Thread: Door comes off in flight.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

"caused by improper maintenance procedures "

One of a number of nails in the coffin of the DC-10. Most of these were not the fault of the airframe itself.

Surely a Land Rover, DIY owner could fix the door with a bit of Sikaflex and a handful of pop rivets.

Originally Posted by V8Ian

Surely a Land Rover, DIY owner could fix the door with a bit of Sikaflex and a handful of pop rivets.

A handful? 4 should do the job that should be plenty to get through it's warranty.


What are you sayin,' we are made of money?

Back in the 80s, for some reason known only to herself, my Mum traded in a Subaru on a Lada Samara. About a week after she took delivery the door fell off ( yes, I'm serious ) due to poor pre deliver inspection. Well, probably due to poor maunufacture, but PD should have picked it up. Seems the bolts were loose.

A new prelim report from the US NTSB says that the Alaska 737-Max-9 door plug accident was due not to loose bolts, but to the bolts not being there in the first place. You would think that a huge US aircraft manufacturer would have better QC than a Soviet era car company.

Mum traded the Lada back shortly afterwards...

Report. (long)

Flying Mag article

From my reading, the lack of bolts seems to have resulted from a manufacturing procedure of "hive off major parts of your manufacturing to a venture capital funded subcontractor, squeeze them until they make errors, then get them to send people to your final assembly line to fix the errors, without the work they do being subject to the same QC procedures it had in their own factory or in yours".

I wonder how this could result in problems with the final product?

Originally Posted by JDNSW

From my reading, the lack of bolts seems to have resulted from a manufacturing procedure of "hive off major parts of your manufacturing to a venture capital funded subcontractor, squeeze them until they make errors, then get them to send people to your final assembly line to fix the errors, without the work they do being subject to the same QC procedures it had in their own factory or in yours".

I wonder how this could result in problems with the final product?

Absolutely. It doesn't absolve Boeing from the final QC failure though. ( You didn't say it did, just to be clear )

I'm a little tired of commentators, notably in the media, conflating this issue with the MCAS disasters. This issue is, as you put it, a systemic error resulting from poor business practices. MCAS was a deliberate decision to circumvent the FAA re-certification process for cost cutting due to.... well, poor business practices.

Originally Posted by Tins

Back in the 80s, for some reason known only to herself, my Mum traded in a Subaru on a Lada Samara.

One of my school mates fathers worked as an accountant for Lada in Perth. Apparently they were buying them super-cheap from the manufacturer, then dissembled them in WA down to the last nut and bolt, then put them together again with correct fastener torque and loctite. Priced accordingly. I know in the 80's they were popular over here. Funny, you don't see many on the road these days.

One of my older mates had a Lada Niva in Adelaide. His comment was "It's a great car provided you can find the bits that fall off and put them back on again".

I get these recalls every week. Make of it what you will. This is only a very short list.

Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts

Originally Posted by Tins

Back in the 80s, for some reason known only to herself, my Mum traded in a Subaru on a Lada Samara. About a week after she took delivery the door fell off ( yes, I'm serious ) due to poor pre deliver inspection. Well, probably due to poor maunufacture, but PD should have picked it up. Seems the bolts were loose.

A new prelim report from the US NTSB says that the Alaska 737-Max-9 door plug accident was due not to loose bolts, but to the bolts not being there in the first place. You would think that a huge US aircraft manufacturer would have better QC than a Soviet era car company.

Mum traded the Lada back shortly afterwards...

Report. (long)

Flying Mag article