Boeing CEO: Poor work caused hole in Southwest jet

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By DAVID KOENIG and JOSHUA FREED

The CEO of Boeing Co. says a "workmanship issue" and not poor design led to a hole ripping open in a plane that the company built for Southwest Airlines Co.

CEO Jim McNerney said Wednesday that signs do not point to a problem affecting large numbers of the Boeing 737.

The Southwest jet was built 15 years ago, but Boeing also faces scrutiny of its current manufacturing. Government inspectors went to two Boeing plants this week to study the company's assembly process after Japan Airlines found metal filings in the fuel tanks of a new Boeing 767.

Metal shavings are a byproduct of building planes out of aluminum. The Federal Aviation Administration said it will study Boeing's efforts to keep debris from fouling aircraft systems.

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20110427/D9MS8EBG1.html

[krispos42]

1. Does SouthWest use union workers? n/t

[groundloop]

3. Not a Southwest problem - Workmanship issues at Boeing when plain was built

I've read that improperly installed rivets worked their way loose after 15 years.

[krispos42]

6. Ah, okay n/t

[BlueCollar]

10. yes...on the work done in house.

the outsourced to Central America stuff and other 3rd party work maybe not

[TatonkaJames]

2. Two things

People are tired from working two jobs to make ends meet and
most people don't have the integrity they once had. Over the past
forty years at the same job, I've seen the good ones go and workers
who think they're there just to collect a check.
Take all the problems we're having in this country and prepare for the fall.

[uppityperson]

4. And how many other planes have "poor workmanship"?

[Historic NY]

7. Who is inspecting the work? They are also complicit.

[erinlough]

8. I found this:

Airlines contract about 70% of their maintenance work to repair shops in the USA and abroad, where mistakes can be made by untrained and ill-equipped personnel, the Department of Transportation's inspector general says. Airlines also disregard FAA inspectors' findings to keep planes flying, defer necessary repairs beyond permissible time frames, use unapproved parts and perform their own sloppy maintenance work, according to FAA documents.

Though many maintenance problems go undetected, the FAA levied $28.2 million in fines and proposed fines against 25 U.S. airlines for maintenance violations that occurred during the past six years. In many cases, planes operated for months before the FAA found maintenance deficiencies. In some cases, airlines continued to fly planes after the FAA found deficiencies in them.

The 65,000 flights that took off when they shouldn't have represent a fraction of the 63.8 million flights that all U.S. airlines flew during the past six years. The FAA doesn't always document how many times planes with maintenance problems have flown.


http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2010-02-02-1Aairmaintenance02_CV_N.htm

Old article, but I wonder if it is still going on.

[Angleae]

9. Of course it's still going on.

Maintenance is every airlines 2nd largest expense (after fuel).

[JohnyCanuck]

5. Al Jazeera documentary, On a Wing and a Prayer, reports on suspect parts installed in Boeing 737NGs

But Gigi Prewitt and Taylor Smith say that ill-fitting and out of contour parts continued to arrive from AHF Ducommun - and that assembly workers in Wichita took dangerous short-cuts to get them to fit.

Some parts were so badly out of shape that they had to be beaten on to the airframe with hammers - a process which builds in potentially lethal pre-stress.

The FAA had given Boeing "delegated authority" to police itself on matters like this - provided it reported problems voluntarily.

Both Smith and Prewitt wanted to come clean to the FAA, but claim that Boeing management threatened to sue them if they did so.

Reluctantly, they turned whistle-blower - taking their concerns to the US Justice Department, which, under American law, is responsible for protecting whistle-blowers.

http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/peopleandpower/2010/12/20101214104637901849.html