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Is 787 safe?

singveld

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A Jet Flies, With Its Problems Never Far Behind
‘Broken Dreams: The Boeing 787,’ a Documentary on Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera network’s documentary division may not yet get a lot of attention in the United States, but “Broken Dreams: The Boeing 787” will certainly raise eyebrows. Any time you catch employees of an airplane manufacturer saying they wouldn’t want to fly on the company’s newest jet, you’re bound to make a few waves.

The program is being broadcast on Wednesday on Al Jazeera’s international channels and online in the United States (though it has not yet been scheduled on Al Jazeera America). Last year’s much-publicized battery problems on the 787, the so-called Dreamliner and Boeing’s big bet on the future, are only the starting point for the piece, directed by Marc Shaffer and reported by Will Jordan.

It reviews the history of the jet, which the company envisioned as being both better for passengers and cheaper to fly, but which encountered long delays before commercial flights began in 2011. Then came the battery issue (one caught fire) and a grounding. The program, though, suggests that there are other things to be concerned about, especially the quality of work being done at Boeing’s South Carolina assembly facilities.

Footage captured by an employee with a hidden camera is a pivotal part of the program. He records colleagues (who are heard but not seen) as they talk about the plant’s hiring of unskilled workers, drug use among employees, slipshod workmanship and inadequate inspections.

Hidden-camera reportage is not the most satisfying investigative technique — the viewer can’t judge credibility or context — but the unflattering portrait is fleshed out with on-the-record interviews with former employees and others. There’s nothing harder in journalism than getting behind the scenes of a manufacturing process, whether it’s for airplanes or frozen food, to see what’s really going on. “Broken Dreams” at least makes an effort.
 

singveld

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787 gets harsh scrutiny on Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera English takes a look at the 787’s troubled development, with some new twists. Also, three local retail giants rank high in opportunity for workers with a high-school education, and Chinese giant Huawei has a surprising answer to T-Mobile’s industrial espionage suit.

Boeing watchers may find that a documentary on the Dreamliner that debuts this week on Al Jazeera English, like the 787’s smoldering batteries in 2013, produces more heat than light.

Like those powerful and problematic lithium ion batteries, however, the documentary does raise troubling questions and leave some matters unresolved.

“Broken Dreams: The Boeing 787” is likely to attract a lot of eyeballs both here and in South Carolina, where workers at the North Charleston plant — recorded without their knowledge — express some disturbing opinions about the plane.

Much of the story is familiar:

• Boeing farming out production of major components across the globe.

• The July 2007 rollout of the first plane with great pomp, though it turned out to be unfinished, followed by more than two years of delays.

• The opening of a South Carolina final assembly plant after a bitter 2008 strike by Machinists here.

• The back-to-back battery problems in January 2013 that grounded the entire fleet of 787s for six months before Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration produced a fix, but not a full explanation.

The elaborately produced 49-minute piece tells this story well, albeit with a clear critical agenda and a lack of technical specifics. If you’ve never seen a lithium ion battery get penetrated in slow motion by a bullet and burst into flames, this is your chance. It’s great TV, but viewers may wonder if it’s relevant — only the man who did that test suggests it is — given the very different chemistries and designs among various lithium batteries.

Where it seeks to break new ground is in the aforementioned secret recordings, and in a memo the producers say shows a decision to relax quality standards to meet the plane’s schedule.

The North Charleston workers, their faces and real voices obscured, casually toss off some serious trash talk about the company, their fellow employees and the plane.

It’s startling to hear. And Boeing will surely launch a scorched-earth investigation to nail down these commenters, as well as the employee who interviewed them.

And yet, when one of the South Carolina workers who complains about poor quality inspection is asked, “You think Everett is better?” his answer is a bit suspect: “I think Everett will do what’s right, to make the plane right. Because of the union, they have to. Here everyone is being pushed to meet this f***ing schedule.”

Experienced observers of the company will wonder whether this is one of the Everett workers dispatched to help get the Charleston plant on track. The question is legitimate, but it’s hard to evaluate the answer without knowing more about the source.

The same is true for a memo the documentary cites as proof that quality is being sacrificed to meet production targets. The dramatic presentation is undermined by a lack of detail. (The Seattle Times reviewed that memo earlier this year and concluded it was not proof that safety was being compromised for production’s sake.)

Unfortunately, Boeing doesn’t have much of a say. The company’s 787 chief, Larry Loftis, makes a brief interview appearance with the documentary makers before his PR manager stops the discussion, after the allegations of unnamed employees are brought up.

Before he exits, Loftis declares he has “the highest degree of confidence” in the plane and Boeing’s production system.

The documentary makers report the company later denounced their work as “in the worst tradition of tabloid-style television news.”

Viewers can judge for themselves when the documentary debuts on the Al Jazeera cable channel Wednesday. In the U.S., where relatively few cable systems carry Al Jazeera, the piece initially will be available only online at www.aljazeera.com/boeing787.
 

singveld

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Boeing Refutes Al Jazeera's Disturbing Claims About Production Of The 787 Dreamliner

In a new Al Jazeera documentary, "Broken Dreams: Boeing 787," the news organization's investigative unit goes behind the scenes of Boeing's manufacturing operations and makes some serious allegations about the company and its 787 Dreamliner aircraft.
In the report, which aired this week on Al Jazeera America, anonymous Boeing employees called into question Boeing's quality control standards, and claimed that workers in one of Boeing's plants used illegal drugs. The report, hosted by Al Jazeera's Will Jordan, is the culmination of a yearlong investigation of the American aviation giant.

Boeing immediately disputed the accuracy of the documentary.

In statement to Business Insider, Boeing said, "We have not been afforded the opportunity to view the full program, but the promotional trailer and published media reviews suggest that what has been produced is as biased a production as we have seen in some time."

One particularly controversial portion of the documentary centers on operations at Boeing's North Charleston assembly plant in South Carolina. At the core of this segment is the testimony of an employee at the facility, which was built specifically to construct the Dreamliner, a midsize widebody aircraft that has experienced a troubled rollout, including battery fires that at one point grounded the entire fleet.

In the report, the worker tells Jordan that 90% of problems concerning the Dreamliner are swept under the rug.

Using a hidden camera, that Boeing worker sought opinions within the North Charleston facility on the plant's operations and the Dreamliner from fellow workers. When asked whether they would fly on a 787 Dreamliner, the responses from people building the plane were disturbing.

In response, Boeing said, "This specious production appears to have ignored the factual information provided by Boeing and instead based the majority of its reporting on unnamed sources pursuing their own agendas and a disgruntled former employee engaged in a legal dispute with Boeing."
That legal dispute involves a former Boeing South Carolina engineer who claims he was dismissed from the company after reporting that damaged and improperly repaired parts were being installed on production Dreamliners.

There's no question that the documentary adopts a sensationalistic angle — something that's raised objections among aviation experts.

In a review published on Forbes, aviation analyst Vinay Bhaskara writes that "despite its hype, Al-Jazeera’s report falls substantially short on substance, too often falling into a slanted and biased presentation that leaves the piece wanting for objectivity and substance."

With such a small sample size of employees and mostly anecdotal evidence, it's easy to ask how much substantive value the documentary has.
However, the Dreamliner's path to the skies has so far been anything but smooth. Boeing has had issues with everything from the 787's engines and lithium-ion batteries to its software, and these myriad problems have caused lengthy delays for customers and skepticism about the plane's future.

Here's Boeing complete statement on the documentary:

We have not been afforded the opportunity to view the full program, but the promotional trailer and published media reviews suggest that what has been produced is as biased a production as we have seen in some time. It is unfortunate that the producers of this television program appear to have fallen into the trap of distorting facts, relying on claims rejected by courts of law, breathlessly rehashing as “news” stories that have been covered exhaustively in the past and relying on anonymous sources who appear intent only on harming The Boeing Company.

When first contacted by the producers, we accommodated them in order for them to produce a fair and objective report including facilitating factory access, interviews and providing full and open responses to their questions. The 787 is an outstanding airplane delivering value to our customers, but we have also talked candidly in public about its challenging development process. There are no tougher critics about our early performance than Boeing. Unfortunately, the reporting team appears to have chosen to take advantage of our trust and openness and abused their position from the outset by deliberately misrepresenting the purpose, objective and scope of their planned coverage.

This specious production appears to have ignored the factual information provided by Boeing and instead based the majority of its reporting on unnamed sources pursuing their own agendas and a disgruntled former employee engaged in a legal dispute with Boeing. In one instance, the producers resorted to ambush tactics normally seen only in tabloid-style TV news. The anonymous sources the TV program depends on are clearly working with those who seek to harm Boeing and its workers. They appear to have no real interest in truth, safety or better informing the public.

Even on-the-record sources seem to have changed their stories for the producers. For example, former Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) President Cynthia Cole said this about the 787’s first flight in 2009: “Today’s flight is a testament to the skill, hard work and diligence Boeing employees put in to get this airplane ready to fly,” SPEEA President Cynthia Cole said in a news release. “Boeing returned to engineering, and that’s what made today possible and successful.” Now, she states in the documentary trailer that Boeing “shortchanged the engineering process.”

Instead of an objective view of the 787’s development, viewers and our employees will see a television program that is neither balanced nor accurate in its portrayal of the airplane, our employees, or our suppliers. This program and those involved with it do a disservice to the hard-working men and women of Boeing and our supplier partners who designed and build the 787.

Furthermore, the program presents a false impression of Boeing South Carolina and the quality of work performed there. Airplanes, whether delivered from South Carolina or Washington, meet the highest safety and quality standards that are verified through robust test, verification and inspection processes. Our data of the current 787 fleet in service show parity in the quality and performance of airplanes manufactured in both locations.
 

frenchbriefs

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this new boeing management is typical style of PAP doggies and how this country has been run down into the ground in the last 10 years........slimy disgusting money men and worthless executives.....willing to sacrifice any bit of quality and cut corners and outsource to cheaper better faster just to make a quick buck.....splitting up the entire manufacturing of the plane and outsourcing it to the highest bidder......ffs they were trying to make the goddam plane fuselage out of plastic composite instead of aluminium alloy......a jumbo jet a a marvellous complex piece of machinery for a good reason,any defect in manufacturing could easily send a plane hurtling to the ocean.

not to mention trying to undermine and cripple unions by moving operations to scumbag states with no regulations no unions and no quality control.....
 
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johnny333

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Problem is compounded by airlines cutting corners by outsourcing to companies using cheaper workforce from the 3rd world.
 

singveld

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Review: Al Jazeera's 787 Report Misses the Mark
By Vinay Bhaskara

Earlier today, Al Jazeera English released an investigative report entitled: Al Jazeera Investigates – Broken Dreams: The Boeing 787. The report is a 48-minute news documentary on the divisive Boeing 787 Dreamliner program, blending isolated anecdotal evidence with a recap of the troubled history of the airplane to heavily imply that the 787 may be unsafe. However, despite its hype, Al-Jazeera’s report falls substantially short on substance, too often falling into a slanted and biased presentation that leaves the piece wanting for objectivity and substance.

The report has several moments of lucidity, especially when recapping the 787’s challenges. The cultural issues generated by Boeing’s merger with McDonnell Douglas, as well as its shift in management philosophy towards generating shareholder value are well known, though one may disagree on whether these changes were beneficial for the company. The 787’s volatile path to entry-into-service (EIS), battery troubles, and quality control issues at Charleston are also well known. In particular, the quality control of Charleston 787s is well known within the industry to be less than the standard of Everett, and Charleston 787s are frequently flown to Everett for finishing and eliminating QC issues. But what part of that is news? Each of those issues has been reported, analyzed, dissected, and re-packaged ad-nauseum in almost every medium fathomable over the past seven years. The 16-minute stretch discussing these challenges is the most accurate portion of the program, but it breaks no new ground.

Perhaps the only substantive portion of Al Jazeera’s program that is new or novel is the allegations of drug use at Boeing’s plant in Charleston. Boeing can be expected to investigate these allegations seriously, but it is hardly surprising. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find any major industrial plant of that size where drug use is not present; including Boeing’s Everett plant.


What then of the anonymous conversations with former employees, which appear to be the foundation of Al Jazeera’s unsafe implication (while journalists Jon Ostrower and Dominic Gates, as well as analyst Richard Aboulafia do appear in the program, they do so during the factual 16-minute stretch referenced above)? To reject their claims out of hand because they are “disgruntled” former employees would be improper, but Al-Jazeera’s presentation and packaging does no favors to the apparent credibility of their claims. The (mis)use of the former employee in Mississippi is, as Scott Hamilton put it, gratuitous, while the reading of memos out of context, anonymous interviews, and tales of impending doom as a result of changing engineering policies fall several degrees short of providing conclusive proof.

Indeed what is Boeing’s incentive to deliver an unsafe airplane to consumers? Or an airline’s incentive to take delivery of an aircraft that it thinks or knows is unsafe? In Boeing’s case, the potential liability expenses are massive, let alone the fact that the 787-product line, and Boeing as a company would likely be decimated if the safety issues came to light. The McDonnell Douglas DC-10, and (arguably) McDonnell Douglas itself, were irrevocably harmed by several high profile crashes in the 1970s and 1980s. If the 787 program goes down because of safety problems, then Boeing goes down with it. And on the airline side, the case of Malaysia Airlines after flights 370 and 17 provides ample evidence as to the consequences of accepting an unsafe aircraft. None of this to say that the Boeing 787 is a perfect aircraft (it isn’t), or that the battery problem wasn’t a safety issue (it was). But poor dispatch reliability and an already fixed problem with lithium-ion batteries do not make the 787 unsafe at present.

But beyond the un-satisfying nature of the safety “concerns,” there are numerous instances of bias in the program that call into question its veracity as an “investigative report.” To highlight just a few


The documentary calls profits “Wall Street Returns” – in an aim to characterize profitability as morally suspect
Jim McNerney’s pension is juxtaposed against the fight to trim machinist (union) pensions. However, no mention is made of the fact that just a few months later, Boeing froze pensions for non-union employees including management.
The piece implies that workers in Charleston are less qualified and skillful than those at Everett, demonizes said workers for not belonging to a union, further attempts to imply their unsuitability by making allegations of drug use (which is almost certainly present in Everett), and characterizes Boeing’s search for a viable hedge against work stoppages (the second production line) as “auctioning off” a production line to “the highest bidder.”
Whether or not there is merit to some of these claims, they are presented in a slanted manner that severely calls into question the supposed objectivity of Al Jazeera’s report. Adding to the program’s questionable veracity is the sensationalistic manner in which several aspects of its production were handled. The Showtime movie–esque background music has no place in objective news documentaries, and the juxtaposition of Boeing’s quarterly earnings call against ominous sounds of thunder and lightning was almost laughable in its demagoguery. Moreover, it is clear that current 787 program head Larry Loftis was blindsided by his “interview” with Al Jazeera, and given no advance notice of its topic. Boeing was not given a chance to comment on the specific allegations made by several program participants, and while the shock value of springing the program’s focus on Mr. Loftis in the moment might have played well with the narrative that Al Jazeera aimed to craft, it is also indicative of the poor journalistic practices Al Jazeera resorted to in preparing its otherwise mediocre program. Ultimately, Al Jazeera’s “investigative report” is anything but… It tells us nothing new about the Boeing 787, and fails to provide compelling evidence for the safety problems that it heavily implies.
 

singveld

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SIA have 30 787. God bless you to be safe that you are on washington 787 and not south carolina 787. Which is build by burger flipper low educated non union workers.
Good luck to you all.
 
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