United Airlines has found loose bolts and other parts on 737 Max 9 plug doors as it inspects its fleet of Boeing jets following the Friday rapid depressurization aboard an Alaska Airlines jet of the same make, according to three people familiar with the findings.
The discrepant bolts and other parts on the plug doors have been found on at least five aircraft, one of the people told The Air Current.
A Boeing representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration declined to comment on the United findings, and pointed to the agency’s earlier statements.
United confirmed the findings in a statement, saying, “Since we began preliminary inspections on Saturday, we have found instances that appear to relate to installation issues in the door plug – for example, bolts that needed additional tightening. These findings will be remedied by our Tech Ops team to safely return the aircraft to service.”
Planes nosediving because they incorrectly think they’re stalling, bolts randomly falling out of critical hardware… sounds like I’m not flying Boeing anytime soon.
I’ve heard Europe has more stringent quality standards. Wonder if Airbus is held to a higher standard.
I’ve always had the impression that airbus is much less in the news, which is probably a good sign.
Plus generally bean counter MBAs don’t have quite the authority over engineers as they do in America.
From my experience as a mechanical engineer, the quickest way to ruin a product, brand, and eventually company is to get those MBAs and finance-types in charge over the engineers.
In theory Transport Canada has one of, if not the strictest standard in the world but they automatically approve anything approved by the FAA and the FAA’s approval process is getting messy…