One, this is not a seven-three-seven problem. It’s a Boeing problem. And I know the FAA has gone in and they’ve done due diligence and inspections to assure that the door plugs of the seven three seven are installed properly and the fasteners are torqued properly. But my concern is, what’s the rest of the airplane? What’s the rest of the condition of the airplane? And the reason my concern for that is, back in two, Boeing started removing inspection operations off their jobs.

So it left the mechanics to buy off their own work. So what we’re seeing with the door plug blowout is what I’ve seen with the rest of the airplane as far as jobs not being completed properly, inspection of steps being removed, issues being ignored, my concerns are with the seven three seven and the seven eight seven, because those programs have really embraced the theory that quality is overhead and non value added.

So those two programs have really put a strong effort into removing quality from the process. When I first started working at Charleston, I was in charge with pushing back defects to our suppliers. And what that meant was I’d take a group of inspectors and actually go to the supplier and inspect their product before they sent it in. Well, I’d taken a team of four inspectors to spirit aero systems to inspect the 41 section before they sent it to Charleston.

And we found 300 defects. Some of them were significant, that needed engineering intervention. When I returned to Charleston, my senior manager told me we had found too many defects and he was going to take the next trip. So the next trip he went on, he took two of my inspectors, and when they got back, they were given accolades for only finding 50 defects. So I pulled that inspector aside and I said, did spirit really clean up their act that quick? That don’t sound right.

And she was mad. She said no. Said the two inspectors were given 2 hours to inspect the whole 41 section, and they were kicked off the airplane. .

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