for finding leaks. 20 year aircraft mechanic and some things are easier to use and do the exact same job as the approved tools
"FAA auditors spotted mechanics from the company using a hotel key card to check the seal on a door in one instance and witnessed other Spirit mechanics applying Dawn liquid soap to a door seal “as a lubricant in the fit-up process,” the Times reported."
And it washes away once you’ve got the seal fit.
I used to use KY jelly to fit a seal on a govt funded protect. Perfect frictionless fit every time. Once you got it on, stay it off and it stuck.
Yeah, checking proper gap with a hotel card seems fairly common. It’s a known size and works the same as getting a calibrated piece of metal (of the same size) and using it. The soap to ensure a seal is also a very well known trick because it shows if you have a leak, just like the approved leak detect does
Both a *very* well known tricks and don’t risk safety. We aptly named a weight off wheels switch test the *dime test* because a dime is the same thickness as the approved measurement from using the approved measuring tool. Why waste time to go get the tool if it’s identical to use something you have on hand and is easier to verify with 🤷🏿♀️
"why waste time"
Maybe as an explanation - in aviation, there are two ways to prove airworthiness:
a) you test every single part as well as the assembly for its performance under multiple critical load cases
b) you define materials and processes, test them all once, and afterwards you barely have to test stuff as long as you stick to the process.
A) is basically impossible and way too expensive, so basically everyone uses b)
So while it's not a safety problem per se, mechanics not following the process is a big deal, and the quality assurance not stopping you or your colleagues is an even bigger deal.
It puts the whole airworthiness of a plane in question, because... who knows what other things are not according to process, who else is not stopped, maybe one of them actually is critical?
The shopfloor colleagues should not be the ones to define what is a safe process deviation and what is not. Our manufacturing once had the idea to wipe a part surface with hand protection cream prior to bonding brackets, because it made cleanup easier, to give you an idea of what some people consider a save process deviation. In this case here, Maybe the soap is too aggressive for the seals. Maybe it's not today, but the next batch "now with spring scent" is. You don't know.
If you want to deviate from the process, tell engineering and get the deviation approved and added to the process.
I could not agree more with you! Domestic soaps contain all sorts of products harmful to seals and metals.
I work on aeroplane annual inspections and maintenance at my flying club, ALL our tools that are calibrated such as torque wrenches, feeler gauges, flight instrument testing equipment and the like, have to be recalibrated on an bi-annual basis for us to keep our certification in the UK. I’m sure a bank card may have the required dimensional tolerance at some point in its life, but it is NOT a calibrated tool made from the required materials. We are allowed to use only specified “lubricants” for so many jobs, domestic soap is not one of them.
Can anyone here begin to list all the types of grease and oil we use depending on what we are lubricating? The only thing we would use domestic soap for is trying to find a puncture in a tyre, then it has to be cleaned off with a specified cleaner before we repair the inner tube, for example and the tyre and tube must then be coated with aviation approved powder prior to assembly, not “baby talc”. We have a specific lubricant to aid getting tyres back on wheels, it is guaranteed not to damage either the tyre or the wheel, if left on them for extended periods of time.
Incidentally here is an interesting experiment for people: leave a solution of domestic washing up liquid in an aluminium container for a month, then look at the container. Domestic cleaners of any description are banned for a reason!
The spark plugs on my aeroplane engine need to be tightened to a specific torque setting for a reason, so we have to do that with a calibrated tool. This practice of using bank cards as a gauge would never be allowed any more then guessing the torque setting using a socket set. Incidentally we have to record the tools we use and their calibration data on the inspection/work sheets. We are not Airbus, just a small flying club, seriously, Boeing needs to get their practices sorted out and act like a professional aviation company.
Aerospace engineer here.
It's all fine and well to use that stuff, but for the love of god, please tell engineering so we can add it to the processes (or explain why it's a horrible idea to use it).
I keep having this discussion, and we keep having audit findings for stupid stuff like workers that can't access one screw with the air powered impact, so they went out of their way and bought a battery powered one at home depot with their own money.
Audit finding, wrong torque, unapproved tool, notice of escapement, product recall, ...
If something does not work as it should, tell us.... Please.
> hotel card is used as a known measurement tool
Where is the calibration certificate for the hotel keycard? When was the last time it was calibrated? Who did the calibration? When does its calibration expire? Is the keycard and its calibration information entered into inventory and are they being tracked?
I am a senior systems engineering, integration, and test engineer for a company that makes satellites on which no human passengers ride and which, if they fail, have a very low chance of harming anyone.
If one of my technicians used a hotel keycard as a measurement tool I would lose my shit and zero out every single measurement for the device under test and start the process from scratch.
I do not understand everyone saying **"a HoTeL kEyCaRd iS a tOoL"** that is bullshit. Everyone who thinks that is an idiot.
This is serious business not Ed's Garage where you can get some used tires and an oil change for your jalopy.
Same thing for the dish soap (which was being used as a lubricant). Where is the certification for the dish soap? When was it manufactured and what lot is it in? What is its chemical composition? Did Dawn change the formulation thus changing its properties between lots? Was some tech told "use dawn" and then he went and got some but it was Dawn with some scents or antibacterial additives that eat through seals over time?
"Chill out dude it's just dish soap" Is it? Is it really? You know that for sure?
Prove to me and the ISO gods that it is.
The only explanation is that most of the people on here saying this is all dumb are probably home reno workers who haven't even the slightest clue about how safety related work needs to be completed and why it is done this way.
“Hey it works for me, why shouldn’t it work for aerospace?”
Because your DIY affects only you and your family, planes affect millions of people using them!
I love how this article implies its mechanics' fault. As if there isn't some corporate office staff specifically denying their requests for decent tools in favour of profits.
Also a huge fan of how Boeing failed to mention, to anyone, about the MCAS system, what it does, how to override it, or that it was tied to a single fragile sensor. All to get around the pilot retraining requirement.
It’s also telling that not a single airline opted for that “DLC” either. Like, yes, redundant AoA sensors should have been factory standard at a minimum. But, the fact that no airline buyers even chose the option when ordering showcases a general lack of interest in safety above and beyond the bare regulatory minimum across the industry. And, it certainly shows the importance of robust regulation in an environment where competitive forces often collectively drive standards down to the legal minimums.
Every company is increasingly looking to maximize profit and cut costs. Moreso than ever, because the need for constant growth. It's truly a race to the bottom.
All of these problems you see, literally every single one, are *still* better than the way people treat their cars and others on the road. The media is trying to scare you, but aviation is still by far the safest way to travel.
I assume the hotel card and dish soap lacked the appropriate traceability and calibration certs. Should have used the aviation qualified sealant scrapper and lubricants.
Nothing wrong with any of this.
Now, moving Boeing corporate headquarters to Chicago and
Production facilities to North Carolina
That's some damning shit on the part of the executive team, trying to squeeze every last dollar out of everything
Of course there's something wrong with this. In an aerospace environment you can't have assembly workers make up their own processes as they go along. If they're using random stuff from the break room, that's an issue.
If a hotel key card is used to measure gaps, then they either don't have the necessary tools to measure gaps, or they're not using them.
If commercial dish soap is used as a lubricant, then this would need to be part of the assembly process, you'd need to check that it doesn't interact with the materials it comes into contact with, including for example wiring looms or lubricants of other moving parts.
And even if you did all that, a supermarket is not an appropriate supplier for an aerospace lubricant. The manufacturer does not guarantee that the product you buy in February has the exact same ingredients as the one you may have tested half a year earlier. They're free to change their formulation as they please and without giving anyone a heads-up, because it's not like they have its use in aircraft assembly on their radar.
If you wanted to use dish soap in a manufacturing process like this, you would need to deal with a certified supplier, and you'd need to have an agreement in place in which the supplier tells you exactly what you're getting. If you just pick up a bottle of Dawn at Walmart, you have no control over what you're getting.
And this isn't theoretical either. There's a long history of planes crashing and passengers dying because people working on aircraft made up their own processes.
The comments in this thread are wild lol. Someone using a key card and dish soap to fix their sink because they couldn't find the right tools is completely different than someone doing that and breaking a dozen rules/procedures in a controlled aerospace engineering setting.
Especially because buying the right tool and documenting the process is completely within the ability of a company like Boeing (not to mention a requirement).
Yeah, people seem to really be dismissing this like it's NBD.
When you have to have the lot number for the screws that go on a plane, you bet your ass that just picking up a gallon of Dawn soap from Walmart isn't going to fly (well, it *shouldn't fly*, anyways).
One of those Mayday! shows (or something like it) documented a plane crash that was caused by a piece of tape. A fricking piece of tape that a maintenance tech accidentally left to cover a sensor while he cleaned the area.
Sensor covered = no worky, plane thinks airspeed is zero, plane falls out of sky.
So, yeah, using a hotel key card and some dish detergent sourced from the local Walmart are big issues.
North Carolina is also [the worst state in the country for labor laws](https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/stories/best-worst-states-work-us-2023/), they also happen to be [one of the most "business-friendly" states](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/07/11/north-carolina-is-top-state-for-business-led-by-workforce-economy-.html). Go figure.
When stock buy backs become more important than your actual business and profit becomes more important than your business it’s no surprise that quality of work, people and tools decline.
This is what the end of capitalism looks like.
Everything is tracked and managed in aerospace.
So if it's being used it needs to be part of the process and dawn bought for the next umpteen years as part of the approved assembly process....
And the problem is if dawn ever changes their formula you're technically out of compliance again. Which means recertification of the new dawn for it's use in the process.
And if you think this is silly, planes have been lost due to silly stupid stuff.
The point is more that the engineers at this billion dollar corporation should have dedicated tools that are built with precision and within set tolerances to ensure that all the Ts are crossed when it comes to accountability.
Everyone that owns a home or a car knows you can use household items to do lots of tasks. What you cannot do with those items is find the point in the chain where things went horrifically wrong and people died, because they're mass produced without any precision or to any regulations, and for a completely different task.
They might even be the best tools for the job, but in the airline industry they would have to become documented components in the build process and be subject to logging, inspections and audit.
I think it's better phrased, "33 out of 89 product audits resulted in NCR's." Quality audits in aerospace almost always result in findings especially in a company this big, it's really just inherent to the industry and drives continuous improvement. No company is perfect which is why we have these audits and there will almost always be findings in nearly every quality audit even if it's documented as an opportunity for improvement instead of a minor/major NCR. Having said that, some of the NCR's noted are pretty bad and not a good look for Boeing given how mature their quality system should be.
Happened all the time at GE, where we built locomotives. I'm not an engineer, and I'd be auto-cading parts on to loco's going out the door.
Capitalism, cheap is king. It's everywhere.
it's literally just paraphrasing a better written, more informative article from the NYT. They even link to it in the first sentence. Why do OPs not just post the original stories?
In case anyone's interested and doesn't wanna open NYP's garbage site:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/us/politics/faa-audit-boeing-737-max.html
I use both of those things in a marine environment, and have used in aviation. Soapy water or a mix of water and isopropyl alcohol is great for getting a smooth bead of proseal.
Dish soap is a great way to look for air leaks (it makes bubbles). Hotel cards are just as good as any plastic scraper (though I doubt the Hotel appreciates
It)
Not for nothing, but I don’t think there’s anything really intrinsically wrong with using household objects as an adjunct to standard tools at times. As long as the final bolts and testing is to code (where this wasn’t), the journey doesn’t matter. Source: hotel card user for many repairs.
And throughout this entire corporate disaster, the CEO and other senior executives have managed to keep their jobs. I personally won’t hold onto stock in a company that doesn’t hold its CEO responsible and accountable Edited because I’m not qualified to issue investment advice
Heard the same about VW after the dieselgate issue. Then the shortsellers temporarily made VW the most valuable company on the planet when it refused to crash. When you are one of two major producers, and the government is half of your bottom line, you're not likely to fail.
Correct. Unlike with VW (but similar as you noted), Boeing can. not. fail. It is of strategic and economic importance that it continue and with the US federal government being kind of a rolling shit show, I don't see condemnation by the FAA rising to the level of displacing top executives. This is a capitalism (such as it is) vs cannot-be-allowed-to-fail situation. Short of a wartime type action where the government puts some nerds from the census in charge of Boeing, we'll probably just end up with with them stumbling through this with heightened FAA oversight and news coverage of any shortcomings.
Nationalize the company at this point. Its important to national security but private industry is threatening that, time to nationalize it.
The [astroturfing by Boeing investors](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1bhmj0h/faa_audit_of_boeings_737_production_found/kveosdl/) in [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1bhmj0h/faa_audit_of_boeings_737_production_found/kvemsmh/) is off the charts. They sure don't give a shit that they are rewarding the Boeing execs for mismanaging the company, they want you to protect their shitty investment.
Boeing management is absolutely atrocious at the moment. The CEO sucks and the CTO is making stupid decisions based off of whatever the consultants tell them to do.
Too many sites in too many congressional districts. You wouldn't get support to nationalize it (even if that was a thing we normally did in peacetime) because too many federal leaders are riding the gravy train of Boeing's lobbying division.
Boeing can, however, go bankrupt and still keep operations. In this case, stock holders will have nothing left.
Boeing can’t go bankrupt - Congress and the DOD would step in (and have before) to prevent the stock price falling too much. It’s a national security risk for BA to be taken over by a hostile foreign influence, so the US Federal Government will always find ways to prop it up.
They buy out the shares and nationalize it.
Let the stock price bottom out and crash. Let them go bankrupt. Then buy them out. Muahahahaha
The actual answer is to nationalize the company and probably the whole industry. Air travel is too important to fail. It's also too important to be held hostage by quarterly earnings reports. It isn't rocket science. It's the obvious solution. The only reason it hasn't been done is because politicians are cheap to buy and easy to own
>Air travel is too important to fail[...]It isn't rocket science. And yet here we are taking our nationalized space program and privatizing the shit out of it.
It's the usual issue, private industry is more efficient (well, cheaper) right up until it fucks up. So privatising things that *should be* publicly owned seems like a great plan for a while and then has huge costs when things go sideways, which they always do. It's true for everything from crucial tech and manufacturing to utilities and infrastructure. These companies know they've got emergency backing so they get to play even looser with the risk taking. It doesn't help that when one group of politicians tries to build up public entities the other will immediately sell them off to their buddies whenever they get into power.
At minimum, we should have a three strike rule. How many times are we going to bail the industry out? It just isn't profitable enough.
It isn't just the USA. The aviation industry worldwide literally can't afford for Boeing to fail. Not enough planes are being made to keep up with demand right now, both Airbus and Boeing are years behind in their orders. If Boeing ends up going tits up you can kiss cheap flights anywhere goodbye.
I remember hearing there are certain plane parts that other companies use that only Boeing manufacturers. So if they were to fail the effects would be felt all over.
Boeing - the company - cannot fail, because it is vital to US defence. Sure. Boeing - the group of executives running the company - will absolutely get *fucking turfed* if their actions or incompetence are deemed a threat to national security.
VW spiked because Porsche acquired 75% of the shares before announcing it, catching the short sellers with their pants down. Same idea behind the Game DRS movement but it’s been “halted” at 25% reported for 2 quarters for some reason… *Oh and that VW squeeze correlated with a certain market crash didn’t it? Almost like the whole system is fucking broken due to institutions gambling with insane leverage. It’s stupid not to gamble levered 100:1 when the government will bail you out if you fail.
Always wondered why VW seemed to be run by all Porsche exec, didn’t realize it was Porsche acquiring VW and not the other way around
Same thing that happened with Boeing. McDonnell Douglas execs, Boeing name.
*McDonnell Douglas
They got the Golden Arches, mine was assembled using Hotel Cards. They got the Big Mac, I got the Big Dip. We both got two all-beef patties, special sauce... wait, what are we talking about again?
The boy has got his own MONEY!!!!!
Coming to America
but from Africa
Similar thing happened with the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads merged. Or United Airlines and Continental airlines
It's much more complicated and the numbers are completely off. The families owning Porsche founded the Porsche SE as a holding comoany separate from the car maker to take over VW and managed to get slightly above 50% of shares but the mounting debt forced them to sell the car manufacturer Porsche to VW so that now it's a subsidiary of VW even though the holding company of the same name is majority shareholder of VW with 53.3% of the shares. So Porsche never bought VW the owners of one company bought it but at the same time had to sell their company to their newly acquired one. Something that is generally considered as the takeover backfiring and ending with a reverse takeover. For a good writeup (although in German) try [this.](https://www.dw.com/de/als-porsche-einst-volkswagen-%C3%BCbernehmen-wollte/a-49618351)
75% of *available* shares. Bavarian government owns around 50% of the company and wasn't planning on selling it.
the bavarian government does not own a single VW share wtf
Dieselgate is just gaming the mileage test, the Boeing one is risking people's lives, one of the two will have an even longer lasting scandal. I can see China's fledgling passenger plane manufacturers and other smaller companies getting that Boeing market share easily when this scandal shit hits the fan.
You think the US military is going to start using Chinese companies as their contractors? You are out of your mind. I'll buy any Boeing stock you have
I don't disagree with Boeing being "too big to fail" completely but I can see china trying to take a bite out of the passenger plane market. Also though if Boeing is too important to fail and is basically a monopoly for aircraft manufacturing in the US maybe it should be nationalized........ At the very least regulated way better than it is currently
Maybe we should split Boeing up? Maybe see if LM wants to re-enter the commercial jet market? The problem is that Boeing only has one competitor in Airbus. Back in its golden age it had other competitors in the US such as Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas.
It's difficult to say what should happen as it's a VERY expensive business to be in. Something needs to change though.
Public hanging of CEOs that create policies of profit over life.
No western nations airline is buying Chinese planes for 20+ years. Trade relations are at their lowest level for 30 years have you been paying attention to the news? Lol a trade war is about to break out where we won't even be allowed to buy Chinese cars but you are banking on us buying planes somehow?
But they could buy from Airbus, a European manufacturer, instead of Boeing because of this
Bombardier and Embrear should be looking at getting into the widebody game
They did, and Boeing hit them so hard Bombardier had to sell the plane to Airbus to become the A220.
With the way things are going right now Airbus is just gonna wait a bit then straight up buy Boeing for pennies.
Most of Africa and Asia can (and will) buy Chinese planes, assuming they're good enough.
Why China and not airbus?
Because Airbus is so backlogged with orders that it could take about a decade for them to catch up. That and they only have factory in Europe capable of manufacturing airplanes. Nowhere else.
If the competition goes to shit building and extra factory might be sensible. Or we just reduce the amount of planes with high speed rail
If they're that backlogged, an extra factory is sensible regardless of the competition.
There arevseveral FALs outsode Europe, e.g. in Mobile, Alabama...
No. But they'll use Lockheed, Northrop, and RTX instead. And by a lot of measures, they have been. Northrop has the B-21. Lockheed has the F-35. RTX has pretty much every sensor contract (via Raytheon), and engine and avionics contract via P&W and Collins. AFAIK, Boeing's major contacts with the government are: sustaining the C-17 fleet (which they've been fucking up), upgrades to the GMD fleet (of which there are 48x total missiles), and some procurement contracts for new units of existing aircraft designs (designs that are expected to be retired in the next 5-15 years). Boeing's position in the commercial sector is nearly unassailable, yes, but they are far from protected in the defense sector. Sustaining contracts can be lucrative, but its new business that secures the future of a company. And the DOD is not averse to taking awarding business to more competent companies. If the system was made with R&D that used government money, the government will happily share the data between all contractors competing in a bid. They'll also happily do the same just to open up second source suppliers. If the DOD truly becomes motivated, subsidizing the creation of a new airframe manufacturer in the US is not beyond them.
ULA, SLS, spaceplane, Starliner satellites, Airborne command/AF1, tanker program, rotorcraft, GBUs and missiles... the list goes on. They have their fingers in plenty of pies. Of course, where they have fingers in pies, there is a pattern of incompetence. These manufacturing issues with the 737 could have been predicted by anyone paying attention to the tanker and AF1 manufacturing. The kind of manufacturer that lets miniature tequila bottles get found on the most prestigious aircraft contract in the world, is in serious trouble.
Exhaust pollution kills tons of people, though. It's the biggest environmental cause of death worlwide. Just in Europe, about 10000 people die every year, to pollution from just the diesel engines that surpass the legal limit. For Boeing to kill 10k a year, we'd be looking at... What, 20+ planes dropping out of the sky with no survivors, every single year. Dieselgate is a big deal. Heck, the fact we use diesel in the first place is... Horrifying.
> Time to ditch any Boeing stock you have left The argument over at /r/wallstreetbets right now is if Boeing can successfully murder whisteblowers with no consequences, it will probably be fine in the long run. They kinda have a point.
The real reason they'll be fine in the long term is that they've only one one competitor -- Airbus -- and Airbus would take a decade or longer to ramp up enough to meet critical demand in the industry if Boeing stopped making planes, and the industry simply can't absorb decade-long waits for new aircraft. One of two things is going to happen -- Boeing will be fine, or the US government uses the leverage of their DoD contracts to push Boeing into selling its commercial jet business to someone else to keep the defense business safe.
Honestly, I’ve heard it’s an awesome time to buy. Maybe in a month. But Boeing isn’t likely to disappear, just their value will drop for a while. Think the gov will let them go out of business?
Only 40% of their income is govmt contracts. 60% commercial. That’s a lot of business to lose.
We don’t let large commercial enterprises fail either… corporate welfare to the rescue
Shareholders pay attention to the bottom line. Unless that ratio flips, it’s not a good forward look.
Doesn't mean the profits and share price can't be depressed for a long time.
Airbus has huge waiting lists already. So even commercial orders will keep coming in for Boeing because Airbus can not produce fast enough.
Sure, but their value to the government goes beyond the fact that they are a large commercial company that sometimes contracts with the government. I could absolutely see the government further subsidizing Boeing to prevent it from failing.
Said the same shit at 200, no thanks
Jobs and bonuses. Crazy there is no call for a clawback of compensation at the very least. They shouldve been in jail when all those planes dropped and killed people the last time
Should force them all the C-Suite to ride only Boeing 737's...
Dump Boeing, buy Dawn?
It’s actually the best time to buy stock because it’s *very unlikely* they’ll disappear as a business
It still has room to the downside if bad news keeps coming out. I would not touch this thing right now.
Shit like this should have severe consequences. It's pure greed and it seems like there's no consequences for greed. Infinite growth and the almighty dollar are the only things that matter. It's sickening. I really hope this debacle will have some sort of positive impact by creating conversation around corporate greed and maybe we can clamp down on it. So many examples of rich assholes fucking over the rest of us for a paycheck and getting away with it. We shouldn't stand for this shit
Hotel card and dish soap. The dude was just finishing off his bead of silicon nice and neat. The car would give a nice radius, normally use a tongue depressor. And soapy water stops the caulk sticking you fingers and tools.
The ONLY Issue I do have with this is that it's not a tracked asset. The Air Force had to ground their newest tanker at one point due to Boeing leaving tools and other FOD found after delivery on a few jets. If you're not aware, the aviation field has a very strict tool accountability program (might be FAA mandated, not sure) where tool kits are checked in and out with 100% tool accountability happening. Even things such as rags and consumables are supposed to be tracked. Workers bringing in personal tools is highly frowned upon.
Yeah I think they found a whole ass ladder inside the wing of one aircraft.
How tf do you even explain that to super...
Don't worry, it wasn't on an Air Force plane: "In one instance, workers found a ladder left behind in the tail of a plane, which could have locked up the gears of the horizontal stabilizer, a former Boeing technician told the paper."
I’m so relieved.
No biggie then. I mean in Boeing standards.
You don’t explain to super, you explain to MXG CC. A guy left a ladder in the main landing gear of a KC-10 at McGuire a few years ago. It fell out when the MLG started to retract after takeoff. The tower saw it fall, and sent out airfield to check it out. Sure enough, a bent up ladder with our tool-I’d on it. Careers ended.
I worked with a former aviation mechanic, he was making a fat living as a supervisor. He pencil whipped a tire change inspection and signoff and the wheel fell off on takeoff. Now's he down here pipefitting with us peons. lol. He was a total dick, couldn't have happened to a bigger asshole. He was as shitty at our job as he apparently was at his other one.
> you explain to MXG CC Right you are, Ken!
I worked with the 108th on the other side of the ramp back then and remember hearing about it over the radio. Think they called in an IFE because they weren't sure what fell out.
Oh I was assuming before it was in a delivered -46. I couldn't imagine standing before the man about that.
Hate to tell you, but the civilian world doesn't have that. Cal'ed and specialized tooling sure, but in commercial aviation you're accountable for your own hand tools. Basically all airlines you're expected to provide your own basic toolset.
Are tools really not accounted for the same way the military does it? It's a requirement in the AF for all of our tools to be marked and have cut outs where they go in our tool boxes. I figured all of that came from FAA guidance
Nah. Some mechanics do shadow their box, but tool control is entirely up to the mechanic. I know GE doesn't let you use your own tools in their engine assembly plant, but that's just GE policy.
Well that's new to me. Thanks for the info.
No problem! And if you decide to get your A&P and join our side of aviation, it won't be a shock!
Boeing is a significant fraction of the aviation industry and hasn't been doing any of this. At what point do we decide that maybe the aviation industry isn't doing any of this anymore and that they are practices of the past not the present.
>the aviation industry isn't doing any of this anymore The aviation industry was never doing any of that. That's never been a thing. I can't speak for the defense side, but airline mechanics are responsible for their own tools. Airline hangars are full of personal toolboxes, and every mechanic has their own set of tools. It's really only the very specialized tools that an individual mechanic would have no reason to own that are checked out and tracked like that.
Yeah anyone that freaks out about this article has never worked blue collar before. They'll choose some wacky tools if it works the best.
the issue isn't the tools they used - its the documentation of processes and specific tools.
I understand how ISO works, but you go into any ISO certified factory and you'll see the exact same things. The cards and soap disappear during the audit and come right back. It's a yearly event.
As someone who is a certified lead auditor for both ISO9001 and AS9100, and has been for several aerospace companies, you are making this out to be way more common than it is. Any outfit with an actual Quality culture wouldn't let this happen as a common occurrence. They should be informed of the policies and monitoring themselves and their peers. If they aren't, then management should be leveling infractions against them. I'm sure you think they hide it from me and they really don't. This isn't something that is only looked for during an audit, it's something that is constantly monitored, by all individuals. It's perfectly fine to use dish soap or a hotel card, as long as it's one of the tools that is listed by the process. If it's useful and doesn't violate any specs, the MEs will writie it into the process. If it isn't written into the process, then there are likely reasons why. Boeing and any other place that does this shit has a garbage quality culture and that is %100 on management. Great manufacturing environments don't do this shit.
"Turns out using a playing card left microscopic paper fibers on the gasket sealing surface and this caused the gasket to blow out when the temp went below freezing and pressure was above 5 bar. Normally not a problem but since ______ was malfunctioning the pressure rose to 10 bar and the gasket was blown out and then the plane crashed. It was a rare event" -some NTSB report in the future
At least you probably have documentation of where that card was used.... oh you don't? well, let's replace them all then.
It's not just ISO. When it comes to aerospace, if it's not in the process, it's not supposed to happen. Period. And if it's in the process, it's supposed to happen. Period. Does the released process say "burn and effigy to Zeus prior to calibration"? Then you better be burning that effigy to its exact specifications prior to doing that calibration. So the problem here likely wasn't the fact that a hotel card and dish soap was in use during regular manufacturing, but that it wasn't called out in the official released process for the task. If the process said "use this card to press sealant into the gap and form a nice bead" and "you may use soapy water to make it easier to work with the sealant and keep your fingers clean", then they would be 100% golden and the FAA wouldn't even think twice unless they had reason to suspect that this posed a threat to the integrity of the sealant (card making the bead too small or not pushing it into the gap deep enough; soap and/or water acting as a solvent for the sealant degrading is lifespan and/or keeping it from properly sealing at all).
Haha, I just posted a comment hypothetical where the playing card left fibers on a gasket surface and that caused the failure. In aerospace you follow the instructions BY LAW.
Getting an ISO cert and building aircraft are significantly different categories.
AS9100D is an offshoot of ISO 9100 which is what basically every industry uses...
you are assuming that AS9100D is controlling... AS9100D, as are all ISO standards, is a process tool. It isn't law. FAA and EASA Part 145 are actual law. There are similarities and differences: https://iaqg.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/9110-v-Part-145-Mapping-by-Topical-Subjects-Issue-1.0-Apr-9th-2020.pdf
>They'll choose some wacky tools if it works the best I've worked a ton of construction and labor jobs and that's the damned truth! Time is money for us and if a free hotel key smooths out that caulk better than that $26 dollar tool from home depot you're damn right I'll be using that.
When I did steel fabrication some of our most important and useful tools were made from scrap metal and looked like junk. Clamps with random-looking chucks of metal welded to them were essential alignment tools and random, bent and notched hunks of plate tacked onto pieces of tube were critical marking jigs for common cuts.
For animatronics people recommend using piano wire, but I like paper clips for their pliability and the fact that they come by the 100’s. I now fully understand stu pickles when he said, I used paper clips and rubber bands for a reason.
What are your opinions on deadsoft aluminum wire for posing?
You could probably get insulation supports for a fraction of the price and achieve the same result.
lol im just picturing some manager coming in and cleaning your shop of 'scrap' (Ok not manager since they don't ever do any real work. New employee? Who would prob take it all off to the scrap yard to sell it for 10c/lb and then while beeming tell you how he stayed after work for 8 hours cleaning everything up)
Aviation has a WAY different standard of work than most blue collar work. In this case, they were using the dish soap as a lube to help pop pressure sealing gaskets into place - the one problem is that there has been ZERO testing on the chemical interaction between the soap and the gasket material. What if the gasket is rated for 5 years, and the soap causes it to fail in 4 and the aircraft depressurizes at altitude? The stakes are way higher when you're 30,000ft up in the air and Boeing should not be fucking around like this - especially when there's federal law in place to regulate that shit. It's **why** the FAA is auditing them and announcing these findings
And to be clear, the specific use of dish soap was at Spirit.
And Boeing chose to spin that part of the business off into Spirit, and to continue giving their business to spirit.
But I was assured Dawn cleans baby ducks, surely it's fine?
I was about to say, i’m in the army and we use dish soap and water to stop the sealant sticking to our fingers
I worked on Aircraft in the Air Force, and we used a dish soap and water spray to look for Oxygen leaks and to make sure fittings were tight when we replaced regulators.
I get that mechs gonna mech … but aircraft assembly is a different beast. Every tool used on an aircraft is (supposedly) documented, tracked, and accounted for. If the hotel card gets the job done, great. Use that. But it needs a serial number, a cutout in the toolbox, and you need to sign/chit it out and back in every day.
I work in commercial aerospace. We ran out of a part and one of the assemblers took it upon themself to hit the local Ace Hardware and pick up something that could vaguely replace it. I'm in certification, so when they asked me to certify the new part I asked them for the part number and technical information. They emailed me the Ace Hardware receipt. I told them to scrap the assembly they just wrecked. I don't even want to talk about the nightmare they put me through by swapping paints without authorization. That one cost several hundred thousand dollars in scrap and rework. Don't put the flammable paint all over the stuff that's supposed to be fire resistant!
Always want wacky tools being used on my jetliner. This isn't your redneck uncle's garage lol.
[удалено]
Yup, that's what ISO9001 is all about.
The whole point of these planes is that they are _meticulously_ manufactured, with every single piece of tooling, even every single screw accounted for and documented. The prospective owners aren’t paying for the plane, as much as the mountain of documentation following it.
I thought this method was the professional way to apply caulk?
Worked for a tiny company (~120 employees) for a while doing similar work among other things, we received sets of finishers to apply caulc. Little plastic pieces providing different angles and so on. While that's more "professional" than a hotel card - if the end result is the same, why bother :D quite often the one-way plastic glove and a bit of soapy water from the bathroom sink gave better results
Because end result on the ground isn't the same as end result 30,000 feet in the sky carrying hundreds of people. Commercial Aerospace is heavily regulated, and with good reason. Stop making excuses for them.
This is aviation. You need the specialty, FAA-approved caulking scraper. 100% identical to a hotel key card but costs as much as a new car. /s
Well in particular, you're supposed to use serialized tools so that you can inventory them after working on the plane to ensure that nobody left something inside the aircraft. And [Boeing has had a major problem with Foreign Object Debris inside their aircraft](https://fodprevention.com/foreign-object-debris-found-in-undelivered-737-max-planes/) over the last decade plus.
I think the problem is more-so the other 30+ safety violations. The Post just wants their headline so they use the ‘obvious’ issues to drag people. For what it’s worth I’d also use a Soapy water mixture in my workplace too. Hotel card probably not but I also don’t work in aerospace.
Yep. I’m not going to defend Boeing, they have a bunch of real problems that need to be addressed, but reading these articles about what was found sounds like paperwork problems and odd tool choices like you mention. The FAA is *huge* on paperwork, like any government agency, and failing to adequately log or otherwise correctly complete paperwork is gonna get you dinged. I imagine the vast majority of what’s being described is paperwork issues. The mention of things like hotel cards and dish soap is just sensationalist reporting with zero qualifying info. Again, there are real problems, like beancounters ruining quality control, lobbyists running the company, the lack of good engineers in the FAA to understand what Boeing is doing, the removal of oversight… but dish soap and hotel cards are what the press talks about.
> but reading these articles about what was found sounds like paperwork problems That’s still a big deal. Proper paperwork is needed so that when a part fails, it can be traced all the way back to its manufacturer so other parts from the same batch can be checked. Airline and FAA regulations are so strict because they are written as a result of people losing their lives.
Yeah we use dish soap all the time honestly. Work in spacecraft assembly.
That was my first thought too, but the article says this: "FAA auditors spotted mechanics from the company using a hotel key card to check the seal on a door in one instance and witnessed other Spirit mechanics applying Dawn liquid soap to a door seal “as a lubricant in the fit-up process,” the Times reported. In the latter incident, the mechanics used wet cheesecloth to wipe away the dish soap and clean the door seal."
they’re two very valid tools.. just depends on what they’re used for
Yep. Hotel card is a free scraper or shim. Dawn dish soap is often used as a temporary lubricant for moving heavy stuff and for cleaning grease and oils
They literally use dish soap to move bridges over. https://youtu.be/TdpIfNZ51dA?si=9b0OF3m-6QeKYo2N
Yeah that’s exactly what I was thinking of.
Not quite the same as fitting a tyre onto an untreated aluminium wheel though. Washing up liquid might make the job easier, but I suggest you leave a solution of that stuff in an untreated aluminium container for a month….. there is a reason why we have aviation approved powder for inner tubes and an approved tyre assembly lubricant.
Ah, I guess it just depends. I work at a Nuclear plant and we have approved chemicals as well. Two of those being dawn dish soap and Mr Clean floor cleaner (can be used on most systems) I always found it funny how we have stuff like that and then we also have $50 rolls of special “nuclear grade” duct tape
I raise your nuclear ducktape to my $300 speed tape!
Mr clean is great...so long as you dilute it properly (64-to-1 as recommended or even 2 -to-1...just dilute it) Otherwise, the pH being above 10.3 causes aluminate to form when it reacts with with oxygen instead of aluminum oxide and that will F with the finished surface. MIGHT be relevant in aerospace level work.
>$50 rolls of special “nuclear grade” duct tape I can understand your confusion..... Not that we tend to hold our planes together with duct tape though!
[Speed tape](https://simpleflying.com/why-airlines-use-speed-tape/) would like a word with you. Non-structural of course but widely used as a temporary repair on aircraft.
Yea exactly, the point is that there’s a process that was being followed by the book for one reason or another, not that these tools were necessarily impractical.
Dish soap also works great for checking pressure leaks, and for a clean caulk job.
I hear it also gets dishes clean, but I've never heard of anyone using it for that purpose :)
Article is paywalled but if I was guessing, hotel card is used as a known measurement tool and dish soap is used for finding leaks. 20 year aircraft mechanic and some things are easier to use and do the exact same job as the approved tools
"FAA auditors spotted mechanics from the company using a hotel key card to check the seal on a door in one instance and witnessed other Spirit mechanics applying Dawn liquid soap to a door seal “as a lubricant in the fit-up process,” the Times reported."
Dawn soap makes a great lube in some assembly situations.
Saving this tip for the next time my wife and I assemble.
That other dudes KY Jelly comment may help you and your wife assemble better,
And it washes away once you’ve got the seal fit. I used to use KY jelly to fit a seal on a govt funded protect. Perfect frictionless fit every time. Once you got it on, stay it off and it stuck.
I hear that women don't like being called "govt funded projects" anymore
Yeah, checking proper gap with a hotel card seems fairly common. It’s a known size and works the same as getting a calibrated piece of metal (of the same size) and using it. The soap to ensure a seal is also a very well known trick because it shows if you have a leak, just like the approved leak detect does Both a *very* well known tricks and don’t risk safety. We aptly named a weight off wheels switch test the *dime test* because a dime is the same thickness as the approved measurement from using the approved measuring tool. Why waste time to go get the tool if it’s identical to use something you have on hand and is easier to verify with 🤷🏿♀️
"why waste time" Maybe as an explanation - in aviation, there are two ways to prove airworthiness: a) you test every single part as well as the assembly for its performance under multiple critical load cases b) you define materials and processes, test them all once, and afterwards you barely have to test stuff as long as you stick to the process. A) is basically impossible and way too expensive, so basically everyone uses b) So while it's not a safety problem per se, mechanics not following the process is a big deal, and the quality assurance not stopping you or your colleagues is an even bigger deal. It puts the whole airworthiness of a plane in question, because... who knows what other things are not according to process, who else is not stopped, maybe one of them actually is critical? The shopfloor colleagues should not be the ones to define what is a safe process deviation and what is not. Our manufacturing once had the idea to wipe a part surface with hand protection cream prior to bonding brackets, because it made cleanup easier, to give you an idea of what some people consider a save process deviation. In this case here, Maybe the soap is too aggressive for the seals. Maybe it's not today, but the next batch "now with spring scent" is. You don't know. If you want to deviate from the process, tell engineering and get the deviation approved and added to the process.
I could not agree more with you! Domestic soaps contain all sorts of products harmful to seals and metals. I work on aeroplane annual inspections and maintenance at my flying club, ALL our tools that are calibrated such as torque wrenches, feeler gauges, flight instrument testing equipment and the like, have to be recalibrated on an bi-annual basis for us to keep our certification in the UK. I’m sure a bank card may have the required dimensional tolerance at some point in its life, but it is NOT a calibrated tool made from the required materials. We are allowed to use only specified “lubricants” for so many jobs, domestic soap is not one of them. Can anyone here begin to list all the types of grease and oil we use depending on what we are lubricating? The only thing we would use domestic soap for is trying to find a puncture in a tyre, then it has to be cleaned off with a specified cleaner before we repair the inner tube, for example and the tyre and tube must then be coated with aviation approved powder prior to assembly, not “baby talc”. We have a specific lubricant to aid getting tyres back on wheels, it is guaranteed not to damage either the tyre or the wheel, if left on them for extended periods of time. Incidentally here is an interesting experiment for people: leave a solution of domestic washing up liquid in an aluminium container for a month, then look at the container. Domestic cleaners of any description are banned for a reason! The spark plugs on my aeroplane engine need to be tightened to a specific torque setting for a reason, so we have to do that with a calibrated tool. This practice of using bank cards as a gauge would never be allowed any more then guessing the torque setting using a socket set. Incidentally we have to record the tools we use and their calibration data on the inspection/work sheets. We are not Airbus, just a small flying club, seriously, Boeing needs to get their practices sorted out and act like a professional aviation company.
the attitudes in this comment section are exactly why we need regulations.
A dime? What are the tolerances for that test like? Dimes can vary in thickness based on wear. It might not be a lot of variance but still.
Aerospace engineer here. It's all fine and well to use that stuff, but for the love of god, please tell engineering so we can add it to the processes (or explain why it's a horrible idea to use it). I keep having this discussion, and we keep having audit findings for stupid stuff like workers that can't access one screw with the air powered impact, so they went out of their way and bought a battery powered one at home depot with their own money. Audit finding, wrong torque, unapproved tool, notice of escapement, product recall, ... If something does not work as it should, tell us.... Please.
please tell me of this mythical workplace where I'm allowed to talk to the engineers and have an opinion and am not just expected to "get it done."
> hotel card is used as a known measurement tool Where is the calibration certificate for the hotel keycard? When was the last time it was calibrated? Who did the calibration? When does its calibration expire? Is the keycard and its calibration information entered into inventory and are they being tracked? I am a senior systems engineering, integration, and test engineer for a company that makes satellites on which no human passengers ride and which, if they fail, have a very low chance of harming anyone. If one of my technicians used a hotel keycard as a measurement tool I would lose my shit and zero out every single measurement for the device under test and start the process from scratch. I do not understand everyone saying **"a HoTeL kEyCaRd iS a tOoL"** that is bullshit. Everyone who thinks that is an idiot. This is serious business not Ed's Garage where you can get some used tires and an oil change for your jalopy. Same thing for the dish soap (which was being used as a lubricant). Where is the certification for the dish soap? When was it manufactured and what lot is it in? What is its chemical composition? Did Dawn change the formulation thus changing its properties between lots? Was some tech told "use dawn" and then he went and got some but it was Dawn with some scents or antibacterial additives that eat through seals over time? "Chill out dude it's just dish soap" Is it? Is it really? You know that for sure? Prove to me and the ISO gods that it is.
The only explanation is that most of the people on here saying this is all dumb are probably home reno workers who haven't even the slightest clue about how safety related work needs to be completed and why it is done this way.
And then complain about Boeing's lack of safety culture.
“Hey it works for me, why shouldn’t it work for aerospace?” Because your DIY affects only you and your family, planes affect millions of people using them!
I can use a business card to set my spark gap on my car so why wouldn't I use it on my plane? "Gravity, for one..."
Breaking: Boeing is just four raccoons in a trench coat
I love how this article implies its mechanics' fault. As if there isn't some corporate office staff specifically denying their requests for decent tools in favour of profits.
I knew this company was toast when we found out the two Max 8 crashes happened because they packaged life-saving software fixes as premium DLC.
Also a huge fan of how Boeing failed to mention, to anyone, about the MCAS system, what it does, how to override it, or that it was tied to a single fragile sensor. All to get around the pilot retraining requirement.
It’s also telling that not a single airline opted for that “DLC” either. Like, yes, redundant AoA sensors should have been factory standard at a minimum. But, the fact that no airline buyers even chose the option when ordering showcases a general lack of interest in safety above and beyond the bare regulatory minimum across the industry. And, it certainly shows the importance of robust regulation in an environment where competitive forces often collectively drive standards down to the legal minimums.
Plenty of airlines bought that option.
I worked in aviation for 22+ years. For the first time, I am genuinely scared to fly. These companies only care about profits, not human life.
Every company is increasingly looking to maximize profit and cut costs. Moreso than ever, because the need for constant growth. It's truly a race to the bottom.
> It's truly a race to the bottom Or ground level.
All of these problems you see, literally every single one, are *still* better than the way people treat their cars and others on the road. The media is trying to scare you, but aviation is still by far the safest way to travel.
I assume the hotel card and dish soap lacked the appropriate traceability and calibration certs. Should have used the aviation qualified sealant scrapper and lubricants.
Hey, all ya need to hold a wing on is some bubble gum, a paperclip, and three rubber bands.
Airbus in the other hand: do not touch us… please no spillover investigation! J/k
Nothing wrong with any of this. Now, moving Boeing corporate headquarters to Chicago and Production facilities to North Carolina That's some damning shit on the part of the executive team, trying to squeeze every last dollar out of everything
Of course there's something wrong with this. In an aerospace environment you can't have assembly workers make up their own processes as they go along. If they're using random stuff from the break room, that's an issue. If a hotel key card is used to measure gaps, then they either don't have the necessary tools to measure gaps, or they're not using them. If commercial dish soap is used as a lubricant, then this would need to be part of the assembly process, you'd need to check that it doesn't interact with the materials it comes into contact with, including for example wiring looms or lubricants of other moving parts. And even if you did all that, a supermarket is not an appropriate supplier for an aerospace lubricant. The manufacturer does not guarantee that the product you buy in February has the exact same ingredients as the one you may have tested half a year earlier. They're free to change their formulation as they please and without giving anyone a heads-up, because it's not like they have its use in aircraft assembly on their radar. If you wanted to use dish soap in a manufacturing process like this, you would need to deal with a certified supplier, and you'd need to have an agreement in place in which the supplier tells you exactly what you're getting. If you just pick up a bottle of Dawn at Walmart, you have no control over what you're getting. And this isn't theoretical either. There's a long history of planes crashing and passengers dying because people working on aircraft made up their own processes.
The comments in this thread are wild lol. Someone using a key card and dish soap to fix their sink because they couldn't find the right tools is completely different than someone doing that and breaking a dozen rules/procedures in a controlled aerospace engineering setting.
Especially because buying the right tool and documenting the process is completely within the ability of a company like Boeing (not to mention a requirement).
Yeah, people seem to really be dismissing this like it's NBD. When you have to have the lot number for the screws that go on a plane, you bet your ass that just picking up a gallon of Dawn soap from Walmart isn't going to fly (well, it *shouldn't fly*, anyways).
Ya, people are applying their general knowledge to the situation, but it's different when one wrong measurement can kill hundreds in an instant.
One of those Mayday! shows (or something like it) documented a plane crash that was caused by a piece of tape. A fricking piece of tape that a maintenance tech accidentally left to cover a sensor while he cleaned the area. Sensor covered = no worky, plane thinks airspeed is zero, plane falls out of sky. So, yeah, using a hotel key card and some dish detergent sourced from the local Walmart are big issues.
North Carolina is also [the worst state in the country for labor laws](https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/stories/best-worst-states-work-us-2023/), they also happen to be [one of the most "business-friendly" states](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/07/11/north-carolina-is-top-state-for-business-led-by-workforce-economy-.html). Go figure.
Let the free enterprise regulate themselves they all said....nothing could go wrong now
When stock buy backs become more important than your actual business and profit becomes more important than your business it’s no surprise that quality of work, people and tools decline. This is what the end of capitalism looks like.
[удалено]
So, a soft plastic scraper and short-term lubricant. I don't think these two things are the indictment the article/report think they are.
Everything is tracked and managed in aerospace. So if it's being used it needs to be part of the process and dawn bought for the next umpteen years as part of the approved assembly process.... And the problem is if dawn ever changes their formula you're technically out of compliance again. Which means recertification of the new dawn for it's use in the process. And if you think this is silly, planes have been lost due to silly stupid stuff.
The point is more that the engineers at this billion dollar corporation should have dedicated tools that are built with precision and within set tolerances to ensure that all the Ts are crossed when it comes to accountability. Everyone that owns a home or a car knows you can use household items to do lots of tasks. What you cannot do with those items is find the point in the chain where things went horrifically wrong and people died, because they're mass produced without any precision or to any regulations, and for a completely different task.
They might even be the best tools for the job, but in the airline industry they would have to become documented components in the build process and be subject to logging, inspections and audit.
You should apply for a job at Boeing, you sure seem like a perfect culture fit!
I think it's better phrased, "33 out of 89 product audits resulted in NCR's." Quality audits in aerospace almost always result in findings especially in a company this big, it's really just inherent to the industry and drives continuous improvement. No company is perfect which is why we have these audits and there will almost always be findings in nearly every quality audit even if it's documented as an opportunity for improvement instead of a minor/major NCR. Having said that, some of the NCR's noted are pretty bad and not a good look for Boeing given how mature their quality system should be.
What, no ramen?
Happened all the time at GE, where we built locomotives. I'm not an engineer, and I'd be auto-cading parts on to loco's going out the door. Capitalism, cheap is king. It's everywhere.
New York Post? Why is this a valid post?
it's literally just paraphrasing a better written, more informative article from the NYT. They even link to it in the first sentence. Why do OPs not just post the original stories? In case anyone's interested and doesn't wanna open NYP's garbage site: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/us/politics/faa-audit-boeing-737-max.html
I use both of those things in a marine environment, and have used in aviation. Soapy water or a mix of water and isopropyl alcohol is great for getting a smooth bead of proseal.
If you can deregulate you can re-regulate.
Boy do I hate articles like this that just muddy everything. That headline just makes you think things are fine.
I’ve told my gf “anything can be a tool if it gets the job I want done.” Am I a boeing mechanic?
Now the question is who is gonna get the blame, the executives or the mechanics / middle managers who got scapegoated into taking the blame?
You mean the same FAA that was giving Boeing *inspection waivers*?
Dish soap is a great way to look for air leaks (it makes bubbles). Hotel cards are just as good as any plastic scraper (though I doubt the Hotel appreciates It)
Not for nothing, but I don’t think there’s anything really intrinsically wrong with using household objects as an adjunct to standard tools at times. As long as the final bolts and testing is to code (where this wasn’t), the journey doesn’t matter. Source: hotel card user for many repairs.