Why A Former Senior Boeing Employee Will Not Fly On Their MAX Planes

[detrius]

But I can live with the fact that I will never see Death Valley, The Rocky Mountains, The Grand Canyon, The Niagara Falls and all the other highlights at your side of the pond with my own eyes.

I can't help but notice that all the travel reasons you listed are natural landmarks, not a single human being or man-made structure.

Basically, it's all rocks that have no particular national identity and would still exist, even if the country didn't (and probably would be in a better shape for it).

Personally, I'd just say that I'm not interested in visiting the USA because the cities are boring and uninteresting, and because about half of the voting population supports a fascist takeover. But saying something along the lines of "sadly I'll have to forego witnessing America's natural beauty" surely comes over as way more diplomatic.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Dave Calhoun, CEO of Boeing, announced that he will step down end of 2024. Which raises the question: why not right away?

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/boeing-ceo-calhoun-step-down-2024-03-25/

 

[Khamon]

Taxes. It'll be easier to file the 2024 year. And he will have all of 2025 to shelter his multi-billion dollar retirement bonus.

 

[Casey Pelous]

Dave Calhoun, CEO of Boeing, announced that he will step down end of 2024. Which raises the question: why not right away?

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/boeing-ceo-calhoun-step-down-2024-03-25/

Continuity. I don't think anybody's in the succession line. They're going to have to find a bunch of new C's, because it isn't just Calhoun who's out.

I imagine they'll come from outside Boeing or at least well outside the C suites -- "more of the same" is probably not going to cut it with the FAA nor, one would think, stockholders and the board.

 

[Free]

Suicide Mission

What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

prospect.org

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Maybe they can hire back the guys they replaced with Douglas marketroids when they "bought" Douglas.

 

[Casey Pelous]

Maybe they can hire back the guys they replaced with Douglas marketroids when they "bought" Douglas.

Given that the majority of my friends are "those guys" or married to "those guys" I feel comfortable assuring you that most of those guys would just as soon remove their own teeth with rusty pliers as return to that place -- and that's Everett, not the South Carolina plant.

 

[Cristiano]

Family of Boeing whistleblower John Barnett speaks out following his death

John Barnett died earlier this month in what the coroner called an apparent suicide, just before he was set to resume testifying in a whistleblower lawsuit against Boeing.

www.cbsnews.com

 

[Cristiano]

A whistleblower claims that Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner is flawed. The FAA is investigating | CNN Business

Federal authorities say they’re investigating after a whistleblower repeatedly raised concerns with two models of Boeing widebody jets, and claimed the company retaliated against him.

www.cnn.com

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Another whistleblower died, Joshua Dean. He was a quality auditor within Spirt AeroSystems, and one of the first to make public that the leadership ignored willingly defects at 737 MAX. He died of a struggle with a sudden, fast-spreading infection.

Too bad there was no window around to fall out... amateurs!

Whistleblower Josh Dean of Boeing Supplier Spirit AeroSystems Has Died - Slashdot

Joshua Dean, a former quality auditor at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems and one of the first whistleblowers to allege Spirit leadership had ignored manufacturing defects on the 737 MAX, died Tuesday morning after a struggle with a sudden, fast-spreading infection. Seattle Times: Known as...

news.slashdot.org

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Police release report about whistleblower's death

While reviewing security footage from the hotel, police said Barnett entered his hotel room alone around 7:36 p.m. on March 8 and stayed about an hour before cameras showed him leaving the hotel alone. Barnett’s truck can be seen backing into a parking space at 8:45 p.m. where it remains until the next morning when police arrive for a wellness check.

Kind of settles that for me, unless we're supposed to imagine Boeing hired a ghost to do the hit.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Captain Obvious has a message for all of us: The head of the FAA says his agency was too hands-off in its oversight of Boeing!
No shit, Sherlock!

“FAA’s approach was too hands-off — too focused on paperwork audits and not focused enough on inspections,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker told a Senate committee.

“If Boeing is saying, ‘We don’t have the documentation, we don’t know who removed it,’ where was the (FAA) aviation safety inspector?” Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., asked Whitaker.

“We would not have had them on the ground at that point,” he said.

“And why not?” Cantwell responded.

“Because at that point the agency was focusing on auditing the internal quality programs at Boeing,” Whitaker said. “We clearly did not have enough folks on the ground to see what was going on at that factory.”

Whitaker said the FAA is hiring more air traffic controllers and safety inspectors but is competing with the aerospace industry for talent. He said the FAA has lost valuable experience in the ranks of its inspectors with its current, younger workforce.

In other words: FAA is not paying enough to get the good people nowadays on top of their jog trot!

The head of the FAA says his agency was too hands-off in its oversight of Boeing

The head of the Federal Aviation Administration has acknowledged his agency should have been more aware of problems at Boeing before a door plug blew off a 737 Max jet during an Alaska Airlines flight in January.

apnews.com

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Suicide Mission

What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

prospect.org

This was infuriating to read. I have good bosses now, but I have worked with and for sharks like that before who were willing to just lie their asses off for their career ambitions. That article sums up everything that goes wrong with companies who are only allowed to care about profit.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

The companies are not the problem so much, but the state not doing his job, so the FAA.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Wasn't the 737 MAX fake controls thing already the wake-up call? The FAA should have been ramping up oversight already.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Putting this here although it's not just Boeing affected, because Spirit again.

The FAA is investigating after it turns out Spirit sourced some dodgy titanium with fake authenticity documenation. Faked by the supplier, that is.

The use of potentially fake titanium, which has not been previously reported, threatens to extend the industry’s problems beyond Boeing to Airbus, its European competitor. The planes that included components made with the material were built between 2019 and 2023, among them some Boeing 737 Max and 787 Dreamliner airliners as well as Airbus A220 jets, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. It is not clear how many of those planes are in service or which airlines own them.

Spirit is trying to determine where the titanium came from, whether it meets proper standards despite its phony documentation, and whether the parts made from the material are structurally sound enough to hold up through the projected life spans of the jets, company officials said. Spirit said it was trying to determine the most efficient way to remove and replace the affected parts if that ended up being necessary.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Robert Ortberg is the new CEO of Boeing.

Boeing Board Names Kelly Ortberg President and CEO

- Respected industry veteran with more than 35 years of aerospace experience Boeing [NYSE: BA] today announced that its Board of Directors has elected Robert K. "Kelly" Ortberg as the company's new president and chief executive officer, effective August 8, 2024. Ortberg will also serve on...

investors.boeing.com

 

[Casey Pelous]

I don't know if it has made national news, but a couple of things are happening at Boeing -- neither very good.

1) The machinist's union, which means most of the Boeing workers here, is on strike and it is brutal. The company offered 30% raises over four years but did not reinstate the pension plan. Union leaders thought it was a done deal a month ago; the membership voted 94% (!) to reject that deal. Then the company went around union leadership to offer 40% over four years and was promptly told to pound sand. The company said in advance that it was their "best and final offer" -- a horrible negotiating ploy. The consensus is that Ortberg, the new CEO, who was supposed to offer a fresh approach, has reverted to the "bad old days" playbook instead. There's no end to this mess in sight now that both sides have so publicly dug in. The strike is estimated to have cost Boeing direct losses of 5 billion in the first month, with ongoing costs over one billion per month from disruptions to the supply chain (AirBus was quick to contract with a bunch of critical suppliers) and "customer operations." Customer operations is Boeingspeak for airplane sales.

Workers got their last paychecks last week, so they've started to feel the pressure even though unions around the country are sending lots of cash to them to sustain them through the strike.

I think, as much as anything, the workers are beyond pissed that they got thrown under the bus for safety issues they had been raising for years. There aren't many mysteries about why that door plug blew out of that Alaska plane except, apparently, in the C suite.

2) In completely unrelated news, Boeing just announced they'll be laying off 10% of the workforce -- 17,000 layoffs. They're also canceling the 767 freighter program and delaying the 777-8 freighter program. UPS and FedEx fly bunches of 767's and were anticipated to buy a bunch of 777's when they started making them.

Since the value of my house depends almost completely on the health of Boeing, "I guess I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue."

 

[Khamon]

IANAE(conomist) but have to agree with the workers in principle. Losing their pension plan is much more of a hit than minimal, or even no, near future raises. It is shocking to think that "Union leaders" put that out for a vote. I suppose the Union is paying the reps an inflationary raise, along with a pension plan, health care, and job security. But they could at least pretend to care.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Fire every exec who came over from Douglas and every exec hired by someone from Douglas.