AvTalk Episode 250: Alaska Airlines flight 1282

AVT 250 Transcript
EPISODE 250
[EPISODE]
[0:00:08] IP: Hello and welcome to episode 250 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, joined as always
with –
[0:00:17] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. We alluded to the fact that there might be something special
happening for episode 250, and this is not what we had in mind.
[0:00:26] IP: This is not what we had in mind. But we do have a special guest joining us for this
episode. Joining us for the entire episode, because there is so much to cover this week, is
Steve Giordano, who is the owner of Nomadic Aviation Group. Steve, thank you so much for
joining us. Really appreciate you taking the time out of what is, I can only imagine, an incredibly
busy day already, to help us walk through what's happened over the past week.
[0:00:53] SG: Absolutely, guys. It's really good to be back with you, and I've missed you, quite
frankly.
[0:00:57] JR: Yeah, welcome back. It’s been too long.
[0:00:59] SG: You guys are my favorites. As you know, I'm a big fan of the pod, and as is my
son who's just about to get his private pilot license. Shout out to Tyler, who goes for his check
ride next week.
[0:01:08] JR: All right, well we need to quiet down. We're going to have to get him on the
podcast, I think. No way around that.
[0:01:13] SG: For sure. I'm sure he'd be willing. He'd be willing.
[0:01:16] IP: What's it like to have a well-known pilot dad and then go get your pilot's license?
That's my first question for him. No pressure.
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AVT 250 Transcript
[0:01:24] SG: Well, I could tell you, his flight instructor is sure happy about it, because I've
gotten to take him on a trip, and his flight instructor, actually, we qualified him as an SIC on the
320 while he waits for his class date at an airline. We've gotten him some experience. He flew
with me to Jakarta. I mean, he hit the jackpot with students.
[0:01:42] JR: No idea what he was signing up for.
[0:01:46] SG: We got him to ride a camel.
[0:01:50] IP: Only you. Only you.
[0:01:51] SG: Yes. Indeed.
[0:01:53] IP: We bring you on today, because of your wealth of experience, not only in aviation
generally, but with the 737 specifically. I mean, we could spend an entire episode just listing the
aircraft that you type rated on, let alone, have flown on and been somehow related to. What
we're talking about today is the Alaska Airlines flight 1282, which on the 5th of January was
climbing out of Portland, Oregon for Ontario, California, and a few minutes into the flight, the
mid-cabin exit door plug departed the aircraft in an explosive manner.
What we're going to do with today's episode is walk through exactly what happened on the
flight. Steve's going to help us walk through some of the pilot specific actions and what the crew
would be dealing with in a normal flight and in this accident flight. Then we'll talk about what the
response from the airlines that operate this aircraft have been from the FAA, from Boeing, and
we'll get into a little bit of the public discussion, because I think that's worth having as well.
Here's what happened on the evening of the 5th of January. I'm going to use the local time
zones. If you're looking at the ADS-B data and following along, which is all posted in the show
notes already, the UTC time is 0106 was takeoff, and that corresponds to 1706 local time. I'm
going to use the local times, because that's what the NTSB used, and so that's how I copied
them down. At 1706, the aircraft departed the runway, climbing through 14,830 feet at 1712 and
33 seconds. The pressure on the aircraft dropped from 14 PSI to a little over 11 PSI. The cabin
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altitude warning over 10,000 feet activated. I'm going to stop there. Steve, can you explain what
would the pilots be alerted to? How does that warning work?
[0:03:56] SG: First and foremost, regardless of what the airplane said at the moment of a rapid
decompression, and that's what it is, it's an explosive decompression, a rapid decompression.
Anything that the airplane is telling you is borderline irrelevant for a few seconds, because it
gets your attention physiologically. I could say that the closest thing to this that I've personally
ever experienced was in a 767, climbing out of about 18,000 feet. I had an avionics vent fail
open. It remained in a ground cooling mode and it failed open. It took about probably eight to 10
seconds for the aircraft to fully depressurize. That was violent.
An explosive decompression where instantaneously, the pressure on outside of the aircraft and
inside of the aircraft equalized is something that you don't need a light, or a warning horn to
know happened.
[0:04:49] IP: Fair enough. Yeah.
[0:04:50] SG: I mean, simultaneously, your ears are going to pop in a painful manner. You're
going to hear a boom, a loud explosion-like sound. It actually sucks the air out of your lungs.
Now, if they had been a lot higher, it would violently suck the air out of your lungs. Where they
are, it would be enough to involuntarily exhale rapidly. There was no question. I'm sure that
something was wrong instantaneously the moment –
[0:05:18] IP: Later, no light, they know what's happening.
[0:05:20] SG: They know what's happening.
[0:05:21] JR: We know from the NTSB and they're quite thorough. Press conferences after the
fact that everyone knew what was going on, obviously. It was quite extremely dramatic, I would
say, onboard the aircraft.
[0:05:31] SG: Absolutely.
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[0:05:32] JR: Things like, for one, the cockpit door flew open and jammed into the lavatory door.
One of the flight attendants had to unjam it, because they didn't know if someone was in there
at the time. The cockpit door literally flew open. I want to come back to that later. The headset of
the first officer, I believe, flew off of her head. It was strong enough to literally suck the headset
off of her head. I believe, the NTSB also said, one of their quick reference placards that is in the
console, I guess, the console between the two pilots was sucked clean out. That went
somewhere else, so they had to use the quick reference handbook. Yeah, like you said, they
didn't need a light, or a bell to know this was going on, because things were extremely dramatic
on the flight deck.
[0:06:13] SG: Absolutely. I mean, think about all those air molecules packed in tight, being
pressurized. We can talk about how the pressurization system actually works. I think that would
be helpful.
[0:06:23] IP: Absolutely.
[0:06:23] SG: Think about all those air molecules immediately rushing out of that massive
gaping hole, instantaneously. I mean, in a matter of less than a second, I'm sure. I mean, yes,
as those air molecules moved, as that air rushed overboard instantaneously, everything in its
path, which is everything in the cabin went with it that wasn't strapped down. Think about a soda
bottle, a two-liter bottle. I talked about this on Twitter, shake it up. You have a nice pressure
differential there. Slowly undo the cap, the air slowly escapes, the liquid stays in, right?
Take a sword and you hack off the cap with that and half the liquid immediately departs the soda
bottle, right? It's the speed at which the pressures equalize. Should we talk a little bit about how
the pressurization system works?
[0:07:11] IP: Yeah, let's walk through that. Let's walk through how it works. Then because the
NTSB has talked about the three previous pressurization system warning lights that have gone
off, that went off on December 7th, January 3rd and January 4th, and noted that those are
independent systems, I would love to discuss that and we can talk about what the NTSB has
said about that so far. Let's talk about what the pressurization system is and how it works.
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[0:07:37] SG: Okay, so first and foremost, let me start with the most basic for those that aren't
completely up to speed. Type agnostic, any pressurized airliner has the same basic form and
function, okay. You have a source of conditioned air, which is the air that you're breathing,
which comes from on almost all aircraft, comes from bleed air from the engines, all turbine
aircraft with the exception of the 787 derive air-conditioned air from the compressor section of
the engines. That high pressure air is bled off of the engines into an air cycle machine of sort.
That air cycle machine works just like any other HVAC unit, really. It takes high pressure air, it
cools it, and then it expands it so it's cooler than it was prior to when it was pressurized, right, in
the most simple form.
The ACMs, the air cycle machines, or the packs, as you hear people call them, are producing
fresh, breathable, climate-controlled air. I say, climate controlled, if you're on the ground, it can
produce cooler, warmer or cooler air. In the air, it's always producing warmer air than the outside
air. Obviously, it's negative 50, negative 60 degrees up at cruise. But it mixes hot and cold fresh
air, as well as recirculated air from the cabin and pumps it into the cabin. That air is continuously
being pumped into the cabin and metered through what's called an outflow valve.
I say type agnostic, all aircraft have an outflow valve. Type to type they differ. But for the most
part, most commercial aircraft that you'll find these days have a single outflow valve located in
the rear of the aircraft, on the fuselage. It's usually a big open door about the size of a toilet seat
on the back part of the fuselage of the aircraft, usually on the left side. That outflow valve is
modulated and actuated by cabin pressurization controllers, which historically were mechanical,
but these days, they're electronic. They're an electrical, computerized controller that actuates
that valve open and closed.
What happens is that when a pilot programs the FMCs, or the CDUs, or the MCDU in the
aircraft for the route of flight, they're going to put in a cruising altitude and that information is fed
through the network on the aircraft, to the cabin pressurization controllers, and it knows what
valve positions to actuate and what cabin altitude to maintain once that cruising altitude is
reached. It does so in the smoothest, most consistent manner possible as to not start pressure
spikes, so that ear comfort, and so on and so forth, right?
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It does the same on the descent, because it takes into consideration the landing elevation of the
airport that you're flying to, or the landing elevation in the case of the 737 that you input into the
landing altitude window on the cabin pressurization controller interface. That system, essentially,
is as simple as that. It’s air is pumped into the aircraft and there's an orifice, a hole in the back of
the airplane with a valve over it that actuates open and closed to maintain a specific level of
pressure in the cabin.
The way that we refer to the cabin pressure, PSI is irrelevant to pilots. We refer to it as cabin
altitude. That would be the ambient pressure of associated with an altitude that is easy to
visualize, right? For example, at flight level 410, 41,000 feet, which is the service ceiling of the
737 MAX, the cabin pressurization controller reaches its maximum differential pressure of 8,000
feet cabin altitude. Okay, so 8,000 feet cabin altitude would be the same pressure as standing in
Bogota, Colombia, right? Bogota, Colombia sits at 8,000 feet above sea level. A fully
pressurized 737 at 41,000 feet has the same air density inside as the ground in Bogota,
Colombia, if that's how you want to visualize it.
The way that it works in general is that the aircraft will maintain as low a pressure as possible,
as long as possible, until which time it initiates a cabin climb somewhere at 500 feet per minute
or less, which is most comfortable for human beings for our ears. Climbing through 14, 15,000
feet, the cabin would still be at sea level, especially considering it departed from Portland, which
is essentially, at sea level. As the aircraft breaks ground, that outflow valve starts closing, and as
the aircraft climbs into lower pressure air, the outflow valve slowly is guided to the closed
position by the cabin pressurization controller, and the pressure differential increases. As the
cabin pressure differential increases, it'll hold sea level as long as it can.
Then once it gets through a certain altitude, somewhere in the flight levels of 20,000 or higher,
you'll start seeing that cabin pressure start climbing at 200, 300, 400 feet per minute, until which
time, it reaches the cabin altitude that would correspond to the flight level that the aircraft will be
cruising at. Are you all with me?
[0:12:43] JR: Yeah. I think you answered this on a previous interview with Fox, I think it was. It
was a very good, long interview. What would have happened had the aircraft been at cruise?
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Like you said, the MAX can climb all the way up to, I think, 41,000 feet. Would this be a different
story? I think we all know what the answer is, but I want to hear you say it.
[0:13:01] SG: Yeah, yeah. I mean, yes, for multiple reasons. For one, because a MAX cabin
differential is a much larger amount of pressure differential to equalize. The force of the air
leaving the aircraft would be much stronger. Meaning, that it would take more things with it on its
way out the door. That in itself would create a much, much more dire situation. Also, as you
know, at a certain point in time, the seatbelt sign goes off. Even if the seatbelt sign is not off,
people take their seatbelts off and they get up, and they go to the lab, or they fiddle with their
overhead bag, or they reach a matchbox car under the seat in front of them, or whatever,
whatever.
Once you're pretty much through high 20s, people are moving around and the flight attendants
are moving around. The combination of a rapid depressurization, rapid decompression with a
higher-pressure differential and people walking around and loose items and bags and so forth,
that would have been absolutely disastrous. Not to mention, it would stress the airframe
extremely. Who knows? Who knows what would have happened?
[0:14:09] JR: Yeah. We already know that even though everyone was seated and presumably
buckled in at that point, things were sucked out of that aircraft. They found several cellphones
on the ground in Portland. Some of them still completely functional and turned on. Just like the
door plug that they found completely fine. That the pressure even at 14,000, 16,000 feet was
tremendous enough to literally rip the cord, clean off an iPhone. Not unplug it. The cords ripped
off the iPhone.
[0:14:37] SG: It's instantaneous. Yeah.
[0:14:38] JR: It was instantaneous and dramatic. Thankfully, I don't think we mentioned this,
there just happened to be on an almost 100% full aircraft, no passenger seated in the window,
or middle seat next to that, which is just outrageously lucky.
[0:14:53] SG: Yeah. Let me also mention that people can breathe quite comfortably at 16,000
feet, or 15,000 feet. I mean, it's not ideal. You'll be lightheaded, but you'll remain conscious at
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16,000 feet. At 41,000 feet, your useful consciousness is seconds, like two or three seconds.
Not only would it be a violent explosive decompression that sucked the wind out of you,
disoriented you, caused pain from your eardrums popping. Not only would that have all
happened instantaneously, but top it off with, you may not be conscious long enough to put an
oxygen mask on, especially people that are in not as good health, right?
[0:15:31] JR: Those don't even run all that long. I think maybe they have a runtime of maybe 10
minutes, which is roughly as long as it would take to get down to an altitude where you don't
need them. Why don't you walk us through the difference between what the crew has available
to them in the flight deck and what the passengers are? Because I don't think most people know
that there isn't some unlimited supply of oxygen. It’s actually a little chemical reaction in a bottle
that gives you oxygen.
[0:15:54] SG: Correct.
[0:15:55] JR: What are those things?
[0:15:56] SG: Yeah. In most aircraft, and again, like the outliers, the 787, it has some different
systems in it. It doesn't have the same type of oxygen generation system as other aircraft. But
the 737 MAX and pretty much all other aircraft have oxygen generators located in the PSUs, the
passenger service units that are above the seats. It's just like you said, it's a chemical reaction
that takes place in a little cylinder that generates oxygen at a 100% concentration, but at a very
low flow rate.
What happens is it produces supplemental oxygen. You put that little orange daffodil over your
nose and mouth. As you breathe, it takes the ambient air around you and mixes it with the low
pressure. I mean, when I say low pressure, I mean, very, very, very low pressure, 100% oxygen
that is coming through the oxygen generators into the little bags that hang. It's enough to keep
you alive and to keep you conscious. It works. You don't have to worry. With an oxygen
generator, you don't have to constantly have maintenance, look at the levels of every oxygen
bottle all the time. It's a lot lighter and so forth.
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It's a chemical reaction that provides a low flow of oxygen to passengers for a long enough time
for the crew to initiate an emergency descent. That's what's above every passenger. Also, of
note, oxygen generators heat up a lot during that chemical reaction. Those little cylinders that
are up in the PSU after the – what we call the rubber jungle comes down, that generator actually
heats up to a very high temperature chemically through the process of generating oxygen.
Also, they don't kick on the moment they drop either. You have to pull the tube a little bit to start
the flow, as they say. In the cockpit, it's completely different. Why? Because the pilots need to
be conscious and not only conscious, but operating at a high level at all times throughout the
process of an emergency descent. What we have is we actually have a crew oxygen bottle, or
multiple bottles in some cases in various Airbus aircraft and other aircraft. That provides on-
demand pressure, or continuous pressure, oxygen under pressure to the pilots.
When you put on the crew oxygen mask and you breathe in and you inhale, you can feel that
that air is being pushed into your lungs at high pressure from that bottle. The crew oxygen
masks also have an air – I don't know the term for it off the top of my head, but the harness that
goes over the pilot's head are these cloth covered rubber tubes that form a web, almost a spider
web on the back.
[0:18:37] JR: They contract, right?
[0:18:39] SG: Yeah. There's two little red handles on the front of the mask. You squeeze them
together and it pushes high pressure oxygen into that web of tubes and it expands them. The
hole is big. Then you put it over your head and you let go of the two handles and then the thing
sucks to your face like an octopus.
[0:18:58] JR: It's not just providing you oxygen. It's also a full-facemask. You're looking out
through this thing, I guess, in case there's smoke, or fire onboard, you want to keep that out of
your eyes. This is a very different thing than what the passengers have, right?
[0:19:11] SG: Absolutely. Yeah. Some aircraft are equipped with oxygen masks that also have
built-in smoke goggles. It's like you say, kind of like a scuba type looking mask. Others have
smoke goggles that are separate. Regardless, the most important thing is pressurized oxygen,
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pressurized air being fed to the pilots at all times. There's a high flow mode and a lower flow
mode.
It's not just for a depressurization event as well. Keep in mind, it's also for a smoke in the
cockpit type situation. Pilots are going to put that mask on anytime. There's either smoke,
fumes, or a pressurization issue.
[0:19:46] IP: The one interesting thing that I learned, I think just last week from – he's on Twitter
as @MiamiRick, but he was talking about how when there's a single pilot on the flight deck, they
put the oxygen mask on. He flies cargo and they, during the controlled rest periods, during they
leave one pilot on the flight deck and they don the oxygen mask, while the other guy's making
coffee, or going to the bathroom.
[0:20:11] SG: Yeah. This is something that has changed a bit since I left the airlines. When I
was at the airlines, that was – I don't know if it was a regulation, or if it was a company policy,
but I'm pretty sure it was a regulation. One time that if one crew member leaves the cockpit
above certain altitudes, the other crew member has to don the mask and be wearing the mask
at all times. I do believe that has changed. It may be now just a company policy, whether they
do or don't. I know for a fact that not all airlines require this anymore at different altitudes. It's
good practice, and it is something that we do, obviously, because of the nature of what we do.
I mean, if we have a guy in the back, he might be back there preparing his own food for five
minutes, you just don't have time to deal with it. We do put on a mask above 36,000 feet when
pilots are alone in the cockpit. It's a good practice. I don't know that it's a 100% mandated
across the board now. I don't believe it is. Yeah. The reason for that is time of useful
consciousness. In a rapid depressurization event, you have at 41,000 feet, you have two or
three seconds before you're out, before you have a pain Stewart situation. It's very important
that that mask is accessible, operational, and on the faces of the pilots within a matter of
moments.
[0:21:34] JR: What are you doing? Let's hope this never happens to you. If you were flying this
aircraft, what are you doing instinctively? Because as we know, the quick reference manual, or
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whatever it was, NTSB didn't, I think, specify, that was gone. They had to reference something
else that's in a book on page 16, or something. What are you instinctively doing in this situation?
[0:21:54] SG: This is a great case study for why there are memory items, right? This is
something that is industry-wide, aviation-wide. You obviously have a QRH, which stands for a
quick reference handbook, right? That's going to provide troubleshooting steps for pretty much
any situation you could find yourself in, as far as failures and inoperative equipment, and so
forth. You also on, well, not on the 737, but on most aircraft, you have an ICAS, or an ECAM,
which also provides, essentially, steps electronically on the screens actively that react to switch
position, and so forth.
Memory items exist for this reason, because there are things that have to get done
instantaneously as a natural reaction for the pilots. There are memory items for the most urgent
emergencies. Depressurization is one that it doesn't matter what kind of airplane you're flying,
you have memory items. From plane to plane to plane, from Boeing to Airbus to whatever, the
memory items that have to do with rapid depressurization is always oxygen masks and
regulators 100% right away all the time. I've never been in an airplane where that wasn't
memory item number one for a rapid depressurization, or a cabin warning, a cabin altitude
warning.
A cabin altitude warning would be a slow depressurization, but a light comes on once the cabin
reaches over 10,000 feet. Instinctively, all pilots will reach for the oxygen mask, pull it out, put it
over their head, put it on, and then flip a switch, so that the microphone inside that mask is
active and now the pilots can communicate with each other through the microphone. Obviously,
you can't talk with a mask on and have it be intelligible. There is also a microphone inside of the
oxygen mask and a switch to actuate it.
The memory items are oxygen masks on 100% and established crew communications is always
the second item. That means, crews talking to each other. What's the most important thing that
the flying pilot and the non-flying pilot, or flying pilot, or pilot monitoring as they call it nowadays
are communicating with each other to diagnose any problems and rectify any problems and
start working through the QRH. Oxygen masks on a 100%. Establish crew communications.
That's, things diverge per aircraft after that. Some aircraft will have you switch into a manual
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outflow valve mode, where you close the outflow valve to try to maintain some pressurization.
That wouldn't have worked in this situation, right? The two –
[0:24:23] IP: Not even a little bit. No.
[0:24:24] SG: Not even a little bit. No.
[0:24:26] JR: Well, give it enough duct tape, you can make anything work.
[0:24:28] SG: Yeah, exactly. As soon as that goes on, it doesn't matter if what you're doing, you
see the light, you feel the depressurization. The first thing you do is you put on the oxygen
mask, you start talking to each other, and you ensure that you can communicate with each other
and with ATC. That's step one. That happens by memory.
The next thing is to determine whether you need to descend or not. All pilots know, have a
situational awareness of where they are in the phase of flight. Whether you're in the climb,
whether you're in cruise, whether you're cruising up high, whether you're cruising down low,
pilots know the situation that they're in as far as phase of flight. If you're up at cruise, or you're
up at a high altitude, the priority is to get to a lower altitude. Because remember, the masks in
the back of the airplane are not that effective.
I mean, they will keep people alive and keep them conscious long enough to get down to an
altitude where people can breathe on their own, but not well. Not everyone's going to get the
mask on before they pass out, to be honest. It's very important. It's absolutely critical to
descend. Of course, as a pilot, you have other things to consider as well. I mean, if you're just
going to start descending in domestic airspace, you better hope there's nobody underneath you,
right?
A lot of times, obviously, you have to be immediately in touch with ATC and requesting a lower
flight level. Then you go into an emergency descent procedure, which generally means putting
the aircraft in a bank. If you're on one of the track systems or on an airway, you turn off of the
airway, so that you don't have traffic right under you. Then you bring out the speed brakes and
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you initiate a descent down to your minimum enroute altitude, your MEA. I'm sorry about the
dog, by the way.
[0:26:09] JR: The dog just agrees with you.
[0:26:10] SG: She does. She does.
[0:26:12] JR: This is exactly what we saw happen. Listening to the air traffic control audio, the
flight crew did not descend without permission. They quite quickly, by the sound of how hectic
things were they called. I think it was maybe Seattle Center, or Portland.
[0:26:25] IP: Seattle Center. Yeah.
[0:26:26] JR: Seattle Center or Portland approach at that time, because it happened very early,
but they asked to descend down to 10,000 feet. It took, I think, a couple asks to get permission
to do that, but they didn't descend before they got permission. Then they took things under their
own control and made that left turn back to PDX. It seems like they were a step ahead of air
traffic control at every time. Yeah, they didn't descend until air traffic control told them to,
because you don't know what's underneath you.
[0:26:50] SG: That's correct. I mean, you do. I mean, you have TCAS, right? If TCAS is
functioning, you generally have a picture of what's around you, at least in the immediate vicinity.
If you're in a conflicted flight path with another aircraft, it'll give you a resolution advisory and the
other aircraft. I mean, it's not completely in the blind. But it's certainly, RVSM, especially at
cruise, RVSM, you're talking about a 1,000 feet of vertical separation. How long does it take to
descend a 1,000 feet in an emergency descent? It takes a matter of seconds. It's definitely
important to make sure that you're in the clear before you start descending.
Again, based on the fact that the aircraft was at such a low altitude, it wasn't as critical to
descend as quickly. Putting myself in their shoes, first of all, we're all human beings. It takes a
second to try to figure out and understand what's happening. Your ears popped, there's a loud
bang, stuff flies everywhere. The cockpit door is open. Obviously, our minds would probably – I
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would probably default to, “Oh, geez. Is there a structural failure? Did we lose part of the roof?”
What happened all very quickly in my brain? I'm sure they were doing the same.
After, in the case of being at 15,000, 16,000 feet, it would have been pretty evident within
probably five to 10 seconds for the crew to get the oxygen masks on, get their composure and
be like, “Okay. Well, we're still flying. The airplane is structurally sound enough to where we
have control. The autopilot was probably still engaged.” At that point, they could mentally say,
“Okay, let's deal with this, and we're not in a critical going to die type situation.” I would
anticipate that the crew within moments assess the situation and said, “Okay. Well, we've lost all
pressure. Obviously, something happened in the back. Something's open to the air. I can feel it.
I could hear it. We need to get back. The airplane is together and we don't need to immediately
descend, or something like that. It's always about triaging the situation, based on what the
indications are, both physiologically and with the panel.
[0:28:52] IP: Climbing out of 14,800 feet, they continued to ascend for about another minute till
they reached a maximum altitude of 16,325 feet. Then a few seconds after that, they were
climbing up to flight level 230. That was the flight level selected on the MCP. They dialed that
down to 10,000. Then it took them from max altitude, it took them four minutes to get back down
to 10,000 feet.
[0:29:22] SG: Yup.
[0:29:23] IP: I mean, not a terribly long amount of time, given how low of an altitude they
already – I mean, looking at the vertical speed, it looks like they're in a hurry, but this is nothing
unusual, unless you're looking for it, I guess, is what I'm saying.
[0:29:41] SG: Yeah. Unlike general aviation, airliners descend at a high rate from altitude. Just
normal ops were descending at times 4,000 or 5,000 feet per minute from altitude down. I
mean, they were descending, it's probably at 1,000, 1,200 feet per minute, which is about right.
Again, in thinking about what headspace they were in, they don't instantly know what happened.
I mean, they know that something opened up back there, but we've all seen videos of airplanes
losing parts of their fuselage, like the roof coming off. Or, we've seen these incidents in the past.
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The first thing is structural integrity of the aircraft. The absolute biggest nightmare of any pilot is
losing the ability to maneuver the aircraft. I mean, straight up. Anytime, any situation where
there's a void in the pressure vessel of the aircraft and the structure of the aircraft, you have to
think, you want to avoid major movements. You don't want to subject the aircraft to too much
force. You don't want to make a problem worse. You don't know what's holding things together.
We've all seen pictures of mangled airplanes during wartime, or whatever, coming back and
landing is, how did that airplane fly? Well, we don't always know what's holding things together.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it sounds like, they realized that things were stable and they
professionally and in a routine manner came back and returned to the field and kudos to them.
[0:31:07] JR: Yeah, the crew, by all accounts seemed to do and made it work. My favorite part
is when they were returning to PDX and air traffic control said, “Do you need to be putting a hole
to burn off altitude?” They're like, “No. We're coming in, basically.”
[0:31:20] IP: No, we're good. We're good.
[0:31:22] JR: They do exactly what they wanted to do and what they needed to do.
[0:31:25] SG: Absolutely.
[0:31:26] IP: Let's talk about what actually happened to the aircraft and why this configuration
exists. This aircraft is a 737 MAX 9, or Dash 9 MAX, depending on what branding phraseology
we want to use.
[0:31:41] JR: Dash 8200, or whatever you want to call it.
[0:31:43] IP: Yeah. Well, the separate aircraft. Separate. Don't confuse people, Jason. This is
the, I guess, successor to the 737-900. It shares a lot in common with the 737-900, including a
higher passenger capacity than the 737-800 and the 737-8 MAX. Because of this higher overall
passenger capacity, which is up to 220 passengers. Certification required a separate, or
additional mid cabin exit, or required a separate exit door. Boeing designed the aircraft with a
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mid-cabin exit door. Compared to the 737-800, or 737-8 MAX, there is an additional exit door
between the overwing exits and the rear full size exit door.
This particular door is not full sized and it is only active on high-density aircraft, that have a
maximum capacity of more than 189 passengers. If an airline selects a cabin configuration with
fewer than 189 passengers, that door is deactivated and the cabin could be made to look like
the door does not even exists. If you look at the aircraft from the outside, you'll see that there is
a door there. If you look at the aircraft from the inside on an aircraft with the deactivated door,
you won't even know it's there.
On some airlines, so there are 11 total airlines that operate the MAX 9. Only five of them have
the configuration that Alaska Airlines has. Aeromexico, Air Tanzania, Alaska Airlines, Copa
Airlines, Corendon Dutch Airlines, flydubai, Icelandair, Lion Air, Scat, Turkish Airlines, and United
Airlines are the 737-9 MAX operators. Only Aeromexico, Alaska Airlines, some of Copa Airlines
aircraft, Turkish and United operate the door, or the lack of door in the same configuration.
What these airlines have chosen to do is replace that exit door, rather than just deactivating the
door itself, they instead removed the door and have decided to install, or chosen to install the
Boeing offers a door plug. This plug, rather than being the size of an exit door with a small
window, takes that door out and makes it look in the cabin like it's any other row. On most
airlines that have the exit door still installed, so Air Tanzania, or flydubai, they often just panel
over the door from the inside and you don't even see it. You just don't have a window there.
You're sitting and it's just another windowless row, and you've accidentally booked that row and
now you're bummed that you have a window seat with no window.
On Alaska, or some of Copa's, or United, it's just another row. You have no idea, unless you've
looked at the plane outside, counted the windows and then gone to your seat. You have no idea
you are sitting in a row that is in fact designed and manufactured to be an exit row.
[0:35:09] JR: Yeah. I think there's a tiny bit more sidewall, so it doesn't look exactly as if there
was not a door of any sort there, but no ordinary passenger is ever going to know that. This is
something I want to touch on early on. There were a lot of accusations that, oh, Alaska Airline,
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they're pinching every penny. They're really cheap airline. They're really cramming people in, so
they don't even put an emergency door in here. It's actually the opposite.
[0:35:35] IP: It's the opposite.
[0:35:36] JR: It’s the exact opposite of that. That Alaska and United and these other airlines
have such a lower passenger capacity on this aircraft that they don't need that door, and for
your comfort and for your visual aesthetics, they don't put a door there. They put a door plug.
[0:35:52] IP: They give you a bigger window.
[0:35:53] JR: They give you a bigger window. They give you a regular seat, so you feel like it's
any other seat and you get a window. That's great. I want to be very clear that this isn't a cost-
cutting thing, that there's no door there. It is simply not necessary, because these airlines are
operating with a passenger configuration that is so much less than what the aircraft can actually
hold capacity-wise. It's the exact opposite. I wanted to make sure that's clear that this isn't, oh,
Alaska and United, they don't have a door. They're going to get people killed. No, it's actually,
the exact opposite.
[0:36:23] SG: Along those same lines, I think that there's a lot of people that probably don't
necessarily understand that these airplanes aren't built one off. Clearly, there's an assembly line
and so forth. But even more so, the variants are modified to the interiors that the customer
orders. That's important to remember. When the airplane even finishes assembly, they're all
identical, until the airline starts. The paint differs from airline to airline, so does the LOPA, the
interior configuration of seats, and so forth. The density of the seating, the types of seats. I
mean, you could get an all-business class aircraft. The tube is the same.
Having the ability to plug that exit, or utilize that exit just gives more options for the end user to
basically get an aircraft built to their spec. It's not a cost-cutting thing. These airplanes all start
the same way and then they're customized after it.
[0:37:22] JR: I think we mentioned this, but I want to be clear. This is not a feature new to the
MAX. You can't be out here and say, “Damn, you MAX. You did it again.” No, this is a feature
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that existed on the 737-900 ER before it since the mid-2000s. This is not something inherent to
the MAX. This is something inherent to this airframe that has become the MAX, basically. It's
very likely that absolutely nothing changed with this door plug, or the actual door that would
have been here on the MAX.
[0:37:52] SG: I need to look this up. I don't know this for sure, but I don't even know that it's
unique to Boeing. I believe that there are Airbus 321 configurations that utilize a similar layout.
[0:38:00] JR: Yes. A part of the cabin flex situation they have going on with the 321s.
[0:38:07] IP: Let's talk about what this plug actually is. It replaces that mid-cabin exit door, and
it's a panel that is held in place by a lower hinge and a lower hinge bracket assembly. If you
wanted to open it, say for maintenance or how it's installed, it slides onto these bottom hinges,
and then it folds up. It's taller than the opening when it's fully folded up, and then it slides down
into a guide roller. It's got upper guide fittings is what they're called, and they're basically bolts
that stick out and roll into a guide fitting, so that the door acts as a plug. Then four bolts are
installed to hold it in place, against 12 stop pads, which are designed to, well, stop the plug from
going anywhere.
We'll put a photo that Boeing supplied to the NTSB into the show notes. There's also an
excellent, excellent, excellent YouTube video that walks through the assembly and design of this
door on the Boeing 737 technical site, so we'll put a link to that in the show notes as well.
[0:39:23] JR: I also recommend going back and watching the NTSB press conferences,
because Sherman Homendy gave quite an interesting and, I think, really effective way of
demonstrating how the door stops. The door stops prevents the door from falling out. It's not
bolts or anything, but she used the high-five analogy and actually was high-fiving people on the
podium during an NTSB press conference, which is pretty great. But I found it a very effective
demonstration of what the difference between those bolts that hold the door in place and what
these stop pads do. Essentially, they stop it from pushing out, but it does not stop the door from
being pushed up and then over those stop pads, and then, in this case, departing the aircraft.
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[0:40:08] IP: Right. This is a plug that is not designed to be open in any emergency. It's not
designed to be opened any other time than maintenance. It's designed to basically, be opened.
There are cables that are attached to the top of it. It can fold forward a little. It's inspected and
it's put back. There's no door here. It's just a plug. That's what departed the aircraft. The plug
has been found. Thanks, Bob.
[0:40:38] JR: Thank you, Bob.
[0:40:40] IP: A science teacher in Portland, it landed in his yard. He was able to find it, contact
the NTSB, and they've recovered it along with, as Jason mentioned earlier in the show, multiple
cellphones still missing, I believe, and I wanted to talk about this in the decompression. This is
row 25 and 26, mostly row 26. There was a young man sitting in row 25 who lost his shirt. It was
pulled clean off of him. His seat was twisted back by the decompression. The headrest departed
from his seat. It was a violent, violent event.
[0:41:14] JR: Yeah, the seats were mangled. It actually sucked all the padding off the seat
directly next to it. Steel frame of these seats. Yeah, they're not saying you're easily going to be
able to bend. They take quite a bit of abuse if you've ever been on an airplane with rowdy
passengers, but it was quite shocking to me to see just how mangled these seats were. Not just
one, but multiple seats.
[0:41:33] SG: Illustrating the point that, as I said earlier, it's not – everybody knew this
happened instantaneously in every square inch of the interior of that aircraft. It must have been
terrifying for the passengers.
[0:41:46] IP: I mentioned that there are four bolts that hold this plug on the aircraft. Those bolts
have not yet been recovered by the NTSB.
[0:41:57] JR: They are currently Schrödinger's bolts. We don't know if they existed at all. We
don't know where they are. We don't know if we'll ever find them, because we don't know if they
were there. That is something the NTSB is going to be investigating with the door plug that they
have thankfully found, they credit it up. They shipped it back to DC. They're going to be looking
for things like, witness marks to see when it broke away, are there the telltale signs that there
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were bolts and that they scraped the paint, or they scraped the metal. Until then, if you find four
bolts anywhere in that area of Portland, let the NTSB know.
[0:42:29] IP: Yeah. We know from the NTSB that the upper guide fittings are fractured. It
sounds like, the plug was still somewhat inside the upper guide fittings when it blew out. We're
going to wait certainly, for the preliminary report, which we should hopefully have from the NTSB
in early February. Usually, it takes about 30 days to get a preliminary report and then who knows
how long we'll have to wait for the final report, but very interested to see if they can determine
the position of the plug when it departed the aircraft, or right before it departed the aircraft.
That'll be interesting to learn. Let's turn our attention now to what happened after the flight.
[0:43:12] JR: Oh, a whole lot. We have so much more to talk about.
[0:43:18] IP: Jason, I think you made this comment earlier today. It's Wednesday, January 10th,
by the way. If anything we've said in the podcast thus far, I don't think anything will change
about what we talked about thus far. But moving forward, things may change and by Friday
when the podcast comes out, events may have unfolded differently. Given the statements of
both Alaska and United Airlines today on Wednesday, January 10th, I'm not sure that's going to
be the case.
[0:43:42] JR: No. Alaska has already canceled as of a few hours ago, all MAX 9 operations
through Saturday. We are safe in that regard, at least.
[0:43:51] IP: Okay, not good. But –
[0:43:53] JR: Not good.
[0:43:54] IP: - helpful to know.
[0:43:55] JR: It's information telling us that this issue is not being resolved within the next hour
or two, or 48 hours, even, unfortunately.
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[0:44:04] IP: The aircraft landed at just shy of 6 p.m. Later that evening, Alaska Airlines issued
its first statement saying, they were taking the precautionary step, and I'm quoting here, “The
precautionary step of temporarily grounding our fleet of 65 Boeing 737-9 aircraft. Each aircraft
will be returned to service only after completion of full maintenance and safety inspections. We
anticipate all inspections will be complete in the next few days.”
At this point, Alaska Airlines knows what has happened to the aircraft and they know the part,
they know the area of the aircraft, and they say that they're going to inspect and maintain this
part of the aircraft and then the aircraft will be back up in the air. But the Alaska Airlines 737-9s
never actually stopped flying.
[0:44:54] JR: No. There was never a moment where all of their MAX 9s were on the ground.
They had one straggler that was coming in all the way, I think, to Seattle from Hawaii. By the
time that aircraft managed to get to Seatac, they had already launched the East Coast
operations heading back to the West Coast. They're 6 a.m., 7 a.m. bank of flights. There was
actually no moment where that aircraft was fully grounded at Alaska yet.
[0:45:22] IP: That was cause for confusion, I think, among my part and Jason's part, and some
other folks.
[0:45:28] JR: Very little time between when, apparently, Alaska said, “We're grounding this
aircraft and the next day is flight spun up.” We're talking four, five hours, and they're somehow
inspecting aircraft at out stations, multiple out stations, where they don't even have maintenance
facilities. Well, it turns out, there's a bit of a twist with those inspections. Ian, what actually
happened?
[0:45:53] IP: “Of the 65 737-9 aircraft in our fleet,” I'm quoting again, “it was determined that 18
had in-depth and thorough plug door inspections performed as part of a recent heavy
maintenance visit. These 18 aircraft were cleared to return to service today.”
[0:46:09] JR: Very temporarily, it turns out.
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[0:46:13] IP: that was 9 a.m. Pacific time on January 6th. No, I'm sorry, 9 a.m., they said that
they had inspected a quarter of their fleet. Then there were a variety of questions, including from
us about how that could have happened so quickly. At noon, they said, the comment about the
inspections as part of a heavy maintenance visit so far. Then, by 6 p.m., the FAA had issued an
emergency airworthiness directive requiring all operators of the 737-9 MAX to conduct specific
inspections before returning the aircraft to service.
The aircraft that had been operating, and United had also kept operating some of their 737-9
MAX as well in the same configuration. At the point of the EAD coming out, all the 737-9 MAX
that have the mid-cabin exit door plug installed were grounded, at least in the US, but non-US
operators, Copa, Turkish, and Aeromexico also took the step to ground their affected aircraft.
Aeromexico, because they often operate into the US especially, but also just because it's good
practice if the FAA is going to issue an emergency airworthiness directive. That's a decent idea
to follow. Then, the FAA says, as part of the release of the EAD, “Inspect them, we'll clear them,
we'll get them back in the air. It's probably going to take the airlines four to eight hours to inspect
them.”
[0:47:44] JR: It has been longer than that period of time, by a number of days at this point.
What happens now is that the airlines begin preparing to inspect their aircraft. Because at this
point, they have not gotten the instructions from Boeing, or the approval from the FAA to actually
conduct these inspections. The news breaks from Jon Ostrower at The Air Current that, “Oh, no.
We're finding at least five other aircraft,” and when I say where, I mean, United, they found at
least five other aircraft with potentially loose bolts in the door plug, which is extremely
concerning, I would say, indicating that this was not a one-off incident on one aircraft. This is a
more widespread systemic issue, possibly with production, possibly with the assembly. We don't
really know. But here we are days later, and Boeing had at one point written up the
memorandum – was it a memorandum of –
[0:48:40] IP: Multi-operator memorandum.
[0:48:41] JR: There it is. Multi-operator memorandum to the FAA. The FAA approved it. But
apparently, due to feedback from the airlines, and we do not know what that feedback is, that
memorandum was withdrawn. Now, we have been waiting days now for Boeing to come up with
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a new plan of attack here for the inspection, and then waiting for the FAA to approve that and
issue their AMOC, the alternate method of compliance, to actually begin the inspections of these
aircraft.
It leads us to question, what were these airlines finding when they took the sidewall off? Was
this something that is really no big deal? Apparently, these memorandums, they go back and
forth, there are some revisions, so you can actually do this maintenance thing just the way you
said. You need a different ratchet, or you need to access it differently, but I would have figured
that would have been done quite a bit quicker, because here we are days later, and airlines
haven't even gotten the authority to start doing these inspections.
[0:49:38] IP: Steve, I want to bring you back into the conversation here and ask about the multi-
operator memorandum. What does that usually include, and how do operators interpret that to
develop their own policies?
[0:49:52] SG: Unfortunately, I can't really speak to the specifics as to what would be contained
into that memorandum. I know as much as you do.
[0:49:59] IP: Sorry, not this specific memorandum. Just generally, when Boeing says, “Hey, we
need to – this is how to change –” Like, how does that memorandum shape up?
[0:50:08] SG: Generally, let me back up a little bit before I get to the answering that question as
I can. First and foremost, I personally found it a bit shocking that these aircraft weren't
immediately at least grounded for a period of time by the regulator, at least until which time, the
door could be recovered. I don't understand. This is something that I've had a lot of trouble
swallowing throughout the process is I don't understand how you could make any type of
assumption, whatsoever, until you at least have the part that departed the aircraft in hand.
At that point when all this back and forth was happening, we didn't know if the door was confetti,
or in three pieces, or I mean, nobody really knew the condition that the door was in. Therefore,
there would be really no way to know why it departed the aircraft, right? It bothers me from the
get-go that somebody within the FAA didn't just put the brakes on immediately, immediately
across the variant. I think, in my opinion, and again, who am I? I'm just some guy who flies the
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airplanes, but it doesn't make sense to me that you would allow the continued flight when there
are so many unknowns that exist, to the point where you don't even – you haven't even
recovered the part.
There was no paper trail of the part being removed. There was no evidence that something was
done by the airline's maintenance team with regard to the door. I mean, they knew that nobody
had touched that door, if in fact, nobody had touched that door instantly, because of the paper
trail of all the maintenance events that this aircraft and its very young life had experienced.
Again, that bothers me right there.
[0:51:49] IP: I don't think we mentioned how young this airplane is. This airplane was only
delivered to Alaska Airlines on October 31st. It only went into service with passengers on the 11th
of November, and it hasn't been flying for that entire time, because it went and had Wi-Fi
installed. It was out of service from the 27th of November to the 7th of December. It's only
accumulated fewer than 200 flights.
[0:52:14] SG: Yeah, no checks aside from the routine daily checks and line checks and things,
which surely would not involve inspecting this panel that's not really accessible without
removing a seat row. I tried to find any type of scenario where that door would have been
removed through the normal course of business in the airplane's life from delivery. There's really
no reason that anybody would have touched that that I could come up with. Of course, again,
I'm speaking from the outside.
AAR who installed the Wi-Fi made a statement that I read somewhere, the door was not
removed during the Wi-Fi installation. That's the only real wild card. In what circumstance would
that door have been removed since delivery? It just simply isn't a time that I could think of that it
would have been inspected or removed.
Also, again, if a plug is not seated properly on an aircraft, it's pretty evident to all those onboard,
crew and passengers. It doesn't take much of a void in the aircraft pressure vessel to make a lot
of noise. I mean, we've all been in, well, most of us have been in airplanes that have had leaky
door seals. You can hear them. They whistle. It's not uncommon.
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[0:53:27] IP: Or just crack a window when driving down the highway.
[0:53:29] SG: Yeah, exactly.
[0:53:31] IP: You know if the window’s open.
[0:53:33] JR: You'll hear it and you'll feel it.
[0:53:35] SG: Absolutely.
[0:53:37] IP: Where you can just roll down the windows.
[0:53:39] SG: Yeah. I mean, the MD-80 cockpit is the least sealed cockpit in existence, because
the packs are so bad, that the air conditioning system is so bad, is that you operate in hot
climates. The pilots open the clear view windows from the side and they open and close and
open and close 20 times a day and they all – they don't sit properly. We use the old toilet paper,
or wet paper towel, jam it into the window until the whistling stops method.
My point is, had this been loose and unseated in any way to where it wasn't square against the
pressure vessel of the aircraft, you would think that there would have been some sort of a
warning. There would be sound. There would be a loud sound that would have been
investigated, and none of that happened. I mean, it's also possible that it was seated properly
and it expanded and contracted with the pressure cycles on the aircraft and it just hadn't been
disturbed enough to where it hadn't slightly unseated enough to where that seal was broken,
which is probably the case.
Whether there was a loose bolt, or no bolt at all. When an airplane is flying, if everything is
sitting in the right position and these type doors will be held in place by the pressure of the
aircraft by design.
[0:54:50] JR: Pushback, I kinda, sorta understand what happened here and that the FAA said,
these aircraft had previously gone through some heavy maintenance, some heavy check, where
they would have checked for the bolts on these plug doors. They theoretically should be fine,
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but I don't personally know. I don't know if anyone has said if these doors are actually
thoroughly inspected during these checks. I get how they would say this subset of aircraft were
already checked. They should be good to go. To me, it was more of a public perception issue,
where the airlines had to say, “We're grounding the 737 MAX 9, except for these other 737 MAX
9.”
Yes, they have the door plug, but these are different. We've already looked at these. It's just a
very difficult situation to explain, even from an optics point of view. I'm surprised that there was a
focus on putting these aircraft back into service as soon as possible, rather than really
understanding the situation.
[0:55:49] SG: Of course, we're talking about the MAX, right? Optics are front and foremost,
more than any other aircraft. I mean, just because of the – from the MCAS to the rudder bolts to
the multitude of quality control breakdowns that have occurred at Boeing since this aircraft is
going on assembly.
[0:56:05] JR: Excuse me. It’s a quality escape. We have to use Boeing's terminology. It's a
quality escape.
[0:56:12] SG: I mean, there was clearly incentive on the part of the regulator, as well as the part
of Boeing, and on the part of the airline to minimize this as much as possible. Quite frankly, I
feel personally, not to jump too far ahead, but I mean, I feel this particular issue should be a
pretty easy to solve one and done type of solution. We're not necessarily talking about
metallurgy problems. We're not talking about bad design, or some novel design even. I mean,
this is from what it looks like, from all indications, this looks like a defect that should have been
very easily spotted before the aircraft was released from the plant.
Again, I hear your point. I mean, I think optics are a big part of it, sadly. Look, the 737 MAX is,
it's a successful commercial endeavor for Boeing to the degree that they've sold a lot of them.
There's a lot flying. There's a lot being produced. But you can't put the toothpaste back in the
tube, they say. This is not going to turn out to be a small beans type situation at all.
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[0:57:16] JR: The next topic on our show notes here, it is just a bullet point that says the word
‘Boeing’. I think it speaks for itself at this point. Steve, you talked to this a bit on your Fox
interview. Boeing has some explaining to do. It has a lot of soul searching to do, which it should
have already had completed after the last round of 73 MAX groundings that went on for a long
time. What do we do about Boeing at this point? Because here we are with an airframe, it has
been building for more than half a century. You have to be more specific on the FAA's news site
to see which issue about which non-tightened bolts are we talking about today? Are we talking
about the one from December 27th of last year, about the rudder assembly having loose bolts?
Are we talking about the one from 2024, where the loose bolts potentially on the plug door, or
missing bolts entirely led to this rapid decompression? How does Boeing recover from this?
When is it going to learn its lesson? Can we trust Boeing?
I personally find it very difficult at this point to say, when someone asks me, “Should I fly on the
737 MAX??” My answer is less sure than it ever has been. I don't know if you share that, but
how do they come back from this? It's unfair to ask you, because there's no answer, but.
[0:58:37] SG: Yeah. Well, I certainly have things to say about it.
[0:58:40] JR: You may never operate another Boeing delivery flight again, but please tell us.
[0:58:45] SG: Well, I don't operate a lot of Boeing delivery flights anyway. I do re-deliveries and
so forth with Boeing's. We do deliver new Airbuses. But generally speaking, we've delivered a
couple new Boeing's, but it's rare. Regardless, this makes me angry, honestly. Boeing is the
pride of America. It really is. I mean, this is a sophisticated engineering organization with pride
and deep roots in the American story. I mean, not to get too pie in the sky here. But, I mean, the
Boeing innovation in aerospace and commercial aviation and military aviation and in space
flight, it's the pride of America. It truly is. The company is. There is clearly a systemic problem
there. I mean, I fly a variety of Boeing aircraft. I fly the 73, the 75 and 76, the 777 and the 78
with regularity. I maintain currency on all of Boeing –
[0:59:39] JR: Royal flush.
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[0:59:40] SG: Yeah, and most of the Airbuses, too. Boeing makes great airplanes. I mean, the
777 is far and away my favorite aircraft to fly. I love the systems. I love the interface. I love the
capabilities. The 78 is a close second. The 76 is a great platform. The 75 is a great platform.
The 73 was a great platform in its day. I'd argue that the whole MAX, the evolution of the 73,
versus going clean sheet was a mistake. I think at this point, Boeing would probably admit that
as well. What happens to Boeing going forward?
Well, first of all we talk about an industry, like the whole too big to fail model, right? If any
business in America is too big to fail, it's Boeing. It's not even about producing new aircraft. You
have to keep in mind that Boeing is supporting a massive fleet globally. Boeing must remain
intact in order to continue to support at least 50% of the airplanes flying around the world
commercially, let alone the military side. Boeing can't go away. I mean, whether it should,
whether it shouldn't, we're stuck with Boeing. Boeing is going to need to revamp things
dramatically, because there have always been problems with new aircraft types. There have
always been lessons learned through accidents. It's part of the evolution of safe flight. When the
rudder hard overs were happening on the 737 years ago. The engineers at Boeing learned from
each instance and figured out a flaw in the design and corrected it. Then we never saw another
rudder hard over, right?
That's the thing that's to be expected. That is the situation as it's supposed to unfold. There are
no guarantees in life. These aircraft are incredibly reliable. I mean, incredibly reliable for as
sophisticated as they are, but accidents will happen and we'll learn from them. Aviation will
become exponentially safer each time. The problem here, it's like, I mean, dare I say stupidity.
It's little, preventable things that are happening.
[1:01:48] IP: This wasn't a design issue, or we don't know for certain, but from everything we've
learned so far that it's not an engineering issue, it's not an aerospace issue. It's a torque wrench
issue.
[1:02:00] JR: Yeah. That's what scares me so much is that there's nothing to learn from this
accident. Bolts need to be tightened. Yeah, we know that. Everyone knows that. Anyone building
a thing has known that since building a thing was invented. It just scares me that there's nothing
to learn. Yeah, maybe for the next aircraft, they could design a door plug that isn't held in by four
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bolts and ejects out of the aircraft, instead of, I don't know, maybe putting it on the inside, like
the rest of the door, so they can't physically force themselves out of the aircraft. There's nothing
to learn from this accident.
[1:02:30] SG: You can engineer fail safes on pretty much any system. But at the end of the day,
it's only as good as the folks assembling it and the folks overseeing – the folks assembling it.
The buck has to stop somewhere, right? Mistakes will happen. But the reason that quality
control, or whatever the term is that you used, the reason it exists is a final set of eyes, and
there can be no substitute for eyes on components.
Again, it's just, it has to be cultural. It's not a skill thing. It's cultural. It's the environment. It has to
be environmental in production. Jon Ostrower’s article that I – I don't know if he recently wrote it,
or just revisited it. Have you guys read the Spirit AeroSystems article? It's like a 30-minute read.
[1:03:21] IP: Bringing Spirit back into the fold, I think, was the long-in-depth piece. Yeah.
[1:03:25] SG: It's a great piece. I believe, Jon – I'll plug Jon again here. Air Current has that
available to read for free, without a subscription, although I do recommend people subscribe. It's
awesome.
[1:03:34] IP: We'll stick it in the show notes, but you should subscribe.
[1:03:37] SG: Yeah. It's mind-boggling. The Spirit AeroSystems divestment, when you read it,
it's eye-opening. It's essentially, I'll summarize the article in saying that Spirit AeroSystems, in
Wichita, was originally a wholly-owned piece of Boeing. It was a component of the Boeing
machine, and they divested from it at a period in time where they were divesting to streamline
the company and bring contractors into the mix for the purposes of share value, right? The
article describes this tumultuous relationship between Spirit AeroSystems and Boeing that you
have to read it. It's mind-boggling to me that this exists. It's so unproductive. I mean, I have the
feeling that all of this is going to come down to probably that divergence in interests, that Spirit
AeroSystems’ looking out for their butt, Boeing looking out for their butt. There are so many
points that are identified in that article that just like, you grip your face and you say, “Holy moly. I
mean, really?”
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[1:04:37] IP: It's worth noting here that Spirit AeroSystems is the manufacturer of the 737 ship
sets. They manufacture the bulk of the fuselage of every 737.
[1:04:48] SG: 70% of the aircraft.
[1:04:50] JR: That door plug was installed by Spirit and it was shipped over to Boeing in over
and with that door plug installed. We don't know if it was taken out at any point during the final
assembly of the aircraft. It is fair of us to mention Spirit AeroSystems has a very large part to
play in this. We've talked about their quality escapes recently with the snowmen drilling multiple
holes, where there should only be one and then not telling anyone about that. At the end of the
day, the buck stops with Boeing. When that airframe is delivered by rail from Spirit AeroSystems
to Boeing, it is Boeing doing the final assembly. It's Boeing that's delivering that aircraft full
completed ready to go to the airline.
If there are loose bolts on that aircraft, it is ultimately Boeing's responsibility, not Spirit
AeroSystems, who obviously shouldn't be shipping airframes with loose bolts and all sorts of
other issues. At the end of the day, this is Boeing's issue to solve. A large part of that is going to
have to go back and look at Spirit, what are you doing? How do we solve this? I'm not sure if
Boeing has the capacity to undertake that. It needs, in my opinion, I'm going on a tangent here,
the entire board needs to be ejected from the boardroom at Boeing. They all have to go. They
are prepping for the line of succession to have a new CEO. That needs to happen today, in my
opinion.
The current CEO at Boeing commercial aircraft, everyone has to be out of that company right
now, because this is not an isolated issue. Quality control issues keep coming up again and
again and again, and it's very clear that it's not getting any better. They need fresh, new people
at Boeing and that after the 787 incidents, after the 737 MAX incidents, it still is a thing that
needs to be resolved. That's my personal thing.
[1:06:40] SG: I posted on Twitter, X, whatever it's called, a tweet the other night that basically,
asked the question of there are 500,000 parts on a Boeing and at least as many fasteners, I
believe is what I said specifically. The pressure vessel of the aircraft is exposed to extreme
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tolerances every time it flies. If there's a loose bolt, where are you going to see it first? You're
going to see it on something related to the pressure vessel of the aircraft. What else is not tight?
[1:07:08] JR: I don't want to think about it.
[1:07:10] SG: Yeah. That's what really, really bothers me the most about this entire situation.
Sure, there may be an explanation as to there may be someone to blame and say, “Okay. Well,
this particular component was dealt with after blah, blah, blah.” It doesn't matter. It's the public
perception. It's not the first time there have been loose bolts, or issues with bolts being
fastened.
[1:07:32] IP: It's not the first time this month. It's not the first time this month. I mean, or okay, I
should say, it's not the first time in the last two weeks, because the rudder bolts was the end of
December. The accident flight is probably an isolated incident, but culture is not isolated. I think
to Jason's point, and we've talked about this in the context of the MAX accidents. We've talked
about this in the context of the debacle that became the assembly of the 787, Boeing's culture
shifted a few decades ago.
Well, you can't put your finger on a specific thing, because certainly, American culture has also
shifted. I think that plays a role here. The culture of the company shifted a few decades ago. I
don't want to say that this is the result of that shift. I would say, it's a symptom of it.
[1:08:28] JR: Much ink has been spilled on this topic. Many pixels have been jostled into place
over this issue. I think you're alluding to the McDonald Douglas buyout/merger, whatever,
decades ago. This is very much not the same Boeing that someone in Seattle would have been
very proud to work at decades ago, or in Renton. Then at the same time, we have Boeing
expanding the 737 assembly up to Everett, which is a whole other thing. Is that distracting? I
don't know. It's certainly the NTSB is going to be looking at that.
[1:09:00] IP: I don't want to go too far into the thing. what I do want to do is say, what we don't
know so far is we don't have any NTSB reports yet, so we're going to be waiting for those. We're
still waiting for Boeing to provide the memorandum to the FAA, so that the FAA can approve the
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memorandum, so that airlines can begin inspections and any maintenance. That's where we are
on Wednesday, January 10th.
Steve Giordano is the owner of Nomadic Aviation Group. He can fly anything that you can get
into the air, I'm pretty sure. He's also a wealth of expertise and just an absolute delight to talk
with. Steve, I want to say thank you so much for joining us for what became, well, a whole
afternoon. I hope everyone's enjoyed this episode.
This wasn't the 250th episode we planned, but it is our 250th episode. I am Ian Petchenik, here,
as always with –
[1:09:56] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening and thanks again, Steve, for joining us.
[1:10:00] SG: Thanks, guys.
[END]
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