Doors that pop out on an airplane and astronauts trapped in space: Boeing’s dark year

AGI – The major restructuring announced on Friday by Boeingwhich will lay off a staggering 17,000 workers, or 10% of its workforce. Five years ago the American aviation giant ended in the storm due to the crashes of the Lion Air 610 plane on October 29, 2018 and the Ethiopian Airlines 302 on March 10, 2019, which crashed due to faulty anti-stall software. A total of 346 people died and they were all on earth for 20 months 737 at most 8the model involved in both accidents. The developer paid $2.5 billion to settle the criminal investigation. Today her profile has only improved, after months marked by near misses on more than one aircraft and depending on the case two astronauts lost on the International Space Station due to spacecraft malfunction Starwhich started despite an already known vulnerability They will return home next February only thanks to the intervention of their archive LocationX.

2024 began with an episode that ended without victims but was very impressive. January 5th Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 door broke in flight, throwing passengers into panic, jutting out luggage and crashing into a teacher’s backyard in Portland, Oregon. There Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) established all 171 models with the same characteristics and warned that such an accident “should never have happened and cannot happen again”.

“Lots of Flaws”

Initial investigations showed that the tailgate was not the only part that was not installed securely enough. The focus went up Aero Spirit Systemsa department spun off in 2005, responsible for the construction of the fuselage and other parts of the aircraft. Legal documents filed in the shareholder lawsuit showed that internal audits revealed “too many defects” at the company’s Kansas plant and that an employee was told to cover up the defects. The FAA itself had to admit that it was time to reverse the controversial practice of leaving companies to self-certify the quality of their products.

The 737 Max 9s would fly again after three weeks but another federal agency, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The specialized newspapers began to publish anonymous employee disclosures according to which it was Boeing itself, and not Spirit AeroSystems, that had reassembled the door in that way the day before the trip- air On February 21, Ed Clark, the executive responsible for overseeing the 737 Max program, left the company.

The revelations of the “spies” (two of whom were found dead)

The following month came the ruthless decision from the FAA which, after a month and a half of investigations, denied “many cases where companies failed to comply with industry quality control requirements”, often due to cargo – work that did not adhere to the necessary security protocols. . The list of technical problems became, often the result of an approximate estimate, separated by the “spies” that were increasingly frequent. In planes that were being built, holes for installing screws were found that were not properly drilled. The NTSB, for its part, denied wrongdoing by Boeing, accusing it of refusing to share key information, such as the identity of the workers responsible for sending the offending part. in. The company replied that they were unable to find the necessary documents.

Meanwhile, the “deep necks” described a deficient safety culture and insufficient communication between departments. Then one or two of them died. The body of John Barnett, who apparently committed suicide by shooting himself, was found in his car on March 9. Two months later Joshua Dean would die from a sudden infection.

New near disasters and the Starliner issue

On March 25, the CEO said. Dave Calhounhe announced his resignation. His successor, Robert Ortbergthat he would only take office on August 8. And the problems, meanwhile, were far from over. April 4th an engine on a Southwest Airlines 737 in Lubbock, Texas, caught fire during takeoff. Four days later in Denver the engine cover of a 737-800 came off during take off. The “spy” revelations became a problem. Santiago Paredes, a former Spirit AeroSystems employee, spoke of “hundreds of defects” found in fuselages delivered to Boeing. The former subsidiary was absorbed into the group but another event would soon intervene to keep the symbolic problems of American industry on the front pages of newspapers: the Starliner spaceship, which was launched on June 5 with two astronauts on board despite a problem, not fully resolved, related to helium leaks, which would prevent the return of the device according to schedule.

So Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore will still be lost on the International Space Station until next Februarywhen they are brought back to Earth by a SpaceX capsule, a real joke because Boeing had invested everything in Starliner, which returned without a crew on September 7 last year, to be compete with him. Elon Musk in the role of NASA associate. So far, the group’s shares have lost 40% of their value since the start of the year. And it seems that the recent tug-of-war with the striking workers, followed by the announcement of the layoffs, is not the latest chapter of a structural crisis that is ending, for now. , still appearing far away.