Is it incredible that it's 737 Max that is now in headlines for unsafe door panels, when it was the same model five years ago in headlines for unsafe autopilot?
No. There is nothing incredible about an aircraft model that is not an improved revision of its predecessor, but in fact a completely reworked aircraft, that was allowed to skip recertification for essentially fraudulent motivations, turning out to be unsafe to fly.
So, it turns out that not only has the former Boeing division, now a spun-out subcontractor Spirit, had documented quality assurance issue before, they've been challenged in court specifically on the process of attaching components like door panels to the fuselages they make for Boeing.
There's a whole another story, btw, about how Spirit got divested into its own public company. Short version is that it made Boeing's balance sheet lighter with one less division, so it'd look more profitable.
Airbus was thinking of something similar but eventually decided against it. Spirit does manufacture for Airbus as well, though.
The side "bonus" is that FAA needs to oversee more companies without having any more funding to do so.
@osma 'Interesting'. BTW about those 'loose' bolts, it may be good to point out that this doesn't actually mean loose at the point of manufacture, but rather that they weren't fastened with the prescribed torque, meaning that with every flight movement when the cabin is pressurized or depressurized, the bolts slowly work their way loose. A bit like why you should tighten the bolts on your summer/winter tires 100 km after changing them.
@martinvermeer
As anyone who ever maintains any kind of machinery, vehicle or sailing equipment will know, vibration does things to attachments which looked well fastened just a moment ago.
@osma on a side note: since Spirit is producing also for Airbus it kind of makes sense from a legal, especially Anti-Trust point of view, to have them as a separate legal entity.
The question is as always: how independent are they really? Are they a 100% subsidiary?
We have one 100 % subsidiary that's also producing for our competition. We treat them as a third party basically (only that their earnings show up in our balance sheet).
@t_mkdf
They weren't producing for Airbus before divestment. The buy side of the transaction was counting on being able to increase the market as independent.
Public company, not a subsidiary, fully divested to private equity almost two decades ago. But around 80% of Spirit's business is still subcontracting to Boeing.
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