[whitej125]

All the focus is on Boeing (as it is a household name) and they have final signoff... but Spirit Aerosystems (the fuselage manufacturer, not the airline) is also a big, public company that doesn't seem to be sharing any of the blame here.

This is ironic because Spirit also manufactures parts for Airbus, etc.

https://www.spiritaero.com/company/programs/

[thallium205]

It's Boeing's job to stop the line but they didn't as the whistleblower mentioned:

"As a result, this check job that should find minimal defects has in the past 365 calendar days recorded 392 nonconforming findings on 737 mid fuselage door installations (so both actual doors for the high density configs, and plugs like the one that blew out). That is a hideously high and very alarming number, and if our quality system on 737 was healthy, it would have stopped the line and driven the issue back to supplier after the first few instances."

[cameldrv]

I've heard Spirit has had a lot of problems, but likewise Boeing itself is not immune to this. A few years back the Boeing South Carolina plant was having a very consistent problem with foreign objects (wrenches, parts, etc) being left behind in assembled planes, to rattle around and damage who knows what.

My understanding as well is that while Spirit makes the fuselage of the 737MAX, final assembly is at Boeing in Renton Washington, and the plug door would have been removed for final assembly and then reinstalled in Renton, so Boeing itself would be responsible, assuming, as appears likely, that the plane left the factory without the door bolts installed.

[hencq]

Yeah, assuming this article is true, I wonder if Airbus is finding similar quality issues with Spirit as a supplier.

[p_l]

Airbus is, supposedly, very much "boots on the ground" in cooperation with suppliers. Somehow nobody hears of issues they have with Spirit, but at the same time nobody hears of Spirit being squeezed dry by Airbus - only by Boeing.

[Symbiote]

Also Airbus mostly use the Spirit factories in the UK (from the link above), which Spirit acquired from a British company.

Plenty of room for differences between those factories and the former-Boeing one in the USA.

[p_l]

Including in terms of financial stability!

[Zetobal]

If you look something up look it up in detail. Especially which parts of the planes get build by them for Boeing and Airbus AND Spirit is a spinoff of Boeing... it's their bad bank.