I really didn’t want to write about Boeing again this week. However, the news nearly demands an explanation about what went wrong for the beleaguered company’s airplane and space divisions. I am guessing you saw the headlines or read a couple stories. Here’s a little context on what happened to Boeing last week.
NEWS ALERT: Boeing was in the news this week too.
PR TOUR BLOWS UP
Questions about Boeing’s safety culture started in earnest after the two 737 MAX crashes and a fleet grounding in 2020. The company has been saying it improved procedures and added levels of safety protocols. Then in January a door plug blew-out of an Alaska Airlines 737 in flight over Portland, Oregon. That resulted in news that the CEO would be leaving at the end of the year, and another Boeing declaration that it was adding even more levels of safety.
Clearly, Boeing has been losing the safety narrative battle. The company decided to go on offense and invited a couple dozen journalists to the Seattle area to show and explain the changes it has made on the assembly lines. That effort blew up in Boeing’s face.
Here’s a bit of background. After the door plug blew out, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) launched an investigation. The NTSB works a lot like journalists. Search for the facts about an accident, analyze the data, and then report. To conduct these investigations, the NTSB invites those with some kind of relationship with the accident to be a “party” to the investigation. In a jetliner crash it would be the airline, the maker of the jet, the engine manufacturer, and others related to the event.
In the case of the 737 door plug, Alaska Airlines, Boeing, Spirit AeroSystems, FAA, unions, and others became parties to the investigation. The rules are strict for the parties. They provide information to the NTSB and in return are informed about what the NTSB learns. But the parties cannot talk about the investigation while it is underway. Only the NTSB can release information.
NEWS ALERT: Boeing has reached a deal to buy Spirit AeroSystems. Spirit makes the 737 fuselage and was part of Boeing until a spinout in 2005 as Boeing started relying more on subcontractors.
Boeing knows the rules. It has been involved in several, if not dozens, of these investigations. It was a bit surprising back in March when the Chairwoman of the NTSB told a Senate committee, "Boeing has not provided us with documents and information we have requested numerous times.” Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington heads that committee and declared, “it's beyond disappointing,” that Boeing wasn’t cooperating.
The NTSB wanted to know who was responsible for not putting four bolts back into the plug door after it was opened. Those bolts keep the door from blowing out in flight. Boeing said the paperwork on the plug reinstall was missing. The NTSB Chair was not pleased.
That brings us to Tuesday and the public relations push involving all those reporters who visited the Renton, Washington Boeing factory where the 737 is built. As Boeing was trying to tell its story, Elizabeth Lund, the Senior VP of Quality Management, told reporters, “we believe that plug was opened without the correct paperwork.” That was new information and broke the rules of releasing investigative details in an ingoing probe.
The NTSB, already not happy with Boeing, immediately sanctioned the company saying Boeing, “blatantly” violated NTSB rules. Boeing will remain a party to the investigation, but the NTSB will no longer share information.
NEWS ALERT: There are reports Boeing will plead guilty to a count of conspiracy and pay an additional fine as part of the prosecution over the two 737 MAX crashes more than five years ago. The prosecution had been deferred. The Department of Justice (DOJ) said Boeing violated the agreement. DOJ says the plug door incident is proof Boeing hasn’t followed through with safety systems. Family members of the MAX victims aren’t happy with the reported plea deal. They want a full trial and maximum fine.
Boeing sounded contrite in its response. "We deeply regret that some of our comments, intended to make clear our responsibility in the accident and explain the actions we are taking, overstepped the NTSB’s role as the source of investigative information," Boeing said in a statement. The NTSB did not lift the sanctions and Boeing’s PR blitz ended being more about the sanctioning than safety.
Possibly the most interesting item to come out of the PR disaster was a comment by Katie Ringgold who is the VP of Boeing’s MAX program. Despite the debate of how Boeing got to this point, one thing I’ve heard from Boeing workers this past decade is Boeing’s focus on rate. That is the number of aircraft moving down the assembly line each month. Boeing has a large order book especially for the 737 MAX.
(Credit: NBC News/Today Show)
During the tour of the factory Ringgold stopped to speak. “Rate is not my priority right now. Implementing safety and quality changes and listening to every member of the team is my priority,” she told reporters. That is exactly what critics have been calling for since the MAX crashes.
“ASTRONAUTS STRANDED”
At the same time the Boeing Airplane group was angering the NTSB, its space division was reading headlines like this- “Boeing Starliner has left astronauts stranded on the International Space Station. Now what?”
Within a day NASA and Boeing scheduled a briefing. It was dubbed as a chance to update what was happening on the International Space Station (there were several developments), but it was really aimed at tamping down those Starliner headlines.
The message to reporters was that the astronauts are not stranded. That does appear to be the case. But this looks like a case where a vacuum of information is filled with misinformation.
This Starliner trip was supposed to be a test flight of just more than a week. The spacecraft and its two astronauts lifted off on June 5th. In flight two problems arose- helium leaks and some thruster issues.
Because they wanted to fully understand those problems, NASA waved off the first return date, set another, then followed with a third date. When they canceled that third planned return, officials said no new date would be set. Nearly all that information was released on a blog post with very few details about the motivation to keep the spacecraft and astronauts on the ISS. NASA normally provides a briefing with astronauts in orbit. That hasn’t happened.
That’s when the “Stuck in Space,” and “Astronauts Stranded,” headlines started showing up. It’s also why NASA and Boeing quickly assembled that media briefing, not on camera, but on the phone. NASA repeated an apology it’s made a few times in the past few years to reporters for not holding more briefings. Transparency is important.
NEWS ALERT: NASA and Boeing have just scheduled an on orbit media briefing with the Starliner crew. It is scheduled for next Wednesday.
As for the details about what is going on with the astronauts and Starliner, I heard a couple of things. The thrusters seem to be the focus right now. Some of them acted strangely during docking and one has been shut off. These thrusters are critical to get the capsule lined up for reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere. NASA has now ordered up some tests on similar thrusters at the White Sands Test Facility.
I heard Steve Stitch from NASA say they want to know if they need to use the thrusters differently. They were fired a lot during docking. Maybe they need to figure out a way to fire them less and still control the capsule correctly. This appears to be a search for an operational solution to get the astronauts home.
Mark Nappi of Boeing Space said something different, that they want to understand the root cause of why the thrusters are not operating as expected. He hopes the White Sands tests can possibly inform additional tests of Starliner while still on the ISS. Nappi says staying on station provides the chance of getting a final fix to the thruster problem. His motivation seems to be a big picture solution.
Both motivations can be true at the same time. Both Boeing and NASA want this problem to be solved not just for this flight but for future trips as well.
NEWS ALERT: I asked NASA for some guidance on the motiviation for the White Sands tests. The response said, “The goal is to build further confidence in the CFT thrusters’ expected performance during the deorbit phase and gain additional insight into why the thrusters were deselected by the onboard computers during docking. We will use any data learned during this testing to inform our CFT decision making and future flight considerations.” NASA wants to make sure this spacecraft is safe to return to Earth. The final fix may have to wait.
It was a week of Boeing trying to tell its story and having trouble controlling the narrative, again.
SpaceX, maybe, but I think it’s more likely that Boeing would hire Russia to send a Soyuz capsule to bring their two astronauts home.
I mean, c’mon. We all know these astronauts are gonna have to come home via SpaceX. The ultimate embarrassment, but perhaps the safest solution.