I Wouldn’t Fly on a Boeing

Indeed, 1989 may not go down in the record books as Boe- ing’s happiest year. From Day One the company took on a siege status as reports from wide and far came in regarding faulty wiring, fire suppression systems that were unable to operate, parts falling off aircraft and manufacturing faults being unearthed by airlines that were not passed on to the FAA by Boeing in the appropriate timespan.

The primary problems surround what is essentially a quality control issue. As Boeing sells record numbers of aircraft (al- most $US30bn worth last year) it must also greatly accelerate production to ensure that it doesn’t lose prospective sales to rival manufacturers. Monthly production rates on the 737 are now heading towards an incredible 17, for the 747 they are going from just 2 a month to 5 in less than two years, for the 757 from 5 to 7 with the 767 also looking at a similar boost through 1989. Overall that’s a massive increase to facilitate at a time when the reserve of highly trained manpower is at a record low. Boeing, like everybody else, is finding it difficult to recruit the type of skills it requires to be able to ensure that its 1989 Boeing is built to the same standard as one a decade earlier.

Checks of 7 757s had already revealed cross connections in their fire and vibration warning systems that would have rendered their fire suppression capabilities as largely ineffectual. Similar checks on 767s were also undertaken after the fire bottles had already been redesigned after several sets were found to be wrongly fitted. Boeing 767 operators finding faulty fire bottle units were Japan Air Lines, All Nippon and American.

The US FAA is also questioning why Boeing waited several months before notifying them of the 757 problems. The problem surfaced last June when Royal Brunei initially found evidence of cross wiring. Boeing then alerted operators who had 757s in the fleet which were built around the time of the Royal Brunei aircraft. Delta also found problems in October though the FAA was not alerted to the problem till January 4 this year. According to Flight International, Mitch Barker of the FAA in Seattle stated: “Boeing has to report incidents of this nature. There is nothing concrete as to what a reasonable delay would be, but it would certainly be days rather than months. ” The FAA is now investigating why the delay occurred and though the precise extent of the delay is not certain, it appears that mandatory reporting regulations were certainly contravened.

The problem was also found closer to home when extensive checks of local 737s discovered that three of Australian Airline’s 737s and one of Ansett’s 737s had fire extinguishing systems that, because of wiring and plumbing problems, would not have operated in an emergency. As a result, the CAA issued an Airworthiness Directive on 6th February that would require extensive checks of all engine and cargo area fire suppression systems on all 737, 747 and 767s on the Australian register.

The wiring and plumbing problems were highlighted after the January 8 crash of a British Midlands 737-400 in the UK which killed 45 passengers. An engine fire and what apparently was the good engine being spooled down resulted in the accident, though at presstime there was still no conclusive evidence to prove any of a number of theories as being primarily responsible for this baffling accident.

Other worrying events of January included the engine falling off a Piedmont 737-200 following takeoff from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. The 1981 built aircraft had flown only 19,400hrs, logging 21,000 cycles. It appears that a mounting bolt failed, an item that was redesigned and strengthened following a similar incident in late 1987 when a USAir 737-200 also lost an engine. More headlines were secured when an Eastern 727 lost a panel off its wing during a flight from Atlanta; while in the UK, a BA 757 was forced to return to Heathrow due to severe engine vibration. Meanwhile an aviation industry task force, reviewing maintenance programmes for older Boeing jets has endorsed 71 specific modifications for the 727, plus 53 changes for the 737 and 39 for the 747.

Production woes aside, the Seattle giant also now faces a large payout in compensation to the lead order airlines who will ultimately receive their new 747-400s up to three months later than originally contracted for. This has resulted in a great deal of confusion for the airlines concerned as they hurriedly have to reschedule training programmes and system wide timetable scheduling around the introduction to service of the latest addition to the 747 family.

Qantas was originally to have placed into service its first of 8 747-400s this May; though this now appears to have lengthened out till July at the earliest. Cathay Pacific, Northwest, Singapore Airlines, British Airways and United are just some of the 22 airlines that are directly seeking compensation from Boeing for late delivery of the aircraft.

To their credit though, Boeing have moved now on two occasions to delay the programme to ensure that the aircraft are fully airworthy when delivery is made. Some airline observers note, with a degree of cynicism though, that Boeing initially bit off more than it could chew with what appeared at the time to be an unusually short period allowed for initial FAA first of type certification. Many airline engineering people we spoke with considered that a ten to eleven month certification programme for a new generation aircraft of this technical complexity and with three different engine types at the same time, appeared optimistic at best.

Certainly for the world’s largest manufacturer of aircraft the year can only get better!