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Al Jazeera investigates - Broken dreams: The Boeing 787

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  • Al Jazeera investigates - Broken dreams: The Boeing 787

    Did you guys see this?



    It smells tabloid, in my opinion.

  • #2
    Originally posted by pacoperez View Post
    It smells tabloid, in my opinion.
    That and a union sponsored hit piece against the non-union factory in South Carolina.

    Comment


    • #3
      Here is Boeing's response:
      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...


      I haven't watched the whole documentary yet, so I might have missed some parts.
      But I think the fact that there are almost 200 Dreamliners flying and we have been hearing less incidents of its technical problems(than its early days when there was only 50) shows that it is improving. The media often exaggerates incidents on new aircraft. I remember the days in 2009 and 2010 when every little problem about the A380 was brought up. And now when a 787 has an engine failure(which happens to an airliner somewhere in the world every few days) it is all over the headlines with passengers in "terror".

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by hongmng View Post
        Here is Boeing's response:
        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...
        I fully agree.

        Comment


        • #5
          not surprising in the least bit. proof once again that profit trumps quality and safety every time.

          hopefully it never happens, but if it does, you can bet all the tea in china that boeing will blame a failure on one of the suppliers and will produce documents that "prove" it attempted to address the quality issue with the supplier and that the supplier said it would comply but didn't. it will then quietly settle whatever lawsuits are pending and everything will go back to normal.

          i just booked a trip to singapore and intentionally opted for an airline and routes that do not utilize the 787.

          i love how people demonize unions, usually those that are not and never were union. while they do have their evils, many times unions are correct and reveal difficiencies that the public would otherwise never be informed of.

          back in the 90s when i was a union delegate for the paramedics' local in NYC, i organized a march/protest revealing to the public how the fire dept's policies regarding overtime were forcing us to work even if we were exhausted, while there were folks that were volunteering to work overtime but were not allowed because of a "salary cap." essentially, no matter what, the dept had placed a ceiling on how much a medic could earn per year. once that limit was reached, regardless of safety, they were not permitted to work. so, the public was forced to have over-tired medics responding to their medical emergencies. were mistakes made? probably. and if they were, i guarantee 110% of the time the individual medic was blamed and terminated.

          after our march/protest the dept quietly did away with the salary cap and allowed volunteers to work as much overtime as they wanted. oh, at no time did any volunteer work more than 16 hours in any 24 hour period.

          Comment


          • #6
            You make some good points, but you failed to mention that Al-Jazeera has its own, and IMHO stronger, motivations to produce a less-than-top-quality product.

            When an airplane maker deliberately makes a poor-quality product they're taking a huge risk: the flying public prioritizes quality (in the form of safety and reliability) in aircraft extremely highly. The aircraft-manufacturing industry is also very heavily regulated and scrutinized in the name of maintaining product quality.

            The mass media on the other hand, in many (most?) cases actually _benefits_ from producing a poor-quality product. You always hear people complaining about poor journalism, but the reality is poor journalism is usually a winning strategy financially.

            Consider this: if instead of the piece mentioned above, Al-Jazeera had produced a report highlighting the quality of Boeing products and all the work that goes into making them so, would we even be discussing it here? Or would anyone else? It would go almost completely unnoticed. A sensational report, even if full of lies, will attract a lot more viewers. And whether for monetary or other reasons, viewership is what TV networks want the most.
            Be alert! America needs more lerts.

            Eric Law

            Comment


            • #7
              so where are the lies? boeing's half-baked, attorney drafted response does nothing to disprove the allegations. read their memo a few times and pay attention to how they deflect, NOT disprove the allegation of their former head of engineering. where is the proof that the FAA didn't just rubber stamp their "fix" of the battery issue? where is the proof that the undercover video taken by their own employee wasn't real?

              yeah, companies always call whistleblowers "disgruntled ex-employees." yet time and time again, those whistelblowers are proven right and the companies quietly settle.

              we all KNOW that greedy executives and wall street money whores NEVER EVER lie. they NEVER cover up the truth. and they NEVER cut corners at the expense of the public.

              we all know that no one has ever been hurt or killed because of cost cutting, safety ignoring measures.

              ALL chemicals are SAFE.

              ALL drugs are SAFE.

              wanna buy a bridge or a couple of towers?

              Comment


              • #8
                Whistle blowers are encouraged in the company I recently retired from.......until of course they actually blow the whistle about management !!!
                If it 'ain't broken........ Don't try to mend it !

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by elaw View Post
                  Consider this: if instead of the piece mentioned above, Al-Jazeera had produced a report highlighting the quality of Boeing products and all the work that goes into making them so, would we even be discussing it here? Or would anyone else? It would go almost completely unnoticed. A sensational report, even if full of lies, will attract a lot more viewers. And whether for monetary or other reasons, viewership is what TV networks want the most.
                  Exactly!

                  TeeVee, I do agree with you that unions are necessary. I absolutely agree that you can't give full rein to whom is thinking only in benefits, yes, but that documentary is a really poor investigation about the issue. Is it very difficult to investigate and find the truth? I'm sure, but with that documentary maybe Al-Jazeera did some money but honestly speaking, it's a piece of shit and when I watched it I was automatically likely to believe Boeing instead of Mr. Will Jordan.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by pacoperez View Post
                    Exactly!

                    TeeVee, I do agree with you that unions are necessary. I absolutely agree that you can't give full rein to whom is thinking only in benefits, yes, but that documentary is a really poor investigation about the issue. Is it very difficult to investigate and find the truth? I'm sure, but with that documentary maybe Al-Jazeera did some money but honestly speaking, it's a piece of shit and when I watched it I was automatically likely to believe Boeing instead of Mr. Will Jordan.

                    Then why did you post it?

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      This is certainly shock journalism at its worst (storms over the Chicago skyline!) and it makes me question the integrity of Al Jazeera more than the integrity of the 787, but it's a shame for another reason: there's an important story here and a good deal of truth to it.

                      If you want an idea of how bad the complicity between government watchdog organizations and the industries they oversee has become, you need look no further than the front page of today's New York Times. They ran a real piece of investigative journalism exposing the willful negligence of the National Highway Traffic Safety Commission, the agency responsible for investigating safety defects in automobiles:

                      Originally posted by NY Times
                      An investigation by The New York Times into the agency’s handling of major safety defects over the past decade found that it frequently has been slow to identify problems, tentative to act and reluctant to employ its full legal powers against companies.
                      An investigation by The New York Times has found that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration frequently has been slow to identify problems, tentative to act and reluctant to employ its full legal powers against companies.


                      We are living at a time in history when great advances in technology are being trumped by a vast divide between executive priorities and those of the few people in management who still take pride in the quality of their products. Globalization has added downward pressures that make it impossible to pursue absolute quality. Everything now must be a compromise between cost and quality and that compromise is going further to the advantage of cost. Executives, often having never known the pride of workmanship but being well acquainted with the pride of ownership, are increasingly compensated in company stock, which makes up a large percentage of their net worth. In a capricious, day-traded market, any delays or cost increases can erode that stock valuation and therefore their own net worth. Their top priority has become their own net worth and they seem almost universally short-sighted even about that.

                      Then we have the public sector regulators, very underpaid in comparison to their executive peers. They often have aspirations beyond government work so it behooves them to build deferential relationships with the industries they regulate. This facilitates the jump to lucrative work in the private sector.

                      Then we have the many examples where weak legislation has placed the industries in charge of the inspection process, the 'honor system' where there is no longer any value placed on 'honor', let alone integrity.

                      I'm not saying the 787 is compromised. As we who closely watch the industry know, a rash of equipment failure incidents, or god forbid a crash, will ultimately have a devastating effect of commercial sales and thus the share prices that make up executive fortunes, so even the dimmest upper-class twit has to recognize the importance of manufacturing integrity and design safety. If the 787 is ever to be profitable, it has to endure.

                      What I am saying is that the current environment is ripe for a scenario such as the one described in this video. Faced with a costly grounding and delivery delays, a short-sighted, personal-wealth oriented executive class could leverage their influence over a corrupted regulatory body to achieve certification when serious questions still remain unanswered and safety concerns unaddressed. The current executive mentality is to play it forward, cross that bridge when you come to it, amass as much wealth as possible now for an uncertain future and place sustainablity as your lowest priority. That much is pretty clear to me.

                      So we now know for a fact that the NHTCS, by being reluctant to create adversity with powerful industry, has allowed dangerous machines to slip past their oversight and result in fatalies. Is this an endemic problem with government oversight that extends to the FAA?

                      The Al Jazeera video, though edited for shock value, does manage to present some compelling evidence of this. I only hope that the over-design and redundancy involved in aircraft manufacturing combined with the dedication of the people who fly and maintain these machines can overcome whatever flaws may exist.

                      But can anything overcome a thermal runaway lithium ion battery fire on an ETOPS 330 aircraft?

                      If the Al Jazeera staff had any clue about aviation, that would have been their first question.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by BoeingBobby View Post
                        Then why did you post it?
                        It's a forum.
                        It's about aviation safety.
                        And I want to know the opinion of people that know more than me about the matter.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          What is NHTCS?! If Google doesn't know then it doesn't exist! : ))

                          Originally posted by Evan View Post
                          Everything now must be a compromise between cost and quality and that compromise is going further to the advantage of cost.
                          It always has been and it always will be.

                          Originally posted by Evan View Post
                          The Al Jazeera video, though edited for shock value, does manage to present some compelling evidence of this. I only hope that the over-design and redundancy involved in aircraft manufacturing combined with the dedication of the people who fly and maintain these machines can overcome whatever flaws may exist.
                          But can anything overcome a thermal runaway lithium ion battery fire on an ETOPS 330 aircraft?
                          If the Al Jazeera staff had any clue about aviation, that would have been their first question.
                          Yes, I really hope so. It would be nice to watch a documentary that really goes deeply into this matter to find whether it was an issue detected and solved or otherwise it was detected and hidden because of costing.
                          I remember when I read the whole report (103 pages) of the Air Transat 236 gliding incident. So exhaustive! They really went until the last screw to find what went wrong there.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by pacoperez View Post
                            What is NHTCS?! If Google doesn't know then it doesn't exist! : ))
                            National Highway Traffic Safety Commission



                            Originally posted by pacoperez View Post
                            It always has been and it always will be.
                            But as I said, it is leaning far more towards cost these days. I should have said 'safety' instead of quality, although they are often the same thing. ANd it might not "always will be" either. If trends escalate and oversight rots it could become a cost issue alone.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Evan View Post
                              National Highway Traffic Safety Commission
                              Psst... it's "National Highway Traffic Safety Administration": http://www.nhtsa.gov/
                              Be alert! America needs more lerts.

                              Eric Law

                              Comment

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