7 hours ago, SierraDelta said:

Spirit Aerospace build the fuselages and deliver them with the plugs installed to Boeing. During final assembly Boeing employees remove the plugs to facilitate installation of seats and other interior. Plugs are re-installed at the end of this process.

It’s all points strongly to shoddy workmanship and QA at Boeing.

That's one possibility and it looks like it's the most likely one. Although, Spirit ships the fuselage with the door plug and necessary hardware like the restraining bolts loose only, and regardless of whether Boeing employees remove the plug or not, it's Boeing's task to actually fit the plug, i. e. fit and tighten the screws and bolts.

A different possibility is that the MX company performing some tasks under Alaska Airlines' supervision may be responsible as they installed a Wi-Fi antenna in that airplane. They released a statement saying they didn't perform any work in the area around the door plug. The actual meaning is open to interpretation though since the antenna is just above the plug, and they didn't specifically say they did not open the plug. Apparently it's common to open it during maintenance to have shorter ways around the aircraft. That company also seems to have a rather unprofessional way of doing their work, according to former employees who left because of this. Curiously, the same company does work for United as well who has found loose bolts and similar in their MAX 9s' plug assembly, too.

Edited January 12, 20242 yr by threegreen
Added first paragraph.

11 hours ago, SierraDelta said:

Spirit Aerospace build the fuselages and deliver them with the plugs installed to Boeing. During final assembly Boeing employees remove the plugs to facilitate installation of seats and other interior. Plugs are re-installed at the end of this process.

It’s all points strongly to shoddy workmanship and QA at Boeing.

The problem with this theory is the loose bolts previously found in the tails of Max aircraft, and the counterfeit parts; both of those issues trace back to Spirit as well.  They have a track record of not doing things correctly.

Regardless, Boeing is still ultimately responsible.

anyone remember PMDG? 😄

3 hours ago, EGLD said:

anyone remember PMDG? 😄

And the 777 update?

What's with this off-topic policing lately? There's clearly nothing left to say about PMDG in this thread as no one has posted anything about it for quite some time. Might as well have a brief chat about something else, geez.

8 minutes ago, threegreen said:

What's with this off-topic policing lately?

About what's happening with Boeing, I can't find any thread on the hanger chat section. Is it a "banned" subject?

I recently started a broccoli garden.....Discuss. 🙂

7 hours ago, Stearmandriver said:

The problem with this theory is the loose bolts previously found in the tails of Max aircraft, and the counterfeit parts; both of those issues trace back to Spirit as well.  They have a track record of not doing things correctly.

Regardless, Boeing is still ultimately responsible.

As a former Boeing Engineer who worked on the production line of the 787 multiple things can be true at the same time.
 

• Quality Control at Boeing is in need of a revamp, People get promoted biased of the speed of pushing things through (especially in Manufacturing leadership).  I know QA people who didn't even understand why they were writing stuff up for engineering to review, just that the mechanics told them they needed to.  FYI the mechanics I worked with were rock stars and usually could tell me exactly what was wrong with the design or install within 5 seconds on the airplane.
• Suppliers like Spirt have their own QA controls and don't get "re-inspected" by Boeing personnel usually.
• More FAA oversight isn't always a good solution, most of these bureaucrats have never designed or built an airplane and mostly just make and follow rules to not get in trouble..
• Current FAA regulations for new airplanes are extremely onerous for OEMs and Airlines and part of the reason we are seeing new versions of these 60 year old airplanes that get pushed to their limit is its not economically feasible to build something from scratch once you consider the FAA certification requirements if you truly want to be innovative.

There really is no good solution, obviously quality escapes like not tightening fasteners needs to be rectified, but there is a bigger issue that we keep on working with these old designs because its almost impossible to get the FAA to certify something innovative and new.  Last time Boeing did that on the 787 the FAA certification requirements were extremely onerous and now is causing lots of issues with airline maintenance, not due to safety but because the FAA added lots of excess requirements due to the "new design" and not having service history.

Several month ago my airplane got grounded due to fuel primer. I ordered reasonably prices  fuel primer assembly from MacFarlane aviation shop. Initially delivery estimate was two weeks, but then my order was marked as TBD. I called them just to find out that they awaiting FAA certification and it may tale from three to six months at the best. We are talking about 1984 C-172P how much innovation you need for that? LOL 

Hey PMDG you don't need to certified your WX radar! Just sneak it into your next build and we will pretend it still inop LOL

8 hours ago, threegreen said:

What's with this off-topic policing lately? There's clearly nothing left to say about PMDG in this thread as no one has posted anything about it for quite some time. Might as well have a brief chat about something else, geez.

because in a flightsim forum, it would be handy if a PMDG thread didn't keep getting bounced if there's not PMDG news

11 hours ago, bendead said:

About what's happening with Boeing, I can't find any thread on the hanger chat section. Is it a "banned" subject?

I don't think so, it's probably just that no one started a thread about it.

19 hours ago, bendead said:

About what's happening with Boeing, I can't find any thread on the hanger chat section. Is it a "banned" subject?

Not at all. Feel free to start one. It would be better than this PMDG topic going off-topic. 👍

Edited January 13, 20242 yr by Ray Proudfoot
Emoji changed

I think you used the wrong emoji there, Ray

😂😂

3 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

I think you used the wrong emoji there, Ray

I certainly did! 🤣 Now changed to a thumbs up which is what I thought I picked originally.