Broken Dream: Boeing 787 a documentary by Al Jazeera

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Flanker2
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Re: Boeing 787 news

Post by Flanker2 »

Al Jazeera has produced this piece about the B787.
It has produced a similar investigation about the B737NG a while back, which made quite some noise behind the scenes.



http://www.aljazeera.com/investigations ... 96902.html

Although I have loved my first experience on the Dreamliner as a passenger, I know exactly what is going on and what these people are talking about. The B787's are being pushed out at a huge pace and there is enormous commercial pressure on the machinists and engineers. Also, the hiring of underqualified staff and some doing drugs is no stranger to me as I've seen this happen at airlines.

I'm already not a big fan of the B787 from an engineering and manuacturing point of view (though I am from a pax point of view), but when some of my concerns are confirmed by such reports, I think that I will avoid booking the B787 in the future. My life is still worth more to me than the additional comfort the aircraft has to offer for a very tiny part of my life.

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sn26567
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Re: Boeing 787 news

Post by sn26567 »

Boeing's response to Al Jazeera report

Boeing Co. issued the following response Monday to an Al Jazeera English unflattering report of production quality at Boeing South Carolina:

We have not been afforded the opportunity to view the full program, but the promotional trailer and published media reviews suggest that what has been produced is as biased a production as we have seen in some time.

It is unfortunate that the producers of this television program appear to have fallen into the trap of distorting facts, relying on claims rejected by courts of law, breathlessly rehashing as "news" stories that have been covered exhaustively in the past and relying on anonymous sources, who appear intent only on harming The Boeing Co.

When first contacted by the producers, we accommodated in order for them to produce a fair and objective report including facilitating factory access, interviews and providing full and open responses to their questions. The 787 is an outstanding airplane delivering value to our customers, but we have also talked candidly in public about its challenging development process. There are no tougher critics about our early performance than Boeing.

Unfortunately, the outsourced reporting team appears to have chosen to take advantage of our trust and openness and abused their position from the outset by deliberately misrepresenting the purpose, objective and scope of their planned coverage.

This specious production appears to have ignored the factual information provided by Boeing and instead based the majority of its reporting on unnamed sources pursuing their own agendas and a disgruntled former employee engaged in a legal dispute with Boeing. In one instance, the producers resorted to ambush tactics normally seen only in tabloid-style TV news.

Anonymous sources the TV program depends on are clearly working with those who seek to harm Boeing and its workers. They appear to have no real interest in truth, safety, or better informing the public.

Even on-the-record sources seem to have changed their stories for the producers. For example, then-Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) President Cynthia Cole said this about the 787's first flight: "
Today's flight is a testament to the skill, hard work and diligence Boeing employees put in to get this airplane ready to fly. Boeing returned to engineering, and that's what made today possible and successful." She states in a trailer that Boeing "shortchanged the engineering process."

Instead of an objective view of the 787's development, viewers and our employees will see a television program that is neither balanced nor accurate in its portrayal of the airplane, our employees or our suppliers. This program and those involved with it do a disservice to the hard-working men and women of Boeing and our supplier partners who designed and build the 787.

Furthermore, the program presents a false impression of Boeing South Carolina and the quality of work performed there. Airplanes whether delivered from South Carolina or Washington meet the highest safety and quality standards that are verified through robust test, verification and inspection processes. Our data of the current 787 fleet in service show parity in the quality and performance of airplanes manufactured in both locations.

The allegations made by producers of the television program do a grievous disservice to the hard-working men and women at Boeing South Carolina. The comments by a few unidentified and obviously disgruntled individuals pursuing their own agenda and captured on a hidden camera are completely at odds with professionalism and dedication displayed by our teammates everyday building the world's most technically advanced passenger aircraft.

We extended an offer to the producers to come see firsthand the incredible work force and capability we have developed in South Carolina. Unfortunately, they chose to rely instead on dubious sources of information and discarded the credibility of their program in the process.

Boeing South Carolina follows the Boeing enterprise-wide Drug and Alcohol Free Workplace Program policy. Drug testing of employees is done in accordance with Boeing policy and procedures across all facilities in accordance with applicable laws. Boeing thoroughly investigates any employee reports of policy deviation, and appropriate corrective action is taken if needed.
André
ex Sabena #26567

Bralo20
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Broken Dream: Boeing 787 a documentary by Al Jazeera

Post by Bralo20 »

Definitely worth watching and available through Youtube, a documentary that Al Jazeera made about the safety risks involved with the Boeing 787, it goes so fare that they have employees saying on camera that they will never fly the 787 because they think it's unsafe to fly.

This evening on Al Jazeera or already available on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvkEpstd9os

Flanker2
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Re: Broken Dream: Boeing 787 a documentary by Al Jazeera

Post by Flanker2 »

The link to the trailer of the interview and reply from Boeing has been posted on the B787 news thread.

It's a true disgrace that in the 21st century, people have lost all interest in human life. It's all about money.
This is true at Boeing and at almost all other places.

The word accountability has lost all its meaning.

b720
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Re: Broken Dream: Boeing 787 a documentary by Al Jazeera

Post by b720 »

Take every thing you watch on AL Jazeera with a mountain of salt.
They spin, spread lies, and have absolutely nothing to do with proffesional journalism
It is the mouthpiece of a terrorist funding monarch.

Bralo20
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Re: Broken Dream: Boeing 787 a documentary by Al Jazeera

Post by Bralo20 »

b720 wrote:Take every thing you watch on AL Jazeera with a mountain of salt.
They spin, spread lies, and have absolutely nothing to do with proffesional journalism
It is the mouthpiece of a terrorist funding monarch.
While I don't say anything about the documentary itself, I have to disagree the above. Amongst every single news agency in the world the English language Al Jazeera is one of the most respectable, far in front of CNN, FOX, ABC, RT, TF1, etc... Even more so then our own VRT, VTM, RTL, RTBF...

Ofcourse you need to take it with a grain of salt (and not a mountain), every single news article online, on tv, on the radio or in written media you need to take with a grain of salt. I used to provided quite some stories and pictures for newsagencies in Belgium and more often then not where my articles overdramatized. But that's how every news outlet works, the more drama, the more it will sell.

Regarding the documentary... I think there is some truth in it (notice the SOME?). From all Boeing products the 787 is the worst they delivered since the start of the company (ok maybe not really the worst since a lot of incidents took place with other Boeings but in these days you don't expect them anymore, certainly after massive delays of the program). Is it a safety hazard? I truly think there is indeed a safety hazard with the plane, not because some people may smoke weed in the SC plant or use a line of coke once in a while (which should be avoided at all cost) but just because there are still issues that were discovered years ago and where Boeing still didn't find a solution. I truly am a Boeing fan and for long haul flights I always try to fly Boeing but honestly? I've been avoiding the 787 and I'll be doing it for years, if not decades, to come... Give me a 777, an 767, even a 757 and specially a 747 anyday of the week but the 787? Thanks but I'll pass on that one.

b720
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Re: Broken Dream: Boeing 787 a documentary by Al Jazeera

Post by b720 »

Seriously? The 787 flying are unsafe?
Al Jazeera most respectable? U live in la la land, with all due respect..

cnc
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Re: Broken Dream: Boeing 787 a documentary by Al Jazeera

Post by cnc »

meh!
yea the 787 is rather a nightmare on an operational level but its not as bad as made believe in the documentary...
we would have seen a crash by now if it would've been true

Flanker2
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Re: Broken Dream: Boeing 787 a documentary by Al Jazeera

Post by Flanker2 »

CNC, I strongly disagree. Unless you are one of the folks joinging the fuselages, you have no way of knowing that.

In the documentary, they talk about misaligned holes in which fasteners are forced in.
Aircraft are designed to strict tolerances in order to meet load requirements with the least amount of weight.
However, if you force a fastener into a slightly misaligned hole, you create a pre-load under static conditions.

When the fuselage is loaded with payload and then inflated by pressurisation, the dynamic load comes in addition to the static load.
Does it mean that it breaks immediately and that the aircraft crashes?
No, but if you have excessive static load, the fatigue build-up will be much higher than allowed for in the designing process, which can cause catastrophic failure of the fasteners as well as the aircraft structure, after the shorter fatigue life is used up. Similarily, in a crash scenario, the fasteners will break loose much easier, causing the aircraft to break apart much sooner.

So when you have slightly misaligned holes, do you trash the whole barrel section? No, you can still make a repair order, which consists of documenting the misalignment and taking corrective measure, such as enlargening the hole by drilling the hole to specs, tolerances permitting. This of course takes time (mostly paperwork and inspections) if you have to do it on one hole, so if you have many holes that don't align, the managers will probably come and just tell you to "bang it in".

When quality inspectors come to check the assemblies, they have no way of identifying a fastener that has been forced into a tighter fit than it should, there are no visual cues and unless the fastener already has a crack at that point, NDT won't show anything. Quality inspectors are obviously not there when fasteners are banged in.

Similarily, during heavy maintenance checks, there's no way of detecting this unless the material around the fastener starts to crack or the fastener itself shows visual cracking.

These issues are easy but time-consuming to resolve in a manufacturing environment. But they are very difficult to repair in a maintenance environment.

So how do you get a catastrophic failure? That happens when the fail-safe architecture can't compensate for these issues, ie when for instance high pre-loads are put on a series of fasteners located next to eachother.
When one fastener fails, the others next to it will get the additional load and will fail in a domino effect, causing catastrophic failure.

I'm not too concerned about the frames now, but as they build up cycles, the risk will become higher and higher.

I think that the issue is quite credible, given this history: http://blog.flightstory.net/137/787-pro ... lage-gaps/ and also the previous Al-Jazeera investigation on the B737NG that illustrated a similar issue.

I'm booked on 8 dreamliner flights in the next 3 months (because I enjoyed the Dreamliner experience), so I wish that my doubts hadn't been confirmed. I doubt that such young frames could have major issues already at this stage, but in turbulence, leave me alone so I can worry about the wing-to-body join. :lol:
http://seattletimes.com/html/boeingaero ... ing30.html

Bralo20
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Re: Broken Dream: Boeing 787 a documentary by Al Jazeera

Post by Bralo20 »

b720 wrote:Seriously? The 787 flying are unsafe?
Al Jazeera most respectable? U live in la la land, with all due respect..
I didn't say it's unsafe persé, it has a safety hazard. Chances that it will fall out of the sky are close to zero though may be above average compared to other planes.

Let's look back to the biggest issue the plane had, and maybe the most noticeable due media coverage. There is an issue with the lithium batteries, an issue that is still not resolved at this point. While it was probably pure coincidental that the issues with the batteries happened so close to each other and chances that will happen again might be slim, there is still an issue with it. Until this date they still haven't figured out what was exactly wrong, they even can't assure it won't happen again so Boeing made a quick fix to solve it. It's like putting a bandaid on a bleeding wound, while the bandaid may contain the bleeding it doesn't solve the cause of the problem, and that is exactly what the quick fix of Boeing does. Since they can't figure out what exactly caused the chain of events they designed a strong box which will contain a thermal runaway of the lithium battery and thus preventing a further spread of a fire. So until this actual problem is resolved indefinitely there is still a safety hazard with the plane. And incidents with the batteries are still happening, earlier this year there were again 2 incidents with the batteries, this time not much damage done due the quick fix which containes the fire but still it proves that is remains a (major) safety hazard...

So yes, I'm pretty sure the 787 is a safety hazard.

And regarding Al Jazeera: Is it because they aren't American that you don't find them respectable? FYI Al Jazeera is more British then it is from the UAE. Al Jazeera today isn't the Al Jazeera from yesterday, they come from a long way. Together with BBC, Euronews and CNN it's still one of my favourite channels for worldwide news. But yeah, because it's Arabic it has to be bad right?

cnc
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Re: Broken Dream: Boeing 787 a documentary by Al Jazeera

Post by cnc »

flanker, don't you think our mechanics would notice such flaws rather quickly?

Flanker2
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Re: Broken Dream: Boeing 787 a documentary by Al Jazeera

Post by Flanker2 »

When quality inspectors come to check the assemblies, they have no way of identifying a fastener that has been forced into a tighter fit than it should, there are no visual cues and unless the fastener already has a crack at that point, NDT won't show anything. Quality inspectors are obviously not there when fasteners are banged in.

Similarily, during heavy maintenance checks, there's no way of detecting this unless the material around the fastener starts to crack or the fastener itself shows visual cracking.

RTM
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Joined: 07 Apr 2013, 00:27

Re: Broken Dream: Boeing 787 a documentary by Al Jazeera

Post by RTM »

Flanker2 wrote:Similarily, during heavy maintenance checks, there's no way of detecting this unless the material around the fastener starts to crack or the fastener itself shows visual cracking.
Not true...
Incorrectly installed fastners will work loose or pop their heads. This is picked up and dealt with during routine maintenance. Not really a big deal...

I am not going to watch the docu as I really think it is a lot of bs. Paople allways tend to believe the untrained journalists for thier pretty eyes, but lots of times they are just not hindered by any knowledge and blab out all they want. Also, the fact that it is AJ doing the reporting in this case makes me wonder. Not credible at all...

Lets just stay with what we know, Boeing has been making planes for a long time. If their product would have been sub-standard, they would have been out of business long ago.
Yes the 78 has some teething problems, but lets give it some time.

b720
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Re: Broken Dream: Boeing 787 a documentary by Al Jazeera

Post by b720 »

rather off-topic... sorry for that,; however I do not trust al jazeera. Yes because it is Arabic, broadcasting from a country that has absolute no respect for human rights, democracy, civil liberties etc. Follow the money!! it is financed by the government of Qatar. Based in Doha. That is enough! it is FOX news Arab version, in other words GARBAGE>

RTM
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Re: Broken Dream: Boeing 787 a documentary by Al Jazeera

Post by RTM »

b720 wrote:rather off-topic... sorry for that,; however I do not trust al jazeera. Yes because it is Arabic, broadcasting from a country that has absolute no respect for human rights, democracy, civil liberties etc. Follow the money!! it is financed by the government of Qatar. Based in Doha. That is enough! it is FOX news Arab version, in other words GARBAGE>
I second that.
And if you realise how very patriotic the Americans are, the last journalist on earth they will turn to are those of Al Jazeera. Credibility in this case is less then zero IMO. Just another attempt to damage the imago of an American product.

Flanker2
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Re: Broken Dream: Boeing 787 a documentary by Al Jazeera

Post by Flanker2 »

RTM wrote:
Flanker2 wrote:Similarily, during heavy maintenance checks, there's no way of detecting this unless the material around the fastener starts to crack or the fastener itself shows visual cracking.
Not true...
Incorrectly installed fastners will work loose or pop their heads. This is picked up and dealt with during routine maintenance. Not really a big deal...
Don't try to be a smart-ass.

You're the one who's completely wrong as you're making a big confusion.
You're talking about routine rivet popping on aluminium skin panels.

I'm talking about structural barrel-join rivets.
The B787 fuselage is made out of barrels I remind you. These don't pop their heads in normal operations, although it could happen in a crash where other forces than deisgned for are applied to them.
Structural fasteners will crack and shear off rather than pop their heads, because they're subjected to shear stress rather than tensile stress.
Misaligned holes create static shear stress rather than longitudinal tensile stress. How would that pop their head?

Watch this A350XWB body-join video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt6KD2dVn0w

In shear stress, there is no visual sign until the rivet shears off. You can NDT the rivet and the area around it for cracks. It's not a straight-forward and certainly not an easy task to NDT all the rivets of lap joints, repair misaligned holes, etc...
It could become a routine part of maintenance on the B787 if it proves fatal at some point in the aircraft's long lifecycle.

In addition, it's not easy even with NDT to detect very small fatigue cracks developping in rivets.

RTM
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Re: Broken Dream: Boeing 787 a documentary by Al Jazeera

Post by RTM »

Whatever you say bwana...

I beg to differ, but no intention of feeding your bs, so, whatever you say.

Passenger
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Re: Broken Dream: Boeing 787 a documentary by Al Jazeera

Post by Passenger »

Reply from Boeing:

Boeing issued the following statement prior to the airing of the television program on Al Jazeera English. The company will not be providing any further comment.

We have not been afforded the opportunity to view the full program, but the promotional trailer and published media reviews suggest that what has been produced is as biased a production as we have seen in some time. It is unfortunate that the producers of this television program appear to have fallen into the trap of distorting facts, relying on claims rejected by courts of law, breathlessly rehashing as “news” stories that have been covered exhaustively in the past and relying on anonymous sources who appear intent only on harming The Boeing Company.

When first contacted by the producers, we accommodated them in order for them to produce a fair and objective report including facilitating factory access, interviews and providing full and open responses to their questions. The 787 is an outstanding airplane delivering value to our customers, but we have also talked candidly in public about its challenging development process. There are no tougher critics about our early performance than Boeing. Unfortunately, the reporting team appears to have chosen to take advantage of our trust and openness and abused their position from the outset by deliberately misrepresenting the purpose, objective and scope of their planned coverage.

This specious production appears to have ignored the factual information provided by Boeing and instead based the majority of its reporting on unnamed sources pursuing their own agendas and a disgruntled former employee engaged in a legal dispute with Boeing. In one instance, the producers resorted to ambush tactics normally seen only in tabloid-style TV news. The anonymous sources the TV program depends on are clearly working with those who seek to harm Boeing and its workers. They appear to have no real interest in truth, safety or better informing the public.

Even on-the-record sources seem to have changed their stories for the producers. For example, former Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) President Cynthia Cole said this about the 787’s first flight in 2009: “Today’s flight is a testament to the skill, hard work and diligence Boeing employees put in to get this airplane ready to fly,” SPEEA President Cynthia Cole said in a news release. “Boeing returned to engineering, and that’s what made today possible and successful.” Now, she states in the documentary trailer that Boeing “shortchanged the engineering process.”

Instead of an objective view of the 787’s development, viewers and our employees will see a television program that is neither balanced nor accurate in its portrayal of the airplane, our employees, or our suppliers. This program and those involved with it do a disservice to the hard-working men and women of Boeing and our supplier partners who designed and build the 787.

Furthermore, the program presents a false impression of Boeing South Carolina and the quality of work performed there. Airplanes, whether delivered from South Carolina or Washington, meet the highest safety and quality standards that are verified through robust test, verification and inspection processes. Our data of the current 787 fleet in service show parity in the quality and performance of airplanes manufactured in both locations.

Source:
http://boeing.mediaroom.com/index.php?s ... tem=129201

b720
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Joined: 04 May 2006, 00:00

Re: Broken Dream: Boeing 787 a documentary by Al Jazeera

Post by b720 »

Sorry, I rephrase, AL JAZEERA.. Not FOX NEWS of Arabia, but the MIRROR of ARABIA>> well said BOEING!
They should limit their stories on who married whom, and who slept with whom..

Boavida
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Re: Broken Dream: Boeing 787 a documentary by Al Jazeera

Post by Boavida »

Is the JAF 787 assembled in Everett or in this South Carolina plant?

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