
Boeing whistleblower raises doubts over 787 oxygen system - osivertsson
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50293927
======
torgian
"""On the matter of parts being lost, in early 2017 a review by the Federal
Aviation Administration upheld Mr Barnett's concerns, establishing that the
location of at least 53 "non-conforming" parts was unknown, and that they were
considered lost. Boeing was ordered to take remedial action"""

That's not just bad; this is really, _really_ bad. In my eight years of the
Navy, working on aircraft, parts and tool accountability was 100% the most
serious part of our day. You went to and left the aircraft with everything
accounted for. If _one_ part or tool was missing, everything would shut down
for that aircraft until it was found.

The fact that tools and parts were/are missing tells me that either supply
didn't do its job right, or someone left a loose nut in a compartment
somewhere, just waiting to kill people.

People _die_ because of this shit.

~~~
iagovar
I would say, as european, that all this storm of shit is good news for Airbus,
but I hop on Boeing planes too, and I think competition is good news.

Boeing is maybe too big to fail, but the reputation hit they are taking may
lead to companies not buying their planes, thus pushing for least competition,
which is bad news for everyone.

Airbus being the kind of behemoth company it is, I am convinced that without
Boeing's competition, over time, they would end up with the same practices,
convinced that their aircraft sell themselves.

~~~
mopsi
Airbus is no better. Investigation report about an incident in 2018 was just
released:
[https://avherald.com/h?article=4b57c3dd/0000&opt=0](https://avherald.com/h?article=4b57c3dd/0000&opt=0)

What happened there: wrong kind of oil was used in elevator and it went
unnoticed because maintenance guides did not require any inspections of
affected parts. Wrong oil caused delays in sensor triggering, which led to
primary computers shutting down, believing that there was a problem with
elevator.

Backup computers didn't detect gear compression correctly when the aicraft
bounced on the runway (one computer believed it was on the ground, the other
that it was airborne) and also shut down and locked the elevator in neutral
(zero) position as a safety measure.

This happened during a touch-and-go landing on a training flight. The A320
touched down, bounced, elevator got locked, the aircraft climbed a bit, then
fell down on the runway scraping and damaging engines (due to loss of
control), then took off again (not enough runway left for stopping) and was
now flying with no elevator and with engines about to shut down. It's a
miracle that pilots managed to turn around and land safely.

In 1993, Lufthansa A320 crashed under similar conditions: landed in poor
conditions, computers didn't think it was on the ground and didn't allow
braking until it was too late
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lufthansa_Flight_2904](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lufthansa_Flight_2904)

~~~
the_mitsuhiko
> Airbus is no better.

Maybe, but the report you linked does not show that. The issue with Boeing is
not that a plane crashed but that planes crashed despite earlier reports that
people considered these planes unsafe. No such reports came out of Airbus
about the A320 as far as I'm aware. Also the regulators did not delegate
certification to Airbus.

~~~
mopsi
Airbus has similar long-standing issues. On ground / airborne detection logic
was broken in 1993 and is still broken in 2019, to a point that it can cause
loss of flight controls.

Boeing, in contrast, uses simple radar altimeter. Whenever altitude reads 10
feet or less, the aircraft is considered to be "on ground" and things like
thrust reversers become available.

I personally avoid praising or preferring Airbus when bashing Boeing. Who
knows what else is under that rock too.

~~~
CaptainZapp
_Airbus has similar long-standing issues. On ground / airborne detection logic
was broken in 1993 and is still broken in 2019, to a point that it can cause
loss of flight controls._

So you're claiming that Airbus knowingly leaves a critical defect in their
planes, which may cause the loss of flight controls and which they refreain
from fixing for almost 30 years?

Either come up with a reliable source for this statement (which is extremely
hard to believe) or allow me to call bullshit!

~~~
mopsi
> So you're claiming that Airbus knowingly leaves a critical defect in their
> planes, which may cause the loss of flight controls and which they refreain
> from fixing for almost 30 years?

A320's computers monitor gear for uncompression of 1 second or longer.
Computers are not in sync. If landing gear decompresses due to bouncing for
long enough to be seen for 1 second by one computer, but short enough to get
missed by the other, computers will produce different outputs and the system
will shut down, freezing important flight control at a dangerous phase of
flight and leaving pilots in a situation they have not been trained for.

Given the very obviously flawed and incredibly poor design that's easy to
understand even for laymen, I would have very hard time believing that no-one
at Airbus ever noticed, no-one ever spoke up. I think this would reflect even
more poorly on Airbus.

Especially so considering that there have been multiple hull-loss accidents
with fatalities (LH2904, TAM3054), where air/ground detection has been a
contributing factor. Throughout the years, the aircraft has been unable to
tell whether it's on the ground or in the air.

~~~
inferiorhuman
_Especially so considering that there have been multiple hull-loss accidents
with fatalities (LH2904, TAM3054), where air /ground detection has been a
contributing factor. Throughout the years, the aircraft has been unable to
tell whether it's on the ground or in the air. _

With the Lufthansa flight the problem was not the aircraft design but rather
that the pilot remained on only one main gear for too long. The Airbus design
requires weight on both wheels (this had nothing to do with computers being
out of sync) in order to prevent things like the Lauda Air (Boeing 767-300ER)
crash where the thrust reversers deployed in flight causing the plane to drop
out of the sky, killing everyone.

Same deal with the TAM flight. For whatever reason the pilots didn't properly
position the thrust lever on one engine. That had nothing to do with computers
being out of sync and had absolutely nothing to do with ground detection.

Meanwhile with the Boeing 737, a single (unreliable) radar altimeter (RA) is
used as part of the ground detection and a single failed RA caused a Westjet
737 to start pulling back on the throttles.

[http://avherald.com/h?article=41e84cb5](http://avherald.com/h?article=41e84cb5)

As far a the Turkish 737 crash:

[http://avherald.com/h?article=41595ec3](http://avherald.com/h?article=41595ec3)

 _During the accident flight, while executing the approach by means of the
instrument landing system with the right autopilot engaged, the left radio
altimeter system showed an incorrect height of -8 feet on the left primary
flight display. This incorrect value of -8 feet resulted in activation of the
‘retard flare’ mode of the autothrottle, whereby the thrust of both engines
was reduced to a minimal value (approach idle) in preparation for the last
phase of the landing._

...

 _The problems with radio altimeter systems in the Boeing 737-800 fleet had
been affecting several airlines, including Turkish Airlines, for many years
and were known to Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration of the United
States of America._

...

 _Despite the fact that Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration of the
United States of America had been aware for many years that the radio
altimeter system was causing many problems and was affecting the operation of
other systems, this situation was not designated as a safety risk. Reports of
problems with the radio altimeter system that could not be resolved by Boeing
justified an effort to analyse the radio altimeter system and other related
systems. Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States
of America could have recognised the fact that the problems caused by the
radio altimeter system, especially the potential for activating the
autothrottle retard flare mode, posed a safety risk._

That sounds a lot like the engineering that went into MCAS - using only one
input for something safety critical.

~~~
mopsi
In TAM and LH cases, pilots were locked out of using full braking capabilities
of the aircraft because they found themselves in a situation that didn't
satisfy the conditions defined as "landing" by aircraft designers. The had
wheels on the ground, but program logic evaluated to onground = FALSE.

Westjet and Turkish incidents are irrelevant. Westjet malfunctioned, pilot
took control and landed safely - that's what pilots are there for. Turkish
airplane also malfunctioned and gave multiple warnings over several minutes,
but pilots didn't pay attention to what the aircraft was doing until stall
warning activated at 460 feet, by which time it was too late. Had they paid
attention, they would've also recovered and landed safely.

In contrast, Airbuses systems didn't malfunction. They worked as designed and
made the already difficult situation (landing in bad weather) deadly due to
not responding like a pilot would expect. The design was deeply flawed, just
like MCAS.

~~~
inferiorhuman
_The had wheels on the ground, but program logic evaluated to onground =
FALSE._

Nope. The Lufthansa bird had one bogie on the ground and one off. With the TAM
flight the pilots left one thrust lever at climb power and one at idle, pure
pilot error.

 _The Westjet and Turkish incidents are irrelevant. Westjet malfunctioned,
pilot took control and landed safely - that 's what pilots are there for.
Turkish airplane also malfunctioned and gave multiple warnings over several
minutes, but pilots didn't pay attention to what the aircraft was doing until
stall warning activated at 460 feet, by which time it was too late. Had they
paid attention, they would've also recovered and landed safely. _

Unfortunately the 737s were functioning as designed, the computers took
invalid input and ran with it instead of cross checking it.

~~~
mopsi
> Nope. The Lufthansa bird had one bogie on the ground and one off.

Which is to be expected from a crosswind landing (especially with a lot of
lift from higher-than-usual speed), but it took 900 m of runway before enough
weight was detected on both of them to activate thrust reversers and spoilers.
And even after _all_ wheels were on the ground, it took another 300 m before
wheel brakes became active. The accident investigation report recommended
introduction of emergency override to cover the whole range of conditions in
which airplanes fly.

> With the TAM flight the pilots left one thrust lever at climb power and one
> at idle, pure pilot error.

The aircraft was firmly on the ground, with one thrust lever in reverse
position. Spoilers and auto-brake did not activate because position of the
other lever lever was prioritized over actual condition of the aircraft.
Critical data was derived from a thrust lever, which has no safety features to
prevent inadvertent wrong positioning. Furthermore, lever positioning
suppressed aural reminders to bring thrust levers to idle (the famous
"RETARD").

> Unfortunately the 737s were functioning as designed, the computers took
> invalid input and ran with it instead of cross checking it.

Which is irrelevant on the 737, because its design philosophy expects pilots
to monitor and (if necessary) override automation, which hundreds of attentive
crews successfully did before the Turkish crash. A320, on the other hand,
lacks emergency override, as the LH2904 investigators noted in their report.
It cannot reliably tell whether the aircraft is on the ground or not, and
stops pilots from taking the correct action.

------
usr1106
There is at least one big airline that denies to accept airliners built in
Charleston. Don't remember which. So quality problems are not invented by a
single disgruntled employee. There have been news articles before
[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-
dreamline...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamliner-
production-problems.html) says that Qatar Airways "stopped" accepting planes
fron Charleston. Not sure whether that means indefinitely or until the planes
in question are reworked.

In normal markets competition would make sure that a company like Boeing gets
enough pressure or eventually fails. Now they are too big to fail however they
misbehave. And there is little doubt that they do badly. The merger with
McDowell Douglas should never have been approved, even less the newest
acqusitation of Embraer. Case AT&T showed what to do if competition does no
longer work.

~~~
xiphias2
I would imagine that now that people hate Boeing management for risking their
life it's much easier for other airplane startups to raise VC money and be
succesful.

~~~
LadyCailin
I’m not sure I trust a startup to make life safety equipment either. Startups
by definition have to do whatever they can to cut costs and get as minimal of
a minimally viable product as they can, and often, that leads them to
releasing shitty versions of the product and patching it later. That’s fine
when it’s a mobile game, but when it’s airplanes that carry hundreds of people
across the ocean...

I’m not sure I have a solution here, other than saying something like “just
fix Boeing” but whatever company is making commercial airplanes, I want them
backed by governments and large corporations, not VC money.

~~~
xiphias2
The minimum viable product for a passenger plane startup is a newly FAA
certified one, which is already a higher quality standard than how Boeing 737
MAX plane was certified.

Also I bet that the EU certification won't be easy in the next 10 years.

At the same time the number of whistleblowers increasing is great for keeping
Boeing in check.

------
esel2k
Coming from another highly regulated industry: Medical Devices, I think it is
not uncommon that Bosses ignore processes and for the sake of numbers (cash &
career) would just override them. As long as they are protegee of any higher
up on the ladder people generally don’t care and as long no serious lawsuit
would put people into jail I am wondering if this is ever going to change.

Anyone has made other experiences?

~~~
missosoup
Yes.

Spent some years working on an a class 2b diagnostic device. Potential for
harm not that high, but the lack of rigour in testing leaves me wondering to
this day whether it worked at all as advertised.

If medical devices are ever open sourced, millions of critical bugs are going
to fall out.

~~~
Balgair
[http://www.opensourcediabetes.org/](http://www.opensourcediabetes.org/)

Already happening with Diabetics. I know a girl that has cracked her pump for
closed loop performance and she says the results are mostly better, but take
close monitoring and an active hand.

It's a tricky thing still. Yes, the devices are buggy (all things are), but
half of medical devices are used by people with below average intelligence (by
definition). It's still a balancing act and is likely to be for a long time.

~~~
ZeikJT
That website is in a rough state.

I tried to contact them regarding the fact that their url for jquery tools no
longer resolves and that their SSL certificate has expired. I filled out the
contact form and hit submit and then was presented with an empty results
screen (probably because the js is broken). Hopefully they fix it up, but
might not.

------
tolien
Previously covered by the NY Times [1], calling out rushed production and
parts left inside aircraft, including that Qatar Airways stopped accepting
aircraft from Charleston because of delays and required rework.

John Barnett, the whistleblower mentioned here, had complained to the FAA
about sharp metal slivers and had his complaint upheld on inspection by the
FAA.

1: [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-
dreamline...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamliner-
production-problems.html)

------
jakub_g
When the 2nd Boeing crashed and the whole Boeing saga started, I came across
this (boldly named and maybe a bit exaggerated in the form) website:

[https://www.thelastboeinginspector.com/the-last-
inspectors-c...](https://www.thelastboeinginspector.com/the-last-inspectors-
contact-me-and-about-me-page.html)

(the navigation is on top of the page, you need JS enabled to see it)

It seems there's a lot of people inside Boeing who can say "interesting"
things. The guy who created the above website was terminated _in 2006_.

------
acd
We need to optimize so that public health and the environment comes first.
Right now economic growth and quarterly earnings are prioritized top.

The current economic system demands that corporations should always grow. The
solution is to change to an economic system which minimizes global warming,
promotes public safety. In such a system this plane would not have been
designed how it was.

------
jMyles
Wow - more serious story than I first imagined.

> Mr Barnett, a former quality control engineer, worked for Boeing for 32
> years, until his retirement on health grounds in March 2017. From 2010 he
> was employed as a quality manager at Boeing's factory in North Charleston,
> South Carolina. This plant is one of two that are involved in building the
> 787 Dreamliner.

In terms of credibility lent by a career, you can't do much better in terms of
being positioned to blow this particular whistle.

> According to Mr Barnett, 57, the rush to get new aircraft off the production
> line meant that the assembly process was rushed and safety was compromised.
> The company denies this and insists that "safety, quality and integrity are
> at the core of Boeing's values".

Surely Boeing must realize how tone-deaf this sounds given the current
skepticism being (rightly) cast its way.

> Mr Barnett says his attempts to have the matter looked at further were
> stonewalled by Boeing managers. In 2017, he complained to the US regulator,
> the FAA, that no action had been taken to address the problem. The FAA,
> however, said it could not substantiate that claim, because Boeing had
> indicated it was working on the issue at the time.

I tend to lean libertarian on a lot of "regulatory" matters, but no matter
your normal view of things, I hope we can all agree that this is an
embarrassingly obvious fox guarding this particular hen-house.

> John Barnett says tests suggest up to a quarter of the oxygen systems could
> be faulty and might not work when needed. He also claimed faulty parts were
> deliberately fitted to planes on the production line at one Boeing factory.

Even if the bag does not inflate, breathe normally as oxygen is flowing. Or
not.

~~~
mikekchar
>> [...] The FAA, however, said it could not substantiate that claim, because
Boeing had indicated it was working on the issue at the time.

> [...] I hope we can all agree that this is an embarrassingly obvious fox
> guarding this particular hen-house.

I can imagine situations where I would not agree, to be honest. If a manager
says, "There is a bug in this system here" and I say, "I'm investigating that
problem and will get back to you", it would be a bit strange for the manager
to call a halt to my investigation so that they could start a new one. Usually
the manager would wait until my investigation is finished. If they were
_still_ not satisfied, then that's the time to intervene.

In the same way, I would not expect the FAA to intervene on an issue if the
manufacturer was already investigating it. They would wait until that
investigation was finished. Sure, put a deadline on it, but it's pretty
reasonable to say that you don't know where the issue stands because it's
currently under review.

~~~
torgian
In the meantime, people die, or have the potential to die.

There's nothing preventing the FAA from proceeding with its own investigation,
except for Boeing saying, "Nah, don't do that, we got our own thing going on
here... btw, how's your bank account? Get that 250k yet?"

~~~
kmlx
people always "have the potential to die" no matter what.

i'd wait for the FAA before jumping to any conclusions, as unfashionable as
this is in today's "speak first, think never" culture.

~~~
torgian
Then in this case, people have a higher potential to die while Boeing twiddles
its thumbs and bars the FAA from running its own, separate investigation.

------
jermaustin1
These people need to stop finding faults with the airplanes I fly on
regularly! /s

Its getting to the point that I'm actually nervous about flying Boeing now. I
took 6-8 flights on the 737-Max each year 2016-2019 and now I've taken 4
flights on the 787-Dreamliner since March.

I know that it is still statistically improbable that one of these flights to
have an issue, but it still raises my blood pressure since I fly predominantly
on Boeing aircraft.

------
Merrill
>On December 13, 2018, the 787th Boeing 787 was delivered to AerCap, the
largest 787 lessor. By then the 787 had flown 300 million passengers on 1.5
million flights and opened 210 new nonstop routes.

There have been 894 deliveries through September 2019. So far only one
incident involving the uncontained failure of a Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engine.
There have been no complete losses.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner#Accident...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner#Accidents_and_notable_incidents)

~~~
Cactus2018
>Rolls Royce Trent

Great 'final assembly' time-lapse video of the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2R6NTgvEV4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2R6NTgvEV4)

~~~
Merrill
Interesting. Thanks.

------
raverbashing
The upside to this complaint is that it should be "fairly easy" to test.
Though you probably need someone to obtain some systems from a plane currently
in operation.

But if the fault rate is 1/4 of the systems, you probably don't need many
samples.

------
xwvvvvwx
How can I tell when I’m booking a flight if that plane will be boeing? I would
like to avoid them (for the time being at least).

~~~
service_bus
Most airlines typically try to purchase their fleet all from the same
manufacturer if they can.

There's a lot of additional cost that goes into maintenance, pilot training,
pilot availability, etc. that has to be accounted for if you're mixing
aircraft from different manufacturers.

You can just look up the aircraft owned by an airline and it will give you a
pretty good idea what to expect.

You can also go on flight tracker sites and just look at what aircraft are
running the route currently, which would also be a good indicator.

~~~
ceejayoz
> Most airlines typically try to purchase their fleet all from the same
> manufacturer if they can.

Most of the big ones have a mix of Boeing and Airbus (plus smaller
Canadair/Embraer etc. ones for their regionals). Some of the budget airlines
are notable for having a single aircrat or single manufacturer fleet - Ryan
Air, Southwest, Jet Blue.

~~~
hansthehorse
I believe Southwest's entire fleet is 737 in various versions.

~~~
ceejayoz
Yes, they're one of the budget airlines I mentioned. There are some signs
they're regretting that now.

[https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-
aerospace/south...](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-
aerospace/southwest-a-stalwart-boeing-737-max-customer-eyes-other-jets/)

------
altacc
In the past, I've known people who refused to fly on McDonnell Douglas planes
as their record was so bad. I wonder if the same has started, or will start
happening, with Boeing.

~~~
rethab
Would you fly with a 787 now?

~~~
altacc
Yes, I would as I consider depressurisation an extreme event. I believe the
pilots have a separate oxygen supply, so a double failure is even more
unlikely.

~~~
mveety
But depending on the altitude you're at getting that mask on is wishful
thinking. Don't bet on your pilots being conscious after a plane depresses.

------
KoftaBob
The market would benefit massively from another entrant to the space,
eliminating this Boeing + Airbus duopoly.

If there's any entity that's proven they can tackle capital intensive
aerospace markets as a new player, it's SpaceX. I know they're waiting for
battery energy density to improve so that they can launch supersonic electric
jets, but regular jets that use jet fuel wouldn't be a horrible stopgap.

~~~
magduf
We already have several other players that have experience building aircraft:
Bombardier and Mitsubishi come to mind, and China has a manufacturer that's
keen on challenging the duopoly with their jet too.

Don't forget, building a jet isn't _that_ big a deal. Boeing doesn't even make
the 737MAX fuselage! It's built by a company called Spirit in Kansas. Boeing
doesn't make the engines either, of course (no aircraft manufacturer builds
engines, which are surely the most complex and technically challenging part of
the plane). Boeing does the engineering, the wings I suppose, and the final
assembly.

It seems like it shouldn't be _that_ hard for a smaller competitor to get a
capital infusion and scale up to building larger jets.

~~~
VVertigo
Bombardier has already tried: they ended up partnering with Airbus to market
the C-series (now A220).

------
trhway
>the sharp metal pieces — produced when fasteners were fitted into nuts

does it sound like too powerful (i.e. fast which translates to assembly speed)
tools are applied to too cheap (like in manufactured to loose tolerances from
cheap metal) fasteners and nuts?

------
AlexDragusin
If Boeing keep this up, I am wondering who's out there writing the book called
"Boeing: The giant stall"?

PS: Credit me for the title if ever! :)

------
spectramax
Just curious - what are the repercussions for an untruthful whistleblower? Say
someone is disgruntled, fired or laid off and wants to cause the company some
level of public harm?

~~~
jMyles
Certainly they can be held civilly liable if defamation can be proved. If
actual spite and malice can be shown, or if the suspect intends to profit from
the action, it's possible that there may be criminal laws that apply,
depending on the state.

~~~
londons_explore
Are there any studies or reports of typical repercussions faced by whistle
blowers for false reports?

I'd guess both false and true reports suffer approximately the same
repercussions...

~~~
Nasrudith
False whistleblowers can suffer less repurcussions if you include "made up out
of whole cloth" because it is impossible to ruin a career that they never had.
They tend to be easier to discredit at least in a "the Pizza restuarant
doesn't even have a basement it is built in swampland and would flood way too
easily" way.

------
BogdanPetre
I Am Jack's Complete Lack of Surprise

