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What happened on the Boeing?

Airehead

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Dottleshead Flahute

Dottleshead ★

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I used to work at Boeing and every since headquarters moved to Chicago and merged with McDonald Douglas it's all been about profits.  It was an engineering company now owned by suits that no nothing about building airplanes.  Boeing was founded here in Seattle and 1 in 5 either work for the company or a supplier of the company.  Alarms have been sounded by the folks in the trenches but brass doesn't give a rip.  Sadly, they get what they deserve.

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maddmaxx Flahute

maddmaxx ★

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5 minutes ago, Dottleshead said:

I used to work at Boeing and every since headquarters moved to Chicago and merged with McDonald Douglas it's all been about profits.  It was an engineering company now owned by suits that no nothing about building airplanes.  Boeing was founded here in Seattle and 1 in 5 either work for the company or a supplier to the company.  Alarms have been sounded by the folks in the trenches but brass doesn't give a rip.  Sadly, they get what they deserve.

Please tell me though that the golden parachutes are safe to use.

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Razors Edge Flahute

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9 hours ago, az_cyclist said:

It could be the aircraft, or it could be training.  I am not familiar with LATAM, other than it is a Chilean airline. 

Maybe someone tripped over the power cord?

 

SYDNEY—Brian Jokat was asleep, buckled into a window seat on a three-hour Latam Airlines flight to New Zealand when the plane suddenly dropped. He looked up and saw a man to his right on the roof, and several other people flying around. 

“You know in ‘The Exorcist,’ when the girl flies from the bed and hits the ceiling? It’s exactly that scene,” he said. “I was like, what the heck is this?”

What caused the midair incident that led to around 50 people on board the flight from Sydney to Auckland requiring medical treatment is now the focus of an investigation involving air-accident teams from Chile and New Zealand.

Chile-based Latam said the plane, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, suffered a “technical event during the flight which caused strong movement.” It didn’t give specifics. 

Jokat, a 61-year-old Canadian, said there was no rumbling like he would have expected with turbulence. After the incident, he said, one of the pilots came to the cabin and said his instrument panel had gone black for a second or two, before lighting back up again. “He said, ‘For that split second, there was nothing I could do,’” according to Jokat.

In a statement, Boeing said it was thinking of the passengers and the crew onboard the flight.

“We commend everyone involved in the response effort,” Boeing said. “We are in contact with our customer, and Boeing stands ready to support investigation-related activities as requested.”

Air-safety investigators are likely to focus on the aircraft’s software and power issues, some aviation experts said. Because the incident occurred in international airspace, Chile’s accident investigation authority is taking the lead. New Zealand authorities are assisting and have said they are gathering evidence including seizing the cockpit voice and flight-data recorders.

The incident could be another headache for Boeing. The company’s reputation has already suffered from a pair of fatal 737 MAX 8 crashes in 2018 and 2019, and it has been dogged more recently by issues with various models, including misdrilled holes, loose rudder bolts and the Jan. 5 Alaska Airlines MAX 9 door-plug blowout.

Lucas Ellwood was using his iPad and fellow passengers were finishing up lunch when the plane lurched downward.

Around him, people were thrown upward and suspended on the ceiling. Panels on the roof were busted open. Ellwood, who was strapped in with his seat belt, saw his iPad hit the ceiling and hold there for a split second.

A moment later, everything—and everyone—fell down.

Latam said 10 passengers and three cabin crew members were taken to medical facilities after the flight landed in Auckland, New Zealand’s biggest city, on Monday afternoon, but none of the injuries were life-threatening. An ambulance service said one person was in serious condition.

People suffered head wounds and needed neck braces, with roughly an hour to go in the flight, Ellwood said. Passengers were moaning and screaming. Ellwood offered his belt to help with first aid, and later saw it strapped to the chest and arms of a man with a bandaged and bloodied head. His iPad fell in the aisle, his power bank two seats ahead of him.

 

 

 

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TrentonMakes Domestique

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42 minutes ago, Ralphie said:

Seems like it is great advice to keep your seat belt fastened while you are in your seat. 

I wouldn't say I fly often, though I have made two trips this year.  They provide that advice at the beginning of every flight, yes?  I wonder how much legal protection that might give them.

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jsharr Maillot Jaune

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Can a company as big as Boeing in a market with very few players fail?   Seems like they are having a ton of issues and I cannot imagine the amount they have to be paying to settle lawsuits.   Sounds like additional oversight, maybe third party is needed for Boeing and their contractors.  And of course all this will do is increase the cost of airplanes and that will be passed along to the flying public.  One wonders if the glut of low cost airlines has made the Boeing cut corners in order to deliver planes faster and cheaper to beat the competition for contracts? 

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Razors Edge Flahute

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24 minutes ago, jsharr said:

Can a company as big as Boeing in a market with very few players fail?   Seems like they are having a ton of issues and I cannot imagine the amount they have to be paying to settle lawsuits.   Sounds like additional oversight, maybe third party is needed for Boeing and their contractors.  And of course all this will do is increase the cost of airplanes and that will be passed along to the flying public.  One wonders if the glut of low cost airlines has made the Boeing cut corners in order to deliver planes faster and cheaper to beat the competition for contracts? 

WSJ was writing about it a couple days ago, and it looks daunting.

 

Months before a piece of a Boeing 737 blew out midflight, leaving a door-sized hole in its side, the plane spent nearly three weeks shuffling down an assembly line with faulty rivets in need of repair.

Workers had spotted the bad parts almost immediately after the plane’s fuselage arrived at the factory, federal investigators have said. But they didn’t make the fix right away and the 737 continued on to the next workstation. When crews completed the repair 19 days later, they failed to replace four critical bolts on a plug door they had opened to do the job, leading to the Jan. 5 accident on an Alaska Airlines flight. 

At Boeing, there is a term for situations such as this one, when work is completed out of the production line’s ordinary sequence: traveled work.

“The folks on the line, they know what it is,” Boeing Chief Executive Dave Calhoun said in a Wednesday address to employees. “It’s uncomfortable. It creates opportunities for failure.”

“And at this moment in time, in light of what happened with Alaska,” Calhoun said, “we’ve got to make a step change on this one.”

 

Boeing and federal investigators probing the Alaska Air incident have said the practice of completing work out of sequence is a liability when it comes to airplane quality. Boeing leaders, as they canvass factory workers for insight on where safety is falling short, have said traveled work tops employees’ lists of concerns. The company has said it believes documentation required in the opening of the plug door was never created.  

Last week, Boeing told staff it was changing how it determines pay for tens of thousands of nonunion employees—from mechanics in South Carolina to its top brass. Quality measures, such as reducing traveled work, will now determine 60% of the annual bonuses for those working on its commercial aircraft. 

For years, Boeing executives have tried and failed to break the habit. Four years ago, in the aftermath of a pair of fatal MAX crashes, Boeing laid out five values central to improving safety. Number three on the list: eliminate traveled work.

 

 

 

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Razors Edge Flahute

Razors Edge ★

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Just now, maddmaxx said:

It's an unenforced requirement.

Usually (always?) for flights, when the pilot pops on the seatbelt light, the flight attendants walk the aisle and check seatbelts and ask anyone not buckled up to please buckle up.  Seatbelts are definitely required for take offs and landings.

When the seatbelt light is off and folks are walking to and from the bathrooms or grabbing stuff from overhead compartments, the flight attendants generally don't check, require, or request anyone specifically buckle up. The "suggestion" to do so is more their blanket warning (and a good/reasonable one).  

I don't think there is a rule for folks to wear their seatbelts during calm times in flight where the seatbelt sign is off. If the flight attendant or pilot TELLS you to fasten, that's different as that is an order they're allowed to give. Likely though, you'd get away with ignoring the advice or even the order simply because there's too much going on for them to babysit individuals unless they escalate to "problems".  

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maddmaxx Flahute

maddmaxx ★

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2 hours ago, Ralphie said:

A word to the wise!  After watching so much Air Disasters and hearing aboot this, I see there is good reason for it!  

It's like saying once you're on the highway and away from the city you can drive without a seatbelt.

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MickinMD KOM / QOM

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It seems like Latam Airlines is under-reporting injuries and not mentioning what actually happened.

We'll have to wait for the New Zealand/Australian airline accident investigators to research then tell us - the Australians certainly looked slow but very competent on that Airline Disasters TV series.

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maddmaxx Flahute

maddmaxx ★

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On the news tonight, a possible clue was revealed.

On that aircraft, Boeing released a memo back in 2016 that something in the flight controllers has to be reset every 22 days (or less??).  Failure to do this may result in the flight control system shutting down followed by loss of control of the aircraft.

Yes/No.  Just sayn 

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Razors Edge Flahute

Razors Edge ★

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13 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

On the news tonight, a possible clue was revealed.

On that aircraft, Boeing released a memo back in 2016 that something in the flight controllers has to be reset every 22 days (or less??).  Failure to do this may result in the flight control system shutting down followed by loss of control of the aircraft.

Yes/No.  Just sayn 

So it resets itself mid-flight :D but quickly enough (if at the proper altitude) that you can continue the flight with just a brief interruption.

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Razors Edge Flahute

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Boeing  advised airlines to check the cockpit seats on 787 Dreamliner jets after a seat mishap likely pushed a pilot into the controls, causing a sudden, terrifying plunge on a flight to New Zealand this week.

A Latam Airlines flight attendant hit a switch on the pilot’s seat while serving a meal, leading a motorized feature to push the pilot into the controls and push down the plane’s nose, according to U.S. industry officials briefed on preliminary evidence from an investigation. The switch, on the back of the chair, is usually covered and isn’t supposed to be used when a pilot is in the seat.

image.png.9fb465d8927e40a9b9405782c2f2c762.png

 

 

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Razors Edge Flahute

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11 minutes ago, jsharr said:

I fly about as often as I throw cocktail parties.  

I'm hardly a regular flyer. But, United has a lot of direct flights to Europe, and their 787s are better than many other fleets.  Short flight in the US? I'm fine in almost any seat.  But transatlantic or transpacific? I need the leg room and that plane in United "Economy Plus/Premium/whatever" seems to be consistently good.

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