The attack on Boeing
What is the reason behind the problems with Boeing aeroplanes? Is it bad quality? Design and engineering failures? Sabotage? Boeing needs to get its act together.
What breaks a company? There are many answers to that question. But when the company is Boeing, we have to think carefully. Boeing is one of the marquee American brands. The company is critical to the US Armed Forces as much as it is critical to the US domestic economy.
Boeing has been having a horrible 2024.
Just look at some of the incidents reported in just first half of 2024.
Jan 5, 2024: Alaska Air Boeing 737 Max 9 flight 1282 Part of the fuselage fell off midair; the ordeal was loud and terrifying.
Jan 21, 2024: Qatar Air Boeing 787 Dreamliner flight QR 161 Denmark-bound Qatar Airways Boeing 787 'Dreamliner' was involved in an alarming incident that saw the aircraft suddenly lose altitude shortly after takeoff.
March 7, 2024: United Airlines Boeing 777-200 flight 35 It lost one of the six tyres on its left-side main landing gear assembly seconds after takeoff.
March 11, 2024: Latam Air Boeing 787-9 flight LA800 Fifty people were injured on board a Boeing 787-9 flight from Sydney to Auckland after the plane suddenly "dropped" mid-air.
April 11, 2024: Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 flight 2786 Southwest Airlines flight plunged toward the ocean off the coast of a Hawaiian island, dropping at a rate of more than 4,000 feet per minute while only 600 feet above sea level.
May 21, 2024: Singapore Airlines Boeing 777-300ER flight SQ321 Flying from London to Singapore, it encountered what the airline described as sudden, extreme turbulence while flying over Myanmar.
June 19, 2024: Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 flight 4069 It descended to just 525 feet above ground as it approached Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City.
June 20, 2024: Malaysian Airlines Boeing 737-8 flight MH199 It was forced to return to India due to an issue with one of the aircraft’s engines while climbing after taking off.
June 22, 2024: Korea Air Boeing 737 Max 8 flight 189 The aircraft made a steep 25,000-foot descent — roughly 4.75 miles — over the course of around eight minutes, injuring roughly 17 of the flight's 125 passengers.
The Senate Committee Report
On March 19, 2024, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations opened an inquiry into Boeing’s quality and safety practices. The report is available here.
The report attributes the decline in Boeing to traditional factors:
Mismanagement of non-conforming parts: This refers to a lack of proper quality control in manufacturing. Allegations include scavenging discarded parts to meet deadlines, using out-of-spec parts, unauthorised parts sourcing, etc. FAA mandates strict procedures in dealing with non-conforming parts.
Removal of Quality Inspections: The report finds Boeing actively removing quality inspectors and FAA observers from the equation.
What are they not saying?
The elaborate reasons highlighted by the whistleblowers and documented by the subcommittee do account for the lost wheel, engine flames, and the lost fuselage parts but do not explain the rapid loss of altitude that has occurred in 6 out of the 9 cases listed above. When you give me a set of reasons that do not explain the aircraft's peculiar behaviour, I am not satisfied.
There is enough literature as to how poor quality management affects product performance. It is random and almost always manifests in trivial places before appearing in critical systems. Also if many aircraft are showing one particular behaviour then there must be a common cause.
Altimeter problems for Boeing are not new!
In fact, in 2009, the Turkish Airlines 737-800 suffered from a random radio-altimeter malfunction, resulting in a crash. The peculiar behaviour was also observed in other 737-800s. The system was upgraded, and the problem was rectified.
5G interference is also flagged as an issue
In 2022, the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) warned about 5G networks interfering with the radio-altimeter function (!!) Boeing made a presentation on the issue, discussing the risk mitigation measures.
If at all, this sounds like a more believable cause. Yet, if it were so it would have been highlighted quite early and rectified by now. There is something fishy here, and authorities and Boeing leadership are not sharing the details.