In full:
A contractor performing work on behalf of Alenia Composite (an Alenia Aeronautica Company) at the Global Aeronautica facility in South Carolina failed to follow proper procedure. The contractor was an experienced aviation mechanic not local to Charleston S.C. The individual was immediately terminated.
This error resulted in a production issue that has since been repaired. Global Aeronautica was able to continue to perform some scheduled work in parallel. As a result of the necessary repair time, the delivery of the fuselage section to Everett has been delayed by The Boeing Company. Global Aeronautica is currently awaiting a revised delivery date from The Boeing Company.
Fairly clear and concise statement
Mike McInerney
Of course, build an airliner with the resiliance of a twig and then fire a temp employee for fixing the wrong bolts. Granted, mistake, but the structure should be more fool proof than this. Does anyone know what type of people work on planes day in day out?? The structure should be fail safe and not splinter with a dozen of wrong fastners!!
When you ram a fastener that is too big into a hole that is too small, you're going to do some damage, whether the materials are metal of composite. Just another day in the factory....
JAL specifies no Bondo!
I think this is the ripple effect of Boeing not keeping an eagle eye on the process controls at the out-sourced locations from the get-go and leaving it to it's partners instead. That is the truly unbelievable part of this sorry debacle. The guy who made this decision at Boeing should be fired too, if he's not already.
T. Varadaraj,
This doesn't sound like it's anything to do with the additional outsourcing of the 787 work. The same could have happened in the past at any of the companies which builds to print on other programs.
WingBender, ending up on the internet because some wrong fasteners splintered their surroundings to an extent that the whole fuselage barrel is delayed off the production line is NOT an other day in the factory. I am sorry but this is what I giving me cold feet about this plane. It's been pull here, press there, no problem here and no problem there, all the way.
Not my idea of building an airliner. And no, it's not because of interent scrutinising everything.
WingBender, ending up on the internet because some wrong fasteners splintered their surroundings to an extent that the whole fuselage barrel is delayed off the production line is NOT an other day in the factory. I am sorry but this is what I giving me cold feet about this plane. It's been pull here, press there, no problem here and no problem there, all the way.
Not my idea of building an airliner. And no, it's not because of interent scrutinising everything.
Gee - terminated? Wow! Wouldn't it have been less inhumane just to let the guy go...?
If it was an honest mistake, they didn't need to fire the poor guy.
@ Anonymous..
> If it was an honest mistake, they didn't need to fire the poor guy.
I do not necessarily agree. If there is a definitive and specific procedure in place for installing the fasteners, and the contractor chose to disregard said procedure because - oh, I don't know... he felt his experience (which the report said was extensive) made him above little mundane things like that - then he deserves to be fired. This is all conjecture, of course. Without knowing for certain how and why the mistake occurred, I don't feel that any of us are in a position to form an objective opinion on whether the contractor deserved to be fired or not.
Blu Yonder - you obviously have no clue about how to build a mechanical joint. I have to agree with Wingbender, to my knowledge there is not a single design flying in aerospace that will tolerate having the wrong fasteners installed. This can even extend to fastener lengths, not just sizes. Even in a conventional aluminum airframe if you use the wrong size rivet/bolt or the wrong style head, you're heading for scrap and rework. It's true that composites are much more sensitive to bolted joint design and construction because of their stiffness (no localized yielding of the joint material to simplify the problem of evenly distributing fastener loads, plus the susceptibility to localized damage), but even metal airframes are subject to joint vulnerabilities from something as simple as tightening fasteners in the wrong sequence.
Get a clue
No Sonny, I don't have a clue, but even you seem to have limited knowledge of what you so strongly you are defending. You said it yourself. As a bystander and prospective client of the 787, I have a right, like all the concerned public to question why this has happened. There is no conspiracy in asking questions. My DIY is horrible and screwing wrong fastners is a daily mishap many people do. Not too many end in being dangerous to require a safety audit!
It seems that the FAA understands this, you, on the other hand can be more respectfull to others.
Take care.
@ Blu Yonder
Oh dear. If you only knew what goes on in airplane factories around the world....
Uhmm, so am I a prospective client too? I believe we should all be concerned with what we'll be flying in the future, but Blu Yonder seems to put too much thought on something that we might not know how it works. I wonder about the stuffs that went wrong when the 747 was being put toguether for the first time, and what a magnificent plane it is.
Simplified English. The FlightBlogger caught our attention. We feel we should mention a key aviation safety fact in the hope that Alenia is listening. The ATA-2200 standard for Aircraft Maintenance manuals requires that they be written in ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English (STE)to avoid such errors. There is now a documented case for Simplified English in global assembly so that the folks in the USA can follow assembly instructions. The cost one penny or one euro cent a word. The SMART - MAXit Team USA.
Some questions:
When repair is done in few days, why the delay in delivery?
Is the FAA audit a unforeseen event or is there a correlation?
What is really happened? I think its a cover up trick!
Blu Yonder- I'm a little curious as to where I said I have limited knowledge of the subject? I said, "to my knowledge there is not a single design flying in aerospace that will tolerate having the wrong fasteners installed." What that means in plain English is that in terms of fastener problems ANY airframe flying out there right now has the same vulnerabilty to fastener problems. I can name dozens of aircraft and missiles out there as examples.
It's a HUGE statement for you to make when you say the 787 has "the resiliency of a twig". if you're so concerned, why aren't you raising red flags everywhere about safety problems with the 737 or A320 or Cessna 182? By your own logic they're all resilient as twigs. People like you with their "the sky is falling" attitude based on a complete lack of understanding creat all sorts of headaches for engineers.
Get a clue again
sonny g: "People like you with their "the sky is falling" attitude based on a complete lack of understanding creat all sorts of headaches for engineers."
Actually, they don't cause us any headaches. They do give us a good giggle though.
Sonny and Wingbender,
Very well. Believe me I know a lot more on Boeing and Airbus products then you care to think, but I don't need to prove it. Your persistant attitude clearly shows your level of maturity and lack of professionalism.
If you're starting out your careers in aviation, please learn the following: Learn from your mistakes, seek to learn and NEVER think you know it all.
good luck!
Blu Yonder
Actually, incorrect fasteners are installed frequently in aircraft. Its called oversizing or even simple substitutions. The real problem is that in those cases, instructions and engineering are done to ensure that the "incorrect" fastener is still capable of meeting the joint loads.
When a mechanic goes and shoves any old fastener he finds in the fastener bin into the pilot hole irregardless of the hole size then of course you are going to have problems.
My God people. Just how many of these disasters are we going to try and explain away?
Boeing outsourced key components of this plane to inexperienced workforces to try and save money and it's just been a disaster. One problem after another.
Moreover, what most people aren't pwying attention to are the compromises that have been made in the production process. This plan was supposed to have a sine wave titanium flooring. The Boeing workers in Auburn, Washington worked out all the details and even bought the equipment to produce it. However, Boeing management decided to outsource this flooring to Tata (an Indian company) but they've been completely unable to produce it....and at this point it doesn't look like they'll be able to until about plane #100. So, the first 100 customers are going to get a plane that weighs more than 500 lbs than they there sold. Even worse, the outsourced factories have been completely unable to produce the titanium engine cowlings...so Boeing had to swap in some aluminum ones from Goodrich...but that's going to take a heavy toll on the fuel efficiency of the engines.
The 787 is an utter management disaster. I was told today that the documentation from the outsourced "partners" is so poor that they're in serious danger of not even getting FAA certification for the plane.
Anonymous,
Tata has been brought in as a supplier of 787 floor beams only in Feb 2008 and production is to commence in 2009 so how can they have already failed in producing the part? Tata is a well-respected 100 year old engineering company and the Tata group has an annual turnover of $25 billion so I doubt they are going to be a weak-link in the chain like some of the other suppliers.
Anonymous,
What's an engine cowling? Are you talking about aft cowls on the thrust reversers, or plugs, or nozzles? Inlets, fan cowls, or thrust reversers could be considered cowlings, but those are mostly composite. T/R aft cowls, plugs, or nozzles would never be made from aluminum with the temperatures being what they are back there.
What sort of issues does a person have when they just spout unbased theories behind the cover of anonymity on the internet?
any new word about ZA004?
Funny, Alenia never mentions how it was THEM who gave the contracting mechanic the WRONG fasteners and INSISTED that he put them in. Even when the mech knew that button head fasteners aren't supposed to go into countersink holes.
I was there when this incident went down the sad part too is, that Alenia inspection didn't even notice the button head fasteners when they had to witness the torque.
Boeing has got to get a grip on Alenia. Time and time again the Alenia mechs that are brought in from Italy are young, inexperienced, and NEVER EVER question the engineers or mgmts decisions on work. They get a work order, carelessly drill holes, install whatever fasteners are given to them.
If FOD was the only thing that the FAA scrutinized about, they need to go back and find all the paperwork Alenia hid while the FAA was here. I know for a fact that many of the sec 46 cabin stringers have been misdrilled by Alenia and other contracting mechs because of Alenia's poor engineer team. They're so far behind its hilarious to watch them run around.