Boeing 737 MAX 9, which suffered a door fall accident immediately after takeoff, is accused of sloppy quality assurance in outsourced parts manufacturing

by airbus777

An accident occurred in which part of the wall of the large Boeing 737 MAX 9 was blown off immediately after takeoff, and the US Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing are investigating the cause. The cause of this Boeing 737 MAX 9 accident is said to be because Boeing outsourced parts production to reduce costs, but its quality assurance was sloppy.

Boeing Whistleblower: Production Line Has 'Enormous Volume Of Defects' Bolts On MAX 9 Weren't Installed - View from the Wing
https://viewfromthewing.com/boeing-whistleblower-production-line-has-enormous-volume-of-defects-bolts-on-max-9-werent-installed/

At United and Alaska airlines, frustration with Boeing's manufacturing problems is boiling over | AP News
https://apnews.com/article/united-airlines-ceo-boeing-manufacturing-problems-4090ea6176ef59e382dd18e9522596bc

On January 6, 2024, at 17:07 local time, Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 bound for Ontario, California took off from Portland, Oregon. Immediately after takeoff, an accident occurred in which the entire rear wall panel on the left side of the aircraft was blown off. All passengers were safe, but in response to the accident, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered all Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft owned by US airlines and operating in US airspace to be temporarily grounded until an inspection can be carried out. Ta.

Federal Aviation Administration orders suspension of Boeing 737 MAX 9, impact of Alaska Airlines wall panel peeling accident - GIGAZINE

Most of the Boeing 737 MAX 9s manufactured are owned by Alaska Airlines and United Airlines. Of these, United Airlines reported , ``When we conducted a preliminary inspection starting January 6, we found that some bolts needed to be tightened more firmly.'' United Airlines and Alaska Airlines have blamed Boeing for the grounding of more than 140 planes, and United CEO Scott Kirby has said the company will 'consider purchasing alternatives for the Boeing 737 MAX in the future.'

Boeing CEO David Calhoun said at a safety meeting held on January 9th, ``The first thing we will do is acknowledge our mistake and take action.'' The company admits that it was a mistake on its part that blew up.

On a forum on Leeham News, a site that deals with news related to the airline industry, a user claiming to be a current Boeing employee said, ``Boeing 737 MAX 9 has had many problems on the outsourced aircraft parts production line, and quality control has failed. It is not functioning adequately.''

..unvetted (every other synonym for that as well,) commenter here: https://t.co/R3KdqDHION

And now I'm seeing a couple other usually credible, usually careful folks positing the same idea.

As always-- more so than usual-- no idea myself.

— ???????? JonNYC ???????? (@xJonNYC) January 22, 2024

Much of the parts production for the Boeing 737 MAX 9 is outsourced to keep costs down. A major supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, was originally part of Boeing, but was spun off and sold to a private equity firm in 2005.

The parts for the Boeing 737 MAX9 in question are also produced by Spirit Aerosystems, and warranty work is performed together with Boeing. However, according to the whistleblower mentioned above, this warranty work was extremely sloppy, and at the quality verification site, a rivet mistake on the Boeing 737 MAX9 that was being checked was corrected by 'painting over it.' It was reported that there were no problems, and Boeing's quality assurance team also approved it. The whistleblower suggested that a focus on cost over safety may have been a contributing factor to the accident.

Similar points were made when the previous generation Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashed twice in five months .

Whistleblowing that the cause of the Boeing 737 MAX crash was a company culture that prioritized delivery times and costs over improving safety - GIGAZINE

In addition, Kayak, a major online travel agency, seems to have introduced a filter to add and exclude specific models of planes when booking airline tickets, but after the Alaska Airlines incident, the usage rate of the filter has decreased to about 15%. doubled. As a result, the search page has reportedly been redesigned to emphasize filters that can distinguish between the Boeing 737 MAX 8 and 737 MAX 9 in search results.