[posguy]

South Carolina planes were getting flown to Washington before delivery to customers when I had a friend still working there. He was finding metal shavings in the fuselage of the plane, along with tools, nicked wires and such.

None of this should have made it out of the factory floor. Every crew that works on a plane has to certify (literally sign off a form) that when they worked on the plane they left it in good shape (no obvious defects, like metal shavings, tools left inside, etc). If the next shift comes in and finds dangerous debris or damage the prior crew should have noted, then the prior crew is required by the FAA to have a formal report written against them, as they have created a dangerous plane.

Management has applied heavy pressure to my friend repeatedly to not report these incidents, despite his legal obligation. Ultimately, he took a $25k hit paying back the Boeing relocation package and left after 10 months to work on repairing trains (which has been a significant improvement).

[quarterdime]

There are numerous reports on debris (metal shavings, tools, and even a whole ladder) being discovered in aircraft by customers after delivery. This requires not only that assembly signed off on the aircraft, but that the issues are not discovered in final inspection either.

Some reporting suggests several major customers (airlines) were so fed up with this 'foreign object debris' (metal shavings etc) problem that they said they would only accept aircraft from Washington. From your story, I can't help but wonder if Boeing management got around this by flying near-complete aircraft from SC to WA to get around this.

To give you a sense of how bad this debris issue is: the US Air Force refused delivery of new air tankers after finding debris (in fuel tanks if I remember correctly).

[rob74]

The story about airlines only accepting 787 aircraft from Washington was from the time when it was still being assembled in two plants (Everett, WA and North Charleston, SC). Since March 2021 (according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner), the only plant assembling 787s is the SC plant, which is cheaper and non-unionized. I guess that's more important to Boeing than occasional quality issues...

[posguy]

Hiring mechanics & technicians for Boeing in the Pacific Northwest is also quite difficult with their poor reputation, middling pay and the high cost of living. FAANG has increased the cost of living in the region to the point of pricing out whole neighborhoods that used to be Boeing employees, pushing them out of the inner suburbs.

[blarg1]

it's a complementary ladder

[phkahler]

>> Management has applied heavy pressure to my friend repeatedly to not report these incidents, despite his legal obligation.

Yeah, the idea is to have management put pressure on the people who left stuff in bad shape. Shooting the messenger isn't the right answer.

[posguy]

Shooting the messenger seems to be Boeing tradition of the last decade.

When I was a kid, half the parents I knew worked at Boeing and were proud of the quality engineering or manufacturing they did, but over the past two decades Boeing has had this crew retire and has worked to shift to a blame the messenger culture.

[FabHK]

There's this documentary on Netflix that also notes the cultural shift, and largely blames it on the 1997 acquisition of McDonnell-Douglas, and the subsequent shift, roughly speaking, from an engineering-dominated culture to an MBA-dominated culture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downfall:_The_Case_Against_Boe...

[posguy]

Almost Live has a pretty good satirical take on the Boeing cultural shift: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVUeZ2HLYlM

[panick21_]

Wow, that reporter is Joel McHale.

[lostlogin]

Completely alarming.

Publishing his experience anonymously is likely impossible, but if not, I’d be really keen to read it.

[toomuchtodo]

Preferably as an open letter addressed and submitted to the FAA.