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737 Door Plug and Atlas Shrugged

Posted by $ Abaco 9 months ago to Books
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So, we have a bright young engineering student working in our office as an intern. Real nice kid. We were talking literature the other day and I mentioned how much Atlas Shrugged impacted my life. So, he is listening to the audio version now and keeping me updated on where he is in the book, and how much he's enjoying it. He asked me today for current examples of major screwups like the examples from the book. Didn't take me long to respond.

The latest is this door plug flying out of the 737 fuselage. My first job out of college was at Boeing, as a structures engineer. I explained to my young colleague that, first, the engineering staff is tasked with producing a good design and at Boeing they've been doing worse and worse. Second, there is a federally regulated QC structure at Boeing to ensure the aircraft are built correctly. That failed. This isn't like the old British Comet scattering itself across the Atlantic. That was due to industry lack of knowledge on aluminum (Brits say "aluminium") and stress concentration factors. Now we all know better. This is just a matter of either basic stress analysis or untightened parts making their way into service with full occupancy of paying customers. No excuse. After I left Boeing I received regular updates from my fellow engineer there who, ironically, had worked his way into the marketing office. I remember when he sent me a note that when they were testing the Dreamliner on the famous wing bend test the fuselage above the wing started to buckle around 2 gs. Boeing had already started its transition from an engineer-lead company to one lead by bean counters. Now we have this. I also added that we’ve had some airline pilots increasingly making really dumb errors lately. Much of this is the result of poor government along with the cultural shift I mention toward bean counters. Today he got to the train explosion in the tunnel…

The other example that came to mind is the Pfizer executive admitting that they never really had any knowledge about the C19 vaccine’s effectiveness before they rolled it out to the public. The government and cultural issues on that are multi-layered. But, it’s an example of Atlas Shrugged-like problems….”You can be sure that when their sick little comforts are threatened, science is the first then men will abandon.”


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    Posted by $ splumb 9 months ago
    "I also added that we’ve had some airline pilots increasingly making really dumb errors lately. Much of this is the result of poor government along with the cultural shift I mention toward bean counters."

    It's also the result of hiring by diversity, rather than ability.
    We'll be seeing a lot more of this in future.
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    • Posted by tutor-turtle 9 months ago
      After the PlanDemic, many of us who were able to, went "On Strike".
      The predictable result was severe brain drain.
      The best and the brightest have left the building and are not coming back.
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      • Posted by $ Markus_Katabri 9 months ago
        Here’s to you fellow strikers! (Raises a tankard)
        THEY……the Mr Thompson type…..can suck balls.
        Had someone call out of the blue a few days ago asking me if I would design/build a control panel for a piece of automation. I declined. Saying I was “retired” they stammered a bit since they knew I’m only 53 but said thank you for considering and hung up. There are EXACTLY 3 people I will do something for if asked by them. Otherwise THEY can pound sand.
        They’ll get some young buck….who doesn’t yet understand that operators are the most unpredictable part of the equation and you need to account for their actions in your programming. When the operator messes up the order of operation…and they will…..the machine needs to recover gracefully from the fault subroutine. He’ll get it eventually BUT there’s just a wee bit of GDP lost because of the extra time required. And the trips to the site….yada yada. Death by a thousand cuts.
        In the mean time…..I’m building a Radio Controlled Tugboat with working fire monitor and crane to recover my nitro powered RC Airboat. A much more productive use of my time in my opinion.
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  • Posted by term2 9 months ago
    bean counter-itis is everywhere. The idea of saving costs is not evil in itself, BUT the bean counters are usually only concerned with $$, and they are either unaware of any other issues, or don't care about them. This is a big mistake, not only with airplanes, buy also any other products, and even services.
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  • Posted by Steven-Wells 9 months ago
    On January 28, 1986, I lingered at home to watch the Challenger take off on TV, but no stations were covering it. So, I drove to work (Eugene, Oregon) and found everyone watching a TV showing the big explosion.
    Having done some work with O-rings, I commented that it was frosty cold that morning in Florida, and it was probably an O-ring that was too cold and inflexible to seal properly. My thought from 3,000 miles away.
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  • Posted by $ Markus_Katabri 9 months ago
    Coming soon to a cockpit near you. Ironically my family is taking a trip out west this summer. We’ve opted to take the train. We are mostly all self employed so the extra time it may take is no consequence. Hopefully we pass through tunnels without any drama.
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    • Posted by mccannon01 9 months ago
      My wife and I have traveled long distances by train often enough. Mostly it's been a good experience. Long distances (i.e. Western NY to Az or Fla) we get the sleeping car accommodations, but shorter (i.e. western NY to Boston) we get business class. Prices have gone up a lot since C-19, it seems, so book early and check out several different days of departure and return to get the best price (1 day change can make a huge difference in price). Chances are the longer you wait the more it costs and the less likely you'll get the accommodations you want, unless you want coach.
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    • Posted by VetteGuy 9 months ago
      LOL on your "tunnel" comment! We are also planning an out west adventure (from Alabama to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon). We take the car, after discovering many years ago that I was mistakenly placed on a "watch list" and then finding out how many hoops I would have to go thru to get the mistake corrected.

      The internet is full of resources to find interesting places to stop along the way. Fortunately I am now retired so I can take as long as I like. But even when I was still working, I had sufficient vacation that I managed to take two 2-week trips from Alabama to San Diego in one year to attend business conferences. We took two different routes (actually four counting out and back) so we got to see a lot of America in between.
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      • Posted by mccannon01 9 months ago
        "...after discovering many years ago that I was mistakenly placed on a "watch list" and then finding out how many hoops I would have to go thru to get the mistake corrected. " That's awful. The government stabs an innocent citizen in the back and hopes he will bleed out (of time and treasure) before the government is forced to admit the error and clean up the mess. Very sorry to hear that. You can still travel by train without the T-S-A giving you a prostate exam - so far.
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  • Posted by diessos 9 months ago
    Boeing's Dreamliner spacecraft has had problem after problem too.
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    • Posted by $ 9 months ago
      It's been a mess. Worse yet...In this newer 737 Boeing had decided to not have redundant angle-of-attack sensors. That resulted in substantial loss of life as the poorly-trained foreign crews failed to interpret the autopilot malfunction and hand fly the aircraft.
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      • Posted by Aeronca 9 months ago
        Another crucial error in that was that they opted not to tell the pilots about that issue, and failed to tell them even where to find the off switch in the manual. Boeing and the FAA colluded to save the product at the expense of human lives, and possibly even worse, human trust. Maybe even kill all of aviation.
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